Master Mazuma, Author at Master Mazuma™ Blog

Female Players make Historic Week for Esports

Breaking male hegemony ; recent female success

eSports is booming, but it remains a male dominated realm. Though indications of change are out there, and this week they were hard to miss out on. Only last week Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon had been signed to an Overwatch League team. Starting off as rumors, ESPN was quick to confirm that Kim has been signed to the Shanghai Dragons. A team craving for success.

“Kim will be a critical figurehead for many female esports aspirants to look up to.”

Though Blizzard tries best to make Kim the center in numerous mainstream reports, there efforts not yet seem to have the desired results as the player pool is predominantly filled with male players. Though with her new role comes new visibility and Kim will be a ciritical figurehead for many female esports aspirants to look up to.

Luckily for Kim, it’s not all on her shoulders.

Just a day after the announcement of Kims carreer move, Sasha Scarlett Hostyn became the first female StarCarft 2 player to win a championship. She did so at IEM Pyeongchang. Not only is she the first female player, but also the second non-korean player to ever win a championship in Korea. A country that considered SC2 as a national sport at one point.

“In her six-year career, Hostyn has been an active and successful player that has won over many fans.”

A bright future?

The IEM Pyenongchang could be a forecast on what’s about to happen in Paris 2024 when eSports might make its debute as an olympic sport. Sasha sure made her statement as one of the contenders for the future gold. Defeating 4 pro players, among which 2 World Champions. Making her instantly the record holder for best earning female esports player.

Kim and Sasha are the ambassadeurs for a future of esports in which female players may play a much larger role than they do today. Many factors contribute to the lack of female players in the current competitive scene, we can only hope gradually the balance gets better as these women prove to be very skilled, by no means less than their male counterparts.

OpTic Gaming international CS:GO roster

OpTic Gaming has signed a new CS:GO roster, which features players from both North America and Europe.

Gear up with k0nfig, Nicklas Gade and cajunb, the Danish crew that will accompany the Americans ShahZaM and Stanislaw on the Optic Gaming new CS:GO roster.

Being benched last November, Stanislaw has been absent for most of the last couple of months. The talented youngster had came back from his nine month position on Team Liquid, after being the in-game-leader of OpTic Gaming for over a year. As such, he won three events, among which the $1.1 million ELEAGUE Season Two. At the time, the success was not enough to convince Stanislaw to stay.

Stanislaw wasn’t the only one that experienced some benching. Both K0nifg and Cajunb had to give up their seats after their team failed to win a single match during the ELEAGUE Major Boston. ShahZaM got his seat at OpTic in 2016, after being transferred form a poor performing Misfits in the 24-team major. Last but not least, Gade is the most inexperienced player and has yet to prove himself.

The lineup followed shortly after (one day!) the announcement of releasing Mixwell and transferring Magisk to Astralis. This drain left Adam Friberg, Allu and HS left as the only team members representing, with the ESL Pro League roster lock approaching quickly. The fresh blood was more than welcome, although question remains who will be the ones taking the seat during the EPL.

We are gonna see OpTic’s new roster in action for the first time during the NA region of the ESL Pro League Season Seven starting February 13.

CS:GO creator arrested for alleged sex offenses

Counter-Strike co-creator allegedly solicited sex from minor, and recorded sex acts without consent.

The Seattle Police Department arrested Counter-Strike co-creator Jess Cliffe on Thursday, following a nine-month investigation for alleged sexual exploitation of a minor.

In a period from april to june 2017, Cliffe had at least three sexual encouters with a (then) 16 year old girl. This has been confirmed by the police authorities. Furthermore, Cliffe allegedly recorded their last encounter with his mobile phone without her consent. Supposedly they met online on a dating website that had an age restriction with a minimum of 18 years old. Therefore Cliffe was unaware of the girl’s age, according to his attorney in court.

After an anonymous tip regarding sexual exploitation of minors, the Seattle Police Department opened up investigation. After interviewing the girl, warrants were served on information from the online dating site and Cliffe’s phone provider. Which led to further investigation of the messages between Cliffe and the girl.

The CS creator was arrested at the Southwest Precinct of the Seattle Police Department and was brought to the King County Jail the day after. His bail has been set at $150,000 and been paid for the same day. Though he is yet to hear formal charges, Cliffe will be expected in court before the end of the month.

Cliffe’s current employer, Valve Corporation, suspended Cliffe from his job. They issued a statement on the case to multiple news organizations:

“We are still learning details of what actually happened,” a Valve representative said in a statement. “Reports suggest he has been arrested for a felony offense. As such we have suspended his employment until we know more.”

Cliffe has no criminal record, though he has been arrested for assault in 2013. though that case never made it to court.

100 Thieves are here to stay

‘Teams need more preparation time’ and ‘experienced players have a hard time putting their egos aside’. There were low expectations about the quality of team 100 Thieves going into the NA LCS. Not surprising, as the team got permission to enter the tournament last November and only got its final lineup in December. Furthermore, midlaner Ryu just returned to the scene from a 6 month break. Clichés like those mentioned above were about the only attention the press gave 100 Thieves. However, backed by the NBA team Cleveland Cavaliers, the team became star-studded. Former Counter Logic Gaming player Aphromoo features as the biggest name and team captain.

NA LCS

Entering the NA LCS as an outsider with no rivalries, 100 Thieves had nothing to lose and a show to steal. And they did. In their first game against OpTic Gaming, they went toe-to-toe in a close game that got closed out thanks to some premier leadership by Aphromoo. The support faced his former employee Counter Logic Gaming the next game, but the Thieves didn’t have a hard time beating them. Team Liquid was the next victim of the young team that started to gain more confidence. In the fourth match though Echo Fox got the Thieves’ heads out of the clouds and feet back on the ground with a 3-1 shutdown. The tournament isn’t over yet, but it’s clear some eyebrows were raised. This weekend will be the moment of truth featuring matches against Clutch Gaming on Saturday and especially TSM on Sunday.

Master Mazuma will keep a close eye on this new kid on the block. 100 Thieves will be a serious contender for the prizes once they really start playing as a team. Looking for a team with good odds and great chances of surprising? 100 Thieves might just be the recipe you were looking for!

A $100,000 cryptocprize tournament is on the way

Watch out for February 25th; one lucky Counter-Strike team will ‘swim’ in cryptocurrency.

Scrooge McDuck wouldn’t be interested, but the rest of the world wouldn’t mind a $ 100,000 first place reward paid in cryptocurrency. Play2Live aint cheap when it comes to showing financial respect to CS: GO teams that put their money where their mouth is. They’re offering up a $100,000 first place reward, distributed through their own monetization model, LUC (Level Up Coin).

Eight Counter-Strike teams get a shot in playing the tournament that will be held live in the Falcon Club in Minsk, Belarus. The tournament is a great way to promote LUC, which can be easily converted into other cryptocurrencies. In addition, viewers on stream have their own chance to earn tokens by watching ads or sharing their bandwidth and participating in challenges assigned by the very streamers they watch. It’s all in the philosophy of Play2Live, a live-streaming company that looks to interact with viewers and advertisers alike.

“We encourage all gamers and esport fans to become P2L early adopters to test the new ecosystem and high Internet speed delivered by peer-to-peer CDN technology,” these are the words of Alexey Burdyko, CEO and founder off P2L in a press conference. “We are even more excited to host the world’s first ever esport tournament with crypto prize: an event, that will become a milestone in further integration of the blockchain technology into gaming industry.

Cash out or take a chance?

eSports matches are now a rather passive experience for the viewers on stream. P2L is looking to change that. They come up with the cool feature to place live bets with Level Up Coins during an esports match. This includes prop bets (which team is going to take the first tower etc), which opens up a wide variety of betting possibilities.

It will be interesting to find out what the winning team does with their new crypto-fortune. Do they cash out for dollars? Or will they see the LUC as a valuable investment, which might turn out to be worth alot more than the $100,000 it is today? What would you do? We are all about to find out at the end of the month!

Champion Street Fighter crowned in inaugural Evo Japan

MMA? Caption this

For Wii U, among several other games. A prize of ¥ 1 million ($9,200) was doled out for each of the seven main games except Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and Arms, which did not have a prize pool.

Street Fighter V

Some cool comeback stories going on at the classic fighting game where Grapht’s “Infiltration” came back from the losers bracket to take the tournament from John Takeuchi.

His slow start was by no means a surprise. Infiltration took much of 2017 off from competitive play in order to recalibrate. The Evo 2016 champion started the tournament low on practice, but finally got his mojo back in time with Juri. Which was far from an obvious choice, considering Juri is seen far from the best character in game. In taking time off, it seemed Infiltration had come up with some sort of plan, finding new approaches to slip up his opponents.

Eager to win, Takeuchi played aggressively with Rashid from the start. But Infiltration kept his ground, standing back, blocking and waiting for an opening to exploit. That opening came.

After the bracket reset, Infiltration continued to counter Takeuchi’s aggression with defense and mixups. As if he knew exactly what Takeuchi was going to do, and countered everything he threw at him. It was a painfully dominant set from the Infiltrator.

Third and Fourth

Evo Japan 2018 was also quite lucrative for Twitch, Red Bull, HyperX, and Cygames’ Daigo Umehara, who took bronze. The Guile player seems to master his character to perfection after two contentious years in Street Fighter V.

Fourth place was given to the winner of last year; Evo 2017 champion, Echo Fox’s Tokido.

Newbee wins big at ESL One Genting

Facing a Nemesis: Newbee shrugs off the curse of losing to Team Liquid, winning 3-2 in the ESL One Genting and taking the championships title

Newbee’s living nightmare wore the name of Team Liquid, losing nine of the last nine matches against the setup of Miracle. But there wouldn’t be a tenth. Fully armed for war, Moogy and Sccc lead their team to victory. The pair proved too much to handle. It might be ‘just’ 1-9 for Newbee, but for now they have the last victory. And in eSports, that is all that counts.

But things were by no means a walkover. Over five incredibly close games, it was the draft from Faith and the incredible support play of Kaka that put Newbee on top. An average fight quickly became a decisive team wipe in the final conclusion in Game 5 was the clutch Sccc buyback on Outworld Devourer. All hope and towers got fiercely crushed for Team Liquid shortly after, if any hope was left at all.

The road to victory wasn’t all paved with success. Against Team Secret, Newbee had to make a comeback from over a 25,000 deficit in the semi finals. A snowballing Divine Rapier Medusa seemed to do the trick in winning teamfights.

All teams that qualified are looking in top condition for mid-season. However, the team that we’ll be looking out for will be Newbee.

Cloud9 vs FaZe Clan in ELEAGUE Boston Major

Cloud9 Takes down FaZe Clan and claim the ELEAGUE Boston Major championship.

Cloud9 entered the CS:GO tournament as an outsider, awaiting favorites FaZe, SK Gaming, and G2 Esports to win the title and the $500,000 prize money.

Starting the finals als the prime candidate for the title, FaZe Clan took C9’s map pick of Mirage 16-14, only to lose their own pick of Overpass 16-10 afterwards. In the final map of Inferno, FaZe were up 15-11, only for C9 to make their comeback cheered on by a screaming hometown Boston crowd and 1,130,000 viewers on Twitch. An all time single channel streaming record.

Was it that intense? Was there that much suspense? Those are all understatements; there must have been lots of people with their nose pressed to the screen. The chat went wild and so did the live audience.

Eventually, they had to take it into not one but two overtimes. When the dust settled, Cloud9 was the only one standing. Maybe to their own surprise.

The Legend of Legends: Team Gullit

Is it possible to teach your father something about football, when that father is called Ruud Gullit? The soccer legend has two sons, both of them are serious about following their father’s footsteps. One on the field and the other from behind his console. It was the one playing the video game that taught his father a lesson about football in 2018. When the old international visited the FIFA eWorld Cup he discovered that there was an entire world behind this videogame. The strategy en choices that FIFA players make are no different from those in the ‘real’ football.

Team Gullit

Gullit was so fascinated, that he started a eSports academy called Team Gullit. The “first professional and independent FIFA-education in the world’’ that coaches talent in their quest for fame. Independent is the keyword in this sentence. Already there are talented players playing for teams like Manchester United and Arsenal, but with Team Gullit Ruud is aiming to give multiple youngsters a chance to make it to the big tournaments. He and his team helps the eSporters with analyzing their game, tactical and technical, mediatraining and how to handle management.

Black Tulip from Milan

Currently, the team consists of five people of which three are young players. Floris Jorna, Julian van den Berg en Dani Visser are the names of the first batch that Gullit wants to promote. Expectations are high, just like the talent: two of the three boys play in the top 64 of worldwide rankings and compete in the play-offs for the FIFA eWorld Cup in January.

Whatever the results, the logo already made its statement. The Black Tulip from Milan never looked so gracious. A logo with such iconic value and rich history has to impress the competition. We expect all the guys (currently 17 of age) to wear the shirt with pride and other eSporters has to envy them for it.

GG WP 2017! Enter eSports 2018

2017 was the year that we finally got to play PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the year where Blizzard had to take back their ‘you think do, but you don’t’ and the year that Vasilii lost it on Twitch and got banned from the eSports scene. Before we tell you what you can expect in 2018, we made a list of what we think were the eSports highlights of 2017. Let’s go over the plays and tournaments that we will remember 2017 by one more time!

1. SSG wins the League of Legends World Finals at the expense of SKT T1

For years, League of Legends has been the most viewed game on Twitch. The League of Legends World Championship had staggering total amount of 60 million unique viewers, making it the best eSports event on the planet. Just for that reason, this tournament deserves a spot in our list. But something special happened during the finals that will make us remember this particular tournament for a long time. SK Telecom T1, winner of the last three editions, lost without a chance to SSG: 0-3. SK Telecom’s iconic player Faker, burst into tears when the last Nexus fell. Statements of support were heard from around the world. The fall of midlaner Faker, was initiated by a Varus flash followed by a well placed ultimate. Already one of the most memorable League of Legends moments in history. Earlier in 2017 Faker was responsible for another highlight when his livestream on Twitch got a record of 245,100 viewers at the same time. The greatest amount to date.

2. The best plays, ganks and bizarre RNG

Many keyboard combinations that were thought to be impossible spawned on the screen in 2017. Accompanied by the most dirty ganks and unlikely RNG on crucial moments. With impressive nerdrages as a result. That’s why ‘the must see plays’ of 2017 form the second highlight on our 2017 list. Naturally you don’t have to go scouring the internet to find them, we’ve put them in a single file for you to enjoy in this article.

3. Marbles and gems

2017 was the year of recordrewards being paid out at eSports tournaments. The most lucrative tournament was Dota 2’s The International 2017 hosted in Seattle, containing a prize pool of 24, 787, 916 dollar! The german player KuroKy got the most out of the year with over 2,5 million dollar prize money just from playing tournaments, excluding sponsor money and other revenue. Also the salaries teams pay their members skyrocketed to new heights. In South-Korea, eSporters are earning as much if not more as baseball and football players. Again Faker leads the pack, with his employer SK Telecom paying him 2,5 million dollar. The best earning gamer so far.

4. European reign continues

It’s slowly becoming the American curse. Their most beloved virtual world, that of World of Warcraft, has been under european reign for over years. On this years Blizzcon, it seemed for a moment that the Americans finally got to call themselves lord and ruler in the 3v3 Arena of Azeroth. Global Panda qualified for the finals and the outcome of the other semi-final looked in favor of the Americans as well. In the end it wasn’t. Europe’s ABC qualified for the Finals and showed no mercy with their unconventional composition, wiping up the floor with Global Panda: 4-0. MVP was Alec, that proved a true master of Arcane when he managed to keep out of the grasp of the hyper aggressive Global Panda like a true Houdini. It’s worth looking the finals if you’ re a fan of World of Warcraft. You can find the link here.

5. Formula 1 goes virtual

What we think is a highlight for eSports in 2017, is the continuing integrating of gaming in the physical world. Already football teams hired gamers for their FiFa teams, but last year the Formula 1 entered the scene as well. McLaren looked for world’s fastest gamer in the equated project WFG. 30.000 gamers competed until only two were left, the Dutch Freek Schothorst and Rudy van Buren. Rudy won the finals and got offered a contract for a year at McLaren, working for the development team of the ‘real’ Formula 1 car. The simulator demanded the same physical efforts as the actual car, could this be the future where eSports breaks itself free from the limits of two dimensions?

Fast forward to 2018!

Will 2018 promise just as successful as its predecessor? We like to think so! We have great expectations from some titles anticipated to be released in 2k18. A honorable mention goes out to Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2, that is promised finally to hit the shelfs this year. Another anticipated title is Anthem, a game that for years was known by its codename only ‘Dylan’. This co-developed title by Bioware and EA is destined to continue the Mass Effect legacy, which is gonna be a hard task to put it lightly. Although the visuals look promising in the trailers, we hopefully get to see some intelligence in the gameplay once it releases.

Everything eSports

In imitation of Fifa and Formula 1, NBA is the next big sports organization to create an eSports league. The widely popular NBA 2K will serve as the virtual playground for future tournaments to come. Big American eSports teams like Cloud Nine showed their interest, but over 30 major basketball teams as well. With already over three actually creating their team to play in the coming eLeague. Keep an eye out on Twitch for what promises to be a spectacle game!

We from Master Mazuma also have some new year resolutions that we like to share with you. Like 2017, we will continue to offer you to bet on the largest selection of games and all noteworthy tournaments. Like last year, we keep providing you the most accurate odds in the eSports scene. Naturally with our live bet feature! So what are our resolutions for 2018 then? Well, even more promotions for our loyalty players for starters. But we will also focus on delivering you more relevant informative content on games, players and tournaments. Giving you more inside insights to base your bets on!

Tournaments

We can already give away that you should definitely keep your eyes on the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship at the end of February, hosted in Katowice Poland. On this massive gathering, top teams from Dota 2, StarCraft 2 and CS:GO will compete and set the bar for the next tournaments to come. It’s the first real strength measurement and will give you a lot of information on which teams you have to keep an eye on in 2018.