News

League of Legends Riot announces start of the League of Legends Season 10 in 2020 By Syed Mujtaba Naqvi Dota 2 EG captain Fly’s support Viper pick takes over pro Dota 2 games By Steven Rondina League of Legends WWE superstar Cesaro climbs League of Legends’ ranked ladder By Olivia Richman

Counter-Strike

Cloud9 signs ATK roster ahead of DreamHack Leipzig, WINNERS League M Alzamora Cloud9 officially announced the signing of ATK’s CSGO roster in a post on the organization’s website. The ATK roster joins Cloud9 after an impressive showing at the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals where the team defeated both North and G2 Esports in best-of-threes before falling to eventual tournament winner mousesports in the third round of the lower bracket. The full ATK roster has made the switch, including head coach Tiaan …

League of Legends

Afreeca Freecs wins 2019 KeSPA Cup, sets sights on LCK Spring Split William Davis Afreeca Freecs is the KeSPA Cup 2019 champion! The team completed its KeSPA Cup run with a decisive, 3-0 victory over Sandbox Gaming in the grand finals. Ahead of the tournament, Afreeca was never discussed as a possible contender for the title. The organization had a quiet off-season compared to other teams in the LCK that made major free agent signings. Afreeca took a different approach by keeping a solid …

Counter-Strike

IEM Katowice Major was the most-watched CSGO event of 2019 Olivia Richman Amassing over 1.2 million peak viewers, the IEM Katowice Major 2019 was the highest viewed Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event of 2019.  IEM Katowice’s peak viewership of 1,205,103 shot it far ahead of the other big CSGO events last year, including the StarLadder Berlin Major which reached a peak of 837,748 viewers. Viewership declines even more for non-Major events, with ESL One Cologne 2019 reaching 506,375 peak views.  IEM Katowice was …

News

zappis retires from Overwatch League to pursue streaming, school Olivia Richman After four years in the professional Overwatch scene, Florida Mayhem flex tank Joonas “zappis” Alakurtti is retiring from competitive play.  In a TwitLonger post, zappis opened up about his decision. He cited a lack of motivation as his main reason for leaving the competitive Overwatch scene, stating that he feels he can not give the game 100% anymore.  “Some of you may know that I finished my Bachelor’s degree in law …

Counter-Strike Dignitas reuniting GeT_RiGhT, f0rest, and other NiP legends By M Alzamora Fortnite Ninja rages over Fornite lightsabers, demands Epic remove them By Olivia Richman Dota 2 Quick guide to Dota 2 warding in the early, mid, and late game By Steven Rondina

Dota 2

Dota 2 fans panic as game hits historic player count lows Steven Rondina Dota 2’s player base hit historic lows last month. According to Steam Charts, Dota 2’s average player count in December 2019 was just 384,179, with a peak of 685,165. Those tallies are the lowest in a calendar month since January 2014, a time that was in the middle stages of Dota 2’s initial rise to prominence. This continues what has been a bad six-month stretch for the game. 2019 was …

Counter-Strike

Everything you need to know about CSGO betting markets Steven Rondina Betting is woven into the fabric of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s fanbase. For years, the game had a massive and vibrant betting industry that revolved around in-game cosmetic items. Players could freely wager their skins through various third-party sites with few limitations. The questionable ethics and legality of the practice eventually resulted in multiple lawsuits, an FTC investigation, and a crackdown from CSGO publisher Valve that largely killed skin betting. Despite …

League of Legends

LPL gets new schedule for Spring 2020, runs Monday through Sunday William Davis The League of Legends Pro League surprised fans with a packed schedule for the 2020 Spring Split. The 2020 LPL spring season will have games Monday through Sunday for ten weeks. The schedule took many fans by surprise, considering that the LPL used to have one day off in the week. While the schedule looks packed, the teams will be playing the same amount of games in the season. Every day …

Counter-Strike

mOE trolls Wardell on stream with fake Vertigo run boost M Alzamora Vertigo has always been a controversial map, but nobody can deny that if offers some of the best run boost plays in all of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. During a pick-up game on Vertigo, Counter-Strike fixture Mohamad “m0E” Assad managed to get Matthew “Wardell” Yu to fall for the oldest trick in the book. Literally. After convincing Wardell that it was possible to runboost from B site to T spawn, Wardell took …

GG.Bet ICE Challenge sees mousesports, Na`Vi as early favorites M Alzamora Counter-Strike The list of teams and tournament format for the GG.Bet Ice Challenge 2020 have been revealed. The eight competitors will travel to London in February to compete for their slice of the tournament’s $250,000 prize pool. Both Natus Vincere and mousesports are the favorites to take home the $125,000 first-place prize.  While they are the strongest teams on paper, OG will attend their second tournament ever at the ICE Challenge, …

G2 and Arctic Gaming form a new academy team for the 2020 SLO Syed Mujtaba Naqvi League of Legends G2 Esports has formed a new academy team named G2 Arctic for the 2020 Spanish Superliga Orange, the organization announced on January 3. The organization that holds the best European team and the 2019 World Championship runner up will now be nourishing young talent in the SLO, one of the biggest Spanish esports leagues. G2 Arctic will be fighting against nine other teams with a goal of obtaining a spot …

Awesome Games Done Quick 2020 schedule and streaming info Olivia Richman News Awesome Games Done Quick is almost here.  From January 5 to 12, speedrunners from all over the world will come together in Orlando, Florida to do what they do best: play games really, really fast.  According to the AGDQ website, the tournament has raised over $22.3 million for charity over the past nine years. The organization is currently the largest fundraising event globally for Doctors Without Borders and Prevent Cancer …

Fortnite community asks for buggy lightsabers to be vaulted now Olivia Richman Fortnite Lightsabers are the latest OP Fortnite weapon that players want banned.  January 7 can’t come soon enough for Fortnite fans who can no longer tolerate the limited time weapon. The Star Wars inspired weapon has been a part of Chapter 2 for some time now, but many players have started calling the lightsaber “game breaking” due to a bug allowing players to teleport.  One Reddit user clipped a video of …

TF Blade might play in the 2020 LCS due to Broxah’s visa delay Syed Mujtaba Naqvi League of Legends With the possibility of Mads “Broxah” Brock-Pedersen possibly not being able to perform with Team Liquid at the start of the 2020 LCS Spring Split, Ashkan “TF Blade” Homayouni might be replacing him for the time being. The best team in North America is possibly off to a rough start to the upcoming season, as it’s been recently shared that Broxah’s debut on the LCS stage planned for January could …

Town Faker is a new site for finding local LoL players in your area William Davis League of Legends Have you ever wondered how many League of Legends players live in your city? A redditor has created Town Faker, a website where players can register and find other players in the same country and city. League of Legends is a global community with millions of players logging in every day onto one of the eleven servers. Each server welcomes players from different countries, but the players have no way …

True Sight TI9 release date revealed, features OG and Liquid Steven Rondina Dota 2 Dota 2 fans will be able to experience the grand finals of The International 2019 in a new and much anticipated way. True Sight: The International 2019 is coming, showing the backstage drama that played out during the grand finals series between OG and Team Liquid. Valve released a short trailer for the documentary, showing what fans have to look forward to. The trailer shows both teams discussing the action …

Chaos EC release Infinite before IEM Katowice 2020 qualifiers M Alzamora Counter-Strike Gage “Infinite” Green has been benched from the active roster of Chaos Esports Club. The organization benched Infinite just days ahead of the IEM Katowice 2020 North American closed qualifier. The North American esports organization made the announcement on its official Twitter account while also announcing that the team would be relocating to Arizona. Infinite joined Chaos EC exactly year ago, on January 3, 2019. In an official statement from …

Dota 2 vs. LoL debate continues with G2 Esports CEO, OG’s Ceb gabhernandez Dota 2 The Dota 2 vs. League of Legends debate rages on.  G2 Esports CEO Carlos Rodríguez Santiago chimed in on the discussion with a minute-long video on Twitter comparing and contrasting the two games, using cars as an analogy. He told fans that League of Legends is like BMW i8, a machine he said is “crafted by the gods.” On the other hand, Dota 2 can be compared to a 1993 …

Vanity officially leaves eUnited after months on team’s bench M Alzamora Counter-Strike Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player Anthony “vanity” Malaspina has announced that he is no longer a part of the eUnited organization. The North American player was benched by eUnited on November 10 in favor of a returning Kaleb “moose” Jayne. Vanity joined eUnited in February 2019 and functioned as the team’s in-game leader during his time with the organization. His benching came after a string of poor results dating back to July 2019. During that …

Sprout adds oskar ahead of DreamHack Open Leipzig, lacks fifth M Alzamora Counter-Strike Czech AWPer Tomáš “oskar” Šťastný has officially signed with the Sprout Counter-Strike: Global Offensive organization following the departure of Spout’s Florian “syrsoN” Rische and Nils “k1to” Gruhne to German CSGO organization BIG. Almost as soon as rumors indicating that BIG was scouting the two Sprout players, speculation surfaced that Sprout had pegged free agent AWPer and ex-mousesports star oskar as a potential replacement for srysoN as the team’s primary AWPer.  Those rumors were …

League of Legends players are upset with lack of shorter game modes Syed Mujtaba Naqvi League of Legends League of Legends games aren’t short, as is the case with many esports titles, and casual players don’t necessarily like having to queue for long matches all the time. While League used to offer different game modes designed for those who want to jump in for a quick play, both the Crystal Scar and Twisted Treeline, two maps that offered quicker games, are now gone. For players that don’t feel …

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