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Apex Legends Dr DisRespect, Shroud, others feature in Twitch Rivals Apex Legends By gabhernandez League of Legends Riot’s API Challenge brings innovation and Yasuo bans By Olivia Richman League of Legends G2 resist Vitality’s bot lane pressure to remain unbeaten By William Davis

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NYXL announces partnership with T-Mobile Olivia Richman The New York Excelsior’s newly announced partnership with T-Mobile is one of many ways the team hopes to engage its New York fan base. T-Mobile will be sponsoring local fan events, custom content, and new merch for Season 2. This includes NYXL Homebound, a watch party on February 14 at the 40/40 Club in Manhattan. Attending fans will be able to watch the team’s first match of the year. “We …

News

Big changes coming to Overwatch Contenders Steven Rondina Overwatch Contenders will look quite a bit different this year. With Overwatch League Season 2 approaching, Overwatch Contenders has announced several changes to its format and playoff structure. These tweaks are designed to allow the two sides to more effectively run parallel while also offering OWL teams with farm systems a better opportunity to promote or demote talent as needed. Foremost among the changes are shifts to the league schedule. …

League of Legends

A former MLB executive is the new Gen.G CEO William Davis Gen.G has announced Chris Park as the organization’s new CEO. Chris Park was a senior vice-president for Major League Baseball prior to his appointment as the CEO of Gen.G. Park joins the organization after four years in charge of products and marketing at the MLB. The move makes Park the latest executive to transition from the world of traditional sports to esports, a nascent industry in need of experienced talents …

News

Denial Esports co-owner in hot water for homophobic comments William Davis The Twitter account of new Denial Esports co-owner Zach Smith has been suspended following release of a video in which he defends the use of homophobic slurs. “All the nerds are mad that I said [expletive],” said Smith in the video. “I didn’t say [expletive] in a connotation negative for gays. I said it because he was being a [expletive]. It’s the same as being a bitch.” Smith continued by …

Apex Legends Apex Legends hits over 10 million players in three days By Steven Rondina Counter-Strike Cloud9, Fnatic, NRG set for opening matches at Katowice major By Steven Rondina News Disney to air Overwatch League on ABC, cable stations By Olivia Richman

League of Legends

China declares esports an official career path Olivia Richman Esports has officially been accepted as a career path in China. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of China added “esports operators” and “esports professionals” to its growing list of approved career paths. The ministry described an “esports professional” as someone who competes in tournaments, performs in events, and trains with other pro players. It also lists a Chinese term that translates to “account boosting” as one of …

Fortnite

Epic seeks to use influencers to bring business to new store Steven Rondina Epic Games’ Support-A-Creator program is expanding. The publisher announced on Twitter its plans to implement the crowdfunding tool outside of Fortnite, and to enable it across the entire Epic Games Store. The move ties into the company’s greater effort to expand the visibility of its new digital distribution platform. Support-A-Creator was initially introduced in October and offered content creators across various social media platforms the opportunity to receive a cut …

News

Florida Mayhem president answers questions from angry fans Olivia Richman Florida Mayhem president John Kracum bravely took to Reddit to respond to fans angry with his team’s disastrous debut. In Season 1, Mayhem finished second to last in the standings, ahead of only the winless Shanghai Dragons. Player mistreatment and rumors of mismanagement had fans reeling even more than the team’s dire in-game performance. This all came to a head when it leaked that player Kevyn “TviQ” Lindstrom drove the …

Counter-Strike

North take the top spot at GG.BET Ice Challenge Jared Wynne North racked up a big win over two teams soon to challenge for major glory. Danish Counter-Strike team North emerged victorious at the GG.BET Ice Challenge, defeating Natus Vincere in the final by a convincing two maps to zero. Na`Vi didn’t go down without a fight. One of the top ranked teams in the world, Na`Vi was spearheaded by Denis “electronic” Sharipov. The Russian star managed a combined 53 frags …

Valve Anti-Cheat bans over 900,000 accounts in one month Olivia Richman Counter-Strike Newly released statistics may confirm Counter-Strike: Global Offense players’ worst fear since Valve announced the game moving to free-to-play. Valve Anti-Cheat banned over 900,000 accounts in January, the highest number of bans in a single month since the release of Counter-Strike: Global Offense. The anti-cheat software was averaging 25,000 bans per day last month. Using third-party tool SteamDB shows that the collected statistics may shoot up past one million bans …

The New Bloom event comes to Dota 2 gabhernandez Dota 2 Valve is kicking off the Lunar New Year with the New Bloom event, accessible to all Dota 2 players. The event includes the New Bloom rewards line. Players will be able to track their progress throughout the event, totalling the number of points earned by winning a normal, ranked, or turbo matches. Each day, an additional of 1,250 points will be rewarded to the player’s first won match. A normal …

Overwatch player uses a piano to play Overwatch’s piano gabhernandez News What’s better than playing a piano in Overwatch? Using a piano to play a piano in Overwatch, of course. If you introduce a playable piano into your game, chances are people are going to find ways to make interesting content around it. An Overwatch player known as Zbnone fashioned a real electric piano into a controller and used it to play the Paris map’s in-game piano, with each key on …

The latest League patch is a love letter to ADCs Olivia Richman League of Legends League of Legend’s 9.3 patch notes are a love letter to ADCs, delivered just in time for Valentine’s Day. ADCs have felt a little neglected in the current mea, and Riot has promised change. Riot is giving the ADCs in their life some crit item changes to help them cope with the burst damage carries now frequently run into. Infinity Edge was reworked with an added extra 25 percent chance …

Overwatch League releases list of rule breakers Olivia Richman News When it comes to new Overwatch League players, Blizzard is making a list and checking it twice. As new players and teams were announced for the 2019 season, the Overwatch League office conducted a full review of each player’s conduct and took appropriate disciplinary action. While each pro’s case is different, the league office does follow an official set of rules for competition and conduct. Some rule highlights include not …

JW and KRiMZ sign on for three more years at Fnatic Olivia Richman Counter-Strike Two Counter-Strike legends are in it for the long haul with their team. Fnatic revealed new three-year contracts for Jesper “JW” Wecksell and Freddy “KRiMZ” Johansson, who the organization called “esports legends” and “two of the greatest Counter-Strike players of all time.” JW and KRiMZ have been playing together on Fnatic since 2014, except for a short six-month stint with GODSENT. JW joined Fnatic in mid-2013, while KRiMZ was signed …

TNC captain ninjaboogie departs team following poor results gabhernandez News Team captain and support player Michael “ninjaboogie” Ross has departed TNC Predator. With the team’s recent roster changes, TNC Predator have looked shaky and uneven. The return of Carlo “Kuku” Palad and the team’s early exit at the DreamLeague Season 11 SEA Qualifiers marked the end of the line for the squad’s captain. Ninjaboogie joined TNC from Mineski shortly after The International 2018. The seasoned SEA veteran was picked up …

Smooya banned from FPL after telling fellow player to kill himself William Davis Counter-Strike It looks like we won’t be seeing pro Counter-Strike player Owen “smooya” Butterfield in FPL matches any time soon. The British teen was banned by FaceIt for telling another top player, Ismail “Refrezh” Ali, to “kill himself” following a match on the platform. Smooya suspected that Ali had purposefully thrown the match and was frustrated with the possible situation. His response to it, however, was dramatically over the line.  Smooya …

Twitch streamer and Hi-Rez employee arrested in child sex sting Olivia Richman News Twitch partner Thomas “Elvine” Cheung was one of 21 men arrested for allegedly arranging to have sex with a minor. The 32-year-old Hi-Rez Studios employee had been using dating app Whisper to talk to a 14-year-old girl. The profile was actually an undercover agent from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Cheung was charged with using a computer service “to seduce, solicit, lure, or entice” a child. Hi-Rez Studios’ CEO Stew …

Millions flock to Apex Legends, the latest battle royale Steven Rondina Apex Legends Apex Legends is taking the world by storm. The battle royale made by EA Games is just a few days old, but has already made its presence felt. Strong support from popular streamers coupled with a free-to-play model has seen Apex Legends’ player count roar into seven digits within the space of a day. According to Respawn Entertainment CEO Vince Zampella, it took the the game just eight hours to …

Cloud9 star Sneaky reveals another revealing cosplay Olivia Richman League of Legends Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi’s gender-bending cosplay has the League of Legends community afire. The Cloud9 bot laner couldn’t wait until the summer to show off his latest Swimsuit Ahri cosplay on Twitter. The photos, which perfectly hid his bare bottom with a well-placed emoji, are among many available on Sneaky’s official Patreon. Many of Sneaky’s League of Legends-inspired cosplays are available as signed and customized polaroids through his Patreon, which currently …

Diving into stats from the Chongqing Major Steven Rondina Dota 2 The Chongqing Major gave Dota 2 fans a lot to chew on. The meta had developed, the rosters had settled in the aftermath of The International, and teams had found identities in and out of competition. This was reflected in the tournament’s statistics, which Reddit user “ellanarkJESUS” compiled in a smooth infographic. There are a lot of takeaways from the numbers, but the biggest is the possible transformation of Team …

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