News

Dota 2 Sparking Arrow Gaming bested China’s top teams in CDA League Season 1 By Nina Forneloza Counter-Strike This Nuke wallbang by OG Aleksib is the craziest of the year By M Alzamora League of Legends Cloud9 break LCS trophy after LCS Spring Split 2020 finals victory By Olivia Richman

Counter-Strike

shroud says Valorant will become more popular than CSGO Olivia Richman Riot’s new FPS title Valorant has been called the “Overwatch killer” since details started coming out. But now Counter-Strike players are also starting to wonder if the similarities between their game and Valorant will also lead to a loss of players for them, too. Popular CSGO streamer Michael “shroud” Grzesiek is among them.  There are a lot of game elements Valorant has taken from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, including the look …

Dota 2

ppd announces his immediate retirement from Dota 2 Steven Rondina Ninjas in Pyjamas captain Peter “ppd” Dager has announced his retirement from competitive Dota 2. He announced the news in a statement on Twitter. “I’ve spent just about the entirety of my twenties competing in video game competitions and at this point in my life…I’m looking for something else that I do not think I can find in my current position,” ppd said. ppd went on to state he is …

Dota 2

N0tail made these huge plays as hard support in OG’s ESL One LA run Steven Rondina OG may not have won ESL One Los Angeles, but that doesn’t mean that Johan “N0tail” Sundstein played poorly.  The OG captain was a serious playmaker throughout the European and CIS league and put on a master class when it comes to showing how to make high-impact plays as a hard support player. Some were big and some were small, but fans can learn a lot of lessons away from …

News

The International 2020 Battle Pass might be launching very soon Nina Forneloza With a big question mark on The International 2020, fans wonder if Valve will continue to release the T10 Battle pass as expected. There is an interesting pattern of the Battle Pass release date from the previous iterations of The International. A Dota 2 enthusiast pointed out on Reddit that Valve released the Battle Pass five days before the deadline of workshop submissions. Valve released The International 2020 Call to …

News DazeD returns to Twitch to play Valorant, nails huge ace clutch By M Alzamora Dota 2 Virtus.pro wins ESL One Los Angeles with dramatic win over OG By Steven Rondina League of Legends C9’s Vulcan: “It’s hard to blame teams for not scrimming against us” By Olivia Richman

League of Legends

Cloud9 destroys FlyQuest, wins 2020 LCS Spring Split championship William Davis Cloud9 is the 2020 LCS Spring Split champion. Cloud9 dominated FlyQuest in the LCS finals and earned its first championship title since 2014. The team closed the series in three games to complete the best split in the history of the LCS. FlyQuest fought hard through the lower bracket, but it wasn’t enough to stop Cloud9. 7 FINALS. 6 2ND PLACES. 1 TITLE.AFTER 6 YEARS, CLOUD9 ARE THE 2020 #LCS …

League of Legends

Doublelift bashes LCS teams, calls them “snowflakes” for being scared to lose Olivia Richman Not one to shy away from smack talk no matter the situation, Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng called out LCS teams for their poor mentality during a stream with an LCK commentator.  Team Liquid may have finished in 9th place in the LCS, but Doublelift still had harsh words for the other teams competing in North America after he heard Cloud9’s Philippe “Vulcan” Laflamme admit in an interview that other teams didn’t …

League of Legends

G2 Esports topples Fnatic, wins 2020 LEC Spring Split championship William Davis G2 Esports is the 2020 LEC Spring Split champion. G2 took home its seventh LEC title with a convincing, dominant performance over Fnatic in the finals. What people expected to be a close series, ended up being a stomp by G2. ???? pic.twitter.com/zFyfViNzPY — LEC (@LEC) April 19, 2020 The G2 reign started in 2019 when the team signed mid laner Rasmus “Caps” Winther. That single decision changed the LEC …

Counter-Strike

MIBR versus MAD Lions in Flashpoint’s Season 1 grand final breakdown M Alzamora Flashpoint’s first season hasn’t exactly gone to plan. That said, despite several teams dropping out from the young Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league, Flashpoint has delivered on what it promised: good fun, good banter, and good Counter-Strike. Now, it’s left to the final two teams to deliver. The veteran MIBR under the leadership of the ageless Gabriel “FalleN” Toldeo will take on young upstarts MAD Lions for $500,000 and the the …

Match predictions for Cloud9 versus FlyQuest in 2020 LCS Spring finals William Davis League of Legends Cloud9 and FlyQuest are meeting in the 2020 LCS Spring finals. For the first time since the franchising, the LCS will have a champion that is not Team Liquid who, finished the regular season in ninth place. The 2020 #LCS Spring Finals are set! @Cloud9 look for their first title since 2014 against a @FlyQuest team making their first #LCS Finals appearance! #LCS Countdown begins tomorrow at 12:30PM PDT / …

OG vs. Vikin.gg ESL One Los Angeles lower bracket match prediction Steven Rondina Dota 2 ESL One Los Angeles has featured some of the best Dota 2 action since the game was paused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the best part of it has been the European and CIS league. After taking the holiday season off, top squads are back in action and lesser-known teams are making real noise.  The lower bracket finals are coming up tomorrow, with The International champions OG set to take …

Riot paying hackers $100,000 to find ways to cheat in Valorant Olivia Richman News Riot will be rewarding anyone who finds vulnerabilities in Valorant’s anti-cheat software, Vanguard. For the past six years, the League of Legends developer has been running a Bug Bounty program on HackerOne, where they’ve paid out over $2 million in bounties to players who find bugs, glitches, and anything else that undermines the security and privacy of players. Payouts were awarded based on the severity of the breach, with a …

FlyQuest’s Santorin says beating EG “feels like another day of scrims” Olivia Richman League of Legends Given how FlyQuest played today, fans will likely be surprised to know Lucas “Santorin” Kilmer Larsen was under the weather. Despite that, his team dominated Evil Geniuses in the 2020 LCS Spring Split semifinals, setting them up with a trip to the finals to face Cloud9.  WIN.gg spoke with Santorin after the 3-1 victory, discussing their chances tomorrow, how they think they’d fair against other regions at MSI, and even …

Valve reveals ESL One Rio Major’s Regional Major Rankings M Alzamora Counter-Strike Valve has released its initial rankings for the build to the ESL One Rio Major. In March, Valve revealed that teams will be required to requalify for 2020’s only CSGO Major, citing the length of time between the StarLadder Berlin Major in September 2019 and ESL One Rio, which comes in November. Fans and teams now know exactly how it works, thanks to a blog post from the developer. The …

New CSGO major rules spell trouble for Astralis’ six-man roster M Alzamora Counter-Strike Contained in a blog post delving into the specifics of the new Regional Major Rankings system, Valve detailed several rule changes that could have a major impact on Astralis. When the Danish team announced it would switch to a six-man roster in March by adding Patrick “es3tag” Hansen, it whipped up controversy over the impact this had on a business deal between Heroic and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive newcomer FunPlus Phoenix. …

Ninja flexes his Mixer money at haters harassing him in Fortnite Olivia Richman Fortnite When Tyler “Ninja” Blevins first moved to Mixer, the Fortnite streamer’s fans and haters alike wondered what had prompted him to leave Twitch. He was making millions off of the platform’s subscription service, not to mention a lot of other cash that was rolling in.  His wife had hinted that his move was related to Twitch’s restrictive contract terms and the platform’s refusal to loosen their grip on Ninja’s sponsorship …

EternaLEnVy’s Cloud9 breaks brutal losing streak at BTS Pro Series Steven Rondina News At long last, Cloud9’s new Dota 2 team has found its way to a victory. After stumbling out of the gate, Cloud9 has finally found its first series win. In the BTS Pro Series: Americas, the organization posted two series victories over Evil Geniuses and Furia Esports. This kicked a 0-10 skid to start off the team’s time with Jacky “EternaLEnVy” Mao at the helm. The series with Evil Geniuses …

Vikin.gg scores big upset over Team Secret at ESL One Los Angeles Nina Forneloza Dota 2 Vikin.gg eliminated ESL One Los Angeles favorite Team Secret in a clean 2-0 sweep. Vikin.gg dominated Team Secret in a do-or-die series in the lower bracket. The team pulled off a huge upset in the Europe and CIS regional league. Team Secret had an impressive run in the group stage, advancing to upper bracket with an undefeated record. However, two-time The International champions OG knocked them down to the lower …

Nigma picks hard support Sniper, gets eliminated from ESL One LA Nina Forneloza Dota 2 Chicken Fighters wound up defeating Team Nigma in ESL One Los Angeles’ Europe and CIS league, thanks in part to a failed support Sniper draft in game two. Chicken Fighters and Team Nigma were pitted against each other in a do-or-die lower bracket series. Kuro “KuroKy” Salehi Takhasomi’s team kicked things off with a convincing win against Chicken Fighters. Chicken Fighters evened the field when Nigma tried to experiment with …

ESL Pro League stats show that taco really likes killing chickens M Alzamora Counter-Strike Counter-Strike fans are obsessed with statistics. From a player’s headshot percentage to their open duel win rate, fans consistantly find new ways to rate Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s pro players. But one startup has found way to calculate some truly weird statistics. Scope.gg posted a number of out-there statistics on its official Twitter account, making us wunder just what else is out there. In one of the most surprising of the …

CSGO pro wrongfully banned from Valorant after plugging phone into PC Olivia Richman News Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro Oscar “Mixwell” Cañellas was wrongfully kicked out of Valorant for plugging his phone into his PC.  That seemingly innocent action got Mixwell immediately blocked from Riot’s new FPS title. Mixwell had just won a round when he went to charge his phone by connecting it to his phone. Apparently, the game’s anti-cheat system interpreted the new device as Mixwell attempting to do something sneaky and banned …

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