16 players qualify for KOTD5!

Memb’s $80,000 King of the Desert 5 kicked into this action and all 32 players have already locked up their place in the main event! King of the Desert is one of the most popular events in the Age of Empires II calendar and the community were anxiously waiting to see who might make it […]

Memb’s $80,000 King of the Desert 5 kicked into this action and all 32 players have already locked up their place in the main event!


King of the Desert is one of the most popular events in the Age of Empires II calendar and the community were anxiously waiting to see who might make it into this year’s installment. What makes KOTD so unique is its format in which every match is played on Arabia, leading to a lot of strategy in civ selections and attacking aggressive games. 


This year’s main event will begin with a Bo5 Round of 32 in which over the course of five days the event will be whittled down to only 16 players. These 16 will then enter a Swiss stage, with two groups, and all matches Bo5’s. The event runs through May 28th.


The first round of qualifier already threw up some interesting results, though most of the favorites did win through and secure their places. Surprisingly, community favorite TheViper and his GL team mate Jordan did not participate in the first qualifiers due to travel plans, leaving everything until the last qualifier. 


In the first round of qualifiers, Hera, one of the tournament favorites, qualified comfortably, beating TheMax 3-1 in his last round. He was joined by other fancies players Nicov, DauT, TaToH (who beat his GL team mate Nili), Villese, Vivi, Liereyy, Barles, ACCM, Mbl, Yo, Vinchester, and Sitaux. In addition, aM player Hearttt from Peru secured his spot, while two arguable underdogs, Dark and FreakinAndy pulled out impressive wins to make the Main Event two. 

The second qualifiers saw TheViper easily qualify without dropping a single map, as did his GamerLegion teammate Jordan. Unfortunately it was not to be for the final GL member Nii, who had an extremely tough bracket draw and got bested 3-0 by Argentinian Capoch. Other qualifiers came from all over the world, including F1Re (Brazil), Daniel (USA), JackK (Poland), slam (Canada), Margougou (France), Valas (Finland), classicpro (Ukraine), TheMax (Finland), KingstoNe (Mexico), Sebastian2022 (Uruguay) and another pair of Brazilians Miguel, and Dogao. Perhaps the biggest shock of the qualifiers however was Russin repard making it through a bracket that included the strong Saymyname.

 

You can catch the Main Event on Memb’s Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/MembTV