Flashback: May 6 - 13

Esports isn't the quiet field, and every week many exciting events happened. It can be quite hard to follow them all. We are continuing our section - you will be able to keep abreast of the most basic and curious events that have happened in the esports world over the past seven days. 

Tournament of the week: MDL Disneyland Paris Major

Esports fans couldn’t take their eyes from the capital of France, where the fourth Dota Pro Circuit 2018-19 Major was held at Disney Events Arena. Team Secret won the main rating tournament for the second time this season, and we saw a large number of spectacular matches.

Team Liquid and OG pleased the fans with their comebacks: first ones have already booked their “tickets” to Shanghai at TI9, the second ones rushed into the top-10 of the seasonal rating.

We want to highlight the games: the tournament in Paris was perhaps the most spectacular and high-class this season. The teams are getting closer to August The International 2019. Therefore, we expect a further increase in level.

Trolling of the week: Serial killers at OWL broadcast

It should have happened one day. How many absolutely standard gestures should suffer from Blizzard excessive caution?

For all the pain, the "okay" gesture and the frog Pepe, one fan decided to make fun of the Overwatch League organizers and tweeted the image of a British married couple - serial killers whose victims were at least ten people.

The photo, posted on Mother's Day, was accompanied by a sweet text, and the broadcast staff released a tweet on the air without noticing the trick. The prank was a success, and the list of ridiculous incidents associated with the Overwatch League added another.

Reshuffles of the week

All the significant reshuffles in the Dota 2 and CS:GO universe in one place.

Dota 2

• Geek Fam unite strongest players: Raven — Mushi — Skemberlu — Xepher — PlayHard

• Kingrd and tavo left Chaos Esports Club, and w33 went inactive

• Majestic Esports disbanded their South American roster, but players stayed together in FreeStyle lineup

• Resolut1on joined J.Storm, became FoREv replacement

• Gorillaz-Pride has signed Accel — Kotaro Hayama — MoOz — Sword — USH

• Gunnar, KheZu and MiLAN joined Chaos Esports Club, the team is now located in Europe

CS:GO

• The Final Tribe has signed pyth — hns — vanity — quix — WolfY

• Pro100 has signed NickelBack, kenzor returned to the main lineup

• DavCost and tonyblack joined OwmS

• Vex.eSport changed olfii and burito to SAYN and mepsoN

• Breakaway Esports disbanded the roster, but the players stayed together

• Heroic changed mertz to NaToSaphiX

• Hiko became a free agent

• NEO moved from Virtus.pro to FaZe Clan, instead of AdreN

Number of the week: $7.419.288

That was precisely the amount of The International 2019 prize pool 24 hours after the start of the Battle Pass appearance. Compared to the same period last year, the increase was a million and three-quarters.

Unlike Epic Games, which put vast sums into Fortnite tournaments beforehand, Valve continues the “from players to players” tradition. The game developer has invested $1.6 million, and everything else is added by Dota 2 fans by buying the Battle Pass (25% of income go to the prize pool).

This year, the economic component of the Pass is less friendly to the players, and the developer immediately offered a rather juicy option of buying 100 levels at once. Maybe such an interest in the new BP appeared to this option, too. Nevertheless, it will be exciting to see how much money will be at The International 2019. The prize fund exceeded $11 million (at the time of writing).

Verdict of the week: Suspension for 2.5 years and  exile from the hall of fame

The story of legendary Magic: The Gathering player in the past - Yuuya Watanabe, who was caught cheating on MTG Mythic Championship II, came to an end.

MTG Professional League conducted its independent investigation and disqualified the Japanese player for two and a half years. Watanabe was also expelled from the Magic: The Gathering hall of fame.

The management of the League stated that they looked through the records from the Mythic Championship II and several previous tournaments, and, based on these data, made such a severe verdict.

The history of Watanabe cannot but upset - the Japanese player was considered almost the best player for the whole time of the MTG existence, and the more shocking was the news that he was caught. After Billy Mitchell was convicted of fraud and deprived of his titles last year, we lost another legend from the pre-esport era.

You had one streak of the week: Astralis failed to tie the record

Before the final of BLAST Pro Series: Madrid, the Danish super-team Astralis had 31 victories in a row on the Nuke map (this is just LAN contests), and was already preparing to block the seemingly eternal Ninjas in Pyjamas record (they have number 32).

Recalling that Astralis made with ENCE at IEM Katowice Major, many thought that they would have no problems getting equal with the Swedes, but the Finns were in shock, arranging a mess from the best team in the world. 16:9 - EZ4ENCE!

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