Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s source engine has really come a long way keeping the game incredibly facile. But over the past year, being Valve’s most famous FPS title, the game seems to be in a plummet when it comes to competing with its rivals. If we talk about Valorant, Riot Games seems to be much defiant than anyone at the moment. Amidst this all, Valve might have to revamp it’s plans and come up with a better solution to be in the competition.
According to some reports, Valve might be bringing in some changes to CS:GO where we would get to witness the Source 2 engine which the community has been looking forward to. These reports were then backed up by ‘Nors3’ who then confirmed about the same and the certitude which he showers upon his reliable sources. “About Source 2 being released in CS:GO in 2 months: it seems trustworthy because I heard from reliable sources,” he said, “but with Valve, you can never be 100% confident with unofficial dates.”
With a rough estimate of two months on the calendar and with the ESL One Rio Major canceled by the tournament organizer, the community will totally be able to check it out in a fully-fledged manner along with the players from the Pro Scene who won’t stand a chance to complain about it as the release of Source 2 engine won’t be barricading any Major tournament preparations. This guesstimating won’t hit the players as a surprise as these rumors have been circulating for almost years now and there might be a majority among community waiting for Valve to drop the news about the same.
With it’s release on the horizon, we might not see this newly developed Source 2 Engine to run with an efficiency as it might be surrounded by bugs in the start where we would a plethora of several patch updates being released by Valve in a bid to optimize it.
With COVID-19 becoming the center of attention all across the globe, many people have extended their hands to help in the fight against the deadly virus. Multiple celebrities and personalities have come forward and have taken active part in spreading awareness and donating money to help fight the virus. The most recent figure who seemed to have joined the battle is none other than the popular streamer Ninja.
Ninja put forward a donation video along with his wife on twitter. In the video he urged his followers and fans to do the same and donate whatever they can to help the cause against coronavirus. Together Ninja and his wife Jessica Blevins donated an amount of $150,000 to Feeding America in order to support their COVID-19 relief program. In the same tweet, Ninja also asked his followers to maintain social distancing and take the issue seriously.
Feeding America and our network of food banks are working round-the-clock to provide food to people across the country during this difficult time. To help keep you up-to-date on what we’re doing and how you can help, here is a hub for all #COVID19 updates: https://t.co/kMz8M4asfEpic.twitter.com/YNkYFycviP
The frequency with which Valorant’s characters and their abilities are being put on display by Riot Games, it seems like Valorant beta is not far away. We have already seen a lot of gameplay, trailers and game modes from Riot’s Project A: Valorant. Riot has so far announced 8 different characters, some of their abilities can be seen on gameplay previews on YouTube, let’s take a close look at these 8 characters one by one.
Brimstone
Ability 1 (Incendiary): Launches a grenade which deploys a damage field of fire
Ability 2 (Stim Beacon): Targets a close-by location to call in the beacon, giving all the players near the beacon rapidfire (some sort of ally buff)
Ability 3 (Special: Sky Smoke): Uses the map to call in smokescreens that diminishes vision, click to set the locations and then confirm to launch
Ability 4 (Ultimate: Orbital Strike): Targets a nearby location, launches a devastating orbital strike which damages the enemies for several seconds
Phoenix
Ability 1 (Hot Hands): Throws a fireball which explodes after a short delay on getting in touch with the ground. The fire zone damages the enemies but heals Phoenix in return
Ability 2 (Blaze): Casts a flame wall which blocks the enemy vision and wounds everyone passing through it. The wall can be bent as per choice
Ability 3 (Special: Curveball): Casts a curved flare which bursts into light after a short delay of time, it temporarily blinds everyone and can be curved right and left
Ability 4 (Ultimate: Run it Back): Marks your current location & if you die while this ability is active, or when it expires, you’ll respawn at your marked location with full health.
Jett
Ability 1 (Cloudburst): Throws a cloud of fog that blocks vision on the impact.
Ability 2 (Updraft): Launch Jett upwards after a short delay.
Ability 3 (Special: Tailwind): Dashes a short distance in the intended direction.
Ability 4 (Ultimate: Blade Storm): Throw deadly knives which deal damage and kills on a headshot. Kill restores daggers, while left click throws a single dagger and the right click throws all the left out daggers.
Sage
Ability 1 (Slow Orb): An orb that diffuses into a slowing field on impact with the ground, all enemies caught in the field are grounded, slowed and makes noise on moving.
Ability 2 (Barrier Orb): A rotatable wall.
Ability 3 (Special: Healing Orb): Heals yourself or an ally to full health over a few seconds.
Ability 4 (Ultimate: Resurrection): Targets a friendly corpse, after a short delay Sage will revive them with full health.
Cypher
Ability 1 (Trapwire): Places a tripwire between any two walls, when triggered enemies are revealed & restrained for a short duration of time.
Ability 2 (Cyber Cage): Places a remote activation trap, creates a cage on re-activation of ability that slows the enemies who pass through it. Traps can be detonated.
Ability 3 (Special: Spycam): Places a remote camera, once placed reactive the ability to view the video feed.
Ability 4 (Ultimate: Neural Theft): Once an enemy is killed, information regarding the location of their allies can be extracted.
Viper
Ability 1 (Snakebite): Fires a projectile which on exploding forms into a pool of acid that does damage.
Ability 2 (Poison Cloud): Throws a cloud of gas which can be reactivated(costs fuel) to create a smoke cloud.
Ability 3 (Special: Toxic Screen): Deploys a line of gas that can be reactivated(costs fuel) to generate a wall of toxic gas.
Ability 4 (Ultimate: Viper’s Pit): A toxic cloud covers a very large radius and highlights enemies to Viper, the time period of the cloud extends if Viper remains in the cloud itself.
Omen
Ability 1 (Paranoia): Casts a shadow in a straight line which blinds everyone it touches.
Ability 2 (Shadow Walk): Teleports a short distance after some delay.
Ability 3 (Special: Dark Cover): Casts an orb that bursts into a ring of shadow concealing the final location.
Ability 4 (Ultimate: From the Shadows): Select any position on the map to teleport and reform, will appear as a shadow initially, which can then be killed by the enemies and will cancel the teleport. You become invisible for a short time if the teleport is successful.
Sova
Ability 1 (Shock Bolt): Fire an explosive bolt which damages enemies on impact.
Ability 2 (Owl Drone): Deploys and controls a drone that reveals enemies all around the map.
Ability 3 (Special: Recon Bolt): Fire a bolt that deploys a sonar emitter in the air and tags nearby enemies, also revealing them.
Ability 4 (Ultimate: Hunter’s Fury): Fires up to three energy blasts that move across the entire map and each hit enemy is marked & takes damage.
After going through all these characters & abilities, one thing which can be said for sure is that Valorant is likely a combination of CS:GO and Paladins. Just like Paladins, Valorant’s characters will have classes and their abilities will mostly be based on the type of class they belong to. In Paladins, there are mainly 4 classes: Front Line, Damage, Support & Flank. Will Valorant also have characters based on a certain type of class, we will find out once the beta is out.
Till then stay tuned to this article as we will be updating it further once a new character comes out!
ESL has officially announced that the upcoming Major which was scheduled to take place between May 11-24 is now shifted to November due to the coronavirus outbreak.
ESL has assured fans that the tickets purchased for Jeunesse Arena for May will be valid when the event unfolds in November. The Major will boast a prize pool of $2 Million dollars as we see the winnings from both annual Majors add up to one.
This move by Valve is taken with the concern for the fans and players at the back of their minds, having already canceled the Dota major, Valve had a similar hand dealt with them for the Rio Major. COVID-19 situation is getting worse in Brazil as their government has declared a Level 3 lockdown with unnecessary travels being considered as a criminal offense.
As the contagious COVID-19 continues spreading across continents, more and more countries are calling for lockdowns to prevent further spread. As the number of people piling up inside their homes increases, the need for alternate sources of entertainment goes on the rise.
The video gaming industry seems to be booming as compared to most of the other industries falling short before the rampaging virus. Lock downs eventually help in video games sales as more people look to gaming as an alternative way to kill time. On top of that, video game development isn’t affected much at all, since by its nature it is highly suitable as a work from home profession.
Market research firm Cowen Inc. predicted the same in one of its reports where it claimed, “We believe that the video game sector rather uniquely is poised to see very little disruption to results over the next 12 months in all but the most severe (read: the stock market will be the least of our problems) scenarios.” The report further read, “As such, we view the sector as a logical place to favor in the current volatile market environment.”
You read that right, we are losing our mind as much as you are. ”ana” the name with which everyone is familiar with, Hard Carry of the year 2019 and Two Time TI Winner will be playing in-place of Gabbi for TNC Predator.
We got your night jam-packed with action as the two-time TI champion Ana will stand-in for Gabbi, due to ISP issues, in our match versus Adroit tonight at 8 PM!
Internet issues have plagued online tournaments for years. Unfortunately, it’s team TNC Predator who are affected by it this time, former carry of the team ”Gabbi” will be unable to show up for their Semi-Final game against Team Adroit at the WeSave! Charity Play event.
Though, what we are fortunate about is that TNC has managed to get ”perfect stand-in” to replace Gabbi for the night and it is none other than everyone’s favourite Anathan ”ana” Phan.
After the official announcement of ana not coming back for a whole season, even if today is a one-time thing, we will be witnessing the legend in action once again after months in the professional scene since TI9 victory.
Team Adroit didn’t take long to counteract to this move of TNC. They commented further ”WAIT, WE’RE CALLING TOPSON.”
We are unsure if Topson will be actually playing for Team Adroit against his old former teammate.
Topson or not, I guess we will witness mere hours from now on WePlay official stream at www.twitch.tv/weplayesport_en
The Danish organization have confirmed the signing of Patrick “es3tag” Hansen on their twitter which now makes them to have a roster with six active players. We will get to witness es3tag featuring in the team’s official practice schedules and matches starting from the 1st of July. After nearly two years since the signing of Emil “Magisk” Reif from OpTic in 2018, this addition marks the first roster change inculcated by the Danish side. With es3tag joining the force, Astralis will now be looking forward to field a six-man roster where the players would be provided with a certain flexibility to take a break from the Pro scene and easily recover from the mental stress caused throughout the tournaments and travel schedules. We did see Dennis “dennis” and Ruben “RUBINO” Villarroel filling in the shoes for Nicolai “device” Reedtz at Blast Pro Series Copenhagen and at the ESL Pro League Season 6 Finals respectively after the latter went on a Medical break Edman Patrick will be joining his new Danish home when his contract will come to an end with Heroic.
In order to improve working conditions for our players, it has been decided to increase the Astralis roster to six players. On this basis, Patrick @es3tag Hansen will be joining the roster.
In a statement, Astralis’s CEO Nikolaj Nyholm did add: “Our work with Astralis and all our teams is focused around performance and health. It’s our responsibility as an organization to secure optimal conditions for our employees on all levels, and especially our players, who on a constant basis experience the highest pressure to perform. Increasing the roster size to six players is something we have worked on for a long time with relevant stakeholders in Counter-Strike.”
“This approach is no different than in traditional sports, but it’s new to Counter-Strike, and a change like this will take time to optimize for full advantage. The players, coach and our performance team have been involved in this decision and everybody agrees it is the way to go.“ On his twitter, he did provide an explanation for further questions raised regarding this move after it seemed to have put the relations between Heroic and Chinese side FunPlus Phoenix in Jeopardy where the latter have considered walking out of the deal.
Brandon Cole ‘Sixless’ Patterson used to be one of the members of Could 9’s PUBG Mobile squad. A big drama stirred between the India PUBG Mobile community and Sixless; let’s go deeper into the entire controversy.
At first, just some argument took place between Sixless and PUBG Mobile fans from India. Soul Aman was the first one to take a closer look at it, he then decided to talk about Sixless and called him out on the stream.
After this incident, C9’s Sixless posted several stories on his Instagram handle where he insulted the whole India PUBG Mobile community. This made the Indian fans really angry who then replied to Sixless on all the social platforms.
Sixless starting the fight with Indian PUBG Mobile community through his Instagram stories // Photo via AFK GamingPhoto via AFK Gaming
Sixless mentioning that players like Scout, Jonathan, Daljit are the only worthy individuals that can represent India in PUBG Mobile on an international level. He then shared his opinion regarding who is better from XQF’s Paraboy & SouL’s Mortal. He in fact insulted Mortal and entire Team SouL by mocking them for getting 12th place in the last PMCO by saying “FNC and Entity are the only good teams who can do anything internationally, the rest of them will just end up at the 12th position every time.
Sixless making fun of Indian PUBG Mobile fans for being toxic & mindless // Photo via AFK Gaming
This was surely going to lead to outrage among the Indian PUBG Mobile fans who as an end result decided to spam hate comments on Sixless’s social handles.
Although we somewhere feel Sixless did had a valid point when he mentioned about Indian PUBG Mobile community being toxic at times especially during the poor performance of Team SouL in PMCO. I am sure there are many instanced where Indian PUBG Mobile community gets toxic and starts spreading hate (one instance is Scout v/s Mortal controversy) and we are sure you all must be aware about many more of these.
Many known personalities from Indian PUBG Mobile reacted on this controversy. As a result, this is what it ended up with.
#C9PUBGM Update: Cloud9 has parted ways with Sixless due to behavior which goes against our player and organization expectations and policies.
One of the most successful lineups in the history of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is finally set to make a change, albeit an interesting one. According to HLTV Astralis are reportedly looking to build a six-man roster and are in talks to sign Heroic star Patrick ‘es3tag’ Hansen.
The 24-year-old is currently playing Flashpoint Season 1 under Fun Plux Phoenix after the organisation brought out the entire Heroic lineup. But, there are reports that should es3tag make his way to Astralis, Fun Plus Phoenix could pull out from the deal that has been done with Heroic.
Astralis have recently lost their Numero Uno ranking on HLTV to Natus Vincere after a humbling loss to the CIS giants in the Grand Finals of IEM Katowice 2020. The Danes are currently 2-1 in the ESL Pro League and had also crashed out of BLAST Premier Spring Series after a loss to Natus Vincere.
Despite the inconsistency of results in 2020, it is rather surprising if the Danes do actually go ahead with the move and sign es3tag. The repercussions of the potential transfer for Heroic, Fun Plus Phoenix and even Flashpoint could be huge.
The six-man roster plan is nothing new, with AGO having done the same in the recent past. But, Astralis will be the first Tier-1 team to do so and it will be interesting to see how it all shapes up if the move goes ahead.
While PUBG mobile might have taken the whole scene by storm, it’s still not the same. The game is fine, no doubt, however, it lacks a thing. And what is that? I don’t know; maybe passion, stealth, synergy or finesse. That shall apparently be a matter of discourse at a more convenient time. At present, let us acknowledge the decisive subject of utmost repute that ruled our hearts during the adolescence. Counter-Strike: a pastime that was not just a game, our hearts back then throbbed in sync.
These days, it’s not the same. Nearly a hundred stacked within a server hoping for the chicken dinner is all good. But, do you recall a classic Terrorists vs Counter-Terrorists clash for their collective glory? Once you die, there’s no revival of health. And upon death, you’d spam the chat or voice apparently being an intense backseat gamer. 16vs16 casual server or rather we used to call it ‘pub server’ was the epitome of bliss. For the competitive breeds, clan servers were the site to showcase their supremacy. However, the fight for the #1 position on a game tracker was an actual feud.
All the way, rushing home from school and the first thing you would do is switch on your computer. The prolonged nights of Counter-Strike during summer vacations were indeed mesmerizing. Above all, LAN parties were some of the best adolescent memories with homies by our side. I was an amateur back then playing against bots when one of my classmates told me that we could connect to a server and play together. I was in complete disbelief at first. But, as I did what he instructed and taada! We were playing together.
We had it all in those days. Nowadays, however, things aren’t that simple. We have these games that are filled to brim with microtransactions. Today, we have to purchase weapon skins, costumes, etc. but it lacks the local community flavor of Counter-Strike. Back then, we were able to change our player model to any anime character we loved. I remember switching to master chief and changing my rifle skin to match Halo auto rifle coupled with the custom firing sound. Everything was possible with just a little knowledge about modding.
The unique rewards for winning might be petty yet they had a place in our heart. It wasn’t about what we got as rewards, it was the passion that drove those fights and the sheer thirst to prove myself and my clan as the supreme.
