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 events in competitive gaming. Let me know what you’ll be watching in the comments and if you think there’s something I missed.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
The ELEAGUE Major 2017 begins tomorrow in Atlanta, Georgia, where sixteen teams will face one another for a piece of the $1,000,000 prize pool, half of which will go to the fist-place winners alone. The tournament will wrap up next weekend, with the top eight from the group stage advancing to a best-of-three, single elimination play-off format.
Play begins Sunday at approximately 10:30AM EST between Gambit Gaming.CS and North. Matches will go all day, concluding around 6:00PM EST with a big showdown between Flipsid3 Tactics and FaZe Clan. You can watch all of the matches here.
Smash Bros.
Genesis 4 is here! The first big Smash event of the year, Genesis 4 will feature tournaments in both Smash for Wii U, Smash 64, and Smash Bros. Melee, as well as side-competitions in Street Fighter V, Catherine, Rivals of Aether, and Towerfall. All eyes will be on Adam “Armada” Lindgren to see if anyone can disrupt his recent streak of dominance in Melee, while Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios looks more or less unstoppable at the moment in Smash 4.
The event, which began yesterday, has over 3,000 entrants with play across all games going on more or less constantly. You can find most of the action on here and below.
League of Legends
At long last, the North America and Europe LCS spring splits have returned. The League of Legends leagues include ten teams competing in a round robin stage. the best six then go on to offline playoffs, with the winner representing the region in the League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational.
Today, Counter Logic Gaming takes on Team Liquid and Team Envy face FlyQuest both at 3:00PM EST, followed by Echo Fox vs. Immortals and Team Dignitas vs. Phoenix1 at 6:00PM EST. Games resume tomorrow at the same times. In Europe, EOCCAT played G2 Esports at 10:00AM this morning, with H2K still left to play against Splyce at 1:00PM EST.
You can find the NA matches here, while the EU matches will be streamed live here. Archived matches from earlier in the week can be found here and here.
Heroes of the Storm
Group play for the Heroes of the Storm HGC started back up yesterday and will continue throughout the weekend in both North America and Europe. League play will then continue throughout the rest of the year, punctuated by international clashes and a mid-season brawl.
Matches will resume today at 5:00PM EST with Superstars vs. Team Freedom, and conclude on Sunday at 7:30PM EST with Team Naventic vs. Gale Force eSports. You can stream all of the matches live right here.
Overwatch
In-between the Winter Premier’s Group Play Phase 2 and Finals, you can always catch up on the American Overwatch scene with the Alienware Monthly melee going on this weekend. Eight teams from across two groups will battle for $5,000.
Group play begins today at 4:00PM EST with FaZe Clan vs. Denial eSports and will conclude late tonight with Hammers Esports vs. Team Liquid.OW. You can watch all of the matches here.
Dota 2
The Pit League Season 5 tournament is coming to a head this weekend, beginning today at 1:00PM EST with Evil Geniuses vs. Team Secret. The event is set to conclude with the finals scheduled for tomorrow at 11:00AM EST. The winner of Season 5 will walk away with the largest share of the nearly $150,000 prize pool. Those games can be streamed here.
Other than that it’s mostly a quiet on the Dota 2 front this weekend, but you can still catch qualifiers for the Southeast Asia region in i-League StarSeries Season 3. Matches will resume tomorrow at 3:00AM EST with Execration vs. Power Gaming and conclude around 6:00AM EST with Execration vs. Fnatic.
You can watch those matches here.
Halo 5
The NA Halo World Championship 2017 qualifiers are taking place in St. Louis this weekend hosted by UGC. With a prize pool of $50,000, the tournament will feature pro teams EnVyUs, OpTic Gaming, Team Liquid, Str8 Rippin, Luminosity Gaming, Evil Geniuses, and Pnda Gaming. The event began yesterday and will run the rest of the weekend, with matches currently going on live.
You can find them all streaming right here.