Esports

Twitch Really Wants You To Watch Overwatch League

Twitch is all aboard the Overwatch League train, which makes sense, considering that the streaming service reportedly paid $90 million for a ticket. Now it’s offering Overwatch players incentives to tune in. Today Twitch announced that, in collaboration with Blizzard, it’s gonna start offering in-game rewards to Overwatch League viewers. If you link your Battle.net…

Street Fighter‘s Pro Tour Keeps Squeezing Out Its Middle Class

Over the past few years, Capcom Pro Tour has evolved from the collection of direct qualifiers organized for the Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Tournament in 2012 to something much more inclusive. In order to ensure global representation at Capcom Cup, leaderboards were established in four distinct regions—North America, Asia, Europe, and Latin America—allowing players from…

Rainbow Six: Siege Invitationals End In Tense Overtime

The 2018 Rainbow Six: Siege Invitational came to a close today, with Evil Geniuses and Penta Sports vying for the title of world champion. EG got off to an early 2-0 lead, but a resilient Penta turned the tables, going back and forth until the teams found themselves in the final rounds of overtime. Though…

Overwatch Team Has Some Jukes

One team in the Philadelphia Hometown Heroes showcase had some pretty slick moves ready for the tournament. The Philadelphia Fusion hosted an event in Philly yesterday where average players could audition for a spot on the Fusion’s contenders team. Basically Invincible, but with Overwatch The DM Warriors, which included former Renegades player Douglas “PrimoDulce” Perks,…

Weird Dragon Ball FighterZ Tournament Rule Sets Up Incredible Comeback

The top players in Dragon Ball FighterZ are still discovering new tech and strategies, but last night’s tournament showed the potential the game has for competition. In a set between two players with two quite different backgrounds, Kizzie Kay and Chris G. put on an anime-as-hell bout. Kizzie hails from the anime fighting game scene,…

The Weekend In Esports: Rainbow Six, Fiesta Bowl, Rocket League Qualifiers

With the Overwatch League on its first week long break of the inaugural season, there’s still plenty to pay attention to including Halo 5, Rainbow Six Siege, and even some Dragon Ball FighterZ Below you’ll find where and when you can catch all the weekend’s biggest events in competitive gaming. Let us know what you’ll…

The Smash Bros. Community Is Arguing About Bayonetta

One of Super Smash Bros. For Wii U’s more controversial characters is in the spotlight again. Pros and casuals alike are debating whether to ban Bayonetta. The gun-heeled domme star of some pretty good spectacle fighter games, Bayonetta’s presence in Smash has been a sore spot for the competitive Smash community for a while. She…

Geguri And Other Overwatch League Players Delayed By Visa Issues

Yesterday, struggling Overwatch League team Shanghai Dragons confirmed that they’d signed Kim “Geguri” Se-Yeon—the first woman to join the league—as well as three other Korean players. Those champing at the bit to see Geguri melt fools with impossibly fast Zarya lasers, however, might want to rein it in a little. As spotted by Unikrn, a…

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite Belongs To The Fighting Game Community Now

Last week, the Evolution Championship Series announced the main lineup for its 2018 event won’t include Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite; I was able to confirm just a few days later that the game will also be left off this year’s Capcom Pro Tour. These developments have left Marvel vs. Capcom on life support and its…

Blizzard has announced changes for the Overwatch League’s schedule heading into the second stage of its inaugural season. The stage playoffs will move to their own day on Sunday, while weekday matches will consistently start at 7 p.m. EST and weekends at 3 p.m. EST.

Fighting Game Tutorial Is Brutally Honest

Last week, Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st] (yes, that’s its real name) found its way to PlayStation 4. Despite working with a smaller budget, this obscure anime fighter does a much better job teaching newcomers about the genre than most major releases. Its greatest accomplishment, however, is not sugar-coating the truth: you simply aren’t good enough…

Kim “Geguri” Se-Yeon is the first female player signed to a team in Overwatch League. Shanghai Dragons has confirmed that they’ve signed along with three other Korean players: He “Sky” Junjian, Lee “Fearless” Eui-Seok, and Chon “Ado” Gi-Hyeon. Shanghai had a 0-10 record in Season 1, so the new talent should help.

Overwatch League Teams Are Making Their First Trades

Overwatch League’s first stage had some big moments, but it felt like everybody was still trying to find their footing. With the big OWL slumbering in a mighty oak somewhere until February 21, teams are fine-tuning their rosters. It’s been a day of trades and free-agent signings, the former of which are among the first…

Compete Discusses: Is Overwatch League Any Good, Or What

After a full year of hype, we now have a decent idea of what the Overwatch League looks like in practice. With the season a quarter over—“Stage 1″ just ended—Compete staff checks in on how things are going. Eric Van Allen: So the first real question, I guess, is do we feel like the league…

Dragon Ball FighterZ Players Are Riding Vegeta Hard, For Now

Dragon Ball FighterZ has been out for less than a month, so strategies are still percolating in the competitive fighting game community. Here’s an emerging one: use Vegeta. At a recent Japanese event, every finalist’s team was anchored by the franchise’s chief anti-hero. Assist characters—a team member that’s chosen solely for the power of their…

Street Fighter‘s Best Character Continues To Look Beautiful

Blanka will come to Street Fighter V on February 20 with all his classic obnoxious moves, plus a flummoxing Gumby-like costume. Even without an embarrassing outfit, Blanka has his share of detractors because he’s a reactive character with “troll” moves that work best as punishments for an opponent’s mistakes. Blanka’s haters will doubtless feel all…

Commentator Just Straight Up Drops Smash Player’s First Trophy

Last night, Brian “Cosmos” Kalu won his first-ever trophy for Super Smash Bros. For Wii U, and then almost lost it. Kalu and his doubles partner Rei “komorikiri” Furukawa won the two-on-two bracket last night at Frostbite 2018. In the post-game interview, commentator Richard “Keitaro” King Jr. almost gave new meaning to the term “Smash…

London Win Overwatch Stage 1 Playoffs In Reverse Sweep

After a long, almost 12-hour day of competition, the London Spitfire emerged victorious last night in the first stage playoffs of the Overwatch League. After dropping two maps to the New York Excelsior, the Spitfire surged back and took three straight to reverse-sweep the finals and win the playoff bonus. Though the stage playoffs have…

Houston Makes Overwatch Stage 1 Playoffs After Do-Or-Die Final Round

The second of today’s matches would determine who would continue on to tonight’s playoffs, so of course, it went the distance. The Houston Outlaws and the Boston Uprising seemed to match each other blow-for-blow, all the way to map five, round three, each determined to shape the playoffs to come. Because of tiebreaker rules, Boston…

Cloud9 Talk Over Their Boston Counter-Strike Major Win

Cloud9’s win at the Eleague Boston Major was a huge one, for the team and North American Counter-Strike in general. Broadcast house Beyond The Summit sat the team down, less than a month later, to rewatch a reel of its finest moments and talk over them. It’s really cool any time you get a peek…