Majors success, Major Issues: eSports Bulletin
By: Thomas RessaAll across the esports landscape this week we've seen different games run a wide gamut between great success and total failure - from the North American Spring Championship; Blizzards Heroes of the Storm regional - to the absolute disaster thats come about from DoTA 2’s Winter Major in Shanghai.Lets start with the Heroes of the Storm regional which took place in Los Angeles and had only the public via Twitch TV to stream to. The live stream regularly had over 30,000 viewers at one time, myself and my roommate being two of those who had our living room taken over by the madness. It seems like Blizzard is finally spreading its wings and growing its young roots amongst the competitive gaming community as it continues to release new heroes and have regular tournaments to showcase the best talent. I will say its a much smaller community than say DoTA 2 and has ample opportunity for 5 man teams to form even with no sponsors and climb the ladder. I can say with great joy that my friends and I are hoping to one day break barriers in amateur tournaments and find a way to get qualified. Some of these tournaments including Heroes of the Dorm had open enrollment, a great opportunity and tool to recruit more interested players into the professional eSports realm.
In the North American regional tournament, Cloud 9 and one of the best support players right now, DunkTrain, once again impressed by rolling through the winners bracket against the likes of Tempo Storm, Team Naventic and Team Blaze. Both Cloud 9 and Naventic - led by Fan - will represent North America in the coming Korea based regional for coming in first and second place, respectively. There were two notable recent character releases for Heroes of the Storm as well. One being Li-Ming - a Diablo III inspired Arcane Mage with incredible burst potential and an elusive play style. The other is a Diablo II inspired Necromancer by the name of Xul who acts as a strong melee bruiser/assassin counter and reliable lane pusher. We have yet to see Xul in tournament play, but will have the opportunity today (March 5th at 3:00am PST via Twitch TV) to see the best players in the world showcase his abilities. Anybody familiar with the process of professional MOBA play understands the likelihood of a first pick or first ban scenario when a new hero comes out prior to any balancing and nerfs. Please share your thoughts on both of the new heroes and any of the results of the recent tournaments in the comments section below.
Quite the contrary to Heroes of the Storm rather quiet success is the huge debacle that is DOTA 2’s Shanghai Major. From missing keyboards, VIP Rooms, non-sound proof booths, 4 hour delays, and the popular Chinese teams having an early exit - Valve is hearing it. Gabe Newell is the co-founder and managing direction for Valve and has expressed his dislike and fired a commentator by the name of James “2GD” Harding for recently making multiple inappropriate comments between matches at the Shanghai Major in China. The now famous words of “James is an ass, we won’t be working with him again” are all over the internet right now. Gabe has also fired the production company Valve has been working with in hopes to get things back on the right track before the main event. To be honest, I can’t even believe this guy thought he could get away with what he said. Click this link DoTA 2 Shanghai Major and fast forward to 55:10 to relive the stupidity. Parental Advisory here, this guy is an absolute tool. I say that mainly because of the opportunity he’s throwing away. I’m sure there are plenty of people that are reading about this that would love a shot at getting paid to comment and analyze a video game they love. Farewell to this bum and good riddance- we are all better off without him. Mithrandiel and ALuckyBum had a different take on the subject, and they addressed it yesterday in their in-depth conversation around the Shanghai Major, which you can find here. As for players, there are still some great teams hanging around including Team Liquid, MVP Phoenix, EG, Secret, Alliance and compLexity Gaming. I’m looking forward to watching a few matches and hopefully getting some better production value as a result of the changes made by Valve as a whole.If you have any games or events you'd like us to cover more specifically, please let us know in the comments! We are continuing to grow and curate our eSports coverage, and want to make sure our readers have the latest and greatest info.Check back in next week to find out more about your favorite eSports!
