On June 1st, Twitch Rivals hosted the Elden Ring 2v2 Challenge. Since Elden Ring is an action RPG primarily concerned with PvE, the tournament was divided into two distinct phases: the Achievement Hunt and the PvP Arena.
Image Credit: FromSoftware / Bandai Namco
During the Achievement Hunt, eight duos were tasked with leveling, gearing up their characters, and completing up to 25 strikingly unique challenges. The challenges were divided into easy, medium, and hard difficulties. While easy achievements included dying once, medium and hard achievements awarded points for slaying demanding bosses, such as Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon. Even though achievements didn’t affect the final standings, they did determine the duo’s seeding for the PvP Arena.
After two hours, Mentors and Protégés entered the PvP Arena. In the Arena, Mentors and Protégés, respectively, dueled each other to death. The most distinguished combatants won the tournament and took home the Potfriend Trophy.
The casters for Twitch Rivals: Elden Ring 2v2 Challenge ft. Mendo were Daniel “dGon” Gonzales, Clayton “CaptainFlowers” Raines, and the notorious Elden Ring scholar and streamer, Ainrun. With their extensive knowledge and game mastery, the event’s favorite contenders were SyrobeNA and Oroboro.
Achievement Hunt
During the Achievement Hunt, the PvE-oriented stage, the duos committed themselves to level, find gear, and complete a series of challenging achievements. For completing each challenge, the teams received a point. Even though achievements didn’t affect the final standings, they did determine the duo’s seeding for the PvP Arena.
Although the duos didn’t overfocus on the meta, they did, to an extent, follow it. Most players chose the Samurai class, which starts with a bleed-proccing katana and a bow, and a bleed-oriented build. The teams set foot into the competition with a similar game plan of initially focusing on grinding runes, levels, and gear, only to spend the last half an hour completing the achievements. This resulted in teams following a similar route, concluding with the Red Wolf of Radagon, Renala, and the Golems.
Throughout the Achievement Hunt, Team girl_dm_ was in the lead with nine easily completed challenges. However, teams led by Lucas “Mendo” Håkansson, MurderCrumpet, and Arthur “Maximum” Smith caught up during the final hour and reached nine points. In addition, Félix “xQc” Lengyel went the extra mile by killing the Golems during the last minutes, securing Team Mendo the first seed in the PvP tournament.
PvP Tournament
Simultaneous Duos
Mentally well-prepared and armed to their teeth, Mendo and SyrobeNA entered the arena grounds. SyrobeNA, the single tournament participant playing a magic build, masterfully kited Mendo and won the round.
This extremely clear-cut match was followed by a somewhat controversial protégé match which took a dark turn. During the one-sided game in girl_dm_’s favor, xQc forgot that pot usage was prohibited and used Flask of Wondrous Physick. As a part of the official ruling, xQc’s punishment was to receive one free hit. When Flask of Wondrous Physick finally expired, girl_dm_ hit xQc twice. Expectedly, the famous streamer demanded a rematch, but tournament administrators denied his request, since the health discrepancy had already been too significant for him to compensate. Embittered with the admins’ decision, xQc declined to continue participating.
The second round of Simultaneous Duos featured MurderCrumpet and Oroboro, a PvP virtuoso. With agile movements and swift attacks, Oroboro effortlessly took the win and advanced to the next stage. And while Oroboro was tactfully winning his match, Maximum was following his mentor’s footsteps. However, after dodging attack after attack and living with one HP, margot ended up winning this round.
The next duel was Michael “LobosJr” Villalobos against Shanon “Larxa” Larx. Even though Larxa made an all-out effort to contain him, bearing a longer weapon, LobosJr won the fight by a mile. This was followed by Saqib “LIRIK” Ali Zahid and ARUU’s Reduvia Blood Blade standoff, culminating in a stabbing battle royale. LIRIK, who got lucky with a bleed proc, advanced to the semi-finals.
In the final Simultaneous Duos series, ItsHappens and Jeremy “DiguisedToast” Wang danced around DiguisedToast’s Madness procs. Eventually, DiguisedToast procced the status effect, rendering himself useless since he could not hit ItsHappens. Ultimately, DiguisedToast Wang lost both Focus Points and the round. On the other hand, DiguisedToast’’s protégé, Albert “boxbox” Zheng, skillfully controlled Madness and moved up to the semi-finals bracket.
Semi-Finals
Girl_dm_ and margot kicked off the Protégé semi-finals with their spear battle, out of which margot came out on top.
The next round featured boxbox, his prodigious Madness build, and LIRIK. Surprisingly, the match ended even before it began with an early Madness proc that executed LIRIK.
In the Mentor Semi-Finals, two Elden Ring masters, Oroboro and SyrobeNA, finally faced off. Carefully draining SyrobeNA’s FP with calculated dodges, Oroboro secured himself a place in the Finals.
The last match of the Semi-Finals was the show between LobosJr and ItsHappens. Even though ItsHappens had an early HP lead, he lost half of his HP pool with one forceful blow from LobosJr. Having secured that blow, LobosJr only extended his lead and won the round.
Finals
The Finals were opened by Consolation Finals between protégés girl_dm_ and LIRIK. With her early aggression, girl_dm_ guaranteed herself and her duo third place in the final standings.
In the Mentor bracket of the Consolation Finals, ItsHappens didn’t fall for SyrobeNA’s magic and dodged his way to victory.
In the Protégé finals, even though margot was outmaneuvering him, boxbox once again procced Madness and sent margot home empty-handed.
For the Grand Finals, Oroboros faced LobosJr, a legend in the making. However, bearing in mind Oroboro’s extensive knowledge and skill in PvP, LobosJr’s efforts proved to be insufficient as he placed second.
Results
Since both Oroboro and boxbox dominated their group, they were tied with 9 points. This led to a tiebreaker between protégés Maximum and boxbox. Maximum, who lost in the first round, was fearless with his attacks and quick with his dodges, and didn’t even give boxbox time to proc his Madness. By following this pattern for two games straight, Maximum, together with Oroboro, won Twitch Rivals: Elden Ring 2v2 Challenge. Predictably, the tournament’s MVP was Oroboro.
