The Charity - Modest Needs
The games will be played to raise money for the charity Modest Needs, which gives short term grants to those in need in America to stop them falling into poverty. In the last 18 years, the charity "has stopped the cycle of poverty for 14,800 hard-working individuals and families".
Now, with the coronavirus epidemic leaving millions out of work and with no income, the charity has stated all donations will be matched and that grants will also be offered to front line workers ineligible for government support. You can read more about both of these points here.
The Teams
Competing in this charity tournament will be the following teams:
- Spacestation Gaming - ThinkingNade, Rampy, Bosco, Fultz, and Canadian
- eUnited - Gryxr, Callout, Forrest, Yeti, and Alphama
- Tempo Storm - Krazy, Creators, Dream, MarkTheShark, Sloppy and Butterzz
- Streamers - Lonnie Lighting, Cob, YumiMain, YoBoyRoy, anthonypit1, Evan_Braddock and NarcolepticNugget (their two substitutes)
Spacestation Gaming with their Six Invitational caber.
These three Pro League teams finished first, fifth, and seventh in Season 11's North American Pro League with Spacestation Gaming also being the reigning US and World Champions, making them the standout stars of this event.
Also worth watching is the Italian player of Manuel "Sloppy" Malfer, who will be making his debut on the lineup at this event. He and his fellow European of Alphama last met in the opening game of the Allied Minor EU qualifiers one year ago as of tomorrow.
The streamers, meanwhile, include Antonypit1, Narcoleptic Nugget, Lonnie Lightening, the DarkZero content creator of YoBoyRoy, and the three newly acquired content creators for Spacestation Gaming of Yumi, cob and Evan_Braddock. Between them, these streamers have a combined total of around 5.5 million subscribers on YouTube and will be bringing a lot of attention to the tournament.
The Broadcast
The format will see a double-elimination, best-of-three map tournament take place over three days, with the following matchups and dates (times in ET):
- May 18th, 7 PM - Spacestation Gaming vs eUnited
- May 18th, 9 PM - Tempo Storm vs Streamers
- May 20th, 7 PM - Losers Bracket Elimination Matchup
- May 20th, 9 PM - Winners Bracket Final
- May 25th, 7 PM - Losers Bracket Final
- May 25th, 9 PM - Grand-Finals
This means these games will kick off at the usual Pro League times for North America on two Mondays and a Wednesday, just the week following the planned date for the since cancelled Sao Paulo Finals.
Tempo Storm at the 2019 US Nationals.
The games will be played on the ccsesports Twitch channel, cast by the Pro League caster of mzo, the Challenger League casters of Redcube and CaliberJacob and the UFC Fighter of Mike Rodriguez (known as MRod) who's idea the charity tournament was. All subscriptions and donations to the Twitch channel will be donated to the charity during this two week period as well to further aid the fundraising efforts.
During the broadcast, CCS will also be giving out four Astro A50 Headsets and three HyperX Alloy Origins Core keyboards to viewers, with details on it to be announced at a later date.
Other Charity Tournaments
R6 SOLIDÁRIO
A total of 25 Pro League players -- six from Team Liquid, five from Ninjas in Pyjamas, five from Black Dragons, three from FaZe Clan, two from INTZ, and four from FURIA -- took part in a charity tournament ran by Rainbow6BR earlier this year to raise money for "Instituto Anjinho Feliz".
This charity aims to "welcome, guide and assist underprivileged children and their families" and, more specifically, to tackle the effects of the coronavirus epidemic by "helping families who are without food or materials of hygiene and cleanliness in this period of social isolation". The tournament eventually raised R$20,655 ($3,764) for the cause, fairly short of their R$50,000 target.
Operation Awareness
Ran by Rainbow6ANZ, this invited 10 professional players and a number of streamers just like the R6 Solidario tournament to compete to help raise money for Headspace, an Australian charity devoted to providing mental health support to 12 to 25-year-olds. The tournament successfully raised a total of AU$2130.47 (~$1,400) for the charity.
Twitch Rivals E3 Showdown
A prize purse of $50,000 was offered by Ubisoft as the prize to the charities of choice in a showmatch which followed Ubisoft's 2019 E3 panel. The game, which was cast by Interro, saw the rappers of T-Pain and Lil Yachty captain teams of streamers, which included BikiniBodhi, AnneMunition, TheRussianBadger, Bnans, and Lexi.
The game was eventually won by Team Pain, who donated their $40,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital -- a charity focussed on combating cancer and other life-threatening diseases in children -- while Team Yatchy donated their $10,000 to Girls Who Code -- a charity aimed at "closing the gender gap in technology" and getting more girls into engineering.
R6 Against Cancer
The longest-running charity tournament so far is the R6 Against Cancer series, which last year ran its third season. The tournaments have raised over $4,300 for the charity “World Child Cancer” and have involved the teams of PENTA, Movistar Riders, Invicta Gaming, and GoSkilla (then known as NYYRIKKI Esports), all cast by Sternab.
(Image: Assembly Party.)
Siege Day 2015 - Will Arnett vs Ben Schwartz
The weekend before the release of Rainbow Six: Siege, Ubisoft had held a promotional day which invited a number of streamers and celebrities to try out the game. This culminated in a charity show match between two teams of streamers captained by Will Arnett of Bojack Horseman, Arrested Development, and Lego Batman fame, while Ben Schwartz is best known for playing Jean-Ralphio in Parks and Recreation. Will Arnett won the match and chose for the $10,000 prize pool to be donated to be Extra Life.
Extra Life is a charity which “unites thousands of gamers around the world to play games in support of their local Children's Miracle Network Hospital”. The charity has raised over $50 million for sick and injured kids since 2008. You can learn more about the Extra Life charity here and the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals here.
Salty Duels #3
A total of 64 streamers had taken part in teams of twos to help raise a total of €5,400 for the French gaming charity of Chœur de Gamers ("Gamer's Choir"), which aims to promote community and educational gaming events. The tournament was eventually won by the British duo of LeonGids and TangyD, who took home a separate €2,000 prize pool for themselves.
Iron Charity Cup
Ran two years ago, this tournament involved players such as Sua, Leonski, SlebbeN, Bounssi, and ProtaX, and was cast by a number of names including Sternab. The tournament helped raise another $516 for the Extra Life charity mentioned above.
POWERHAUS Gaming - 2v2 Charity Tournament:
This tournament ran last year was cast by Stoax and Flynn and raised $1,400 towards the “Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund”, a charity focussed towards protecting, preserving, studying, and teaching people about Gorillas. The tournament was won by the duo of Lycan and Rampy from Spacestation Gaming, with the two players from the then-Organised Chaos roster, Merc and Art, coming in second.
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Be sure to check out the games when they go live and donate if possible here!