Esports

Valve Removes Counter-Strike‘s Dust2 Map From Competitive Play

On Friday, Valve announced it was removing the CS:GO’s Dust2 from the Active Duty group. While the beloved map will still be playable in casual matches, it’s been replaced by Inferno for tournaments, making it the end of an era for the biggest shooter in esports. Valve made the switch in the aftermath of the…

Real Life Operators Bring Some Gravitas To Competitive Gaming By Standing Awkwardly On Stage

The Rainbow Six Invitational is a tournament going on right now for the latest Tom Clancy military shooter. So of course the event needed to have real life operators on stage to drill home just how bad ass the whole thing totally was. The event’s host, Matt Andrews, was really pumped about the whole thing.…

The Director Of Dissidia Final Fantasy Thinks It Could Be An Esport

Dissidia Final Fantasy came out over a year ago in Japan as an arcade game, but a console version is apparently still in the works. In a recent interview with Weekly Famitsu the game’s producer, Ichirou Hazama, and director, Takeo Kujiraoka, said that the only reason a console version of Dissidia Final Fantasy wasn’t shown…

The Weekend In Esports: Rainbow Six Siege Heads To Montreal

Taking a break from CS:GO and Call of Duty, this weekend belongs to Rainbow Six Siege, a tactical shooter still looking for its place in the world of competitive gaming that will get a big boost from this weekend’s Invitational in Canada. You can read about all of the teams competing here, but all eyes…

The Vote Over Evo 2017’s Ninth Fighting Game Is Reopening Old Wounds

This year, the Evolution Championship Series is giving nine fighting games the chance of a lifetime. The game that raises the most money for Make-a-Wish International (a non-profit organization dedicated to making the dreams of children with life-threatening conditions reality) will earn a spot during the prestigious Sunday finals. But with Evo 2017 donations in…

A 16-Year-Old Smash Bros. Player Is Beating The Biggest Pros On The Scene

In October, 16-year-old Smash 4 champion Leonardo Perez (“MK Leo”) vowed to claim first prize at Genesis 4, an international Smash tournament in San Jose, California. Perez, whose 16th birthday landed on the tournament’s opening day earlier this month, arrived from Naucalpan, Mexico City a few days prior to practice with Smash players who’d been…

One Man’s Quest To Redeem Eevee In Competitive Pokémon

Despite being a beloved Pokémon, Eevee has never been considered a strong pick for competitive play. For Giovanni Costa, that perception doesn’t matter: he has dedicated himself to proving everyone wrong about Eevee. Giovanni Costa is new to Video Game Championship series (VGC), the global Pokémon double-battle competition. He didn’t even know Pokémon had a…

The Epic Comeback That Defined This Weekend’s Major Counter-Strike Tournament

The ELEAGUE Major 2017 seemed to be missing something. People scattered across social media were surprised by the quality of the matches but felt like the event was missing the gravitas and pageantry of a true Major. But then Astralis and Virtus.pro put on one of the best shows a CS:GO major in recent memory.…

The Weekend In Esports: The ELEAGUE Major 2017 Hunts For A Champion

Four teams left in 2017’s first major CS:GO tournament will look to set the agenda for the game with a dominating finish in Atlanta this weekend. Under the glare of the lights on the Fox Theater stage, European juggernauts are looking to unseat the Brazilians and return the game to a deathmatch between top European…

Top Smash Players Want Duck Hunt’s Stage Banned [UPDATE]

Competitive Super Smash Bros. 4 players are asking for silly dog Duck Hunt’s stage to be banned from tournaments. Its architecture forces players into boring, long sequences where they stare at each other and wait. Dunk Hunt’s stage is, of course, based on the NES title Duck Hunt. It’s a grassy, flat plane. Sometimes, ducks…

The game lineup for the EVO 2017 fighting game tournament has been announced, an eight-game mix of the usual suspects and newcomers like Injustice 2, Tekken 7, The King of Fighters XIV and BlazBlue: Central Fiction, with a ninth game being left up to player voting.

Smash Bros. Match From Weekend’s Tournament Is Some Epic Anime Shit

Super Smash Bros. Melee players Mango and Leffen clashed on Sunday in a match that will make you cry big, anime tears. Fans are already calling it 2017’s “set of the year”—despite the fact it’s only January. Cloud 9’s Mango (Joseph Marquez) and Team SoloMid’s Leffen (William Hjelte) have vied for Melee supremacy for years…

Smash Bros. Players Infuriated Over Surprise Setting Tweak At Big Tournament

Although Super Smash Bros Melee closed out this weekend’s Genesis 4 with a bang, a cloud of controversy hangs over the tournament due to rule complications during the Super Smash Bros. for Wii U finals. The competitors most affected are looking for answers and, perhaps most surprisingly, compensation for the match errors they encountered. The…

Counter-Strike Pro Wins Epic Shootout Against The Entire Enemy Team 

Team Liquid should have lost to Team EnVyUs well before the game’s eventual ending scoreline of 25-21. But Josh “jdm64″ Marzano had other plans, including mowing down the entire enemy team as the last man standing After watching his teammate get shredded right in front of him, jdm64 managed to get payback for his fallen…

Duck Hunt Causes Major Upset At This Weekend’s Smash Bros. Tournament

Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios of Team SoloMid is Smash Wii U’s greatest player at the moment. But that didn’t stop Japan’s Brood from sending him to the loser’s bracket at Genesis 4 after a stunning 2-1 victory early in the tournament that caused the crowd to freak out Currently situated outside the top 20 in the…

Dota 2 Pro Makes Clutch Play From Beyond The Grave

Ludwig “zai” Wåhlberg probably didn’t expect to stumble into the entire enemy team while near his home base in the dwindling minutes of the Pit League Season 5 quarterfinals, but it didn’t matter either. Some quick thinking allowed him to secure the win for Evil Genius even after dying Evil Geniuses may have had the…

The Weekend In Esports: League Of Legends And Genesis 4 Return

Coming off of last weekend’s excess in China with the WESG 2016, it’s back down to business with the start of some cutthroat action in both Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Smash Bros. Oh, and competitive League of Legends finally returns this weekend! Below you’ll find where and when you can catch all the weekends biggest…

The Popular Monster That’s Slowing Down Competitive Pokémon

A couple of months after Sun and Moon’s release, one monster has appeared on 40 percent of the best-performing teams in the competitive Pokémon scene: Celesteela, the ultra beast. Celesteela’s schtick: becoming a“wall” against opponents, and surviving attacks for very a long time. And yet, for all her popularity, Celesteela’s antic of slowing matches to…

Here’s Why A Newly Formed Pro Dota 2 Team In China Has People Excited

Newbee is a powerhouse when it comes to Chinese esports, especially Dota 2. The organization already has a youth feeder team to pull from and was looking exceptional after taking second at Malaysia’s ESL One Genting 2017 just over a week ago. But it’s the most recent team to form under the Newbee banner, Newbee…

Street Fighter V Player Reaches Top Rank Thanks To Hacks

The Street Fighter V player BEST_KOREA holds the number one spot in the game’s ranked mode despite not being all that great. In fact, the player recently served as a punching bag for the world renowned Daigo Umehara. So how did BEST_KOREA climb the ladder so easily? As Shoryuken reported recently, sitting at over 10,000 LP…