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Dota 2 The International 2019 is headed to Shanghai By Steven Rondina Dota 2 Two new heroes announced at TI8 By Steven Rondina Dota 2 n0tail and Fly’s personal drama the focus at TI8 By gabhernandez

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San Francisco Shock Release Three Players gabhernandez The San Francisco Shock have announced the release of three players from their roster. The players released include tank David “Nomy” Ramirez, support Daniel “dhaK” Martínez Paz, and DPS André “iddqd” Dahlström. The Shock had a fairly disappointing first season, finishing in ninth place overall. A full five games separated them from eighth place side Seoul Dynasty. Although fan reactions on Twitter include crying gifs and general well wishes for …

Dota 2

Gabe Newell is the latest Dota 2 announcer gabhernandez This year’s International immortalizes a comical act from Valve founder Gabe Newell, popularly dubbed by the community as “Lord GabeN.” A video presented during the main event of The International featured a skit including Kaci Aitchison, Jake “SirActionSlacks” Kanner, and Gabe Newell. Newell transitioned from his brief cameo role in a TI7 video to a lead role in this short comedy. The video was shot in a recording studio opening …

Counter-Strike

Valve brings new Panorama UI to Counter-Strike Jared Wynne If you’ve played Counter-Strike for any sizeable amount of time, you’ve probably come across posts like these asking Valve to change their venerated game. It seems like our prayers, or at least some of them, have finally been answered. Valve has released the fabled Panorama UI along with a new weapon, the MP5-SD. What does this all mean? While we still don’t have many details on Valve’s development process, we …

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Félix “xQc” Lengyel given warning ahead of World Cup qualifiers gabhernandez Prominent Overwatch streamer and Team Canada player Félix “xQc” Lengyel was issued a formal warning by Blizzard ahead of qualifiers for the World Cup, but will remain eligible to play. The warning comes after a 15-day suspension of his main account that had many worried that xQc would be disqualified from participating in the event. The official rules for the World Cup state that a player’s account must be in …

League of Legends Bjergsen Sets 2018 Summer Split Kill Record By gabhernandez Dota 2 TI8 Playoffs Day One ends with 4 teams eliminated By Steven Rondina News Gladiators trade Fissure to Seoul Dynasty By gabhernandez

Dota 2

EG pick wrong heroes, still win at The International gabhernandez Evil Geniuses managed to take the first game of  a series versus Invictus Gaming even after a misclick on the draft screen led to an errant hero selection. The International 2018 group stage has highlighted much of what makes the world’s best teams so strong, but some mistakes are inevitable. Evil Geniuses amused the TI8 audience when they accidentally switched the roles of Tal “Fly” Aizik and Artour “Arteezy” Babaev. …

Dota 2

Dota 2 pros defeat advanced AI, save humanity gabhernandez The International’s big stage showcased the toughest test yet for OpenAI Five. After its initial success, the neutral networks proved that they can square up against the best players in Dota 2. A significant restriction was removed, making the games played closer to standard Dota 2 gameplay. Instead of using five vulnerable couriers, OpenAI Five trained with a single courier. This greatly impacts their self-learning ability on courier prioritization and …

Dota 2

The TI8 main event bracket is set Steven Rondina The group stage of The International 2018 wrapped up on Saturday night and with that the brackets have been set for the tournament’s playoffs. Wykrhm Reddy revealed the opening matchups for the TI8 main event and there are a lot of interesting games already set. https://twitter.com/wykrhm/status/1031023918486675456 The upper bracket kicks off with a trio of North America vs. Europe matches in OpTic Gaming vs. Team Liquid, VGJ.Storm vs. OG, and …

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Overwatch League All-Star Weekend Steven Rondina The top competitors in the Overwatch League will gather at Blizzard Arena once again for the inaugural Overwatch League All-Star Weekend. The All-Star weekend will feature the creme of the crop of OWL talent. These elite talents will be voted in by fans as starters for teams of the respective Pacific and Atlantic Divisions. Teams will be drafted to each side depending on which team they played for in the …

Return of the Legends 2018 Steven Rondina League of Legends Return of the Legends is coming back around for another year. The tournament started in 2017 and looks to be an recurring annual event. Return of the Legends 2018 features retired professional players from both the eastern and western parts of the world. Old fans of Cloud9 will see familiar faces in Hai “Hai” Lam and Derek “LemonNation” Hart. TSM’s Marcus “Dyrus” Hill will also be on Team West, along …

Cloud9 continue epic comeback with playoff bye Steven Rondina League of Legends Cloud9 has done what seemed impossible. After sitting in 10th place in the standings just four weeks ago, Cloud9 is now guaranteed a top two finish in the 2018 NA LCS Summer Split. They will qualify for the 2018 NA LCS Summer Playoffs with a quarterfinals bye. A win over Golden Guardians secured a playoff seed for Cloud9, and a subsequent victory over FlyQuest secured the bye — not bad …

Wildturtle and FlyQuest are headed to LCS playoffs Steven Rondina League of Legends A week 9 victory over Golden Guardians resulted in FlyQuest punching its first ticket to the playoffs in two years. The seeding will be determined in the remaining games of the regular season. FlyQuest has been a pleasant surprise in the summer split, rising to fan favorite status after a slew of backdoor victories. In an interview with InvenGlobal, AD Carry Jason “WILDTURTLE” Tran attributed FlyQuest’s rise to his teammates’ …

Team Spain coach announces withdrawal from Overwatch World Cup gabhernandez News Jonathan “HarryHook” Tejedor Rua has announced via Twitter that Team Spain will have to brave the Overwatch World Cup without a coach. HarryHook expressed his disappointment in Blizzard’s decision against letting the team bring in a replacement coach, noting that if it were Team USA making the request he was sure that they would be able to get a substitute. Shortly after, Sergi “Paranoidxz” Carrasco Marsiñach posted his explanation for …

South Korea defeats Finland in Overwatch World Cup Qualifier gabhernandez News South Korea secured a win over Finland in of the Overwatch World Cup’s most anticipated qualifying games. While South Korea is the favorite to win it all, the Finnish team looked good going into the match. Finland’s roster was stacked with six big name Overwatch League players from five different teams. Finland’s players represent the Philadelphia Fusion, Houston Outlaws, Dallas Fuel, Florida Mayhem, and the Los Angeles Gladiators. South Korea’s …

Tyler1 leads push for voice comms in League solo queue gabhernandez League of Legends The maligned solo queue experience has been a subject of ridicule since League of Legends’ inception, but there are some surprising people who are working hard to improve it.   Tyler “Tyler1” Steinkamp, a League of Legends player and content creator once renowned for his negative attitude and ensuing permanent ban from League of Legends, has proved once again that he has turned over a new leaf.   On August …

Invictus Gaming and paIN Gaming are Eliminated from TI8 gabhernandez Dota 2 With the conclusion of The International group stage, two teams have waved goodbye to their Aegis aspirations. Invictus Gaming and paiN Gaming were ranked as the bottom teams from Group A and Group B respectively, seeing them exit the tournament before it reaches the main stage in Vancouver. In Group A, Invictus Gaming faced powerhouses and fan favorites including Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses, and PSG LGD.  They failed to win …

Overwatch pro to throw first pitch at Oakland Athletics game Steven Rondina News Esports and baseball will collide this week when the San Francisco Shock attend an Oakland Athletics game at the Oakland Coliseum. The Shock’s star DPS player Jay “sinatraa” Won will be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch of the game. The San Francisco Shock franchise is owned by NRG Esports, an esports organization based in California. The Bay Area ties run even deeper for the organization — NRG’s primary owners …

neptuNo withdraws from Spanish World Cup team gabhernandez News Alberto “neptuNo” González Molinillo has announced on Twitter that he will not be playing for Spain in the Overwatch World Cup in September. NeptuNo stated that he would be taking a break from professional Overwatch because he wanted time to see friends and focus on becoming a better player for the Overwatch League in Season 2. Originally, neptuNo was announced as one of the starting support players for team Spain. …

Fnatic Partners with Rivalry gabhernandez Dota 2 Fnatic have announced a new partnership with betting website Rivalry. The video announcement focused on the organization’s goals to enhance esports. The deal also promotes responsible esports betting practices through the education of bettors. Rivalry is a new betting website established earlier in 2018.  The website is an esports sportsbook licensed by the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission. Instead of Dota 2 items or in-game skins, betting in Rivalry.gg …

Valve tells Dota 2 teams not to take betting site sponsorships Steven Rondina News The Dota 2 sponsorship scene is going to look quite a bit different in 2019 if Valve has anything to say about it. According to multiple reports, during a pre-event meeting with teams the publisher discouraged organizations participating at The International 2018 from accepting sponsorships from betting sites. Though Valve did not outright ban betting site sponsorships, this is a massive shakeup for the Dota 2 scene. Over recent years, …

Dota Pro Circuit changes coming in 2019 Steven Rondina Dota 2 The Dota Pro Circuit for the 2018-2019 season is going to look quite different compared to this year’s version, in more ways than anyone was expecting. Valve officials met with players and staff from the 18 teams in attendance at The International and revealed another new set of changes to the DPC, including a massive change in how teams will qualify for TI9. As with this year, the 2018-2019 Dota …

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