News

League of Legends Riot looking to reduce jungle snowballing and change Smite By William Davis Counter-Strike Is olofmeister returning to CSGO or switching to Valorant? By Fariha Bhatti News Twitch responds to hot tub streams, and not everyone is happy By Olivia Richman

League of Legends

DWG KIA & Cloud9 fight for first in LoL team rankings at MSI William Davis The last WIN.gg League of Legends team ranking before the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational is here and it brings with it a lot of changes.  The last team rankings were dominated by the LCK and LPL teams heading into the playoffs. This time around, several teams have fallen back after disappointing playoff performances and left a great opportunity for the qualified MSI teams to climb the rankings over the coming weeks. …

Dota 2

MinD_ContRoL surges, Alliance rebounds in Dota 2 rankings Steven Rondina The ONE Esports Singapore major shook up the Dota 2 player rankings in a big way, and the weird start to the second cycle of the 2021 Dota Pro Circuit cycle has only kept things moving. With Team Secret off to a dull 2-2 start, Invictus Gaming struggling in its post-major return, AS Monaco Gambit winless, and TNC Predator looking to be back in top form, there is a lot …

League of Legends

DWG KIA ShowMaker tops LoL player ranking ahead of MSI 2021 William Davis The first international tournament of the year is right around the corner, where the best team from each region will clash for the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational trophy. It’s an event like this likely means big changes to the LoL player and team rankings. With all regional playoffs over, there has been a lot of changes in the rankings since the last update. Only the absolute best players in the world …

Dota 2

Is the 2021 The International Battle Pass set to launch soon? Steven Rondina Dota 2’s The International Battle Pass is one of the game’s biggest highlights each year, and it might be coming back in the near future. While the 2020 installment of The International Battle Pass came out later than usual, the battle pass has traditionally come out in early May. That means that the 2021 The International Battle Pass could be coming out in the next few weeks. The TI9 Battle …

News Check out this new KennyS wallbang spot for AWPs on Nuke By Fariha Bhatti News Has Corpse Husband ever shown his face? We investigate By Olivia Richman News Astra is bad for Valorant, according to top pro players By Fariha Bhatti

Counter-Strike

ESIC banned coach Hunden returns to Heroic for DreamHack Masters Fariha Bhatti Coach Nicolai “⁠HUNDEN⁠” Petersen will return to Heroic ahead of Dreamhack Masters Spring after completing the suspension period levied against him by Esports Integrity Commission in 2020.  The Danish coach will resume his duties as the coach of Heroic, the organization has announced. His first event with the team will be Dreamhack Masters Spring which will be played from April 29 to May 9.  Nicolai ‘HUNDEN’ Petersen will be back on …

News

Destiny has been banned from Twitch again, and this is why Olivia Richman Political streamer Steven “Destiny” Bonnel is in trouble with Twitch yet again. The popular personality had his Twitch account suspended after a guest shared an inappropriate image of Hunter Biden during a live stream.  During the April 28 stream, Destiny was debating issues with a conservative commentator when the guest claimed to have the contents of Hunter Biden’s hacked laptop. The guest then pointed to their phone screen, showing a …

League of Legends

Tyler1 isn’t happy with the Heimerdinger nerfs in patch 11.9 William Davis The most recent League of Legends patch 11.9 included an unexpected nerf to Heimerdinger, and popular streamer Tyler “Tyler1” Steinkamp isn’t happy about it.   Tyler1 made his name as a Draven player but has picked up several unorthodox champions in recent years. One of them is Heimerdinger, who Tyler1 has been playing both on and off stream, but now a recent nerf might affect Heimerdinger’s viability. In patch 11.9, Riot …

League of Legends

Riot plans to shut down fan-made Chronoshift server in LoL Olivia Richman League of Legends fans are worried about the future of Chronoshift, a server that allows players to access a “legacy server” for a 10-year-old version of the MOBA.  The fan-made Chronoshift server was available to fans to play for free, allowing players to access an older version of League of Legends by using code from Riot’s Content Delivery network (CDN). But four days ago, a Chronoshift developer shared on Reddit …

PhantomL0rd lawsuit reveals Twitch’s secret Strike Guide Olivia Richman Counter-Strike Twitch has been criticized quite harshly over the years for doling out inconsistent bans to its streamers, but a recent lawsuit revealed that the streaming platform may have a Strike Guide that it follows when it comes to these decisions.  James “PhantomL0rd” Vargas won his lawsuit against Twitch on April 23. Twitch banned PhantomL0rd in 2016, and the trial’s jury eventually concluded the Amazon-owned company “breached its standard partner contract, …

Bwipo confirms he is not extending his Fnatic contract Tokoni Uti League of Legends After recent rumors that both Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau and Oskar “Selfmade” Boderek have turned down contract extensions, Fnatic’s top laner today used his live stream to confirm that he has indeed turned down negotiations with the veteran organization. Having been with the side since initially joining as a substitute in 2018, Bwipo has been considered one of Europe’s best top laners and his team’s performance level can often be reliant …

Pentanet.GG brings female pro DNS as a substitute for MSI William Davis League of Legends The LCO representative at the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational Pentanet.GG has officially signed Diana “DNS” Nguyen as its substitute for the event as the first-ever woman to attend the event.  DNS joins the team as the only substitute and will travel with the rest of the Pentanet squad to Iceland for the event starting on May 6. With DNS attending, she will be the first female player to participate in the …

s1mple talks about player burnout in CSGO, says there’s always motivation Fariha Bhatti Counter-Strike A plethora of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players stepped back from pro play in 2021, citing burnout symptoms. But, Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev is more motivated than ever.  Mental health issues in esports athletes were a hot pic during the online format of 2021. The conversation is still active, but s1mple is confused about why a professional player would feel less motivated to compete. On his live stream, the Ukrainian player read a …

If Riot deletes pro game data, are your solo queue games next? William Davis League of Legends Official data from Riot Games is a big part of the League of Legends community, but those days might be over as Riot is looking to potentially shut down the providing of match data from competitive games.  Over recent days, it has come to light that Riot might be looking to limit data from professional games, and potentially more than that with time. A tweet by Schalke 04 head analyst …

Pokemon GO Fest 2021 goes online again, new dates revealed Steven Rondina News Pokemon GO Fest is returning in 2021. Niantic has revealed the first few details regarding the annual celebration of Pokemon GO. As with 2020, Pokemon GO Fest will be an online event available to players from around the globe. The developer also announced the dates for the event. Few details were given regarding what fans can actually expect from the event, however. Time to mark your calendars, Trainers! ????️ ???? …

SumaiL wins in his return to pro Dota 2 with Team Liquid Steven Rondina Dota 2 Syed “SumaiL” Hassan is back in action, and so far it doesn’t look like he ever left. The former Evil Geniuses star played his first professional match in over five months, joining Team Liquid for DreamLeague Season 15 as a stand-in for Samuel “Boxi” Svahn. In his Team Liquid debut, SumaiL put forward a solid performance as the team’s mid laner and helped the team take the 2-1 series victory …

Dead or Alive 2 slot review Steven Rondina News NetEnt’s Dead or Alive 2 does a lot to capitalize on its Western theme, making for a fun experience for interested slot players. Not to be confused with the classic fighting game of the same name, the online slot game pushes hard to distinguish itself from other similar offerings by pushing its wild west theme. It has a number of different mechanics that tie into this unique motif, which likely …

Aimlab releases hot new custom training map for Valorant Fariha Bhatti News Ranking up in Valorant may soon become a little easier for those willing to put in the practice. Aimlab has revealed custom Valorant maps designed to help players improve their aim.  The popular aim training map brings good tidings for Valorant players who are stuck in the game’s lower ranks. Aimlab has partnered up with Riot to bring Valorant maps to its training facility to help players improve and ladder …

Accusations fly that Riot Games tried to sabotage Dota 2 esports Steven Rondina News There has always been a rivalry between Dota 2 and League of Legends, but according to recently resurfaced reports, that battle was at one point played out between the two games’ rival publishers. During a podcast discussing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, esports journalist Richard Lewis discussed some of the history between Riot Games and Valve. According to Lewis, League of Legends publisher Riot Games made aggressive maneuvers to try and undercut …

Floe gets banned from Twitch without even streaming Olivia Richman News Veteran streamer Ari “Floe” Weintraub has been banned from Twitch even though he hasn’t recently been streaming on the popular platform. The streamer had not even been on Twitch for over five days when he received the suspension.  Wow after 10 years and I haven’t even been streaming https://t.co/Jj11mtbKrQ — Ari Weintraub (@Floejisan) April 24, 2021 It’s safe to say that many were confused by Twitch’s sudden ban. Floe had …

These are the details of xQc’s crazy new 60-day subathon Olivia Richman News Popular and controversial streamer Felix “xQc” Lengyel lightly contemplated a subathon earlier this month in an attempt to beat Ludwig’s new record for subscribers.  Ludwig’s subathon stream lasted 30 days, and that was enough to shock the streaming community. During the stream, Ludwig played games, chatted with viewers, worked out, cut his hair, and slept. This resulted in over 271,000 subscribers flocking to his channel, beating previous subscriber record holder …

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