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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 Published April 28, 2020 -
EsportsOverwatch League Players Fined $1,000 Each For Typing ‘Sex,’ ‘Big Dick’ Into Chat
Friendly fifth-grade-level banter between foes is all well and good, but there’s a time and place for it. When you’re a professional Overwatch League player, the big stage—even during a quarantine—is not it. While Overwatch League initially reacted to covid-19 by postponing all March and April matches, it’s now making up for lost time with…
By Nathan Grayson Published April 6, 2020 -
EsportsOverwatch League Cancels All March And April Events Due To Coronavirus
Overwatch League’s planned migration of teams to their respective cities for a full season of home and away games has hit yet another big obstacle. After isolated cancellations of events in China and South Korea, the league has now pulled the plug on all live events around the world in March and April. As with…
By Nathan Grayson Published March 11, 2020 -
EsportsOverwatch League Cancels South Korea Matches Over Coronavirus Concerns
Late last month, Blizzard’s Overwatch League cancelled all matches scheduled to take place in China in February and March due to coronavirus fears. Now it’s cancelled matches for South Korea as well, just days before games were set to begin. The league made fans aware of the cancellations viaTwitter, writing, “In order to protect the…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 24, 2020 -
EsportsSeven-Year-Old Wins A Pokémon Championship, Makes Everyone A Fan
Meet Simone Lim. She’s the new Pokémon Oceania International Juniors Championships champion. She faced off in Melbourne against the older and formidable Justin Miranda-Radbord. He’s defending champ with a long list of achievements, including 21-time Regional Champ. Lim seemed to come out of nowhere to claim her crown. This was her first year competing; she…
By Brian Ashcraft Published February 24, 2020 -
EsportsOverwatch‘s YouTube Deal Makes A New Brigitte Skin Costly For Most Players
Until February 19, Blizzard is offering Overwatch players a skin nobody asked for, but that is, admittedly, pretty funny: “Goat Brigitte,” a horned, blue-and-purple number meant to commemorate the notoriously unpopular “GOATS” meta that dominated OWL season two last year. There’s just one problem: It’s currently impossible to earn the in-game currency players need to…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 13, 2020 -
EsportsWhy The Paris Overwatch League Team Is Based Out Of New Jersey This Season
After two seasons in Burbank, California, the Overwatch League has finally achieved its goal of scattering teams across the globe to their various home cities. Well, mostly. Paris Eternal, somewhat conspicuously, is operating out of New Jersey. New Jersey, in case you’re from a non-Earth planet, is not in France. A couple weeks before the…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 10, 2020 -
EsportsWhile Other Evo Japan Winners Get Cash, Smash Bros. Ultimate Champion Gets Golden Controller
Shuto “Shuton” Moriya won his first ever Smash Bros. Evo Championship this past weekend. His prize? A special gold embossed Switch Pro controller presented by none other than series creator Masahiro Sakurai. It didn’t break, as some tournament-winning items tend to, but it did take a quick tumble. Who could blame the 23-year-old pro Smash…
By Ethan Gach Published January 27, 2020 -
EsportsOverwatch League, Call Of Duty League, And Hearthstone Esports Will Air On YouTube, Not Twitch
With Overwatch League season three set to kick off in just over two weeks, it was becoming a little conspicuous that we still didn’t know where it was going to air. Now we do: With its two-year Twitch deal now expired, Overwatch League is moving to YouTube. It will be joined by Activision’s new Call…
By Nathan Grayson Published January 24, 2020 -
EsportsCheck Out The Overwatch League’s Fancy New Designer Uniforms
Who needs commentators when the players look so good? The Overwatch League has teamed with legendary streetwear designer Jeff Staple to create an “authentic player kit” for each of the league’s 20 teams. It’s so fancy. The new kits, designed to bring the esports experience more in line with the traditional sports experience, are more…
By Mike Fahey Published January 16, 2020 -
EsportsOverwatch League Commentators Are Jumping Ship [UPDATE]
Watching professional Overwatch matches can be chaotic. At times, team fights look less like coherent, role-driven skirmishes and more like cartoon characters punching and kicking inside screen-eclipsing dust clouds. Commentators play a crucial role, making sense of the madness to both esports fans and the uninitiated mainstream audience Blizzard hopes to attract. But with season…
By Nathan Grayson Published January 13, 2020 -
EsportsMario Kart 8 Player Wins Tiebreaker With Clutch Last-Second Green Shell
On Saturday night, Twitch streamer and competitive Mario Kart 8 player Knives_x finished her tiebreaker to get into the semifinals at a Las Vegas tournament in the best way possible: by smashing her opponent with a green shell just inches before he was about to cross the finish line. “911 i just mario kart murdered…
By Ethan Gach Published January 13, 2020 -
EsportsHouston Overwatch League Team Decides To Move After New Neighbors Complain
Season three of the Overwatch League kicks off next month, and that means teams are finally gearing up to live and operate out of their home cities. The Houston Outlaws, unfortunately, have not received the warmest of welcomes from their neighbors. Houston Outlaws general manager Matt “Flame” Rodriguez said yesterday on Twitter that his team…
By Nathan Grayson Published January 10, 2020 -
EsportsIncredibly Stable Company WeWork Appears To Be Investing In Incredibly Stable Industry: Esports
With its dying breath, it looks like startup-turned-laughing-stock WeWork is investing in esports. Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that WeWork filed a trademarkwith the United Kingdom’s Intellectual Property Office for “Play By We.” The application describes “entertainment services in the nature of online video game playing and esports,” “esports contests” and “providing facilities for video…
By Cecilia D'Anastasio Published October 31, 2019 -
EsportsOverwatch‘s Bastion Moonlights As Aerial Circus Act
It’s unlikely that, before yesterday, anybody used the words “trapeze artist” to describe Overwatch’s turret hero Bastion. One hype play at the Overwatch League grand finals revealed the hero’s potential as an aerial circus act. Early on in the San Francisco Shock’s 4-0 sweep of the Vancouver Titans, Bastion player Minho “Architect” Park was helping…
By Cecilia D'Anastasio Published September 30, 2019 -
EsportsCompetitive Madden Returns This Weekend Starring Two-Time Champ
Pro Madden kicks off the first major tournament of its 2020 season this weekend with the Madden 20 Classic in Arlington Texas where all eyes will be on Michael “Skimbo” Skimbo to see if the existing champ can win his third straight title. Skimbo has been a powerhouse at the Classic for the last two…
By Ethan Gach Published August 30, 2019 -
EsportsDota 2 Team Sent Packing From World Championship After Tragic Misclick
Painful counterfactuals stalk even the best athletes. On Monday, Manchester United star Paul Pogba missed an easy penalty, dooming his team to a 1-1 draw against a lesser opponent. Last night, a Dota 2 player tried to ban a particular hero from the match, but ended up selecting him instead. It’s impossible to reduce any…
By Ethan Gach Published August 21, 2019 -
EsportsIt’s The End Of A Generation At This Year’s Pokémon World Championships
At the 2019 Pokémon World Championships this weekend, trainers can choose any of the existing 807 known Pokémon to fight by their side. This is the last time they’ll be able to do so, at least in the near future. Earlier today, the Pokémon Company announced that Pokémon Sword and Shield will be the official…
By Ethan Gach Published August 16, 2019 -
EsportsDota 2 Fans’ Reactions To Hong Kong Protests Take Over Twitch Chat Of $33 Million Tournament
We’re just days away from the biggest Dota 2 event of the year, the annual International tournament with its $33 million prize pool. Normally, this would be a time of celebration, but throughout the group stages leading into the August 20 main event, hardly anybody in Twitch chat has been talking about the games. Instead,…
By Nathan Grayson Published August 15, 2019 -
EsportsRick Fox’s League Of Legends Team Is No More
After months of internal strife following the news that one of its investors had called a fellow shareholder the n-word, the esports organization co-founded by Rick Fox has officially lost its coveted spot in the League of Legends Championship Series, Riot Games announced today. “On August 13, the LCS and Echo Fox entered into an…
By Ethan Gach Published August 14, 2019