Cloud9 has announced a partnership with apparel and shoe company Puma for its LCS squad, by becoming its “official apparel and game-day pants/shoe provider.”
This is the first huge deal by Puma with an esport organisation, and although it is only for the 2019 LCS Spring Split, there is potential for the deal to be extended later.
Cloud9 is proud to announce our partnership with iconic sportswear company, @PUMA for the 2019 LCS Spring Split! We're thrilled to welcome PUMA to the Cloud9 Family and are eager to get the 2019 LCS Spring Split underway! #Cloud9xPUMA
“Esports are becoming increasingly popular with our consumers, so this is a very exciting deal for us,” said Adam Petrick, PUMA’s Global Director of Marketing.
Cloud9 is poised to have a great LCS season, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to be a part of it. We look forward to working with the Cloud9 team to make sure their players look as stylish off-stage as they do on-stage.
Jack Etinenne, Cloud9 owner and CEO said:
PUMA is recognized throughout the world, and having Cloud9 join PUMA’s roster of cultural phenomenon denotes an exciting new chapter for our organization. All of us are looking forward to what we’ll create with this partnership, and how good we’ll look while doing it.
The Puma logo will be visible on Cloud9’s LCS jerseys for the spring season. Financials were not disclosed. Earlier today we had reported the partnership pf Fnatic with mobile giants OnePlus, proving the growth of esports with the influx of money from more and more biggies.
With Group A done, we now intend to focus on a Group B that is more open to possibilities. While there were early favourites in the form of North and ex-SS, the departure of XANTARES and North’s recent performances have perhaps, given a more competitive look to Group B.
Ideally Group B consists of a North team that is learning the ropes of the game under a new in-game leader after years with MSL, one of the most promising and improved teams of 2018 in ex-Space Soldiers, an ENCE lineup that already came close to booking a spot at the Major last time around and a Windigo side that are on the up-and-up after the addition of poizon to their roster.
There have been many attempts to put together an all Finnish lineup which can compete internationally against the best of teams. But, ENCE’s current experiment is perhaps the best till date of any Finnish lineup in recent memory.
allu was handed a free rein to pick his teammates and it seems he has done more than a commendable job. Led in terms of raw ability by Finnish prodigy sergej, ENCE have achieved quite a lot this year.
While the 2nd place at Dreamhack Open Montreal was redeemed by winning the Atlanta iteration, later on, they also picked up small titles like the Vectorama Lan, Finnish Championships and Assembly GameXpo.
But, their biggest achievement was their triumph at StarSeries i-League Season 6, a Tier 1 event consisting of teams like mousesports, BIG and Gambit, albeit with a new lineup.
They were heartbroken at the failure to qualify for FACEIT Major. But, they are at the Minor again, this time with a more established playbook and with wins in the bag. The youngsters have had time to settle on the big stage, which means nerves are unlikely to play a big role.
ENCE have all the ingredients. But, will they be able to make the most of it at the EU Minor?
Their ranking has taken a dip mostly because of XANTARES opting to join BIG. In reality, they are a solid top-20 team, even without their mercurial star. The Turkish team have decided to play the Minor with Australian star yam, who has previous experience of playing at a similar level with Renegades.
yam is yet to actually play an official match with the ex-Space Soldiers guys. But, it is unlikely that he will be stationed in the same role as XANTARES. The Australian has never been the go-to man and is more a versatile star who is known to adapt to situations.
While primarily an Awper, yam has previously shown he can play as a secondary Awper and even as a pure rifler in teams, which will aid the team’s cause. According to many, it will be paz will be expected to step up and assume the same responsibilities and positions as XANTARES, with yam taking more of a support role within the lineup.
It will be interesting to see if MAJ3R and his troops can find success with a stand-in at the EU Minor.
North (HLTV Ranking #10) (cadiaN, aizy, Kjaerbye, gade, valde)
Photo via HLTV.org
Their inability to land a spot at the New Legends Stage of FACEIT Major was the tipping point for North, with the organization deciding to bench long-time servant MSL in favour of inculcating new ideas and a new approach to Counter-Strike.
cadiaN’s success with Rogue saw him being brought in by North, who also chose to bring back gade into the active lineup. Replacing MSL is no easy task. A slow start was soon converted into positive momentum, with North qualifying for the LAN finals of both ECS Season 6 and ESL Pro League Season 8.
A top four finish at ECS Season 6 Lan Finals brought in hope for the new lineup, with North losing to mibr in the semi-finals over three maps. But, a Group exit from the ESL Pro League Season 8 Finals saw them miss the chance to play in front of the home crowd at Odense and brought them crashing down the ground.
Individually speaking, valde has really stepped up while the most telling difference is the fragging ability of cadiaN and MSL. cadiaN’s playstyle is still structured but perhaps a more flexible brand of Counter Strike, which will aid the individual stars like Kjaerbye and aizy to express themselves more on the server.
North should be the favourites to advance from Group B. But, crazier things have happened. What cadiaN and his men need to find is consistency, which is what could unlock their chances of being a top 5 team rather than cruising in and out of the Top 10.
Just inside the Top 30 of HLTV Rankings, Windigo are always a dark horse. The Bulgarians have time and again produced upsets. But, at the same time, they are prone to losing against teams of similar level right after.
The arrival of poizon though, might just push Windigo to break their current ceiling. The youngster’s addition was not without it’s fair share of controversy, with contractual disputes regarding his situation with his former team Bpro.
Since his addition, Windigo have claimed smaller tournaments with relative ease, winning ESL South East Europe Championship Season 8, NoxFire League and Rivalry.gg Rising Stars while placing top four at the ESL Bucharest Gaming Week Invitational.
Individually speaking, pozion is head and shoulders above everyone else, averaging a rating of 1.25 under the Windigo banner. The kind of impact that the youngster has had could be gauged by the fact that the second best-rated player since his arrival is SHiPZ, with an average rating of 1.05.
Having a near 60% success rate overall in Opening kills, poizon is Bulgaria’s very own prodigy. And the EU Minor could just be the platform he needs to show he is just as good as the other up-and-coming stars in the European scene while also proving his skills against the top teams at a LAN event.
Prediction
Teams to Qualify from Group B – ENCE, North
ENCE-Qualifying as the second seed from Group B
Ex-Space Soldiers: Eliminated in the Elimination Match
North– Qualifying as the Top seed from Group B
Windigo– Eliminated in the decider
Windigo have a tough task at hand, opening their EU Minor journey against the outright favourites of the group North. The Danish roster is known to be shaky and inconsistent. But, they are likely to have worked on their issues and should prevail over Windigo.
The other match pits ENCE against the ex-Space Soldiers. Ideally, Space Soldiers would have been favourites to take the matchup. But, without XANTARES and very little to incorporate yam into their playstyle, which also might have to be tweaked, things do not look too promising for the Turkish lineup.
Expect ENCE to take the win and face off against North, who are likely to be too much for the Finnish lineup. Although, it might end up being the opposite, based on the maps that come out from the veto process.
Regardless, there will be one upset in Group B, atleast that is what we are going for. We expect Windigo to eliminate ex-Space Soldiers purely based on the fact that they have been a team for longer and will have better-defined roles and significantly more chemistry than their counterparts.
But, the Bulgarians will fall in the Decider, be it against ENCE or North. We expect North to top the group solely based on the fact that the lineup has achieved greater heights compared to other teams and genuinely, have a team capable of being higher up the rankings than they currently are.
Fnatic have announced a partnership with Chinese Mobile Giants OnePlus, which will see the OnePlus logo on all jerseys of the Swedish organisation, replacing the word ‘Fnatic’ in the process.
The announcement was a part of a 2-hour live stream event held in Berlin called Legends in Action Live, where fans had a chance to interact with the new Fnatic roster of popular esport League of Legends.
“This is a hugely significant moment in the history of Fnatic,” said Sam Mathews, founder of Fnatic.
“We share the same values when it comes to performance and becoming the best we can possibly be, so in OnePlus we have the perfect partner to take Fnatic into a new era.”
While the financials of the deal are still unclear, it is reported that the deal is a long term partnership between the two organisations as OnePlus enters into the world of Esports.
It is time for the CSGO teams to get down and dirty in an attempt to land a spot at the upcoming IEM Katowice Major, starting with the European Minor. A region that has always raised the question of being allotted more than two spots from the Minor has seen the argument grow stronger, with the quality of teams participating in the current one.
In comparison, EU Minor is the most stacked one and has a compelling argument for extra slots, which would only increase the overall quality of the Major. Now, getting down to brass tacks, we take a close look at Group A of the EU Minor, which starts on January 16.
The Group consists of mousesports, a team that is regarded as one of the top five teams in the world and not just by HLTV rankings, an Optic lineup that has looked promising in spades, Vitality, who has one of the hottest properties in the CSGO world right now in Zywoo and the odd one out, unfortunately in Valiance.
When you see teams like these appear in the Minor Qualifiers, let alone the Minor itself, it raises questions on the entire process for qualifying for the Major. mousesports have always been a steady and safe bet to perform well at any event.
But, they took a gamble replacing Styko with Snax to add more firepower in an attempt to push to compete with the likes of Astralis, Natus Vincere and Liquid on a more consistent basis. Safe to say the experiment failed to live up to the hype. But, it did offer us a look into just how explosive they could have been had they found a rhythm, as evidenced by their triumph at ESL One New York.
Snax was soon benched, with Styko returning to the active lineup. While it will take time for Styko to be inculcated back into the lineup and in the same rhythm as before, the support player’s return immediately made mousesports more consistent on the server.
Their biggest achievement since the return of Styko would be treading through the waters of the EU Minor Closed Qualifiers. A Top four finish at ESL Pro League Season 8 Finals was also commendable, with mousesports ultimately falling to Astralis in the semi-finals.
But, the real challenge lies ahead. We have already seen NRG falter at the Minor. mousesports have more experience. But, you never know what the Minor can serve, especially if it’s the European one.
This has been a bizarre association, to say the least. The decision to go full Danish was vindicated earlier. They merely missed out on a spot at the Major – New Legends Stage. But, their decision to replace gade with niko improved them immediately.
Their highlights with the roster was a second place at cs_summit 3 and surviving the ESL Pro League Relegation Phase. While they did qualify for the Minor with niko, they decided to add refrezh to their roster after the youngster’s blistering performance standing-in for Golden representing Cloud 9.
A quick glance at the statistics would show you that while niko performed better than gade, he was still some way off to adding the firepower that is needed to push Optic towards the Tier-1 region.
refrezh is definitely an upgrade in terms of raw firepower. The youngster achieved widespread adulations not just for his performance for Cloud 9 but also during his time at Fragsters, which was also a full Danish roster.
Optic might be an afterthought for many at the European Minor. But, it is difficult to write off any Danish roster at this point of time, let alone one that features konfig and refrezh together.
Valiance have always hovered around the Top 30 mark with their old lineup. So, when they fused together with the core of Imperial, bringing in nexa, ottoNd and EspiranTo, fireworks were expected. The performances though, have been only decent, with gradual improvement visible.
Their record with the new lineup could be a sign of things to come with 43 wins out of 60 matches. Unlike other iterations of the Valiance lineup though, it isn’t huNter doing the heavy lifting even though he is the highest rated player since the lineup came to fruition.
Everyone is stepping up while LETN1 is carrying his own weight, making the roster a real darkhorse at the European Minor. They already have a small title under their belt in the form of LOOT.Bet Cup #3.
On paper, the lineup is an explosive one if allowed the freedom. But, they will be up against three teams who are all favourites to advance in their own sense. A genuine underdog story could be on the cards should Valiance manage to somehow get through the Group Stage.
There are high hopes from this roster. The initial iteration that included Happy achieved some decent results. But, it was mostly due to Zywoo carrying the lineup. The youngster boasts a rating of 1.43 in the matches played under the Vitality banner, which just goes to show how big of a carry he has been.
Despite the heavy lifting, Vitality have not managed to create as much of a splash as was expected. They did win Dreamhack Open Atlanta but again, that was Zywoo doing the lifting, with a rating of 1.49 through the event.
Replacing Happy with ALEX might seem like a gamble. Let me tell you it is anything but. For one, ALEX has been one of the most stable players within the gamut of French teams and despite being British, his association with French teams, especially in LDLC has shown he can more than adjust to what the situation demands.
While they have played just four maps with the new lineup, ALEX has been the highest rated player overall in the combined statistics, which could come in handy at the European Minor.
The addition of ALEX will surely bring an upgrade in terms of firepower. But, will it be enough to get Zywoo and Vitality to the Major? Zywoo stickers anyone?Prediction
Prediction
Teams to Qualify from Group A – mousesports, Vitality
mousesports – Top seed from Group A
Vitality – Second seed from Group A
OpTic – Eliminated in the Decider
Valiance – Eliminated in the Elimination Match
The opening matches pit mousesports against Valiance and Vitality against Optic. Talking about the first matchup, even though Valiance have all the tools for success, they are yet to prove it on LAN.
mousesports will come ready to tackle the uncharted territory of EU Minor and should ideally not slip up against Valiance.
Coming on to Vitality vs Optic, it just might come down to who has devoted more time towards building the team chemistry and strategies. According to NBK, they have undergone an intense bootcamp with their new lineup.
Final day of practice done before the Minor concluding 9 days of play in a row. Did a ton of good work, feeling mostly ready for the tournament with the whole team. Half of the job is done, leeeeeet's get ittttttt and GET THOSE VITALITY STICKERSSSSS 🐝🐝🐝 pic.twitter.com/tZo739c6iK
Already boasting of one of the most highly-rated prodigies in the Counter-Strike circuit, the bootcamp could just unlock Vitality’s true potential. OpTic, on the other hand, seems to favour a loose and puggy playstyle, which let’s konfig do what he wants.
It was one of the reasons konfig and cajunb reportedly did not like the in-game calling of stanislaw, who had more of a structured way of going about things.
We believe mousesports and Vitality will go head-to-head in the Upper Bracket with mousesports qualifying as the first seed from Group A. We expect Valiance to run Optic very close, who should prevail in the Elimination match to set up a rematch against Vitality.
But, the French team should overcome Optic and qualify as the second seed from Group A.
LG’s study suggested that Xbox release have an excellent reaction potential than other players. Over
1,400 players took part in that study that was organized by LG and Activision.
PC users ended up being the poorest;
the accuracy of their responses was 67.7% while Xbox scored a total of 77.1%.
During this experiment, people were
supposed to click several targets which were changing from green to red as
rapidly as they could to attain the highest percentage.
The total response outcome each
person attained got determined through elements such as:
Hit targets
Exactness
Missed targets
How fast a target got hit
General results gotten from LG
experiment proved that console players have excellent
responses.
The outcome of Xbox players was 79.7, PS4 sandbox
games players scored 71.9 and PC games scored 62.2.
In regards to the targets hit, Xbox
players were leading with 78%, PS4 came second with 74% and PC came last with
only 70%.
But, even though PC players did not
hit many targets, they were the fastest in reacting. They had almost one in
five (18%) of targets hit being green. Xbox gamers only hit 9% of the targets
when green. This implies that, even if PC players were less accurate, they had
itchier activation-fingers.
What the manager of LG said
The manager of LG mentioned that, the reaction times for consoles versus PC players had been discussed so many times in gaming news PS4 and other gaming platforms. This briefly involves best slots online as a part of online gaming industry to some extent. This was why his team performed the test.
He further stated that PC players
are believed to be twitchy however the study performed by LG proved otherwise.
As from almost two thousand people, it was found out that console users hit
many targets compared to their counterparts.
But going deeper, LG study revealed
that they really did well in response time, making them two times as superior
as Xbox users. They were just not exact in general.
The LG manager concluded by saying
that, no matter how players decide to play, LG is dedicated to giving players
an excellent playing encounter.
Conclusion It is not easy to say how committed this research was, however, LG said that people can get their personal reaction scores using the LG Ellite Reaction Study site. The site got designed for launching of Call of Duty Ops 4. Alternately, LG suggested that people can submit their write-up to Reddit and respond to any bad response it received in order to weigh how quick the reaction is. LG is confident that even withPS4 additional storage or anything else that other gamers try to do; they will still be the best.
Anything in excess could be addictive. Addictions come from a lot of things. In this case, it’s gaming – specifically, PUBG Mobile. A fitness trainer from Jammu has reportedly lost his mental balance after playing the game for 10 days. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, also known as PUBG has been growing in popularity constantly ever since it was released as a mobile edition some time back. PUBG Mobile has been bringing out constant features and updates which can lead to anyone getting addicted to the game. But this move can result in online gaming addiction which could eventually backfire.
In a report by UNI, a fitness trainer from Jammu started injuring himself and eventually ended up in the hospital because of injuries caused because of his addiction to PUBG Mobile.
The report also stated that mental imbalance triggered because online gaming is not a new thing. This is the sixth such case which has happened in Jammu.
The fitness trainer allegedly was addicted to the PUBG game while playing over a span of ten days and after he completed a mission, he reportedly started hitting himself and thus injured himself and was admitted to the hospital.
The doctor at the hospital was quoted by UNI as saying, “The patient is unstable at the moment and has partially lost his mental balance”. The doctor also stated that even though the patient was recognizing people, his mind was not conscious and was still reeling under the after-effects of the game.
Jammu locals have appealed to the Jammu and Kashmir Governor, Satya Pal Malik to get ban such “life-threatening” games in the state and country as well.
ESL has announced the Groups and Schedule of the IEM Katowice 2019 Minors, which will serve as the means of qualification for the Major to be held in Katowice, Poland.
The group stage brackets for the #IEM Katowice 2019 #CSGO Minor Championships are set!
The Europe and CIS Minors are set to take place from January 16-20, with the Americas and Asia Minors will take place from January 22-26.
The top 2 sides from each region will go straight to the Challengers stage, where they will face the challengers from the FACEIT Major 2018 for a chance to be part of the final 16.
The 3rd placed teams will also have another shot at qualifying for the Major, with a separate stage called Minors’ play in, where the top 2 teams will qualify for the Major.
Below you can find the first-round matchups for all the Minors:
Of the 16 teams scheduled to attend the event, 9 will receive direct invites, with 7 spots to be decided through qualifiers, including a dedicated slot for Oceania.
The open qualifiers will consist of BO1 matches, with elimination matches being BO3, with the winners joining 4 invited teams for the closed qualifier, with a double elimination BO3 and a BO5 final deciding the single qualifier from each region.
A report by reliable journalist Jarek “DeKay” Lewis for VPEsports states that the Belgian duo of Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom and Kevin “Ex6TenZ” Droolans are looking to form a team with Team LDLC ace David “devoduvek” Dobrosavljevic.
ScreaM is currently a free agent, having been without a team after leaving Team Envy in early 2018, and having a brief stand-in appearance, most notably for Fnatic at ESL One New York Last year.
Ex6TenZ, currently left out of the active roster of G2, has been the In-Game Leader with the French organization, previously playing for Team LDLC and famously being the IGL of VeryGames and Titan in the early days of CSGO.
While the details are still sketchy and the plans have not been fully chalked out yet, a move for François “AmaNEk” Delauney remains on the cards, with his contract with LDLC expiring just last week.
BenQ announces ZOWIE XL2546 as the Official Monitor of PUBG ASIA INVITATIONAL (PAI 2019). PUBG ASIA INVITATIONAL 2019 is the first PUBG Premier event in the year of 2019 taking place from 10th to 12th of January 2019, to be hosted at Cotai Arena in Macau. The event holds the prize pool of USD$500,000 and kicks off the yearlong project PUBG has been planning, which eventually will lead to the PUBG Global Championship at the end of 2019.
The 16 teams around Asia will be invited to the PUBG ASIA INVITATIONAL 2019. At the end of the 3-day battle, the team with the most points will be granted the ticket to PUBG Global Championship and will be crowned as the Champions of Asia.
Mr. Rajeev Singh, Managing Director of BenQ India, said:
We are proud to be a part of the PUBG ASIA INVITATIONAL 2019 this year. BenQ is focused on serving the customers and delivering seamless, engaging user experience, which is imperative to the brand. It is our responsibility to ensure that the customers are empowered with the necessary hardware required to become instrumental in the journey to success. We look forward to our continued association with PUBG ASIA INVITATIONAL.
BenQ is providing ZOWIE XL2546 Esports Monitors to assist our fellow survivors with best image quality. ZOWIE XL2546 monitor comes equipped with Native 240Hz Refresh Rate, Static 1ms Response time and DyAcTM Technology which offers a smooth and clear image. Most importantly, BenQ Zowie XL series offers the two most preferred features by gaming enthusiasts- Black eQualizer and Color Vibrance that helps players identifying the enemies on the field visually, and the option to adjust the screen color tone to match their comfort.
