Published on: 06/03/2023

Sapnap triumphs over 200 participants in Squid Craft 2 tournament

Nick Sapnap, a content creator and streamer, emerged as the winner of the Squid Craft 2 Tournament after competing against 200 individuals from various countries. Hosted by Twitch, the tournament offered a cash prize pool worth around $106,000.

El Rubius and Ibai Llanos, two prominent Twitch personalities from Spain, organized the massive event that attracted a list of big North American content creators. The tournament began on February 28 and lasted for a week, with the final day being on March 5.

Squid Craft 2, a Minecraft tournament inspired by the popular Korean Netflix series “Squid Game,” returned after a year with a larger cast of participants. The event also attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators, making it a significant occasion.

The tournament took place in a specially designed Minecraft world inspired by the Squid Game TV show. It featured various games that were either directly taken from the show or heavily influenced by it. As the competition progressed, participants were eliminated, narrowing down the number of players until there was only one winner left.

The tournament’s final round came down to two contestants — Sapnap and Twitch streamer Shadoune666. The two engaged in a 1v1 fight on top of a mountain, with Sapnap emerging victorious.

After winning the tournament, Sapnap celebrated by wearing a T-shirt with the Spanish word “Campeones,” which translates to “champion” in English, printed on the back. The American streamer then proudly boasted that he had predicted his win all along, so he created the merchandise in anticipation of the victory.

“See this, guys. I knew I was going to win the whole time. I made Champion merch,” Sapnap said.

Reflecting success from last year’s tournament

In January 2022, the first edition of SquidCraft was held exclusively for Spanish content creators, featuring 150 participants who competed in elimination minigames on a specially designed Minecraft map until only one winner was left.

Last year’s tournament set several Twitch records, drawing millions of viewers and recording 17.5 million total hours watched and over 2.2 million peak viewers. Several streamers also set personal records for the number of viewers on their channels, with elxokas reaching a record of 1.2 million peak viewers, the third-highest in Twitch’s history.

Compared to the previous year’s tournament, the Squid Craft 2 event had a much larger pool of participants, which added to its cut-throat nature. While the 2022 tournament only had Spanish streamers, this year’s tournament was opened up to players from across the Atlantic, making it much more international in its appeal.

Notable Minecraft streamers from North America and other English-speaking regions, such as Dream, GeorgeNotFound and Karl Jacobs, participated in the event. Twitch giants such as Pokimane, xQc and Amouranth were also among Sapnap’s rivals vying for the prize pool.

There had been rumors about Squid Craft 2 since early February this year, but the official announcement of the event was made only on February 22. Rubius revealed all the participants of SquidCraft 2 in a stream that lasted for less than two hours but attracted over 361,000 peak viewers and accumulated 522,700 hours watched.

This was the second-highest result in Rubius’ career. The stream also ranked second among all the broadcasts that ran during the week, trailing only the Kings League.