3rd CS:GO blog: Organizations and professional play in CS E-Sports scene

To welcome you to my last CS blog I'm going to introduce some of the top organizations which have been around the E-Sports scene for a long time. Just to start off, some of the names which you might have heard of around the E-Sports community might be: NiP Gaming, VERY GAMES, ECS ICY BOX, Team 3D, SK Gaming and the list goes on. If you hadn't guessed yet, these organizations are all of familiar long standing reputation in the CS E-Sports scene, specially. 
The method where by an organization participates in a tournament is by recruiting teams for different games which they wish to 'invest' in, and basically sponsor that certain team throughout the tournaments. Hence the organization has the power to stop the contract when they want, which makes for hard times for teams which are not performing at the top of their caliber. Organizations have, to an extend, monopolized the professional E-Sports scene since the start of cash-prized tournaments.
However, the growth of organizations allows for more suitable environment for professionals. Gaming houses have revolutionized professional gaming from a few years ago, however as E-Sports has grown over the years, with cash-prizes increasing yearly, and as the competition grows between teams, gaming houses are now a must for professional players.
Now I come back to my point that the organizations have monopolized professional gaming: only organizations can afford to pay for all the costs of housing the team members. It is practically not possible for a semi-professional team to rent out a gaming house in order to become better, in pursue of professional play. This however, calls for tougher competition, where only the best of the best can stay at the top circuit all year around. 

I'm going to talk a little bit more about the organizations and their most notable achievements. Sweden's NiP gaming started back in 2000 as a Counter-Strike team, playing professional and winning 4 CPL championships throughout 2000-2001. They continued their form but they struggled to find a sponsor, and as a result they joined the prominent e-sports organization SK Gaming. Under SK Gaming they became a dominant force in CS. Their prize money from tournament victories in 2003 totalled approximately USD170,000. This is indeed a considerable figure, one of the most successful years for any organization in E-Sports to date. The NiP CS:GO line up, starting from 2012, has been one of, if not the best, CS teams since. They have managed to win countless tournaments, taking first place in 21/26 tournaments they have played in since 2012. They came 2nd 4 times and took 3rd once. Their most recent victory was at the infamous Copenhagen Games, played year at Copenhagen, Denmark. Ofcourse to win the tournament they had to overcome their rivals Virtus.PRO (formly known as ECS ICY BOX), who had beaten them in EMS Katowice 2014 just a month ago. The final was a thrilling 2-1 series in favor of NiP and the following article outlines the highlights:
NiP takes out CPHG

All the way across the globe down under, VoxEminor have been dominating the Australian CS:GO scene since forming in 2012. Their current line up consists of former professional CS and CS:Source players, who are indeed some of the most experienced CS players in Australia. Their most recent victory was on September 23 in MSI Beat it! Oceania after beating Arichaic.esports 2-0 in the finals. Ofcourse they qualified for EMS Katowice 2014 as the top Australian team. Being only one of the few teams from the Australian CS history who have played in an international event, VoxEminor put all they had on the line. They managed to pull great results considering their opponents, however they were not able to progress out of group stages. The following article outlines VoxEminors time in EMS Katowice 2014, and the video is an interesting interview which portrays what differentiates Australian CS scene compared with the global scene:
VoxEminor at EMS Katowice 2014
Interview with SPUNJ at EMS Katowice 2014

E-Sports has come a long way since the start of 2000's, and the Counter-Strike franchise has certainly made a huge impact on its growth. Since the start of CS:GO, all professional CS:Source teams, even old CS teams, started playing CS:GO. As a result, all the top tournaments that hosted CS:Source cash-prized tournaments moved to CS:GO. The game shifted the face of CS in E-Sports, as the CS:Source scene was moving at a slow pace, Valve brought out the perfect game to liven up the CS scene once again since the early Counter-Strike days. Ofcourse CS:GO has been growing ever since 2012 and still growing at a steady pace in 2014. The competition has never been this tense, and the players put everything on the line to keep their professional status.

This concludes my Counter-Strike:Global Offensive blog. Throughout my three blogs, I have talked about how the game came about, what the game is all about, what the CS E-Sports scene is about, and what is really happening inside of the CS E-Sports scene. I hope you enjoyed my posts and that you appreciate the way E-Sports has revolutionized the computer world by taking technology and bringing out the best in competitive gaming around the world. 

E-Sports & FIFA 14 - 11/5/14 - Chris

This week’s post will cover anything and everything relating to FIFA 14’s most popular game mode, FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT). In FUT, players create their own custom team with players from different teams and leagues around the world. The strength of each team is determined by player ratings and something known as chemistry. Chemistry dictates how well the players play with each other, how well they maintain the team’s shape and the quality of player runs. The aim is for each player to have 10 chemistry points. They can boost this by having links with players in the same team, nation or league. A red link indicates that two players have no relationship, an orange link indicates that the players are from the same league OR nation, while the green links show that the players are from the same team or the same nation AND league.

A new addition to the FUT series are chemistry styles. These are cards that can be applied to players, boosting specific stats to suit their position. For example, you may want to apply the Hunter chemistry style to a striker. This would add three points to shooting and pace when on full chemistry.

The transfer market system is perhaps the key feature of FUT. The transfer market system allows people to open packs of players and consumables and list them on a real-time transfer auction system where other people can bid on cards to add to their club. This, along with playing matches and winning competitions, is where people have the opportunity to increase their amount of coins that they can then spend on packs, players and club items.

Players also have the opportunity to customise their club by changing home and away kits, badges and stadia. This is my current club identity.

The last important aspect of FUT is the playing of matches. This can be done by participating in online and offline tournaments and leagues. There are 10 divisions with rewards at the end of season such as coins and packs. This wraps up a mini-series on FIFA 14 and E-Sports. I’m Chris Gray, for ISYS E-Sports, thanks for tuning in!

Sam's Blog #3

Hi, welcome to my third and final LoL eSports blog post!

Today I will be talking about the recent semifinals of the OnGameNet Champions Spring 2014 season: Samsung Blue vs Samsung Ozone

SSO vs SSB
Game One
Game Two
Game Three
Game Four

Game 1 started off with a surprising Miss Fortune pick from imp. Miss Fortune had not recently been played but due to the recent patch some of her ability kit were tweaked so that she was stronger in the late game, evening out the problems that had not led to her being picked in earlier seasons. This selection paid off, and imp was able get first blood by killing spirit's Nocturne within 3 minutes of the start of the game. The Ozone team was able to stay ahead of their sister team for most of the game, as Blue's composition was built for higher mobility and picking one or two champions out of position, but Ozone kept the heat high for Blue by constantly keeping their jungler close to lanes being pressured. In the end they closed the game at 15:4 kills to Ozone, with the game going for 30 minutes, and the MVP going to Mata from Ozone, whose successful position on support Annie led to multiple won team fights

The 2nd game started relatively slow, until SSO dade's high mobility pick of Yasuo was able to first blood imp's Twitch at 14 minutes. The two teams were neck and neck for a large portion of the game, until one successful team fight from Blue enabled them to bowl into Ozone's base and end the game at 15:7 kills to Blue, and the MVP going to dade.

Game 3 was marked with the return of the Kog Maw and Soraka bottom lane from Blue, not seen since Blue knocked out SK Telecom T1K from the WCG2014 Korea qualifiers in 2013. The game started off with a bang, with deft's Kog Maw baiting Looper (Ryze), DanDy (Khazix) and Pawn (Lulu) by tower hugging at low health while Spirit luurked in the nearby brush on Lee Sin. Ozone, thinking they could tower dive him and run to get first blood, were deleted one by one by Kog Maw turning atthe last second to attack them while the towers beat on the three mercilessly, and Spirit coming into the fight as soon as Deft turned, netting Spirit a triple kill at 6 minutes. Blue won in the end with a slow push down mid, with Spirit ending up taking the MVP for his continuous pressure on all lanes.

Game 4 looked to be a comeback for Ozone, with Pawn leading at 3 kills to 0 deaths. However, the potential could've been much worse for Blue if it not for Heart's Nami play, being able to continuously shut down ganks and disengage team fights with his extremely sharp bubble-stuns and tidal waves. The game followed a quite typical/standard path, with blue evening out the score by 24 minutes, from 7:3 to Ozone to 11:11 tied all. Blue used this lead to pull ahead, with Spirit, who was at 10 kills to 0 deaths by 30 minutes, leading the team by continuously taking picks from Ozone one by one. By the end, Blue had won with a resounding 25:11 to Blue. Heart's Nami was the MVP, netting himself 21 assists throughout the whole game, and potentially keeping the Ozone team from winning game 4 and forcing a tiebreaker. Instead, Blue took the set, and took the series too at 3-1 to Blue, ensuring Blue had a ticket to the Grand finals on the 16th of May.

With Blue going to the 2014 spring season finals, the viewers were shut down from seeing a rematch. CJ Blaze, a team in the other semifinals game, had versed Ozone in the 2013 Spring season finals. However, both CJ Blaze and Samsung Ozone were knocked out in the semis, with two totally new teams debuting in the finals: Samsung Blue vs Najin White Shield. Ozone and Blaze, however, have to face off again in the 3rd place match on the 14th.

Hamid's 2nd CS:GO post

This week's CS:GO blog is about the game play of Counter-Strike as well as the tournaments which are currently undergoing in the professional CS:GO E-Sports scene. To start off, I want to mention that for professional players, this game is [i]everything[/i]. E-Sports is their career and they spend countless hours practicing in order to keep their jobs. Professional teams have strict schedules in order to be able to perform at their best in each tournament throughout the year. The following video gives an insight to how hard E-Sports contenders work and how much it means to them to be the best.

NBK DreamHack interview

The CS:GO E-Sports scene is huge. Tournaments like DreamHack, Copenhagen Games, WCG, and EMS one Katowice are just a few of the most prestigious E-Sports events that run annually. Countless teams are continuously trying to achieve a spot at one of these events, such events are so big in E-Sports that the players will have the best opportunity of their career to prove themselves. In fact, some teams which have made it to such events via wildcard, showed great results, and just that experience took their team from a semi-professional to a professional status.

The Copenhagen Games have just wrapped up a few weeks ago, and Ninjas in Pajamas, the runner-up from EMS one Katowice 2014, took the title by beating the EMS one Katowice champions, Virtus.Pro, in a thrilling 2-1 series. NiP took home 14K Euros. The following article outlines the highlights of the Grand Final. 

NiP win CPHG

All the E-Sports talk aside, I'm going to briefly talk through about the game play of Counter-Strike, and the main objective of the game:

The game, in the competitive mode, consists of 2 teams (Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists) of 5 players each, who go head to head on a map, for up to 30 rounds (rounds of approx. 2 minutes, first team to 16 rounds wins). The main objective (how to win a round) is to eliminate all enemies, or for the Terrorists to successfully plant and defend the bomb, or for the Counter-Terrorists to successfully defuse a planted bomb. The maps consist of 2 bomb sites across (the map) from each other, and the Terrorists must choose which bomb site to attack in order to safely plant the bomb. The game consists of many strategies, top competitive teams have countless strategies for a single map, and may just call whichever strategy suitable for the round.

In the next blog I will be talking more specifically about the top E-Sports organizations in CS:GO and share some of the history of the results of their teams in top CS tournaments, and how these organizations have helped E-Sports to stabilize over the years.  

My favourite starcraft tactics for each race-David Lee's last blog 08/05/2014

My favourite starcraft tactics for each race

Guys have u ever felt like "i need a professional starcraft tactic which will completely get opponent off guard?, but i am just a beginner and my are so slow" Nothing to worry guys !!
Guys today i will introduce you to some starcraft tactic used by the professionals, however it is not something only they can use.We can use it to as tactics that i will be introducing today is very simple and easy to follow. I have provided explanation and video for you understanding.

 

 

 

 

 

Protoss

My favourite tactic for protoss is shuttle reaver play, so how this works is that shuttle carrying the reaver will basically drop reaver to the enemy terrain because attack range of reaver is very long it is possible to destroy the enemy from the distance depending on where you land your reaver. This tactic is very efficient during middle game before flying unit is out, if the enemy has flying units it is quite difficult to get the reaver inside enemy's base.

Terran 

My favourite tactic in starcraft is bunkering,bunkering can be used both offensively and defensively.
However offensive bunkering can be really powerful if it is done properly, after locating the enemy base, send a small infantry strike force accompanied by SCVs. Build bunkers on the perimeter, load your troops in, and use your SCVs to repair any damage they sustain. This is a useful tactic in the early game to pressure your opponent and force them to cancel their early expansion, or to earn a quick victory by bunkering up to the mineral line.

 

 

Zerg

My favourite tactic for zerg is drone zergling rush, it is possible to win the game in less then 6 minute when you have fast hand. The first infantry units of Zergs are Zerglings. They are small and inexpensive Zerg units which can be produced quickly. A Zergling rush is the tactic of attacking an opponent with 6 or more Zergling units as early as permissible. The Zerg race is gladly favored concerning speed and power in the earliest moments of the game and the “Zerg Rush” strategy caught on really quick in wide scale.

Guyz sadly today's blog is my last post it's sad but i hope you gained bit of knowledge about starcraft from the post that i made. Guyz thanks for watching and see u soon

 

ESports - Dota 2 - Sean

We’ve got an exciting week coming up in the ‘Dota-verse’ of ESports!

In the Dreamhack tournament we have Week 8, with the following schedule:

 

Personally I’ll be going for ‘Na’Vi’ so good luck to them on their upcoming game!

But more importantly…

INTERNATIONAL TEAMS ANNOUNCED !!! - http://www.dotacinema.com/news/the-international-4-teams-announced

This is sooooooooooooooo exciting in the world of Esports when it comes to Dota 2, in fact, you could say that it is the BIGGEST event each year within the Dota 2 community.

 

This international is coming up in July, so close but so far!

Here's a trailer for 2013's international... It's pretty 'dramatic' and I believe the author doesn't speak English as their first language so the titles could be re-worded but still adds to the excitement nevertheless.

 

Anyway,

Another thing to note which is a huge change to Dota 2 is the recent update to the game, Patch 6.81 known as the ‘Spring Cleanup’. This fixes a huge amount of bugs and implements new variety to gameplay for various heroes within Dota 2.

You can find these updates here: http://www.dotacinema.com/news/spring-cleaning-update-brings-bug-fixes-galore

There’s some new changes to my favourite hero to play and watch professionals play is a hero known as ‘Timbersaw’.

He’s a hero that uses in-game ‘trees’ to his advantage, here’s a link to his profile.

http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Timbersaw

One of the exciting things about the latest patch for me is that he also has a model breakdown, which means fans can create new 3D assets for him to be used in-game to change his looks and aesthetics… Kind of like new clothes!

Till next time!

~Sean

E-Sports & FIFA 14 - 5/5/14 - Chris

E-Sports & FIFA 14 – Chris

FIFA 14 team tactics. Which one should I use? That is a common question that is asked by all casual gamers and professionals alike in the FIFA 14 online community. There are a variety of playing styles that can be reinforced in-game by making use of different team tactics. For example, if you want to play like Mourinho’s Chelsea, you would go ultra-defensive and counter attack. In contrast, Rodger’s Liverpool would be more of an attacking and possession styled game plan.

There are a variety of default team tactics that you can use such as team pressing, high pressure, counter-attack, possession, swap wings and centre back joins attack. However, FIFA 14 allows you to create your own unique gameplay style through the use of custom tactics.

I will now walk you through the individual factors that make up a custom tactic:

BUILD UP PLAY SETTINGS

• Speed: the faster the speed, the more your players will look to play balls ahead of the other players and make forward runs into space
• Passing: Short, mixed or long passing, your players will move accordingly
• Positioning: organised or freeform
• Organised: Defenders and midfielders do not stray away from their positions
• Freeform: Midfielders will cover defenders if defenders make runs up the pitch

CHANCE CREATION SETTINGS

• Passing: the higher the level, the riskier the passing, so the runs from other players will be more frequent
• Crossing: the higher the level, the faster players will aim to get into the 18-yard box in anticipation of a cross from the wings
• Shooting: the higher the level, the more space players will aim to get into to be able to take a first-time shot at goal
• Positioning: organised or freeform
• Organised: Attackers will remain close to their original positions during chance creation
• Freeform: Attackers will make overlapping runs and swap positions with other players to lose their markers

DEFENCE SETTINGS

• Pressure: the higher the level, the further up the pitch your team will press the opponents with the aim of winning back the ball
• Aggression: the higher the level, the more tackles your players will attempt
• Team Width: the higher the level, the wider the team will spread to aim to stop attacks
• Defender Line: cover or offside trap
• Cover: If a centre-back is beaten, a fullback will aim to stop the attacker and cover for the centre-back
• Offside Trap: The defence will aim to hold a high defensive line and force the opposition into playing themselves offside

Below you can watch a video on the creation of custom tactics, made by popular YouTuber, SensiFifa.

Stay tuned for next week’s FIFA 14 blog on the game’s most popular game mode FIFA Ultimate Team!

~~Chris

Starcraft competition and professionals

Brood war professional competition

Starcraft was a big hit internationally however starcraft had an active professional competition circuit, particularly in South Korea.There were 2 major channles called Ongamenet and MBCGame which ran starcraft league. These channels were really popular in korea with millions of fans viewing the show. Back in 2002 to 2009 before starcraft 2 came out neally every young men in korea played starcraft and at minimum knew the game.

Professional gamers

Now i will talk about well know professial gamer for each race!

1. Zerg: Most well known player for Zerg is Jae dong Lee user ID known as n.Die_Jaedong. He is known as the "Lord of Destruction", and the "Tyrant" for his dynamic and offensive play style. He is known for his incredible micro of mutalisks, his trademark unit. His Zerg vTerran and ZergvZerg are among the best the progaming scene has ever witnessed, and he is currently regarded as the best Zerg player, if not the best player overall.

1. Protos: Most well known player of Protoss is Kim Taek yong user name known as the Bisu[shield]. Bisu is known as the "Revolutionist" for his strong Prtoss vZerg, and changing how Protoss players play the matchup.

1. Terran: Most well known player of Terran is Lee Yun Yeol he is known as "Genius Terran" (also known as "Tornado Terran") He has a consistent and dominating style, backed up with excellent macro. Once believed to also have the best micro among all StarCraft players (e.g. Nada's Vultures), in fact, Nada's infantry army was considered unbeatable for a long time.He is top top player in starcraft as is also regarded as one of the best.

But !!! the best player in starcraft history is not NADA, BISU not Jaedong.

The best player in the history of starcraft is we all know is

Im yo hwan also known as slayers boxer boxer is known as the emperor terran he dominated th starcraft league he was known for his highly creative play which made him a popular StarCraft player. He is also one of, if not the most, successful as he is the first (of two) StarCraft player to win the World Cyber Games (WCG). His style of play is dominance of the game and he always come up with tatics to get out of dangerous situation.

In next blog post we will talk about differernt tatics in starcraft so stay tune