News

Dota 2 Valve breaks silence on Artifact’s decline but promises little By Steven Rondina Dota 2 EHOME adds legendary midlaner Ferrari_430 to Dota 2 roster By Steven Rondina Counter-Strike NRG Esports at full strength for StarSeries after visa resolution By Steven Rondina

Dota 2

Virtus.pro drives DreamLeague Major to 10 million hours watched Steven Rondina The viewership totals are in for Dota 2’s latest big tournament, the DreamLeague Major. According to the Esports Observer, the event totalled over 10 million combined hours watched on Twitch. This includes both the English and Russian language broadcasts of the event, with the two languages enjoying comparable viewership for much of the tournament’s duration. Naturally, viewership peaked for the final days of the event which also saw viewership of …

News

Vancouver Titans announce Rogers Arena as home stadium for 2020 Olivia Richman Vancouver Titans have announced a home arena for the 2020 Overwatch League season. The Stage 1 champions named Rogers Arena in Vancouver as their home stadium in a Twitter announcement. The arena seats over 18,000 people and most commonly hosts music and sporting events. Rogers Arena is also the home of the NHL team Vancouver Cancuks. The Canucks are owned by the Aquilini Investment Group, who also own the Titans. …

League of Legends

G2 Esports dominates LEC all-pro results after successful first split Olivia Richman Europe is claiming to have the deepest player pool in the world after the inaugural split of the LEC has drawn to a close. As the LEC’s top six teams prepare for the playoffs, teams, casters, and journalists have weighed in on who they believe were the best players to set foot in the right this split. Five players took first place positions. Rasmus “Caps” Winther of G2 Esports had the highest …

Fortnite

Fortnite Duos Luxe Cup info and $100,000 prize pool revealed Olivia Richman Epic Games has announced all of the details for its Fortnite Duos Luxe Cup.  Just after last weekend’s Blackheart Cup, Fortnite is hosting another online cup with $100,000 in prize money on the line.  While many details are similar to past online tournaments, this is the first competition to use Fortnite’s new Arena Mode that was introduced in Patch 8.20. Similar to ranked play in most competitive titles, the Fortnite ranking …

Counter-Strike As CajunB’s contract with OpTic Gaming ends, team adds Niko and MSL By Steven Rondina Fortnite Drake invests in esports startup despite previous Twitch drama By Olivia Richman Counter-Strike Cache removed from tournament map pool, EZ4ENCE music kit arrives By Steven Rondina

Dota 2

PSG.LGD welcomes Dota 2 legend Yao back as a coach Olivia Richman Dota 2 legend Yao “Yao” Zhengzheng is returning to PSG.LGD as a coach. “The rumors are true. Yao is one of the more accomplished veterans in PSG.LGD’s history and we look forward to his return to challenge many champions,” LGD said on Twitter. Yao has been a part of the LGD esports organization for seven years, originally joining in 2011 after competing at The International with Online Kingdom. Yao led …

News

Atlanta Reign star Dafran announces sudden OWL retirement gabhernandez Overwatch League team Atlanta Reign has announced through Twitter that Daniel “Dafran” Francesca will be retiring from professional play. This news comes as a shock to many fans, though Dafran’s start to his Overwatch League career was a shaky one. He had tweeted that he was going back to work at McDonalds and that his contract with the Reign had been voided. This later proved to be something of a …

Fortnite

Ninja will soon have his face on Red Bull Energy Drink cans Olivia Richman Famous Fortnite personality Tyler “Ninja” Blevins can now add Red Bull Energy Drink cans to the list of products his face is plastered on. Red Bull announced that Ninja will appear on a limited edition can, available nationwide from April 1 to April 4 in four-packs and 12-packs. This comes soon after Wicked Cool Toys revealed a Ninja toy line, complete with plushes, wigs, and collectible figures. There are also …

Dota 2

Latest Auto Chess update features buffs, nerfs, easier combinations gabhernandez Another batch of minor updates has been released for popular Dota 2 custom game Auto Chess. With all of the hype surrounding Auto Chess, developer Drodo Studios is working hard to keep the game interesting by rolling out a series of minor updates. A new option has been added to the game allowing players to automatically combine three identical pieces on their waiting bench. However, this feature doesn’t work for …

Struggling games retailer Gamestop turns to esports for help Steven Rondina News Gamestop now has working relationships with a number of top American esports organizations. The video game retailer announced a series of partnerships with multi-game brands Team Envy, OpTic Gaming, and CompLexity Gaming. The news comes at a critical time for the company and kicks off what could be a larger push into esports for Gamestop. The partnerships extend to the organizations’ branded teams in games including Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and …

Sweeping changes to weapons, attachments arrive in PUBG update 27 Steven Rondina News A major balance patch has arrived in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, bringing changes to nearly every firearm in the game. After a week on test servers, Update 27 has arrived to the main client. The update brings sweeping changes to attachments, a slew of balance changes, and a reset to PUBG’s seasonal content. The highlight of the patch is the addition of the MP5K. The new sub-machine gun has been added as …

Article 13 passes, big changes coming for European content creators Olivia Richman News The European Parliament has voted to approve Article 13, introducing a lot of new changes for digital content creators in Europe. Article 13 states that YouTube and Twitch will be required to pay publishers in order to use their content on their websites, or else be charged with copyright infringement. To ensure the website doesn’t get punished, they must pay for people to manually look for copyrighted material, and either …

As Valve combats betting, Dota Pro Circuit app brings bets to Dota 2 Steven Rondina Dota 2 Valve has been pushing back against gambling on its top competitive titles, but it does seem to be priming its players to put some skin on the line through official company platforms. The Dota Pro Circuit mobile app dropped ahead of the DreamLeague Major and brought with it a new betting option for players. Dota Plus subscribers have the option to wager shards on the results of Pro Circuit games, …

Overwatch League All-Star event voting is now open for fans Olivia Richman News Overwatch League fans can now vote their favorite players into the All-Star event. This year’s All-Star event will take place on May 15 at the Blizzard Arena between Stages 2 and 3. Similar to League of Legend’s All-Star event, OWL’s will feature custom games throughout the weekend while the 12 top players from the Atlantic and Pacific divisions will compete. On May 16 there will be a first-to-four main event …

OpenAI Five return to face reigning Dota 2 champions OG Steven Rondina Dota 2 OpenAI is back and it is set to take on its greatest challenge yet. The complex artificial intelligence is set to take on reigning The International 2018 champions OG in a showmatch. The announcement was made by the team on Facebook. “To me the most fascinating thing is to see how the machine finds its way to break the game, and how it will clash with the human way,” OG …

Contenders China team makes big allegations against Blizzard, Defiant Olivia Richman News A Chinese Contenders team is making headlines for some hefty accusations against Blizzard, the Overwatch League, and Toronto Defiant. In a Weibo post, Overwatch team Lucky Future first leveled allegations against Robin Shi, the head administrator for the Chinese Contenders series. The team stated that between March 6 and 11, Shi took no action against the head coach of LGD Gaming after some shady dealings had been brought to his …

Overwatch patch 1.35 shapes up with several Reaper buffs, bug fixes Fariha Bhatti News The Overwatch development team has released an update to the Public Test Region servers introducing changes to Reaper, Symmetra, and Junkrat. This is the first iteration of patch 1.35, which also adds the ability for players to set their victory pose to random. Reaper’s ability Shadow Step has received numerous buffs with this patch, further increasing the damage hero’s mobility. Shadow Step is now available for use in mid-air, allowing …

Atlanta Reign announces child actor turned streamer in strange clip Olivia Richman News The Atlanta Reign’s recent streamer announcement has people wondering who it was they were seeing and why did he wake up in Steven “Kodak” Rosenberger’s bed? The Overwatch League expansion team has announced the signing of streamer Jared Gilmore on Twitter. The announcement was accompanied by a peculiar video. The clip starts off with Gilmore in bed, dreaming about receiving an Atlanta Reign jersey and tweeting about his first day …

Ranked matchmaking, new healing items added in latest Fortnite update Steven Rondina Fortnite The latest Fortnite update has dropped, bringing with it a series of long-awaited additions to the game. The 8.20 patch has officially launched, introducing ranked matchmaking alongside new items and some surprising balance tweaks. The centerpiece for the 8.20 update is the new Arena Mode, which serves as a competitive version of Fortnite Battle Royale. The game itself is no different from a standard Battle Royale game, but gives players …

Publisher EA lays off 350 employees across multiple departments Olivia Richman News The gaming industry is experiencing another mass layoff. Video game publisher Electronic Arts is laying off 350 people in marketing and publishing in an attempt to make these departments more efficient. This is a continuation of the consolidation that began last year, which included EA closing its offices in Russia and Japan. With hiring and travel freezes on hold in the marketing department since late last year, the departments were …

Deft becomes ninth player to record 1,000 kills in the LCK William Davis League of Legends Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu has celebrated his 1,000th kill in the LCK while playing against his former team KT Rolster. Considered one of the best bottom laners in the Korean region, Deft has accomplished several milestones since the start of his career in early 2013. Deft started with the since disbanded MVP Blue and then had a brief run with Samsung Blue. In 2014, Deft would have his first international experience …

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