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July 20, 2016
It's been a long, wild ride for Hungrybox but at EVO 2016 he finally managed to take a victory after defeating Armada in the grand finals for Super Smash Bros. Melee. Hungrybox has managed to come out with top three victories in previous years at EVO but this time he made it to the top. Armada is arguably the best out there in the world of SSBM and his history with Peach and Fox has put him ranked at the very top for a long time.
However, after Hungrybox's latest win against Armada, his win at Dreamhack Winter and his second place performance in Dreamhack Austin, it's safe to say that he is hot on the tail of Armada. Hungrybox mains Jigglypuff and he managed to use his expertise to take down Armada, who was playing Fox during the grand finals.
Mang0, who managed to take the win at Dreamhack Austin, didn't do as well this month at EVO 2016, but he still managed to get a top five ranking, along with Plup, S2J and Mew2King. Westballz and PewPewU tied for seventh spot, whilst
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July 19, 2016
The Mortal Kombat XL Grand Final saw SonicFox battle it out against Tekken Master.
A lot of us were rooting for Tekken Master to win the grand final after witnessing him fight his way so valiantly to the final game, but SonicFox clearly seemed like the favorite to take the win.
In the first match, SonicFox picked out Hollywood Cassie Cage to fight it out against Tekken Master's Swarm Queen D'vorah. In the first match, Tekken Master managed to fight himself out of a tricky situation to take round 1, but straight into round 2 the pressure was put back on by SonicFox.
He definitely knows how to play Cassie Cage well - Tekken Master had very little room to move and we were constantly seeing him being put into the corner in the early stages of the grand final. SonicFox took round 2 quick and clean. On the final round of match 1, Tekken Master tried to turn the tables by putting the pressure on but SonicFox got the better of him after an impressive jump in that helped him
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July 18, 2016
The finals for Tekken 7 took place early in the morning on Saturday, with the previous games happening all throughout the first day of EVO on the Friday.
In the final we saw Saint fight his way to victory against Knee. Saint picked out JACK-7 as expected, whilst Knee opted for Bryan. It's debatable whether Knee would have had better luck with another fighter, considering he saw success with both Heihachi and Akuma earlier in EVO 2016. Akuma has been seen to be a good counter to JACK-7 in the past, but it seems in the current meta that even with JACK-7's slow play style, Saint is currently managing to defeat anybody trying to take him down with an Akuma pick.
Even with the Bryan pick, Knee came seconds away from a victory.
Both players put in a lot of effort to make it to the final match at EVO 2016 and whilst the battle seemed back and forth to begin with, Saint ended the match by pulling out a 3-2 victory in a best of three.
It was incredible how close the match
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June 14, 2016
It may be shocking for fans, but the Copenhagen Wolves eSports organization will be ceasing their operations across all games. Copenhagen Wolves started in a small internet cafe in Copenhagen back in 2009 and it has grown phenomenally since then. Whilst the name may not be equally as popular Ninjas in Pyjamas, FaZe or Fnatic, it's certainly among one of the best known names in eSports today.
Whilst the owners of Copenhagen Wolves will be moving on, and players within their team houses may have to look for other housing options, the guys behind the organization aren't completely willing to bury the Copenhagen name. In their latest statement, Jakob Lund Kristensen mentioned that if there were to "be someone out there willing and able to take over this project the right way, we would definitely love to hear from you as we still believe in the brand and the story of Copenhagen Wolves."
The main reason for this apparently sudden change in operations is due to the co-owners moving
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June 09, 2016
Rick Fox has been a well known personality in the sports world for a long time but recently he has been venturing into the eSports world too. Rick Fox is the owner of the Echo Fox eSports organisation, which in recent news has acquired Ryan "Freakazoid" Abadir for their professional Counter Strike: Global Offensive team.
Soon Rick Fox will be creating an unscripted documentary on eSports. Echo Fox "Will be teaming with Propagate and INE Entertainment to develop and produce a non-scripted series about the growing eSports phenomenon. Three-time NBA champion Los Angeles Laker Rick Fox and veteran TV producer Mark Koops will executive produce."
Rick Fox's love for eSports sprouted out of a bonding activity with his son. Rick mentioned that his interest in eSports started "several years ago as a bonding activity with my son, I would have never dreamed that it would have taken off the way it has. The level of engagement between fans and athletes in the eSports community is far more
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June 06, 2016
For the first time ever, Capcom has stepped in to resolve an issue within the Capcom Pro Tour and it has ended with a player being banned temporarily from the event.
Whilst the altercation has nothing to do with Street Fighter at all, the problem was due to something that happened at an event. It was right for Capcom to act upon it and make a necessary statement instead of sweeping it under the rug.
The altercation involved Noel Brown, who many of us will admit is one of the top players within the competitive Street Fighter scene. Noel Brown did play Street Fighter V competitively but his best performance was with Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, which saw him sit among the top 10 players in the world.
According to Capcom, Noel Brown will be banned from future events due to his actions during Combo Breaker 2016. Below, part of the statement from Capcom has been provided.
"Over the past weekend, we were notified that an unfortunate case of sexual harassment occurred
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May 08, 2016
In a surprise move, British soccer team West Ham United has picked up an eSports player to add to their player roster. It may be unheard of, but we expect this kind of thing may be happening a lot more in the near future.
The player fittingly has competitive experience in the FIFA franchise and after seeing the player's talent, West Ham United went ahead and brought him under their wing. The player, who is known as Sean 'Dragonn' Allen is now a part of the West Ham family and will even have a West Ham jersey to wear at offline FIFA events. The jersey features the number 50 and his own username. In the recent FIFA 2016 Interactive World Cup, Dragonn came in second place. Despite failing to reach the first place spot, Dragonn was inches away from securing a victory.
After a superbly close 5-5 draw against Mohamad Al-Bacha from Denmark, Dragonn lost on Away goals in the New York finals.
West Ham United aren't the first soccer team to move into the world of eSports. In
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April 07, 2016
Could you imagine eSports being played alongside the Olympics? It seems like a far-fetched idea that couldn't possibly ever make it's way into reality, but recently the British government backed an international committee that has been designed to bring eGames to the world, an event that will be treated similarly to the olympics.
The first eGames event will be held this year in Rio De Janeiro alongside the 2016 Summer Olympics. Following on from that, future Olympics events will have coinciding eGames events too.
Like the Olympics, there will be no cash prizes given out for players - instead, bronze, silver and gold medals will be awarded. The first event will have players from Brazil, Britain, Canada and the U.S.A but future events are planned to host more countries.
So far, besides the medals there are no other incentives to attend the eGames events, so it's going to be hard to get a busy team like OpTic From COD/Halo or Fnatic from Counter Strike/League of Legends
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April 04, 2016
After pro player Naded's great performance at the Halo World Championship, he has managed to grab himself a deal with none other than OpTiC Gaming. Naded will now join the new OpTiC Halo 5 crew as the third currently announced member of the newly formed lineup.
We now have just one more player to be announced before we have a completely fresh OpTiC Halo lineup that may actually stand a great chance at competing and performing well at a high level again.
Not only is Naded a good choice for building a well-performing Halo team for Halo 5: Guardians and potential future releases, but he also has a lot of great brand value. Naded has been considered to be one of the top Halo streamers out there and he has pulled in quite a lot of viewership, especially compared to other streamers within the Halo community.
If you've been following the OpTiC Halo team then you'll know that the other two currently confirmed members for the team are Flamesword and Maniac. Flamesword has been
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March 20, 2016
The first event in anticipation for Capcom Cup 2016 was played out this month and it saw Team Razer's Infiltration take a win against Mad Catz's Tokido in a 3-1 game in the grand final. The event was a Final Round Street Fighter V tournament and by taking the win, Infiltration has now qualified for Capcom Cup 2016.
Mad Catz Tokido took second place and in third place was Mad Catz Mago. Haitani Tetsuya placed in fourth. At this point all four players have already fought against each other in the past so the games that took place at the tournament were a spectacle to watch. With that being said, Infiltration was a long way ahead of the rest of the game and it almost seems as if the rest of the Street Fighter pro scene has a lot to catch up to at this point in time. Last year Infiltration was one of two players to take six event wins and he’s already had a great start to the new season.
However, last season was played on Ultra Street Fighter IV so it will be interesting to see