esports-featured

Team ranking: June 2020

More online-only Counter-Strike coursed through the scene in the last month, though this time we saw a larger variety of tournaments at the top tier. While May was largely about the first Regional Major Ranking tournament, ESL One: Road to Rio, in June we got to watch the remainder of the BLAST Premier Spring season, the playoffs portion of DreamHack Masters Spring, as well as the summer RMR events, cs_summit 6 and WePlay! Clutch Island. BIG make history for Germany and Turkey as they reach the top spot Following the

c0ntact bench LETN1

Nestor "⁠LETN1⁠" Tanić has been removed from c0ntact's starting lineup and is now open to offers from other teams. The news of LETN1's benching in c0ntact comes as no surprise as the 27-year-old was removed from the starting lineup last month when Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer was ushered in to lead the team ahead of the cs_summit 6 Europe regional qualifier, where they finished in sixth place after a loss in the decider to fnatic, just shy of the fifth-place needed to qualify for the main event. LETN1 is open to

Eden Arena: Malta Vibes Cup 2 Fantasy live with prizes

As most top squads are heading to their summer break, 16 teams will compete from July 9-13 in the $40,000 Eden Arena: Malta Vibes Cup 2. CIS sides forZe and Hard Legion are the two big-hitters at the event, with UK hopes Endpoint also in competition alongside squads such as CR4ZY, HellRaisers, and HONORIS. NEO comes in for a modest price tag of $173,000 The event will have a GSL group stage with BO1 opening matches and the rest being BO3, followed by a single-elimination BO3 playoff bracket. Users can

mertz set to leave Singularity

Daniel "⁠mertz⁠" Mertz has been removed from Singularity's active lineup and will spend the next few weeks on the bench while he awaits the completion of a transfer to another team, the Danish organisation announced on Monday. The 21-year-old took up the AWP for Singularity at the start of the year, joining a team without any other marquee names. He saw this challenge as an opportunity to resurrect his stalled career after failing to hold down a place in Heroic and North despite his undeniable talent. mertz will join a

Hobbit departs Winstrike

The news comes ahead of the player break, at a point where Winstrike are ranked #32 in the world and sit sixth in the CIS RMR rankings. This roster change will cost them 20% of their 2750 RMR points, however, dropping Winstrike to the 10th spot, but leaving them with a reasonable chance to qualify for the Major at the final RMR event in Autumn. The 26-year-old Kazakh is out of Winstrike During his stay with the team, Hobbit was the second-highest rated player on the team, lagging behind only

es3tag: “I am not here not to play, but I will do my best to be valuable on and off the server”

On March 22, Astralis officially came out with the news that they would be creating a six-man roster with the addition of es3tag starting July 1. The move shocked the scene and unexpectedly sparked a discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of an extended lineup, but over the course of the first few days that conversation was overshadowed by the move's dramatic implications on the 24-year-old's former team. Just before he committed his future to the Danish giants, Heroic had agreed the sale of their entire roster, which es3tag was

Vitality strengthen top spot in Europe RMR; Evil Geniuses join the race in NA after cs_summit 6 win

Two grand final losses in a row, in BLAST Premier Spring Series Finals and cs_summit 6 Europe, were certainly not how Vitality wanted to end the first half of the year, but despite the lack of tournament wins, the Frenchmen's consistency has earned them a high world ranking and a plethora of RMR points. Vitality's 855 point gap puts them in a comfortable position before the last RMR event Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire's men earned a solid number of points at every Major Ranking stop, the StarLadder Berlin Major (5-8th, 360

EG sweep Gen.G to win cs_summit 6

Evil Geniuses won the North American cs_summit 6 tournament, the summer Regional Major Ranking (RMR) competition, after beating Gen.G in the best-of-five grand final in quick fashion. The BLAST Premier American champions took advantage of their 1-0 map lead due to coming from the upper bracket and repeated their performance from the opening round of the playoffs against a Gen.G side that looked below-par on their map pick of Train, a map that had ended 16-14 in Thursday's encounter. To their credit, Gen.G showed tremendous fighting on Inferno, recovering from

ex-SMASH call it quits

ex-SMASH signed for SMASH in late 2019 and remained with the organization throughout the first six months of 2020. In February they managed to upset Complexity in the European Minor's open qualifier, but were unable to capitalize on the opportunity in the closed qualifier. Shortly thereafter, Sebastian "⁠NEEX⁠" Trela left the squad as he felt they didn't have the potential for growth. Still under the SMASH banner, and with Kristjan "⁠shokz⁠" Jakobson now in the lineup, Kamen "⁠bubble⁠" Kostadinov and company were regulars in the Home Sweet Home tournament series,

BIG overcome Vitality 3-2 to win cs_summit 6 Europe

The two cs_summit 6 Europe grand finalists, Vitality and BIG, had met earlier in the tournament, in the upper-bracket final, with the hard-fought series ending in Vitality's favor (14-16 Mirage, 16-13 Inferno, 16-12 Dust2). A similar map pool was on the cards today in the BO5, with the Frenchmen having a one-map advantage due to coming from the upper-bracket. Just like in DreamHack Masters Summer Europe where they faced G2, BIG bounced back from a 0-1 start to the series, won Mirage, Dust2, and Overpass, while dropping Inferno, to take