Esports

Counter-Strike‘s Pro Cheating Scandal Might Be A Good Thing

Hear me out: Counter-Strike‘s pro cheating scandal—which has seen three top-tier players get banned and others put under a hot magnifying glass of scrutiny—sucks right now, but it could be a good thing in the long run. Or it could create standards the sport can never live up to. I know, I know: on paper…

Top Counter-Strike Players Caught In Big Cheating Scandal

To say that all is not well in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive‘s pro scene would be a massive understatement. Multiple pros have been caught cheating by Valve’s official anti-cheat software, and even more are suspected. It all started when a semi-pro German player named Simon “smn” Beck got banned by the E-Sports Entertainment Association’s tools. Given…

Ten Years Later, One of Gaming’s Greatest Moments Comes to Life Again

A seminal moment in the history of competitive gaming is the Evo 2004 match between Daigo Umehara and Justin Wong. Tonight, the two celebrated the fight the best way possible: Facing off in Street Fighter. Just in case you haven’t seen the original fight, you can watch it below. (Daigo is Ken, while Justin is…

Mysterious Masked Player Wins Smash Bros Tournament

Sometimes eSports are about good, clean competition. Other times, they’re battlegrounds for words and red-hot personalities (in addition to tiny virtual wizards). This Smash Bros player, however, was neither—only silence. Silence and a mask. OK, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but this is pretty wild. As recounted in this Reddit thread and the above video…

The StarCraft II World Championship Series Ends Tonight. Let’s Watch.

The biggest crowd draw at BlizzCon every year is the global finals of the StarCraft II World Championship Series. With $100,00 on the line and a returning champion in the final bracket, this year the crowd should be bigger than ever. Thank goodness we don’t have to bother with them. The grand final was supposed…

Watch The Hearthstone World Championship Finals Live, Right Here

When I win a Hearthstone match I gain a lovely sense of accomplishment. When Tiddler Celestial or Firebat win the Hearthstone World Championship, they’ll get that plus $100,000. I feel like I’m doing something wrong. With the second place winner scoring $50,000, this final best-of-five round is technically one player’s chance to split the other…

League of Legends Player Retires, Now Makes $800k A Year…Streaming

Just like pro sports such as football, where athletes have little trouble landing themselves lucrative jobs in broadcasting when they retire, some esports competitors finding that life gets easier (and the money gets better) once they hang up their mouse and keyboard. While this is obviously an extreme case, one taking place in a market…

World’s Biggest LAN Party Kicks Out CEO

DreamHack is where some of PC gaming’s elite professional teams go to compete for millions of dollars in prize money. Now, one of the people who helped turn it into one of the world’s largest video game events has been booted from the company. Up until this weekend, Robert Ohlén was the CEO of DreamHack,…

Five Ways To Lose Like A Winner in eSports

Tutorial Central got me with his third tip of his recent video, which is about losing gloriously in StarCraft II and other competitive games. I’d be stunned if someone paused the game during a carefully planned zerg rush to start talking about a broccoli accident in the kitchen. The other three are classics. And number…

Watch The Final Round Of The 2014 League Of Legends Worlds Right Here

With a million dollars and the Summoner’s Cup on the line, it all came down to this final match-up. Did Star Horn Royal Club rectify last year’s loss, or has Samsung Galaxy White come out on top? A season of fierce competition culminated earlier today in a final battle between China’s Star Horn Royal Club…

This weekend’s League of Legends‘ pro mega-event will be streamed on digital network ESPN 3. As it did with DOTA 2‘s colossal International tournament, ESPN will be streaming LoL‘s finals live from Seoul, South Korea. This comes as something of a relief, given that ESPN’s president recently said eSports “is not a sport.”

Watch The League Of Legends Worlds Semifinals Right Here

If you haven’t been following the League Worlds tournament, this weekend brings us the semifinals. Today’s match: The last remaining Chinese teams, Star Horn Royal Club vs OMG. Star Horn Royal Club returns this year after losing in the Season 3 final round last year. They’ve got a new roster, so we’ll see if they’ll…

Watch The League Of Legends Worlds Semifinals Right Here

If you haven’t been following the League Worlds tournament, this weekend brings us the semifinals. Today’s match: Samsung Blue vs. Samsung White. Samsung White is a favorite to win the tournament overall. Despite having never won against Blue, all the analysts picked them over Blue, along with 70% of viewers. The tournament is happening in…

CBS Commentator Urges Gamers To Go Play The Real World

“…here’s a fun fact: Did you know the real world is broadcasting in 3-D? All the time? I know, amazing!” Yep, this is going to be one of those. Reader Darius pointed us towards a video that ran today on CBS Sunday Morning, in which commentator and radio host Luke Burbankdiscusses the recent acquisition of…

StarCraft II, Turned Into an Arena Shooter

Accessible via StarCraft II‘s free Arcade section, “Unreal Arena” looks like a really fun way to kill some time between matches, and perhaps to practice unit control and micro a bit. It’s a classic 6v6 capture the flag game, with three maps and with some really powerful grenades. Something similar to these grenades implemented in…

Number of Combatants in First Official Smash Bros. 3DS Tournament

Starting on Oct. 4th, the day after the release of the new Smash Bros. 3DS in the US, 64 entrants at 16 different locations will square off for a chance to win a trip to New York and compete for the championship. Some folks have started organizing their own unofficial tournaments, but this will be…

The Red Bull Battle Grounds StarCraft II competition reaches its grand conclusion today. The Grand Finals have been taking place in Washington D.C. this weekend, and today it’s the semi-finals and finals. Watch the action live over at the tournament’s official website

Of Hearthstone Players Are in the 10 Lowest Ranks Earlier today, Blizzard posted a few statisticson their Hearthstone blog about the game’s ranking system. Turns out the vast majority of players are on the 10 lowest ranks. That probably shouldn’t be all too surprising, but Blizzard mentioned that they’ve received some complaints from players that…

Hours to Earn an Average Professional Deck in Hearthstone Read More on Numbers This week, Blizzard released the list of the 32 players that qualified for the next phase of the Hearthstone World Championship. Obviously these players got to where they are based on both their skill and the quality of their deck, but what…

Team Acer’s MMA was the winner of this weekend’s Starcraft II tournament at DreamHack Moscow and while it’s a great achievement, there’s something strange about his trophy… Congrats on your victory MMA and don’t worry about the typo. Misprints always worth more! via MMA’s Twitter To contact the author of this post, write to: [email protected]