ESTNN Daily: Esports News Recap 2/27

In today's ESTNN Daily, League of Legends makes it back in the news, Epic Games is getting sued again and Autochess hits a huge milestone. Buckle up, ladies and gentlemen, and let's dive right in.

League of Legends

We’ve got some interesting news in the NA League of Legends scene today as DBLTAP is reporting that Cloud9 has added veteran top laner Flavio “Jukes” Fernandes to its League roster. The Brazillian joins Licorice, Svenskeren, Nisqy, Sneaky, and Zeyzal on Cloud9, who its currently 8-2 in the LCS.

In other news, Riot Games has confirmed buffs and nerfs for several characters in the upcoming patch 9.5. Product Leaf Richard “MapleNectar” Henkel revealed that Neeko, Graves, Dr. Mundo, Akali, Rakan, Gangplank, Cho’Gath, Tryndamere, Skarner, and Jhin should receive some buffs next patch. On the other end, Nunu and Yorick are probably going to see some buffs. Vi and Silas will also receive “adjustments” that may not fall into either category. The patch is expected to go live on March 6^th.

Here are the planned changes for 9.5! At this point the patch is more or less locked, but as usual, there may be some changes to what you see in the graphic below when the patch goes live next week. pic.twitter.com/i7t2nPdqgs

— Richard Henkel (@OdysseyMaple) February 27, 2019

DOTA 2

In DOTA news, Vega Squadron has officially parted ways with its DOTA 2 roster. Vega Squadron cited that the poor team performance was a major factor in the decision to release the team. Vega Squadron also said that they now plan to form an academy team to develop young players in the scene.

A day doesn’t go by that we don’t find some Autochess news for the DOTA community, and today is no different. Autochess has officially reached 5 million subscribers on Steam, marking a big achievement for the mod.

Overwatch

In Overwatch today, some are reporting that Mercy’s ultimate has received a stealth buff on the PTR. While everyone was playing with the new hero, Baptiste, intrepid redditor SkyewardSword noticed that Mercy’s move speed is no longer slowed when using her resurrect ability while she is under the effects of her ultimate.

This is no small buff to Mercy – with the movement speed increase while resurrecting, she is now a much more difficult target to hit when using the ability. As of now, we don’t know if this is even an intended change, but if it is it might be enough to bring Mercy back into the meta. Some are pointing to a change that Blizzard made regarding flying knockback may have had unintended changes for Mercy that may be causing this. Regardless, it's actually an okay buff for Mercy, don't you think?

In Competitive Overwatch, it looks like Fusions is all good to go to play for the Boston Uprising this week after the team and the OWL worked together to get his contract situation worked out. Fusions was unable to play last week due to his staus under a two-way contract. It prevented him from playing in the League proper since he had played in more than two Contenders matches. President of Gaming Chris “HuK” Loranger posted the news on Twitter.

Happy to announce that @Fusions is approved and eligible to play this week. Although we obviously did not agree with the rules, was happy that @overwatchleague was quick to work with us and other teams.

— Chris ‘HuK’ Loranger (@LorangerChris) February 26, 2019

In other Overwatch breaking news, teams on the PTR that pick Baptiste don't die. Like, at all. Seriously, they're really hard to kill.

CSGO

The final week of the IEM Katowice is about to kick off tomorrow, and by Sunday we’ll know who the next CSGO Major Champion will be. Tomorrow kicks off with two Quarter-finals, starting with Na’Vi vs. FaZe Clan at 10:00 AM EST, followed by Team Liquid vs. Ence at 1:50 PM EST. You can watch all the action over on the ESL Twitch Channel or right here on ESTNN TV. You can also catch ESTNN’s predictions on our new CSGO podcast, the CSGO Weekly.

Fortnite

Someone is suing EPIC Games. Again. This time, former University of Maryland basketball players Jared Nickens and Jaylen Brantley filed a lawsuit for using a dance that the two claim they helped make popular. They are asking for $5 million. This just keeps happening to Epic, doesn’t it?

That’s all for the ESTNN Brief for Wednesday, February 27^th. Make sure to head on over to ESTNN.com to catch up on all of the latest news and check back here tomorrow for another Episode of The Brief!