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EsportsI Am Two Shanghai Dragons Wins Away From My First Tattoo
You know how parents quantify the passage of time to an excited child in the number of sleeps? Well, instead of sleeps, I am two Shanghai Dragons wins away from getting my first tattoo. That’s because the Overwatch League Grand Finals tournament kicked off earlier today—much earlier today as, for the first time ever, the…
By Ash Parrish -
EsportsOverwatch Team with 4-17 Record Could Somehow Win the League Playoffs
Over the weekend, the Washington Justice became the embodiment of Overwatch League playoff chaos. They are other teams’ spoilers and the playoff Cinderellas. They’ve gone from one of the worst regular season performances to knocking out one tournament champ and almost knocking out another. And although their chances of ultimate triumph are still mathematically slim,…
By Ash Parrish -
EsportsPlayoff Season Is The Best Time To Get Into Overwatch League
You do not need to have watched a single match of the 2020 Overwatch League season to follow the playoffs. Playoffs are the playoffs, you already know the stakes, no background information required. The playoffs themselves will provide their own self-contained narrative that newcomers can understand and invest in. The 2020 Overwatch League playoffs began…
By Ash Parrish -
EsportsA Racist Overwatch Team Got Banned, But I Still Feel Like Shit
Despite having not played in a while, I love Overwatch. I love its bright and vibrant characters from every part of the world (with one glaring omission). I love its message of hope for better, and how we all have the capacity to affect positive change. As the heroine Tracer says, “the world could always…
By Ash Parrish -
EsportsRinger Alert: Overwatch League Free Agents Can Now Compete In Playoffs
Now that the pandemic’s torpedoed all of Blizzard’s plans for the Overwatch League 2020 season, the League’s head office is making significant changes to its roster construction rules ahead of the 2020 Playoff season. “The League Office has established the following guidelines in place for roster construction, which includes significant changes to contract lengths and…
By Ash Parrish -
EsportsI (Almost) Miss When The Shanghai Dragons Were OWL’s Worst Team
Overwatch League’s Countdown Cup concluded over the weekend with the (unsurprising) crowning of the San Francisco Shock and the Shanghai Dragons as the winners of the North American and Asian regions, respectively. The Shanghai Dragons are my team. I braved their inaugural 0-40 season when the Dragons did not win a single game. I am…
By Ash Parrish -
EsportsEsports Community Pissed Over Saudi Partnership Deal [Update: Riot Cancelled Deal]
Yesterday two major European esports brands—the Counter-Strike Global Offensive tournament organizer BLAST Premier and Riot’s League of Legends European Championship division—announced a sponsorship deal with NEOM, a 500 billion dollar techno-city funded by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The announcement is drawing waves of criticism from esports personalities and fans. Update: 7/29/2020, 9:50…
By Ash Parrish -
EsportsMario Kart Wizard’s Clutch Play Reveals The Game’s True Depth
I’ve never really thought of Mario Kart as a game with “plays” à la League of Legends or Street Fighter, but I’m more than happy to have been proven wrong by this amazing moment from a weekend Mario Kart 8 tournament. Bassem “Bear” Dahdouh is a prolific tournament director in both the Smash and traditional…
By Ian Walker -
EsportsYes, Daigo Umehara Is Still Winning Street Fighter Tournaments
I’m not going to mince words: Daigo Umehara is the greatest fighting game player of all time. His legacy added a new footnote over the weekend when he dominated a stacked Street Fighter V tournament. And it’s strange that folks still managed to be shocked by the results. Umehara faced down several incredible Street Fighter…
By Ian Walker -
EsportsFastest-Ever Overwatch League Match Is 19 Minutes and 23 Seconds of Misery
The fastest match in Overwatch League history took place over the weekend, with last year’s champions, the San Francisco Shock, beating the brakes off the Vancouver Titans in a blisteringly fast match that ran just 19 minutes and 23 seconds. The extremely brief match surpassed a record set just the week before when the Los…
By Ash Parrish -
EsportsPokémon Esports Broadcasts Are Simply The Best At Reaching Out To Newcomers
Maybe it’s weird, but I enjoy watching Pokémon far more than playing it. I haven’t seriously played a Pokémon title since SoulSilver in ‘09, and haven’t finished one since Pokémon Blue way back in the ancient yester-year of 1996. Yet despite my apparent aversion to all things Pocket and Monster I am obsessed with Pokémon…
By Ash Parrish -
EsportsSomeone At American Dad Is A Big Fan Of The Overwatch League
In the grand tradition of primetime animated shows mining contemporary pop culture for content, American Dad’s most recent episode featured esports as its topic of the day. In a clip shared by TBS, the show’s main character is tasked with assassinating a North Korean general while he attends an Overwatch League match in Hong Kong.…
By Ash Parrish -
EsportsGoodbye Maddy Myers, Blog Bounty Hunter And Revered Mutantologist
Maddy Myers, deputy editor and undercover Samus clone, has wrangled her last blog and now prepares to take up a new position as weekend host for Here’s the Deal As is tradition, we will now say mean things about her, only it’s hard, so we mostly said nice things. Who cares if she’s disappointed about…
By Ethan Gach
