News

News Esports, iGaming, and online casinos all see massive growth across shared industries By Jared Wynne League of Legends G2 Esports vs. MAD Lions: 2020 LEC playoffs betting analysis By William Davis League of Legends PapaSmithy and 100 Thieves respond to criticism for playoff loss By Nicholas James

Fortnite

Despite money flex, Ninja can’t keep up in Fall Guys bidding war Olivia Richman Fall Guys may not be as competitively viable as Fortnite, but the new battle royale is creating quite the competition on Twitter.  In a bid to raise money for Special Effect, a UK-based charity that supports gamers with disabilities around the world, Fall Guys is offering an in-game skin created for the person who donates the most to the cause.  One of the first big donations came from G2 Esports, …

News

shroud has become the most-viewed streamer on Twitch after return Olivia Richman Michael “shroud” Grzesiek was the most-watched content creator on Twitch last week.  It all started when the popular former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro returned to Twitch on August 12. He surpassed 500,000 concurrent viewers just moments after going live on the streaming platform. He then hit 22,000 subscribers after only two hours of streaming.  “It feels good. I wasn’t nervous at first, but then I saw the viewers climbing. I …

Counter-Strike

Counter-Strike 1.6 just got its first update in a year M Alzamora Counter-Strike 1.6 received an update on August 19, almost a year after Valve last updated the original CS. Valve has pushed an update to CS 1.6 that includes several fixes. Most crucial are some security fixes that deal with how the 1.6 client handles communications to and from the game’s servers. Developers have also addressed an issue with CS 1.6 demos loading incorrectly, which resulted in crashes in certain instances.  …

Dota 2

T1 replaces Forev with ex-TNC off laner Sam_H for ESL One Thailand Steven Rondina Korean organization T1 has announced the signing of Filipino offlaner Samson Enojosa “Sam_H” Hidalgo. [T1 @DOTA2 Roster Update]Please welcome Sam_H to our DOTA2 Squad![T1 DOTA2 로스터 안내]T1 DOTA2 팀에 Samson “Sam_H” Solomon Enojosa Hidalgo 선수가 합류하게 되었습니다. 내일부터 펼쳐지는 ESL 대회에 많은 관심과 응원 부탁드립니다!#T1WIN #T1Fighting pic.twitter.com/nVOOZxPziN — T1 (@T1) August 19, 2020 Sam_H will replace former captain Lee “Forev” Sang-don, who parted ways with the organization in July. Sam_H …

Counter-Strike ALEX reportedly targeted to lead FunPlus Phoenix CSGO roster By M Alzamora League of Legends Fnatic shut out of top two 2020 LEC Summer Split All-Pro teams By William Davis League of Legends Top Esports responds to fan threats of laxatives in players’ food By William Davis

Counter-Strike

CSGO devs claim to have fixed a new report botting exploit M Alzamora CSGO developer John McDonald tweeted out that the game’s development team had fixed CSGO’s report botting issues highlighted in a recent video. A recent video by CSGO YouTuber Sparkles highlighted the ability to manipulate CSGO’s Overwatch mechanic to not only cause innocent players to receive bans, but to also protect their own accounts from being banned by the service. Just several days after the video’s release, CSGO developers have said …

League of Legends

Team Liquid wins the LCS Coaching Staff of the Split award William Davis The LCS has announced that Team Liquid are the winners of the Coaching Staff of the Split award, with over almost double the number of points had by second-place finisher Cloud9.  Congratulations to @TL_Jatt, @TL_Dodo, @liquidcain, @CroissantLoL, and the entire staff at @TeamLiquidLoL on winning the 2020 #LCS Summer Coaching Staff of the Split Award! #TLWIN Learn more at: https://t.co/v3wk5c8mwX pic.twitter.com/JkJL8yp8Xt — LCS (@LCSOfficial) August 18, 2020 Liquid has fought …

News

Cloud9 officially signs vice to complete pro Valorant team Jared Wynne Cloud9 has announced the signing of Daniel “vice” Kim as the fifth and final player for the organization’s new Valorant roster.“I’m super excited to join C9 Valorant. I competed in CS:GO professionally for about four years,” vice said. “I’m switching to Valorant mainly because after four years of competing in professional CS:GO I grew a little stale of it and I wanted to start a new chapter and I thought …

League of Legends

EU Masters gets underway as all participants are confirmed Tokoni Uti League of Legends’ European tournament in the style of the Champions League has kicked off as all participants have been locked in. European Masters brings together the top teams from each of the semi-professional European Regional Leagues, giving players a platform to prove that they are the region’s best outside of the LEC and deserve a shot on the game’s biggest stages. Since the tournament’s inception in 2018, 13 EUM …

CSGO wall hack bug still present in game after latest patch Olivia Richman Counter-Strike Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players were disappointed to find out that yesterday’s patch still hadn’t fixed a potentially game-breaking wall hack bug.  For the past week, CSGO players have been exploiting a wall hack discovered by YouTuber “Sparkles” on August 12. Similar to a previous wall hack bug, players can boot up the game without activating the first-person shooter’s vpk files. CSGO players can create their own custom vpk files to …

These CSGO players just broke the gun range world record M Alzamora Counter-Strike Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s gun range world record has been broken, twice. Two players beat the record time on CSGO’s training range within hours of one another, posting their times on the game’s subreddit. CSGO’s gun range serves as a training level for new players to get accustomed to the game’s novel recoil and movement systems. The first player to break the record clocked in at an even 20 seconds while …

Valorant players complain about grind in weekly missions Olivia Richman News Valorant’s Act II brought to players a new battle pass, meaning more cosmetics, skins, sprays, and player card artwork to unlock.  One way to unlock these new additions to Riot’s original first-person shooter is through daily and weekly missions. These appear on the left side of the game’s main screen, with daily missions resetting each day. Each of the missions gives players a certain amount of experience points based on …

Yone is set to receive his first real nerf in patch 10.17 William Davis League of Legends Yone and other champions are set to receive nerfs in upcoming patch 10.17, according to Riot Games lead gameplay designer Mark “Scuffy” Yetter.  The next patch will be a small one but will be affecting some of the best solo queue champions in the game at the moment. A few champions can also look forward to much-needed buffs, in this case mostly for marksmen who have fallen out of the …

Riot Games partners up with Universal for new LoL Worlds songs William Davis League of Legends Riot Games will be teaming up with Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) for the upcoming 2020 League of Legends World Championship, as six brand new songs will be made for the event.  The partnership includes an esports-themed music camp, which 14 famous Universal Music Group artists attended to create six new songs for the World Championship back in July. The artists include such names as Matzka, Gong, Chiyo Monna, and …

Dota 2 pro arrested, beaten by police during Belarus protests Steven Rondina Dota 2 Belarus has been dealing with mass protests over the results of the country’s disputed presidential election, and these protests have led to thousands of arrests, including the detaining of a notable Dota 2 pro. Dota 2 pro player Oleg “LastHero” Demidovich, off laner for B8, opened up on his experience including his arrest, incarceration, and eventual release, through the team’s official podcast. “They just zip tied our hands and threw …

Doublelift says LCS playoff double elimination saved his career William Davis League of Legends A recent loss to Golden Guardians has Team SoloMid bot laner Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng reflecting on his performance and receiving another shot in the 2020 LCS Summer Split playoffs.  TSM players and fans were feeling down after a devastating 0-3 loss to Golden Guardians in the first round of the summer split playoffs. TSM followed up the series with a convincing 3-0 victory against Dignitas, but the team was still …

s1mple shows off a cool new bench boost for Mirage’s B site M Alzamora Counter-Strike It’s sometimes hard to take aggressive positions on Mirage, but Natus Vincere’s Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev showed off a neat boost that serves as an easy way to get an early heads up on a Mirage B rush. The boost that s1mple shows off here is a clever way to get eyes into the B site apartments without the defending CTs taking up any of the usual positions. But there are …

Valve used Overwatch to train machines to combat CSGO cheating M Alzamora Counter-Strike A Counter-Strike: Global Offensive developer has explained just how CSGO’s Overwatch, Trust Factor, and VAC all work together. We just have to go back to the 2018 Game Developers Conference in order to hear about it. In 2018, CSGO developer John McDonald took the stage at the Game Developers Conference for a presentation titled “Using Deep Learning to Combat Cheating in CSGO.” The presentation gave an in-depth explanation of the …

Sneaky’s latest cosplay might be his craziest one yet Olivia Richman League of Legends If you missed Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi’s latest cosplay, don’t worry. We’re here to show it to you. At the end of July, former Cloud9 bot laner Sneaky casually dropped yet another risque cosplay photoshoot for his fans and followers. This time the cosplay subject was Shuten Douji in a maid outfit. The character is from Fate/Grand Order, a free-to-play Japanese role-playing game on mobile. And Sneaky did not shy away …

TSM win Pittsburgh Knights Invitational, beat Gen.G in finals Olivia Richman News Team SoloMid is continuing to dominate the Valorant esports scene.  The impressive Valorant squad took home a $6,000 prize at the Pittsburgh Knights Invitational after beating Gen.G in the three-game grand finals set.  The win was all the more exciting for the squad’s fans since TSM had lost to Gen.G when they first faced off earlier in the tournament. TSM had beaten other top teams including Renegades and Immortals before …

Lekr0 set to join North as Kjaerbye replacement, report says M Alzamora Counter-Strike Jonas “Lekr0” Olofsson is set to join the North esports organization, according to reports. A report places Lekro in the North lineup with an official announcement coming in the following days, according to HLTV.com. Lekro’s move to North comes just a week after former North star Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjærbye announced that he would join FaZe Clan’s international lineup. Lekr0 has sat the Ninjas in Pyjamas bench since May of 2020 …

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