Since Clash Royale was announced as an official title at the World Cyber Games (WCG), fans have been very excited to see one of the most popular mobile games on a big stage.
But when the finals for the spring season of the Clash Royale League (CRL) started yesterday, it turned out to be a total disaster in China.
The show, which was scheduled to begin at 9pm CT, was delayed by more than six hours. During this delay, Clash Royale Esports’ Twitter put out back-to-back tweets saying that the tournament would start soon after they fixed issues relating to “massive connection issues with the mobile devices.”
Another mishap also happened during the delay. While testing the WiFi, the admins leaked all of SK Gaming’s decks to their opponent by using it in test matches. Pro players tweeted their displeasure, with Surgical Goblin from Team Liquid tweeting, “I want to go home.”
The organizers then shuffled the matchups of the games just hours before the games started, which prompted Morten from SK Gaming to tweet that it was “a shame for mobile esports.”
Adding to the woes, an anticipated game between CRL West’s third-seeded team, Immortals, and CRL Asia’s winners, PONOS, may now be pushed off-stream because of the delay.
In spite of all of this, when the matches did begin late in the evening in China, the games were smooth. The West triumphed over the Asian teams in very close games. Team Liquid and SK Gaming both won their matches while Immortals succumbed to PONOS. Eventually, the results of the day were in the Western teams’ favor as they defeated the Asian teams 13-12.
Day two of the WCG will pit China against the rest of Asia.
