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Riot accidentally leaks Valorant agent Killjoy and his abilities

Jeet Rajput
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Riot accidentally leaks Valorant agent Killjoy and his abilities

VALORANT players have been eagerly awaiting Killjoy’s arrival in the tactical FPS title for some time now. Riot games has leaked the agent on July 27 on their official website.

Early leaks ⁠include Agent voicelines and work-in-progress animations ⁠ gave us an idea of what Killjoy will be like when they finally arrive.

Fans actually found a webpage up on Riot’s official VALORANT website named “Enter Killjoy”—the page had all of her abilities on display in video form, as well as a brief description for each. The page only had a temporary banner attached, and no images of the character were revealed.

Killjoy abilities:

Ability 1 (C) – Alarmbot

  • Equip and deploy a bot that hunts down enemies who dare to get in range. When my killer robot friend reaches its target, boom goes the idiot. Alarmbot not only deals damage, it temporarily leaves affected targets vulnerable to double damage from all sources. Hold equip if you want to recall your deployed bot.

Ability 2 ⁠- Turret

  • Sometimes it’s good to plant some roots. Deploy a turret that fires at enemies within its 180-degree cone. Hold equip to recall the deployed turret. With my turret, I can hold an area pretty well myself while the others cover the angles I can’t.

Signature Ability – Nanoswarm

  • OK check this out. Throw the grenade. When it lands, it goes quiet. Then, activate the Nanoswarm to deploy a damaging swarm of nanobots and catch the enemy crying.I love this trick!

Ultimate Ability – Lockdown

  • You’ll have to adjust your timing for the windup, but once you get this device going, it detains all enemies caught in its radius for about 8 seconds. Yeah, enemies can destroy it — except I built plenty more.

Riot has yet to confirm when Killjoy will be officially unveiled and added to VALORANT.

Thumbnail Credits: Valorant Hub

Indian students replicate college campus in Minecraft

Abhishek Bajaj
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Indian students replicate college campus in Minecraft

There are no limitations to ‘Make in India’; so it seems as students at the Ashoka University in India did their own version of the ‘replicating campus on Minecraft server’ theme following the footsteps of renowned world universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley.

With the ongoing pandemic and the lockdown that has ensued, the entire curriculum has been shifted to an online education system. Although this is a relief to the students, they might also be missing the campus environment.

These eight students from the Ashoka University decided to provide just a bit of nostalgia to their fellow counterparts by building the campus block-by-block on Minecraft.

Aishwarya Das, a Physics student at Ashoka said,”Our aim was to recreate the life we had on campus on a virtual server.”

Das also clarified that the server could hold upto 700 people at one time and would only be open to current and alumni members of the Ashoka University.

Das also highlighted the labour that went into replicating the campus on the Minecraft server, stating that the students started the project Mid-May and spent around six hours every day.

Atishay Khanna, a batchmate of Das, was the original proponent of the idea and he explained the entire process that was carried out by the group to complete this project.

Atishay said,”First we built the campus building, block by block. And then we built the experiences from our memories of the college. We used the discord servers to coordinate between ourselves and divided responsibilities – someone builds the admin block, someone looks at the auditorium etc.”

This really shows how lockdown can aid you in pushing the boundaries of your abilities; be it for work, education, play or in this case, a bit of everything.

Riot announces revamped ranking system for Valorant Act II

Sonu Banerjee
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Riot announces revamped ranking system for Valorant Act II

With Act I of Riot’s competitive shooter VALORANT coming to a conclusion in August, Riot has decided to reveal their plans about the upcoming act through their official blog. The new act will feature a revamped competitive experience for the players of the game with a unique take on the ranking system.

Players in any competitive game often get anxious about losing their ranked games, and Riot aims to fix that problem with their updated competitive game mode which will consequently create a more enjoyable ecosystem in ranked.

“We want you to have an accurate representation of your current skill in matches,” Riot said in their blog. “We also want to build a ranked system that promotes growth and engagement over ‘peaking’ at a top rank, getting anxious about losing it, and stuffing it in the fridge.”

The new ranking system will constitute of “Act ranks” which will only take into account the 9 best wins of a player in ranked mode during the act. After the end of each Act, this Act rank will be preserved as a badge on their player cards and career histories.

Players will also get an “Act rank border” which will evolve based on the number of competitive wins in an Act. The border will change when players hit certain win thresholds: 9,25,50,75 and 100.

Starting from Act II, players will have a “Proven Skill” associated with their Act ranks which will be determined by the 9th best ranked win during that Act.

“Your ‘proven skill’ is your 9th best ranked win of the Act, to demonstrate you can consistently win at that level,” the blog said.

Riot has also explained what will happen at the end of each Act in VALORANT. Here are the key points as summarized in VALORANT’s official website.

  • Your prior Act Rank will be saved and locked in your Career tab
    Act 1 Competitive data will be saved
    You will be put back into abridged placements.
    It will take 3 games to display your matchmaking rank instead of the initial 5.
  • These placements are quicker as we will reference your MMR from the prior Act, so we can quickly assess your skill for the current Act.
  • Your rank will be a conservative placement where we are confident you are able to compete at that skill level—or higher.
  • Typically, your Match Rank will land a couple of tiers below where you ended the prior Act, but we’ll be increasing how heavily we weigh performance in your early games so you can quickly improve your matchmaking rank if you play well and win.
  • Placement games don’t count toward earning your Act Rank.

While no Act rank badge will be awarded to the players at the end of Act I, the new system will fully be implemented starting from Act II of the game which is only a few weeks away.

Fnatic add Harry Hesketh to FIFA roster

Abhishek Bajaj
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Fnatic add Harry Hesketh to FIFA roster

Fnatic have announced the signing of Harry ‘Harry’ Hesketh from Hashtag United. The 25-year-old joins the Swedish organisation after a four-and-a-half year stint at Hashtag. Harry joins his compatriot Donovan ‘Tekkz’ Hunt at Fnatic. Since the FIFA 20 competitive season has been curtailed by the ongoing pandemic, Fnatic have signed the Englishman keeping FIFA 21 in mind, according to Fnatic Senior Team Director Colin Johnson.

Harry was the first esports athlete to sign for Hashtag United, which was also his first step into the professional world. The 25-year-old has been with Hashtag throughout his professional FIFA career but has decided to bid adieu to his ‘family’ to compete alongside Tekkz at Fnatic.

Colin Johnson issued a statement through his official account on popular social media platform Twitter as Fnatic announced the arrival of Harry Hesketh through a brilliant video.

Has been a productive summer. The dream team has finally been realized, so hyped to be working with @HashtagHarry__ & can’t wait for FIFA 21 to get here! Cheers to @SpencerOwen/@hashtagutd for being so easy to work with in this process, I promise we will take good care of him!!

@Cojopm on Twitter

The ‘dream team’, as Colin said, has been assembled for Fnatic. Tekkz is already regarded as one of the best FIFA players of recent times and is currently clear on top of the Xbox rankings with 5570 points. Harry though, has been having some season since his switch to the PS4 console, with the 25-year-old currently 8th on the table with 2395 points to his name.

FIFA fans worldwide will be excited to see just how successful the duo of Tekkz and Harry can be wearing the Fnatic colours.

Dota 2: The International 10 Prize Pool Surpasses $30 Million

Sonu Banerjee
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Dota 2: The International 10 Prize Pool Surpasses $30 Million

After breaking the $5 million, $10 million, and $20 million marks in record time, The International 2020 prize pool has once again reached a milestone by crossing $30 million in just over 2 months of its release back in May 25, 2020.

With this, TI10 already has the 2nd largest prize pool for any single tournament in video gaming history. The first position is held by The International 2019, with a prize pool of a whopping $34.3 million

Since the prize pool of TI10 is primarily crowdfunded with 25% of the Battle Pass sales going directly to the prize pool, the prize money is still increasing steadily. It can almost certainly be said that it’s only a matter of time before TI10 overtakesTI9 in terms of prize money.

The reason behind this steady increase of the prize pool is the huge amount of Battle Pass sales this year. It can’t be denied that Valve has shown a lot of love to this year’s Battle Pass and flooded BP owners with tonnes of exclusive items and cosmetics.

This year’s Battle Pass features some of the best rewards in Dota 2 till date such as the female Anti Mage persona, the Pudge persona and the three arcanas of Wraith King, Windranger, and Queen of Pain.

However, the Windranger arcana and the Pudge persona haven’t been released by Valve yet. That, along with the upcoming treasure 3 and the possibility of a collector’s cache 2 release in the future, is certain to bump the Battle Pass sales even further, consequently incrementing the TI10 prize pool by a good margin.

The new game mode which was released recently, Aghanim’s Labyrinth, has also received wholehearted support from the Dota 2 player base. Many fans have said that this game mode might just be the best mode for Dota 2 that Valve has released till date. The mode features a 4-player dungeon and an extremely challenging PvE experience for the participants, while simultaneously rewarding players with Battle Points along the way.

India likely to ban PUBG Mobile in next round of crackdown on Chinese apps

Divyesh Moghe
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India likely to ban PUBG Mobile in next round of crackdown on Chinese apps

PUBG Mobile is on the list of 275 apps that are being reviewed under various pretexts of violations which may result to all, some or none of them getting banned.

PUBG Mobile is yet again on the radar of government after it received banishment from the army personnel earlier this year. 59 Chinese apps were banned recently due to the security and privacy concerns by the government and the decision was made amid the rising tensions across LAC between India and China. This list included famous apps like TikTok and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang.

According to the report by Economic Times, 275 Chinese apps are being “examined for any violation of national security and user privacy, signalling heightened scrutiny and the possibility of more Chinese Internet companies being banned in the country,according to people aware of the developments.”

China’s controversial data-sharing norm which requires the Chinese companies to share data with the government, cites urgent concerns regarding user privacy and data utilization for India. This can be the major reason for the recent wave of bans and more that may occur in the future.

ET also shares that their sources mentioned an ongoing reviewing process for more apps and “Some of these apps have been red-flagged due to security reasons while others have been listed for the violation of data sharing and privacy concerns.”

The apps that have been mentioned in the reports include PUBG Mobile,probably the most famous mobile game in India, and apps like AliExpress,Resso,ULike, 14 MI apps by Xiaomi and the list also includes Supercell, which has no ties to China except Tencent, which is a stakeholder in this company.

PUBG Mobile and its allied esports scene is on the rise and such a decision may harm the player-base and concerned esports industry. The bans are not yet confirmed but the turmoil it may cause is evident.

Sixless banned from competitive PUBG Mobile

Divyesh Moghe
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Sixless banned from competitive PUBG Mobile

Sixless, a competitive PUBG Mobile player has been banned from participating in any esports related tournament till the start of 2021. He got banned for playing under other team with a different account in a tournament.

Sixless is currently a professional PUBG Mobile player for team Pittsburgh Knights and was competing in the ongoing PUBG Mobile World League West. This ban comes as a surprise for his audience as he clarifies his terms and causes of ban in a YouTube Video.

PUBG Mobile Esports officials sent him a official post regarding his terms of ban. “He was playing on an account he didn’t own for a team he wasn’t affiliated with” for PMCO Fall Split Qualifiers , reads Sixless in his video and adds ” The news was reported to them via messages, screenshots and livestreams”

He admits that it was his fault that even if nothing was mentioned in the rulebook, he should have known such a “basic” rule before playing the games.

The video clearly depicts that he feels no remorse about this decision which will lead him to be set in the sidelines from ongoing PMWL and other tournaments till 2021. He poured water on his face and jokes “See I am crying” which may be satire from his side but sounds odd coming from a player receiving the ban.

Sixless also says that he was planning on playing classics after PMWL but this ban will just allow him to do the same thing a little bit before planned schedule. He is only banned into esports genre so he can and will play classic matches and scrimmages and is planning on streaming some of it.

The stance of his organisation Pittsburgh Knights is still unclear and the official esports handles have not shared any information regarding this matter. Sixless did clarify that he did not have any kind of documented agreement with this organisation and may play from other teams in the future.

Sixless was earlier banned from Cloud9 for his unprofessional behaviour which was against their policy and his controversial statements against many India’s top players.

Valorant: This phoenix ultimate spike plant exploit is insane

Jeet Rajput
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Valorant: This phoenix ultimate spike plant exploit is insane

For quite some time, players of Riot’s tactical shooter VALORANT have been facing quite some bug and this bug could change the game. VALORANT players have uncovered a way to plant the spike outside of the site by using Phoenix’s ultimate ability.

A VALORANT player uploaded a video explaining how to plant the spike outside of bomb sites to confuse the enemy team. The process is not consistent and requires some practice, but it can make the difference between winning or losing a round.

To perform the glitch, a Phoenix player must activate their ultimate ability, which allows them to respawn at a location after dying or when the ability expires. If they plant the spike while the ability is activated, they will teleport back to their original position with the spike. The spike will function as if it was planted in the designated area and explode normally if it is not defused.

The glitch is challenging to perform consistently and requires Phoenix’s ultimate ability. It will not likely be a strategy teams will rely on, but it can still help a team win a decisive round.

Riot Games will most likely address this issue in a future update, but don’t panic if you can’t find the spike in your next match. 

Valorant Spotify Playlists for all Agents released

Sonu Banerjee
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Valorant Spotify Playlists for all Agents released

Riot Games is quite renowned for their marketing skills, and what better way to promote the game than to create playlists containing music for all the agents in the game?

Riot has made playlists for every agent available to play in the game where each song is unique and resembles the personalities of the agents. The VALORANT playlist has officially been released by Riot on Spotify and contains songs from a variety of genres and language to represent the agents.

For instance, the playlist for Raze features Brazillian songs while that of Reyna features Spanish songs. Omen’s playlist is perhaps the most unique out of all; it features not songs, but a series of mysterious music including The Wormhole by Hans Zimmer from Interstellar.

The playlists for the agents were also shared by the official Twitter handle of VALORANT.

All the playlists were released on the day of the official launch of the game, on June 2nd.

Since the devs have confirmed that more agents will be released for VALORANT in the next few months, it’s highly likely that Riot will make separate playlists for those upcoming agents to fit their characters.

Valorant Agent Spotify Playlists:

Pokimane replies to critics saying why people really watch her on Twitch

Anuj Rautela
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Pokimane replies to critics saying why people really watch her on Twitch

Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys signed an exclusive deal to stick with the Amazon-owned broadcasting & streaming platform back in the month of March. She is also one of the most successful female streamers on broadcasting platform Twitch. Poki has been the centre of attention on Twitch recently for all the reasons. Recently, Poki revealed that she received several threat messages and as a result, she was provided with bodyguards for protection in past public events.

The Twitch community was claiming that Poki is only watched because of how she looks. To those critics Poki replied by stating on July 24 that

“‘People don’t watch you for your personality or your gameplay’,” she mocked. I just averaged 11k+ viewers with no cam, late at night, and with a 10s delay.”

A fellow guy replied to her tweet by saying that, “Nobody watches you for your personality nor gameplay” to which she replied by saying that, “Nobody watches you at all.” Kind of a savage reply from Poki.

Fellow Twitch streamer Valkyrae came in support of Poki. Even popular DJ Zedd jumped in to say a few words for Poki.

Since she receives negativity frequently due to her immense popularity and fanbase, Twitch has decided to ban viewers that violate their terms and community guidelines.

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