News

League of Legends Inero joins Golden Guardians as consultant By William Davis News Seagull retires from OWL, returns to streaming By gabhernandez News New esports stadium coming to Canada By gabhernandez

Counter-Strike

The Imperial take home surprise DreamHack trophy Jared Wynne DreamHack’s latest summer event saw an unexpected winner as The Imperial took home first place.   The Imperial managed a 2-0 win over OpTic Gaming in the grand final to take home their $50,000 cut of the prize pool.   The participants list consisted of six invited teams along with qualifiers The Imperial and North America’s compLexity.   Group A saw The Imperial and North wiping out AGO Esports and …

News

Dynasty won’t allow Spitfire fan meeting in Seoul gabhernandez London Spitfire General Manager Susie Kim has announced that the Seoul Dynasty would not approve a fan meeting in Seoul for the Spitfire, whose players are all from South Korea. The backlash was instantaneous, with some fans criticising her transparency and the team’s lack of planning for a London meetup. Kim indicated that the team was working on a fan meetup in London for October, but that the team had …

League of Legends

Clutch Gaming part with Head Coach William Davis Clutch Gaming is parting ways with head coach David Lim, the organization has announced through a press release. Clutch Gaming finished the Spring Split in fourth place, but failed to find similar success in the summer. The changes in the meta didn’t favor AD Carry Apollo “Apollo” Price, the player widely considered the key to the team’s success. According to the press release, assistant coach Anand “Curry” Agarwal was appointed …

Dota 2

Valve addresses complaints with TI Battle Pass gabhernandez Amidst rampant complaints from players, Valve has fixed the item drop rates for Immortal Treasures in this year’s Battle Pass. The anticipated Immortal Treasure III from The International Battle Pass was released on July 31.  The Immortal items did not disappoint the community, as excited fans were quick to open their shiny new treasure chests. High leveled Battle Pass owners were saddened when they were not rewarded the ultra-rare items …

News Boston Uprising to hold open tryouts By William Davis News Expansion slots announced for OWL season 2 By Fariha Bhatti Dota 2 Casters announced for The International 2018 By Steven Rondina

Dota 2

Dota 2 gets final patch before The International gabhernandez Valve has released a few final tweaks before the biggest esports event of the year. The culmination of DOTA Summit 9 paved the way for some small but significant changes in Dota 2 gameplay. The 7.19 patch is expected to bring more balance prior to The International 2018. In 7.19, daily bonus heroes will feel more fair as the provided Enchanted Mango count has been reduced to one. A small …

League of Legends

Cloud9 opens summer split with perfect week Steven Rondina Cloud9 finally has something to smile about, securing its first unbeaten week in Week 6 of the 2018 NA LSC Summer Split. Up until this week, Cloud9 has looked completely lost. A revolving door of a roster has seemingly done nothing to fix the team’s in-game indecision that has marred its results since the beginning of the split. Cloud9 sat in last place early on, looking like the worst team …

News

DJ Khaled falls flat at OWL grand finals gabhernandez DJ Khaled struggled to hype up the crowd at the Overwatch League Grand Finals in Brooklyn. Blizzard hired the high-profile musical artist to entertain the crowd for the last day of the finals. Fan reactions leading up to the performance were mixed. The producer made his way onto the stage to a loud reaction. He played some of his most popular songs, but his multiple attempts to cut the music …

League of Legends

Pobelter Scores 1000th Kill in LCS career Steven Rondina Team Liquid Mid Laner Eugene “Pobelter” Park has secured the thousandth kill of his NA LCS career. The kill came 26 minutes into Team Liquid shutting the door on Clutch Gaming, as Pobelter’s Orianna eliminated Chae “Piglet” Gwang-jin’s Ezreal. Pobelter’s thousandth kill was his first of the game, as Team Liquid characteristically won the early game through the bot lane. The “Notorious POB’s” achievement was almost an afterthought in another …

Clutch Gaming make big roster moves in bid for playoffs Steven Rondina League of Legends Clutch Gaming will be making some big substitutions this week. Jungler Nam “LirA” Tae-yoo, AD carry Apollo “Apollo” Price, and support Nickolas “Hakuho” Surgent will not be on the starting roster. Clutch Gaming Academy jungler Galen “Moon” Holgate will be debuting on the main roster alongside academy bot lane duo Chae “Piglet” Gwang-Jin and Philippe “Vulcan” Laflamme. This is the first time Clutch Gaming has adjusted its roster in its …

New Steam Chat features go live gabhernandez News Valve has flipped the switch to release new features for Steam chat. The new Steam chat boasts a flexible friends list with a drag and drop functionality. Friends are automatically grouped by game and party, and favorite buddies can be pinned on top for easier communication. The new Steam chat is also multimedia friendly. When words just aren’t enough, users can send GIFs and images. Valve also embedded support for …

Counter Logic Gaming partner with Pepsi Steven Rondina News Counter Logic Gaming has a new sponsor, and it’s a big one. PepsiCo has signed a deal with Madison Square Garden that will secure partnerships for CLG, as well as other applicable properties under the MSG brand. The deal will start September 1, and from that date PepsiCo will sponsor MSG and all of its properties. PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew brand recently launched the Game Fuel League, a European Rocket League …

MiSeRy to coach Pain Gaming for TI8 gabhernandez Dota 2 Pain Gaming is bringing on a new coach in their quest for the Aegis of Champions. Rasmus “MISERY” Filipsen has been enlisted as the coach of Pain Gaming for their approaching run at The International. The move reunites him with former Digital Chaos teammate Aliwi “w33” Omar. Pain Gaming announced MISERY’s addition to the team on Twitter. The video highlighted MISERY’s notable achievements in the Dota 2 scene. These include …

Echo Fox Acquires Smoothie from Cloud9 Amidst Roster Changes Steven Rondina League of Legends Echo Fox made a massive summer splash Tuesday, acquiring the contract of Andy “Smoothie” Ta from Cloud9. The move was originally reported by The Shotcaller, and stands to give Echo Fox some much needed stability at the support position. Starting alongside Smoothie in the bottom lane will be Echo Fox Academy ADC Carry Lawrence “Lost” Hui. A highly touted player with experience in the Oceanic Pro League under his belt, …

Dota 2 caster leaks info on Artifact card game gabhernandez Dota 2 A new leak has brought some of the first bits of information regarding the mysterious Dota 2 card game Artifact to light. Artifact is a card game based on Dota lore. There are 280 cards featured in the game, with 44 heroes besides. Richard Garfield, creator of Magic: The Gathering, designed the cards. In a closed-door launch, Valve revealed that Artifact will create new content for Dota 2. New heroes …

Complexity and Rogue secure London Major spots Jared Wynne Counter-Strike FACEIT’s Major qualifier for the Americas region saw compLexity and Rogue winning spots at the next Counter-Strike major. The grand final saw Rogue and compLexity battling it out for the bigger share of the $50,000 prize pool. After a landslide 16-3 victory for compLexity on Mirage, they achieved a more difficult 16-14 victory on Dust 2, giving them the set victory by a 2-0 margin. So it was that compLexity would go …

NiP, OpTic triumphant at Europe Minor gabhernandez Counter-Strike Ninjas In Pyjamas secured their qualifying spot in the FACEIT Major alongside OpTic Gaming. NiP faced OpTic Gaming during the Europe Minor Championship on July 22. While OpTic Gaming has a strong showing, NiP proved to hold the competitive edge and shut out Optic during the finals. Throughout the entire tournament, NiP were looked at as a strong contender for qualification. Beating both Sprout and ENCE during their road to …

TSM and Immortals secure big money investments Steven Rondina News Two of the largest esports organizations in the world received a huge influx of capital on Tuesday as TSM and Immortals both made announcements regarding large financial investments. As first reported by Forbes, TSM parent company Swift secured $37 million in Series A funding for both the TSM organization and for Swift’s other projects including its content creation and analytics. This whopping sum comes from a group of investors led …

North emerge victorious at DreamHack Valencia Jared Wynne Counter-Strike The latest iteration of the DreamHack Open tournament series saw North demonstrate their newfound potential for dominance.     North effortlessly swept Luminosity Gaming with a 2-0 victory in the grand final at DreamHack Valencia, taking home their $50,000 share of the total $100,000 prize pool.   The city of Valencia, Spain served as hub for the two-day event. Five invited teams were in attendance, joined by three qualifiers: Fragsters …

The LPL wins Rift Rivals for second year in a row William Davis League of Legends The Chinese squad took the victory after five games. This is the second time in a row that the LPL has defeated the LCK at Rift Rival. The tournament final started with a match between Invictus Gaming and KT Rolster. Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu surprised the audience when he picked Vel’Koz in the bottom lane, and Go “Score” Dong-bin surprised his Chinese opponents with an early first blood as the game got underway. Both junglers focused …

EG add another Dota Summit title Steven Rondina News Evil Geniuses are the new Dota Summit champions. Facing stiff competition at The Dota Summit 9, EG managed to halt a skid of poor offline results. More importantly, the “boys in blue” positioned themselves as a legitimate contender for The International. It was immediately clear that EG would be a force at the Summit 9, opening the first day of group play with a 3-1 run that included a sweep …

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