In December 2024, the World Championship in Microsoft Excel took place. In Las Vegas, 12 leading Excel experts competed against each other in the final decision-making battle. The last puzzle revolved around accompanying a 20-member player team that set off for the raid “The Molten Core” from WoW Classic . Excel with Orcs, so to speak.
How were the participants determined? The whole process is actually a longer one. The “Excel Esports Season 2024” began on January 25, 2024.
In October, another qualification round took place.
The actual World Cup, the final round, was held in December in Las Vegas. A delicious prize of $5,000 was at stake, along with the right to rub it in every colleague’s face for eternity that one is the undisputed king at every office computer.
WoW Classic is currently trending, even in Excel:
Participants had to keep detailed tables for a raid group in WoW
What was the final task? Fans of MMORPGs, listen up: The final task at the Excel Championships revolved around World of Warcraft Classic.
The Excel experts had to accompany the 20 players of a group in WoW Classic in a complicated spreadsheet as they prepared for the raid “The Molten Core”.
There were many problems to solve and questions to answer. In a video, you can see what tasks were given to the few remaining participants:
- The questions revolved around experience points and gold.
- In the end, 5 bonus questions were asked.
- The video states: It is impossible to answer most later questions if early questions are answered incorrectly.
To give the event a bit more flair, there was an “elimination mechanic”: of the last 12 participants, the one who was furthest behind was eliminated from the tournament every 5 minutes. A judge would tap them on the shoulder, and their dream was over.
This continued until only 6 players were left competing for victory after 30 minutes.
A Canadian wins, who sits in meetings instead of brooding over Excel
The winner says: In the end, Michael Jarman from Toronto won. He is a Director of Modeling.
In an interview with CBC , he says: He has now reached a point in his career where he no longer creates the models himself but has junior employees do it while he sits in meetings. Therefore, the victory reassures him a bit now – he can still do it apparently.
Regarding the WoW task, he mentioned: He himself does not play the MMORPG, but the task was quite cool. They received an 8-page guide, so they already knew what to expect. The audience was quite “electrified” this year.
The world champion says: Actually, e-sports in Excel are very accessible, it is a lot of fun and you learn so much from it:
The prize money of $5,000 is probably quite irrelevant to the Canadian, but he wants to hang the cool championship belt on the wall. We already reported on the Excel World Championship in 2022 on MeinMMO: E-sports meets Excel: The World Championships of the spreadsheet program are a lovable nerd fest
