Go to: Play of the Year | Team of the Year | Biggest Disappointment
| Moment of the Year | Player of the Year
It's time for the ESPN esports end-of-year acknowledgements. In 2016, esports pushed the envelope far beyond expectation as millions of fans entered the space for the first time, investment grew like never before and the bar for skill was raised to new levels across all games.
Play of the Year
Looking back, the plays made by esports players across tens of titles and thousands of tournaments were some of the hardest to sort. But a few special moments stood out as some of the best plays made by an individual player, so here are our five nominees for best play of 2016 and the winner below.
Read full article here.
Nominees
Winner: s1mple's double no-scope
Team of the Year
At the end of the day, winning -- championships, rivalries and climactic matches -- are what separate the good, even great teams, from the best teams of the year. Today, we look over the clubs that made it rain gold in 2016, and the one team that stood above all the rest to win ESPN's Esports Team of the Year.
Read full article here.
Nominees:
ROX Tigers
SK Gaming
SK Telecom T1
Team Liquid
Wings Gaming
Winner: SK Telecom T1
Bonus: "Why SKT T1 is team of the year" by Tyler "Fionn" Erzberger.
Biggest Disappointment
It was a pretty noteworthy year for esports in 2016. There were big team investments, miracle runs and record-breaking prize pools, but for every few of those there seemed to arise equally noteworthy letdowns in competitions or wild organizational issues. In the third installment of our ESPN esports end-of-the-year acknowledgements, we look at the most disappointing moments in the booming industry.
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Nominees:
The death of Proleague
Immortals' rough 2016
Renegades and Riot
Life is banned for life
Luminosity and SK Gaming contract disputes
Winner: Life
Moment of the Year
Today we celebrate the good in competitive gaming -- miracles happened, Cinderellas stayed out past midnight and underdogs found a way. These are ESPN's best moments of 2016 in esports.
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Nominees:
SKT's misfortune at the hands of ROX's Miss Fortune
Hungrybox resets the bracket at Evo
The wild cards break history
Digital Chaos' Cinderella story
A new rivalry emerges in Street Fighter V
Cloud9 ends a 10-year drought at ESL Pro League Season 4
Winner: Hungrybox resets the bracket at Evo
Player of the Year
In 2016, esports athletes reached new heights, with some unlocking their inner potential and others compounding more moments, statistics and plays to their already impressive résumé of achievements. Legends were made, with some players achieving lifetime and career goals, including victories in front of tens of thousands of people.
From StarCraft II, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Super Smash Bros. and League of Legends, these five players stood out as the ones who had the best year.
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Nominees:
Coldzera
Faker
Hungrybox
Byun
ZeRo
Winner: Byun
Bonus: "Why Byun is the 2016 ESPN Esports Player of the Year" by Tyler "Fionn" Erzberger.