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Esports
DreamHack Austin Features First North American StarCraft Finalist In Ages
The first DreamHack StarCraft event in the United States came close to hosting a miracle as America’s Alex “Neeb” Sunderhaft fought his way into a close final series against Korea’s Shin “Hydra” Dong Won. Neeb knocked-out two strong European players on his way to the final, crushing PtitDrogo 3-0 and defeating Snute 3-1. The latter…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsThe New World Order At LoL’s Mid-Season Invitational
With more twists and turns than you typically find in an entire season of pro League of Legends, the group stage of the Mid-Season Invitational ended with a leaderboard that seemed like something from an alternate universe. China’s LoL Pro League was all but written-off as the place where good Korean pros went to get…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsThe GSL StarCraft 2 Final Was Everything That’s Still Good About The Game
Following a pretty lousy winter for StarCraft, Korea’s GSL ended on a high note Sunday morning as two teammates fought a pitched-battle across six games in an instant-classic StarCraft final. Joo “Zest” Sung Wook was the favorite heading into the final, especially because his opponent was a Terran. He has pretty much owned the Protoss…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsGuy Performs Free Jazz To Competitive Smash Bros.
Here’s Caleb, doing a stunning drum performance. And it’s not just random drumming. All the different hits are in sync with all the Smash Bros. moves. You can hear light cymbal hits for Fox’s short hop lasers, for example. He basically replaced all the game’s sounds with drum hits, and it works perfectly, giving the…
By Gergo Vas -
Esports
Match-Fixing Report Shows How Gambling Has Ruined Korean StarCraft
The Korean prosecutor’s office leading the StarCraft 2 match-fixing investigation released its report this week, and the results are not good for fans of the sport. One of the game’s greatest players, Lee “Life” Seung Hyun, now stands convicted of match-fixing, as well as another leading player, Bung “Bbyong” Woo Yong. That’s only half the…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsA Hero’s Spell-Stealing Ability Just Wrecked Team Secret’s Night in DOTA 2
Team Secret’s new DOTA 2 super-roster is off to an iffy start at ESL One Manila. Some lack of coordination has put them on the verge of elimination early following losses in their group. They’re currently fighting for their lives against Empire. Secret were up a game and were looking for the knockout victory when…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsCloud9 Creates All-Star Challenger Series League Of Legends Team
Taking yet another stab at preparing for life after Hai, the Cloud9 League of Legends organization announced yesterday that it would be starting a new Challenger Series team to compete this summer, seeded with Cloud9 starters. Hai and Daerek “LemonNation” Hart made their super-equivocal announcement in a video post, explaining that Hai and an as-yet-undetermined…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsOne Of Counter-Strike’s Greatest Teams Returns From The Dead At DreamHack Malmo
After keeping fans waiting ages for a comeback, Sweden’s Ninjas in Pyjamas team upset expectations on Sunday to win the DreamHack Masters Malmö Counter-Strike tournament, in front of a fanatically loyal home audience. NiP was the team to beat in the early days of Global Offensive, enjoying the longest winning streak in pro Counter-Strike history,…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsCLG And Their New AD Carry Beat Doublelift And Team SoloMid In NA League Of Legends Final
History repeated itself at the end of Team SoloMid’s and Counter Logic Gaming’s five-game North American LCS final on Sunday, as some clutch play from a CLG carry shut down TSM’s title challenge. It’s going way too far to say that Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes won the series for CLG, but he delivered at two absolutely…
By Rob Zacny -
Esports
Team SoloMid In Another League Of Legends Final, But Won’t Have Any More Help
The rule with Team SoloMid in 2016 is to expect the unexpected. With an all-star roster of proven greats, they shambled to a .500 record. Now they’re the scariest team in the NA LCS playoffs. On Sunday, they face their great nemesis, CLG, in the final. It’s a remarkable turnaround for Team SoloMid. Their win…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsThat’s One Way To Play Overwatch
Blizzard’s shooter isn’t even out, yet some folks already found ways to play the game absolutely unintended ways. Instead of chasing each other on the map, these players have set up a silly orb deflecting mini-game. It’s a reminder of Team Fortress 2 days and Pyro Airblasts. Symmetra is firing her orb to the ninja…
By Gergo Vas -
Esports
Korean StarCraft II Players Sure Know How To Hide Their Identity
Using lower case Ls and capitalized Is to create barcode names to remain anonymous sort of became a trend in competitive StarCraft II, and sometimes it results in perfect ladder moments like this one above. Currently almost everyone in the Korean top 100 and everyone, except the number one player, in the Korean top 20…
By Gergo Vas -
EsportsOverwatch‘s Tracer Has Some Powerful Abilities In Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm wouldn’t be a true Blizzard arena brawler without someone representing Overwatch. And finally, after all the characters added from Diablo or WoW, the first Overwatch hero is ready to make her debut Tracer looks like an assassin type hero here with a quite powerful basic ability: she can move while attacking.…
By Gergo Vas -
EsportsCounter-Strike Freed From European Hegemony Following Brazilian MLG Win
By the time the MLG Counter-Strike Major ended on Sunday with a lopsided Luminosity victory over Na’Vi, a long period of unbreakable European Counter-Strike supremacy had ended alongside it. Brazil’s Luminosity Gaming broke Na’Vi the way they broke Team Liquid last night: with a “back-from-the-dead” comeback on Mirage to an overtime win that left Na’Vi…
By Rob Zacny -
Esports
Fnatic, TSM Once Again Turn Into Much Better League of Legends Teams For The Playoffs
The weakest Fnatic and Team Solomid League of Legends teams in years just knocked their opponents out of the spring playoffs and advanced to the European and North American semifinals, respectively. Given the history of the EU LCS, maybe that outcome was inevitable. Fnatic have competed in every European LCS final for three straight years,…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsThe No-Scope Sniper Play That Killed Team Liquid’s MLG Counter-Strike Major Momentum
Despite the fact they were on match-point with a comfortable lead, you could feel everything going wrong for Team Liquid the moment they endured this 1v5 AWP massacre at the hands of a lone enemy sniper. With the entire Liquid team rushing through the apartments on Mirage, seemingly on their way to an unexpected first-map…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsKoreans Show How To Play Overwatch Properly
Players from South Korea usually dominate the competitive MOBA and RTS scenes, but watching Veniac’s montage of Koreans playing in the Overwatch beta, I’m sure they won’t have issues with Blizzard’s online shooter either. Amazing edit, full of perfect snipes, air shots and frags. To contact the author of this post, write to: [email protected]
By Gergo Vas -
EsportsA Stumble In Street Fighter V Overshadows A Great Justin Wong Performance
Justin Wong had a rough Sunday night at the NorCal Regionals. The fighting game legend endured a finals defeat in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 before coming within a round of the Street Fighter V final… only to be reverse-swept by Hajime “Tokido” Taniguchi. Wong lost the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 final to Christopher “NYChrisG”…
By Rob Zacny -
EsportsAui Rejoins Evil Geniuses DOTA 2 Team After Arteezy Goes To Team Secret
After watching two of their elite players leave for Team Secret, Evil Geniuses have concluded their DOTA 2 roster reshuffle with something as ironic as it is inevitable: eight months after they fired him, they’re bringing back Kurtis “Aui” Ling. According to Evil Geniuses’ DOTA 2 manager Phil Aram, the new lineup for Evil Geniuses…
By Rob Zacny