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MVP PK disbands CSGO roster, sets eye on Valorant

Bhavya Shah
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MVP PK disbands CSGO roster, sets eye on Valorant

MVP PK’s CS:GO division has not been upto mark for quite some time. The best team to come out from South Korea succumbed to 4th position in recently held ESL One: Road to Rio Asia Minor – East Asia closed qualifier. The lineup that represented Asia at IEM Sydney, ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals, IEM Chicago, ESL One: Cologne 2019, and various other global events has decided to bid adieu to CS:GO.

This comes in prior to Riot Games’ first-person tactical 5vs5 shooter Valorant’s launch in Summer later this year. According to a report by Fomos, the organisation is moving away from CS:GO and anticipates to establish a Valorant squad led by captain Min-Soo “glow” Kim and head coach Seon-Ho “termi” Pyeon. Another prominent organisation, Absolute from Japan, also terminated their CS:GO roster to prioritize Valorant.

Photo: HLTV

This is not the first time that a CS:GO professional is turning towards Valorant. Feeling incredibly stale and tedious, Hunter “SicK” Mims took a step back from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to pursue a career in Valorant. North-America’s Cloud9 revealed that former CS:GO player and content creator Tyson “TenZ” Ngo will be their first professional Valorant player.

South Korea’s T1 was the foremost organisation to sign former CS:GO pro Braxton “Brax” Pierce and his former teammate Keven “AZK” Larivière to establish its Valorant squad. T1’s League of Legends (Riot Games’ MOBA) squad has won a League of Legends World Championship 2013, 2015, and 2016 editions.

MVP PK’s former CS:GO lineup:

  • Min-Soo “glow” Kim
  • Seung-won “k1Ng” Lee
  • Gu-Taek “stax” Kim
  • Nak-Yeon “Ch2ese” Kim
  • Sang-Min “Rb” Goo
  • Seon-Ho “termi” Pyeon (Coach)

40% Surge in Counter Strike 1.6 Active Players Amidst COVID-19 Lockdown

Sonu Banerjee
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40% Surge in Counter Strike 1.6 Active Players Amidst COVID-19 Lockdown

The COVID-19 pandemic has been wreaking havoc globally for over four months now. The highly infectious virus has forced governments across the world into implementing lockdowns for indefinite durations. While the economy of many countries have come to a halt, gamers are appearing to have the time of their lives as they now have more free time than ever to enjoy their favorite titles.

In this highly ambitious world, people are generally always busy while being engrossed in official work. While COVID-19 has undeniably brought many harms to mankind, it might just have come as a blessing in disguise for a good number of people. The pandemic has metaphorically rebooted our lives to the point when we had all the free time in the world, and while people can’t go outside for a quick game of soccer anymore, they can certainly boot up their computers to indulge in the video-game they hadn’t got the chance to play for so long.

Photo: GameMood

Counter-Strike 1.6 is a title almost every gamer is familiar with. It’s a title that has not only defined the childhood of every nineties’ kid, but also an entire age of competitive gaming. Its successor – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is still standing strong as one of the leading titles in esports today.

The lockdown seemed to have enabled people to reminisce their childhood by giving them a chance to enjoy the classic multiplayer shooter once again. The steam chart page for CS 1.6 shows an increase in players in the past month by over 40 percent. Comparing the current number with the number from February, the playerbase of the game seems to almost have doubled. The average number of players playing the game in April 2020 was 17,765 while that in March was only 12,509.

The rapid increase in the player count of the game wasn’t particularly surprising either. The shooter is still loved by millions of fans worldwide and can run in the most primitive of computers, bringing more and more casual gamers to play it who haven’t gotten the opportunity to invest in a gaming rig themselves. The community of the game is also really clean, everyone plays for fun without insulting others who mess up – a problem that most modern day competitive titles have. The absence of toxicity provides gamers with a peaceful environment to refine their skills and have some fun on the way.

While CS 1.6 was originally released back in 1999, it’s still boasting a player count more than many other modern games. COVID-19 has further pointed the fact out that this game isn’t meant to fade away anytime soon.

Valve postpones The International 10 to 2021

Pranav Nalawade
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Valve postpones The International 10 to 2021

A frenzy has been caused around the world due to Coronavirus and mass gatherings and events are being called off on a daily basis due to the health risks this contagious virus poses to humans. A lot of esports events have also been affected by this epidemic and there seems to be no stop to it.

The International 2020, originally slated for early 2020 in Stockholm, Sweden, will be postponed due to evolving concerns about COVID-19.

Valve released a statement earlier today regarding the developing situation.

In a statement on official website, Valve said:

After extensive consideration of the global health emergency stemming from COVID-19, we have made the difficult choice to delay The International. We have been exploring various date possibilities, but it is likely that the event will need to happen in 2021. Given the highly volatile landscape for local gathering restrictions, virus trajectory, and global travel policies, we don’t expect to have enough confidence to communicate firm dates in the near future. In the meantime, we are working on restructuring the DPC season for the fall, and will be providing more information as soon as we have it. The 10th International prize pool will be funded by 25% of sales of the next Battle Pass, which we are planning to release soon instead of closer to the event itself. However, with our team working from home and things taking longer to complete, the release date of the Battle Pass will be at least a couple of weeks later than usual. We hope everyone in the Dota community is staying as safe as possible, and look forward to a time when we can once again welcome everyone to enjoy the spectacle of The International.

The International is known for having the biggest prize pool every year within the eSports scenario and each year exceeding the earlier one. The International 2019 set a crowdfunded esports prize pool record by eclipsing the previous years’ record, finalizing at US$34,300,000. The tournament was the most-watched Dota 2 event ever on the live-streaming platform Twitch, with a peak of over 1.1 million viewers during the grand finals.

Considering the current scenario of this virus’ spread around the world, it only looks like a fair decision. The event’s organizers hold health and safety in their highest regards.

Valorant North American ranked games now active

Abhishek Bajaj
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Valorant North American ranked games now active

Valorant have issued an official statement through their Twitter handle which will excite the user base. The much anticipated ranked queues will be finally enabled by the developers of Valorant.

North America will be the first recipient of the update, with ranked matchmaking set to be rolled out within the next few minutes. The developers will carefully observe the effects of it and subsequently enable the same for European servers, if everything meets their standards.

The tweet though clarifies that they reserve the right to withdraw the ranked matchmaking feature at any given point of time.

Photo: Riot Games

This is the right way to go about things in my opinion. Since it’s a closed beta, this could just be a large experimental process and the developers could withdraw ranked matchmaking after seeing the response and gaining invaluable feedback from the users.

Source 2 Coming to CSGO on May 18: Reports On Chinese Site Weibo Suggest

Sonu Banerjee
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Source 2 Coming to CSGO on May 18: Reports On Chinese Site Weibo Suggest

CSGO fans have been asking for this for a long time now, and it looks like Valve is about to deliver.

The recent leaks for the Source codes for CSGO dates 2017/18 probably had an impact, as the Chinese site Weibo has suggested that Source 2 for CSGO might be coming in just under 3 weeks.

The post on weibo which was originally posted in Chinese might suggest the following things as mentioned by u/oOMeowthOo on Reddit. He suggests that Source 2 is coming on May 18th. Although it isn’t clearly mentioned in which year but is more than likely to be in 2020. He also mentions the B5 weibo blog to be the “Official CSGO Battle platform”.

Comment
by u/oOMeowthOo from discussion [Q] Steam China Release Impact
in csgomarketforum

This also goes in accordance with the recent rumours that have been implying the release of the new engine in the upcoming months.

Comment
by u/nzerinto from discussion [Q] Steam China Release Impact
in csgomarketforum

On the other hand, tweets have also begun surfacing claiming that Steam will be made available for China soon. Based on the sudden turn of events there’s a possibility that the dates for Source 2 release and the official Steam release for China might coincide.

A tweet by 2eggs also claimed that the Steam release might be live within “a few weeks” and another one included evidence that hinted towards it.

https://twitter.com/2Eggsss/status/1255255108545372160?s=20
https://twitter.com/2Eggsss/status/1255280408159272960?s=20

Regardless of the next turn of events, either a Source 2 release or the Steam release in China is bound to bring an influx of new players to the game, and can potentially start a new era for CSGO (and other Steam titles) in the world of esports.

Also Read: What Source 2 Engine could mean for CSGO

Report: ImAPet to join 100 Thieves’ CS:GO

Bhavya Shah
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Report: ImAPet to join 100 Thieves’ CS:GO

According to a report by DBLTAP, Chet “ImAPet” Singh is set to join Aussies over at 100 Thieves. He left Evil Geniuses in April earlier this year due to conflicts with Tarik “tarik” Celik and Peter “Stanislaw” Jarguz. Chet has been with prominent Counter-Strike: Global Offensive rosters like Counter Logic Gaming (CLG), OpTic Gaming, NRG Esports and of course Evil Geniuses in the past.

Photo: StarLadder

Chet “ImAPet” Singh and Soham “valens” Chowdhury are regarded as some of the finest tactical minds and coaches in the North-American scene. Chet will fill the void due to Aleksandar “kassad” Trifunovic’s sudden departure. The latter had been with the lineup since November 2019.

Aleksandar has been there for Aussies all the way from being underdogs to semi-finale finish at major. Filling his shoes won’t be a cakewalk for Chet. The revamped lineup of 100 Thieves’ CS:GO roster will be:

  • Justin “jks” Savage
  • Aaron “AZR” Ward
  • Jay “Liazz” Tregillgas
  • Sean “Gratisfaction” Kaiwai
  • Joakim “jkaem” Myrbostad

Fnatic fires LoL strategic coach after reports of pedophilic remarks and verbal assaults surface

Sonu Banerjee
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Fnatic fires LoL strategic coach after reports of pedophilic remarks and verbal assaults surface

Marius “Veigar v2” Aune – the (now former) coach for Fnatic’s League of Legends team – had joined Fnatic in early 2020. He had also previously coached for multiple other League of Legends teams. Aune has been in the League of Legends scene as an analyst and coach for almost two years now. Little did he know that his extremely controversial past would suddenly appear out of nowhere and shatter his place in the professional world of esports.

A thread that has surfaced on Twitter recently captures screenshots of Aune ‘DDoS’ing his League of Legends teammates while in-game.

A lot of other people seemed to have similar experiences with the Norwegian analyst and coach, as they started sharing their screengrabs one by one in the replies showcasing Aune ‘DDoS’ing people.

https://twitter.com/zzzzzzzdezs/status/1255632549994471425?s=19

But this wasn’t the end of it, in fact, Aune could only wish it was the end of it since the replies soon turned from seemingly harmless DDoS attacks’ screengrabs to screenshots of him harassing others, especially women and using abhorrent language towards strangers.

But what acted as the final catalyst towards Fnatic’s decision was some remarks he had made towards an 8-year-old girl back in 2018. He made blatant pedophilic comments about the young girl and even made obscene remarks to her in her private messages. The screenshots of the messages and tweets from Aune were shared by the older sister of the victim of the verbally harassed girl through a tweet that has now been deleted.

Fnatic were swift to declare that Aune would be fired from the Fnatic roster due to his “extremely concerning” messages. They made it clear that those messages were sent “prior to his association with Fnatic.” They concluded their tweet by saying “We have immediately severed all ties with this individual” without naming Aune.

Aune has later posted a clarification on the incident from his side through a tweet and how much he regrets everything that happened.

He has mentioned that he was “16-17 Years old” and was “involved with a disgusting group of people.”

He further claimed that he’s not the same person anymore – “At the end of 2018 i started to grow up and realised how fucked everything ive done in the past was and i wanted to leave it all behind me, i removed myself from the people that influenced me.”

He ended his apology by saying, “I now look back on these actions with shame and disbelief.”

It goes without saying that an apology isn’t enough for something as disgusting as what he has done and the incident is more than likely to leave a scar on his professional career for the rest of his life.

Twitch launches dedicated esports section

Prateek Jain
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Twitch launches dedicated esports section

Today, Twitch officially added an Esports directory to its list of ever-growing games and other directories. With the recent popularity that Esports is getting due to real-life events being canceled, esports has burst onto the main stage as several stars and organizers move towards Esports to stream their gaming sessions or charity events for raising funds to fight Coronavirus.

But, as more people shift towards esports, the general category of each game was getting flooded with streams which made it hard to track esports events and caused distress among many viewers. To solve this issue Twitch came up with an elegant solution of a separate Esports directory.

The Esports directory will include a sub-directory of all the live tournaments and events of various games already on Twitch. It will also have a list of all the past matches of a tournament and event coupled with personalized recommendations of games and tourneys based on users viewing history.

Twitch’s esports directory is meant to show fans and the public (potential fans) to stay up-to-date with what’s happening in the world of esports. This new feature will also help fans of multiple esports titles to follow tournaments and events of all their favorite games in a single place without missing any match and having to go through many directories.

CSGO: Team VAC player banned by ESL and ESIC for 7 months

Sonu Banerjee
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CSGO: Team VAC player banned by ESL and ESIC for 7 months

Team VAC player Emil “emilshe1n” Mamedov had found an unconventional way to spend a technical pause in an official CSGO game, little did he know that it’d be costing him a ban.

An ESL CSGO premiership group stage match held on April 28th saw team VAC take on team nerdRage in a Bo1 game. When the match was underway, a technical pause was issued as a result of a team VAC player having connection problems.

According to a statement made on the official ESIC page, they had investigated an allegation against the team when they found that during the technical pause, emilshe1n had hopped on to the official ESL stream. Now since there’s a delay in the actual game and the stream, it wouldn’t be possible for any player to get information on the opponent’s economy by watching a stream. But according to the ESIC website, the pause lasted for seven minutes which means the delay would fall short – “The player should not have looked at the Twitch stream at all, but the violation was particularly egregious because the technical pause ran for seven minutes and, with the overall standard delay of GOTV and broadcast in place of three and a half minutes, there was enough time to gain information that could be used to gain an advantage.”

The team VAC player thus could potentially be stream-sniping on an official ESL tournament, which is undoubtedly a punishable offense.

They then quoted sections 2.11.2, 2.3.3 and 6.4 of the ESL Premiership CS:GO Spring 2020 Season Rulebook which covered rules on “Information Abuse”, “Cheating or attempting to cheat to win a Game or Match” and “Punishments for Cheating” respectively.

The punishments issued for the rule breach are summarized below:

  • Team nerdRage would be automatically awarded the match win.
  • Two major penalty points would be given to team VAC, resulting in a 20 percent deduction in their potential prize money.
  • Emil “emilshe1n” Mamedov would be banned from participating in all ESL and all ESIC regulated tournaments till the end of the ESL CS:GO Premiership Autumn season, 29th November.

The swift banning of the alleged “cheater” is bound to set a reminder for players in future that there are no shortcuts on the way to the top of the ladder in competitive Counter-Strike.

Paytm First Games launches India’s first free to play Ludo tournaments with over 1 Lakh prize money every day

The Crew
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Paytm First Games launches India’s first free to play Ludo tournaments with over 1 Lakh prize money every day

Paytm First Games, the country’s leading gaming destination has announced the launch of ‘Ludo Lakhpati’, which will be India’s first and biggest Ludo tournament with a prize pool of Rs. 1 lakhs every day. The multi-player championship will be held from 1st May to 5th May, and players can register for free on the Paytm First Games app and on the Paytm app from 1st May onwards.

What is Lockdown Lakhpati? | Paytm First Games
Photo: Paytm First Games

The ‘Ludo Lakhpati’ tournament will be organized in an online, knockout format, and players will compete across different stages. This will be India’s biggest Ludo tournament, both in terms of participation and prize money. To further add to the excitement around this tournament and make it more popular, the final rounds of this championship will be live-streamed on YouTube and Paytm Inbox.

Sudhanshu Gupta, COO, Paytm First Games said, “Ludo is one of the most popular games in the country and its popularity has soared even more in the last 3-4 weeks. We launched Paytm First Games Ludo within a week of lockdown and the game has grown at a staggering pace. 4 lac users play the game every day with 1-2 lakh new users joining the game everyday. With Ludo Lakphati, we aim to raise the stakes in the game and make it even more exciting for the players. ”

Paytm First Games is already India’s fastest-growing gaming destination and sees more than half a million daily active gamers on the platform, spending anywhere between 32 to 45 minutes. With over 75,000 new users joining the platform every day, it has witnessed a 200 percent growth in its user base in the last one month. Paytm First Games’ recently concluded e-sports challenge ‘Clash Royale’ saw over 11,000 registrations for the tournament, making it India’s biggest e-sporting tournament ever.

How to download Paytm First Games app and create an account:

Users can download the Paytm First Games from their website www.paytmfirstgames.com or from the Android play store. They can create an account on the app by simply logging in with their Paytm’s registered mobile number and password, or with an OTP. If the user does not have a Paytm account, the app provides the option to instantly sign up within a few minutes.

How to register for ‘Ludo Lakhpati’ Ludo tournament:

To participate in this tournament, users can select ‘Register’ on the ‘Ludo Lakhpati’ icon present on the homepage of the app to participate in the ludo tournament. The entire registration process is quite hassle-free as the user does not need to provide any special details or documents.

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