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January 26, 2017
Looking for information on Call of Duty esports? This is where it all starts.
We haven't heard much in the way of Call of Duty esports news so far this year. Fortunately, an announcement has now been made for the beginning of the CWL Global Pro League in 2017. It has recently been confirmed that stage 1 of the pro league will start on April 20.
The CWL Global Pro League is a weekly LAN league for Call of Duty that will see teams from all over the world battle it out in their local arenas. Just before stage 1, an open event will take place on March 17 until March 19. This will be the CWL Dallas Open and will be the most important event this year for teams to earn the chance to gain points to qualify for the GPL.
"The CWL Dallas Open is the final event where teams and their rosters can earn CWL Pro Points for a chance to qualify to Stage 1 of the CWL Global Pro League, beginning April 20."
"The CWL Global Pro League, taking place live at the MLG Arena in Columbus,
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January 24, 2017
The first official Capcom Pro Tour event for 2017 has been announced.
The upcoming event is Final Round 20 and it will be the first event of this year to be included in Capcom Pro Tour rankings. Final Round has been a part of the Capcom Pro Tour in the past, and Fight Round 20 will be the third year running. It's not yet been confirmed whether Final Round 20 will be a Ranking or a Premier event, but some other details have been confirmed.
After last year's miscommunication from Fight Round 20, the bracket system will work. For example, last year Fight Round held a Premier event for the 2016 Capcom Pro Tour, but because of the lack of access to online brackets, it was very hard for players to figure out exactly who had made it out of the original stages and into the Top 128.
This year, the pools will be played out over two days instead of one, and the Smash.gg platform will be used to track matches and provide accessible online brackets for anybody to view.
So
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January 17, 2017
The movie studio behind hits like The Hunger Games, Power Rangers, and the Expendables has announced its recent investment in esports team, The Immortals.
It seems as if we're seeing investments from all over the place when it comes to eSports, and now Lionsgate has got in on the action. Interestingly, The Immortals has already seen financial support from other popular names including Michael Milken and Steve Kaplan.
Lionsgate didn't share too many details on what their investment would involve or what they would hope to receive from their partnership, but it's clear that they see the expectation in the eSports industry to follow the footsteps of other popular sports industries, such as the NBA and NFL.
This isn't the first time Lionsgate has gotten involved with video games. In fact, they have an entirely separate wing dedicated to interactive experiences and video games.
Lionsgate President of Interactive Ventures and Games mentioned, "We're delighted to be
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January 14, 2017
Twitch might have a near-monopoly on the video game streaming industry, but other competitors are still fighting hard to get a grip on it.
One of the longest running competitors for video game streaming is Hitbox - it's a service that offers a similar service to Twitch, and also has a larger focus on streaming esports. In recent news, Azubu has just acquired Hitbox for a sum of "tens of millions of dollars."
While operation at Hitbox is still going on as normal, this acquisition could mean big things for the platform and even bigger things for the video game streaming industry as a whole. To begin with, Azubu is certainly interested in putting more focus on the esports side of things. The majority of streams on Twitch are non-esports related, so Hitbox and Azubu have a potential void to fill.
Interestingly, Azubu is another streaming platform that hasn't managed to gain the attention it's hoped for. Previous talks suggested that Azubu was close to shutting down due
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January 13, 2017
The Miami Heat sports organization has recently purchased a stake in Misfit eSports.
Whilst unknown to some, the Misfit eSports org includes teams for Smash Bros, Heroes of the Storm and League of Legends. Perhaps their best-known players form their Overwatch team, which has recently performed incredibly well on a global level.
Most individuals would certainly know Miami Heat on the other hand - with a valuation of over $1.3 billion, the sports company is most known for their basketball team. In January 2016 the Miami Heat team was considered the 10th largest NBA franchise.
Considering the huge scale of Miami Heat, it's clear to see that the Misfits eSports organization are going to get all of the funding and support they need to keep their teams progressing towards new levels. Currently, the ownership of Misfit eSports resides with the original owners, but with Miami Heat owning a stake, they have the ability to call some of the shots as far as sponsorship deals, promotions,
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January 07, 2017
Suddenly the trophy at the Overwatch NGE Winter Premiere is up for grabs, as both Cloud9 and Fnatic have dropped out of the event completely.
It's been confirmed on the official NGE event team list that Fnatic and Cloud9 will no longer be taking part. FaZe Clan and Citizen7 will take their place.
Whilst both FaZe Clan and Citizen7 have both shared their great news, surprisingly neither Fnatic nor Cloud9 have made any mention about their quiet drop out. Fnatic's insane performances in 2016 allowed them to get a direct invite to the tournament and Cloud9 were following closely behind.
Dropping out of an event this big is rare, but it does happen, usually when scheduling issues are involved. For example, official news on the OGN Apex Season 2 event is rumored to be hitting soon, and if the drop out from Fnatic and Cloud 9 is anything to go by, both teams may have chosen to attend the OGN event instead.
We think this is a great thing for the Overwatch scene - not
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January 06, 2017
While it may not be a permanent goodbye, seeing LDLC saying their farewells to a game that helped make their name famous is slightly unsettling.
LDLC have always been one of the organizations at the top of Call of Duty, but after their struggles to get hold of a good enough team, it seems like LDLC may be putting their feet up for a while.
Almost a year ago, LDLC picked up Team Spartan, and while their year wasn't completely terrible, the mixed results that the team achieved just didn't quite hit the expectations the LDLC organization had for the newer players.
To begin with, the LDLC team managed to take a win at the South Lan Event. As a result, they bagged themselves a spot at ESWC COD in Paris. The team managed to just scrape by in ESWC to get a spot in Call of Duty XP in LA.
Unfortunately though, Activision has pulled their funding for the LDLC team, and because of a lack of big prize wins and sponsorship deals in 2016, LDLC has had to pull the rug underneath
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January 05, 2017
After going full-time Smash pro, the worst thing that could happen to a Smash player would be to have their finger or hand broken.
Unfortunately for Hungrybox, exactly that has happened. During a game of Dodgeball, Hungrybox ended up breaking his index finger, which might just be one of the most important fingers for playing games on a controller.
The injury was a fracture in the top knuckle of Hungrybox's index finger. With Genesis 4 just around the corner, it was first rumored that Hungrybox would not attend the event at all.
However, Hungrybox is going to soldier on - he will remap his controller so that use of his index finger is kept to an absolute minimum. As a result of this, Hungrybox may not be at top form, but we still feel he has a good chance at ranking high at Genesis 4.
It's frustrating to see such a thing happen, but we can't wait to see how Hungrybox performs despite his injury. Fortunately, the injury should heal within a few weeks, so he won't
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December 22, 2016
After an incredible performance from ZeRo this year, it was a surprise to see that a player managed to outperform him in an event sporting ZeRo's name.
Funnily enough, this wasn't the first time ZeRo has lost at his own event. In fact, every event in the past that has included ZeRo in the title has seen ZeRo fail at getting a win.
This particular event was 2GGT ZeRo Saga, and it saw some of the best Smash players across the globe fight it out for a $10,000 prize. Whilst it was surprising to ZeRo not take the win, it was perhaps even more surprising to see the actual winner.
MKLeo managed to take the grand prize after fighting his way through, Larry Lur, VoiD and plenty of other players. In fact, Leo originally found himself in the loser's bracket earlier in the tournament. It wasn't until MKLeo beat ZeRo in the loser's finals that he saw himself in the grand finals against Larry Lur.
MKLeo took the first set of matches in an impressive fashion with a 3-1 score
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December 12, 2016
The next COD World League is going to be absolutely huge.
The next big COD event to look out for is without a doubt going to be MLG Atlanta. To make the event even more enticing, MLG senior director Adam Apicella has recently announced that the event will include a massive $200,000 prize pool.
MLG Atlanta is exactly the kind of event the COD scene needs to help it grow. The event will feature over 176 teams from NA, EU & APAC - any team that wants to have the chance to participate in the event will need to register up for GameBattles Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, CWL Ladders & Online Tournaments - by winning tournaments teams will have the opportunity to win CWL pro points. Win enough, and your team will get themselves a ticket to the big event.
While some teams will receive invitations to the event, others may have to pay their way into the competition. Currently, team passes are going for $299.99 and will allow access to four players and 1 coach. If you're