Summer Skirmish at PAX West Day 1

Bryan Kline
Sep 1, 2018 · 7 min read

The eighth and final week of Fortnite’s Summer Skirmish kicked off yesterday at PAX West! This weekend over the course of four days, there are 1.5 million USD worth of prizes up for grabs. This brings the total prize money for the Summer Skirmish to an even 8 million USD. Viewers were treated to the dynamic casting duo of Dr.Lupo and CourageJD, who brought the action into our homes from Seattle. Below, we will be going over the format and recapping each of the four matches from Friday’s competition.

Tournament Format

The summer skirmish has changed scoring formats from week to week. There was no exception made for the final week of LAN competition at PAX West. The tournament format for the weekend is as follows

Scoring for all matches in week 8.

Off stream each day there are 3 heats of players, where the top 32 players move on. 2 games were played in each of these pre-qualifying heats.

The second stage of the competition are the qualifiers. Here the winners of the pre-qualifying heats face off to reach the Grand Finals. The top 33 players from each qualifying round (one per day), will move on to the finals. These are the matches that are being streamed on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. These matches were slated to be played in sets of 6 games, but were adjusted down to 4 games during Friday evenings stream.

The Grand Finals will take place on Monday at the conclusion of the event. All players who make it to the Grand Finals will walk away with a minimum of 5,000 USD. The winner will earn an amazing 225,000 USD.

Tie breakers for this weeks competition are as follows:

1- Victory Royales

2- Total Eliminations

3- Highest Average Placement

4- Coin Flip

Day 1

The first day of the final week of the Summer Skirmish kicked off with Dr. Lupo and CourageJD introducing the three winners from the pre-qualifying heats earlier in the day. The three players who won the heats were: TB Sofa, Psalm, and Horrify. One important point made by the casters is the amazing way that LAN competitions can bring out and showcase names that have yet to be discovered. LAN competitions also showcase household names for viewers to cheer on. One of the major highlights to the night was the introduction of the brand new spectator client. This allows for the action to be covered in multiple ways. It brings a much more comprehensive coverage of the action, for the viewers. There will be several images below showcasing the new spectator client, that were seen throughout the evening. Now let’s move on to the recap of each of the four matches from last night.

Match #1

Shortly after game one kicked off players were asked to leave the game for a restart. There were apparent audio issues for some of the competitors. In true “way of the road” fashion, CourageJD and Dr. Lupo filled up the air time with ease. They covered topics such as new items, previous weeks action, the unpredictability/strategies that competitive play brings, and new/up-and-coming professional players. After several minutes of waiting players began to filter back into the lobby. The redo of game one showed the incredible spread of players across the map with help from the new spectator client. As seen in previous week’s action, materials were key in making it through the early and mid game to reach the top 10. There were also players who were willing to die to the storm in an attempt to reach the next points level for eliminations! After an amazing end-game with players jockeying for position, the game came down to a heal off. Strugs was able to outlast the storm the longest during the four man heal-off, taking game one and the coveted 3 points.

Match #2

The second game was one filled with incredible shots from the spectator client showing the intensity of professional competitive matches. The game got off to a start similar to the first with 60 players left after the first circle had closed. As the second circle finished closing only 11 players had been eliminated during those several minutes. One point highlighted by the casters in this match was how players kept their in game sounds to an extreme minimum. Choosing to not heal or switch weapons in case their opponent would hear them do so. Mid-game was very slow paced as players fought for the best position within the final few circles. There were 13 players left as the 6th circle closed, with several players being eliminated by the storm attempting to reach this circle. Players operated vertically in layers as these final few small circles do not allow them to be on the same level as one another. Over the course of game two, Nate Hill amassed 7 eliminations but was eliminated by BlooTea to win the game. Each player earned 3 points for the match.

Look how many players are left!

Match #3

As the third match kicked off, the Battle Bus took a favorable route making almost every drop location viable. Two key points in the third match that viewers saw were; first, players staying in the storm to eliminate other players. Then using jump pads, bounce pads, and rifts to get themselves into the circle quickly thereafter. We also saw several players put themselves into poor positions due to lack of materials. The play of the game came as ItsDiggyTV opted to stay in the storm, where he got his fifth elimination. Trapping his opponent shortly before being eliminated by the storm himself. This match we saw many players attempting to get good position early in the zones rather than scrambling after it already started to move. As game three came to a close, Liquid 72HRS used the storm to his advantage strategically moving into the storm, repositioning to get eliminations on his way to taking the game!

Match #4

As players jumped out of the Battle Bus in game four, we saw many who jumped extremely early to give them more time to farm materials and obtain a good loadout before the circle began to close. There were a slew of players who dropped into Tilted Towers for the final game in an attempt to get eliminations to make the top 33 to move onto the Grand Finals. During this game TB Sofa, winner of pre-qualifying heat one, died after taking back to back fall damage. However, he managed to rack up 5 eliminations before that point in time. In this match it was showcased how many professional players are confident and competent, when taking the low ground in the late game. This is drastically different compared to what one would normally see in public matches. This match saw the earliest we had reached 1v1 in any game through the day. TB Fulmer to the initiative in the 1v1, breaking down three levels of building and tagging twitch.nibbs for 10hp who then died to the storm, making TB Fulmer the final winner for the day!

Overhead shot as the circle closes in

Post Game

At the end of the day the top players lined up as the following:

First Place: Liquid 72HRS

Most Kills: Turkey_Lips.tv

Game winners: Strugs, BlooTea, Liquid 72HRS, & TB Fulmer

Official Standings (Top 33 Qualify for Grand Finals)

Final Standings for Day 1

While day one was action packed we cannot forget that there will be another two days of qualifiers, with the Grand Finals to follow on Monday. Day two will kick off with another round of pre-qualifiers with the official stream starting at 6pm PDT with the second round of qualifying. The action can be found on the events Official Fortnite Stream on Twitch and the respective Twitch channels of the two casters CourageJD and Dr. Lupo. Tune in later today for another great evening of Summer Skirmish action!

Bryan Kline

Written by

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade