Bringing esports news to you in a five-minute email. Every day we visit a variety of esport news sites, and from that avalanche of information pluck a few noteworthy stories. With those sources in hand, we deliver these emails to you in a summarized format coupled with a pithy wit that breaks down the hordes of data into a manageable five-minute read. Thus SlashShout is born.
Join us through the daily grind of industry news as we break things down into daily emails that capture the esporting industry and combat information overload.
During Riot Games’ 10th anniversary livestream, they made the major announcement of multiple games in development. Among these are a tactical FPS currently called “Project A,” a management sim, a fighting game, and then a possible MMO.
The big one: The most solid of these announcements was that of League of Legends: Wild Rift. Despite the shared name, this is not a port of the popular PC game. Instead, they rebuilt the game from scratch, effectively using this as an opportunity to make a bunch of improvements to the original game while also making it mobile and console friendly. But it’s still technically the same game.
A rose by any other name is still a rose. Right…?
Wild Rift details
Despite the elimination of Clutch Gaming and Cloud9, there was some hope for North America with Team Liquid. But they ultimately fell to DAMWON Gaming first, followed by Invictus Gaming, leaving them with a 3-3 record. It ultimately wasn’t enough to get them through to the next round.
According to reasons covered “ad nauseam,” this loss belongs to the region as a whole and not just to NA top seed.
Ad nauseam breakdown
Competitive Hearthstone hit a high with the three-day Masters Tour Bucharest over the weekend. After whittling down a field of more than 250 of the best Hearthstone players, it was Canada’s Eddie Lul that took the first place prize of $94,414, in addition to a trophy that almost immediately broke in a rather humorous twist.
Quick summary: Day one entailed five rounds of Swiss competition where the third match loss resulted in elimination for a player. Players with 3+ wins advanced to day two, which featured more rounds of Swiss pairings. The top eight players then advanced to a single-elimination playoff from which Eddie emerged triumphant.
Strategy: Eddie’s decks consisted of Resurrect Priest, Quest Druid, Control Warrior, and Quest Shaman (the latter two being popular choices among competitors in their current meta).
Take up quests (offers) to earn XP (points) and redeem them for treasure (gift cards). It’s like a real-life MMO, but without needing to kill monsters or collect trash loot.
Download it today for free and start earning prizes immediately!
Chapter 2, Season 1 kicks off this year with a hefty $5 million pool in prizes for competing teams. The previous series last September consisted of teams of three, whereas this competition will take place between four-player squads.
Hopefully there’s a prize this year for rubber banding.
Champion Series schedule
DreamHack made the announcement of the first Dota 2 Major of 2020 to be held at their gaming and esports event. DreamLeague Season 13 follows the Mars Media’s MDL Chengdu Major in November and will take place in Germany.
Event breakdown
Activision Blizzard just revealed some details surrounding the official amateur competition for the upcoming season, Call of Duty Challengers. This features a prize pool of just north of $1 million split across online and offline tournaments hosted throughout the 2020 season.
The schedule: Registration opens on October 30th, with online ladders launching on November 2nd, and the first online tournament on November 9th.
How it works: Players placing favorably in online tournaments receive “Challenger Points,” which are then used for getting better seeds at offline tournaments.
In addition to announcing new games during their 10-year anniversary livestream, Riot Games also announced a feature-length documentary titled League of Legends Origins. This film was made by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Leslie Iwerks (known for The Pixar Story and Recycled Life).
Movie in summary: The documentary takes you on a trip down memory lane through League of Legends‘ history, from its flawed beginnings to its current position as an esports giant. Some of the story is told by its fans, but also with many insights from Riot’s developers and creators.
Where to look: League of Legends Origins is available for viewing on Netflix and runs 1 hour 17 minutes. Now put that “shared” password account to good use and watch it.
Several teams have already revealed their team brands for the upcoming Call of Duty League. Envy Gaming’s team is to be known as the Dallas Empire (as found in the official state song of Texas, “Texas, Our Texas”). Kroenke’s Sports & Entertainment franchise will be called the Los Angeles Guerrillas.
This joins last week’s announcement from ReKTGlobal for its London Royal Ravens brand. Nine more teams for the league have yet to announce their franchise branding.
Fingers crossed that Couch Potatoes makes the cut.
What are your suggestions for team names? We’ll post the best ones on Friday along with your name.