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Esports
Two ‘Weak’ Characters Rampaged Through A Recent Smash Bros. Tournament
At last weekend’s Civil War tournament for Super Smash Bros. on Wii U, amid the gargantuan upsets, two players were busy fighting their way to the top, against the top pros in the world, using tools many would argue were ineffective for the job. Tier lists—artificial ratings of a character’s viability at the highest level…
By Eric Van Allen Published March 28, 2017 -
EsportsTournament Trolls Competitors By Making Them Dance To Smash Mouth
Dance Dance Revolution and its many copycats (Pump It Up, In the Groove, etc) already feel like a blast from the past. So why not lean into that? Tournament organizers at Rumble in the Prairie 9 yesterday decided to re-live 1999 and troll their competitors in the process. These competitors played on In the Groove…
By Maddy Myers Published March 27, 2017 -
EsportsSmash 4’s Competitive Scene Is Hype Because Nintendo Leaves It Alone
Last weekend’s Super Smash Bros. 4 tournament, one of the most anticipated yet, was a wrestling-style rivalry match between two crews led by two Smash titans. Drawing over 50,000 viewers, Civil War was a DIY event from the ground up. It’s the kind of event that could only exist around a gaming community left to…
By Cecilia D'Anastasio Published March 27, 2017 -
Esports
Three Overkills Highlight Series Sweep In Halo World Championships
In the lower bracket semi-finals of the 2017 Halo World Championships, Team Envy and Str8 Rippin were fighting to stay afloat in the bracket. On match point for Envy, both teams’ players showed up in a stellar display of Halo ability. After a long technical delay, the series resumed with Envy up 3-0. Str8 Rippin would…
By Eric Van Allen Published March 26, 2017 -
Esports
Protoss Prodigy Stats Wins Global StarCraft League Finals
Last night was a fond walk down memory lane for any StarCraft fan. Between the announcement of StarCraft Remastered and the showmatches between old Brood War favorites like Lee Jae Dong and Lee “Flash” Young Ho, anticipation kept building for the night’s climactic battle for the Global StarCraft II League finals. Kim “Stats” Dae Yeob…
By Eric Van Allen Published March 26, 2017 -
Esports
Newcomer Shocked After Taking Down Smash Bros. Legend
This what it feels like when somehow you beat the best Smash 4 player in the world with a miraculous, last minute combo. The kid who can’t believe his eyes as he slides off his headset is Luhtie, a relatively unknown player who mains Zero Suit Samus and has never won a major Smash tournament.…
By Ethan Gach Published March 25, 2017 -
EsportsFans Are Ripping The Halo World Championship For Its Shabby Venue
Competitive Halo’s biggest event of the year is going on right now but some fans are arguing about the venue and how many people are in attendance. The tournament has a prize pool of $1,000,000, but pictures on the ground tell the story of a more deflated event. Nothing screams esports quite like some deflated…
By Ethan Gach Published March 25, 2017 -
Esports
Underdog Knocks Hearthstone World Champ Out Of Tournament
The 2017 Hearthstone Winter Championship is underway, and 16 players are competing for $250,000 and one of four guaranteed spots at this year’s World Championships. One Cinderella story may not only earn a ticket to the ball, but he took out a champ on his way there. Canadian player Julien “DocPwn” Bachand is a fairly…
By Eric Van Allen Published March 25, 2017 -
Esports
Splatoon 2‘s Snipers Are Pulling Off Incredible Shots
This weekend’s global testfire for Splatoon 2 is live, and players are already picking apart the new changes in the squid-shooter sequel. A new change to the Charger is letting snipers hold their charges while squid-swimming, leading to some spectacular highlight reels. Splatoon’s gameplay revolves around winning a turf war by inking the most territory…
By Eric Van Allen Published March 25, 2017 -
Esports
The Weekend In Esports: The Halo 5 World Championship Finals And More
The spotlight this weekend belongs to competitive Halo 5 as pros descend on California for sci-fi carnage. While OpTic remain the kings of Microsoft’s first-person shooter, their dominance looks as fragile as ever in the face of rising contenders on all sides. Elsewhere in esports, the best Smash players have two long days ahead of…
By Ethan Gach Published March 25, 2017 -
Esports
Overwatch Pro Sends His Team To The Finals With Huge Reinhardt Play
The second season of the big APEX pro Overwatch tournament has produced all sorts of surprises, but none have landed with as much oomph as Ryu “Kaiser” Sang Hoon’s Reinhardt. Kaiser’s team, an unheralded org called RunAway, completed their improbable march to APEX’s grand finals by hammering down APEX S1 standout LW Blue. With the…
By Nathan Grayson Published March 24, 2017 -
Esports
Counter-Strike Tournament Organizer Changes Rules For Benefit Of Banned Cheaters
Valve’s anti-cheating software, known as VAC, monitors public Counter-Strike matches for evidence of cheating, like aim assist or changing value modifiers. Traditionally, any pros found cheating have been barred from competing in tournaments, but one organizer has decided to let them back in. ESL, originally Electronic Sports League, updated its Counter-Strike rulebooktoday, to allow VAC-banned…
By Eric Van Allen Published March 23, 2017 -
Esports
Competitive Overwatch‘s Inconsistent Rules Are Screwing Over Players
In any competitive game or sport, the rules can change, and competitors have to adjust their strategies. But usually, rules change between seasons – not in the middle of one. Blizzard’s Overwatch changes a lot, even by video game standards. The patches hit every few weeks or so. Sometimes it’s a little balance tweak, sometimes…
By Maddy Myers Published March 23, 2017 -
Esports
First Pro Player To Pick Overwatch‘s Newest Hero Immediately Gets Stomped
Overwatch’s quadrupedal African robot Orisa is so new that she’s not even allowed in the game’s official competitive mode yet. Despite that, a team decided to pick her in a pro match yesterday evening, hours after she came out. It did not go well for them. The team? Renegades. They were up against Complexity as…
By Nathan Grayson Published March 22, 2017 -
EsportsThe Stories Behind Some Of Pro Gaming’s Oddest Names
Esports may be bigger than ever, but it can still be hard to take players seriously when their competitive names are things like Dr. Pee Pee, Balls, JesusStick, FruitDealer, and Rape. Yes, there’s a Counter-Strike player called Rape. This piece originally appeared 2/11/15. There’s a disconnect with esports that doesn’t exist with real-life athletics, the…
By Patrick Klepek Published March 22, 2017 -
Esports
Blizzard Cracks Down On Overwatch Ties, Polarizes Fans
Draws are the bane of competitive Overwatch players’ existence. All that work, and instead of the sweet taste of victory or the bitter agony of defeat, you get the sour milk breath of anticlimax. Late last week, Blizzard took the first steps to fix that. Some players, though, think they might have gone too far.…
By Nathan Grayson Published March 20, 2017 -
Esports
You Can Watch Esports In VR Now, But Why Would You?
Here are two questions an annoying friend or relative might ask you: “Does anyone actually watch esports tournaments?” and “Does anyone actually own a VR headset?” A startup called SLIVER.tv has decided to combine these two head-scratchers into one bizarre business plan, which can be best summarized in one question: “Would anyone watch esports tournaments…
By Maddy Myers Published March 20, 2017 -
Esports
Player Lands One-Hit KO In Japanese Fighting Game Tournament
This weekend held many different events in some of the biggest esports, from League of Legends and Street Fighter to Call of Duty. In a small arcade tucked away in Akihabara, Japan, however, players were duking it out in some of the best bouts I’ve seen all weekend, in a language I don’t understand and…
By Eric Van Allen Published March 19, 2017
