The world of Esports is continuously under change, being such a high-momentum scene with thousands of teams in multiple games. Simple in-game changes can have a massive effect on any team or game since maybe that change can bring out a shift in the meta which will then shuffle the power teams and players in the scene. Existing in the majority online, especially during current times, Esports has never been as central as in these times, and the spotlight is shining bright on the most popular games.
One such game is Valve’s own Counterstrike Global Offensive, which has been making the rounds ever since its launch in 2012. Back at the beginning of the 2010-decade, first-person shooters were the hot topic of the day, with Call of Duty 4 dominating the landscape. Activision’s failure to produce a worthy multiplayer sequel had terrible consequences on COD, as CS: GO stole the scene with a lot of players from the Call of Duty top teams moving to Counterstrike. Esports was not nearly as massive back then as it is now, so one could have never imagined how large CS: GO would have grown to become.
Speaking of the size of CS: GO, a brand new major tournament was just announced, with a humongous prize pool of $2 million on the line. This tournament is organized by PGL and will be hosted in Stockholm, Sweden, at the Ericsson Globe, the location where past DreamHack tournaments have already taken place and the place where The International was to take place before its unfortunate cancellation due to COVID. This major has all the makings of a classic, but PGL has insisted that this will only take place if conditions for actual offline events have been met, so as to not let the ongoing pandemic have adverse effects on any participants or viewers.
The event is planned to be also able to host around 16,000 spectators, with streaming in 4K resolution being announced as the first-ever major to benefit from this resolution. The scene will definitely be hyped to hear of such an announcement, although it still has a ways to go, with the dates of October 23rd to November 7th being the targeted days for the event. Again, one cannot stress enough the importance of conditions being viable for these types of events, but hopefully this major and many others will return to us once this pandemic is dealt with.
DotA 2, another huge game in the Esports world, is another massive game that is suffering a lot from lack of offline events. The International, mentioned a little above, is home to DotA2 and all of its fans and viewers, and the cancellation of the annual major will no doubt have had an adverse effect on players and community alike. Luckily, online tournaments have still continued, giving players and lovers of the game something to look forward to in these unfortunate times, and a chance to place some CS: GO and DOTA Bets on their favorite matchups.
Very recently, famous team Virtus.pro has signed a second DotA2 team to their lineup, which will be called VP.Prodigy. This team is basically the same “Team Generation” team under a different name. Team Generation has managed to win the ESL One CIS Online, which is a pretty impressive feat and which could have been the final piece to ensure the takeover from Virtus.pro. CEO of Virtus.pro himself Sergey Glamazda said that back in 2020 the team had caught their eye, resulting in having a grant and a boot camp sponsored for Team Generation. Having transferred the former VP.Prodigy to the main roster, the prodigy team slot was vacant, which prompted the takeover of Team Generation into Virtus’s secondary squad. This means that the official VP.Prodigy squad is:
Evgeniy “Noticed” Ignatenko
Denis “Larl” Sigitov
Ilyas “celebrity” Gainullin
Maksim “forcemajor” Meretskii
Vladislav “dSa” Shuvaev
Daniil “Schelk” Shelkunov
DotA2 is still one of the most popular Esports titles out there and is the main contender for League of Legends as the most popular MOBA out there. League is probably still ways ahead, but with constant support and hype from the loving community, there will always be a place for DotA and for its players.
