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
Asian Games to include e-sports in 2018 and 2022
The Olympic journey of e-sports has began to take shape, with the Olympic Council of Asia officially including the young sport to the Asian Games in 2018 and 2022.
According to a news article translated by the E-Sports Observer, the OCA will add it as a test sport in the 2018 Games in Jakarta, Indonesia and will be a full medal sport in the 2022 Games in Hangzhou, China.
Also, e-sports will be a competitive sport in this year’s Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games in Turkmenistan.
Origen slapped with $10k fine for contract negligence
Riot Games, the creator of the game League of Legends, has fined EU team Origen $10,000 for non-compliance to the laws of its home country.
The Germany-based club was punished for nine counts failure to set up proper payment structures and three counts of improper employment contracts.
According to the official statement, Origen did not comply to Germany’s rule of setting up social security and healthcare accounts for its players and employees, as well as organizing their taxes.
Dota 2
Pre-Kiev roster drama
The Kiev Major is just days away but some teams who made it to the Valve-sponsored event are making structural changes.
All five players of Wings Gaming, who has suffered from numerous poor finishes after their win in The International 2016, have left the organization and will now compete at the National Palace of Arts as Team Random.
TI6 runner-up Digital Chaos, another Kiev invitee, saw all five of its players leave and create a stand-alone team called the Thunderbirds. DC then signed the whole roster of Team Onyx, who sealed a qualifying spot, to fly its banner in Kiev.
Ad Finem’s former five-man roster, who left the squad last March, got signed by mousesports.
SoNNeikO rejoins Na’Vi
Akbar “SoNNeikO” Butaev reunited with Natus Vincere, according to a team statement.
NaVi released Roman “rmN-“ Paley to make room for their Butaev, who they cut five months ago.
SoNNeikO played for NaVi between April 2015 to November 2016, then spent the last four months with Vega Squadron.
League of Legends
Playoff Picture
With the Spring Splits coming to a close, let’s take a look at how the playoffs are shaping up in the top four leagues.
In LCK, KT Rolster is peaking at the right time as the third-seeded club swept second-seeded Samsung Galaxy to set up a final against SKT T1. KT lost a number of matches and slipped to the third spot before the playoffs began, but with a 6-0 win-loss card in the playoffs, the team can be expected to give the world champions a good fight.
In the NA LCS, Team SoloMid and Cloud9 both lived up to the billing as they respectively dispatched their semi-final opponents with ease to set up a salivating championship series between the best teams of the Split. TSM, who topped the regular season, swept FlyQuest in the last round, while C9 also walked away undefeated to Phoenix1.
In the EU LCS, G2 Esports sealed a second straight Spring Split final spot after outclassing Fnatic 3-1 in the semi-final. G2, who topped Group A with a 12-1 standing in the regular season, will face Group B leader Unicorns of Love in the final.
Only China’s LPL has not reached the final yet, with Group A’s Royal Never Give Up facing Group B’s EDward Gaming in a cross-group semi-final. Group B’s Team WE are to face A’s OMG in the other bracket. RNG and WE got a bye to this round for topping their groups’ respectively, while ED swept NewBee to reach the final four and OMG outlasted IMay 3-2.
CS:GO
Team Secret’s Female squad tears up at Copenhagen Games
Team Secret finished with an immaculate record on their way to winning the 2017 Copenhagen Games female division.
The dominant squad won $7,960 as champion, while London Conspiracy Female bagged $3,714 as runner-up.
The IEM winner also never lost a map in the competition, and won by an average margin of seven rounds per map in the knockout stages.
Local team Singularity wins Copenhagen Games
Against more experienced and better known teams, local team Singularity defied the odds and won the 2017 Copenhagen Games male division.
Singularity, who hasn’t won a major tournament prior to Copenhagen, bested teams like BIG, IGame.com and Dreamchasers to pocket $31,838 as champion, while the Chasers went home with $13,796.
The Denmark-based squad was only among eight qualifying teams but performed better than those invited quintets, especially in the championship round where they showed poise in outlasting the Chasers 16-13, 16-12 in Mirage and Nuke, respectively.
DreamHack Austin to rock Texas scene
Eight teams are set to fight for the half of the $100,000 prizepool as the DreamHack 2017 Austin begins next week at the Austin Convention Center.
Cloud9, G2 Esports and the Immortals headline the invited teams, along with Team Liquid, Heroic and Gambit.
HellRaisers will represent Europe after winning the regional qualifier, while Luminosity Gaming earned the North American qualifier spot.
Overwatch
Misfits cuts Zave, signs Mineral
European Overwatch team released support Kalle “Zave” Nillson to make room for its new player, Vytis “Mineral” Lasaitis.
The team, who made the announcement through its official website, said Mineral has “leadership and shot calling qualities” that will help the team in the future.
Zave has been with Misfits since December last year but has failed to win major tournaments, as their best win together was a fourth-place finish in the PIT Championship-Europe last week.
EnVy, Rogue to play in Apex Season 3
Western super teams EnVy Us and Rogue have both confirmed they will join the third season of the Korean Overwatch tournament Apex.
The pair were invited to join the largely growing tournament, which will also feature the top eight teams of the last season, and the six teams who had to play in a promotion playoff to reach the main tournament, which shelled out $200,000 in prize money in its last season.
Aside from the money teams will win based on their finish in the competition, they will also win $720 for every match win in the tourney.
