Esports

Overwatch Pro Stomps Former Team That Benched Him

It’s been a good day for Chan-hyung “Fissure” Baek. The tank player, who spent stage one on the bench as part of London Spitfire, came roaring out the gate with his new team, LA Gladiators, and stomped London, likely giving their management some things to think about in the process. From start-to-finish of today’s Overwatch…

The NHL Is Hosting An International Tournament For NHL 18

It looks like hockey will joining the growing trend of tsports getting into esports. The National Hockey League will host the 2018 NHL Gaming World Championship, where fans of the virtual ice can compete for a share of a $100,000 prize pool and a chance to be a part of the 2018 NHL awards. The…

The Weekend In Esports: Straight From The DPC

The race for the 2018 Dota 2 International is heating up. Thanks to today’s win over Team Liquid at the Bucharest Major, Virtus.Pro is the first team to punch a ticket to The International. At 6297, the team’s Pro Circuit point total is high enough that it could essentially do nothing until the big dance…

A Clash Between Two Fighting Game Legends Ends In Tears And Resolve

At last night’s Kemonomichi 2, two of Street Fighter’s best-known players played an exhibition set. It was a clash of the giants that ended in emotion, laughter, and tears. It was one of the best fighting game sets I’ve seen in some time. Daigo Umehara and Hajime “Tokido” Taniguchi are eminent within the fighting game…

Popular Twitch Mod Is Sorry For All The Revenge Porn [UPDATE]

This past Wednesday, a former moderator for Overwatch League’s Twitch channel who goes by the handle Uncleswagg posted about having been unceremoniously demoted from his duties with no explanation from Blizzard. On Thursday, former Blizzard employee and World of Warcraft streamer Cher Scarlett came forward to say that Uncleswagg had non-consensually posted naked photographs of…

A Quick Roundup Of The Overwatch League’s Latest Punishments

Overwatch League just announced a couple of punishments for several players, including two of Dallas Fuel’s notorious troublemakers. Timo “Taimou” Kettunen has received a $1,000 fine for calling another player a “fucking faggot kid” on his personal Twitch channel this past January. Félix “xQc” Lengyel has gotten hit with a $4,000 fine and a four-match…

The NBA 2K League’s Combine Probably Wasn’t Rigged, But Didn’t Do Itself Any Favors Either

In a more open approach than most franchised esports leagues, the draft process for the NBA 2K League was open to any and all challengers who met a small set of requirements. Win 50 games in January’s online qualifiers, and you move on to phase 2: the combine. That combine then whittled 72,000 applicants down…

BlazBlue Producer Is Wrong About Why Japanese Players Dominate His Games

During a recent press event, Arc System Works chief development officer Toshimichi Mori sat down to discuss his team’s next fighting game, BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle. The upcoming release’s simple controls, he said, are a way to make the game more accessible to newcomers as well as Western competitors who can’t keep up with their…

Battlegrounds Team Gets DQ’d, Loses $12,000 For Using See-Through Wall Glitch

OpTic Gaming has been stripped of its second-place finish in a PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds tournament after officials ruled that one of its players, Ian “Bahawaka” Crowe, abused a glitch allowing him to see through walls. During game eight at the PUBG Invitational at IEM Katowice, Crowe moved next to a wall in a very specific way…

Overwatch League’s Dallas Fuel Is Not Having A Good Time Right Now

It’s been a rough past few days of a rough month of a rough first season for Dallas Fuel, the Overwatch League’s most star-studded team. Today alone, one member, Timo “Taimou” Kettunen, finally apologized for using a homophobic slur on stream, while another, Félix “xQc” Lengyel, said he might quit the team entirely. Taimou used…

If StarCraft Is Dead, No One Told Scarlett

StarCraft is reportedly dead, though for a corpse the exact time and cause of death are proving difficult to pin down. It’s possible that the StarCraft: Brood War match-fixing scandal of 2010 killed the pioneering real time strategy game a few months before the sequel was even released, but by then it may have already…

ESPN reporter Jacob Wolf has tweeted an apology after his use of “faggot” “cunt” and “nigga” online came to light after he broke a story about an Overwatch League player calling someone a “fucking faggot kid” on Twitch.

The Esports Reality Show That Abandoned Its Winners Is Back For Another Season [UPDATE]

In May of last year, the first season of the esports reality show Gamerz promised to award a six-month professional contract to five up-and-coming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players. The show, hosted by Gamingzone Entertainment in Sweden, filmed over the course of three weeks. It broadcasted live daily episodes featuring twelve contestants living together in a…

The Overwatch League’s Only Winless Team Boots Its Coach

Shanghai Dragons, sitting in last place in the Overwatch League at 0-14, just announced that head coach Chen Congshan has “stepped down” from his post and will coach for one more week before getting replaced by assistant Sun Jun Young on an interim basis. Compete asked the Dragons if Congshan quit or was fired, and…

Top Overwatch League Teams Are Figuring Out How Specifically To Dismantle Each Other

Who’s the best team in the Overwatch League right now? It’s not really clear, and that’s a good thing. After a first stage that, at times, felt like a feeling-out process, Overwatch League teams are now showing a much better understanding of what makes each other tick. It’s not just about which team is doing…

If These Esports Fans Aren’t Giving Each Other Handjobs, They’re Very Good Actors

This past weekend at IEM Katowice, Counter-Strike pro Janusz “Snax” Pogorzelski did an interview on behalf of his team Virtus Pro, since they’d ended up in last place. The interview footage gained attention thanks to a brief cutaway to the stands, which captured an insatiable couple going to town on each other. Around three minutes…

StarCraft II Just Had One Of Its Best Tournaments In Years

StarCraft II might not pull in the massive viewer numbers of Overwatch or League of Legends, but a tournament in Poland this past week proved that Blizzard’s real-time strategy game is still thriving as an esport. Zerg player Rogue took home the $150,000 grand prize at the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) tournament in Katowice, Poland,…

Fighting Game Pros Gaming At Their Weddings Appears To Be A Thing

Ryo “Dogura” Nozaki is a well-known player from Japan, who placed 7th in the Capcom Pro Tour global rankings in 2017 and took first place at Canada Cup 2017. He was also getting married last weekend, and during the wedding party, the happy couple set up a PlayStation and the groom took on a few…

Overwatch Pro Called An Opponent A “Fucking Faggot”; ESPN Reporter Who Broke Story Immediately Caught With Racist And Sexist Tweets

According to an ESPN report, someone filed a support ticket with Blizzard after Overwatch League player Taimou called another player a “fucking faggot kid” on a Twitch stream on January 23. The Overwatch League has yet to comment publicly, while his team, the Dallas Fuel, sent this statement to Compete: In regards to the Dallas…

Dota Pro Goes Galaxy Brain On Opposing Team

Group stages for the Bucharest Major have begun and in OG’s first match, support player Jesse “Jerax” Vainikka pulled some serious mind games. One of Jerax’s best-known heroes is his Earth Spirit, a warrior of stone that has a lot of mobility and some tricky abilities. During a lull in the action in OG’s match…