B/R Weekly Rushdown: Trump's Travel Ban Hits Esports, Overwatch Patch Drops
It was a relatively quiet week for esports, with the standard roundup of League of Legends Championship Series action going down, a bit of Dota 2 action and the ELEAGUE Major wrapping up. A few interesting patches dropped across a number of different titles including Overwatch and Pokemon Sun and Moon. Oh, and esports took a hard hit from the massive turmoil in Washington, D.C.
Read all about it in your weekly rushdown of esports news!
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ELEAGUE Major Results
The ELEAGUE Major concluded on Sunday and, unsurprisingly, the event was an absolute hoot. The combination of Valve's high-stakes tournaments and ELEAGUE's quality production made for a one-of-a-kind show that both felt and looked big.
The top eight broke down as follows:
| 1 | Astralis | $500,000 |
| 2 | Virtus.Pro | $150,000 |
| 3-4 | Fnatic, SK Gaming | $70,000 |
| 5-8 | Na'Vi, The North, FaZe Clan, Gambit Esports | $35,000 |
Here are some notes on how things shook out:
- Astralis looked excellent, taking the top prize despite barely making the cut from the group stages. It defeated Na'Vi and Fnatic to get to the grand finals and looked strong in its winning effort over Virtus.pro.
- VP, despite coming in second, showed that it remains the team to beat at any tournament in the immediate future. It displayed incredibly resilience in a back-and-forth series opposite the North and a razor-thin match with SK Gaming.
- Per DotEsports.com's Sam Nordmark, the event peaked at over 1 million unique viewers. Those are some strong ratings!
Trump's Travel Ban Could Hit Esports Hard
Last Friday, United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order barring citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations—Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria and Sudan—from entering the country. The move has been met with worldwide criticism as an unknown number of people, including green card holders, are prevented from doing business or even simply returning home.
Unfortunately, the esports world is no different, as many players, owners and managers have already been impacted and even more are left wondering what comes next.
The hardest hit likely came to Hamza "IraqiZorro" Najim, a player for and co-owner of Vainglory team GankStars, who will be unable to relocate to the United States or compete in the Evil Eight league:
Ramin "Mr. R" Delshad, an Iranian-Dutch Smash Bros. player, is right alongside him, being locked out of stateside events in the coming months:
Smash Bros. tournament organizer Bassem "Bear" Dahdouh, who was born in Saudi Arabia, tore into the ban in a lengthy series of posts on Twitter:
Evil Geniuses' Dota 2 team manager Phillip Aram noted that if the ban had extended (or winds up extending) to Pakistan, it would wreak havoc on the career of EG's mid player Syed Sumail Hassan:
It's an unfortunate turn for the esports community—and for many others around the world. One can only hope things don't get any worse.
Major Overwatch Patch Drops
Overwatch is an amazing game, but it has struggled to find a well-balanced meta to this point in its life. Because of that, it is of little surprise that a sizable patch dropped last week that will likely change up the pro scene in a big way. The full notes can be found on Blizzard's website, but here are some of the highlights:
- Roadhog is no longer able to functionally pull foes through walls with his hook.
- D.Va's mech has been nerfed (with its tankiness shifting to 400 health, 200 armor from 200 health, 400 armor).
- Ana has been heavily nerfed, with her biotic grenade duration being dropped by 20 percent and its healing-boost effect being decreased by 50 percent.
- Sombra's hack skill has been buffed, with its cooldown being shortened and skill taking effect faster.
While one can read into this patch in a few different ways, it seems to be an attempt by Blizzard to chip away at the tank-heavy style most pro teams employ. It will be interesting to see if that sticks, or if teams will continue to prioritize bulk over more balanced lineups.
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