esports – Page 3

Astralis Maintain Dominant Streak With Win In Katowice

Champions of the most recent Counter-Strike: Global Offensive major, Astralis chalked up another tournament win today in Katowice, Poland at the Intel Extreme Masters, defeating FaZe 3-1.

StarCraft Pro Topples Number One Player To Win IEM Katowice Championships

Jun “TY” Tae Yang doesn’t have the illustrious career of many other StarCraft pros. Despite playing the game for a decade, since the age of 12, Jun had never won a premier event until January. Today, at Intel Extreme Masters Katowice, Jun took his second-ever first place finish at a premier, besting the top player in…

Piglet Takes Over Team Liquid Mid Role In Push To Reach League Playoffs

Chae “Piglet” Gwang-jin is one of the most well-known marksman players in League. Having won the Season 3 World Championships on Korean team SK Telecom T1, he’s proved himself as one of the best in his role—now, he’s defining his position in a new lane.

Riot Risks Stifling Creativity In League By Banning Players With Unconventional Strategies

Last week, a player who goes by “Take the Draw” in League of Legends was handed a 14-day ban. The punishment wasn’t because of the champion they played, but the way they were playing it—and now, Riot risks setting a precedent for how you have to play the game.

Overwatch Pros Sniped Off A Ledge After Ambush Goes Wrong

The Immortals Overwatch team has an impressive damage-dealing duo in GrimReality and Agilities, but every now and then, it’s nice to see a couple of greats get cut down. The internet enjoyed schadenfreude at Immortals’ expense during yesterday’s Overwatch “Monthly Melee” semi-finals, where our two anti-heroes got way…

Rocket League Player Nails The Crossbar For Huge Upset

Though played with rocket-powered cars, Rocket League is still soccer at its core, and a shot right at the crossbar can still beat the goalie out for a huge goal.

Lifecoach Retires From Hearthstone, Citing Imbalance In Competitive Scene

Hearthstone’s balance woes continue to take their toll on the competitive scene, as popular pro player and streamer Adrian “Lifecoach” Koy announced his retirement yesterday.

Team Liquid Likely Secures Kiev Major Invite With StarLadder Victory

After missing December’s Boston Major and struggling the past few months to stay abreast of a tough European Dota 2 scene, it looked like Team Liquid might have to go through the gauntlet of European qualifying for the upcoming Kiev Major. Performing well at the StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season Three finals was…

Tales Speedrunners Race Through Grand Epics In A Few Hours

For a certain subset of folks, speedrunning—the art of beating a video game as quickly as possible—is their window into competitive gaming. But if speedrunning Super Mario World is a 100-meter sprint, a Tales race is a marathon: superficially similar but wildly different.

Surprise Marine Flank Secures Win In Global StarCraft II League Quarterfinals

Siege tanks can’t hit flying units, a fact Cho “Maru” Seong Ju was reminded of in last night’s Global StarCraft II League Code S match against Kim “Ryung” Dong Won.

Overwatch Pro Makes Exquisite Last-Second Recovery With Winston's Jump Pack

South Korean Overwatch pro Miro is probably the best Winston player in the world. His deft tank work helped South Korea win the first Overwatch World Cup and he took home personal tournament MVP honors as well. If you want a highlight reel of his best moments, well here you go.

Dota 2 Shoutcaster Calls Out Camera Operator For Missing The Big Fight

When the last big teamfight of a Dota 2 match could decide the outcome entirely, it’s usually helpful to actually see the fight play out on stream.

Binding of Isaac Racing Is Back From the Dead

Back in 2013, Binding of Isaac fans turned the single-player game into a competitive pastime where multiple players raced against each other, live. Races involve two players facing off simultaneously, side-by-side, with each running through the game as fast as they can. That scene faded for a while, but now it’s…

Street Fighter V Stream Loses Audio, Gets Saved By Commentator's Own Sound Effects

Some competitive gaming events would fall apart if the audio from the game the competitors were playing suddenly cut out. Not last night.

The Next Dota Major Is Already Running Into Issues

The Kiev Major, the second and final major of the Dota 2 season before the next International (Dota 2’s world cup), is facing a raft of problems. Travel issues, ticket scalpers, and changing dates are dredging up ghosts of majors past.

Hearthstone Arena Going To Standard Will Make Drafts Less Awful

Blizzard announced significant changes to Arena mode for its upcoming “Year of the Mammoth” patch, so hopefully players won’t draft so many 0-3 runs.

League of Legends Fan Channel Hit with Shady DMCA Takedowns

Riot Games has the right to issue Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices for any League of Legends footage that appears without their permission online. But thus far, Riot’s been relatively hesitant to do so. This week, one YouTuber in particular has seen some League of Legends videos go up on the chopping…

Overwatch Hacker Impersonating Streamer Gets Matched Up Against Real Player, Rivalry Ensues

Kephrii is a competitive Overwatch player known for being one of the best Widowmakers in the world. Last weekend, he hopped into a match where he found another Widowmaker player also using the handle Kephrii—and that player happened to be a hacker.

Pro Overwatch Player Wrecks Entire Team's Defense With Sneaky Lucio Boop

In the $100k Tespa Collegiate Champion Finals, Overwatch player Funanah used Lucio’s “Boop” to steal an early lead in a match. It was a play so good that it seemed to demoralize his opponents into losing the whole thing.

Xbox Beats PlayStation Again In Regional FIFA Championships

Rafael “Rafifa13″ Fortes took home the title in this weekend’s Miami Regionals in FIFA Ultimate Team, beating LucasRep98 3-1 and earning a spot in Berlin for the Championship Finals.

Counter-Strike Pro Promises To "Crush" Opponent, Backs It Up In Dominating Fashion

When Astralis bested Virtus.Pro in the grand finals of the ELEAGUE Major in January, Markus “Kjaerbye” Kjærbye tweeted that his team “underperformed” in its 2-1 victory. A member of Virtus.Pro took offense, and promised to crush Astralis when they next met.

FIFA Pro Puts Away Two Goals In Under A Minute At Miami Regionals

In this weekend’s FIFA ‘17 Ultimate Team Regionals, one player put up a quick double that reminded me of my casual matches against friends.

Some Hearthstone Players Challenge Themselves To Spot Lethal Combos

Hearthstone players have been playing “spot the lethal” for years. Similar to chess puzzles, where a board state is laid out and you try to achieve checkmate in a certain number of moves, “spot the lethal” asks if you can figure out how to drop your opponent’s life to 0 in a single turn.

A Hacker Is Allegedly Flooding Counter-Strike Lobbies With Bots

Counter-Strike players are currently coping with an exploit that allows bots to spam text and partake in games without being kicked.

North Seizes Double Overtime Win At DreamHack Masters Las Vegas

A fevered back-and-forth series between Gambit Gaming and North took game two of the DreamHack Masters Las Vegas quarterfinals match to double-overtime.

League of Legends Pro Dances Before Pushing For The Win

In game two of today’s series between Splyce and Roccat, top lane player Martin “Wunder” Hansen chose to counter Roccat’s Shen pick with the mad alchemist Singed. The results? Fairly impressive.

Blaming Girlfriends For Ruining League of Legends Pros Is Bullshit

When a sports star doesn’t perform, fans look for something to blame. Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers, for example, couldn’t hear the end of relationship questions this season. Conversations happening in the League of Legends community right now prove that this phenomenon of blame occurs in esports as well.

Splatoon 2's Esports Prospects Aren't A Ludicrous Fantasy

A portion of the Nintendo Switch’s reveal trailer showed two esports teams filing into an arena, picking up some Pro controllers and gearing up for a round of Splatoon in front of a roaring crowd. While seemingly fantasy, Splatoon 2 as an esport isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Unicorns of Love's Ballsy Nexus Raid In Today's League Match Almost Worked

There comes a point in every game of League of Legends where some primal, base instinct compels a player forward towards the Nexus, disregarding all common sense in the hunt for that game-winning slam.

Blizzard Retires Classic Cards In Anticipation Of New Hearthstone Season

Blizzard announced changes today to the Hearthstone standard and wild sets in anticipation of 2017, which it dubs the “Year of the Mammoth.” Several core Hearthstone cards are being retired from the competitive scene, in order to open up new options for deck construction.