The $100,000 Samsung Odyssey Invitational was won by Team Sweetdreams, led by NRG’s Sweetdreams, in a landslide Monday night. Sweet’s team won by more than 30 points over second-placed ShivFPS’ Team Shiv, putting the finishing touches on a victory that some players thought was a foregone conclusion.
High-stakes of the said tournament was overshadowed by controversy surrounding the event, as participants and fans drew attention to the lack of care that went into organizing it.
A content creator for 100 Thieves Jack Martin AKA “NiceWigg” tweeted about Apex tournaments, which allow professionals and amateurs to compete side by side.
Nicewigg wasn’t the only one who had a grudge. Several other players criticized the event’s poor organization and lack of publicity, as well as the ambiguous rules that allowed players to form teams. Some teams, such as the champions, fielded three players who excel at Apex. Other teams had to make do with players who were either new to high-level play or had little to no experience with Apex.
xQc, one of the invited players who was outmatched by the Apex pros, inquired in his chat if the event would be broadcast live or if there would be public standings. He was able to get the score from his Twitch chat in the end, but the majority of viewers were left in the dark. There was no way to know how many games would be played or what the scoreboard would look like. The tournament did not have a live broadcast.
The event was met with a barrage of new criticism on players’ streams and social media, with the top three streamers alone attracting over 100,000 viewers.
At least three last-minute invitations were extended to team captains. Content creator, ‘iamBush’ was asked to play the night before the tournament but declined due to the short notice. Beau “RamBeau” Sheidy and Zach Mazer of Cloud9 were also invited. They were informed just hours before the tournament that the lobby was full and that they could no longer participate. However, this was not the case. The tournament started with only 16 teams instead of the usual 20.
Despite the numerous issues, the Odyssey Invitational had a $100,000 prize pool spread out over six games. The winners received $50,000, which is $20,000 more than the winners of the ALGS NA pro league’s first split. The issues, as well as the large prize pool, only added to the Odyssey Invitational’s high-profile failures.
