I remember when GeoGuessr was just a game I'd play with my friends in IT class when the teacher had their back turned. Never did I think it could have such an amazing competitive scene, let alone showcase one of the most nail-biting esports moments I've ever watched.
This year, the second GeoGuessr World Cup took place in Stockholm, Sweden, the city where the game was thought up a decade ago. With eight finalists competing in various pool matches, everyone's eyes were on the final prize—$26,250 plus 100% of the revenue from every World Cup jersey and Twitch subscription sold during the tournament. It's an impressive prize for the winner, especially considering the money was entirely raised by the GeoGuessr community.
The entire tournament, which was live-streamed on YouTube, was pretty exciting, but all hats came off during the final competition. The French player Blinky went up against the American MK for the title of world champion. "I would see [becoming world champ] as a crowning achievement, not even sure I'd go for another one, but I might try," Blinky said in a pre-match interview.
However, his rival, MK, sounded a little less confident at first: "This time, I'm actually cooked." Although he did clarify afterward what winning would mean to him, "It would be a very good achievement. I'd be very happy with myself and that I didn't waste two years of my life."
There are three different kinds of matches: move, no move, and no move, pan, or zoom. Contestants fight to guess the location and try to get as close as possible. Each player starts with 6000 HP, and whoever gets closest to the chosen location wins. The points that they are awarded (out of 5000) are then taken off their opponent, whittling the player down until they have no HP left. It's best of five, so this will continue until someone wins three matches.
The first match was a bit of a landslide, with Blinky getting closer guesses every single time. He started as he meant to continue as with the first location (which I thought was the US, but it was actually Thailand). Blinky managed to get 4998 points as he was only 587m away after spotting a road sign.
After this triumph, Blinky also won the second match, and for a long time, it also looked like he was going to take the third match and, by default, the title of world champion. Blinky somehow managed to find the road yet again and landed only 173m away from the location and afterward found the exact city, dealing a whopping 5000 damage to MK, which nearly took him out of the competition for good, but somehow he held on.
Luckily for MK, there is a damage multiplier that increases as the rounds in each match go on, meaning that as long as you can hold to round seven or nine when the multiplier is at its highest, you can deal some serious damage. That's actually how MK managed to pull it back, and with only 47 points left, he managed to defeat Blinky and snag the win for the third round.
The fact that I was watching this comeback from the edge of my seat speaks volumes about how exciting this final fight for the world championship was. I definitely wasn't expecting to get so engrossed in GeoGuessr esports.
Sadly, MK wasn't quite able to keep up the fight. Despite winning another round with barely any points left and taking the fight to the last possible match, Blinky was able to come out on top at the end. But even so, it was still an incredibly valiant effort not to give up when everyone else thought it was over, and it resulted in an unforgettable World Cup final.
