B/R Weekly Rushdown: Blizzcon 2016 Rumors, League World Championship Results
With new League of Legends World Champions crowned last week, the esports world stopped and realigned. With that in mind, the Weekly Rushdown goes in something of a different direction this week, splitting its focus between the recent past and the immediate future.
So, jump on into this week's rushdown of esports news!
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League World Championship Concludes
South Korea has been a force in League of Legends for years, but 2016 could go down as the nation's most dominant year yet.
The Season 6 World Championship concluded on Friday, with SK Telecom T1 taking first place and the $2,028,000 top prize. It's the team's second first-place finish in a row and its third in four years. In addition to SKT T1's success, Korea's Samsung Galaxy and ROX Tigers took second and third places, respectively.
Korea's dominance was a running theme throughout the month-long tournament, with each of the country's teams finishing on top of its group and Western squads struggling to keep up. The highest-ranked Western team was H2k-Gaming (who shared third with ROX Tigers), followed by Cloud9, who placed top-eight. All other teams from Europe, North America and South America placed in the bottom half of the event.
Of course, LoL fans can find Bleacher Report's full coverage over in the dedicated League of Legends section.
Blizzcon Rumors
Blizzcon is just a few days away and with that in mind, it's worth taking a quick look at the various rumors that have been swirling about possible reveals that could be made at the event.
The most popular of late has been about Sombra, a long-hinted-at-but-yet-to-be-revealed character in Overwatch. Sombra has been teased since the game's inception and in a variety of ways from in-game references to unused voices lines to elaborate codes being hidden in media releases. With no information about Sombra past his or her existence, there are lots of questions among fans. Many are expecting answers to come at Blizzcon.
The biggest rumor when it comes to Blizzard, however, is Starcraft HD. Korean news site iNews24 went on record reporting the game's existence in August (via Kotaku), but Blizzard has yet to confirm or deny the report. The speculation that the reveal would come in September at the StarCraft II World Championship Series finals did not come to pass. Could the announcement be made this weekend?
There has been a lot of chatter about something related to the Diablo series coming at Blizzcon, as detailed by iTechPost.com's Benjie Batanes. Some say it's the announcement of an expansion to Diablo 3. Some say it's Diablo 4. Some say it's nothing past a celebration of the original title's 20th anniversary. What, oh what, will it be?
Bleacher Report will be on hand to cover the event, so make sure to check things out in the next few days.
Street Fighter V Sales Are Really, Really Bad
Street Fighter V, the latest installment of the most iconic series in fighting games, caught fire quickly but seems to have already burnt out. According to Shoryuken.com, Capcom's latest financial report indicated fewer than 100,000 unit sales over the six-month span from April to September. This includes both digital and physical sales and includes both the PS4 and PC releases.
That is very, very low for such a high-profile title.
While SFV has shaken out to be a very good game over time, the game launched with mixed reviews (it sits at 77 on Metacritic.com) and was followed shortly thereafter by resoundingly negative reactions from fans. This was largely due to a bare-bones product being offered at launch, with no arcade mode, no story mode and a limited roster.
In the months since, SFV has mended fences with fans in a number of ways, adding an impressive cinematic story mode and a number of new characters. On top of that, it likely reached new audiences this summer through ESPN 2's broadcast of the Evo 2016 SFV finals.
Unfortunately, that just hasn't resulted in sales.
Despite previously indicating that there would not be any sort of Super Street Fighter V, there doesn't seem to be any other way for Capcom to lure in soured fans. If they can't rebuild those bridges, SFV may go down as something of a case study about why a free-to-play offering can't be made for a standard console release.
Dota 2 Boston Major Teams Finalized
If the qualifiers were any indication, the Boston Major is going to be the best esports events of the winter. And not by a little.
Following the announcement of the direct invites to 2016's last big Dota 2 tournament, Valve and PGL hosted the open and regional qualifiers to determine which eight teams would fill the final eight spots. The results? Here's a table:
| America | Europe | China | SEA |
| Team NP | Ad Finem | LGD Gaming | Team Faceless |
| compLexity | Virtus.Pro | iG Vitality | WG.Unity |
The Chinese qualifier was a testament to how amazingly deep the region is right now, with a large slate of world-class teams competing. The Americas qualifier, well, wasn't, as Team NP and compLexity Gaming encountered little difficulty en route to the tournament. The European and Southeast Asian qualifiers, meanwhile, were highly competitive affairs that saw fresh faces upset more established squads.
The next phase of the Boston Major comes on December 3 with the group stages and is followed by the start of the main event, which begins on December 7. Make sure to circle back to Bleacher Report for our coverage.
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