Maddy Myers

NRG Esports Won’t Show Us Its “Zero Tolerance” Policy, But It Probably Sucks

On November 6, NRG Esports CEO and founder Andy Miller announced the firing of Overwatch team manager Max Bateman via Twitter, 14 hours after a woman said that he had sexually assaulted her. Miller tweeted that Bateman’s firing was “in accordance with NRG ESports zero tolerance policy.” Brett Lautenbach, president of NRG Esports and the…

Overwatch League has announced the full schedule for all of December’s pre-season games, as well as the first season, which starts January 10 and runs through June 16. The debut season has been split into four five-week stages, each of which culminates in a title match with a $125,000 prize pool.

Alexstrasza’s True Dragon Form “Broke The Game,” Says Heroes Of The Storm Director

At Blizzcon 2017, the Heroes of the Storm team announced the debut of Overwatch’s Hanzo and World of Warcraft’s Alexstrasza with a cinematic featuring the two dragon-themed characters facing off. In it, Alexstrasza transforms into her massive red dragon form, towering over her measly human opponent. But Heroes of the Storm game director Alan Dabiri…

The ELEAGUE Cup: Rocket League, Turner Sports’ next foray into esports broadcasts, will invite eight Rocket League teams to compete for a $150,000 prize pool. Twitch and YouTube will broadcast the tournament on December 1-3, and TBS will air three episodes highlighting the teams’ journeys on December 1, 8, and 15.

Overwatch Star Posts Smug Video About Being Mature, Has His Horny DMs Leaked One Day Later

In the past 48 hours, Brian “Kephrii” St. Pierre has gone from making a smug video about how other Overwatch pros are “rude” and should try being “a better person,” to becoming the center of a truly bonkers scandal in which he admitted to cheating on his wife with multiple female fans. In a statement…

Korean Esports Association Staffers Arrested In Embezzlement Investigation

Three employees of the Korean Esports Association (KeSPA), including a former assistant to chief executive Jun Byung-hun, have been arrested on suspicion of bribe-taking and money-laundering, according to Seoul-Yonhap News. KeSPA, an organization formed by the South Korean government in 2000, oversees the country’s esports industry, which includes some of the world’s best pro gaming…

StarCraft fans who have always wanted to visit Joeyray’s Bar got their wish at Blizzcon 2017. It’s the perfect place to sling back a drink, gaze at a photo of Kerrigan, and wonder what might have been. Don’t take too long, though! There’s a line of other folks also hoping to have a seat at…

Early Impressions Of Hanzo And Alexstrasza’s Heroes Of The Storm Debut

Two new heroes will join the Heroes of the Storm roster: Alexstrasza from World of Warcraft and Hanzo from Overwatch. They’re coming to Heroes of the Storm in the coming weeks, and both characters made their debut on the show floor at Blizzcon 2017. Hanzo didn’t feel hard to pick up and understand, so the…

Here’s Blizzcon 2017’s Hearthstone Tavern band, striking up a tune for the gathered attendees. Watch the video below to hear the song and get a view of the rest of the tavern crowd tonight, shortly after the conclusion of the evening’s Overwatch World Cup matches:

Sean “Day9”Plott holds court for a small but devoted audience at Blizzcon 2017’s “StarCraft 2 – What’s Next” panel. Day9 just compared the game’s new Protoss skins, to be included in the War Chest, to Overwatch. You know, Overwatch? That other game everyone’s playing downstairs in the expo hall, right now?

The Ups And Downs Of Teabagging In Pro Gaming

When the clock counted down the last 100 seconds, Injustice 2 Pro Series player Dominique “Sonic Fox” McLean knew he’d already won the match. His opponent’s health bar had been reduced to a sliver. All Sonic Fox had to do was kill time. So he started teabagging. As the enemy player cowered on the other…

The Only Girl At The LAN Party: A Ghost Story

This story didn’t happen to me. Not really. But some nights, it felt like it could have. Right before I started college in 2004, my parents gave me my first laptop, a Dell Inspiron 600M. It could run Counter-Strike, including Condition Zero. At last, I could play the games that I had watched over the…

This Math Game Scared Me As A Kid, And I Still Hate It

I hated math as a child, so my parents bought me a computer game to help me enjoy math. It was called Super Solvers: Outnumbered! This game took me from hating math to fearing math. It is sadly the norm for kids in the United States to hate math. It’s especially true for girls. So,…

Mercy’s Redesign Shows The Tug Of War Between Casual And Competitive Overwatch

In the past month, the healer Mercy in Overwatch has experienced an unprecedented boom in popularity across all competitive levels, especially in the highest tiers. The big spike in Mercy usage coincides with a massive overhaul of her abilities, courtesy of a patch implemented on September 19. These huge changes have sparked debate in the…

Let’s Run Down The Past 24 Hours Of Riot Games’ Baffling Decisions

Immortals has been rejected from North America’s League of Legends Championship Series, which comes as a shock, given that the organization bought in back in 2015 and has since built one of the league’s largest support staffs for their LoL team. That still wasn’t quite enough of a commitment in League of Legends for Riot…

Tournament Organizers Won’t Say What Went Wrong With This Tekken 7 Trophy

The end of a Tekken 7 tournament has sparked some wild speculation about what, exactly, a trophy plaque says. When the winners got on stage at South East Asia Major last Sunday, the tournament organizers handed the first-place cup to Byeong “Qudans” Mun Son. Then, they told him to turn it around so the plaque…

Almost Everyone Is Playing Overwatch With A Mercy On Their Team Now

Overwatch’s angelic healer Mercy got a massive makeover this month. The changes have turned her into the most popular hero across all levels of competitive play, according to data from hundreds of thousands of Overwatch player profiles collected by the fan-run site Omnic Meta. The stats show that Mercy currently gets selected almost 100% of…

Esports Team Jerseys Keep Getting More Athletic

In the early 2000s, pro gamers had much simpler uniforms. They wore cotton hoodies and T-shirts while competing for prize pools that were in the tens of thousands of dollars, rather than the hundreds of thousands. You can see how much has changed from looking at esports jerseys. SK Gaming, founded in 1997, is still…

Everything You Didn’t Know About Drifting In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Every single time you do a drift in Mario Kart, you charge up a speed boost that unleashes when you exit the drift. But there’s a lot more happening under the hood when it comes to this speed boost: how fast it charges, how long it lasts, and whether or not it’s actually going to…

After the winner got disqualified for cheating, Runefest 2017’s 20K RuneScape tournament has named a new recipient of the prize: True Fox, the second-place finalist. Jagex, the game’s developer and tournament host, has also denied the allegations that any staff member helped the initial winner to cheat.