News

League of Legends LCK star GorillA retires after 1 season with SANDBOX Gaming By William Davis News Snowball Fight Deathmatch brings holiday spirit to Valorant By Olivia Richman League of Legends Riot previews new Marauder, Warden skins for Kalista, Quinn, more By William Davis

Counter-Strike

A closer look at CSGO’s Broken Fang Case skins M Alzamora Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s Operation Broken Fang comes with a brand new case, and here are the impressive skins in all their glory. CSGO’s new operation has put a huge number of skins into users’ virtual hands, but the in-game viewer doesn’t do justice for how impressive these skins are. From the humble military-spec CZ-75 Vendetta all the way to the third Neo-Noir skin stylishly applied to the Glock-18, Broken Fang’s …

League of Legends

Can SwordArt challenge CoreJJ as the best support in the LCS? William Davis After signing with Team SoloMid on a record-breaking contract, Hu “SwordArt” Shuo-Chieh will be playing in the LCS with an eye towards becoming the best support in the region.  Team Liquid support Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in has been considered the best support in the LCS for a while, and may even be the best player in the entire league. The recent Worlds finalist SwordArt has now come to challenge that spot …

Counter-Strike

BIG to play IEM Global Challenge in place of Chaos, NA teams Fariha Bhatti North American organization Chaos Esports has confirmed the withdrawal of its Counter Strike: Global Offensive roster after a final sprint in 2020. And due to ongoing travel restrictions, German CSGO team BIG will be replacing Chaos esports in IEM Global Challenge.  ESL had first sought other North American teams to replace Chaos. But with a lack of NA teams that both can travel and are of appropriate quality, German CSGO …

League of Legends

Olleh says illegal betting could ruin solo queue, points to Faker William Davis A new type of illegal betting in League of Legends is being scrutinized in China, and it may reach even farther than that.  According to former Team Liquid support Kim “Olleh” Joo-sung, it’s possible to bet on solo queue games through illegal betting sites in China. These sites allow people to place bets on professional players’ solo queue games and whether the players involved will win or lose. This has …

Dota 2 OG N0tail pulls off hilarious outplay vs Nigma at EPIC League By Steven Rondina News G2 Esports vs. FURIA: BLAST Premier Finals betting analysis By William Davis Counter-Strike Every Ancient skin from CSGO’s new Operation Broken Fang By M Alzamora

League of Legends

Dignitas completes its LCS 2021 roster with new bot laner Neo William Davis Dignitas finalized its 2021 roster with the addition of bot laner Toàn “Neo” Trần, previously known as Asta. Dignitas promoted Neo from its Academy team and has completed its LCS roster for the upcoming season. With Neo in the roster, Dignitas becomes the only team competing in the LCS in 2021 without an import on its line-up. The organization is betting on homegrown talent for the upcoming season. Dignitas signed …

League of Legends

Suning head coach Chashao steps down from LPL team Olivia Richman Head coach Shih “Chashao” Yi-Hao has stepped down from his position at Suning.  The Chinese League of Legends team announced the news earlier today, stating that they “regret” to announce his departure. Chashao was with the team for 571 days, experiencing both the lows and highs of the team’s journey.  “Thank you for your contribution and efforts to Suning,” Suning stated on Twitter. “Wishing that your next stop brings you …

News

Valorant First Strike NA peaks at more than 300,000 viewers Olivia Richman Valorant fans couldn’t get enough of Riot Games’ First Strike action this past weekend.  While First Strike featured action from multiple competitive regions, North America was by and far the most popular competition. The region boasted over 300,000 viewers during the main event’s 21 hours of air time.  Europe’s competition was the second most viewed region. But that event only had 106,000 viewers at its peak, which is almost 200,000 …

League of Legends

Perkz says he wasn’t allowed to go to Fnatic, will be the best mid in LCS William Davis New Cloud9 mid laner Luka “Perkz” Perković talked about his offseason and how he wasn’t allowed to join the rivals from Fnatic by G2 Esports on a recent Croatian podcast. During the podcast, Perkz talked about his time with G2 and some of the offers he had gotten during the offseason. Besides the questions from the podcast host, the audience also got to ask the Croatian mid laner a few …

G2 Esports benches Jackz as AmeNEk returns to CSGO roster M Alzamora Counter-Strike G2 Esports is done with Audric “⁠JaCkz⁠” Jug after deciding to fill its fifth roster spot with François “AmaNEk” Delaunay. After G2 announced that it had signed Counter-Strike: Global Offensive star Nikola “niKo” Kovač in October, the top-10 CSGO team utilized a six-man roster. While it had switched JaCkz and AmaNEK in and out since niKo’s addition, G2 has decided to release JaCkz with no intention of bringing him back …

ESIC will not penalize CSGO cheating after long investigation M Alzamora Counter-Strike The Esports Integrity Commission, funded by a conglomeration of well-know tournament organizers including ESL and BLAST, has decided to not take any official action against teams, players, and coaches implicated in this past summer’s stream sniping incidents. The response from the ESIC took months to be released, and did little but reiterate the already established rules that stream sniping isn’t allowed. In other words, so many teams were suspected or …

Valorant pro receives death threats for teabagging at event Steven Rondina News Controversy has erupted around Valorant’s North American First Strike event.  Michael “dapr” Gulino of Sentinels says he was slammed with harsh criticism for fans due to his teabagging of Joshua “steel” Nissan. dapr states that this was harsh enough that he received death threats for the move: got a death threat cus i tbagged in a video game poggers — dapr ✨???? (@daprcs) December 6, 2020 dapr’s teammate Shahzeeb “ShahZaM” …

Astralis vs. Na’Vi: BLAST Premier Finals betting analysis William Davis News One of the last and biggest tournaments of the year is about to kick off with the BLAST Premier Fall 2020 Finals. Not only will the best teams in the world fight for a total prize pool of $425,000, but the tournament will also start off with a banger of a match between Astralis and Natus Vincere on the first day. The two squads have been considered two of the …

Lost completes the TSM 2021 roster as the new bot laner William Davis League of Legends Team SoloMid has found its successor to Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng in former Academy bot laner Lawrence “Lost” Hui.  Lost will be promoted to the TSM LCS squad for the 2021 season after a great year with the TSM Academy team. Lost will have to fill the big shoes of Doublelift, who recently retired. He will attempt this alongside 2020 World Championship finalist Hu “SwordArt” Shuo-Chieh who signed a record-breaking contract …

Nintendo kills Splatoon esports stream for #FreeMelee support Steven Rondina News Nintendo is reducing its coverage of Splatoon esports for some highly questionable reasons. Administrators announced that Nintendo was canceling the stream for the Splatoon 2 North America Open due to an “unexpected execution challenge” on the event’s Discord channel. Many are calling foul at this, as it follows a number of competitors changing their team names to voice their solidarity with the Super Smash Bros. Melee pro players recently impacted …

Suning huanfeng drops from LPL All-Stars over cheating scandal William Davis League of Legends The upcoming 2020 All-Stars event will be without Suning bot laner Tang “huanfeng” Huan-Feng, who was originally set to represent the LPL, after a cheating scandal involving the young star player has gone viral on the Chinese forum Weibo. The scandal recently resulted in an official statement from Suning on the same platform, saying that huanfeng will be absent from the upcoming All-Star weekend. Suning said in the post that …

TSM named the most valuable esports organization in the world Steven Rondina League of Legends Business magazine Forbes has released a list of the 10 most valuable esports organizations in the world. Sitting atop the list is the popular Team SoloMid, more frequently referred to as TSM. Forbes talked with a number of stakeholders in the esports industry including organizations, investors, and analysts. The end result is a list of the top-10 most valuable esports companies and an estimated value for each. These are Forbes’ …

FaZe Clan’s Babybay talks “troll” Breach pick in First Strike Nina Forneloza News The final weekend for Valorant’s First Strike tournament is coming to a close, and for Andrej “babybay” Francisty, the tournament is over after FaZe Clan’s tough loss to the Sentinels.  The matchup was promising in the beginning, with FaZe creeping up on the Sentinel’s lead halfway through the first map, but babybay’s performance was lacking, and his kill ratio was suffering. In the second map, babybay pulled an unexpected pick …

Asmongold discovers the new meaning behind OTK stream team Olivia Richman News Popular World of Warcraft streamer Zack “Asmongold” formed a WoW content creator team with four of his friends and fellow Twitch streamers in October. And that team may have just taken on a new meaning. The World of Warcraft crew was named OTK, short for One True King. It includes Asmongold, Matthew “Mizfit” Rinaudo, Esfand, Tipsout, and esports host Rich Campbell. The content creators have worked on projects together in …

Here’s how to use and customize CSGO’s new ping system M Alzamora Counter-Strike Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s new ping system shipped with Operation Broken Fang and it might be the most customizable ping menu in gaming today. Valve has created a total of 50 different options for players to map to CSGO’s three new ping menus. By default, the menus can be brought up by holding the user’s ping key and scrolled through using the scrollwheel. Expanded ping systems have become standard in today’s …

Heretic’s NiesoW on First Strike: “I don’t care who we play against” Olivia Richman News Underdog team Heretics has been shaking up Valorant’s First Strike EU main event over the past few days.  Yesterday, the Valorant community was shocked to see Heretics come out on top after a close back and forth against Team Liquid. Today, Heretics came back and defeated top team G2 Esports. But Dustyn “niesoW” Durnas doesn’t see it as that surprising. While G2 and Team Liquid are well-known organizations, the Valorant …

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