Kim “ViOlet” Dong Hwan of Team Empire Gaming has won the MSI Battlegrounds at the Green Forest Cafe in Southern California. Violet marched through the double-elimination, 32-man bracket, and refused to lose even a single map.
The Starcraft 2 part of the event which included 16 teams of League of Legends was casted by Day[9] and pulled in approximately 9,000 viewers during its Grand Finals. This was a very good number fitting for a tournament that featured great players such as Ryoo “dSeleCT” Kyung Hyun, Aleksandar “Empire.Beastyqt” Krstić, Nick “iSAxslav” Ranish, and Ryan “Quantic.State” Visbeck.
Violet had moved from South Korea to the USA last year after departing from Team MVP. He wanted the opportunity to compete in more foreign events including this one, which his current team Empire Gaming happily obliged.
The Winner’s Bracket Final saw Violet go up against Axslav for the first time that day, with the loser being pushed down to the Loser’s Bracket Final. In two very convincing games, Violet stomped right through to the Grand Final.
The loser’s bracket would see Violet’s teammate Empire.Beastyqt square off against Axslav, who would turn the tables and defeat Beastyqt 2-0 to take a spot in the Grand Final where he would face off against Violet for the second time in a row. Beastyqt would go on to take 3rd, dSeleCT, a notable Korean Terran, in the 3rd/4th place match.
The Grand Finals would give Axslav another chance at winning what would have been the biggest title of his career. However, Violet would show his dominating form even more, picking off Axslav for the second time with relative ease. The victory came with a $3,000 USD grand prize and his first title since IEM Sao Paulo.