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
Warner Bros. to host Injustice 2 tourneys, ready to give $600k in prizes
Warner Bros. announced it will hold a series of tournaments with $600k in prize money featuring its game that has serious esports potential – Injustice 2.
The series of competitions will run over five months and will cover most of the Western world, headlined by four main championship tournaments.
This month’s Combo Breaker will start off the tourney, and will have the finals in September. An ESL-organized competition named Path to Pro series will be held in Europe, while Gamelta will host a Latin American league. Gamestop will run a US-wide competition called Hometown Heroes in their stores.
Dota 2
Post-Kiev Roster Shuffle
With just less than a handful of big tournaments ahead of The International 2017, teams are scuffling to form their strongest side to get into those competitions.
In China, LGD.Forever Young let go of offlaner Jixing and support Ipc and replaced them with former WarriorsGaming.Unity player Ahfu and CDEC’s Inflame, respectively.
The flagship team, LGD, released all players except veteran offlaner old eLeVeN.
NA’s Digital Chaos surprisingly kicked out DeMoN and signed former MVP and B)ears player Forev. The Korean will be DC’s new offlaner, while Bulba will move to support.
In SEA, Mineski released kyxy and signed former Vega Squadron star Mag~, while WESG champion TnC Gaming parted ways with ryOyr and will have Owa as his stand-in replacement.
TI7 Prize Pool Watch
As of writing, the prize pool for the International 2017 stands at $8,049,754, according to Valve’s official tracker.
Note: The tracker is updated in near-real time, so it could have increased by the time you have read this.
The initial prize pool was $1.6m, meaning the playing public has contributed more than $6.4m to the pool through their purchase of the International Battle Pass. The pool shot up from the initial value to $6.5m in just three days since May 5, but the increase rate is starting to flatten.
According to the tracker, despite slowing down, the increase rate is still 9.91% faster than last year’s after one week.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS
As the race to TI7 begins, we should satiate our thirst for top Dota gameplays with these premier competitions:
| Tournament | Dates | Location |
| SLi Invitational 2 | May 18 to 21 | China |
| Manila Masters | May 26 to 28 | Philippines |
| EPICENTER 2017 | June 4 to 11 | Russia |
| Dota 2 Summit 7 | June 14 to 18 | USA |
League Of Legends
No surprises as SKT runs riot at MSI
World champion SKT T1 continue to smash teams that get on its way and have erected a 4-0 standing after two days of the Mid-Season Invitational 2017 group stage.
The Korean giants opened the group stage event against one of the only two teams expected to give them a hard fight – EU’s dominant team, G2 Esports. SKT really struggled to go into its merciless run in the early game, but the Korean side still finished the match in under 45 minutes with two outer Turrets remaining and no inhibitor damaged.
But you have to give credit to G2, they only died 10 times and had six kills, unlike Gigabyte Marines, who SKT demolished in just 27 minutes with a 25-12 kill count lead, and NA champion TSM, who SKT dispatched in under 30 minutes with a 22-6 kill count advantage.
China’s LPL Spring Split winner Team WE offered the most trouble to SKT, as the Korean side needed to wipe the Chinese team out in the 33rd minute so it can clean out the WE’s base and go its fourth win in as many games in the tourney.
| Teams | Wins | Losses |
| SKT T1 | 4 | 0 |
| Team WE | 2 | 2 |
| G2 Esports | 2 | 2 |
| Flash Wolves | 2 | 2 |
| Gigabyte Marines | 1 | 3 |
| Team SoloMid | 1 | 3 |
Vitality signs Vander
Team Vitality completes its roster after signing former FC Schalke support VandeR.
VandeR, who spent most of his career with H2k-Gaming, was with Schalke this last Spring Split. He helped the Germans reach the promotion playoffs but lost to Misfits Academy 1-3.
VandeR will join top laner Cabochard, jungler Djoko, midlaner Nukeduck and bottom laner Steelback.
CS:GO
G2 dominates DreamHack Tours 2017
G2 Esports has had inconsistent performances since its creation in February but the All-French team was certainly on its dominant form at the DreamHack Tours 2017, dropping only two maps en route to pocketing $50,000 as champion.
The hometown team stunningly lost to Denmark’s Tricked Esport in its first match of the tourney but rebounded and defeated another France-led side Team EnVyUs in the losers’ bracket. In the losers’ final, G2 grabbed Group B’s second spot in the semi-final after sweeping the Danes 2-0.
In the cross-over semis, G2 split the first two games of its best of three series against mousesports but dominated the third map Cobblestone 16-6 to reach the final, where it swept Hell Raisers 16-6, 16-14 to win in front of the home crowd.
Hell Raisers took home $20,000, while mousesports and Misfits earned $10,000 each as semi-finalists.
DreamHack to host exclusive events for different esports sectors
With the hope of getting more people from all walks of life into esports, DreamHack will host four CS:GO different tournaments this 2017, three of which will only be exclusive to a certain special group.
According to Esports Observer, DreamHack will host one open tournament, and one tournament each for players under 18 years of age, players over 30 years of age, and one for female players.
But, concerns are being raised for the under-18 event, since CS:GO is not suitable for that age-group. Hence, some are suggesting to hold an all-gender competition in its place.
