Esports

Valve Announces Artifact, A Dota Card Game

Valve announced Artifact, a Dota card game, during tonight’s The International 7 matches in Seattle. The digital card game will be out in 2018. It’ll feature lanes, use characters like Bounty Hunter, and have cards like barracks that will push waves of minions down each player’s avenue of attack. It’ll be a card game version…

South Korea’s Overwatch World Cup Team Is Annihilating Everybody Else With Weird Picks And Wild Plays

As one astute observer on Reddit pointed out, South Korea’s Overwatch World Cup team hasn’t just deviated from the meta; they’ve used nearly every hero in the game. Even Hanzo Going into Blizzard’s big, multi-national bash, South Korea was a heavy favorite, but I’m not sure anybody expected them to clean up to this degree.…

Capcom Cracks Down On Paid Street Fighter Costume Mods

Last week, two prominent creators of Street Fighter nude mods and costume mods said they received takedown notices from Capcom. The two modders in question, who go by Brutal Ace and Khaledantar666, both had Patreon pages that solicited donations from fans. Brutal Ace and Khaledantar666’s mods often make use of other copyrighted properties. One of…

A Newcomer’s Guide To Watching Dota 2‘s $23 Million International Tournament

More than $20 million in prize money is on the line this week in The International 2017, a tournament for the video game Dota 2 that can leave new spectators baffled. We’re here to help, in case you want to watch one of these matches and be able to tell a core from a support,…

Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon, a teen girl Overwatch phenom, will be the first female pro gamer to compete in OGN Overwatch APEX. ROX Orcas has signed her, according to ESPN. Geguri fans will recall that her haters wrongfully accused her of cheating at last year’s Nexus Cup. She didn’t cheat; she’s just that good.

Smash Pro Dances His Way To Doubles Victory

Zack “CaptainZack” Lauth is usually known for his dancing outside of Super Smash Bros. For The Wii U, but in today’s doubles finals at Low Tier City 5, he ended a match with a little in-game flair too. Lauth was playing alongside his Phoenix 1 teammate Gavin “Tweek” Dempsey in the Smash 4 doubles grand…

A Tekken 7 Round So Close, It Needs Two Slow-Mo Cams

Slow-mo is one of Tekken 7‘s most hype features, slowing the critical moment of a fight down to mere frames. In last night’s Tekken World Tour Korea grand finals, the two fighters were so close that it came down to the slow-mo cam twice in a single round. Though Evo 2017 is in the rear-view…

The main bracket for The International 7 has been set after four days of group stage Dota 2 play. HellRaisers and Fnatic were eliminated, leaving 16 teams to fight for a grand champion prize of over $10 million.

Alright Valve It’s Time To Buy Some New Furniture

This is the panel for the Group Stage of the biggest Dota 2 tournament of the year. The one that’s sponsored by Valve and has a prize pool of nearly $24 million. I think it’s time the multi-billion dollar company splurged on some upgrades. Video games have never been known for their style, and among…

The Sneakiest Score In Today’s Splatoon 2 Tournament

This is why you always ink the side of the ramps. As the Splatfest rages on into the night, InkTV is hosting one of the first tournaments for Splatoon 2, the G7 Splatoon Series. In today’s match between Nosebreathers and Nsquared Squid Squad, one player made quite an impressive Rainmaker run. If you haven’t jumped…

Number One Dad Subs In For Son’s Rocket League Match

NBC is hosting a 2v2 Rocket League tournament this weekend, a big deal for 2v2 players like Josh “JumpOnStuff” Russo who could potentially make a national broadcast debut. But when Russo’s teammate couldn’t make it down to the open, one man was willing to take up the controller and fill in: his dad. Russo hinted…

All These Ultimates Aren’t Enough To Stop South Korea’s Overwatch Team

An onslaught of ultimates, rebuffed by a lineup featuring some of South Korea’s best. This weekend’s Overwatch World Cup qualifiers hosts some strong international talent, but South Korea has been dominating their group stage matches so far. It’s little surprise, after last year’s South Korean squad took first in the World Cup in an undefeated…

The Weekend In Esports: Dota 2 Bloodbath

The International, one of pro gaming’s biggest events of the year, started in earnest this week as an around-the-clock group stage has left teams scrambling to lock down top seeding for next week’s Main Event. Fnatic and HellRaisers already sit at the bottoms of Groups A and B respectively with elimination from the tournament potentially…

GameCube-Only Controller Rule In Smash Melee Competition Raises Eyebrows

Five prominent Super Smash Brothers: Melee tournament organizers and players have formed a competition committee and released a recommended ruleset for tournament play, including a lengthy section imposing a “tentative ban” on the use of non-Gamecube controllers. The ruleset writers explained that the 16-year-old classic Gamecube controller is “somewhat intrinsic to what we consider ‘playing…

Korean League Slaps League Player On Wrist For Bragging About Salary

The League Champions Korea Operations Committee has issued a ‘caution’ penalty to SK Telecom T1’s Junsik “Bang” Bae for a reply to one of his viewers during a League of Legends stream in February 2017. The comment came after a viewer of Bae’s stream told the streamer to “work harder,” saying “Faker just got one…

Learning To Own The Arena In Splatoon 2 And Pyre

Controlling the field is a core tenet of any competition. Fighting games are about the footsies, League and Dota demand good positioning, shooters like Overwatch and Counter-Strike are as much about tactically holding or taking key areas as they are shooting accuracy. At a high-level, controlling the field of play is as important as play…

There Is A Comedy Show About Esports

Here’s the first trailer for Game Grumps’ new series Good Game, which is all about the esports scene surrounding the made-up game Killcore The show stars Game Grumps’ Dan Avidan and Arin Hanson, and if you think their weird little team of gamers don’t look like your average esports team, that’s the point (the “average…

Evo Ruleset Now Allows Coaching, With A Catch

Before yesterday, players at the world’s largest fighting game tournament were unable to receive advice from their coach, if they had one, once they reached the semifinals. Now, thanks to a rule change, if they need help during a match of Street Fighter, Super Smash Bros., or any other game contested at the Evolution Championship…

Seven Months After Smash Bros. Tournament, Organizers Say They Can’t Pay The Winners

Some of the world’s best Smash Bros. players say they are owed thousands of dollars for their performances in a tournament called BEAST 7 held in Sweden last February. Adam “Armada” Lindgren, the first place winner in the event’s Super Smash Bros. Melee bracket, tweeted yesterday that BEAST 7 had yet to provide “an explanation…

Hearthstone Streamer Uncovers Proof Of Guild Dedicated To Thwarting Him

Several times throughout his Twitch-streamed arena runs, Octavian “Kripparrian” Morosan has noticed odd things: repeating opponent names, accounts named “sniper,” and decks that seem constructed to beat his own draft. After some investigative work, Morosan found proof that this was no coincidence, uncovering a dedicated group of players who would build strong decks and wait…