TALKESPORT

One of the darkest day for the Indian esports community, GoFigure‘s two players reported in a car accident this afternoon. The crash occurred when they were returning back from a gaming event in Chennai. Others on the car were severely injured at the time of the accident, who now are reported to be safe.

Raghu Drake and Tejas Klaret are the two players who have lost their lives as per the witnesses’ account of the incident.

Raghu was also a part of the Dare2Dream active roster and was recently featured in the news daily NewIndianExpress recently. The cause of the accident is still not clear but earlier reports suggest the driver of the car lost control and the car toppled twice before coming to halt.

The crash happened when the team was on their way back from playing a tournament at LXG Chennai. The event was concluded yesterday and the team had planned to return to their homes in the noon. The accident happened at 12:30 in the noon. Raghu Drake was critically injured at the time of the incident, he succumbed to injury while on way to the Hospital in an ambulance.

We had a word with the mournful CEO of GoFigure, Stephen Samuel, who couldn’t believe what has just happened.

The community is collectively in dismal after the news broke out.

Founded in the year 2017, GoFigure had a stellar performance. Just a few weeks ago, GoFigure had won a DotA 2 cultural festival organized by CMR Institute of Technology.

We shall soon start a fundraiser to support their family after their consent.

Image source: Sabeel Yonus

Esports for Everyone is a community building convention to promote Esports in India. We aim to reach out to people from diverse cultures and professional domains and work at the grass root level to build regional Esports
communities. Esports isn’t just about playing video games or a mere “past time” it’s a booming industry with versatile professional career paths for those interested in pursuing their passion for Esports.

While the number of events that focus on the Professional circuit are on the rise, we wanted to instigate an Esports convention that works as an incubator for newer teams and eventually turn them into professional teams by
providing more competitive opportunities at the regional level.

India has the largest youth population in the world. Young people are the innovators, creators, builders, and leaders of the future. Majority of our audience and participants are from Universities, however, to encourage high
the competition we keep our events open for all.

Esports for Everyone

Lovely Professional University is the Gurukul of over 50 thousand students who come from different parts of the world. They are mostly tech -savvy and hyper active on social media and can help us organically spread a word about
Esports as we lay the foundation stone for Esports for Everyone with greater support from Dragcon, a students organization registered under the aegis of division of student welfare, Lovely Professional University to achieve our ultimate goal of making India the next power house of Esports.

The major take aways

Come and experience the Esports culture and take away an ever lasting memory. Meet fellow gamers, make new teams, consider E4E to be a dedicated community building event.

• E4E Punjab convention invites 32 teams for CS:GO, 32 teams for DOTA2, 16 teams for women CS:GO, 128 players for FIFA18 PS4 and 64 players for Gran Turismo 4 on PS VR.
• At Lovely Professional University, everyone is invited to experience 4 days of pure esports extravaganza, an opportunity to participate in variety of contests, open championship, workshops and varied other community
  building activities.

• Specially designed gaming experience zones would provide hands on experience on the professional gaming equipment like Sony PlayStation VR, HTC Vive VR, One vs One contests and plethora of games with high
  definition graphics at free to play zone, real 4K experience, cool gaming gadgets, and many on the spot contests.
• A chance to speak up about the future of Esports in India by participating in the Open Esports Forum called “Esports Dialogue” where ideas, concerns, problems and solutions would be debated in the most intellectual way.

Drag2Death have invited Jesse Hol “Stamination” from Netherlands to host the Esports for Everyone convention. Jesse is a well known CS:GO caster in the Indian Esports community and there are endless opportunities to learn from him about the rise and sustenance of the European Esports Industry and how India can also develop its greater ecosystem.

It is vital to layout a stronger foundation for Esports in order to implement the strategic growth model while not ignoring the underlying challenges and critical pain areas. We invite the industry veterans, visionaries and community mentors to come forward and join us in our initiative to send across a positive sentiment about the professional gaming industry in India.

E4E Punjab Convention to begin from 19th March that concludes on 22nd March 2018. The finalists of all 5 competitive games i,e CSGO Open, Women CS:GO & Dota2 Open, FIFA18 PS4 and Rocket League PS4 will be playing on the main stage of SSDM auditorium on 21st and 22nd of march.

Event format

Format: Single Elimination Lan Qualifiers and Best of 3 Grand Finale
Lan Qualifiers: 19th & 20th March at LPU
Grand Finale: 21st & 22nd March at LPU

Teams can register for the considered championship by visiting the official E4E convention website at: http://e4e.global

According to the a reported by Flickshot.fr, the Polish legend TaZ will lead Kinguin CSGO. The other players on board aren’t hit by fame as much as TaZ, perhaps, the team has the potential.

Wiktor “TaZ” Wojtas, was recently benched by Virtus.pro following the reports of the players having communication issues. The decision plummeted the golden era of a long-standing Polish lineup of legends.

Kinguin CSGO roster

• 🇵🇱 Karol ‘rallen’ Rodowicz
• 🇵🇱 Mikolaj ‘mouz’ Karolewski
• 🇵🇱 Wiktor ‘TaZ’ Wojtas
• 🇵🇱 Jacek ‘MINISE’ Jeziak
• 🇵🇱 Pawel ‘reatz’ Janczak

The new unconfirmed lineup will be backed by Kinguin, with the two former players of the organization retaining onto it. TaZ had mentioned that he’s feeling motivated than ever after he was ousted from the lineup he once put seeds to grow.

The next in line to move out from Virtus.pro could be NEO as the underperformance continues.

Starseries Starladder Season 7 is concluding its first phase of the playoffs and we already have a lot of results. The final match of the quarterfinals has now come to an end as Natus Vincere beat Atralis 2-1 in the best of three. Na`Vi progresses to the semi-finals whereas Astralis goes back home.

In the best of three regular matchups, Natus Vincere beat Astralis 2-1 (10-16, 16-14, 16-5).

The teams to compete tomorrow in the semi-finals now are:

• Liquid vs mousesports
• FaZe vs Natus Vincere

The teams are playing for the larger size of the $300,000 prize pool and an annual title. FaZe are the current tournament favorites who have won all the series yet. Following SK’s and Cloud9’s early exit from the tournament, it will be interesting to see how the rest of the teams performs. Liquid’s commendable and dominance performance versus SK have had lots of appreciation and the analysts are now bidding Liquid to take the championship home. After CS Summit 2, Liquid is having a roller coaster ride, and it seems a new NA era has begun.

Image credits: HLTV.org

After Cloud9’s departure yesterday, SK becomes the second top 3 team to get eliminated from StarLadder S7. In the best of three quarterfinals between the two, Liquid came out on top. The best of three

In a dominant fashion, North America’s squad Team Liquid beat SK Gaming in the best of three quarterfinals. Team Liquid moves to the semi-finals sending SK Gaming home.

The first map was taken over by SK Gaming where they beat Liquid 16-9. The second map, cobblestone had a lot of adventure for both the sides. After failing to conclude the game in the regulated 30 rounds, they had to play another 12 rounds to determine who’s the better half. Liquid was able to take the map on their side by beating SK 22-20 in the second OT.

The third map, Inferno was humiliating for SK for the first half. Although they were able to win a few rounds in the second half, they couldn’t get past 7 rounds. The first half score in favor of Liquid was 14-1!

The knockout of SK from the tournament comes in after Cloud9 who was also defeated the last day. Mousesports had convincingly defeated them in the best of three quarters.  Mousesports will face G2 in the second quarter to determine which team progresses to the semifinals. FaZe will face Renegades, where Astralis faces Natus Vincere for the final semi-final slot.