The Starting Five: Stories You May Have Missed (Dec. 9 – Dec. 12, 2016)
The Starting Five is eSports by INQUIRER.net’s short weekender round-up. Miss any stories from last weekend? This is the place for you.
A Dream of Green
The first time the OG organization won a Major, it was autumn in Germany. The Frankfurt Major was the first of Dota 2’s Majors system and its first champions were the team led by Tal “Fly” Azik and Johan “N0tail” Sundstein.
Fast-forward a year and another Majors victory in Manila later and OG have once again won the Fall Major, retaining the Eaglesong trophy for the young organization. The Green Dream is real.
OG fought past a stacked route to the finals, facing up against tournament favorites Evil Geniuses in the semi-finals before meeting the darling underdogs in Ad Finem in the final set.
After three heartpounding series, including a final set that will be remembered in history as one of the most hype things to happen in Dota 2, OG bested the Greeks to win the Boston Major!
Our pick for tournament MVP? A razor-sharp edge between offlaner Gustav “s4” Magnusson and support player Jessie “JerAx” Vainikka.
Mean Streets in Malaysia
Hearthstone came to Malaysia over the weekend and the country was divided among the crime families of Hearthstone’s latest expansion, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan.
…or at least it would have been had the Shaman class not existed. Despite Mean Streets providing a lot of new bells and whistles, Midrange shaman still ruled, with tournament champion Chen “tom60229” Wei Lin from yoe Flash Wolves running a list that had one new card in his Shaman line-up.
That’s not to say the event was a slouch however, as the tournament still had many moments in the early days of the new format. Roll on!
OpTiC BLAST
OpTiC Gaming have been on a roll as of late. After winning in the second season of ELEAGUE, the North American organization is poised to be NA’s hope at a resurgence in Counter-strike: Global Offensive.
The boys found themselves in the finals of ECS League against the Danes from Astralis. Although they eventually lost to Astralis in 2-0 fashion, this marks the second straight finals appearance by the organization best known for Halo and Call of Duty.
Not a bad December, boys. Not a bad December at all.
700 Club
DOTA 3 IS HERE! DOTA 3 IS HERE!
Well, not really, but it might as well be. Dota 2’s latest patch marks the end of the version-6 era, and ushers in the 7.00 era and boy are the changes massive!
First of all, we Heroes of the Storm now, with heroes losing the + attribute option when they level up. Instead, heroes choose between talent options at levels 10/15/20/25. These talents provide small tactical options that pivot a hero’s playstyle. Need more damage? Why not choose +6% damage on your spells. Supporting? Ancient Apparition gets +60 more gold per minute at level 10 should you want to.
That’s not to mention changes to the map, User Interface, a new BACKPACK SYSTEM (You get 3 more item slots, and you get more item slots. EVERYONE GETS MORE ITEM SLOTS) and much much more.
Did we mention that the Monkey King is here too? Dota 2’s 7.00 patch hits servers tonight/tomorrow, approximately Dec. 12, 2016 Seattle time.
Straight up FIRE
The League of Legends All-Stars Weekend featured some pretty hype moments, from Doublelift losing to We1less to Xpeke showing off his Garen skills.
But the crown jewel has to be the fight between Team Fire and Ice, with Team Ice winning as they gained the most points across the 5v5, Fun Match and 1v1 brackets.
In the 1v1s, Uzi took the cake away from Maple in a bracket route that had him face tournament favorite Xpeke. But everyone’s hype match had to be the round 1 set between rivals Mata and Faker, with Faker losing to the Maestro for great justice.
Things to look out for
Two words, friends: KIEV MAJOR.
See you in April!
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