News

Dota 2 Casters announced for The International 2018 By Steven Rondina Dota 2 Dota 2 gets final patch before The International By gabhernandez League of Legends Cloud9 opens summer split with perfect week By Steven Rondina

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 …

League of Legends

Clutch Gaming make big roster moves in bid for playoffs Steven Rondina 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 …

News

New Steam Chat features go live gabhernandez 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 …

News Counter Logic Gaming partner with Pepsi By Steven Rondina Dota 2 MiSeRy to coach Pain Gaming for TI8 By gabhernandez League of Legends Echo Fox Acquires Smoothie from Cloud9 Amidst Roster Changes By Steven Rondina

Dota 2

Dota 2 caster leaks info on Artifact card game gabhernandez 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 …

Counter-Strike

Complexity and Rogue secure London Major spots Jared Wynne 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 …

Counter-Strike

NiP, OpTic triumphant at Europe Minor gabhernandez 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 …

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TSM and Immortals secure big money investments Steven Rondina 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 …

OWL Players Attend Olympic Discussions with Blizzard William Davis News Jacob “JAKE” Lyon and Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon are set to attend the Esports Forum. The event will be hosted by the International Olympic Committee and Global Association of International Sports Federations. It’s set to take place in Lausanne, Switzerland between July 20 and July 21. Rick Fox, former NBA player and owner of Echo Fox, will moderate the forum. JAKE and Geguri will represent the Overwatch community alongside Mike Morhaime, …

Overwatch is free to play this July Fariha Bhatti News Blizzard has announced that Overwatch will be free to play on PC from July 26 to July 30. The free weekend is part of the celebrations for the Overwatch League’s upcoming grand final. During the weekend, those accessing the game for free will be able to play all of the game’s heroes. This includes newly released hero Wrecking Ball. All game modes will also be available with the exception of …

AI bots are trying to beat Dota 2 pros gabhernandez Dota 2 Bots will soon take to the big stage to try beating a team of professional Dota 2 players. OpenAi aims to impress professionals and fans alike in a show match at The International. Dota 2 fans are about to witness huge improvement in OpenAI. A team of five neutral networks, dubbed OpenAI Five, are playing 180 years worth of Dota 2 games every day. The bots use reinforcement learning at …

Houston Outlaws add official cosplayer to team Fariha Bhatti News Houston Outlaws have announced a new member of the Outlaws organization. But rather than inviting a new professional Overwatch player, the team has introduced an official cosplayer. Twitter user JTBass3, known by her handle ‘Lucy in Disguise’, was given the opportunity after appearing at fan-organised watch parties in cosplay as D.Va in the Houston Outlaws skin. Before formally joining Houston, Lucy made a name for herself within the team’s fan …

Registration opens for Aegis and Baby Roshan gabhernandez Dota 2 Registration for the most coveted item in The International Battle Pass is now open for eligible players. The Collector’s Aegis of Champions and Baby Roshan are rewarded to Battle Pass owners to celebrate the milestone of reaching the 1000 and 2000 Battle Pass levels, respectively. Since 2015, the 1/5th scale replica of the Aegis of Champions is given to Battle Pass owners who reach level 1000. The replica is made …

Let’s Do It Head to Dota Summit 9 gabhernandez Dota 2 Polish team Let’s Do It have secured the BTS Summer Cup title and earned a direct invite to the upcoming DOTA Summit 9. After taking down Alliance in the loser’s finals, Let’s Do It faced tournament favorites Wind and Rain. The first game of the series was lopsided. Utilizing an early Helm of the Dominator on Natan “Exotic Deer” Michalewicz’s Broodmother, Let’s Do It quickly pushed through and destroyed Wind …

Korea and Taiwan Meet Again at Rift Rivals William Davis League of Legends The League Master Series finished the group stage with a poor 2-6 record. On the other side of the rift, the League Champions Korea teams finished at an even 4-4. These results were an early indication of how one-sided the semifinals would be. KING-ZONE DragonX AD carry Kim “PraY” Jong-in and support Kang “GorillA” Beom-hyeon showed their dominance from the beginning. A strong pushing bottom lane gave Han “Peanut” Wang-ho the freedom to invade LMS team Machi’s …

Exclusive rewards available to fans during OWL finals Fariha Bhatti News Blizzard has announced that exclusive in-game rewards will be available to Overwatch fans watching the Overwatch League broadcast on Twitch. Players who watch OWL matches on Twitch will receive double the usual amount of league tokens per map played, as well as exclusive sprays for use in-game. The double multiplier on league tokens will be applied at the end of each map, so players can earn two points instead of …

London Spitfire head to OWL grand final gabhernandez News Orange and blue confetti spilled over the Overwatch Arena on Friday, signifying the London Spitfire’s victory over the Los Angeles Valiant and granting the Spitfire a spot in the Overwatch League finals. The Spitfire have been on a roll since their reverse sweep win over the Los Angeles Gladiators in the previous series. That crushing defeat of the Valiant gave them all the momentum they needed to break into the …

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