B/R Weekly Rushdown: Street Fighter V Season 2 Patch, ELEAGUE Major Lineups
Dota 2's Boston Major and Street Fighter V's Capcom Cup functionally closed out 2016 from a competitive standpoint. Now, all eyes are set to 2017...and what a year it is shaping up to be.
The pieces are moving into place for major tournaments in January like the ELEAGUE Major and 2016 World Esports Games. Roster changes in League of Legends are continuing and Dota 2 will begin soon.
And of course, there are plenty of business-end stories happening as well. So, jump on in for your weekly rushdown of esports news.
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
Riot's Deal with MLBAM Taking Shape
Two weeks ago, news broke that Riot Games, the publisher behind League of Legends, was working alongside Major League Baseball Advanced Media (specifically its BAMTech subsidiary) on making its own dedicated streaming service. That, naturally, led to a deluge of questions about the LCS, the games marketability to television networks, the company's relationship with Twitch and much, much more.
While there is still some mystery about how fans will watch pro League going forward, Riot issued a public statement about the deal on its website:
"Today we’re thrilled to announce Riot Games and BAMTech have entered into a first-of-its-kind long-term commercialization partnership to deliver professional League of Legends esports content in regions around the world...Beginning next year, we’ll also be collaborating to push the boundaries of the esports viewing experience, leveraging BAMTech’s best-in-class technology to create additional possibilities and opportunities for fans to access, and connect with, League of Legends.
"
While this could mark a serious shift for esports, which has long embraced accessibility through various streaming websites over traditional media distribution methods, Riot executives told Yahoo Esports that they won't be completely abandoning sites like Twitch and YouTube, at least for the foreseeable future.
"We first and foremost believe in making sure that the content is in places where the fans want to watch it, so that will continue to be the case," said co-head of esports Jarred Kennedy. "We believe in making content freely available, and it will continue to be freely available into the future. We have no plans to change that."
The deal in question will last through 2023, worth $50 million annually, per GamesIndustry.biz's Brendan Sinclair. While Riot teased to Yahoo that "premium" content would be available on the service, it's not yet clear what new media will be available...and/or what established parts of the LCS festivities will be pulled from Twitch and made exclusive to the service.
ELEAGUE Major Lineup Finalized
The offline qualifiers for the ELEAGUE Major wrapped up on Monday and, boy, what a show. There were astounding plays, like this one from Lucas "LUCAS1" Teles. There were nail-biting battles like the overtime showdown between G2 Esports and Immortals with a spot in the event at stake. And there were impressive romps through the competition, like GODSENT's 48-33 run through its three qualifying matches.
All that action, of course, was to set the stage and cement the lineup for the ELEAGUE Major, with the top eight from the qualifiers moving on to the main event. The standings were as follows:
- 1st-2nd: GODSENT, FaZe Clan
- 3rd-5th: mousesports, OpTic Gaming, Former Team Dignitas
- 6th-8th: Team EnVyUs, G2 Esports, HellRaisers
They join the eight "Legends" teams that qualified through ESL One: Cologne:
- 1st: SK Gaming
- 2nd: Team Liquid
- 3rd-4th- Virtus.pro, Fnatic
- 5th-8th- Astralis, FlipSid3 Tactics, Natus Vincere, Gambit Esports
The ELEAGUE Major kicks off on January 22 with a $1 million prize pool on the line. Make sure to tune in through Twitch.tv and watch on TBS.
Team Dignitas Shakeups
British esports organization Team Dignitas was bought out by the Philadelphia 76ers three months ago in one of the year's biggest bits of esports news. While the new owners haven't been making wholesale changes to the team quite yet, there was a double whammy of shakeups this week to its Counter-Strike and League of Legends teams.
On Monday, Dignitas made the shocking announcement that it was parting ways with its CS:GO team just one day after after the Scandinavian squad qualified for the ELEAGUE Major. In a succinct statement on its website, the team said the following:
"Team Dignitas and the Philadelphia 76ers are committed to building our next elite, international Counter Strike: Global Offensive team based in North America with the goal of dominating the global competitive gaming landscape. Team Dignitas aspires to lead the eSports industry in player recruitment and development; we are confident our fans will continue to be excited by our future player and personnel announcements.
"
This is an interesting story for multiple reasons, and makes it easy to wonder if new ownership groups like the Sixers will look to tailor their teams to focus more on the North American scene. The now-former Dignitas players, however, weren't teamless for long.
According to Dot Esports' Thiemo Brautigam, the team has since been signed by Danish soccer club FC Copenhagen. As it stands, it seems that the five players will remain together, and will also retain their place in the ELEAGUE Major, where they will compete under the FC Copenhagen banner.
It wasn't just Dignitas' CS:GO team that was changed, though. The team announced its League roster for 2017 on Tuesday, which breaks down as such:
- Top: Kim "Ssumday" Chan-Ho
- Jungle: Lee "Chaser" Sang-Hyun
- Mid: Jang "Keane" Lae-Young
- ADC: Benjamin "LOD" DeMunck
- Support: Alex "Xpecial" Chu
That's a formidable lineup that combines solid Korean talent with veteran players from the North American scene and secures Dignitas' place as a must-watch team in-game.
Street Fighter V Season 2 Begins
Street Fighter V season one wrapped up with the end of the Capcom Cup, and season two kicked off on Tuesday with a significant patch for the title that yielded top-to-bottom changes for the game. The full list of changes can be found on Capcom's community site (and, warning, it's a long list), but here's a quick rushdown of some of the changes:
- Major balance tweaks to, essentially, the entire roster. These changes took many different forms, so it's worth taking a look at the full list for any character-specific details.
- Updates to the Rage Quit System that further penalizes prematurely exiting games (while also rewarding players that don't).
- Akuma was finally added to the roster!
- Christmas-themed skins are now available for sale.
The list goes on!
And of course, a number of other characters are coming down the pipeline, so Street Fighter fans can look forward to some fun new additions to the roster in 2017.
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
