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EsportsBrazil Dominated DreamHack Austin’s Counter-Strike Tournament
An all-Brazilian Counter-Strike final at DreamHack Austin was probably not what the home-crowd wanted to see. But in the wake of today’s games, it’s undeniable that Brazil has become a regional powerhouse. The Sweden of the Americas. It happened in painful fashion for American fans. While Luminosity Gaming were an easy favorite to win this…
By Rob Zacny -
Esports
DreamHack Austin Features First North American StarCraft Finalist In Ages
The first DreamHack StarCraft event in the United States came close to hosting a miracle as America’s Alex “Neeb” Sunderhaft fought his way into a close final series against Korea’s Shin “Hydra” Dong Won. Neeb knocked-out two strong European players on his way to the final, crushing PtitDrogo 3-0 and defeating Snute 3-1. The latter…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsThe New World Order At LoL’s Mid-Season Invitational
With more twists and turns than you typically find in an entire season of pro League of Legends, the group stage of the Mid-Season Invitational ended with a leaderboard that seemed like something from an alternate universe. China’s LoL Pro League was all but written-off as the place where good Korean pros went to get…
By Rob Zacny -
The Weirdly Dark And Insightful StarCraft Visual Novel Is Getting A Sequel
One of the most honest looks at competitive gaming, the literally-named StarCraft visual novel SC2VN, is getting a Brood War-themed sequel: Don’t Forget Our eSports Dream It might seem odd that a visual novel ends up being one of the best pieces of media about esports and pro gaming. But one reason why Team Eleven’s…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsThe GSL StarCraft 2 Final Was Everything That’s Still Good About The Game
Following a pretty lousy winter for StarCraft, Korea’s GSL ended on a high note Sunday morning as two teammates fought a pitched-battle across six games in an instant-classic StarCraft final. Joo “Zest” Sung Wook was the favorite heading into the final, especially because his opponent was a Terran. He has pretty much owned the Protoss…
By Rob Zacny -
Esports
Match-Fixing Report Shows How Gambling Has Ruined Korean StarCraft
The Korean prosecutor’s office leading the StarCraft 2 match-fixing investigation released its report this week, and the results are not good for fans of the sport. One of the game’s greatest players, Lee “Life” Seung Hyun, now stands convicted of match-fixing, as well as another leading player, Bung “Bbyong” Woo Yong. That’s only half the…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsA Hero’s Spell-Stealing Ability Just Wrecked Team Secret’s Night in DOTA 2
Team Secret’s new DOTA 2 super-roster is off to an iffy start at ESL One Manila. Some lack of coordination has put them on the verge of elimination early following losses in their group. They’re currently fighting for their lives against Empire. Secret were up a game and were looking for the knockout victory when…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsCloud9 Creates All-Star Challenger Series League Of Legends Team
Taking yet another stab at preparing for life after Hai, the Cloud9 League of Legends organization announced yesterday that it would be starting a new Challenger Series team to compete this summer, seeded with Cloud9 starters. Hai and Daerek “LemonNation” Hart made their super-equivocal announcement in a video post, explaining that Hai and an as-yet-undetermined…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsOne Of Counter-Strike’s Greatest Teams Returns From The Dead At DreamHack Malmo
After keeping fans waiting ages for a comeback, Sweden’s Ninjas in Pyjamas team upset expectations on Sunday to win the DreamHack Masters Malmö Counter-Strike tournament, in front of a fanatically loyal home audience. NiP was the team to beat in the early days of Global Offensive, enjoying the longest winning streak in pro Counter-Strike history,…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsCLG And Their New AD Carry Beat Doublelift And Team SoloMid In NA League Of Legends Final
History repeated itself at the end of Team SoloMid’s and Counter Logic Gaming’s five-game North American LCS final on Sunday, as some clutch play from a CLG carry shut down TSM’s title challenge. It’s going way too far to say that Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes won the series for CLG, but he delivered at two absolutely…
By Rob Zacny -
Esports
Team SoloMid In Another League Of Legends Final, But Won’t Have Any More Help
The rule with Team SoloMid in 2016 is to expect the unexpected. With an all-star roster of proven greats, they shambled to a .500 record. Now they’re the scariest team in the NA LCS playoffs. On Sunday, they face their great nemesis, CLG, in the final. It’s a remarkable turnaround for Team SoloMid. Their win…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsCounter-Strike Freed From European Hegemony Following Brazilian MLG Win
By the time the MLG Counter-Strike Major ended on Sunday with a lopsided Luminosity victory over Na’Vi, a long period of unbreakable European Counter-Strike supremacy had ended alongside it. Brazil’s Luminosity Gaming broke Na’Vi the way they broke Team Liquid last night: with a “back-from-the-dead” comeback on Mirage to an overtime win that left Na’Vi…
By Rob Zacny -
Esports
Fnatic, TSM Once Again Turn Into Much Better League of Legends Teams For The Playoffs
The weakest Fnatic and Team Solomid League of Legends teams in years just knocked their opponents out of the spring playoffs and advanced to the European and North American semifinals, respectively. Given the history of the EU LCS, maybe that outcome was inevitable. Fnatic have competed in every European LCS final for three straight years,…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsThe No-Scope Sniper Play That Killed Team Liquid’s MLG Counter-Strike Major Momentum
Despite the fact they were on match-point with a comfortable lead, you could feel everything going wrong for Team Liquid the moment they endured this 1v5 AWP massacre at the hands of a lone enemy sniper. With the entire Liquid team rushing through the apartments on Mirage, seemingly on their way to an unexpected first-map…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsA Stumble In Street Fighter V Overshadows A Great Justin Wong Performance
Justin Wong had a rough Sunday night at the NorCal Regionals. The fighting game legend endured a finals defeat in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 before coming within a round of the Street Fighter V final… only to be reverse-swept by Hajime “Tokido” Taniguchi. Wong lost the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 final to Christopher “NYChrisG”…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsAui Rejoins Evil Geniuses DOTA 2 Team After Arteezy Goes To Team Secret
After watching two of their elite players leave for Team Secret, Evil Geniuses have concluded their DOTA 2 roster reshuffle with something as ironic as it is inevitable: eight months after they fired him, they’re bringing back Kurtis “Aui” Ling. According to Evil Geniuses’ DOTA 2 manager Phil Aram, the new lineup for Evil Geniuses…
By Rob Zacny -
Esports
Team Secret Celebrates DOTA 2 Win By Cutting Two Players, Bringing Back Arteezy
Remember two weeks ago, when Team Secret showed they didn’t need a lineup of marquee superstars like Artour “Arteezy” Babaev to be the best team in DOTA 2? Well, apparently they’re over that now. Instead, they have decided they need marquee superstars exactly like Arteezy… and his fellow Evil Geniuses teammate Saahil “UNiVeRsE” Arora. Who…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsKorea Just Found A New Game To Dominate: Dota 2
Time to pack it in, Western Dota 2 teams: Korea just won a premier title by sweeping the reigning International champions, Evil Geniuses, in a lopsided final to conclude the Dota Pit League playoffs. It’s hard to believe that it was only last summer that we all enjoyed the heartwarming success of MVP Phoenix, the…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsWomen’s Counter-Strike Is Ready For A Breakthrough
While the explosive growth in popularity for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has mostly made the Fnatics and the Na’Vis of the world into esports stars, the women’s competitive scene has often been an overlooked cornerstone of the game. That’s finally starting to change as some of esports’ biggest sponsors and organizations have started to give them…
By Rob Zacny -
Esports
Shaq And A-Rod Bought Into A League Of Legends Team
Apparently unwilling to let Rick Fox have League of Legends all to himself, Shaquille O’Neal and the Yankees’ A-Rod just announced that they are getting into the esports business by investing in the squarely middle-of-the-road LoL and Counter-Strike organization NRG. In a statement to The Daily Dot, NRG chairman Andy Miller said that Shaq “has…
By Rob Zacny
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