Apex London LAN aims to avoid past mistakes by including COVID plan

The 2023 ALGS Split One Playoffs starts on Thursday, Feb. 2, running until Sunday, Feb. 5. Forty international Apex teams will compete to be crowned the Split One champions, and earn Playoff Points in the first LAN event of the season.

Previously, DarkZero Esports won the 2022 Championship, but many competing teams were hindered by sickness and the lack of accessible facilities COVID-affected Apex pros could compete in.

The London Playoffs now feature increased measures to ensure all players attending can still participate, regardless of COVID status. A recent interview with TSM revealed more details on the additional preparation Respawn spent for the event, including better PC setups and quarantine rooms for COVID-positive players.

At the 2022 Championship, COVID-positive players were denied any ability to play in the tournament, with many teams impacted in varying degrees by the lack of accessibility. 

Out of the forty teams attending the 2022 Championship, fourteen of them had one player test positive for COVID-19. Nine teams had substitutes, coaches, or managers prepared to fill in for sick players, while five had no other options and were forced to drop down to duos for the remainder of the tournament.

GMT Esports notably had Torrent’s RamBeau step in as a sub, leading the team to a fifth-place finish in the grand finals with highlight plays like clutching game one by himself against two full squads. AYM Esports also had to replace Hiarka, one of their starting players, with JamesFearless, with AYM finishing fifteenth place.

However, not all orgs were able to find additional substitutes or had the luxury of coaches to step in.

APAC-N had four teams test positive for COVID, some having multiple members encountering the sickness. PULVEREX initially substituted their coach, ChaNRiyo, in for saku on day one, but ChaNRiyo tested positive on day two, leaving the team as a duo.

FENNEL also approached the issue in an identical manner: replacing their two sick players with the coaches. However, the same disaster struck again when Otogi also caught COVID, leaving FENNEL with two healthy players from day two onwards.

DetonatioN Gaming, FOR7, and 1iQ were yet another Apex squad dented by issues at the event. Each team announced their sick player would be dropping out and they were forced to continue on as duos for the remainder of the Championship. 

Other major tournament circuits, such as the VALORANT Champions Tour, have implemented the use of quarantine rooms and even accommodated Liquid’s Nivera during VALORANT Champions, the last tournament of the 2021 season. TL’s planned match was moved to the end of the day’s schedule to further account for Nivera’s move to quarantine, promoting the fairest circumstances surrounding COVID-19.

With the development of quarantine rooms for the London LAN, Respawn is committed to ensuring the Split One Playoffs and all future events for the 2023 Apex season will feature the starting lineups of each team. The Split Two Playoffs and Championship will also be held in London.

The Split One Playoffs start on Feb. 2 at 11am CT, with multiple streams on Twitch and Youtube to view the event. The grand final will begin on Sunday, Feb. 5 at 6am CT, where the winner of the first international event of the 2023 ALGS Circuit will be crowned.