Well-known in the German circuit, esports start-up MateCrate has made a big move. The Hamburg-based is bringing Mortal Teamwork back to the esports scene.
They’ve made waves once before – after launching in 2017 with an app that was intended to help players find new buddies and teammates for esports tournaments, the company rapidly evolved.
By end of 2018, they were a fairly big name in German esports – they’d changed their approach to esports completely and started hosting their own semi-pro esports tournaments called City Masters. Their chosen game was League of Legends – as the top esport in the world, MateCrate got a lot of interest.
The start of something great
Though originally Hamburg-based, MateCrate’s City Masters saw teams from Berlin, Munich, Cologne as well as Hamburg compete in League of Legends matches. Across five weeks, 18 offline events took place, after a series of online qualifiers.
The company’s goal with all this was to make professional esports accessible to everyone. That’s no small feat, but MateCrate was off to a good start – City Masters deliberately covered a spread of skills and abilities. Four different ability classes, to be precise, covering everything from amateur fans to pro-level players.
The next season
After a very successful first run, MateCrate and City Masters did it all over – a second successful year for the biggest amateur LoL tournament in the country. The keyword here was amateur; even the top players struggled to get a career going off the back of the City Masters competition.
MateCrate Founder Sebastian Kuch decided to do something about that – by breathing new life into MTW or Mortal Teamwork. Formerly active in CS:Source, Dota 2, League of Legends, FIFA and Starcraft 2, the team was disbanded temporarily in 2013. Although there has been limited activity since then, Kuch and MateCrate want to spice things up a little – by adding League of Legends teams to Mortal Teamwork’s line-up.
Two teams, to be precise – one of them will be made up entirely of City Masters talent. They’ll be playing in the official Riot Prime League Division 2, along with another, open team. For German players wanting to earn their spot in the City Masters-based team, a new chance is about to present itself – the third season of the tournament series is about to launch.
The future of Mortal Teamwork
With the two added League of Legends teams, Kuch sees the path from amateur gamer to pro player clear and open – City Masters is open to anyone and specifically aims to offer a launching pad for top talent in search of their big break. Having a team that directly recruits from the tournament (similar to how Overwatch teams recruit from the Contenders League) could be a huge step for German esports.
Sebastian Kuch’s plan extends further than just to see the new Mortal Teamwork teams succeed – he wants to draw attention to gamers at an individual player level and ease the way for young talent into the industry.
“Für uns ist MTW der nächste logische Schritt, um ambitionierten Nachwuchstalenten einen stringenten Weg in den Profi-eSport aufzeigen zu können,“ (For us, MTW is the next logical step to pave ambitious new talent a stringent way into professional esports,) says Kuch.
High hopes
In addition to the City Masters-connected League team, MateCrate and MTW also added a new FIFA player. This isn’t the end of the line – although nothing concrete is known at this time, MateCrate has hinted at even more change in the future – whether that means more teams, more games, or a further extension of the popular City Masters series remains a mystery – for now.
