Serral has been named ESTNN’s Esports Player of the Year.
The Finnish Starcaft 2 player earned top honors from the website. He won all four WCS Circuit tournaments this year, becoming a grand slam champion in the process. Along with winning GSL vs. The World, he was declared World champion in the WCS Global Finals during BlizzCon and won the HomeStory Cup XVIII. The only blight in his record, if you want to call it that, was his second place finish in the 2018 WCW Leipzig Challenger.
Popular Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player s1mple earned runner-up. He scored big numbers throughout 2018, killing more than one person in 55% of all the rounds he competed in. He also managed to earn 300 more kills than the highest player beneath him, even though he participated in five fewer matches overall.
Honorable mentions went to JJoNak, who plays Overwatch and won this year’s World Cup for the game. He was also MVP for season 1 of the Overwatch League. Rookie also got a mention for his accomplishments in League of Legends, including winning the Korean OGN.
The esports scene has continued to grow in the last year, with games like Fortnite, League of Legends, and Overwatch leading the way. The sport has a growing audience, even though a recent poll indicated that 30% of esport audiences don’t even play the game they watch.
Even the United States military is starting to get involved with esports as a way to boost recruitment numbers. Colleges across the world are also starting to hand out scholarships to esports players looking to further their education.
Competitive gaming has even gotten popular enough that some consider it to be worthy of joining the Olympics. International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, however, recently dampened those prospects. Bach said that they can’t have games that promote violence and killing, which would put a lot of the most popular games out of commission.
