Polemos’ Caveman has made short work of the competition at Wildcard’s first live gameplay event, winning both the community championship and grudge match final against popular web3 content creator YellowPanther.
The MOBA’s Melee on the Meteor tournament, a 3-match, best of 3 rounds format, was streamed Thursday (UTC) for an audience of about 1000 on YouTube, Twitch and Discord.
Caveman, real name Cavan Roe, won against fellow community competitor TapeableLobster two rounds to one, but took out YellowPanther in just two rounds.
YellowPanther had earlier beaten CryptoStache in the streamers’ final.
“Winning the first round built up my confidence and I was feeling really good,” Caveman said. “When TapeableLobster snuck around and got a sneaky back-door win I was pretty scared but at least I knew what I needed to watch out for the next wave.”
“I was then watching the streamers duke it out. I knew Stache had more practice so I was really analyzing his gameplay but then YellowPanther came out with the wins. This was slightly unsettling because he came with less practice and beat a talented player in the space.”
Caveman’s grudge match final against YellowPanther was over in 2 minutes.
“I had refined my strategy and got the perfect cards to start the first round and absolutely felt the ‘Heart of the Cards’. The summons fell in the perfect place.”
The goal in these melee arena battles was to send creatures and attacks to the enemy goal and break through the shields.
The four competitors sent creatures and attacks from one of three lanes:
From here they could mount sneaky attacks from the “underlane”:
Another tactic was to surprise the enemy by using the fling gates to send them across the map:
The build-up for the event was intense, even compared to big web2 esports events like those for League of Legends or the Hearthstone World Championships.
Contenders were required to provide stock footage so organisers could compile player introduction videos.
There was a pre-event press conference on Twitter Spaces and Playful held the very first web3 “tailgate party”, where CEO Paul Bettner gave a sneak peak of the melee stadium, game mechanics and a little lore.
Spectators were rewarded with pins, exclusive Wildcard merchandise on the blockchain.
If you have a pin, you can get on the allowlist for Wildcard’s first mint on March 28 and become eligible for Discord roles.
Wildcard is the first web3 game from Playful, the makers of Words With Friends and Lucky’s Tale. It’s similar to League of Legends and Dota 2.
It’s built on the Polygon blockchain and players can collect, customize and battle with unique characters, known as Champions and Summons. Each unit has its own abilities, personality and backstory.
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