- Excel continues to grow as a popular esport
- The inaugural Microsoft Excel World Championship (MEWC) historic battle took place on the weekend of July 11, 2026.
- Four competitors went from cell to cell, but there was only one winner
The inaugural Microsoft Excel World Championship (MEWC) Landmark Battle has declared its first winner, Irishman Diarmuid Early, who previously won the Excel World Championship in December 2025.
The MEWC Landmark Battle featured four competitors, Early was joined by Andrew Ngai, Jaq Kennedy and Nicolas Micot. Lasting just 30 minutes, the game was not simply a “historical event”: it took place at four physical points.
Co-sponsored by ASUS, competitors were forced to compete outdoors in New York, London, Paris and Australia, all typing and CTRL-Ving furiously on ExpertBook Ultras with handy wireless portable external displays. The Statue of Liberty, Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower and Sydney Harbor were the literal landmarks of the event.
Get up early to win
Look
The MEWC is not a new event, as it was first held in 2021 and the 2022 event will be broadcast on ESPN.
The competition pits Excel experts against each other to solve complex challenges posed by other Excel experts, no doubt with some Microsoft Certified Professional qualifications buried among their other achievements in the world of enterprise data management.
However, these are not boring results for senior management. This time, competitors took on the Around the World in 80 Days-inspired Excel challenge, the latest in a clever selection. This was intended to reflect remote workers, whose efforts take place “at client sites, airports, cafes, co-working spaces and remote locations, rather than behind a desk in an office.”
Andrew Grigolyunovich is the founder of the Microsoft Excel World Championship. “The Landmark Battle is like nothing we’ve ever done before,” he said. “Watching elite competitors perform from some of the world’s most iconic venues, powered by ASUS, showed just how far Excel Esports can go.”
In previous events, competitors were tasked with completing puzzles using Excel, slot machine games, and the Excel-based 2D platform game, Modelario.
Early’s victory, which ironically came late in the match, gave him a 40-point lead in the final minute over Andrew Ngai, but due to the global nature of the match, no one knew who had won until the match was over.
As you can see in the YouTube video, each competitor was accompanied only by a cameraman, and you can see the reactions as the results are confirmed.
Esport or Excel-sport?
Esports has become big business in recent years, but events tend to revolve around games like League of Legends, Dota or CS:GO.
When it comes to esports events, Microsoft Excel is not the obvious spectator sport. But if you have the skills to work magic with formulas and numbers arranged in rows and columns, they could be a sure bet for next year’s Microsoft Excel World Championship.
Qualifiers for the 2026 world championship have already begun and the event will be held again in Las Vegas, and Early appears confident of triumphing again.
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