fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
Bajpayee is Bollywood’s greatest storyteller
By: Aiswarya Chandrashekar
Tags: Movie, Bollywood, Narrative

Bajpayee is Bollywood’s greatest storyteller

Image Courtesy: India TV

I think Manoj Bajpayee (This is who he is) is Bollywood’s greatest storyteller. At first, on watching him, I didn’t really feel any sense of attraction towards him that one feels for an actor, but then I was uneasily aware of his presence in the script and on the screen (Can you believe this guy was in Bandit Queen? Yeah that’s right). He was willing to take up smaller roles with big meat and some big roles with no meat, but some minuscule screen presence and that’s about it. There was also a sort of small-town garishness to him, coming from one of India’s aspirational states and bringing the baggage with him that must have been difficult to bear. At times it made him a bit clumsy.

He also married a lesser-known actress and settled. It was clear to the gen pop that there was an actor that was trying hard to no avail to create space on the platform of films. But this too was Bajpayee’s story, this too was his appeal wherein, he didn’t hide the fact that he didn’t have sex appeal and was relying solely on his intensity of acting to propel his career and make some money; he came across to us as honest. This struggle to come to the fore added to his story. His internal struggles slowly became evident in his characters in his later years, one being a loner (also gay) in Aligarh; even his larger-than-life roles like that of Gangs of Wasseypur that brought crudity, but then he related with that character and the murkiness it brought to the screen, as he mentions in this interview

Bajpayee’s story is not that of a regular one, with highs and lows and then a happy ending. He went through a period of absolute low in the early 2000s; the kind that could test an actor’s patience and set them out of the game. Bajpayee on the other hand channeled what I presume must have been rage into almost any role he bagged. He could have been a pillar on the screen and still brought in applauds, for he ‘became’ the pillar. For me, Bajpayee as an actor didn’t exist, I didn’t know where he dined or what was his daughter’s name, what lived on, who were the characters that he played on screen and all the magic he brought to it.

By far, I guess Family Man is a sort of rhapsody — — -, a happy ending (Also the beginning of his third act), to his career, he had outperformed and the audience today, that loves social media is lapping in his interviews and talks. I read in an interview that he gave in ‘the Hindu’ that he apparently secludes himself into a hotel room when he is preparing for a role. I found myself picturizing him, just so I can understand how he does it. How he delivers.

Facebook threw in my feed a masterclass of acting that Bajpayee was now teaching….well, Good for him!

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What Phillies Fans Can Be Thankful For: 2010 Edition
By: Phillies Phollowers
Tags: Dailies, Derek Jeter, Mets, MLB

Welcome to my annual Thanksgiving list! As you are spending time with family and filling your bellies, take a few moments to think about all we can be thankful for. I am very thankful for:

- Family, friends, food and fun!

- I am not a Washington Nationals fan

- A Phillies team that is filled not only with quality players, but quality people as well

- 4 straight years of October baseball

- Philly controversies, like the taser gun, for their sheer entertainment value

- This ESPN commercial; because it might be the funniest thing I have ever seen:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M06kTVwXUs4&fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b]

- Mets fans — because they make me giggle

- Sold out crowds every night!

- Umpires — because they make me feel really smart

- Seeing Roy Halladay pitch a playoff game no-hitter

- Other Phillies fans! Even the weird ones ;o)

- The 2008 World Championship! Because it will never get old :O)

This Thanksgiving, what are you thankful for? Leave your thoughts in the comment section.

And there is just one more thing to be thankful for; everything you see in this slideshow below:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhDFiAToinU&fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Phillies Roster Moves
By: Phillies Phollowers
Tags: Dailies, MLB, Dan Meyer

Phillies Roster Moves

The Phillies added one more alumni back to the organization this week. Former Phils All-Star 2nd baseman, Mickey Morandini has been assigned to manage Class A Williamsport next season. He had been coaching High School baseball and also helped out the Phillies during Spring Training over the past several years as well. Morandini joins other former teammates hired this offseason in coaching roles including Juan Samuel and Ryne Sandberg.

Earlier this week as well, the Phillies picked out 5 young players to add to the 40-man roster in order to protect them from being selected in the Rule-5 draft. This is the current roster below with those 5 players highlighted in blue and I added their fielding positions as well:

In addition to these players, 12 non-roster players have been invited to Spring Training:

Josh Barfield, INF

Eddie Bonine, RHP

Tagg Bozied, INF/OF

Ryan Feierabend, LHP

Erik Kratz, C

Jeff Larish, INF

Dan Meyer, LHP

Matt Miller, OF

Brandon Moss, OF

Pete Orr, INF

Juan Perez, LHP

Dane Sardinha, C

Most of these players have a good amount of major league experience and if they do not make the team, they will probably help fill up the AAA roster. It is thought that if southern Jersey native Dan Meyer is healthy, he may have a shot at a bullpen spot. And Pete Orr could end up as a utility man since he plays multiple positions. The rest are long shots.

This list of players also means we have likely seen the last of Mike Sweeney, which is very sad. Many had hoped he would at least get an invitation to spring training as he was a powerful positive force in the clubhouse since arriving in Philly. He may choose to retire; whatever he does, we wish him the best! Sweeney’s team spirit and upbeat attitude will be missed.

Photo by Jenn Zambri Photography

*Read more about the Phillies at my other home page, Phightin’ Phils Phorum in the My Team Rivals network*
CS Top 20 from a nobody: #5-#1
By: Lukas Dewitt
Tags: Esports, Csgo, Counter Strike, Sports, CSS

s1mple (Na’Vi)

All Matches: 1.34 (241) [#1]

Big Events: 1.34 (150) [#1]

Online: 1.36 (73) [#1]

Majors: 1.29 (18) [#1]

Top Events:

DreamHack Masters Marseille — 1.52 [#1]*

EPICENTER 2018–1.45 [#1]

BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen — 1.43 [#1]

Overview

To no one’s surprise, s1mple tops the list as the best player in Counter-Strike in 2018. Event after event, s1mple dominated everyone on the same server as him and is undeniably the most talented player in the world. His normal numbers are already insane, but we got to see s1mple hit statistical feats that players have never achieved at tier one events. His place at the top of the list deserved without contention as he stands as the most talented Counter-Strike player in the world.

Why?

Putting anyone other than s1mple would be flat out incorrect. He is top five in 14 of 21 statistical categories and ranks first in EIGHT of them across all formats in 2018. His success as an entry fragger alone is unmatchable at this level of competition. In just the context of top 10 teams, s1mple has an opening duel success rate of 65% on the year with a 1.26 rating. He is statistically the most impactful fragger in the world and at the same time, has the second lowest deaths per round in the world. In every which way, s1mple can dominate a game and that’s why he is the best player in the world.

**Prediction

S1mple’s individual skill level will go nowhere but up but he will not be seeing any team success with the current lineup he is in. If Zeus does retire after 2019 like he claims, it will be nice to seeing s1mple and electronic in a fresh lineup. In the world of fantasy where say Virtus.Pro or Na’Vi decided to buyout young CIS talent, it would be fun to see a lineup of s1mple, electronic, Jame, qikert and chopper. Sooner rather than later I want to see someone give s1mple the teammates he deserves.
eSports: What parents need to know
By: Doki Technologies
Tags: Esports, Children, Parenting, Gaming, Family

Since it’s inception in 2017, Fornite has taken the gaming world by storm. In a little over a year, there are more than 125 million Fortnite players and the game has helped generate a record $318 million in revenue for EPIC Games in May. If you’ve seen your kids doing these dance moves, you have Fornite to thank for that.

As technology will inevitably play an increasingly pivotal role in our children’s lives, some parents are taking eSports very seriously, some even hiring their kids Fornite coaches in hopes of getting a College scholarship. So is eSports here to stay, and if so, is it a viable career path for our children? Let’s find out.

It pays (very) well:

Players on the best eSports teams in the world like Team Liquid have earned more $18 million in prize money, not to mention sponsorship deals and other lucrative opportunities, in such a new sport, that’s an awful lot of money.

It’s (already) super popular:

The League of Legends World Championship, a tournament held each year for the popular MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) game, garnered over 60 million views in 2017 shattering 2016’s record. The 2018 tournament is being held right now and viewership is on pace to break 2017’s record. eSports has been extremely popular in South Korea in the past decade and there are many professional teams, where many of the world’s best players play.

Start young:

Unlike other pro leagues like the NFL, NBA, or MLB, where the prime years of a player is in their late twenties to early thirties, pro gamers peak at a much earlier age.

Take League of Legends as an example, the average age of a pro gamer is 21.2 years of age, compared to 29.2 of a pro baseball player. It’s no wonder why some parents see fit to start their kids early.

It promotes teamwork, task management and strategic thinking:

Contrary to popular belief that much of video games are simply mindless pursuits that often involve violence, the games that pro gamers play are much more complex and involve lots of team work and planning. In fact, according to British eSports, gaming actually promotes traits like teamwork, task management, and strategic thinking. It also brings in a social element where kids can make friends with other kids online and form new friendships. It’s certainly changed from the days when kids in the past simply played standalone games on their gameboy.

To sum up, despite what we might think the negative impact that video games may bring to our kids, it’s important to look deeper than the superficial details and really consider it as a potential avenue for skill development. We should only expect things to accelerate much faster in the digital age, so our preconceived notions won’t always be beneficial for our kids futures. Next time your kids playing video games, consider joining in, you may learn a new thing or two!

This article was written by Doki Technologies, a tech company aimed at creating smart devices for kids.
2018 in СS:GO: victories, scandals, disbands
Tags: Esports, Csgo, Games

2018 in СS:GO: victories, scandals, disbands

2018 was full of bright events in the CS:GO world.

The year began with a major in Boston, where the American team Cloud9 unexpectedly won the day for everyone, beating FaZe Clan in the final.

Cloud9 failed to consolidate at the top: Stewie2k moved to the Brazilian SK/MIBR team and the team began to slowly fall apart.

It is worth noting the good performance of the CIS teams in this tournament. Vega Squadron and Quantum Bellator Fire were really cool.

The main scandal in 2018 is the situation with Forsaken from OpTiC India, who was caught with cheats right on the LAN tournament. The situation became “memed” because of the cheat file name — word.exe. The player was banned from playing in tournaments for 5 years.

Not a year without disintegration of teams. The most serious upheavals were the collapses of Cloud9 and SK/MIBR. The Brazilian line-up decided to get rid of boltz and TACO, replacing them with Stewie2k and tarik from Cloud9. Stewie’s departure from the American team launched the process of team breakup: Skadoodle soon announced the end of his esports career.

Stewie’s transition to MIBR did not bring the desired result. The main problem was called the communication. Later, tarik joined the team, but the team did not play. And by the end of 2018, MIBR decided to return the Brazilian line-up by exchanging Stewie2k and tarik for TACO and Zews (coach) at Cloud9.

Team of the year can certainly be called Astralis. After an unsuccessful performance at ELEAGUE Major: Boston, the Danish team noticeably added during the year. Astralis won a large number of tournaments and FACEIT Major: London 2018. They also became the first team to win the Intel Grand Slam, which brought $1,000,000.

Join Cs.money http://bit.ly/2AEIfzy
Your Team’s Culture— By Design or By Default?
Tags: Leadership, Culture, Esports, Leadership Skills

“Every team and every unit has a culture, either by design, or by default.”

I have one goal for writing this short post: I want you to think about the culture you’re in and figure out what’s needed to move away from “by default”. That’s it.

I’m not telling you what the culture should be. I’m not suggesting how you should design it. That’s up to you and your leadership to determine. But don’t let it get set by default.

“By default” is below the line.

Above the Line is done on purpose and with skill. Stop autopiloting.

A powerful truth that takes only a few minutes of reflection to convince yourself of — a scary truth to those on teams, or leading organizations, that can’t answer the question of their culture’s design.

“Every team and every unit has a culture, either by design, or by default.”

An autopilot mentality leads many organizations and teams to “default” into a culture. Often times this default will reflect one or some of the personalities of the unit, commonly a vocal personality.

With better leaders and better role models, sometimes the “default” culture that gets imprinted upon the team or organization is a good one, at least not a bad one.

Said another way, if the leader is a hard working, driven, inspiring personality who’s constantly striving to improve — well that’s a good outline for a possible culture.

But if the culture defaults to mimic a personality that does “enough to get by”, or puts on a show to LOOK like they’re putting in the work (without actually working)…

Laziness, lack of discipline, apathy — little to no drive to get better. Those are the qualities that are allowed to set in when the culture is left to “by default”. And once they’re in?

Well, you’re in for an excessively uphill battle if you were hoping to accomplish anything of greatness.

Culture compounds over time, and the longer it lingers after being left to “default”… it might be better to start planning a rebuild.

“I don’t even know what kind of culture we have”, you might be thinking, and that’s common enough.

So if you’re not sure what the culture of your team or organization is, consider this:

The culture is what leads when no one is watching. It is what’s practiced, promoted, and permitted.

Map that to the actions (or lack of action) that take place when culture is running the show, and you’ll know what kind of culture you’re dealing with.

Spend a few minutes and reflect, and if you found this particularly thought provoking, feel free to share with others.
PCS #3 EU & NA Grand Final Stage Week 2 Matches Are Completed
By: Can, Otoyoldireği
Tags: Esport, Gaming, Pubg

Source: PUBG Corp.

We are closing in to the end of year with many intense competitive events all around the esports scene, and PUBG Continental Series is at its best with the exciting Battle Royale dose we all crave.

In PCS #3, we are watching best 16 teams of European and North American stage each. This means that every match is a whole new story with untold possibilities to affect the results of this huge competition for $200,000 prize pool. While NA region is clearly dominated by last champion Soniqs loud and clear, Europe is witnessing a crazy competition every single match.

First week of EU matches were completed with Tornado Energy on the lead while Northern Lights and Digital Athletics were on a close pursuit for the leadership. Second week went through literally a scrambling of rankings throughout the 8-match run, and in the end we finally see a Turkish team, Digital Athletics, on the lead with 10 points of difference. Especially the second match of second day was a true celebration for Turkish fans as last two teams standing were Digital Athletics and the other Turkish team in the series, ETiGET Esports. ETiGET also showed a truly impressive performance in the second week, managing to jump to 12th place from the 16th.

Tornado Energy and Northern Lights are now on a close pursuit with 131 points both. Behind them, Team Liquid is coming up pretty strong with 125 points, definitely maintaining their position for a very possible attempt on gaining the lead position in the last week. Rest of the teams are battling for the remaining four spots to get a slice from the prize pool in the end, unless one of them decides to go on a rampage and stir up the leaderboards.

North American rankings are not as close as European rankings, though last week’s runner-up Team Veritas lost its pace very quickly and fell back to 9th place. Instead we are seeing Guadalajara Gascans with an impressive 160 points, chasing Soniqs with 25 points of difference. Third team Oath is proving stable with a smooth progress, standing solid like a gatekeeper for the top 3. Like a tradition already, the determining factor of top spots remains to be the points difference in Miramar map.

Last matches of North America and Europe will be played on 19th–20th and 21st-22nd of November respectively. These final weeks will be absolutely crazy, especially with the head-to-head positions of European teams. Make sure to tune into twitch.tv/pubg and watch the action live.
DreamTeam For The Holidays
Tags: Gaming, League of Legends, Game Development, Esport, News

Instead of upgrading to version 9.1, Riot Games made minor changes to the game and labeled the patch 8.24b. Our previous composition is viable despite some nerfs, so this edition is mostly a holiday alternative to what we suggested last week. Feel free to revisit the pieces next week, since the devs are not going to change anything before the holiday break ends.

The numbers represent Platinum+ stats from the Korean server as of December 13, 14:00 CET

Top: Pantheon

Pantheon (wins 53.37% of games) became the second most successful champion in the top lane. On average, he prevails in 30 out of 55 tracked matchups. The champion shreds assassins and mages alike, although he struggles against the FOTM like Cassiopeia (46.47%) and Karthus (48.08%).

Should you pick Pantheon for his burst potential and global presence, max Q for harass. Buy Youmuu’s Ghostblade, Duskblade of Draktharr and The Black Cleaver for a good balance of damage, armor reduction and health points.

Jungle: Nunu & Willump

Nothing was changed for Nunu in 8.24b, but he managed to reach the best current win rate in the Jungle (53.3%). It most likely has to do with short games throughout the preseason. Great early game control of objectives literally wins you games, and Nunu is unmatched when it comes to that.

Since we are focusing on objective control, max Q to use it as a second Smite. The item build is Enchantment: Cinderhulk->Dead Man’s Plate->Spirit Visage. Get Visage first if most enemy carries are dealing magic damage.

Mid: Cassiopeia

We discussed Cassiopeia’s strengths last week, so I’ll be brief. There’s no escaping her. A minor mana cost increase and base damage decrease on her Q didn’t affect her in Mid (54.8%), because this is the lane in which you can recall often.

The skill and item builds are the same. Max Q for poke and purchase Luden’s Echo->Rylai’s Crystal Scepter->Liandry’s Torment. Oh, and a shout-out to everyone who noticed our sneaky joke on the boots choice from the previous edition (Cassi can’t buy any).

Read more on our blog…

About DreamTeam:

DreamTeam is the ultimate teambuilding and skill-growing platform that solves problems for hundreds of millions of gamers who want to find teammates, improve skills, manage teams, and earn money.

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DreamHack — Recap
By: Linus Olsson
Tags: Esports, Events, Gaming, Stockholm

DreamHack — Recap

DreamHack was amazing! The event was well organized, the player lineup was fantastic, and of course we were proud to be part of organizing the Fan Award.

The Fan Award went to Marcus “ThorZaIN” Eklöf who clearly was the crowd favorite. He also won the entire competition in a tough final against Polt from South Korea. I had seen ThorZaIN play before but this time he really blew my mind with how good he was. This guy will get far, and it’s so cool that he’s Swedish as well!

Most flattrs went to Swedish players which may indicate that we have trouble reaching out to e.g. South Korea where most top players come from. Maybe we should translate Flattr into Korean? In fact, I just added it to Crowdin. Help us translate to Korean here!

All in all we had a blast and the DreamHack guys are so fun to work with. We’re already discussing of doing this for further events, so please tell us in the comments if you think this a good idea or if you have any suggestions for how we could improve the concept.

Me and others at the office also have backgrounds within eSports and, as many tech companies out there, are playing and watching a lot of StarCraft. So we are super excited to continue working more with StarCraft casters, interviewers, barcraft organizers and map makers, moving eSport forward!
“write Juan.”
By: Juan A. R.
Tags: Esports, Engineering, Personal, Work, Hobby

A lot of phrases ring in my head during my daily stuff (I can’t really call something as chaotic as my life a routine right now), but the one I’ll start with is one I learned at my job straight out of college,

“Bottom line up front.”

I’m here to start writing a blog, I have no experience doing so, and I haven’t quite properly defined what I’m looking to get out of it beyond these three goals:

1. Improving my communication skills.

2. Giving my thoughts a place to exist where I can process them and where those I am close to can find them if they would like.

3. Attempting to reframe my reflection to include more positive experiences, sharing them will help (and any readers get something fun or warm).

That being said, I am kind of a talkative person so 1a. might be not boring the reader with excessive detail. I’ll probably look into techniques other writers use to avoid doing that. But while I work on that, please bear with me.

These are mostly selfish reasons, but this is on an online platform. So, if you happen to read this, who am I? What am I doing?

Well, at the time of writing it’s 1:36am and I’m in an “interesting” hotel in Dongguan with not much of a desire to sleep before work tomorrow, it seems.

My name is Juan, and deciding to write is a big reflective step that I’m taking…

My intention for the rest of this post is to provide an overview of everything I want to write about, in so doing, this will also serve as an introduction, so here goes.
Overwatch League, The Future of eSports
Tags: Esports, Blizzard Entertainment, Overwatch

Overwatch League, The Future of eSports

The Overwatch League’s second season starts February 14, 2019. After a highly successful first season where the finals drew more than 10 million online views (not including broadcasts on ESPN and Disney XD), Blizzard, the company behind Overwatch and its associated eSports league, hopes to continue to build upon its earlier success. Although the Overwatch League is not the most watched eSports game today (that title is held by League of Legends), I believe it has the funding, backing, and popularity to become the dominant player in the space.

Regional Based Teams: The Overwatch League is the first eSports league to have city-specific teams around the world. This allows new fans to immediately have a team they can cheer for which reduces barriers to entry when you have to get to know players in the previous model. Furthermore, this encourages investment by ‘traditional’ team owners such as Robert Kraft (owner of the New England Patriots) and Stan Kroenke (owner of the LA Rams) which is critical for funding and clout.

Professional Sports Owners: By having investors such as Kraft and Kroenke, the Overwatch League has deep pocketed partners who are experienced in business and sports and have a vested interested in ensuring the success of the league.

Slick Production: Blizzard built a dedicated venue in Burbank to house Season 1 and 2 of the Overwatch League matches. It is a state-of-the-art facility with wall-wrapping screens that highlight the high-level game play. Furthermore, the production has experienced moderators and analysts with great shout casters for the play-by-play calls. This gave viewers a fun experience watching online and also followed a similar structure as professional sports with a halftime where analysts reviewed the first half and gave predictions for the second half. It was all very familiar.

Amateur Discovery: The Overwatch League has a built-in amateur discovery system with the Overwatch Open and Overwatch Contenders. The former culls talent from the best players (not currently in the league) around the world into a structured tournament to showcase their skills and get discovered. If they perform well, they can be pulled into Overwatch Contenders which can be seen as the minor leagues with multiple teams around the world. From here, Overwatch League teams can sign the most promising players to their teams. This system creates a great pipeline of players and allows those interested in competing at the highest level an avenue to get there.

I have faith that Overwatch will be the dominant eSports player in the near future and other video games will attempt to emulate Blizzard’s success to various degrees. With their first-mover advantage, Blizzard is able to lock down the major, influential investors around the world while continuing to build upon their promising start.
The Spectator
By: Major Castleman
Tags: Esports, Gaming, League of Legends, Competitive Gaming

The Spectator

Esports is the next frontier in the realm of competition. It has everything you could ever ask for in modern sports: governing bodies, dedicated venues (the Esports Stadium Arlington being a recent example), organizations (names like Cloud 9 and Team Liquid) analogous to the New England Patriots or the New Orleans Saints, players, coaches, owners, etc. The whole infrastructure is there and thriving…and waiting.

But why wait? Well, for a long time, video games have been considered a very niche, counter productive hobby and was highly frowned upon. Those of us who enjoyed playing games more than our “culturally appropriate” fair share felt forced to hide our gaming habits for fear of being ostracized and made fun of.

It wasn’t until a few years into YouTube’s life cycle that videos of other people playing games (termed “Let’s Play”) became popular. Of course, videos of professional play was likely difficult to find (I can’t guarantee this, since I’ve only become super invested in esports in the past few years), but the rise of streaming services, both on YouTube itself and Twitch has helped professional play become accessible to avid spectators everywhere. As more money gets invested in the industry, mostly from tech and traditional sports ownership, the viability of esports, and a competitor’s ability to make a true living from it rises.

I’m not here to give a history of the entire esports industry, others have done that already in some form or fashion. But what I am here to do is to fill a void Medium has in the esports category: actual esports news (roster changes, results of important matches, etc.) from the perspective of a spectator. I’ve been writing (academically, then for business) for almost 12 years, and I’ve been watching esports for three; it’s time for me put my knowledge and skills to good use.

The Finals of the KeSPA Cup between Gen G and Griffin will be January 1st at 5pm KST. Later today I’ll have a breakdown of the teams, what I see as their strengths and weaknesses, and their paths to victory. Keep a look out, you won’t want to miss it.

Author’s Note: A previous version of this story stated the finals match would take place on December 31st in Korea. This was incorrect.
Asura World X Phantasma Partnership Announcement
By: Asura World
Tags: Esports, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Gaming, Crypto

Asura World X Phantasma Partnership Announcement

Asura World is proud to announce a partnership with Phantasma, a partnership that will empower both companies to grow in users and adoption of our platforms.

Through this partnership Phantasma will feature Asura World within their Phantasma app under the eSports/Gaming category and support the ASA token directly through their wallet and app.

As both projects develop further into the partnership, other possibilities of collaborations will also be explored all for the greater purpose of growth.

What is Phantasma?

Phantasma introduces a decentralized content distribution system running on the blockchain, with strong emphasis on privacy and security. The goal of Phantasma Chain is to provide a new and adaptable framework to fill the needs for data management from dApps.

The focus will be on NFT technology and to improve the user-friendliness within the crypto-space. We will support all the best dApps from all different blockchains in one app: The Phantasma App.

What is Asura Coin?

Asura World aims to be the ultimate eSport platform online and a completely self-regulated one.

The Asura platform aims to create a gamers’ utopia. It will hand power back to the gaming community, and allow players from all around the world to bet, compete, learn, and discuss — all while earning tokens along the way!

As a member of the Asura community, YOU get to have your say in how the platform runs.

Voting will occur regularly on the growth of the platform and Asura’s unique betting creator.

The betting system is comprised of Asura’s own odds, and will be facilitated through completely transparent smart contracts to ensure fairness.

In addition to tournament hosting and betting, Asura will also provide in-depth professional guides or coaching to develop players at both a competitive level and for self-development. These paid services will provide deserving coaches a source of income for providing value to their fellow community members.

A forum will also be provided to discuss anything to do with your favorite games, with a built-in reputation system [community points] that provides yet another way to earn tokens for your contributions.

Games initially supported on the Asura platform will include CS:GO, Dota 2, King of Glory, League of Legends, PUBG, Fortnite, and Clash Royale.

For more information about Phantasma Chain:

Website: https://Phantasma.io/

Telegram Channel: https://t.me/phantasma_io

For more information about Asura World:

Website: https://Asuracoin.io/

Telegram Channel: https://t.me/asuracoin
Esports Veteran Susie Kim Launches Susie Coin
By: Kurt Patat
Tags: Esport, Gaming, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, Community

Joins Rally as Advisor for Esports and Gaming Communities

Susie Kim launches SUSIE coin and joins Rally as an advisor

Veteran esports personality Susie Kim today announced the launch of SUSIE, a new social token for her biggest fans. Additionally, she will be joining Rally as an advisor for esports and gaming communities.

“Rally empowers creators, gamers and personalities like myself to re-imagine community management as an opportunity to tap into an entirely new revenue model by simply interacting with our fans,” said Susie Kim. “I am excited to experiment with my own token, while also spreading the word to the esports community.”

SUSIE coin is now available on Rally.io

Beginning today, SUSIE Coin will be distributed to her most loyal fans through Rally.io.

Benefits at launch include:

Private Discord chats

Special social recognition for top holders

Kim’s token launch follows the recent announcement that global esports organization, Gen G, is also set to bow its own GG Strike Coin with Rally in the coming weeks.

Susie Kim is an esports veteran, who has worked extensively both in front and behind the camera. She began her career as a host, translator, caster, and interviewer, but added experience as a community and professional team manager in recent years. She spent three years with Twitch building out the company’s Korean presence and attracted top talent and professional players to stream on the platform. Upon moving back to America, Susie became the general manager of the Overwatch League’s London Spitfire and led the team to a championship in the inaugural season. She then laid the groundwork for Cloud9’s Training Grounds and joined the University of California Irvine’s Esports Leadership Board in order to pursue her passion for educating the esports stars and professionals of tomorrow.

Susie remains one of the most recognizable figures in the esports industry due to her 15 years of experience across a variety of titles and genres. She looks for opportunities to utilize her skills with logistics, education, and community outreach to propel the esports industry forward.
ManiaPlanet, a story that has just begun
By: Cedric, Cerovan
Tags: Esports

ManiaPlanet, a story that has just begun

Hi everyone,

It’s been an incredible ride since the beginning of the ShootMania alpha and beta, and today during the Ubisoft Press Conference taking place at GamesCom in Germany, we took a moment to look back at what YOU, the players, have achieved.

But this is just the beginning, and we have great plans for the development of ManiaPlanet, big news that will bring players of TrackMania and ShootMania from all around the world, together in their love of competitive gaming. We’re not quite ready to talk about it yet, but you can already set the date: in November of this year, during the ESWC competition in Paris, Nadeo will hold a press conference to tell you more about it.

In the meantime, we continue to work very hard on the development of ManiaPlanet and on taking over the world of competitive gaming and eSports with ShootMania and TrackMania. Lots of things are happening every week on ManiaPlanet, so watch this space, and don’t hesitate to share the spirit around you !
The uninterrupted growth of Rainbow 6: Siege on Twitch
By: Nicolas Cerrato
Tags: Esports, Analysis, Infographics, Twitch

ESPORTS SPEARHEADING

As annotated on the graph, almost all viewership peaks throughout the history of the game are tied to esports events. What’s more, the trend clearly is that after each peak, the day-to-day average viewership outside of events also increases.

That kind of curve is the one I would have at first expected to see for most new games entering the esports space — where a successful esports strategy leads an “esports-ready” title to uninterrupted community engagement growth, at least for a couple years — but oddly enough that’s not how it’s been going, at the very least not when it comes to engagement towards Twitch viewership.

So how did R6S get there? To the contrary of almost all new esports hopefuls, Ubisoft decided to not internalize this entirely new large pipeline called “esports and community operations” to create an in-house league. Instead they elected to work with experienced actors from the already existing ecosystem: ESL.

So it turns out it’s the Germany-based company that is behind the esports peaks that have been pacing the game’s viewership growth.

Yet big successful events, no matter how needed they are, don’t tell the whole story. As the R6S esports strategy has been both unique in its kind and uniquely successful in the data, I went to talk to Sean Charles, Senior Vice President Publisher & Developer Relations at ESL, to inquire on their partnership with Ubisoft.

When did you start collaborating on R6S with Ubisoft? What is the involvement of ESL in the work around R6S esports and community?

We started working together around a year before the game was released. Ubisoft had a strong ambition and quality intents in terms of building something solid in the esports space. We are in charge of co-defining & managing esports operations on the game, from grassroots online activities to the big staged events.

How has your partnership evolved with time? It seems like you didn’t aim too high to start with but ambitions ramped up?
Esports live betting
By: Esgs Global Summit
Tags: Esport, Gaming, Betting

Esports live betting

Live sports betting has been a thing in the traditional sports ⛷️ for over decades now. Originally introduced to prevent “match-fixing”, it became popular and now is successfully being used in esports 🎮, where it gained a great amount of popularity during the last years.

When compared to traditional betting, live betting offers much more profitable opportunities, because bettors are allowed to place a bet on the outcome of a match while it is being played. Thus, in order to make winning decisions, bettors require not only the overall knowledge of the game process but also an understanding of different solo and team strategies. On the other side, when the match just has passed its middle, and you are allowed to observe the live performance and the impact of the map, it’s much easier to make a good betting decision.

One of the most difficult sides of live esports betting is that instead of using the odds or reviews, bettors have to rely on their own expertise only. There is no time to get acquainted with player’s or team’s history, because a bettor is in the middle of the action, and the bet must be made right now.

In case you’ve got interested in live esports betting, we’d advise you to pick a game 👾 and a favorite player or a team. Thus, by viewing their live streams, you’ll learn a lot about strategies and possible outcomes. And it will a good idea to visit one or two esports summits, where you’ll have a chance to meet people from this sphere, and see it in action.

🤖 Follow Esgs to stay connected and know what esports will be presented on the biggest esports summit. Berlin, April 2019.
SCOUT Community Report: December 2018
Tags: Fortnite, Mobile App, Gaming, Esports

SCOUT Community Report December 2018

SCOUT Community Report: December 2018

2018 is coming to an end, but we’re just getting started. If you’ve been with us from the beginning, you know the past few months have been insane as far as the growth and activity we’ve seen on SCOUT-especially with the new V-Bucks Drops (hype!). If you’re newer to SCOUT, welcome! We send out “Community Reports” to provide updates on progress, new features, and cool stuff happening within the SCOUT community.

Cool stuff

You’ll see in the infographic below, we’re makin’ moves… We’ve officially launched in the US App Store as well as the Google Play Store, and our Discord Server surpassed 3,000 members (join if you haven’t yet!). Oh, and you’ve gone crazy with the V-Bucks Chests. Combined, you’ve all opened over 14,600 chests to try winning V-Bucks!

Check out the rest of infographic and learn more about new features below it:

New Features

Adding Friends

If you already have friends you play with, you can now add them directly to SCOUT.

Group Chat

Your friends and teammates can now all join one Group chat on SCOUT to compare stats, see who’s available to play, and more.

Group Leaderboard

There will be a leaderboard for everyone in the Group to compare each other’s stats and see how everyone is progressing through new seasons.

Friend Activity

It wouldn’t be fun to have your friend on SCOUT without being able to see what they’re up to. You’ll be able to see the activity of what your SCOUT friends are doing or accomplishing in-app.

Daily Activity Updates

You’ll be able to receive an update with relevant activity from your group, friends, and even what you’ve accomplished each day

New Avatars

Drum roll, please… We’re more than excited to launch our new unlockable avatars! Courtesy of the ridiculously talented @tyokobanana, we’re able to provide everyone on SCOUT with these hype, Fortnite-themed avatars. There will be new default avatars everyone will receive, and you’ll be able to unlock the other ones through completing challenges and accomplishing things in the SCOUT app.

IMPORTANT NOTE
What are esports?
By: Esgs Global Summit
Tags: Esports, Lol, Gaming

What are esports?

A series of posts, covering all you need to know about esports 👾 sounds like a good idea. So what about explaining the basics of esports starting right now?

And we’re starting with the basics: “What are esports?”.

If to put it simply, esports are the competitive side of multiplayer gaming. And there is a very wide range of games that are considered to be esports disciplines. Platforms such as FACEIT, Battlefy and WorldGaming Network allow users to join different esports tournaments and championships as independent players 🕹️ or as teams. The prize pools for such tournaments today readily exceed millions of dollars (e.g. International 2018 with $25+ mln. prize pool in total).

When it comes to the question of what games are becoming part of the global esports (as well as why these games are that successful), it’s a theme for a separate article we will post later. But for now, you need to know that there are certain types of games with more competition in it (e.g. more combat elements), like first-person shooters 🔫, arena battles and fighting games ⚔️, and other game genres like RPG, RTS, sports games and racings, that are also popular. The biggest titles in esports today are: Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, League of Legends, StarCraft. But there are dozens of different sports games, and survivor simulators (like Fortnite) which are also popular.

And where is money, there are sponsors: professional esports teams are typically sponsored by video games companies (including game developers and game-controller manufacturers). It is estimated that the global esports market will surpass $1.5 bln. by 2020. Esports are becoming such popular, that a growing number of colleges 🎓 also offer esports as varsity-level sports, and pro gamers broadcasts on Youtube-Gaming and Twitch are getting mln. of followers.

🤖 More posts are coming. Follow Esgs to stay connected and know what esports will be presented at the biggest esports summit. Berlin, April 2019.
Beta Dev Update (72)
Tags: Esports, Startup, Gaming, Devupdate

Beta Dev Update (72)

What our devs worked on in week 72 of the FirstBlood.io Beta

Hello Players and Welcome to Week 72!

Miss Dev Update 70?

Let’s dive into what we have released since our last update;

Bug Fixes

Fixed — Royale App: Bounty Hunt not being counted for a mission when a payout is prevented

Fixed — Royale App: Location based settings not functioning properly

Fixed — Web App: Newsly registered users don’t get to see the news channel

Fixed — Web App: Tournament services with certain properties were optimized

Fixed — Web App: Optimized further tournament creation on Dota 2

Fixed — Web App: Better UX for tournament brackets

Fixed — Web App: Improved KYC form

Fixed — Web App: Improved Deposit UX

Fixed — Web App: Duplicated bracket restriction tags

Fixed — Web App: Wrong game is shown after selecting on registration

Additions

Added — Royale App; Preperations for translations

Added — Royale App; More administration functionality for FirstBlood admins for Bounty Hunts

Added — Web App; Added Match History back to Dota 2 Lobby

We launched the ability for qualified players to get $5 deposited to their FirstBlood account to compete in Bigger Buy-In Bounty Hunts.

Want to learn how to KYC? Or discover how to deposit to start entering into bigger prize pools.

Thank you for reading!

A desire to share any feedback with us? Please do, We love it! Head to our Feedback page to participate and share!

Signup and compete for valuable skins and other prizes at FirstBlood.io.

Until Next Time,

FirstBlood.io Development Team
Why Are CS:GO Knives So Expensive?
Tags: Esports, Csgo, Counter Strike, Games

Why Are CS:GO Knives So Expensive?

Every case in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive contains certain skins. Most of them are cheap skins (blue), and the rest are fancier items, though a chance of their drop is low.

This is what defines the cost of each particular skin. A large number of skin drops cuts its price on a trading platform. Accordingly, rarer skins cost more, as they are fewer and drop less frequently.

There is a line “or an exceedingly rare special item!” in any item list of a case. It is this entry that defines a drop of a knife or gloves. A chance of the drop is extremely low. The game developers have never published drop probabilities. Based on the users’ experience, a real value can be estimated as 1% or even lower.

It means a player has to open around 100 cases so as to eventually get a rare item. For opening a case you need a key that costs 2.49$, hence opening a hundred of cases will require a pretty penny. Since the drop chance is low, a number of distributed knives is several times smaller than of regular skins. Thus, they are expensive.

Join Cs.money http://bit.ly/2AEIfzy
VALORANT First Strike Main Event Preview
By: Esportz Network
Tags: Esports, Esports News

The eight North American esports teams qualified for the main event of VALORANT North American First Strike are now known, among which are titans like Team Envy or 100 Thieves.

First Strike is Riot Games’ first official tournament for VALORANT. In all supported regions, fans have gathered to spectate high-level plays from professionals. North America was a huge part of this attraction since squads like Team Envy and Renegades include top-tier players like Jay “Sinatraa” Won or Jake “kaboose” McDonald. However, the show is far from over and will culminate from December 2 to 6.

Main Event Qualified Teams

This event is particularly important to the VALORANT community as multiple esports titans will face each other.

After weeks and weeks of competition, some teams finally managed to secure their participation in the final event of the North American First Strike. The future first VALORANT North American champion will be one of these eight participants.

Team Envy

100 Thieves

Sentinels

Renegades

Team SoloMis

FaZe Clan

T1

Immortals

Despite the presence of favorites like Sentinels, Renegades and Immortals still made the cut, showcasing that underdogs and rising teams are also competing to win. These eight teams will clash for a $100 thousand prize pool, with $40 thousand going to the winner.

VALORANT Esports, First Strike

Thanks to Nerd Street Gamers and UMG qualifying tournaments, eight teams have fought their way through hundreds of teams. Furthermore, all eight qualified teams now have a seeding, making the organization easier.

In a single-elimination format, Envy faces Immortals, 100 Thieves plays T1, Renegades clashes against TSM while FaZe challenges Sentinels. In both quarterfinals and semifinals, teams will play a best-of-three match while the Grand Finals Showdown features a best-of-five final event.

Image credits to Riot Games

Even though the matches begin on December 3, a preview show is already scheduled for the tournament’s eve. For the VALORANT First Strike Main Event’s casting, Riot Games brought some of the most beloved esports and gaming personalities in Ninja, TSM Myth, Jordan Fisher, Dash, Smix, DDK, Goldenboy, Riv, Sean Gares, Vansili, and Velly. The First Strike Main Event can be followed on the official VALORANT Twitch channel. The hype will probably be on the rise until the final showdown on December 6.

Written by Charles Fuster

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If you’re interested in seeing more of Esportz Network, follow our social media at Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We have daily podcasts at the Esports Minute and weekly interviews at the Esportz Network Podcast. Anyone can also join our community on Discord and chat about your favorite games, esports, and more!