Author: Pedro Romero
For many, it feels like North America is in a bit of a downward spiral when it comes to League of Legends. Although it features major teams like Cloud9 and Team Liquid, with each laying their mark in the region’s league history, it is also in the midst of major struggles to find its footing. Besides the region’s ongoing struggles on the competitive front, where they managed to send two teams to the knockout stage in the past six events (Worlds and MSI), it has been the subject of intense scrutiny and concern due to a downward trend in viewership,…
Following 100 Thieves’ win over Leviatan in the 2023 VCT Americas League season, a surge of expectations began behind their bid to be one of the competition’s best teams. That being said, with Week 5 and a date against NRG Esports on the horizon, the belief surrounding the team was that they could push their opponents aside and continue their momentum to make Playoffs.Unfortunately for 100T, as their series with NRG played out, that didn’t happen. Despite starting well on Bind with a set of brilliant individual plays, they fell to the opposing team 13-7 on the returning map of…
As the 2023 VCT Americas League season begins to wind down, rising in tandem is the sense of urgency for distressed teams to put up good results. The initial inconsequential window of experimenting with new agent comps has well and truly closed shut, and as a result of leaning on that direction for too long, the teams embroiled by it suddenly found themselves in danger of missing out on international competition.Such was the state for NRG who were 1-3 and outside of the playoff picture when they lost to Cloud9 2-1 in the third day of Super Week. However, following…
Undoubtedly, all eyes of the VCT Americas landscape were on Sentinels before the start of Super Week, a critical point in the 2023 season. Following their Week 3 loss to Leviatan, Sentinels announced the removal of Don ‘SyykoNT’ Muir as head coach and the addition of Jimmy ‘Marved’ Nguyen to the starting lineup for Tyson ‘TenZ’ Ngo, who became sidelined after suffering a finger injury and a COVID infection.With the addition of Marved, Sentinels moved Zachary ‘zekken’ Patrone to the starting duelist role to place the incoming player in his usual role. That also put the 18-year-old back in his…
Although the third year of VCT Game Changers is barely reaching the halfway point, it has already created numerous key moments all across the world. Teams emerging to become their respective region’s champions, individuals distinguishing themselves as the next big thing, and storylines beginning to unravel within the general competitive field of teams are all things fans have seen so far.As the eyes of the GC scene begin to gravitate towards Sao Paulo, Brazil, where this year’s GC Championship will be held, speculation has begun over which teams fans will see in the famous city. Taking that into consideration, BLIX.GG…
On top of being billed as the one of the most anticipated series in the 2023 VCT Americas League’s Super Week, there was an air of uncertainty surrounding the match between LOUD and Sentinels. Shortly after the conclusion of Week 3, Sentinels announced the removal of Don ‘SyykoNT’ Muir as head coach and the substitution of Jimmy ‘Marved’ Nguyen for Tyson ‘TenZ’ Ngo. That meant Sentinels faced LOUD, who came into the series as the only undefeated team in the league, as an entirely different teamFor LOUD, Sentinels’ sudden changes didn’t present them with any favors either. Playing against a…
The 2023 VCT North American Game Changers season kicked off with the main event of Series 1 and’ after four days of competition’ it was Version1 who came out on top, defeating Shopify Rebellion GC 3-0 in the grand finals. Even after the legendary Cloud9 White dissolved following the 2022 season, some of its remnants continue to uphold their place at the top of NA in GC with Melanie “meL” Capone and Alexis “alexis” Guarasi capturing their seventh consecutive title.Meanwhile, the rest of V1, Nicole ‘Noia’ Tierce, Ava ‘florescent’ Eugene, and Sarah ‘sarahcat’ Simpson obtain their first GC title in…
In the second part of BLIX.GG’s interview with League of Legends caster and analyst Athena ‘Kitty’ Jiang, she covers her experience working in the 2022 Mid-Season Invitational and offers a brief career retrospective regarding her contribution to women in esports. The first part of the interview can be found here.Appearing in MSI 2022Pedro Romero, BLIX.GG: Anxiety is one thing that you experienced a lot of throughout your life and not just in your career. For you specifically, how did you adjust yourself in a way that didn’t allow anxiety to hamper your work as much as it used to and…
When Australian-Chinese League of Legends talent Athena ‘Kitty’ Jiang received the confirmation of her joining the League Pro League (LPL) for its 2023 English broadcasts, she saw it as a dream come true. Having worked in broadcasting as an analyst and a caster for the League Circuit of Oceania (LCO) since 2022 and a content creator since 2019, her joining one of the biggest and best domestic leagues in all of LoL esports was a cornerstone moment in her career.Such a move, besides providing Kitty with additional invaluable experience in working at the highest level of LoL broadcasting, allowed her…
KRU Esports dropped their second series of the season by falling to MIBR 2-1 in Week 2 of the 2023 VCT Americas League. The Latin American side opened the series with a resounding 13-9 victory on Ascent, but on Lotus, their momentum was brought to a halt.Even after KRU selected Gekko for Lotus and were ahead 8-4 in the first half, when they switched to defense, they dropped nine of the next 12 rounds to extend the series to a third and final map – Pearl. MIBR looked poised to run away with the map thanks to the tune of…