Esports

Pokkén Tournament Competitors Flew In Two People Who Ended Up Beating Them

A Pokkén Tournament event at SwitchFest in California crowdfunded travel for two internationally elite competitors, Tsubasa “CrossIgarashi” Igarashi of Japan and José Manuel “XAbsoluted“ Sanjuán Carreño of Spain. Curiously, it wasn’t just fans and spectators supporting these players, but also their direct competition. Like much of the community, Allister Singh—a high-level player from California that…

Even In A Fursuit, SonicFox Keeps Winning Fighting Game Tournaments

Keeping his promise from two weeks ago, Dominique “SonicFox” McLean showed up to the Clutch 2018 fighting game tournament last weekend in a custom-made fursuit. Naturally, he continued to kick everyone’s asses. As a member of the furry community—a broad subculture built on a common interest in anthropomorphized animals—SonicFox’s attire served as the ultimate representation…

The Smash Masters League Is The Latest And Greatest Attempt At Organizing Competitive Smash

In a dominating performance, Nairoby “Nairo” Quezada’s Zero Suit Samus had Leonardo “MkLeo” Perez’s Bayonetta on the edge, knocking him down to just one stock. Shortly after, Quezada finished the job by sending Perez flying immediately after respawning; he won the gold at the Battle for Vegas and now both he and Perez lead the…

StarCraft Player Holds Out Against Overwhelming Zerg Swarm

In today’s NationWars V matches, Netherlands’ Kevin “Harstem” de Koning had his back against the wall with a massive Zerg swarm coming his way. At a unit deficit and against a horde of angry alien bugs, Koning held the line, making every pixel of life on his units count, and pulled off a truly incredible…

Rocket League Pro Beats Entire Opposing Team For Goal

A standard competitive Rocket League team has three players, but sometimes it only takes one to slam the ball into the goal, even past all three opposing players. During yesterday’s Rocket League regional championships, Garrett “GarrettG” Gordon took the game into his own hands. In quick succession Gordon beat one, two, three defenders on his way…

Splatoon Inkling Open Game Comes Down To 0.1 Percent

Here’s another friendly reminder to please ink your spawn Today is the open qualifiers for the Splatoon 2 Inkling Open, and teams all around North America are competing to earn a spot at the top and a shot at the world championship. Competition is fierce, and nowhere was this clearer than in a bout between…

Overwatch Contenders’ Playoffs Are A Proving Ground For New Talent

Many eyes are on the Overwatch League right now, but while stage 3 carries on, the secondary Overwatch division is heating up. As the Overwatch Contenders playoffs come to a close, you should be watching. Contenders is a developmental subset, like a minor league for the Overwatch League. Players in each region compete in their…

A Classic Counter-Strike Map Is Back In Competitive Rotation

Every competitive game has its more memorable maps. Blood Gulch, Facing Worlds, 2Fort, and also, de_dust2. More well-known as simply Dust II, the map has been around for most of Counter-Strike’s life and is considered one of the best, most balanced maps in the game. Now, it’s back in active duty. Yesterday’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive…

The Weekend In Esports: Rocket-Powered Soccer

Regional championships for the high-octane Rocket League kick off in earnest this weekend. This marks the fifth season for the Rocket League championship series, as teams battle it out to be one of four from their respective region to compete in the season five world championships. Hopefully we see some more incredible goals like the…

Hearthstone‘s Beloved Game Director Quits

Hearthstone director Ben Brode announced today that he would be departing his job at Blizzard and plans “to help start a new company.” Brode’s departure comes as a shock to Hearthstone fans; the game designer has worked for Blizzard since 2002, starting out as an entry-level game tester and moving up the ranks and becoming…

The Dumbest Things We Got Past Overwatch‘s Custom Jersey Censor

Just like in every other sports league, you can now make your own custom Overwatch League jerseys, and certain words are banned from them. They’re mostly obvious, including “butt,” “fuck,” “God,” “Satan,” “Jeffkaplan,” “bitch,” “dick,” “trans,” “XQC,” “trihard,” “sex,” “WarCraft,” “StarCraft,” “Diablo,” “kill,” “Nazi,” “Democrat,” Republican,” “ass,” “fanny,” “doggystyle,” “Pen15,” and “80085.” But there are…

This BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle Comeback Is Incredibly Dumb

Over the past few months, Arc System Works has been traveling the globe and showing off its next fighting game, BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle. Competitors have had a chance to try out the game before its May 31 release, which also means they’ve had a chance to produce footage where they abuse the upcoming title’s…

Overwatch League Fans Upset Korean Casters Won’t Say One Player’s Name

Given Overwatch’s popularity in Korea, it’s not surprising that Overwatch League has a separate broadcast with Korean commentary in addition to the regular English one. What is surprising is how much English-speaking viewers suddenly care about it in the wake of the Korean commentary team electing not to mention the name of formerly suspended Dallas…

Counter-Strike Player Suspended From Pro League For Calling An Opponent A Monkey

Niko “k1to” Gruhne has been suspended from the Faceit Pro League for a month after he made a racist comment during a pick-up Counter-Strike session. Gruhne was playing a pick-up Faceit game when he called Brazilian pro Joao “felps” Vasconcellos a “fucking monkey” after getting killed by him. The moment was caught on another pro’s…

Evo 2018 will allow Super Smash Bros competitors to play using the Smash Box, a controversial alternative to the aging Gamecube controller. Evo’s decision marks the pinnacle in an ongoing debate among Smash tournament hosts about controller rules.

Crossfire Tournament Proves Fighting Game Fans Will Play Anything Competitively

This weekend, a fighting game tournament called Michigan Masters wrapped up an expansive event in Farmington Hills. In addition to Dragon Ball FighterZ, Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, and over 20 other fighting games, a dark corner of the venue played host to a physical board game known as Crossfire The entirety of my Crossfire…

The Overwatch League’s Dallas Fuel Keep Firing And Suspending People

The Overwatch League’s Dallas Fuel have released both their head coach Kyle “KyKy” Souder and star DPS player Dong-jun “Rascal” Kim. It’s the latest in a long line of roster shifts and struggles for the team, which has underperformed for the past several weeks Their biggest issue initially was the suspension and subsequent firing of…

Halo Pro’s Controller Disconnects During World Championship Match

The most nightmarish moment of anyone’s Xbox Live session happened to Tyler “Spartan” Ganza during a world championship match. While he and his team were battling for a top three spot in the $1,000,000 tournament, his controller disconnected. Ganza and his team Reciprocity were on a decisive map 7 against Team Envy. He was on…

FIFA Player Suffers A Series Of Unfortunate Events

FIFA is a series of soccer games that does its best to emulate professional football in the virtual realm. A bit of tomfoolery in a live pro match really drives home that sense of realism. During today’s matches at the FUT Champions Cup Manchester, the in-game ref called a penalty on a defender that would…

Cleveland Indians Make The Best Of Bad Weather With Some Jumbotron Fortnite

Last night’s game between the Cleveland Indians and Toronto Blue Jays had some weather delays. So while the tarps were laid out across Progressive Field, some staff decided to make use of one of the otherwise-idling jumbotrons. Cleveland social media wasn’t clear on who exactly was playing Fortnite at the field, and no word yet…