Tanmay Singh aka Sc0utOP is one of the star players in team Fnatic and is well known for his M416 + 6x sprays in mid to long ranges. Sc0ut played a vital role last week in team Fnatic’s run which helped them secured the #2nd spot in PMPL Scrims Season 3 Week 1.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_qIXpAJ6iR/
The tournament titled “Scout Invitational Tournament” will have all the matches in FPP (First-Person Perspective) mode. There will be a total of 32 teams; 16 teams from PMPL and 16 underdog teams who will battle it out in group stages and the top 16 teams in overall point standings will move to the Finals.
There will be 4 groups A, B, C and D each comprising of 8 teams. The groups will go against each other in this mixture:
A vs B
A vs C
A vs D
B vs C
B vs D
C vs D
After the group stage matches, the top 16 teams in terms of total overall points will move onto the finals where 4 matches will be played:
Match 1: Erangle
Match 2: Miramar
Match 3: Erangle
Match 4: Miramar
Now talking about Underdog teams and their registration format
There will be a total of 200 teams divided into 10 groups of 20 teams each. From these matches, top 4 teams from each group will qualify for the next round (=40 total teams). Then these 40 teams will be divided into 4 groups A, B, C & D who will the battle each other in this format for a total of 6 matches each:
A vs B
A vs C
A vs D
B vs C
B vs D
C vs D
From group stage that will be having 32 total teams including both PMPL and Underdog teams, 16 teams will move forward to the next round. Sc0ut mentioned that all the rules from PEL (Peacekeeper Elite League) will be followed throughout the tournament and any team found violating any of the rules will lead to the disqualification of that team.
Certain Rules of this Tournament:
Matches will be FPP only
Auto Pick up will be off
Aim Assist will be off
Erangle & Miramar map only
Points table can be seen below:
However, other details such as date & process of registration for underdog teams, date of the tournament and the prizepool is yet to be declared by Sc0ut.
Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev is one of the most renowned names in the world of professional esports. The CSGO pro is known for his sheer skills and flawless gameplay. The Natus Vincere star had his car parked on the parking lot of a hypermarket when some unknown offenders decided to go rough on it.
The Instagram post which was brought to light by dtp.kiev.ua shows s1mple’s car parked in the paid parking at Dragomanova Street on a reserved spot for disabled people. The black Porsche Panamera had its headlights smashed and the rear-view mirrors were also removed from the car by the assailants.
However, Alexey Kostylev – s1mple’s brother and Na’Vi Creative Director – dismissed the allegations against his brother parking the car in the reserved spot and claimed that the car was moved there after the incident which took place on the night of May 1st.
S1mple himself hasn’t made any clarification on the situation yet and it’s still unclear if the vandalism was a result of personal rivalry or was just another random incident that took place. Lights have also not been shed on the culprits behind the incident yet.
This sort of vandalization on an expensive Porsche is certainly a cause of concern, especially since the incident took place on a paid parking spot. The mental pressure can also potentially affect s1mple’s run at ESL: Road to Rio which is currently ongoing.
The tournament started on a positive note for Na’Vi with a 2:0 victory over Espada and their next match is scheduled for May 3rd in a Bo3 against Virtus. Pro.
As the virus grips the world and halts every form of entertainment exercises, Esports has gathered pace. We see an ‘Esports is going mainstream’ writeup every few months. However, this could be stated as the ideal and opportune time for people to say that. As more and more eyeballs are drawn to Esports, CSGO, despite the arrival of its so-called killer ‘Valorant’, has thrived more than ever, breaking records with each passing week.
There have been some interesting developments in the CSGO scene, which has shown it has the ability to adapt to the changing world conditions, with the changes brought in to permeate Qualifiers for the ESL One Rio Major, which has already been pushed back. Several tournaments are being played out online whereas others like DreamHack have announced similar plans for their circuit events.
One that caught everyone’s eye was Astralis and their decision to build a six-man roster, bringing in Patrick ‘es3tag’ Hansen from FunPlus Phoenix, something which caused a whirlwind of its own. While es3tag is yet to join Astralis and is waiting for his Heroic contract to expire.
Astralis CEO Nikolaj Nyholm provided an intriguing take on the entire move. Nikolaj went on to state that the transition into a six-man roster was taken to optimize the working conditions of all players and staff involved in the process and that it is no different to Traditional Sports. Let’s explore this avenue first.
Traditional Sports and Esports – The Parallels and The Need for Roster Depth
It has always been tough for traditional sports to gulp and accept the fact that Esports is beginning to get on the same level, if not transcend their disciplines. But, with time and growing popularity, we have seen countless examples of Sports personalities and organizations venture into Esports, with many citing it as the future of Entertainment.
Traditional Sports become more and more acceptable of the co-existence and prominence of Esports, perhaps it is time for us to reciprocate. Often, new ideas are shunned just by claiming it to be a Traditional Sports idea and one that is just not viable in the said area.
In the case of a six-man roster, we can draw parallels of multiple sports disciplines that do the same and go beyond. Basketball has more substitutes and reserves than the actual number of players on the court. Football may allow between 5-7 substitutes but teams always have more players in their squad to accommodate injuries, unavailabilities, and more.
One of the major causes of the same is that Sports disciplines are not just about development anymore but about results. So, teams cannot afford a simple development team but do that in their own time and space while having a competitive squad to achieve desired results. Players are rotated based on fatigue, form, and training impressions; things that could all be found in Esports and CSGO.
Forfeits are a thing in every competitive discipline and is a thing frowned upon in Traditional Sports. With Esports now rising, the organisations also need to show their commitment to providing a game to their fans, regardless of the circumstances one or more of their players might be unavailable due to varied reasons.
A famous example could be mousesports playing with their coach Allan ‘Rejin’ Petersen in the Grand Finals at cs_summit 5 because their IGL Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen had to rush to resolve visa issues for another event. While they did end up winning, there have been cases where teams had to play with their coach at the Major for one reason or another. Ninjas in Pyjamas did so and Space Soldiers had a nightmare of a run due to the same. These are instances that could be avoided with the introduction of roster depth in CSGO.
The need for a fanbase has always been critical in Traditional Sports but is slowly gaining importance in Esports. There are two ways to gain a considerable fan following for a team – Heritage and Results. There are organisations that are already established in the Esports scene and hence, come with a pre-existing fanbase when they enter another Esports discipline. FAZE Clan and Evil Geniuses are examples of the former in CSGO while clans like FURIA and CR4ZY are fresh organizations that could be cited as embodiments of the latter.
Take a Leaf from The Books of League
Now, people may have their concerns about inducting Traditional Sports behavioral rules into Esports and CSGO, particularly. But, League of Legends is a living example that an esport can elevate its quality with the introduction of substitutes and reserves.
A normal team in LCS (League Championship Series) has to have a minimum of 10 players on their team while the organisation is allowed to register six to seven players in the Playoffs for major events and League of Legends World Championship.
In fact, we saw it almost pay off for Legendary organisation SK Telecom T1 during their semi-final bout with Team G2 at the LoL WC in 2019. Facing elimination at 1-2 in a Best of 5 against G2, SK Telecom T1 decided to bring in veteran Cho ‘Mata’ Se-hyeong for Lee ‘Effort’ Sang-ho after his underwhelming performance in Game 3. While G2 won Game 4, Mata’s introduction lifted SKT T1 and almost pushed the series into a Game 5.
Nobody is advocating for a 10-player rule in CSGO. But, with events coming thick and fast, players have been complaining of fatigue a lot in the recent past. Astralis had opted to skip a lot of events before and after their Major wins to avoid the prospect of player burnout.
Anyone who saw or heard of the match between SKT T1 and Team G2 must be aware of the suspense the introduction of a new player creates in a series and how the teams adapt to it both tactically and individually.
At one point of time, International teams were looked upon with a frown. But, the likes of FAZE Clan and mousesports have become riders of the proof that it is a formula that works.
Photo: DreamHack
ENCE have followed the Astralis route and added Elias ‘Jamppi’ Oikkonen to their roster. But, the difference in their move pertains to the fact that Jamppi is currently banned from Valve events as a result of him being connected with an account that has a VAC Ban. While the young Finn is set to contest his ineligibility to participate in Valve events in court, ENCE will still have a relative handicap, which makes it tough for people to judge the success of the Six-Man Roster experiment.
Whether the six-man roster becomes a thing in the not-so-distant future in the CSGO scene will rely truly and heavily on how Astralis performs after the incubation period. Astralis established their own meta in CSGO not too long ago and it wouldn’t really be a surprise if they have found another winning concoction.
But, just like other out-there experiments in the ever-morphing CSGO world, this is one that will be adopted by many teams in the coming year or two and its popularity will ultimately be decided by the success of the ones who adopt it properly.
The ESL One Road to Rio was back in action with Dignitas facing Ence in a best of 3 series. We saw Dignitas losing to Vitality 2-0 and were really surprised as they delivered a good performance against Fnatic in the previous game, on the other hand, Ence also lost to Complexity 2-1. Both the teams have been playing quite average through the tournament, although we saw Ence winning the series 2-1 (14-16 on Nuke, 16-12 on Train and 16-10 on Overpass).
Photo: DreamHack
The map veto began with Dignitas banning Mirage and Ence banning Vertigo, Dignitas then picked up Nuke as the first map of the game and Ence picked up Train as the second map and in the end Overpass was left out to be played as the third and the final map of the series.
The first map was Nuke and Dignitas started on the T side and secured the first pistol round with kills going back and forth and Richard ‘Xizt’ Landström picking up 2 great kills from his glock. Dignitas wasted no time and took a lead of 4-0 in the half but Ence did respond by winning back rounds and with the brilliance of Jere ‘sergej’ Salo they secured the first half 9-6 in their favor.
The second half started with ‘suNny’ clutching a 1v1 on the pistol round against ‘GeT_RighT’ and adding another round for his team on the scoreboard and denying them the comeback on this map. Later on we saw Håkon ‘hallzerk’ Fjærli picking up an amazing quad kill and giving his team a chance to actually comeback in their own map pick. Later on we actually saw that happening and Dignitas won the map 16-14 with some unbelievable plays in the CT side.
The second map was Train and Ence started with a stellar pistol round with kills coming from ‘Aerial’ and ‘allu’ they won the round quite easily. The half was very competitive and we saw some insane gameplays coming from both sides and finally Dignitas winning the half 8-7.
Dignitas started the second half on a good note and won the second pistol round with the heroics from Patrik ‘f0rest’ Lindberg and then Dignitas started to lead the map 11-7. However Ence did not give up on this game so easily and started to recover back rounds on the map quickly with the help of ‘sergej’ and ‘allu’. The next rounds ‘allu’ just went insane with his AWP and led his team to victory on their map pick 16-12 and onto the third and final map that was overpass.
The third and the final map was Overpass and it started with Ence quickly picking up the pistol round with everyone picking up kills from their glock and putting the first round on the scoreboard. Ence slowly began to take control of the game by winning consecutive rounds with the help of Sami ‘xseveN’ Laasanen and Aleksi ‘allu’ Jalli they secured the first half 10-5. Although Dignitas did find some rounds and tried to recover back in the game but it was too late and Finnish team were unstoppable and closed out the map 16-10 and series 2-1.
This matchup saw Ence winning the series 2-1 and Dignitas yet again losing a match in this tournament. Ence will now face Vitality on Wednesday and Dignitas will take on Astralis on the same day.
China is one of the hottest regions for Dota 2 and stay intact because eight of the best teams of China have been invited to $60,000 event, AMD SAPPHIRE OGA DOTA PIT China region. The event will commence on Saturday, 2nd of May, 8:00 AM CEST.
Dota PIT is back! Starting on May 2nd, eight of the best Chinese Dota 2 teams will compete for a 60,000 USD prize pool in @AMDGaming@SapphireTech DOTA PIT Online!
The tournament will start with eight invited teams further splitting into two groups with four teams each, all matches will be a best of three following single robin-round format. The top seeds of each group will advance to semifinals of upper bracket while 2nd and 3rd places teams advance to the quarterfinals of the upper bracket. The bottom team in each group will be eliminated. Once the group stages are done playoffs will be held from 6th to 11th in a double-elimination bracket and the Grand Final to carry out a classic exceptional Best of Five.
Newbee was one of the eight invited teams to the event. Although they decided to withdraw from the event and the reason is not yet known. In order to fill the slot vacated by Newbee, the organizers held a best of three matchups with between two deserving candidates earlier yesterday, Team Sirus and CDEC Gaming. It was a very fast affair at the hands of “Ame” from CDEC Gaming in a quick 2-0 with the games spanning 19 & 22 minutes respectively.
OGA Dota PIT China groups:
Group A • PSG.LGD Gaming • Royal Never Give Up • Keen Gaming • Team Aster
Group B: • Invictus Gaming • Vici Gaming • EHOME • CDEC Gaming
OGA has plans for another sibling league for the team’s of EU/CIS region with $150,000 on up for grabs though the official dates and teams for the same are yet to be announced.
Stay tuned with TalkEsport, we will let you know as soon as the word is out.
Valve Corporation, the parent company of Steam have called off the support of SteamVR for Apple’s Mac platform. It was announced on SteamVR’s information page.
The message read:
SteamVR has ended macOS support so our team can focus on Windows and Linux. We recommend that macOS users continue to opt into the SteamVR [macos] branches for access to legacy builds. Users can opt into a branch by right-clicking on SteamVR in Steam, and selecting Properties… -> Betas.
The announcement suggested that Steam wants their team to work more on Windows & Linux, hence, they will no longer support Mac OS.
DreamHack has announced through their official website that as a result of the current ongoing pandemic they have decided to delay multiple tournaments and move some online.
Today, we have taken the incredibly difficult decision to postpone DreamHack Summer, DreamHack Dallas, and DreamHack Montreal until 2021. DreamHack Valencia has been postponed to October this year.
The four tournaments taking place in Valencia, Dallas, Summer and Montreal have been postponed, as the statement at their website said, “It is with a heavy heart that we at DreamHack announce the postponement of four upcoming festivals: DreamHack Valencia, DreamHack Dallas, DreamHack Summer, and DreamHack Montreal.”
They have also taken the decision to move some events online due to the looming threat towards the health of the involved people due to the pandemic.
Due to recent changes to DreamHack events, the #DHOpen stops planned for Valencia, Montreal, and Hyderabad will now be played online as regional tournaments.
They included another post in their official website informing people about details on the unfortunate decision.
“As a result of our continuous monitoring of the global pandemic situation, discussions with health officials and authorities, and out of respect for the safety and well-being of our community and staff, DreamHack Valencia, DreamHack Montreal and DreamHack Hyderabad have been rescheduled to next year.”
They mentioned that the DreamHack open stops for each of the three cities will be switched to an online format. The online event will be held under the name of “DreamHack Open Summer” and will bring the same stakes on the table with a prize pool of $100,000. They’ll also be “adding an additional day of matches to ensure all matches are played with a best-of-three format.”
All the three tournaments will be turned into regional tournaments. DreamHack Valencia will be a regional European tournament scheduled to take place between July 2-5, adding an additional day to the previous schedule of July 3-5.
DreamHack Montreal, which was originally scheduled for September 11-13 will be turned into a regional North American tournament. The dates of this tournament haven’t been decided by DreamHack as of yet but they mentioned that they’re “hoping to host it close to the regional European tournament replacing DreamHack Open Valencia.”
DreamHack Hyderabad has seemed to take a hit since the tournament will now be splitted into two regional tournaments for Asia and Oceania. Furthermore, the prize pool of 100,000$ will also be split between the two regions. The final dates for this tournament have also not been finalized yet.
DreamHack concluded their post saying, “Although it is unfortunate that these DreamHack Open stops will not be played on LAN, we are happy that we can still maintain our commitment to the CS:GO community by hosting these championships online.”
Coming into week 2, there were some changes in the teams in all the groups respectively.
Group A – POWER888 ESPORT, SouL, Marcos Gaming, SynerGE, UMExRxN, Megastars, vsgCRAWLERS, TSM-Entity.
Group B – Made in Thailand (MiTH), Aura Esport, DEADEYES GUY, JyanMaara, TeamIND, ORANGE ROCK, Elementrix, INES.
Game 1 was on Erangle Map like always. The new teams that were added to the groups from SEA region were showing a dominating performance from the beginning of the game. MiTH was the only SEA team that made it into top 5, and they were on fire right from word go. The single taps of M164a from MiTH | Stoned helped him secure 7 kills whereas MiTH | PONDzai secured 8 kills for the team. Team MiTH secured a Winner Winner Chicken Dinner with a total of 18 kills.
Game 2 of Sanhok was all about South Asian teams going toe to toe with each other. Team Elementrix eliminated Aura Esport around Ruins early in the game. In the final zones it came down to three teams- TeamIND, Marcos Gaming and SynerGE. However, it was TeamIND who got the Chicken Dinner with a total of 7 kills followed by team SynerGE who secured 2nd position with 14 kills.
In Game 3 of Miramar, POWER888 ESPORT knocked out team TSM-Entity and Aura Esport. Team MiTH and Team SouL decided to take the centre of the zone early on and that proved beneficial for them. In the final circle, the fight was between POWER888, MiTH and SouL. Mortal tried to go for heal battle but failed, PW88 | Korpaii came out on top with 9 kills and 1268 damage, helping POWER888 Esport secure Chicken Dinner with a total of 19 kills.
In Vikendi, POWER888 Esport got wiped out by team SynerGE near Tovar. However, team TSM-Entity showed a very aggressive gameplay as they wiped out Aura Esport early in the game and were consistently looking for fights. Team U-Mumba wiped out Team SouL in the 6th zone. Team Elementrix, vsgCRAWLERS and JyanMara were holding their ground around some compounds, they were inside the zone for a long time and it was a total mess. In the end it was a 4v4 between Elementrix and vsgCRAWLERS, but due a bad “molotov” by ExHy0zu that knocked him, vsgCRAWLERS decided to push towards team Elementrix and secured an easy chicken dinner with 8 kills.
Game 5 was played on Erangle. It seemed like the entire team of SynerGE got disconnected early on in the game. POWER888 Esport wiped out Aura Esport in an open field fight. South Asian teams were on a roll in this game, TeamIND continuously securing top 5 position but it was team MiTH with their 3 man show throughout the game because of which they secured their 2nd Chicken Dinner for the day with 10 kills. MiTH PONDzai with 7 kills and 1279 damage was the MVP of the last game. Here are the overall standings after day 1:
Team MiTH 105 points and 2 Winner Winner Chicken Dinner // Photo via PUBG Mobile
TeamIND Stepping up!
TeamIND securing 2nd position overall after Day1 with 67 total points and 22 kills and a Winner Winner Chicken Dinner to their name. INDTrance played superbly in today’s games being the top fragger for the team and 4th in terms of maximum damage dealer overall
Top 5 Fraggers
Photo via PUBG Mobile
MiTH PONDzai leading with 19 kills followed by SGEted with 11 kills. PW88 | Korpaii sitting on 3rd with 10 kills followed by MiTH Stoned having 10 kills and MiTH Online24 with 9 kills. (3 out of 4 members of team MiTH in Top 5)
According to a recent report by HLTV, team Windigo has finally received their share of the prize pool from the WESG 2018 Finals. The finals for the WESG event took place in March 2019 and the prize pool amounted to $500,000.
Artur Yermolay, one of the founders of the team that disbanded in late 2019 reportedly due to monetary problems has expressed his happiness after they were given their prize money after waiting for a year.
The former Windigo team that won the tournament consisted of the following players:
Valentin “poizon” Vasilev
Georgi “SHiPZ” Grigorov
Kamen “bubble” Kostadinov
Yanko “blocker” Panov
Viktor “v1c7oR” Dyankov
All of the former Windigo players went their separate ways after the team disbanded. SHiPZ and poizon were picked up by CR4ZY and compLexity Gaming respectively. Shipz was later sold to c0ntact gaming. Bubble now plays for SMASH while blocker plays for BLUEJAYS.
According to the HLTV report, WESG claims the delay in payment of the team was due to bank regulations and the current global pandemic. A representative of WESG has reportedly stayed “in constant communication with Windigo” during the period of delay to solve the payment problems that aroused.
However, the intent of WESG on the 2019 World Finals are still blurry as they have not released an update on the situation since January. The last statement released on January 22 said that the Asia-Pacific finals which was scheduled for mid-February wouldn’t go on as planned due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Several well-known teams in the competitive CSGO scene like Heroic, Chaos, North, and Spirit have already qualified for the finals.
Succeeding four thriving seasons, ESL India is on the edge to announce the fifth and upcoming season of ESL India Premiership for 2020-21. It has been some of the longest standing events in the sub-continent that runs throughout the calendar with the mighty prize pool.
The previous season was indeed a sensation. It featured Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Defence of the Ancients 2, Clash Royale and Brawl Stars, and a whopping ₹1,10,00,000 prize pool across three seasons – Summer, Winter, and Fall. By the looks of it, we should anticipate a gradual modification of titles and of course a rise in prize money.
The prize pool, format, titles, venues, and registration process is yet to be announced. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the first of three seasons might as well be a full-fledged online league considering the limitations and consequences. However, we can all make our guesses until ESL India unveils the fifth edition of much-awaited ESL India Premiership.
