Longtime visitors to Solomid.net will no doubt know who CLG is, and even after parting ways with Absolute Legends, they're stepping out again, this time sponsoring one of the best (previously) unsponsored Dota 2 teams in the world. The all-Swedish team exPerience (xP) has continually performed very well in DotA 2 events recently beating teams like NEXT.kz and Dreamhack Winter champions mTw. The new roster for CLG.dota2 is:

Loda (Captain)
Akke
Miracle
Pajkatt
Pinoy


Roster page is here: http://clgaming.net/players/3 3 comments After EG played against Mineski with only Lacoste and Playmate and 3 stand-ins yesterday, instead of playing a 2nd match they forfeitted outright and many people were left wondering what happened, why EG didn't show up, why they forfeitted the 2nd game etc.. a little while later Maelk posted in the comments of the match info on GosuGamers (comment 53 & 62)

Quote:

Around the same time, management in The Premier League seemed fed up with EG, the FF for their 2nd game against Mineski was their 2nd and they expressed frustration with EG for being late "several times" They put up a poll on their facebook page asking for opinions on what sort of punishment they should give out. This was a pretty heavily skewed poll and the way everything was worded was basically a death sentence to begin with.

That evening, management at TPL had then heard about Maelk's aforementioned comments over on gosugamers.net and made their decision:
Quote:

At this point many fans who had been following this, without a lot of information or any "Official" statements for EG had mostly condemned them, with a picture being painted by TPL that they were bad mannered, uncooperative and difficult to work with, perhaps even purposefully aggravating TPL (and the fans who were watching the stream that morning).

Presumably, Maelk saw what had happened and realized that his previous comments weren't sufficient to explain what had really happened from their point of view, he posted this breakdown of the events over in a thread on TeamLiquid.net where a user wanted to discuss the recent drama, even linking Artstyle's blacklisting to these events with Evil Geniuses. (Before Maelk posts in the thread, Tobiwan of joinDOTA.com does provide some of his own comments regarding Artstyle and EG/TPL, and are worth a read.)

The thread here contains the full post but I'll put some snippets here.

Quote:

Quote:

What follows that is a very detailed explanation of a lot background information about Maelk, EG, TPL management Laurent 'Ange' Blum, and accounts of several previous events from his perspective that completely shed a whole new light of what had previously been a very one-sided look. Maelk dissects much of TPL's release about the banning of Evil Geniuses, and describes events how he remembers them, much of which directly contradicts TPL's claims. At the end of the post Maelk finishes with a summary and light criticism as well as acknowledging that his point of view and subsequent speculation is no more objective than The Premier League's releases have been.

Quote:

We'll see where this turn of events will take us, Evil Geniuses has no desire to get back into The Premier League, but it remains to be seen how the public will treat all of this information, and decide who they want to believe. This post will continue to be updated, should more statements from either side arrive.

UPDATE: Maelk did an interview with joinDOTA.com: http://www.joindota.com/en/news/2476-maelk-all-we-really-want-to-do-is-play 0 comments
Late breaking update here as mTw has announced roster changes of their own with Matrim and kuronity leaving the team and Tulex and BENTZER filling their spots. since the winter Dreamhack where mTw dominated they have been struggling to come up with victories which prompted mTw management to push for roster changes. You can read the full article from mTw along with statements from team leader synderen and new members Tulex and BENTZER here


One piece of Non-tournament news, as EG, Evil Geniuses officially adds Maelk and Lacoste to the roster. Demon is officially now backup for the team and Pajkatt has left the team entirely to join xP

joinDOTA.com's The Defense:

The Defense's second group stage has come to a close and is now moving into the playoff stage, with 6 teams remaining going into a double elimination bracket with the top 4 teams starting in the winner's bracket and teams 5 and 6 starting in the lower bracket. The Teams remaining are (in order) DD(Fomerly SK) and aL and PANZER from group 1 and Na`Vi, EG, and Dignitas from group 2. you can check out the full bracket over on joinDOTA here

DotA2Replays.org's Brawl (DRB)

The DRB Qualifier #3 ended with mousesports defeating NEXT.kz to earn the third spot alongside aL and FIRE, and now Qualifier #4 is going live in just under an hour! A lot of great teams are still in the running including North American teams Its Gosu, What is Dusa Saying?, and co9.GDT! You can see the brackets and links to the live streams here

The Premier League with Twitch.tv and DotACommentaries

Breaking news with the Premier league now, after a poor preformance with 3 stand-ins this morning and forfeitting their 2nd match vs Mineski, the hosts of the Premier league have put up a poll on their facebook page asking whether or not EG should be punished. http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Premier-League/195514240536406 Maelk commented on Gosugamers that EG actually quit the league but had not apparently made this aware to tournament hosts and that is why Lacoste and Playmate played with 3 standins for the match this morning.

Infused Cup DotA 2 Tournament

After an amazing finish by team FIRE they have won the Infused DotA 2 Cup. You can find vods of the matches over on joinDOTA.com

cyberarena.tv's Star Ladder: Star League

Still nothing major out of the Star Ladder.

DotA 2 Europe Challenge

DD(Formerly SK) have won the Dota 2 Europe challenge and walk away with 1000Euros. Things have really been looking up for DD even after leaving SK. VoDs can be found on joinDOTA.com

Cyber eSports Gaming League

A new event has been announced, CEGL is promising bimonthly tournaments for $1000 in prizes and is open for registration now. A beta run of the league will be starting in 2 weeks, so it will be some time before we hear a lot coming out of this. Still another week till CeGL should be kicking off, we'll have more information when it becomes available. 0 comments http://www.sk-gaming.com/content/36471-SKs_DotA2_team_has_been_released



Big news today out of the European pro scene as SK drops their DotA 2 Squad.

"SK Gaming can officially announce that its DotA2 team has been released from the organisation. Circumstances arose which meant it was best for both parties to go their separate ways. SK Gaming thanks the DotA2 team for their efforts and wishes them well."

SK Gaming DotA2 housed the following:

Martin 'AngeL' Olsen
Sylvester 'Link' Hoelgaard
Brian 'MaNia' Strandby
Mikkel 'miGGel' Berg
Christoffer Borregaard 'Ryze' Winther
Alexander 'CalculuS' Rathcke (removed mid-January)

SK player manager Min-Sik 'reis' Ko's statement:

Quote:



This has come as a huge surprise as SK have been preforming very well in recent tournaments, we can only hope that the EX-SK Danes manage to find a sponsor that will fit them better as a team. 0 comments


http://blog.dota2.com/2012/01/my-bones-ache-for-vengeance/

"Clinkz the Bone Fletcher has risen from his grave and from the looks of him, he looks a bit upset.

We’ve been glued to our monitors watching the matches coming out of The Defense, make sure you stop by and check them out.

Next week we will change the way we ship new content to you every week. As mentioned in our previous update, old replays will stop working then, so don’t forget to save your favorite moments out to a video format."

Lastly, patch notes can be found here. 0 comments Back again with another E-Sports roundup

joinDOTA.com's The Defense:

The Defense is well into its 2nd group stage now and leading the two remaining groups now are SK gaming and Evil Geniuses who are both 3-0 in their respective groups. joinDotA.com has a good update describing the action so far. http://www.joindota.com/en/news/2377-the-defense-update

DotA2Replays.org's Brawl (DRB)

After being disqualified and told to try again next time in their game against N9 for the first spot in the Dota Replays Brawl, FIRE has taken the second slot handily showing that regardless of exploit abuse accusations they are a team to be feared. Relatively unknown team going by What is Dusa Saying? surprised almost everyone by taking out xP and meeting up with FIRE in the finals. Team Dignitas were disqualified due to player Comewithme streaming matches even after being told to stop by admins. Lots of excitement and penalties going on in this tournament, keep your eyes peeled for this one.

The Premier League with Twitch.tv and DotACommentaries

The Premier League has been running for 2 weeks so far and xP and Na'Vi are leading the standings, GoSu Gamers was quick to point out that the asian teams are all sitting at the bottom of the rankings which has got some people talking.

Infused Cup DotA 2 Tournament

The Infused Tournament brackets have been released and Fnatic have dropped out claiming that their schedule is just too full for them to compete in this. They are being replaced by team True Brilliance.

cyberarena.tv's Star Ladder: Star League

Not much has happened by way of the Star Ladder: Star League in the last week or so.

DotA 2 Europe Challenge

The D2E has gotten into its second group stage with a ton of action happening: EG, SK, Next.kz, and Fnatic in Group 1 playing their matches today, Wednesday 25th. Tomorrow, Thursday the 26th, group 2 will be playing with xP, Infused, It's Gosu, and SYOL duking it out.

Cyber eSports Gaming League

A new event has been announced, CEGL is promising bimonthly tournaments for $1000 in prizes and is open for registration now. A beta run of the league will be starting in 2 weeks, so it will be some time before we hear a lot coming out of this. 0 comments



"This week we welcome the return of one of Dota’s most versatile heroes: Invoker!

In addition to the usual set of fixes and additions, this update also enables your Dota Profile page, which you can reach by clicking on your name in the mini-profile. You can also check out other player’s profiles by clicking on their names throughout the UI. On your profile you’ll find a variety of information about your Dota history, including links to replays of your recent games, your favorite heroes, commendations you’ve received from other players, and so on. Check it out, and let us know what else you’d like to see on there.

Also, a heads up about a change that’ll be coming in an update in the next week or two: we’ll be changing the replay format to a significantly better one, which will allow us to support a richer set of features when you’re watching a replay. The unfortunate side effect of the format change is that all old replays will not be watchable. We don’t anticipate ever needing to do this again, because the new format is much more stable. So, if you’ve got a favorite moment in an existing replay, make sure you record it out into a video within the next week."

You can find the latest changelog here. 1 comments

NADotA's Sunday Evening Cup Series Finals were put on hold after the delay brought on by the DotA Replays Brawl Incident earlier in the week. They have now been (tentatively) rescheduled for Saturday, the 21st 7:30 EST. Considering all the drama surrounding Team FIRE this week, I'm sure this match will draw quite the crowd. It will be streamed live on http://neodota.com and cast by GrandGrant the Stream is LIVE now on http://www.own3d.tv/live/32555/Mikey

It's Over! FIRE has won over It's GoSu in a great 2-1 set. Congratulations to team FIRE!

The Grand Finals will be presented as a Bo3 between:
It's Gosu
-1437
-bulba
-inphinity
-universe
-broodstar
-powernet

and

Team FIRE
FLUFFNSTUFF (C)
HANNAH_MONTANA
Jeyo
Nova-
SpLaSh
`TC` 0 comments

I mentioned this in the e-sports roundup yesterday, and the DRB staff has made an official ruling on the matter. It is fairly long, but worth a read. I think this will have a profound impact on the esports scene for dota 2 and we may well see ripples in other events due to this ruling. Reactions to the ruling seem mixed, and at this time we will not be taking sides.

At the end of the ruling, DRB has announced "In further tournament news, we'll be using the latest patch version for the next qualifier and puck is banned from tournament use since internal testing has revealed the bug is still present in the latest version of the game."

What do you think? Did the DRB staff take the right action here? Should FIRE have been punished more? Were FIRE in the right all along? Comment below and let us know how you feel! 0 comments There are a lot of DotA 2 events that are going on simultaneously and it can amount to quite a challenge to keep track of all of them all, each week (more or less) we'll be collecting news like player and team switching, penalties and exceptional games to watch from the previous week and collect them to more easily read about.

For this first edition, we'll run down each of the events in progress and links to their websites:

joinDOTA.com's The Defense:

Has been running since the middle of November and is now starting its second group stage. A lot of strong teams and excellent games have been played so far and I have no doubts that we'll see many more by the time a winner is crowned.
Top team gets 10,000€

DotA2Replays.org's Brawl (DRB)

We first brought you news about this here and the first weekly open qualifier has all but finished now. A major dispute occured between the final match between N9 and team Fire about possible intentional exploit abuse, the admins have decided to formalize a ruling tomorrow and we'll all be watching to see what they decide.
Overall winner of the DRB walks away with $4000 + 5 steelseries mice with a total prize pool of just over $6000

NADotA's Sunday Evening Cup Series (SECS)


SECS season 1 has been a weekly tournament running for the last 5 weeks and is finishing with a single elimination playoff to determine who will walk away with their share of a 500$USD prize pool. The Final match of this between it's GoSu and N9 was postponed due to events during the DRB even mentioned above, tentative schedule is to play the finals on Tuesday the 17th.

The Premier League with Twitch.tv and DotACommentaries

Though their website is a facebook page the Premier League boasts a prize pool of $10,000USD and 10 of the very best teams in the world. Two rounds have been played so far and the action will only get more intense from here.

Infused Cup DotA 2 Tournament

Coming up at the end of the month will be the new Team Infused turn to host a 32 team tournament over the weekend of the 28/29th Rather than prize money teams will be fighting for loot! AMD graphics cards, mice, keyboards and headsets by Thermal Take are all up for grabs!

cyberarena.tv's Star Ladder: Star League

SL:Star League's website was supposed to launch on January 15th but a quick check of http://starladder.tv will still bring up its under construction advertisement page. All the teams have been announced and there's $15,000 up for grabs.

DotA 2 Europe Challenge

dota2-europe.com is running a tournament with 16 great teams for a 2000 Euro prize pool. This tournament is starting on Tuesday, January 17th and should run for about 3 weeks.


So many events, and so much prize money! DotA 2 is already shaping up to have an insane e-sports scene! 0 comments