Welcome to the Weekly Recap, where we gather the top stories that happened in the past week to help you catch up with the busy world of eSports!
General News
ESL hire Hill for TV-style broadcast
Esports tournament organizer ESL has tabbed Fox Sports executive producer David Hill to train its staff on how to have a television-style approach in broadcasting future tournaments.
Hill has experience on a wide variety of shows, but he is mostly known for his sports coverage, especially in his Emmy Award-winning production of covering the 2011 Major League Baseball World Series.
ESL made the move after Turner Broadcasting’s ELEAGUE Major set a new record in Twitch viewership last week.
Dota 2
ESL One Hamburg
ESL has finally announced that the Barclaycard Arena in Hamburg, Germany will be the next stop of its Dota 2 competition.
The tournament will take place on October 28 to 29, and will feature a prize pool of $250,000. The last three ESL One events that were hosted in Germany were all held in Frankfurt.
ESL One Hamburg will be the second Dota 2 competition for ESL this year, following ESL One Genting in Malaysia, and eighth overall installment of the premier Dota 2 LAN event.
Fnatic drops out of DAC qualifiers
Because of an incomplete roster, Fnatic will be unable to compete in the upcoming qualifiers for the 2017 Dota 2 Asia Championships.
A tweet from RuHub said that Fnatic is facing “potential roster issues” with only three active players in its roster. Yee Fung “Mushi” Chai, Chong Xin “Ohaiyo” Khoo and Kim “Febby” Yong-min are the remaining players in the team.
Muhammad Rizky “InYourDream” Anugrah stepped down from the team just after the squad played poorly in ESL One Genting, while Ng “YamateH” Wei Poong was only a stand-in for the roster during ESL One Genting.
Liquid, Secret win EU qualifier for StarSeries 3
Team Liquid and Team Secret are now set to compete in the StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 3 after finishing the qualifiers as first and second teams, respectively, in the qualifiers.
Liquid finished with 15 out of the possible 21 points in the last phase of the qualifiers, while Secret ended with 14.
The two teams were a cut above the rest, with third placers Cloud9 and Ad Finem only finishing with nine points each. Veteran teams Natus Vincere and Alliance collected eight and seven points, respectively.
LoL
CLG names Grievance as player dev coach
Counter Logic Gaming has hired Grant “Grievance” Rousseau as the team’s player development coach, according to a team statement.
“I am excited to welcome Grievance to the CLG family,” said CLG director of Esports Matt Nausha. “He brings a variety of experience and professionalism. I look forward to seeing his impact on the team.”
“I’m extremely grateful to be given the opportunity by CLG to work with such a well known team. I know that through hard work and passion, we can take this team even further than last year,” said Grievance.
Tanks next to be reworked
After updating its Assassin class of champions, League of Legends gamemakers are now looking at how to improve its Tanks class.
Some champions outside of the Assassin class have also been reworked, like Warwick, and two others are in the planning stages of their remodelling, like Evelynn and Urgot.
LoL Spring Split Standing Update
After a tumultuous first week, IMay lead Group A of LoL Pro League, while EDward Gaming is at the apex of Group B.
In North America, Cloud9 remain as sole leader of the 2017 NA Spring Split after four unbeaten games, followed by Phoenix1 and FlyQuest eSports, who both have three wins.
In Europe, G2 Esports lead Group A while Unicorns of Love top Group B of the 2017 EU LCS Spring Split.
KT Rolster won its first four games in the 2017 LCK Spring Split to establish an early lead in Korea, while world champion SK Telecom T1 are also unbeaten but has only three games.
(As of February 3, 2017, GMT+8)
CS:GO
$1M in prizes to be given out in ESL Pro League 5
The fifth edition of the ESL Pro League saw its prize pool go 33% higher from $750,000 in season 4 to a $1 million this season.
The champion of Season 5 will win $225,000 in prize money (a 12.5% increase from Season 4), while the runner-up will get $100,000.
Astralis outlasts VP in ELEAGUE Major final
Astralis edged Poland in a nerve-wracking finale at the 2017 ELEAGUE Major at Fox Theatre in Atlanta.
The Danes lost their first game in the best-of-three championship but recovered to outclass the Poles in the last two games of the event via close scores of 16-14.
With the win, Astralis pocketed $500,000 from the $1 million prize pool, while VP had to go home with $150,000 as runner-up.
Hearthstone
DreamHack announces 3 more Hearthstone GPs
Esports tournament organizer DreamHack has named three more locations for its Hearthstone Grand Prix competitions scheduled this 2017.
DreamHack, which said it will try to host 10 events this year, said its events in Denver, Atlanta and Montreal will have Hearthstone Grands Prix, adding to the already announced GPs in Austin, Valencia and the two events in Jonkoping.
Blizzard releases more info on Hearthstone Global Games
Four players from 48 countries will get a chance to compete for the biggest share in the $300,000 prize pool in the upcoming Hearthstone Global Games, according to the statement made by Blizzard.
According to the statement, each top player from the 48 select countries will have the option to be the first among four players to represent that player’s nation, while the other three will be decided by popular vote among the local community.
The Global Games will be a three-phase competition that will only see four teams to make it to the live finals, where $60,000 is waiting for the champion team.
