Esports News ★ Master Mazuma™ Blog ★ Gain Insight

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.

Spotlight: Cloud9 CS:GO eSports

Cloud9 made history this weekend by becoming the first North American team to win a CS:GO Major. The underdog team made an incredible run through the ELEAGUE Major Boston, right in front of their home crowd. After being down 0-2 in pools and on the verge of being eliminated, Cloud9 stepped up their game. Virtus.pro, Astralis and Vega Squadron were defeated to qualify for the playoffs. The Americans beat G2 and SK (#1 ranked team in the world) to reach the finals against FaZe.

Breathtaking Finals

Cloud9’s map pick Mirage went to FaZe, the heavy favourites. Cloud9 however struck back and dominated FaZe’s map pick Overpass. Skadoodle’s skills with the AWP gained him the top rating in both games. The final game on Inferno became one of the most nerve wracking games in CS:GO history. FaZe got to match point with a 15-11 score. Cloud9 managed to tie Faze 15-15 to force Overtime.

First Overtime ended 3-3 with a clutch double kill by GuardiaN to save the final round. Cloud9 however dominated the second Overtime 3-1 on the back of their leader Tarik. The Boston crowd went wild as their American team finally lifted the trophy. The Major reached a record breaking peak of 1,8 million viewers online.

Cloud9’s Stars

Cloud9’s members weren’t part of the most elite CS:GO players before. A team like FaZe fielded four top 20 players of 2017. Cloud9 also didn’t have much success against the top teams before. Yet everything came together this tournament.

Longest lasting member of Cloud9 is Skadoodle. His quick and aggressive snipes with the AWP gained him the title of best sniper of the tournament. Skadoodle had to wait five years to finally gain his first big success at the Major.

Stewie2K is the entry fragger and secondary AWPer of the team. Although he is one of the newest professional players, Stewie already got multiple tournament MVP awards in 2017. He single handedly defended the B bomb site on Inferno against the entire FaZe team.

Autimatic is regarded the the most versatile player in Cloud9. He currently plays as a lurker, one of the most dangerous roles in the game. He’s shown that he is even capable of taking over the leader position if necessary.

RUSH left his team OpTic Gaming together with Tarik to join Cloud9. OpTic fell apart after their departure and the two received heavy criticism. RUSH is one of Cloud9’s staple players and always in the thick of battle.

Team leader Tarik was crowned MVP of the Major. His CS:GO career started as a streamer on Twitch. He streamed his funny antics from his closet at home. Tarik is originally the entry-fragger of the team, which means he plays aggressively and goes in first. Tarik slowly evolved from a solo player to a real team player. He took up the role as in-game leader for Cloud9 and put together a Major-winning team.

Cloud9 looks like a new top tier contender in CS:GO. In 2018 they will need to show that their victory wasn’t a fluke. Make sure to follow eSports and make money on mastermazuma.com.

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.