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Global esports organization and industry leader KSV eSports and Razer™, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today announced details of a partnership to supply Razer’s best-in-class gaming peripherals for all KSV’s world class athletes, including dominant Overwatch League (OWL) season one favorites Seoul Dynasty.

The two-year sponsorship deal fits all KSV eSports teams with top of the line competition-quality mice, keyboards, headsets and surfaces. Seoul Dynasty, the star-studded OWL team that features world-renowned players such as Ryujehong and Fleta, will be training and competing with Razer™ products immediately.

“Helping ambitious organizations and players reach the next level has been a matter of the heart for Razer since the very early days of professional esports,” said Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder and CEO. “The passion and dedication to building a long-term, winning organization of players makes a two-year deal with KSV eSports and Seoul Dynasty an easy decision.”

The sponsorship will include KSV eSports’ current and future roster of elite teams, pairing professional tournament-grade equipment with the fingertips of dominant players competing in games such as League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds; and who have demonstrated a record of achievement and elegance through multiple world championship victories, including the 2017 League of Legends World Championship (formerly SSG), and the 2017 Heroes of the Storm BlizzCon Championship (formerly MVP Black).

“KSV eSports teams and players are among the most talented and professional the industry has to offer,” said Kevin Chou, CEO and co-founder of KSV eSports. “Partnering with Razer ensures our athletes have access to the highest-quality peripherals to continue the organization’s success for now and into the future.”

For more information on esports and Team Razer visit https://www.razerzone.com/team

With a heavy heart and a long way ahead, former Virtus.pro’s co-founder revealed his further plans in a statement on Facebook. The 31-year-old didn’t find it difficult to acknowledge the team’s decision. In a gentleman’s agreement, Wiktor ‘TaZ’ Wojtas called it “best for both the parties.”

After the recent announcement of Virtus.pro dropping TaZ from their active lineup, there has been roar on social media. This is not your regular transfer or a usual change of player. This was a legacy dying in the process of a roster change. Wiktor Wojtas is not a foreign name for the Counter-Strike community. Instead, gamers, who followed CS 1.6, can very well analyze the contribution of this legendary player to the Polish CS scene.

ALSO SEE: TAZ'S BEST VIDEO EVER

TaZ full statement

As of today I will no longer be playing for Virtus.pro lineup. The team decided that I don’t fit in their plans, and I only respect that and want to wish them best of luck in the future! I feel that it is a change for best, for both parties. Changes are needed in life, and I’m looking forward to challenges ahead of me. This is not the last you hear of me. I never had problems with motivation, but I can tell you now – I’m more happy and motivated than ever!

Virtus.pro will continue their journey ahead with MICHU, which they’ve rented from Kinguin for a month.

The long-standing speculations have finally been put on an official note as Virtus.pro announces roster change. The change comes in with the much expected TaZ being removed from the active lineup in place of MICHU. The new player will be a tryout for the Polish team for a period of one month.

As Pasha calls it, “The wonderful era has ended today.” The Polish team will start playing with the 21-year-old MICHU who has in the past, shared the stage with Byali and Snax.

The wonderful era has ended today

— paszaBiceps (@paszaBiceps) February 6, 2018

Time to move on 😉 Excited!

— TAZ (@g5taz) February 6, 2018

However, this is not the first time MICHU has brought in to fill the space. In the past, the player has temporarily replaced Pasha for a couple of games.

“In March we will make further announcements on the lineup. I would also like to thank Wiktor for his commitment throughout the years of his time in Virtus.pro. He’s the main reason Golden 5 joined VP, kept playing for VP and kept playing together,” said Virtus.pro’s General Manager Roman Dvoryankin.

Roman Tweeted a couple of days ago about the ‘hardest’ time of his life, with the decisions he could be possibly taking.

Wiktor “TaZ” Wojtas, was the IGL for Virtus.pro and has been associated with the fellow players for over a decade. The organization’s decision to set him aside and allow the player to negotiate with other squads have left broken hearts. With TaZ moving out, the next player to face the brunt of the underperformance could be NEO.

After the breathtaking performance from FaZe in the ELEAGUE Boston Major 2018, HLTV has named it the world’s best CSGO team in its January 2018 ranking. The all-star European squad had an overwhelming run during the Majors.

In addition, SK Gaming remains strong at the number second spot. Cloud9, even after taking the trophy home, could only take the third spot, compared to the earlier fifth. Noteworthy performance by Quantum Bellator Fire pulled them up in the ranking from 74th spot to 12th in a month.

ALSO READ: Kjaerbye joins North, k0nfig kicked

While the Swedish squads, NiP & fnatic struggle to make any good impact, the former lost four points post-Major. Ninjas were not seen playing any events from past two months, resulting in the drop.

Best CSGO team

1. FaZe
2. SK
3. Cloud9
4. G2
5. Mousesports
6. Fnatic
7. Astralis
8. NiP
9. Natus Vincere
10. Gambit

The events for the year ahead seems promising, and as the Danish & Swedish roster shuffle is on the move, we expect to see better results from the rosters in the coming months.

Astralis, the pride of Danish Counter-Strike is reportedly signing Adam ‘friberg’ Friberg. The 26-year-old Swede is currently playing for OpTic Gaming.

In spite of the story floating, there have been no official announcements so far. Though, the two involved have been teasing it out on the social platform Twitter.

🤔https://t.co/cUdO6GsXkU

— Adam Friberg (@fribergCS) February 2, 2018

Bringing k0nfig would be a good deal

The first time Friberg teased it a couple of days ago when he shared a YouTube video of learning the Danish language. On the other side, Astralis keeping their lips intact, have teased nothing but an Angel emoji. The updates from Astralis could also mean that they are indeed signing a player, not Friberg necessary.

Astralis currently has a lot of options available to them. Certainly, after k0nfig was recently kicked from North and that their star player Kjaerbye made his way to the team.

Players in the news pimp, k0nfig, Magisk, dennis, friberg

Also to note that there is no possible reason why Friberg would start learning Danish. Friberg only has a few options in the Sweden Counter Strike scene, which could possibly the cause of him moving to Denmark. We will keep you posted on this as the story develops.

1. FC Köln and SK Gaming, two of Germany’s most decorated teams, will kick off a partnership in 2018. The cooperation is a natural fit and will see both sides benefit immensely. SK Gaming players will be able to take advantage of the same infrastructure the Bundesliga team provides for its players.

The deal will enable the CSGO roster to further professionalize the conditions for players, especially regarding practice, fitness, and nutrition.

The announcement was made public through a YouTube video on FC Cologne’s official account.

‘Working with the 1.FC Köln is very special for us. As a Cologne-based company, many of us here at SK Gaming are long-standing fans of the FC and for me, this partnership is just a win-win for everyone involved. We are able to learn from the decades of experience the club gained in traditional sports and in return we are excited to help the FC with our knowledge of 20 years in esports. I am sure this will be a fruitful coalition right from the start that will have each other’s fans curious for what’s next‘, says Alexander Müller, Managing Director at SK Gaming.

Esports getting mainstream

FC Copenhagen’s signing came off a little late considering they were looking for a roster from quite sometime now.

It is also to note that there are speculations of SK Gaming’s current roster moving to Immortals later this year. Although it is clear that the partnership is between the two organizations and not the players, individually.

The signing marks yet another Football club to put their foot into esports era!

ALSO READ - Spanish FC into Esports

ALSO READ - Manchester City FC signs Esports team

KioShima, the French player who has been struggling lately to find a home, has returned to EnVyUs.

The reports of his joining EnVyUs were speculating a couple of weeks ago. Now the official announcement has been made.

Progressing into 2018 season, the team aims to develop and gain back the lost momentum.

• SIXER
• Happy
• ScreaM
• RPK
• KIOSHIMA

Fiey (coach) has to do some calculations about the team as a member of the starting lineup while Alexandre “xms” Forte will be moved to a substitute role.

EnVyUs will play their first game with this roster in a couple of hours now in the IEM Katowice qualifiers.

Cryptocurrency has made its way to the professional esports scene. Level Up Coin (LUC) is offering up to $100,000 as the first place reward for a CSGO event. The event is placed on February 25th, organized by Play2Live.

Out of the eight teams, seven will be directly invited to compete along with a team coming through open qualifiers. The tournament will be hosted in the Falcon Club in Minsk, Belarus.

Play2Live – Live streaming platform

“We encourage all gamers and esport fans to become P2L early adopters to test the new ecosystem and high Internet speed delivered by peer-to-peer CDN technology,” Alexey Burdyko, CEO, and Founder at Play2Live said in a press release. “We are even more excited to host the world’s first ever esport tournament with a crypto prize: an event, that will become a milestone in the further integration of the blockchain technology into the gaming industry.”

Other than hosting events, Play2Live is a full-time streaming platform community. It hosts famous streamers and awards them with LUC, which can be conveniently converted into other Cryptos.

Alongside the live streams of the games played, viewers can bet on the game live as it is being played, a feature which is yet exclusive at Play2Live.

BeyondTheSummit, which announced CS SUMMIT 2 a few weeks ago is scheduled to commence on February 8th. It has now been reported that OpTiC has also chosen to withdraw from the event after mousesports.

The extremely popular event had earlier announced mousesports leaving the site even after being qualified. The mousesports management called it “due to personal reasons.”

UPDATE: @OpTicGaming will no longer be attending #cs_summit 2 and @Torquedgg will be their replacement. pic.twitter.com/QkK0pNbPE8

— BTS Dota (@BTSdota) February 2, 2018

Yesterday, in a statement on Twitter, Optics’ coach, Chet ‘IamApet’ Singh revealed they were not participating in CS Summit 2.

Official statement from OpTic

I'm sorry to all the OpTic fans kept in the dark but all will hopefully be revealed soon. I'm not the man to answer the questions that are being asked

— NRG Chet (@chetsingh) February 2, 2018

This withdrawal has marked the second event for Optic in less than a week, where they have chosen to forego. Earlier, OpTiC had decided to pull out from IEM Katowice for unknown reasons.

BeyondTheSummit, the organizers of CS Summit have roped in, Torqued as a replacement to Optic.

The teams now look like:

• Heroic
• SK
• Torqued
• NiP
• Vega Squadron
• Cloud9
• North
• Team Liquid

The event will run for four days in Los Angeles, California. Furthermore, it has an attractive prize pool of $150,000.