A large prize pool doesn’t make a successful esports just yet

Battle Royale is on the verge of becoming an esports genre. But what does it take for a game or genre to become a lasting esports? One thing is for sure: it takes more than just a large prize pool!

Fortnites Epic Games announced a overwhelming prize pool of one hundred million dollars, that is a one with eight zeros! This of course draws attention, even in the non-gaming world of mainstream media, but money alone can’t build a community. If we look at League of Legends Riot Games, we see that investing in content, in players and in narratives is mandatory to build a lasting esports infrastructure.

It’s all about buzz and reach. A large prize pool creates a buzz, but without further content the effect will not last. We have seen this happening with PUGB’s ZIMO Australian invitational. There was hype going towards the 100 man showdown, but due to lack of ‘stories’ the effect soon died off.

Following Riot Games Example

To build a healthy esports ecosystem, there needs to be a connection between the players and the fans. Something players themselves do by streaming, but more importantly something Riot Games does going into a match. Building stories of rivalry, stories off sportsmanship and launching players as heroes. Riot Games started this approach in 2012 and haven’t stopped investing ever since, it made them leader of the pack when it comes to esports. In comparison, DOTA 2 has always been the number two MOBA in popularity; while DOTA 2 offers bigger prizes.

Revolutionizing?

Though just throwing money at tournaments doesn’t make a successful esports, it hasn’t been said Riot Games way is the only way. Epic Games announced that they are gonna invest a lot of the money for the viewers instead of the players. It could be that they try to reach out to the fanbase by letting them win by just watching Twitch for instance. We don’t know, but we sure are interested to see if we are on the verge of a new era of esports. Exciting times!

And yes, Battle Royale is coming to MasterMazuma!

Chances to win big; the semi-pro circuit

How do bookmakers decide on their odds? Well, a magician never truly tells ofcourse. But, you can assume that bookmakers have a closer watch on the major leagues and teams. Making the odds on the regional and semi-professional circuit a ‘wild west’ of odds. A place where you can win big, and likewise, lose big as well…

League of Legends European Masters tournament

A perfect opportunity to try profiting on bookmakers limited ‘scouting’ capacities is just around the corner! 26 teams take it out for a prize pool of €150,000 in the League of Legends European Masters tournament, starting with the group series 14th to 17 of April. The tournament, held in the UK, features players that are on the threshold of making it big. There is a good chance that we’ll see the winners of this tournament in the EU League of Legends Championship Series (LCS). Knockouts will follow in the weekend of April 19 to 22 and the grand finals will take place April 28-29, live in Leicester.

Getting an edge

Though a week’s time isn’t a whole lot, it is still worth it to dive into the statistics of the participating teams. It’s the group stage where the odds are most ‘unbalanced’, due to no one really knowing what to expect. Maybe you are not into taking big risks, just sit out the group stage and find out who has chances on taking the title and perhaps, who might be outsiders that bookmakers missed.

“We’re thrilled to continue our partnership with Riot Games by powering the League of Legends European Masters,” said James Dean, UK Managing Director at ESL. “From our time running the ESL Premiership for League of Legends, we know how incredible the level of play in these competitions can be! The Spring split is a great opportunity for fans to see some of the most impressive rising stars in the European League of Legends scene. Our aim is to offer an even better competition experience for fans, and even more opportunities for talented European players to raise their game in esports.”

Players to watch (our tips)

We wouldn’t be MasterMazuma if we didn’t atleast gave you some tips on players to watch this tournament.

Quixeth (support), SPG Esports (Switzerland)

A support that knows how to play lot’s of support characters and wants to prove the world wrong about Europe not having any good support players. Making name since last year, this Norwegian player is one to keep an eye on.

Milica (midlaner), Kliktech Esports (Croatia)

Watch out PerkZ, Milica is here for your title as best east-european midlaner. His team absolutely dominated the regionals in the balkan with an unprecedented 20 win streak.

Crownshot (ADC), Mad Lions (Spain)

This youngster formerly known as Crownie, coming from Slovenia, wrecks havoc with his Ezreal plays. The French already know what he is capable of, now the rest of Europe follows.

SendOo (toplaner), ExceL eSports (UK)

One of the few promising top-laners the UK has to offer. This will be a tournament where he can make or break; we can assure you he wants to prove himself!

Kikis (jungler), Illuminar Gaming (Poland)

The pressure aint that high for everyone, we conclude with a veteran that has been around making name since 2011. After a successful international career, Kikis now focuses on supporting the LoL scene in Poland.

Community against ESL for Katowice schedule

Back against the wall. ESL Faces incomprehension from the community. Again.

..This time it’s the ESL One Katowice Major schedule to blame. And in good fashion, ESL has responded on reddit promising to look into some options to ease the frustrations of fans and improve the experience for fans attending.

So what is the story here? apparently the organization released details on the groups, matches and final planning. Few people seemed to either realize or bring up that the playoffs would be held only over a period of two days, including one quarter final match and the two semi finals happening on the first day and the grand finals taking place on the last day. As with previous events, the group stage would not be held on the main stage at Spodek Arena. The frustrating part is that fans already bought tickets before releasing this information, not knowing that the group matches would not be held on stage. Premium tickets selling at almost $120, you can imagine people thought they were not getting their money worth.

Katowice schedule

Social Media Protest!

Fans mounted their Social Media and Reddit to express their complaints. Loving the game but not quite willing to pay the cost to travel, accommodations and ticket prices for only two days worth of matches. It is the order of events that struck fans the most: tickets were released for sale on January 30th and as of five days ago 90% of the premium tickets were already sold.

As previously announced, all of ESL One’s Pro events would be following the same format with the same number of participating teams. ESL One Genting format was the same as ESL One Katowice, however it took place over the course of six days, with the playoffs being held from January 26-28 including one full day of quarter finals, one full day of semi finals and the grand finals being held on the last day. With one day less, ESL has condensed the playoff portion into only two days.

Regardless of the commotion, there will be over a million dollar prize money to distribute in the ‘weekend’ of February 20-25 and over 1500T18 qualifying points. Whatever the roster, ESL One Katowice Major promises to be a large tournament that can’t hardly dissapoint!

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

EVO Japan

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.

eSports gaming back in action!

It was another week of awesome eSports action as we finally exit the off season. This week featured major tournaments in CS:GO, Dota 2, Hearthstone and Super Smash Bros. Meanwhile, the main leagues in Overwatch, League of Legends, StarCraft 2 and Heroes of the Storm are in full swing. Get in on the gaming action on Master Mazuma!

CS:GO ELEAGUE Major: Boston

CS:GO kicked off its season with the first Major. The Majors are held twice per year and provide a prize pool of 1 million dollars. The group stage saw G2 Gaming and FaZe Clan both going 3-0 in matches and qualifying for the playoffs. FaZe notably took down SK Gaming 16-12 with a dominating Terrorist side. SK misses Boltz this tournament and plays with stand-in Felps instead. Astralis and Virtus.pro are the disappointments of the group stage. Astralis barely managed to win a single match, while Virtus.pro got knocked out with three desperate losses. Next week are the playoffs. The matchups are FaZe versus mousesports, Na’Vi versus Quantum Bellator Fire, G2 versus Cloud9 and finally SK versus Fnatic. Throw out your predictions on Master Mazuma!

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive ELEAGUE Major Boston
ELEAGUE Major Boston is in full swing.

Hearthstone World Championship

Hearthstone wrapped up the 2017 season with the 1 million dollar World Championship. All the top finishers from the Spring, Summer and Winter Championship were in attendance, including the favourite Surrender. The top decks were without a doubt Raza Priest and Cube Warlock. Especially Warlock was banned in almost every game. The Taiwanese player Tom60229 defeated Surrender and Fr0zen to claim the prestigious title of world champion.

Hearthstone World Championship
Orange hugs the new champion Tom60229 after he’s won.

Dota 2 Galaxy Battles II

Another $500,000 was distributed in Dota’s Galaxy Battles II. EG and VGJ.Thunder made it to the finals over OG, TNC and Team Spirit. EG had defeated VGJ.T in Winner’s Finals. The American team rotated its cores Arteezy, Fear and SumaiL around the different lanes, with even Fear playing mid. VGJ.T however made their adjustments and swept EG 3-0 in the finals, including a thrilling 73 minute game 2.

Dota 2 Galaxy Battles II
VGJ.T completely adapted to EG’s playstyle.

Super Smash Bros. Genesis 5

A huge upset this weekend at Genesis in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Rising star Plup defeated the God players Mew2King, Mang0, Armada and Hungrybox to win Genesis 5. The finals against Hungrybox was hard fought: Hungrybox won the first set in a dominating quick 3-0 before Plup turned the tables in the second set. A close 3-2 victory for Plup completed his first gaming supermajor victory ever.

Super Smash Bros. Melee Genesis 5
Hungrybox congratulates Plup after his Genesis victory.

eSports leagues

League of Legends resumed its regular season with LCS, LCK and LPL as main events. TSM notably dropped to rock bottom with losses against Team Liquid and FlyQuest. Korean juggernaut SK Telecom T1 seems to become more mediocre by the week. The team lost to Jin Air Green Wings. Star player Faker may need to find new teammates soon.

The Overwatch League completed its second week. Seoul Dynasty proved its dominance again with 4-0 victories over Florida Mayhem and Boston Uprising. New York Excelsior kept up with a 3-0 and 4-0 over both Los Angeles teams Valiant and Gladiators. Seoul and New York are set to play each other next week for the number 1 spot in the league. Expect the highest level of Overwatch gameplay ever.

The GSL once again proved its status as the hardest StarCraft 2 league. Canadian player NoRegreT looked to prove himself in Korea but was quickly eliminated in last place. GSL regulars soO, Zest, TY and GuMiho prevented any upsets and all advanced to the round of 16. soO and TY especially looked unstoppable and didn’t drop a map.

The first week of the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship Phase 1 had few surprises. Top teams like Ballistix, Tempest, Fnatic, Dignitas and Tempo Storm all won their first matches. Tempest even defeated the world champion KSV Black (formerly MVP Black) 3-0.

League of Legends LCSOverwatch LeagueStarCraft 2 GSLHeroes of the Storm HGC

Speedrunning event AGDQ 2018 has begun!

Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) kicked off last Sunday from Herndon, Virginia. AGDQ is an annual event featuring top speedrunners from around the world. The speedrunners play in a week-long marathon of 130 hours, covering dozens of games. The event raises millions of dollars for charity each year. AGDQ has raised over $6.6 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation since 2011.

AGDQ gameplay

Speedrunning is the sport of beating a videogame as quickly as possible. You might have raced your friends to see who can finish the game the quickest. Speedrunners take this competition to the next level. They’ll use obscure tricks or glitches to gain any advantage. Speedrunners might run a level backwards to go faster. They might squeeze their character through walls into areas that were never intended to be seen. They might even glitch their way past entire levels.

AGDQ gameplay

Speedrunning can be done with multiple rulesets. Here are the most popular ones:

  • Any%: The classic run where you finish the game as fast as possible.
  • 100%: The runner must collect every item in the game.
  • Low%: A run that completes the game with the least amount of levels and items possible.
  • All bosses: Every boss in the game must be defeated.
  • Glitchless: Players can’t use glitches in their run. This mode is mainly used in extremely exploitable games.

AGDQ features games of all generations, from the original Mario games to Skyrim. The most popular games will be played on Friday and Saturday. This includes many Mega Man games, Zelda games, Super Mario games, Final Fantasy, Warcraft, Diablo, Mass Effect and Bloodborne. The weirdest run of the week might be Prey, on Thursday.

The marathon event even runs at night and is broadcast live on Twitch. You can find the full schedule at the AGDQ website. Don’t forget to visit mastermazuma.com if you’re interested in competitive games.

A 50 Million Dollar eSports Prize Pool?

Biggest eSports prize pool ever

Imagine playing your favourite videogame for a 50 million dollar eSports prize pool. You win, lift the trophy and get handed a cheque. You just earned 20 million dollars for winning first place. Crazy fantasy, right?

This tournament might actually happen in the next five years. Prize pools in all eSports are rising. The biggest tournaments of the year make their winners millionaires. The biggest of them all is The International. This is the yearly Dota 2 world championship. The International 2017 had a total eSports prize pool of 25 million dollars. Team Liquid took home 10 million dollars for winning first place.

A 50 Million Dollar eSports Prize Pool? - Team Liquid

An eSports Revolution

The International had its first edition in 2011. Valve, developer of Dota 2, funded the 1.6 million dollar prize pool. This was a revolutionary eSports prize pool in 2011. Almost no eSports tournament ever exceeded 100.000 dollars, and certainly not 1 million! Na’Vi won 1 million dollars for first place and became legends. But this was just the start.

In 2013, everything changed. Valve introduced crowdfunding to increase the prize pool. Players could purchase in-game items, and 25% of sales were added to the prize pool. These items included the ‘Compendium’ and ‘Battle Pass’ and gave in-game benefits. The total increased to 2.8 million dollars, again the biggest in eSports history. But this was just the beginning. Each next year saw a massive increase: 10 million in 2014, 18 million in 2015, 20 million in 2016 and finally 25 million in 2017.

A 50 Million Dollar eSports Prize Pool? - TI7 prize pool

Bigger than the Super Bowl

If The International continues to grow, 2022 might feature a 50 million dollar prize pool. This would be more than the Super Bowl! However, it is unlikely that Dota 2 will keep growing at the same rate. Experts predict that The International won’t grow as much in the next years. So, is a 50 million dollar eSports prize pool still a crazy fantasy?

No! Dota 2 might never hit 50 million. But new eSports games will emerge and become even more popular. The International showed us how to run successful crowdfunding campaigns. Maybe in five or ten years, Dota 3 will launch and set new records. The prestigious 50 million tournament will happen within ten years, you can count on that.

Do you want to get rich like these guys? Visit mastermazuma.com and earn cash with eSports!

A 50 Million Dollar eSports Prize Pool? - eSports prize money

ESL Pro League Finals Preview

This week in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive features the ESL Pro League Finals. The best 12 EU and NA teams have fought their way to the live finals in Denmark. The event will take six days. The total prize pool is $750,000. You too can earn a lot of money with Master Mazuma betting. Read on to find out what the best odds are in the ESL Pro League Finals.

ESL Pro League Finals betting: The best teams in CS:GO

G2 eSports won last year’s ESL Pro League Finals but failed to qualify this year. The favourites to win it all are SK Gaming and FaZe Clan. But there are many strong dark horse teams at this event. There is a lot of games to play and a lot of games to bet on.

Will SK follow up their recent success with another win in Denmark? Or will FaZe step up to their potential and take home their share of $750,000? These are two potential outcomes, but there are many strong teams at the event.

The teams are placed into two groups of six teams. Both groups have clear favourites, so we might see less group stage upsets. It might be best to play safe until the group stage is over. The quarterfinals will definitely feature much closer matches.

Each team will play one game against every other team in their group. This means a total of five games for each team. The team that finishes as number one in their group immediately goes to the semifinals. The second and third place teams play each other in the quarterfinals. The bottom three teams are eliminated from the event. The quarterfinals and semifinals become best-of-three matches. The finals will be a best-of-five.

ESL Pro League Finals Schedule

Who will win the group stage?

The 12 teams in the ESL Pro League Finals have been put in Group A or Group B. Both groups contain teams who can win the tournament. Let’s analyse the groups  to see which teams are most likely to win it.

Group A

  1. Fnatic
  2. FaZe Clan
  3. Astralis
  4. Liquid
  5. Hellraisers
  6. Luminosity Gaming

Group A has three clear favourites: Fnatic, FaZe Clan and Astralis. All group stage matches are best-of-one though, which means it’s easier to cause upsets. Team Liquid and Hellraisers have both proven that they are capable of upsets. Luminosity is the weakest team and has the worst odds.

The top three teams in this group are all playing well. FaZe has the most individual talent in the world. Based on recent results, FaZe might be the favourite to win the tournament. Read more about FaZe Clan in the Spotlight article.

Astralis still misses its star player dev1ce. The team still finished second at BLAST Pro Series last week without him, behind the strong SK Gaming. Astralis also has the home crowd advantage, since they’re a Danish team. This might be the best place to make it far into the tournament.

Fnatic is one of the most improved teams of the year. The Swedish team has the talent to make it far, but has to prove itself against the best teams in the world. Expect great results in the group stage. The playoffs is where it gets hard though.

Group B

  1. OpTiC Gaming
  2. SK Gaming
  3. North
  4. Ninjas in Pyjamas
  5. Misfits
  6. NRG eSports

Group B has two favourites for qualification; SK Gaming and Ninjas in Pyjamas. The third spot is up for grabs for North or OpTic Gaming.

SK Gaming comes into this tournament with recent wins at BLAST Pro Series and EPICENTER. The Brazilians might be the best team in the world. They beat Astralis, North and Ninjas in Pyjamas all at BLAST Pro Series.

Ninjas in Pyjamas won IEM Oakland over SK Gaming and FaZe Clan. The team is coming into this event with confidence and strong form.

North has a slight advantage over OpTic for third place. North has been playing better and better. The Danish team als has home crowd advantage, just like Astralis. OpTic struggles to play as team, but still has some of the best players in Europe. Nobody should underestimate OpTic.

The weakest teams are Misfits and NRG eSports. Both played well enough to qualify for the Finals. However, they are outmatches by the strong top four teams in their group. Their upset potential looks quite weak.

ESL Pro League Finals Odense

ESL Pro League Finals odds: Insight into the favourites

SK Gaming is the team to beat right now. SK won two of their last three live events and looks to be in top shape. Especially their leader FalleN has been playing great. He finished the BLAST grand final against Astralis with a 1.63 kill/death ratio. If SK’s other stars Coldzera and Fer can find their form as well, SK Gaming would be a good bet in the ESL Pro League Finals odds.

Astralis was the big surprise at BLAST Pro Series, almost winning the event. The team has great momentum coming into the ESL Pro League Finals. Their biggest weakness is RUBINO, who is the stand-in for star player dev1ce. Astralis had little time to practise with RUBINO. The team will probably struggle in the quarterfinals.

FaZe Clan has the talent and firepower to win this tournament. However, recent events have shown that the team has been struggling to find consistency. FaZe’s teamwork also doesn’t match that of other teams. FaZe relies on its star players to carry the team with their aim heavy style. This means that the players must individually outplay their opponents. Some teams have found ways to counter this with teamwork. FaZe’s leader karrigan will need to give the roster a more tactical approach to the matches.

ESL Pro League Finals Trophy

Chances for upsets?

Ninjas in Pyjamas proved to be capable of upsetting top teams FaZe Clan and SK Gaming. The team defeated both to win IEM Oakland. Ace players f0rest and GeT_RiGhT are veterans of the game, on par with FaZe and SK’s best. Ninjas in Pyjamas could potentially win it all if the pieces fall into place.

North could also cause an upset in Denmark. The team showed promise at BLAST Pro Series. They had some encouraging results against FaZe and Astralis. North might be able to turn the home field advantage into some upsets in the group stage.

Now that you know more about the exciting ESL Pro League Finals, visit mastermazuma.com. Put your knowledge to the test and win a lot of cash!