Esports

The Weekend In Esports: Unleash The Gears Of War

It’s almost as if the gods of competitive gaming knew we’d all be sitting around this weekend and so made sure it was jam packed with tournaments to check out. DreamHack Winter 2016 is of course going on over in Sweden at the moment, featuring competitions in almost every game under the sun. There’s also…

Roadhog Player Destroys Mei In The Most Cathartic Way Possible

Sometimes it’s worth unloading an entire Roadhog ultimate to make sure Mei is 100% dead. That’s what Reddit user xTheManOfSteelx did in an Overwatch clip he posted earlier today. “This Mei had been annoying me the entire game and we almost had the point capped anyway, so it was worth it,” he wrote. Usually Mei’s…

Watch Smash Bros. Melee Players Compete For One Of The Biggest Cash Prizes In The Game’s 15 Year History

This is what it looks like when one incredible Melee player shows no mercy. DreamHack Winter 2016 is going on right now at the Elmia Convention Center in Jönköping, Sweden, meaning that in addition to tournaments for everything ranging from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to Hearthstone, you can also catch some of the best Smash Bros.…

University Rivalry Grows Beyond Football To League Of Legends 

Last night, Stanford came out on top in its “Big Game” against California rivals Berkeley. They finished two touchdowns ahead of the Golden Bears at 45-31. But that wasn’t the only game Berkeley lost to Stanford last night. Before kick-off at Memorial Stadium, the two schools’ collegiate League of Legends teams met in Oakland at…

Pro Counter-Strike Bobbleheads Look As Creepy As You’d Imagine

Bobblehead figurines have been a staple of professional sports ever since they were first introduced in to the world of baseball fandom in the early 1960s. So naturally, esports are attempting to emulate big brother once again by borrowing the idea for this weekend’s Intel Extreme Masters Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament in Oakland, California. The…

The Weekend In Esports: Lights, Camera, Counter-Strike

After a slight lull last weekend, almost every big game you can imagine is back today with tournaments and matches playing in cities near and far. While the Counter-Strike and League of Legends headline the action with Intel Extreme Masters tournaments, Smash Bros., Dota 2, and few others return as well. Details on when and…

First Overwatch Pro To Pick Sombra Has A Bad Time

Sombra is finally in Overwatch! No longer confined to an ARG, she can now hack the planet as she pleases. Maybe, though, pros ought to steer clear of her for a bit. The problem with competing in a third-party pro Overwatch tournament is that you’re kind of at Blizzard’s whims. If they decide to release…

League Of Legends Teams Call For Changes In New Letter To Riot

A rift between the developers at Riot Games and the competitive scene around their game, League of Legends, has been growing for some time. A new letter addressed to the company and signed by 18 different professional League teams shows it’s only getting worse. According to the letter, obtained yesterday by Slingshot, several team owners…

Shaq’s Rocket League Team Wins North American Championship

Yesterday evening, NRG eSports took a best-of-seven series 4-2 against rivals Orbit eSports to become the North American Rocket League champions. The win cemented their bid for top-place seeding at the global championship later this fall in Amsterdam, as well as earned them $13,500 for their talents at using rocket-propelled cars to smash giant inflated…

Watch The King Of Catherine Tournament Going On Right Now

Atlus released Catherine over five years ago on Xbox 360 and PS3. The game was never ported to PC or the current generation of consoles, and the 360 version still isn’t backwards compatible on the Xbox One. Despite all of those obstacles, however, there’s still a thriving competitive community around the game. In fact, there’s…

The Weekend In Esports: Rocket League Regional Championships Are Here

With both BlizzCon and Worlds 2016 behind us, there’s finally a free weekend to catch our collective breath. (Breathes in, breathes out, breathes in, breathes out). Ah, that was nice! With the world championships for Blizzard and Riot’s biggest games behind us, a number of others are here this week to pick up the slack,…

Winning The World Of Warcraft Arena World Championship Is Sweaty Business 

Professional competitive gamers are often derided as fake athletes. After all, who could possibly compare sitting in front of a computer screen mashing buttons on a keyboard and mouse to running several miles on a soccer pitch or ramming into the linesman opposite you play, after play? But intense competition of any kind is grueling…

Rick Fox’s Esport Teams Can’t Stop Losing

It’s been almost a year since retired NBA player Rick Fox purchased Gravity Gaming for $1 million. Choosing to rename the organization and expand it beyond its humble origins, Echo Fox was born, a burgeoning esport enterprise that seemed, in part, to signal a new era for competitive gaming. If Fox, who claimed earlier this…

South Korea’s Ballistix are the new World Champions of Heroes of the Storm after defeating Europe’s Fnatic HotS 3-1 in a best-of-five series at BlizzCon 2016. They had beat Fnatic 2-o in a series from earlier in the tournament. The win was worth $300,000 in prize money.

Pavel “Pavel” Beltukov is Hearthstone’s new World Champion after defeating Artem “DrHippi” Kravets in the series 4-2. He takes home $250,000 as a result of placing first in the tournament. Pavel is only 18 years old.

South Korea Walks All Over Russia In Overwatch World Cup Finals

So that was a bloodbath, to put it mildly. Kind of like an Overwatch tournament finals brought to you by Quentin Tarantino. Perhaps South Korea was favored going into this match-up, especially after their triumphant march up through the rest of the bracket. But no one expected Russia to lose so easily, much less roll…

Boss Reaper Plays Help Sweden Take Bronze At Overwatch World Cup

It looked like anyone’s game for much of the best-of-three series between Sweden and Finland in today’s opening contest for third place in the Overwatch World Cup. Tied at one game each, both teams went into the final round trading advantages back and forth until it looked like Finland was on the verge of clinching…

The Weekend In Esports: BlizzCon 2016 And Smash Bros. Galore

BlizzCon 2016 is in full swing. So in addition to things like new Overwatch characters and the announcement of the Overwatch League, there’s also a ton of actual tournaments going on for each of Blizzard’s major competitive games. Details on when and where to catch all of the action are below. Overwatch It all comes…

Blizzard’s Building A Professional Sports League For Overwatch

Announced today at BlizzCon 2016, the Overwatch League is a professional gaming organization modeled after traditional sports organizations, complete with regional teams, baseline minimum salaries and benefits. Basically Blizzard is looking to create the NFL or NBA of Overwatch esports. Teams will be based around major cities, fostering regional fan and player bases. “The Overwatch…

Perfect Rocky Moment Makes League Finals That Much Better

Samsung Galaxy fought great, but SK Telecom T1 was hands-down the better fighter. And after adding a third championship to their name in just four years, it’s safe to say they are the best team in League of Legends history. That outcome seemed just as inevitable before last night’s finals as after them. Of course…