Author: Jimmy “Infernal” Young
The company behind YaLLa Compass, YaLLa Esports, has announced the return of its tournament circuit for 2025. The United Arab Emirates-based tournament organizer has two S-tier LAN events planned across the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, offering a combined $1.5 million prize pool. According to HLTV, the first LAN Final is scheduled to take place from April 15-20.The tournament’s open qualifiers are set to commence on July 29, 2024, followed by two additional open qualifiers planned for Q4 2024 and Q1 2025.The qualifying format is like the one used by YaLLa for its Compass 2024 tournament, featuring Spring…
ESL has decided to eliminate the best-of-one format from IEM Cologne 2024. According to the announcement, this change was prompted by “player and community feedback.”The organizers initially planned for the Play-In stage to include best-of-one games, but they recently changed the format to a best-of-three series instead. This new match format will be used for the entire main tournament, except the best-of-five grand final.The recent change has been met with enthusiasm by numerous community leaders. Notably, analyst Janko ‘YNk’ PaunoviÄ is among those who have openly backed this decision.The Play-In stage is scheduled for August 7, featuring 16 teams competing…
IEM Cologne 2024 is an S-tier tournament that will be held from August 7 to August 18. There will be 24 teams featured; eight got direct invites, and sixteen teams will have to fight through the Play-In stage. The prize pool is $1 million, and not only that, but 1st place in IEM Cologne 2024 will also get a direct invite to IEM Katowice 2025 and BLAST Premier World Final. You will find the IEM Cologne 2024 tournament format and a list of participating teams here below.IEM Cologne 2024 Tournament FormatPlay-In:Double-Elimination bracketOpening matches are Bo1All following matches are Bo3The top…
BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2024 is an S-tier tournament that will be held from July 26 to August 4 at BLAST Studio in Copenhagen. There will be sixteen teams featured who will have to fight for the prize pool of $190,000.00 and spots at the Fall Final. Among the participants, we have teams that any CS2 fan already knows – it’s Natus Vincere, who won the latest major tournament, PGL Major Copenhagen 2024; FaZe, who were the vice-champions of the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024; Vitality, Team Spirit with what might be on of the most talented young players ‘d0nk’ and…
Audric ‘JACKZ’ Jug and Richard ‘ritchiEE’ Mestdagh have officially become part of the Project G team. They have joined forces with Sean ‘eraa’ Knutsson, Arek ‘Vegi’ Nawojski, and Erik ‘truth’ Hansen Dyrnes to form a roster that will be competing without an organization during the upcoming Fall season.Following his benching from TSM in January, ‘JACKZ’ is now making a comeback to the competitive scene, having been teamless since the organization fell short in their bid to qualify for PGL Major Copenhagen.In April, ‘JACKZ’ was let go by TSM. He made a surprising appearance as a substitute for Cloud9’s BLAST Premier…
Ksenia ‘vilga’ Kluenkova has officially joined NIP Impact after standing in for two months, filling the spot left by Jennica ‘jenkon’ Sjögren and taking on leadership duties for the Fall season.After narrowly missing the ESL Impact League Season 5 Finals qualification in April, the 32-year-old was left without a team when her project, Fearless Cheetahs, disbanded.Missing the Impact League Finals for the first time was a tough blow for ‘vilga’, especially since it happened just months after she was replaced by Zainab ‘zAAz’ Turkie on Nigma Galaxy.After Fearless Cheetahs disbanded, ‘vilga’ joined NIP Impact and won ESL Impact Spring Cash Cup 5…
Imperial signs Santino ‘try’ Rigal, who left 9z’s roster in October for health reasons. Despite wanting to return in March, he has been sidelined since then.The Brazilian veteran was part of the active roster for a year and contributed to an impressive run at PGL Major Copenhagen, helping the team advance through the Challengers Stage and improve their HLTV world rankings. However, the team’s performance has declined, leading to this move.The player ‘try’ achieved a rating of 1.14 (with an impact of 1.12) over 135 maps during his ten-month tenure with 9z. However, he has yet to play an official…
23-year-old Adam ‘NEOFRAG’ Zouhar announced on Tuesday that he has mutually terminated his contract with SINNERS, making him a free agent in the esports scene.The departure signifies the conclusion of the Czech player’s second tenure with SINNERS. After five months, he was sidelined from the team in May. Both the organization and the player clarified that the decision was based on conflicting visions rather than statistical performance at the time.NEOFRAG StatementKeep up with our coverage for more insights on the latest esports news and updates.
Saudi Arabia will host the first Olympic Esports Games in 2025, with subsequent editions to be held regularly, per the IOC announcement. This follows IOC president Thomas Bach’s recent statement about the approval of introducing esports in the Olympic program during the XXXIII Olympiad in Paris.The full details of the Olympic Esports Games will be released later. The IOC plans to create a separate structure focused on esports, separate from its usual operations. It will establish a new dedicated structure within its organization, clearly separated from the organizational and financial model for the Olympic Games.IOC Official AnnouncementThe IOC’s partnership with…
Henrique ‘HEN1’ Teles has been removed from Imperial’s CS2 roster, according to an announcement from the Brazilian organization. This decision follows reports of Imperial engaging in discussions with 9z to acquire their benched AWPer, Santino ‘try’ Rigal. Notably, Santino has already been added to Imperial’s roster for ESL Challenger Season 48 South America.After a year of dedicated service, ‘HEN1’ has left the active roster. During his time, he played a pivotal role in helping Imperial qualify for the prestigious PGL Major Copenhagen and successfully progress through the event’s initial stage.Imperial Official AnnouncementImperial roster now is as follows:João ‘â felpsâ ‘ VasconcellosVinicius ‘VINIâ ‘…