Esports

A Sad Farewell From A League Of Legends…Legend

Marcus “Dyrus” Hill, one of the first League of Legends professionals (and still one of the best), retired from competition yesterday. This is his final, emotional interview. (via Daily Dot)

The Hearthstone Americas Championship kicks off today to determine which four of eight top players will represent the Americas at Blizzcon next month. The action starts at 1PM Easternon Twitch.

What To Watch Out For This Weekend At The League Of Legends Championships

The League of Legends World Championship games are back in full swing. The past two days of the group stage haven’t been super exciting, since most everything ended up going the way people thought it would (i.e., the strongest teams won). The next two days, however, should be positively juicey. Here are the top teams…

Awwwww

I guess getting married is one consolation for not making it past the group stage in Worlds.

The winner of this year’s U.S. League of Legends Championship Series tournament is officially out of the game’s 2015 World Championship. Counter-Logic Gaming (CLG) lost its first two games today, meaning they don’t have enough wins to go past the Worlds group stage. They’re playing their final pride match now.

A friendly reminder to all the League of Legends fans: part two of the 2015 World Championship group stage games starts tomorrow at 8:00 am EDT. I’ll be updating our explainer and covering tomorrow’s games as they play out. You can find instructions for how to watch—and read up on what’s happened so far—here Contact…

The World’s Best League Of Legends Player Knows No Mercy

The Korean eSports star Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok is so good at League of Legends that fans have taken to calling him “God.” The honorific makes a lot of sense, given how wrathful the pro player just showed himself to be. In this short clip that recently went viral on the League of Legends subreddit, an…

StarCraft II‘s New Patch Won’t Support Old Replays

With Legacy of the Void and its 3.0 pre-patch, a couple of big changes are coming to the game’s interface. The new, revamped UI looks fantastic, but there’s some bad news as well: Replays made before the patch will no longer be supported. Aw, crap. It sounds like a tiny change, but replays were always…

Dota 2 Hero Alchemist Made A Curious eSports Comeback This Weekend

This past weekend saw Dota 2 descend on New York City’s Madison Square Garden theater for the eSports tournament ESL One. One thing that surprised a lot of Dota 2 fans was the return of Alchemist, a hero who hasn’t had a huge impact on the game’s pro scene for a while now. Alchemist is…

Riot Bans League Of Legends Team For Not Paying Its Players

League of Legends pro side Team Immunity has been banned from competing by Riot for two years, having been found guilty of “not paying minimum match payments to their players.” In a post on the Oceanic League of Legends site, Riot has announced that, effective immediately, Team Immunity and its owners will not be allowed…

That Big Pharma Jerk Also Owns A League of Legends Team

Did you know the most hated pharmaceutical executive in America also owns professional League of Legends and Dota 2 teams? It’s true! Martin Shkreli, the CEO who instantly gained internet notoriety yesterday for jacking up the price of a drug used to treat cancer patients and people with AIDS by more than 5,000 percent, happens…

An Awesome Moment From The Heroes Of The Storm Americas Finals

The Heroes of the Storm Americas finals went down in Las Vegas this weekend, giving rise to many big plays that impressed fans and spectators. One moment from the grand finals stood out as a real show-stopper. It all came down to a face-off between two of the Act I bosses in Diablo III. The…

The Heroes of the Storm Americas Championship concludes today as six teams—Tempo Storm, COGnitive Gaming, Cloud 9 compLexity, Relics and Murloc Geniuses battle for two spots to the World Championships at BlizzCon 2015. Watch it live here

Watch The Heroes Of The Storm Americas Championship Live, Right Here

The top eight Heroes of the Storm team in the Americas are in Las Vegas today, competing for a $100,000 prize pool and two spots in the world championship battle at BlizzCon 2015. Who will win, other than Murky? Kicking off at 1 PM Eastern and running until one team has $40,000 and a trip…

Madden NFL Should Be a 22-Player Game

It is one of the oft-old tales in the three-decade (!) history of Madden NFL: When Trip Hawkins, the founder of Electronic Arts, approached John Madden, the Hall of Fame coach and broadcaster, about collaborating on a new version of video game football, Madden stipulated that any game with his name on it would include…

Rocket League Needs To Be The Next Big eSport

You may have seen a flood of highlight reels and slow motion GIFs of Rocket League cars smashing into each other and scoring unbelievable goals lately. There’s a reason for that. Rocket League is insanely fun to watch and play. The world of eSports is currently on the rise and there are plenty of popular…

The Best Smash Bros. Player In The World Is Feeling Burnt Out

Playing video games professionally is such a strenuous and time-consuming job that pro gamers regularly run into the problem of burnout. The latest person to succumb to this unfortunate trend is Gonzalo “Zero” Barrios, the reigning champion of the Smash Bros.’ eSports scene. Ever since the Wii U version of Smash came out and tournaments…

The most powerful brand in sports journalism is officially diving into eSports. Today ESPN put out a job listing for an “eSports editor.” This comes after the ESPN magazine published its first ever eSports issue, which included an excellent profile of the League of Legends god player Faker. Art/story via The Daily Dot

Sports Vs. eSports, According To A Lawyer

“You can do lots of things with a law degree,” the saying goes—though, lately, law students are more famous for searching in vain for jobs and accumulating crippling debt than saving the world. Somewhere in between these extremes is Bryce Blum, who may be planet Earth’s most dedicated eSports attorney. Worldwide, eSports are massively popular—by…

League Of Legends Pro Almost Quit Before Winning The U.S. Finals 

“It’s just really satisfying, it’s the most satisfying feeling I’ve ever had in my life. As I said in the post-game interview, it’s the best day of my life, because…everyone in the community makes a joke, makes a mockery of CLG, and mockery of me, and tells me I can’t do it.” Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng…