Premier league matchday 9 highlights

New high school leagues Pro athletes don’t often start training in college or beyond — they begin younger. Doesn’t it make sense that esports pros start training earlier, too? As Harris put it, college is too late to start! He announced that starting next year, for the first time ever high school students will have an officially sanctioned esports league. High schoolers can take their passion to play and join a school team that can compete toward state finals just like traditional sports do. Playvs and the National Federation of State High School Associations are building this league that will premier in February 2019. And Harris was pleased to announce that Georgia will be one of the first states to implement this, and SMITE itself was selected as one of the few games for the inaugural season. We’ll be hearing a lot more, “Sorry mom, I can’t study right now — the team is counting on me!” … [Read more...] about Hi-Rez Expo: Esports adds college varsity national championships and high school leagues

While the joke about Riot Games actually just makes 1 game has been around for some time, rumors of a new IP has been swirling around since Greg Street joined the company from Blizzard’s World of Warcraft team. Recently, a new tweet giving the biggest hint of a new project surfaced, with Riot Games looking to fill up several art positions. The tweet came from Katie Chironis, a Senior Narrative Designer at the League of Legends developer. … [Read more...] about – League of Legends studio is hiring for new “cool game”

Yes, Nate Nanzer officially announced last week that he’ll be leaving the Overwatch League for what has been confirmed to be a position to help with competitive Fortnite according to a statement from Epic Games. Pete Vlastelica, President and CEO of Activision Blizzard Esports Leagues, has stepped in as Nanzer’s replacement. … [Read more...] about Overwatch League commissioner jumps ship for Fortnite esports

League of Legends is getting ready to drop it’s 8.11 Patch, and with it comes an absolute slew of changes. 8.11 is a part of an on-going multi-patch pass at adjusting role tweaks and game pacing. Mages were dealt with 8.9, jungle in 8.10, and 8.11’s focus is marksman and jungle changes. Later in the 8.11 cycle we’ll also see Pyke, the Bloodharbor Ripper (who is totally a support, honest. He has an execute and everything) and with him will come a temporary return to Butcher’s Bridge in ARAM. However, before we get into the meat and potatoes of some of these important changes, let’s take a look at some ARAM updates. There are permanent, quality-of-life changes and temporary gameplay changes coming to the Howling Abyss. A huge one is the “Available Champions Pool”. It will smooth out, perhaps, the Champion Select Experience, by letting players put those champs in the potential selection pool, without having to wait to the last second and re-roll … [Read more...] about League of Legends: 8.11 Patch Notes Highlights

But what about the other champions? What are the big adjustments? I think one of my favorite nerfs belongs to Fizz. Seastone Trident saw a minor Active Damage Ratio (AP) (0.6 ability power ⇒ 0.5 ability power) and the On-Hit Damage Ratio (0.4 ability power ⇒ 0.35 ability power). This isn’t a major change, but any nerfs to Fizz are nerfs I support. What? At least I’m honest about being biased. His ultimate, Chum the Waters saw damage ratio adjustments to Guppy, Chomper, and Gigalodon (0.8, 1.0, and 1.2 ability power respectively). These again, aren’t major, but Fizz was just a little too strong post mid-season. Aatrox also saw some changes, who also might have potentially been a bit too strong. Aatrox seems to be a pretty hard one to get just right. He’s getting there, but he needed a little something to make the laning phase less insane. Umbral Dash, for example, saw his Passive Healing against non-champions reduced (33% … [Read more...] about League of Legends – 8.16 Patch Notes Discussion