B/R Weekly Rushdown: 'Rick and Morty' Creator Takes on Esports, StarCraft's End?

Here at the Bleacher Report Weekly Rushdown, we like to stay positive. Some weeks, though, don't afford us that opportunity. While there are still plenty of eyeballs on the League of Legends World Championship and interesting content being delivered in-game, this week was a fairly somber one. More somber than most, at least.

Here's your rushdown of esports news.

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Outcry in Europe Over Direct Invites to 'CS:GO' Tournaments

One of the biggest sources of controversy in esports stems from direct invitations to major tournaments. The process, where organizers and leagues offer highly accomplished teams the opportunity to skip through the qualifying rounds, is an inexact science that will almost inevitably lead to one party or another being dissatisfied. 

However, a number of organizations with CS:GO squads are publicly taking issue with Valve Software and tournament organizer PGL over the upcoming European Minor's direct invites. Here's a small piece of what they had to say:

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A core value when it comes to CS:GO Majors and qualifiers is that all teams should have an equal chance...That includes each team having the same conditions to play. So why are there teams who are not equals but something more, deserving of direct invitations for the Minor? By inviting four teams directly, it means under no circumstance can five of the teams who were not invited qualify.

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The European Minor is a key tournament for the upcoming CS:GO schedule, and will earn its winners spots in the closed qualifiers for the ELEAGUE Major, which will go down in January with a $1 million prize pool up for grabs. Given the fact that the tournament has only eight spots, it's easy to see why teams would be frustrated with PGL earmarking four for direct invites.

Danny Wild-USA TODAY Sports

With the stakes remarkably high and the talent pool deeper than ever, this inevitably locks a number of teams out of a potentially huge payday. That said, while the European Minor hasn't traditionally had teams receive direct invites, the Americas Minor has, and PGL is also implementing this for the Asian Minors.

PGL is yet to make a public statement regarding their plans for the tournament, but all signs point to them keeping everything in place. 

'Rick and Morty' Creator to Start Esports-Themed Series

YouTube is making major moves to expand the content offering for its subscription service, YouTube Red. One of the big projects they have in the works? A comedy, esports-themed series by Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon.

Variety's Todd Spangler gave some details on the series:

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Dan Harmon’s Starburns Industries will produce a half-hour scripted comedy series for YouTube Red featuring YouTube stars Dan Avidan and Arin Hanson of “Game Grumps.” The show follows a newly formed team of eSports players trying to make it to the top in the cutthroat world of competitive gaming.

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In addition to the Game Grumps, the series will also feature YouTube personality Jesse Cox alongside EStream's own Michele Morrow. The series will debut in 2017 on the Game Grumps YouTube channel.

Derek Bauer/Associated Press/Associated Press

KeSPA Discontinues StarCraft ProLeague

This is, truly, the end of an era.

While esports, to some degree, has existed since Taito released the first Space Invaders cabinet that displayed high scores, esports as the world knows it today began in South Korea with StarCraft: Brood War.

Tournaments took place in front of packed arenas. The players were legitimate celebrities. The competition was featured on television. It took over a decade for the western world to catch up, but even today, the StarLeague events that attracted between 50,000 and 120,000 fans in Seoul remain the pinnacle of esports, and its biggest star, Lim "Boxer" Yo-Hwan, remains one of the greatest success stories in gaming.

But while Korean StarCraft was long synonymous with esports, the game has been fading in the country for years now. And alas, it has officially faded to black.

Jungho Choi/Associated Press/Associated Press

On Tuesday, the Korean Esports Association announced (via ESPN.com's Eric Van Allen) that it is ceasing the StarCraft ProLeague after 14 years of operation. Additionally, five of the seven participating teams, including iconic brands like SK Telecom T1 and KT Rolster, will disband.

The news isn't surprising, per se. As detailed by ESPN.com, match fixing has wreaked havoc upon the competitive StarCraft scene both with fans and sponsors. On top of that, the game has fallen out of favor in Korea, ceding ground to a number of other titles, particularly League of Legends. Those pressures, alongside a questionable level of support from Blizzard, have put the series on life support for years now.

That said, this a sad, sad day for esports.

Team Secret (Finally) Responds to EternaLEnVy's Accusations

Last week, the Rushdown touched on some heavy accusations made by Dota 2 player Jacky "EternaLEnVy" Mao against his former team, Team Secret, in a blog post (warning: NSFW Language) on his new team's website. While the organization was initially silent about the accusations—which ranged from secretly shaving a percentage of players' winnings to founder Clement "Puppey" Ivanov threatening physical violence to members of the team—they finally responded to EE's claims on Tuesday...kind of.

In a post on its website, Secret offered something of a ra-ra speech about the organization's success that simultaneously downplayed the tension with its former players. In the post, it stated the following, which seemed to be a direct response to EE:

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Any organisation that is growing at the rate which we are, will undoubtedly make some mistakes along the way, but it’s our intention to create a professional and structured environment that enables all our players and support staff to feel engaged and share in Team Secret’s success. We’re totally committed to nurturing and protecting our players in order to help them to be the best they can be. That’s what they deserve and it’s what our fans deserve too.

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Puppey added to the discussion on Twitter, saying the following:

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I'm not getting into a war of words. Those that know me well know that I'm not that person described and that's good enough for me...I cherish my teammates who stayed with me. Despite the drama, we still played great scrims, talking about the game and having a lot of fun. It made me feel alive again.

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EE, however, seemingly dismissed the retort on Twitter:

Both Secret and EE's new team, Team NP, are performing well, but this storyline will likely continue into the coming months.