Overwatch League Stage 3 playoff finals starting right now on Twitch >>linky link<<
3 matches. Unbeaten in S3 Boston Uprising vs LA Gladiators first, then overall standings leaders New York Excelsior vs LA Valiant. The winners face off. Gotta be Boston vs NY, right?
So the Overwatch League wrapped up it's inaugural season this weekend at the sold-out Barclay Centre in New York. The hometown heroes and hot faves, New York Excelsior, didn't make the grand final. Instead the $1million prize was fought out between the 5th and 6th seeds, Philadelphia Fusion and London Spitfire.
Philly done good, won a stage and showed they could compete with the rest. London though. When they're on top form they are the very best there is, and after a tough couple of stages they are finally back on top form. The games were great with some amazing displays of individual skill, and from London in particular, phenomenal team work. They finished the deserving champions.
The closing ceremony of the Asian Games was broadcasting on YouTube, so I had a look on Wikipedia. Apparently it was the first games to feature esports events, though admittedly as a "demonstration sport", so any medals won don't count towards final tallies.
Games at the, er, games included Hearthstone, League of Legends, StarCraft II and Pro Evo.
Things to note: the Asian Games are run by the same people who do the Olympics, so maybe the "proper" Olympics will feature video game events. Oh, and at the next Asian Games, in Hangzhou, esports will be a full medal event.
People play Magic competitively, an element of luck is baked into any game where you build a deck. You’re building a deck to mitigate that element as best you can.
The 'skill' component of Hearthstone is that the decks are quite small for a CCG at 30 cards so good players will be keeping track of both players decks and the 'best' players are those that are able to read the hand of the opponent based on how they're playing and then play around that.
The small deck size and the fact that you are guaranteed an increasing amount of resource as the game continues also helps to reduce situations where one player is unable to get started and ends up getting pushed out of the game. Although it can never eliminate it completely.
Also I declare the Asian Games event to be pure babymans because there were no fighting games.
"Let me tell you, when yung Rouj had his Senna and Mansell Scalextric, Frank was the goddamn Professor X of F1."
This LoL Worlds Quarter Final between G2 and RNG is a corker. Favourites RNG are leading 2-1 in a best of 5 but G2 are stomping this round with some very smart team fights after a fantastic draft for them.
A healthy 300k+ viewers on the official Twitch stream as well.
Edit: Fuck yeah, G2! RNG only managed to get 1 kill in that game, game 5 here we come.
Edit: Srsly tho, RNG ain't gonna let the Summoner's Cup slip away.
Edit: Interesting draft, GAME 5 HYPE!!!
Edit: Holy shit, G2! Awesome Leblanc plays from Perkz.
Edit: RNG's scaling is finally coming into play, down 10k+ gold they're starting to look dominant in team fights.
Edit: Spoke too soon... G2 played outta their skin. Amazing game! That's both of the favourites for the final out in the first day of the quarters, this re-worked meta has made for some fantastic pro games. Good work Riot.
Drake and Scooter Braun (I had to Google him) have invested in up-and-coming eSports org, 100 Thieves. They're now co-owners alongside founder/CEO, Nadeshot. Here's the Forbes article.
The League of Legends Worlds Grand Finals are just starting on Twitch (or lolesports.com), live from the Incheon Munhak Stadium in South Korea. Even if you're not familiar with the game, if you're at all interested in eSports you really should check it out. It's something else.
No Korean teams in the final for the first time since 2013, instead we've got China's Invictus Gaming vs Europe's Fnatic. And so far IG are dominating.
The Twitch viewing figures are pretty impressive, as usual. 550k on the main English language channel, almost 1.1million watching LoL as a whole. Over a million more than the second placed game.
I, for one, welcome our Chinese gaming overlords. I would like them to know I am willing to sell out my fellow noobs for preferential treatment in the WoW gold farming mines.
For those with an open mind, wonders always await! - Kilton (monster enthusiast)
Shit, just seen that China beat Finland in the Overwatch World Cup quarter finals as well. Really wasn't expecting that. Finland's team is stacked, and they gave South Korea a run for their money in the group stages.
Not as big an upset as the UK beating the US though (woohoo!!!). I'm still shook.