Welcome to the Weekly Recap, where we gather the top stories that happened in the past week to help you catch up with the busy world of eSports!
General News
Alibaba, WESG agree on 3-year deal
Chinese online-commerce giant Alibaba and World Electronic Sports Games have agreed on a deal that will make Changzhou, China the home for WESG in the next three years.
The move is part of Alibaba’s 10-year, $150 million plan to cement Changzhou as the country’s e-sports capital. Alibaba will handle the partnership through Alisports, it’s department focused on sports.
This year’s WESG, which is already underway in the city, has a $5.5 million prize pool, which will be spread among winners and the placers in competitions in Dota 2, LoL, CS:GO, Hearthstone and StarCraft 2.
Dota 2
Digital Chaos win 1st ever LAN in ESL One Genting
Digital Chaos lifted its first ever LAN trophy after turning back NewBee in a five-game thriller in ESL One Genting.
DC, who finished as runners-up in TI6 and 3rd-4th in the Boston Major, finally were able to go over the top, winning its first LAN championship and $125,000 in prize money.
Newbee, which won second place in China Top 2016 and Mars 2016 Autumn, took home $50,000 as runner-up.
iG to replace NewBee in DPL Season 5
Invictus Gaming will replace NewBee in the Dota Pit League Season 5, after the latter announced it will not make it to Split, Croatia because of visa issues.
iG will get the spot, since they were the runner-up to NewBee in the Chinese qualifier.
NB is the second team to drop from the competition after Wings Gaming, another Chinese team and TI6 winners, dropped out because of the same issues.
Abed join DeMoN, BuLba in Team Onyx
Rising Filipino youngster Abed “Abed” Yusop has joined Team Onyx, the team that Jimmy “DeMoN” Ho created with Kanishka “BuLba” Sosale.
Mason “Mason” Venne and Kim “DuBu” Doo-young complete the group, while Francis “FrancisLee” Lee will stand in for Abed, who is ironing details of his move.
Onyx is expected to try and qualify for a spot in the Kiev Major and the International 7.
LoL
Warwick Remodel
Riot has completed its remodelling of Warwick, the part-man, part-monster from Zaun, and will soon uncage the beast in League of Legend.
The remodelling, which we reviewed here, made Warwick bigger, more powerful and absolutely more terrifying.
If Warwick was a human who had been turn beast by his own desire then, now he has embraced what he has become, more monster than man and more bloodthirsty as ever.
Millenium announce 2017 EU CS roster
Millenium has officially announced its roster for the 2017 EU Spring Split Challenger Series.
The French LoL team has signed Koreans Min “Mimic” Ju-seong and Moon “Steal” Geun-young, as its top laner and jungler, respectively, while Kristoffer “P1Noy” Albao will be the team’s AD carry and Prodromos “Pretty” Kevezitidis is its mid laner. Tore “Norskeren” Hoel Eilertsen will round out the group as the support.
Pretty has been with Millenium since 2015, while Mimic and Steal both played as sub for KT Rolster, and P1noy was formerly known as Krislund from Gambit Gaming. Norskeren is an up-and-comer, formerly of nDurance Gaming, mousesports and Dream Team.
NBA’s Miami Heat buys stake in Misfits
NBA franchise Miami Heat has bought a stake in esports organization Misfits.
Misfits owner Ben Spoont said the Heat did not buy a controlling stake in the organization, but instead will be partners and will provide help in marketing, branding, promotion and other commercial aspects.
Forbes value the Heat at $1.3 billion, tenth-highest in the NBA.
CS:GO
NiP and Virtus.Pro to attend IEM Katowice
Virtus.pro and Ninjas in Pyjamas will headline the CS:GO event at IEM Katowice.
Home town team VP and Swedish legends NiP were the first invites in the event that will start in March and will hand out $250,000 in prizes.
Six more teams will get direct invites from IEM, while four teams will have to go through the qualifiers to make it to the final event.
jayzaR to leave Fnatic Academy
Aleksandar “JayzaR” Zarkovic and Fnatic Academy has mutually agreed to part ways after the sniper’s time with the team did not work out for both sides.
Fnatic confirmed the decision, citing that while JayZar play well with other Fnatic Academy players, he has not meshed well with the direction that the team wants to take.
David “Jaywalkingz” Kempner will stand in for Fnatic Academy when they go to Dreamhack Leipzig.
Overwatch
Northern Gaming CEO mulls organization restructure
After REUNITED shut down, calls were made to help small-budget and player-owned teams through better organization and management in the Overwatch League, a notion that Northern Gaming CEO Mack Maring supports.
In a post in Reddit, the CEO argued that the league might undertake changes like having salary caps, doing drafts and regulating player movement for it to survive as an esports league.
“Any sport to ever go with a salary cap-free or a draft-free structure is a literal nightmare,” said Maring. “The top brands with the most money get any player they want and they build powerhouse teams that obliterate everyone else.”
CoD
The Call of Duty World League are to host four major events in Europe this 2017, according to a statement in its website.
In the statement, CWL will start with an invitational tournament in London later this month, and will follow with Opens for Paris, Birmingham and Sheffield throughout the year.
Paris will offer the highest prize pool at $100,000, while Birmingham will offer $50,000 and both London and Sheffield will give away $25,000.
