Hey Cloth5 fans! Fridgecake here with a look at Kings of the Kingdom, a UK based tournament and an interview with the creator Jamie ‘Tundra’ Duthie!

Who are you?

My name is Jamie ‘Tundra’ Duthie and I am a highly ranked top laner from the UK. I play for the UK team FM eSports and have attended 10 tournaments/LAN events, predominantly around the the UK.

I have a passion for League of Legends and eSports, especially within the UK scene. It has always been a huge disappointment to me that the UK scene is so lackluster compared to other countries, even though we have produced top talent (Yerrow / Impaler / Snoopeh / Fredy).

It is a personal ambition of mine to help raise the bar in terms of competition and community interaction for the UK eSports scene.

How long have you been involved in eSports?

My first big ‘break’ was back in August 2012, after hitting 2450 elo – I joined the team Absolute Legends; the roster included one of EU’s rising stars, who is now, TSM’s Amazing.

Since then, I have been in a number of teams spanning from European ones with Amazing and Mithy, to UK national teams. I have competed in eight LAN events and have placed top three in five of them. Over the past year, I have mainly focused on UK national teams to try and assist in improving the overall quality of the UK scene.

Tell us about Kings of the Kingdom!

The goal of Kings of the Kingdom was to help provide some exposure to the UK teams that would be attending the upcoming Insomnia 52 event. If the tournament is a success, I plan to host more events in the future and hopefully provide more of a prize fund to the competing teams.

What makes it special?

UK only and the ‘Lives’ format.

• Each Team started off with two lives

• If you lost a game, you lost a life

• Last team standing won the tournament

By providing a much lighter atmosphere with more emphasis on having fun and enjoying yourself, we gave the tournament a much better viewing experience.

We peaked at over 100 viewers, which, for an online UK event is really good, and I was quite proud. The other aspect that makes it special would be that it was solely done by myself. The organization, graphics, social media, team invites, casting invites, etc.

This was an individual project and I’m really proud of what KOTK achieved.

Why did you choose that format?

To my knowledge, the ‘Lives’ format has only been done in one eSports environment, StarCraft 2: Red Bull Battlegrounds: North America, It promoted a really fun/enjoyable environment and also added an extra dimension by providing some fun and inter-player/team banter.

For example, on Day 1, all of the players tried to eliminate one of the players and ended up backstabbing each other, and I thought this would be the perfect fun environment for a UK showmatch.

Can you name a highlight of the tournament?

The 55 minute game between huge underdogs SJP and Team Infused. It had everything, TONS of kills, throws, plays, comebacks, niche picks (AP Ezreal / Jungle Gragas), just an overall fantastic game.

Did anything work especially well/not so well?

I think the format was really cool. Unfortunately, it isn’t as suited to LoL as it was to SC2 because of the difference in average game time, but I think it was a nice experiment and could possibly be seeing it, or a variant, again in the future.

What’s next and how can people get involved?

Hopefully this will be the first of many Kings of the Kingdoms and you can find all the updates over at @KingsOTKingdom

What’s your opinion on Riot’s newly announced 4 Nations Tournament?

I’m ecstatic with the announcement of 4 Nations. It’s so nice that Riot is taking an interest in the UK scene and listening to feedback given to them by the community. I really look forward to seeing how they develop this in the coming months.

Any shoutouts?

Thank you to Cloth 5 for having me, it’s really nice to see them supporting the UK scene/community.

Thank you to FM eSports for their continued support and to our sponsors: Razer, Sapphire and AMD and to our partners: Twitch and Multiplay.

If you’d like more information about myself you can find me @Tundra_LoL or on Facebook at fb.com/Tundra.LoL,

Cheers!

If you’re running a community project like this one then Cloth5 would like to know! Feel free to add me on Twitter @C5Fridgecake and drop me a message!