There are a series of random tournaments and leagues in action this weekend. Challenger level teams are getting their own League of Legends tournament. The world’s top CS:GO teams descend on Canada for the Northern Arena championship as part of the Canadian Videogame Awards FanFest at the old Maple Leaf Gardens. And over in Korea, the eSports World Championships feature StarCraft and Hearthstone.
This weekend, the world of eSport descends on Jonkoping, Sweden. The little Swedish town becomes the home of competitive StarCraft, Dota, CS:GO, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm as it’s the host city of DreamHack Winter 2015. StarCraft II, Hearthstone and HOTS all have their own tournaments that started earlier today and will continue through to Saturday. Dota 2 and CS:GO have ongoing leagues that are concluding their seasons in Jonkoping.
It’s a quiet weekend in the world of eSports. There isn’t a lot happening outside of group stages in team leagues but you can certainly find some of that happening if you do some digging. Dota 2 takes the lion’s share of the attention with the conclusion of the first Dota 2 major, The Frankfurt Major. Friday sees the tournament go from five to three teams and Saturday sees the Lower Bracket Final and Grand Final to crown the first Dota 2 major champion.
Blizzard has a little eSports action themselves. BaseTradeTV is hosting a one-day SC2 TVT tournament on Saturday. Over in Hearthstone, the Collegiate Hearthstone Championship wraps up on Sunday.
If you’re a fan of StarCraft, you didn’t have to wait long after the release of LOTV for the first major tournament in the new expansion. This weekend sees eight top Korean players including WCS semi-finalist Rogue and superstars like Zest, Bomber and Parting in TotalBiscuit’s ShoutCraft Invitational II.
The two big MOBAs also have big events this weekend. Dota 2 is holding the first of three majors starting this weekend with the group stages of the Frankfurt Major. It’s the first stop on the road to The International 2016. Whether it means more to the winner than a $1.1 million payday remains to be seen. In Korea, some of the top Korean League of Legends teams are in the final stages of the KESPA Cup with the semifinals and final this weekend.
Last weekend was the final stop on the road to BlizzCon. This weekend, the world of eSports has its eyes on Anaheim as Hearthstone, StarCraft and Heroes of the Storm have their World Championship finals at BlizzCon. There are some other regional events and qualifiers in other games happening but all the big money is at BlizzCon.
This is a big weekend in the world of eSports for two reasons.
The big reason is the 2015 League of Legends World Championship wraps up on Saturday with the Grand Final between SK Telecom and Koo Tigers. Worlds is one of the most watched sporting events in the world and two of Korea’s best going should be a pretty intense matchup even if we expect Faker and MaRin to cement their status as two of the best in the world.
On the other side of the world, the Road to BlizzCon nears its conclusion. Two rounds of 16 will take place at ESL’s studio in Burbank ahead of next weekend’s tournaments at BlizzCon. On Friday and Saturday, Hearthstone’s World Championship group stages will wrap up to set the stage for the playoffs in Anaheim. Sunday is all about StarCraft’s WCS Global Finals round of 16 where we’ll be watching to see how far the lone foreigner, French Protoss Lilbow, can go.
I think I’ve mentioned it before on the blog but an acquaintance of mine is trying to drag me back into playing League. He’s an ADC and he’s looking for a regular support main to keep him dying. So not only have I been scrambling to learn new champions (I’m not very good at Bard or Soraka but I picked up Sona and Thresh surprisingly quickly) but I’ve been watching the World Championship to pick up a thing or two.
One of the more interesting storylines from Worlds, besides the Western teams doing surprisingly well, especially Cloud 9, is how diverse champion selection has been through the first four days of group stage matches. In the 2014 Worlds, only 58 champions were contested during the whole event. In one week, the teams have contested 59 champions and we could see more champions introduced to counter other team comps as the month progresses.
But what lessons are there to be learned from picks and bans from the first week of Worlds?
Ahead of today’s start of the 2015 League of Legends World Championships, Riot released a six-part documentary series looking behind the scenes at six professional players including SK Telecom mid Faker, TSM mid Bjergsen, paiN Gaming ADC brTT, Origen mid xPeke, Flash Wolves support SwordArt and OMG ADC Uzi.
Just in time for the 2015 League of Legends World Championship, it’s time for the return of the eSports Weekend Calendar. Usually, it runs on Thursdays at the end of the day but because the Worlds start on Thursday afternoon (Central European Time) in Paris. I’ll be paying as much attention to this as I can because I have some acquaintances trying to drag me back into league. He’s an ADC who is looking for some help. I’m working on my healers so I’m playing a lot of Soraka and Sona because if you need a new ADC, it usually someone to keep you out of trouble. His loss. My Morgana is pretty good.
There is more happening in the world of eSports besides the Worlds. ESL is holding their latest ESL One Dota 2 tournament at the Madison Square Garden Theatre. Just for the spectacle of eSports at MSG, I think this might be the highlight of the weekend. And then fans can go upstairs and watch the WWE on Saturday night. Meanwhile, in Korea, GSL wraps up this weekend with their Season 3 Grand Final. It’s also the last stop on StarCraft’s road to BlizzCon so the field will be set on Sunday.
The Electronic Sports League (ESL), one of the biggest eSports companies in the world, is going to be making a major change ahead of its upcoming ESL One event in Cologne. The $250,000 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament will be the first ESL run event to feature random drug testing for performance enhancing drugs.
et geekera 