The next season of EVE_NT Championship is about to start soon, bigger and bolder than ever. Although all the teams in the Majors are experienced teams in this format, the Minor League is benefitting with 7 new teams hot from the EVE_NT Cup knock-out tournament having fought for their place in the Minor League. This brings our total number of teams to 16 with 8 teams in each league.

Changes, changes, changes

Increased league sizes mean that this season will be longer than last, running for a planned 8 weeks starting from 5th February. The fittings from last season are also changing a bit and you can see these changes on Bei Artjays Season 2 Fitting notes dev blog on our sister site EVE Arena.
Both Leagues are shaping up to have very different personalities: The Minor League is mostly made up of teams who are experienced in fighting each other with the new ship fittings and hungry for victory and the Major League is made up of teams who all have one season of the EVE_NT Championship behind them could mean for some varied and interesting matches.
League tables will now be available in a prettier format than spreadsheets via our new Arena website - arena.eve-nt.uk - along with a bunch of other stats and metrics for players and teams that we are able to gather and share.
You can keep up to date and check out the full details on the upcoming Championship Spring season on the EVE_NT Arena Championship page.

Ones to watch

Fresh blood is now in both Championship Leagues as they both contain teams to watch out for and expect great matches all round. Here are some of our commentators thoughts and predictions on next season.

Requiescat - Championship Commentator

For a winner in the minors, I have to choose Sudden Otters. All other things being equal, a match in this format can easily be chosen by a small ship pilot who knows how to screen, tackle and stay alive all at the same time In addition, VYDRA’s Randolph Sykes is far and away the best frigate pilot I saw in the whole cup. Every match he was in, he made serious plays, and managed to not die throughout the whole tournament.

For the majors I have to go with The Other Team, which I choose very narrowly over VOLTA for the major league’s winner, The Other Team’s performance over the past season has been consistently high. In my opinion what carries you through a season of play (as compared to a weekend of tournament matches) is consistently high performance, not spectacular game-changing plays.

Aleksi Aksan - Championship Commentator

Major League - Clevergirls, placed into the Minor League due to an administrative technicality around the transition from the Fight Club to the Championship. Clevergirls stormed through the Minor League after an initial wobble. They since appear to have settled into the new format and are now moving into the expanded Major League. The Fight Club champions certainly look set to make waves again, and without administrative slip ups to stop their push to the top it falls to the rest of the teams in a competitive looking roster to stop them.

Minor League - Templis, with a piloting background from factional warfare Templis have made a strong showing in the EVE_NT Cup to earn their place in the Minors, only going out to Nasty Boyz in a nail biting semifinal. With the Minor League receiving a surge of new blood, Templis look to already have a solid grip on the meta and the talent to back it up, dropping only 7 points in their entire run through the cup. Having emerged into the EVE-sports scene in the last 12 months this team could have a lot to show us over the Minor League season.

Jason Quixos - EVE_NT Arena Admin

For the minor league Nasty Boys, EVE_NT Cup winners, champions already and top seed. Naturally you would think this was the main team to look out for in the Minors, yet they did have some very close games, and some of the lowest scoring matches in the entire Tournament. On two occasions they actually came back from losing to go on and win the match, which for me shows the tenacity needed for the League action. Whether it was luck or skillful play, we will find out.

Also in the minors Templis, having won their first two games in domination victories (15-0) and their 3rd 15-1 they were unfortunate to face the lucky/skilled Nasty boys in their 4th match that ended 3-6. This team was my pick for the Cup, and feel that there will be so much more to see of this team as the league goes on. If they carry on with Domination victories they won’t find much difficulty ranking quite high this season, at least into promotion positions.​​​​​​​

One of my favourite teams to watch in last seasons Major League is The Other Team, and our current champions. This is a team that applies themselves really well, In addition to having the smallest roster. This close knit group won every single match except for one loss against Rep Cartel Mk II (who were relegated but decided not to return for Minor league 2017). They will have 4 new teams in their league this season, but I still have confidence that they are not worried about the fresh competition.​​​​​​​

My final pick for the Majors has to be Volta. Giving away very few kills last season they only lost a total of 26 points (lowest in both leagues) StarFleetCommander will have his work cut out this season. Runners-up in last seasons Major league, they will have more matches to play, more opponents to face and more explosions. If this league comes down to points difference, Volta will take it.

The Championship kicks off this Sunday (5th Feb) at 19:00 with the Minor league teams going to battle. The format and scheduling each week means most of the teams in each league will play 2 matches per week, with 2 teams only playing one match per week. Templis and Make Amarr Great Again will have to make up their results in later weeks.

You can watch the entire Championship each week on Twitch.tv/eve_nt_tv as well as catch up on all the match history and scheduling over on arena.eve-nt.uk

Be sure to tune in for guaranteed explosions, sick plays, meme-worthy screenshots and of course twitch stream giveaways.