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Counter-Strike Valve making big changes to CSGO majors with circuit qualifiers By Nina Forneloza Fortnite Here’s how much money the Epic Games Store made in 2019 By William Davis League of Legends Former Fnatic and TSM player YellOwStaR comes out of retirement By William Davis

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Overwatch League reveals new jerseys for 2020 season in hilarious way gabhernandez Fans in the North American region were getting ready for bed when a number of Overwatch League team accounts threw them into a tizzy with one single word. Coo. The Guangzhou Charge started it off when their profile picture changed to the silhouette of a bird, which was followed by a tweet that simply read “coo.” Before anyone could react, numerous other teams joined in by changing their avatars to …

Counter-Strike

Swole Patrol, Riot Squad reach WINNERS League Season 3 NA semifinals M Alzamora In the first matchups of the North American WINNERS League quarterfinals, Riot Squad defeated Mythic and Swole Patrol stomped Station 7 to advance to the Season 3 semifinals. WINNERS League lets up and coming teams make their mark and gain international recognition that may help them break out onto the national stage. In the North American division’s quarterfinal matchups, all four teams managed to post attention-grabbing plays. Both Swole Patrol …

League of Legends

Griffin adds Ucal to its mid lane for 2020 LCK Spring Split William Davis Griffin has announced former Afreeca Freecs mid laner Son “Ucal” Woo-hyeon as the new member of its 2020 roster. After months of controversy and scandal, Griffin is ready to start 2020 with a clean slate. The organization underwent some serious changes that includes new players. Ucal is the most recent addition to the lineup, and the mid laner will share playing time with Shin “Rather” Hyeong-seop and Yoo “Naehyun” Nae-hyun. …

League of Legends

Riot dev shares upcoming nerfs for Akali with less escape Syed Mujtaba Naqvi Riot Games is preparing some new changes to Akali. The League of Legends champion is possibly getting nerfed again, even though her win rate hasn’t been in a good place lately. Lead gameplay designer for League Mark “Scruffy” Yetter shared that the developer is preparing Akali changes to go up for testing with patch 10.3 on the public beta environment server. This doesn’t necessarily mean the changes will be going live in …

Counter-Strike FACEIT scraps ECS and partners with B Site, reports say By M Alzamora Counter-Strike The best T side strats and grenades for Shortdust in CSGO Wingman By M Alzamora League of Legends 2020 LCK Spring Split schedule announced, features T1 and more By Syed Mujtaba Naqvi

Counter-Strike

Fnatic releases Xizt as Ninjas in Pyjamas reunion rumors loom M Alzamora Fnatic has announced the departure of Richard “xizt” Landström. The news was revealed on the organization’s Twitter account. This continues to add credibility to rumors of a reunion of the 2014 Ninjas in Pyjamas Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster under the Dignitas umbrella. Dignitas has been linked to a plan to acquire most of the players from the legendary lineup, including Adam “friberg” Friberg, Christopher “GeT_RiGhT’ Alesund, Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg, and xizt  Fnatic originally benched xizt alongside Simon …

League of Legends

Here are the Prestige skins coming to LoL in early 2020 Syed Mujtaba Naqvi Riot Games has announced new Prestige skins coming to League of Legends in the first half of 2020. Some of the new skins will be coming to the 2020 Prestige shop, while others will come along with thematic events, such as Mecha Kingdoms event that introduced the Prestige edition of Mecha Kingdoms Garen. Three new skins will be available through Prestige point crafting, and two in addition to Garen are …

Counter-Strike

Fugly’s benching from Team Envy leads to huge drama on Twitter M Alzamora Jacob “Fugly” Medina released a tell-all Twitter post on his time with Team Envy and it paints an unflattering picture for the organization. Included in the story are allegations of a number of internal issues with the company, especially in regards to the structure of its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team. Fugly’s post details an organization with deep-seated communication troubles and serious issues with inner turmoil. Fugly puts the majority of the blame …

League of Legends

P1noy joins G2 as substitute ADC for the 2020 LEC Spring Split Syed Mujtaba Naqvi Kristoffer “P1noy” Pedersen has joined G2 Esports as a substitute bot laner for the 2020 LEC Spring Split. The strongest European League of Legends team and the 2019 World Championship runner-up G2 is strengthening its roster for the upcoming season with the addition of P1noy, a veteran bot laner that hasn’t been competing on the main stage of the European league since 2015 and has spent the latest season competing …

Ranked queue gets another major shakeup in latest Dota 2 update Steven Rondina Dota 2 Valve seems to be declaring its ranked roles experiment a failure. A significant update has dropped in Dota 2, bringing with it multiple changes to the ranked matchmaking experience. While ranked matchmaking has largely revolved around a role-specific queueing system in recent months, Valve is offering players the chance to enjoy the classic free-for-all experience, entitled “Ranked Classic.” “We are making this change because the slow/fast queue concept has not …

Natus Vincere may bench GuardiaN after poor performances Olivia Richman Counter-Strike After four months of less than desirable performances, Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovacs might be benched by Natus Vincere.  According to a report from 1pv.fr, Na’Vi Junior player Rodion “fear” Smyk has been playing in GuardiaN’s place during recent practice sessions. With Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev most likely taking back the AWP role, Na’Vi would have to find a new rifler.  This isn’t a permanent change, however, and the Ukranian Counter-Strike: Global Offensive …

Jeff Kaplan discusses possible 1-3-2 role lock in Overwatch 2 Olivia Richman News They didn’t like dive. They hated GOATS. They don’t like 2-2-2. And now some Overwatch fans are begging Blizzard to “save the game” by changing to a 1-3-2 role lock.  One fan took to the Blizzard forums to discuss why 1-3-2 role lock would benefit the game. Their first point was that one tank, three DPS, and two support heroes would fix DPS wait times.  “People want to play DPS, …

Dafran stands up for Overwatch League in ongoing caster drama Olivia Richman News As the Overwatch League’s global 2020 season approaches, more and more broadcast talent have announced they are leaving. This has created quite some cause for concern despite new talent taking over some of the positions.  To address the growing gossip surrounding the seemingly constant stream of departures, senior director Jon Spector told The Esports Observer that there’s nothing for fans to worry about going into 2020.  “We’re incredibly thankful for …

Volcanic Wukong on 99% sale for awarness of Taal Volcano’s danger Syed Mujtaba Naqvi League of Legends Garena, an organization that runs League of Legends servers in Southeast Asia, is working to increase awareness of the dangers from the Taal Volcano’s activity. With the Philippines facing the activation of Taal Volcano, the game provider decided to decrease the cost of the Volcanic Wukong skin on the PH server to one Riot Point. With the sale of the skin, Garena is spreading news of safety among League players, …

CSPPA announces CSGO partnership with ESL and DreamHack M Alzamora Counter-Strike The Counter-Strike Professional Players Association has announced a partnership with ESL and DreamHack that they say will lead to a “participation framework” between the players and the tournament organizers. The partnership covers a wide array of subjects ranging from involvement in revenue to player contracts. The official announcement contains little in the way of specific detail, merely announcing that a framework is forthcoming but has yet to be established.  The …

Nike enters into partnership with T1, includes LoL and Dota 2 teams gabhernandez League of Legends T1 Entertainment and Sports, the parent company behind top Korean League of Legends team T1, has announced a new partnership with Nike. Nike and T1 revealed the news via press release, and also discussed plans to open new training facilities at T1’s headquarters in Seoul. The reveal highlighted how T1’s legendary mid laner Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok visited Nike’s headquarters in Oregon, got a behind-the-scenes tour of Nike’s Sports Research lab, …

Looking back at some of esports’ earliest historical roots Jared Wynne News With all the different forms that esports has taken over the years, it can be easy to forget where this world first originated. When most of us think about the beginnings of esports, we think of crowded LAN parties and small regional tournaments, but there are some origins in the west that can be even stranger to look back on. Did you know, for example, that an early version of …

Fans unsure what to expect this year for Overwatch Lunar New Year Olivia Richman News Overwatch’s Winter Wonderland event has just ended and fans are already discussing the game’s next event: Lunar New Year.  For 2020, Lunar New Year will be the Year of the Rat. Players are already speculating new skins for Junkrat and Wrecking Ball, for obvious reasons. While these two heroes are safe bets for legendary skins, no information on the event have been revealed or leaked as of yet.  2019’s Year …

Valkyrae leaves Twitch for YouTube, contract details revealed Olivia Richman Fortnite One of Twitch’s most popular female streamers, Rachel “Valkyrae” Hofstetter, has signed an exclusive deal with YouTube. The 100 Thieves influencer revealed the news on her Twitter with a short video that was later uploaded to YouTube.  “You’ve watched me grow into the person I am today. And I’m so excited to keep moving forward. It’s time for the next chapter. Are you ready for something new?” she asked, alluding to …

Nordavind adds NaToSaphiX and HS to complete CSGO roster M Alzamora News Norwegian esports organization Nordavind has completed its new Counter-Strike: Global Offensive roster. Nordavind adds two players that have floated from team to team over the past several months in Niels “NaToSaphiX” Sillassen and Kevin “HS” Tarn. The organization made the announcement on its official Twitter account. The announcement comes days after the release of Håkon “hallzerk” Fjærli, who was previously rumored to be joining Dignitas alongside four members of the legendary 2014 Ninjas in Pyjamas roster. Though Dignitas has …

Cloud9 early favorites at DreamHack Open Leipzig CSGO tournament M Alzamora Counter-Strike Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s DreamHack Open Leipzig 2020 is coming, and it offers teams a chance to receive an automatic invite to DreamHack Masters Jönköping 2020. It also gives viewers the chance to see some up-and-coming teams face off ahead of IEM Katowice 2020. The list of teams competing in Leipzig includes BIG, Cloud9, North, Renegades, Virtus.pro, Heroic, MAD Lions, and Sprout. The tournament should be an interesting test for the majority …

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