Esports Weekly News Brief: March 28 – April 3, 2019

Welcome to the ESTNN Weekly Brief! Here’s your rundown of all the esports news for the past week for April 3rd.

We're going to be running through League Playoffs and Patch notes, new Dota 2 tournaments, CS: GO Roster Moves, and the Fortnite community having a collective meltdown. Let's jump right in, shall we?

Esports News Video Brief

League of Legends

Patches on Patches on Patches

In League news, Patch 9.7 hit yesterday, bringing with it a whole host of changes. At the top of the list are changes to both Urgot and the newly-reworked Kayle. After basically giving Urgot a rework, the Riot balance team is nerfing his passive, increasing the cooldown on his Disdain, and decreasing damage on his Fear Beyond Death. For Kayle, both her W and E are receiving slight nerfs, while her Q, Radiant Blessing, is going to cost more mana from here on out.

In other patch news, Patch 9.8 is officially available on the PBE. For now, the changes seem quite minor, but they do include several changes to Blitzcrank, Kayne, and Teemo. Additionally, Riot is increasing the price of Bilgewater Cutlass by 100 gold, meaning that the prices of both Hextech Gunblade and Blade of the Ruined King will also increase by the same amount.

Spring Split Playoffs

Spring Split playoffs have kicked off across the world. Let’s run through the scores.

Over in the LEC, Fnatic took their series against Vitality 3-0, sending them to Round Two of the Split Playoffs. Splyce did the same, defeating SK Gaming 3-1. This week, we’ll see G2 Esports and Origen face off, as well as a playoff matchup between Splyce and Fnatic.

Coming back across the pond, LCS saw at least one Game 5. Team Solo Mid faced down Echo Fox, easily putting the foxes in their place with a 3-1 victory. The next game, FlyQuest vs. Golden Guardians, saw the series go the full distance before FlyQuest claimed the victory in Game 5. This weekend, Team Liquid will face off against Flyquest, and fan-favorite Cloud9 will battle TSM.

100 Thieves Release Huhi

Roster-wise, it looks like 100 Thieves are starting the rebuild early after a disastrous Spring Split. After having finished third in 2018’s Summer Split, hopes were high for the team. Unfortunately, 100 Thieves crashed out of the Spring Split in spectacular fashion, eventually finishing last in the standings despite adding former World Champion Bae “Bang” Jun-sik. News broke yesterday that 100 Thieves is releasing Choi ‘huhi’ Jae-hyun from the roster after moving him to the Academy Team six games into the Spring Split.

Today we part ways with @huhi. Through all the challenges this LCS split, Jae’s work ethic, positivity, and professionalism always stood out. He'll be a valuable addition to any team he joins. We wish him the best. pic.twitter.com/Cqalj71osM

— 100 Thieves (@100Thieves) April 3, 2019

DOTA 2

Tournaments for Days, Literally

In Dota 2 news, the Closed Qualifiers for the Dota Pit Minor kicked off yesterday. For the third Minor of 2019, eight teams will duke it out for a $300,000 prize pool along with the much-prized DPC points that allow teams to qualify for TI 9.

In other Dota 2 tournament news, the World Showdown of Esports will be hosting a Dota 2 tournament in Las Vegas this year called WSOE 6. While the exact format and prize pool have yet to be announced, we expect WSOE 6 to be similar to other World Showdown Dota2 tournaments that have featured eight teams and a $100,000 prize pool.

Auto Chess hits 7 Million and adds two new heroes

Everyone’s favorite kinda-chess-but-not-really-chess mod Auto Chess added two new heroes last week. Zeus and Mars joined the stable of champions available in the ever-popular Dota 2 mod. In other Auto Chess news, the mod has “finally” reached seven million subscribers. Not too shabby when you consider that the mod was originally released in mid-January.

Overwatch

In Overwatch news, Baptiste is now officially available in Competitive as of yesterday afternoon. Players can now choose the battlefield-augmenting healer in the Overwatch’s staple Competitive mode and Baptiste their way to Grandmaster.

Dallas Fuel and Boston Uprising Trade

In the Overwatch League, we’ve actually got a juicy trade to mention! The Boston Uprising have traded Lucas “NotE” Meissner to the Dallas Fuel in a direct trade for Richard “rCk” Kanerva. We haven’t seen many mid-season trades in the Overwatch League, and the teams involved makes this one an interesting one. Both Dallas and Boston underperformed in Stage 1, and we won’t have to wait very long to see how these trades work out.

Stage 2 of the second season of the Overwatch League kicks off tomorrow, and we’ll get to see a bunch of interesting matches. Our pick for match of the day is the Philadelphia Fusion versus the New York Excelsior which kicks off at 7 PM EST Wednesday.

Counterstrike: Global Offensive

My, oh, my, it’s been a long week in Counterstrike: Global Offensive. StarSeries i-League Season 7 has been kicking off in full force, giving fans an absolute ton of best of threes to watch. Fnatic and Renegades have already made it through to the playoffs, along with Natus Vincere, Team Vitality, ENCE, NRG, Ninjas in Pajamas, and North. Notable absences from the playoffs include MiBR, who went 1-3 in the group stage and FaZe Clan, who continue to look completely lost after the departure of long-time IGL Karrigan a few months ago.

Cloud9 Finally has Five

In roster news, Cloud9 finally have five players. Finally, after almost two months of adding and dropping players, Cloud9 finally added Daniel “vice” Kim and René “cajunb” Borg to the roster. This move hopefully cements their plans for the upcoming Blast Pro Series Miami where Cloud9 will play against Astralis in their opening match.

Unfortunately for fans, cajunb’s addition came at the cost of Cloud9 releasing KioShiMa. Fans were pretty displeased, and “The Problem” himself hinted at the fact that there might be a power struggle brewing between Cloud9 management and the players. On the other hand, without some other confirmation of team troubles, we'll have to make up our own minds.

For people wondering, the org don’t always agree with the players choices. It’s a tough position to be in for the org when the players have too much power.

— kioShiMa (@kiocsgoo) April 1, 2019

We’ll keep our eye on this and keep you updated on how it plays out.

LDLC Releases Roster

Finally, to cap off a whirlwind week in Counterstrike, long-time CS: GO organization Team LDLC has announced that they have released their entire Counterstrike roster. Known in the early days as one of the best French teams in the scene, LDLC has dropped off in the past couple of years. The French CS scene has been a rough one to watch over the past couple of years, and the loss of LDLC is just another heartbreak for fans.

Fortnite

On the Fortnite front, players are demanding that Epic Games revert some changes made in the most recent patch. In Update 7.40, Epic games introduced some incentives for aggressive play, including regaining shields and health on kills and an increased materials cap. While it seemed like many players, including popular streamers like Ninja, really enjoyed the changes, Epic decided to remove them in Update 8.20.

On the other hand, Update 8.20 has added some interesting new weapons! The explosive Bow that was datamined last week has been released, along with a new weapon called the Cannonade Launcher. The launcher will only be available from tonight, April 3^rd, at 8 PM until April 10^th.

That’s all for the ESTNN Brief for Wednesday, April 3rd! Make sure to head on over to ESTNN.com to catch up on all of the latest news and check back next week for another episode of the ESTNN Weekly Brief!

League of Legends Image VIA: Riot Games

Dota 2 Image VIA: WSOE

Overwatch Image VIA: Robert Paul and Blizzard Entertainment

CS: GO Image VIA: Starladder