The new release on Natus Vincere’s website has confirmed that the team would not attend ESL One Mumbai 2019. The reason for skipping the ESL One’s first event in Mumbai is because of ‘busy tournament schedule.’
Natus Vincere not attending the event would surely leave fans disappointed as people have urge to meet the players. Na`Vi other than DotA2, has strong fanbase for their CS:GO team as well.
PUBG-Mobile, the world’s most played competitive game is battling with the skies. The viewership, tournaments & interactive events kicking in is attracting more players than ever for the Mobile gaming industry.
What CS:GO, DotA 2, FIFA & other generic games couldn’t do for decades, PUBG-Mobile did it in less than a year.
Professional sports has always fallen victim to fads and passing trends, functional or otherwise. Whether it’s Suction cup therapy, Kinesio Tape or GyroStim, athletes and teams are always looking out for new ways to gain an advantage over the competition. And if it’s legal, then even better.
Therefore, with esports becoming a higher-stakes industry year by year, and its popularity growing to the point where it will inevitably rival traditional sports, the question is more when we will see trends develop, than if we will. Maybe we even already have.
IRL
In terms of cultural esports trends, rather than technological, we’ve already looked at the major move teams are making towards training facilities, independent from where players live. Dedicated esports arenas are becoming increasingly common, where tournaments can be held, along with training sessions for fans of any skill level to come together. Good examples of this are the locations created by the Overwatch League and the Call of Duty World League. It’s a real boon to allow fans to have event spaces to visit even outside of tournament season, and will let companies become creative with the space all year round for the supporters. HyperX have even gone so far as to put together a 35-ton esports truck in time for CES 2019.
Into the Fold
Mobile esports itself can perhaps be seen as a trend, but with the rapid increase in what technology can be contained within a smartphone, it has been inevitable for some time that modern phones would reach the point where they would be able to run games that (almost) perform as well as a gaming PC. With handheld devices catching up to computers, and fully fledged 5v5 MOBAs appearing on app stores, mobile esports are carving a huge foothold in the industry.
This week Samsung, quite literally, opened up the possibility for a new way to play mobile esports, with the announcement of the Galaxy Fold, with pretty impressive specs that will appeal to mobile gamers, professional and otherwise. The Fold will feature a 7nm 64-bit Octa-core processor and 12GB of RAM, with 512GB built in storage for good measure and has a total battery capacity of 4,380mAh, via two batteries which are split on either side of the hinge. It’s worth noting that the trend is already well underway, with rival foldables already appearing from Chinese giant Huawei and California-based tech company Royole.
Samsung are of course already heavily invested in mobile esports, being the main sponsor and hardware provider for the PUBG Mobile Star Challenge (PMSC) World Tournament in Dubai late last year via the Galaxy Note 9. With this in mind, it’s not at all unfeasible to imagine their folding screen technology taking center stage at major mobile events. Either way, it looks a lot more comfortable to use than a suction cup.
Astralis in Game Leader Lukas ‘gla1ve’ Rossander appealed to Valve to unban ex IBUYPOWER pros Josua ‘steel’ Nissan and Braxton ‘Swag’ Pierce, who were banned from competitive CS after admitting to throw a match for skins and money.
The duo were involved in throwing a match in 2014 when they were playing for IBUYPOWER against NetCodeGudes after already having qualified from the group stage.
Come on @csgo_dev – Lets get these players unbanned already. they have been in jail for 5 years for stealing candy. @JoshNissan@GODaZeD@brax1wnl and more.
I am happy that you stated an example and I am sure everyone by now know that you dont tolerate match-fixing. https://t.co/4QOc1RREjc
Since then, a huge cry has been going on across pros and fans to remove the lifetime ban imposed them by Valve- and ESL obliged, lifting it last year to allow them to play their competitions, however other organizers and most importantly Valve have kept the ban, meaning he is sill not eligible to play a major.
“I completely agree,” “While it was a horrible thing to do, there was no previous precedent set, so to instantly issue a lifetime ban was absolutely appalling,” replied Mathew “sadokist” Trivett, a popular caster.
Considering how little involvement Valve choose to have with the esports side of things, that seemed extremely harsh
Earlier this week, an elementary bug was uncovered wherein players were able to seek access to Apex Legends Loot which is exclusively restricted to Twitch Prime users. Although, people without the subscription are eventually able to acquire loot through a simple ‘jugaad’. The loot comprises of five loot boxes and the Legendary Pathfinder skin.
How to get hold of the exclusives:
Open Origin Game Library
Access Apex Legends’ Game Properties
Head to Advance Launch Options Tab
Add “+twitch_prime_linked 1” in Launch Options
Following these easy steps will get you five loot boxes in your inventory and the Legendary Pathfinder skin will be unlocked. Although if you wish to remove the launch option, skin will disappear but the loot boxes will remain intact.
There is no official comment by Electronic Games (EA) on the mishap. There are several speculations that the game developers could take effective measures but in the worst case scenario, user could establish new Origin account because the game itself is free.
The consequences are not revealed yet, however, EA is expected to patch the exploit sooner. Also, since no external software or program is used, EA is expected to be pretty lenient. Terms of service are indeed breached but the developer would not plan to take severe measures over the popular player base.
IEM Katowice saw teams in the 1-2 pool clash against each other to still fancy a chance to make it to the top 8. In the three matches played, FaZe and Cloud9 faced compLexity and HellRaisers respectively.
FaZe took on compLexity in the fourth round in the New Legends Stage to avoid elimination. The best-of-three series kicked off on Cache followed by Mirage and Dust 2. CompLexity quickly showed FaZe what they were made of and handed Faze a 16-8 loss on Cache. But Nikola “NiKo” Kovač and co. had something else planned for the day and pulled the series back on Mirage and Dust 2, beating compLexity in a BO3.
The other match saw Cloud9 against HellRaisers in the New Legends stage where Cloud9 emerged victorious in 2 maps, without needing a third to decide the fate of HellRaisers, who have been eliminated following a 1-3 record in the New Legends Stage. The first map was Inferno where Cloud9 dominated HellRaisers with a 16-8 scoreline. Cloud9 carried that momentum into their map pick, Cache, ending the first half at 11-4 and ending the game with a score line of 16-12.
A summary of last night matches from the 1-2 pool:
ENCE Esports vs. G2 Esports
ENCE won Dust II 19-17
ENCE won Mirage 16-10
FaZe Clan vs. compLexity
compLexity won Cache 16-8
FaZe won Mirage 16-11
FaZe won Dust II 16-14
Cloud9 vs. HellRaisers
Cloud9 won Inferno 16-8
Cloud9 won Cache 16-12
But, only one of the two teams will make the cut to the top 8 as FaZe and C9 are set to face off in the final match on Sunday, meaning one of the most popular teams in the world will be going home early.
This is it! We are only missing 3 more teams to fill out the Champions stage for the #IEM Katowice Major.
In addition to the FaZe vs. C9 match, Ninjas in Pyjamas will be in action against Team Vitality, and ENCE will against AVANGAR in the first match on Sunday.
Epic Games has announced a $100 million prize pool Fortnite World Cup which runs till July, marking the entry of the most popular Battle Royale game in Esports.
The tournament, which begins on April 13 will see 10 weekly open qualifiers hosted till mid June each having a prize pool of $1 million. Following that, the top 100 solo players and top 50 duos will be selected to face off in an epic contest from July 26-28 in New York.
The most surprising part of the announcement is the prize pool, which has not only raised some eyebrows, but is a testament to how far the game has come. Each of the qualified player is guaranteed a minimum of $50,000 with the champion walking away with as much as $3 million. To put this in perspective, CSGO, which has long been one of the most popular fps game of this decade, has a total prize pool of $1 million in its biggest event, the Majors.
While other details of the tournament will be released in the last 2 parts of the announcements later, Epic Games has confirmed that it would host other fun events at the Finals, like ‘fun custom challenges in different modes and formats.’
While the other details of the event are impatiently awaited, the buzz for Fortnite has certainly not shown signs of stopping, and with this it can take it one step above all its competitors.
There has been much furore over the now-frequent use of AUGs on the server, after the price of the weapon was dropped. We have seen a sharp rise in the number of AUGs being purchased during the Major Qualifier stage, with twice as many as the next favorite weapon, the m4a4 while the silencer was purchased almost the same number of times as the XM1014 shotgun.
CSGO devs have often brought in a shift of a meta through the introduction of changes into weapons or their pricing or even a brand new weapon perhaps. The AUG though, has been present and remained rather untouched through innumerable patches.
So with the new update being released I want to clarify: being a “zoom” player I will now only utilize the scout or AUG/SG. See you on the server
SOoo.. What are you best theory-crafts with that economy change for 2nd round ? As a T, full save 2nd round & buying 3rd ? As CT, pray that you'll survive the 2nd round if you win pistol ?
What begs the question is that, if the AUG was so overpowered by default, with pricing the only factor stopping the CTs from buying it regularly over the M4s, surely someone from the professional scene would have tried to be the outlier and use it.
.@G2shox shared his thoughts with us on the AUG and it's place in CS:GO.
Majority of the pros have reasoned that, for the lack of better understanding of just how Overpowered AUG was, it was not worth exploring, considering CTs could not afford to buy the weapon round after round.
Photo via luckbox
With the price decreased, almost everyone has gotten his hands on it, with AUGs ruling the server. But, is it such a bad thing?
For once, AUGs are rewarding CTs for their angles and minimising the Peekers’ Advantage that the AK equips the Ts with on the server. Earlier, even when the CTs had seemingly perfect angles, Ts could still gain a peeking advantage by clearing out other corners and peeking strategically, or sometimes even through the bare firepower of the AK.
This has been rendered difficult with the arrival of AUGs. For all the cries to ban or nerf the AUG, we can still see teams rack up T rounds, with perhaps, the teams being pushed to be more intuitive and innovative in their strategy.
We have seen the likes of Liquid and Renegades show some innovative strat calls at the New Legends Stage and the two teams have been able to one-up their opponents so far, reaching the Champions Stage or the Playoffs.
There are also lineups like mibr, Natus Vincere and Astralis, who have not changed their tactical playbook and still prevailed on the back of team chemistry and raw firepower.
If anything, the AUGs have enabled a fairer mapping of teams and their ability on the T side. Anywho, teams have to adapt to the changing meta of the game and it is just strange to see so much furore and so many calls to nerf the AUG.
At times, there have been calls for some nerfs on potentially Overpowered weapons in the past like Tec9 and Cz. But, both of them were reworked and with time, the AUG is likely to receive some nerfs as well.
While the player pressure seemed to work in terms of fixes for smoke bugs on radars, the players cannot pressurize CSGO devs to change the meta of the game. It will have to be taken in stride and most great teams will, eventually.
What begs the question now is … have players grown too comfortable within the metas and becoming rigid to the slightest of changes to it? The whole situation reeks of the same.
5POWER wins the WESG 2018 China Qualifier #2, to clinch a spot in the World Finals.
The WESG 2018 China Qualifier #2 featured four teams, 5POWER, BTRG.IMBA, ViCi, and EHOME, in a single elimination bracket for a spot in the grand finals.
5POWER and ViCi—who were using Hui “DD” Wu and Ke “captainMo” Liu as stand-ins for Andrew “Kaze” Khong and WingHei “Freeman” Cheung, won their semi-final matches, defeating EHOME and BTRG.IMBA, respectively, to face each other in the final.
The teams played two maps; Mirage and Inferno where 5POWER won 2-0 against VICI. In the first map, Mirage, HongGuang “Stevie” Li led the charge for his team, ending the map with 31 kills and an impressive rating of 1.51, closing the map out 16-13. The second map, Inferno went to triple overtime 5POWER could take the map,backed by a score line of 25-22
Via HLTV
The tournament has one spot left to be filled by an invited team, will take place on March 11-17 in Chongqing, China. The complete list for WESG 2018 WORLD Finals is as follows:
Ever since the fall of 2EZ Gaming, Rahul “titoSAVAGE” Sridhar and Sabyasachi “Antidote” Bose have been left high and dry with no actual lineup in action. As soon as the Winter Finale of ESL India Premiership concluded in the first week of February, Chinmay “PokI” Mehta announced his departure as the 21 year-old inherited the blue jersey, joining the ranks of Entity Gaming.
As fate would have it, Rahul and Sabyasachi announced their respective withdrawals on the afternoon of February 12. Since then, titoSAVAGE has been quite interactive with his fans through series of streams and ‘ask me anything’ (AMA) sessions.
Apart from this, 20 year-old has also been enjoying the IEM: Katowice Major and was seen playing a local cafe event with mixed lineup at Level Up cafe in Navi Mumbai.
On the contrary, since the ESL India Premiership ceased, Sabyasachi headed straight to his hometown, the city of joy, Kolkata. The 22 year-old AWPer has been catching up with his old school friends ever since. Much alike his former teammate, Antidote has also been streaming frequently on YouTube alongside Q&A sessions on Facebook Live. Alongside he has been vigorously rooting for Manchester United in the UEFA Champions League.
Taking sometime off. Watching the Major and enjoying holidays with my friends.
Although currently Sabyasachi is headed to Manali for a small vacation, the star player hinted that something big is underway. It seems that both of them have taken a short break from active scene as the Indian Counter-Strike circuit embraces to witnesses a sequence of shuffle.
Antidote and Tito came under the same roof past the forsaken fiasco. Soon after the disbandment of OpTic India roster, 2EZ Gaming acquired the service of Antidote. Tito on the other hand, has been a crucial component of Mumbai based organisation since a year and a half.
The duo began their journey against Chinese juggernaut, ViCi Gaming, in the ESL Pro League Season 8 – Asia held in first week of November 2018. They were able to take a map off with little to no practice and it seemed as beginning of what came next. Although, 2EZ also had terrible times when they fell short to a local team in Indian League Gaming (ILG) Qualifiers, Kolkata.
Since the two got together, they have achieved quite a lot in less than a quarter year. It will be interesting to see if an organisation signs the duo and whether they would get another opportunity to wholly achieve their partially earned glory.
A new international line-up has been created in featuring former members of teams like Red Reserve, G2, and OpTic, Draken has announced on his Twitter.
The roster features 4 well-known players in the likes of William “draken” Sundin, who has played on famous teams such as Fnatic and NIP. Kévin “Ex6TenZ” Droolans, who officially left G2, will join the ranks as an IGL in which he will be joined by former teammate and fellow Belgian player Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom, who has played for multiple French teams and lastly, Kevin “HS” Tarn, who is no stranger to international line-ups after being a part of PENTA and OpTic.
Finally a free agent and excited to start over with a new team. Looking for an organisation to represent together with@ScreaM_ @Ex6TenZZZ@hampuscsgo@hscsgo @chrillecsgo
Contact our manager @ItisiBonafide on [email protected] for details. Retweets appreciated.
The roster will be completed by Hampus “hampus” Poser, and coach Christian “chrille” Lindberg, who have been released from Red Reserve, who is rumoured to have quit CS:GO operations
This new international team will use the Uruguay tag until a new organisation is found, competing in ESEA MDL with the spot that belonged to Red Reserve, with the roster looking as follows:
