DH reveals more Open info

  DreamHack has announced more information about the ZOWIE Open circuit for 2016.

 The DreamHack Open event circuit, sponsored by ZOWIE, will span five worldwide spots, starting with the tournament in Leipzig, later this month.

 With $100,000 at stake in each event, DreamHack ZOWIE Open will give away a total of $500,000, on top of the $500,000 that will be at stake at the two Masters events, which were announced last week.

StarSeries XIV Finals viewer's guide

  If you've been wondering about SL i-League StarSeries XIV Finals, when the teams play, who the casters are, or just about anything else about the event in Minsk, Belarus, look no further; here is the viewer's guide with all the information needed.

 SL i-League StarSeries XIV Finals kicks off tomorrow with group A, which means it's time to gather all information into our viewer's guide.

The first big event of 2016 will take place at the Minsk Arena in the capital...

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StarSeries XIV finals preview

  The first high profile event of 2016 is a day away and we present an official preview for the SL i-League StarSeries XIV finals as preparations get under way in Minsk, Belarus.

 Temperatures in Minsk, Belarus this weekend will pay due homage to continental Europe's sink into the frigid: the weekend could see lows of -23°C in the capital of the Eastern European country.

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Cloud9 sign Stewie2k

Cloud9's new fifth heading into 2016 will be youngster Jake 'Stewie2k' Yip, who was most recently seen plying his trade for SPLYCE.

 Jake "Stewie2k" Yip, who just recently turned 18-years-old, will receive a big trial for his career as the young player has now been signed by Cloud9, one of North America's premium brand teams.

 Yip rose to prominence on the North American pugging scene last year and was ostensibly scouted via a SKDC lineup before moving on the an ex-eLevate roster that then became FollowEsports.com (and later rebranded to SPLYCE).

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IEM Katowice qualifiers announced

                           ESL has announced the details for the qualifiers for the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship in Katowice.

 The Spodek Arena, in Katowice, will stage from March 2-6 the World Championship, an event which will mark the end of the current Intel Extreme Masters season.

 Twelve of the world's finest teams will be competing for their part of a $250,000 prize pool in the tournament, which sees the competing sides split into two groups of six teams, who will face each other in a round robin stage. The winners from the group stage...

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Luminosity win MAX5 Invitational

  Luminosity cement their status as the region's best with a dominant 3-0 defeat of Keyd Stars in the MAX5 Invitational grand finals (16-4 on de_cache, 16-2 on de_mirage, and 16-11 on de_cbble).

 Taking place inside of the Mega Arena X5 in São Paulo, the MAX5 Invitational brought together nine Brazilian teams and one Argentinian team in a five day long South American duel to determine the region's best.

 The group stage saw a few notable teams fail to make the playoffs of the event, such as Raphael "cogu" Camargo's INTZ, Lucas "steel" Lopes's CNB, and perhaps most surprisingly a Games Academy...

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Maniac joins EnVyUs as coach

  Former Titan member Mathieu "Maniac" Quiquerez has joined EnVyUs in a coaching role for their CS:GO team.

 The 25-year-old has been out of action since September, when he was replaced by Adil "ScreaM" Benrlitom on Titan's starting roster as the French team looked to overcome a poor run of results.

 At the time, Mathieu "Maniac" Quiquerez declared that he would continue to play on a professional level and vowed to "bounce back and come back stronger." But as weeks went by, the Swiss continued on the market, and he eventually turned to casting, working as an analyst at IEM San...

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DH Open Leipzig quals hit closed stage

  With the DreamHack Open Leipzig open qualifier coming to a close, the 16-team closed stage is ready to kick off on Sunday.

 A total of 505 teams took part in Saturday's open qualifier, which had eight spots in the closed stage up for grabs.

 BLUEJAYS, unu.AiN, ALTERNATE aTTaX, Dead Pixels, Enso, AliGon, Refuse, and Deathtrap will be joining eight invited teams in Sunday's closed...

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StarSeries Finals groups, schedule

  Here are the groups and full schedule for the upcoming SL i-League StarSeries XIV Finals.

 SL i-League StarSeries XIV Finals is around the corner, kicking off on January 13th with group A up first, followed up by group B on January 14th.

 The groups and full schedule have just been released, as we see Natus Vincere and Gamers2 from the European side joining Asia's CyberZen and...

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 Method lose team

  Method's CS:GO team was already lacking a stable five but the latest development sees the roster break apart and part ways from the organisation.

 Despite being a team that often finished down near the bottom of the Pro League table, Method's roster showed resilience in surviving regulation and retaining a spot in the ESL ESEA Pro League as well as competing in other numerous high tier divisions in North America.

 Following the loss of teammate Connor "streboR" Roberts to retirement, Method found themselves a player short and thus opted out of attending the StarSeries XIV finals and instead focused on finding a permanent fifth.

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Expo Barcelona with $75k tournament

  ESL has announced that it will host a CS:GO tournament in Barcelona with $75,000 on offer.

 Called the Barcelona CS:GO Invitational, the tournament will take place from February 19-21 in Hall 2 of Fira Barcelona Montjuic as part of ESL Expo Barcelona presented by Mobile World Congress, which will have a venue with a capacity for over 2,500 fans.

 Eight CS:GO teams - four international, two European and two Spanish - will be competing in this tournament for their part of a $75,000 prize pool.

 fnatic and EnVyUs are the first two teams confirmed for the competition,

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OpTic, coL invited for Americas Minor

  MLG have announced that OpTic Gaming and compLexity have been invited to compete at the upcoming Americas Minor.

 Eight teams, hailing from North and South America, will face off from January 15-17 at the Americas Minor Championship, taking place at the MLG Arena, in Columbus, Ohio.

 The winner of this tournament will take home the bulk of a $50,000 prize pool and also a spot at the MLG Columbus Major offline qualifier, taking place from February 26-28.

With six of the eight spots having been filled by the leading teams...

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Assembly Winter with €15,000 purse

  Assembly Winter 2016 will have a €15,000 prize pool for the CS:GO tournament, the event's organisers have revealed.

 Held at the Helsinki Exhibition and Convention Centre from February 5-6, the 2016 Winter edition of the Assembly LAN will once again stage an international CS:GO tournament, this time with €15,000 on offer.

 Eight teams will be taking part in this competition, with four of them being directly invited by Assembly. The remaining four sides will come from two online qualifiers, scheduled for January 16-17 and 23-24.

 The tournament will feature a double-elimination...

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DH announces $250,000 Masters

  DreamHack has announced that it will host two $250,000 CS:GO events this year, called DreamHack Masters, the first of which in Malmö in just three months.

 DreamHack Masters is a new championship series that will be bringing esports tournaments to stadiums and large arenas located in different cities.

 This year, DreamHack will be hosting two Masters events, both featuring CS:GO, with the Swedish company vowing to expand to other games...

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ELEAGUE Road to Vegas preview

 Thursday, January 7th will see ELEAGUE's "Road to Las Vegas" event offer $50,000 to two battling teams and we have prepared a light preview for the event.

 Turner Broadcasting and WME | IMG's venture into CS:GO will kick off Thursday as ELEAGUE will pair up with the broadcasting and production team of FACEIT to run a "Road to Las Vegas" tournament.

 The two teams for the event, one from North America and one from Europe, are OpTic Gaming and CSGL and they qualified via heavily contested qualifiers that saw many namebrand favourites such as Cloud9, G2, Liquid, dignitas, and CLG drop out along the way.

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LDLC White, CG qualify for EU Minor

            LDLC White and Nordic up-and-comers from CG have qualified for PGL's European Minor Championship, which will take place From January 29-31 in Bucharest, Romania.

 The first out of four open qualifiers for the European Minor has been played out today, with teams such as HellRaisers, PENTA, LDLC.White, London Conspiracy and more battling it out for two spots at the main event.

 PENTA and London Conspiracy both went out quite early in the best-of-one bracket, in round of 64 and round of 16, respectively.

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MAX5 Invitational set to start

  The MAX5 Invitational will kick off today, with ten teams battling it out for 25,000 Reais ($6,200) in cash prizes.

 The state-of-the-art Mega Arena X5, in São Paulo, will host the biggest offline event in the history of South American CS:GO, with ten teams - nine from Brazil and one from Argentina - locking horns for their part of a $6,200 prize pool.

 The tournament sees the 10 competing teams split into two groups of five teams, who will face each other in a best-of-one round robin stage. The top two sides from each group will then progress to the best-of-three semi-finals, with the title decider being played in a...

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Top 20 players of 2015: f0rest

  Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg is the second most seasoned player on our list of top 20 players of 2015 after Filip "NEO" Kubski. The 27-year-old has been around the professional Counter-Strike scene for more than a decade, having started in 2005 with Begrip.

 After joining fnatic in 2006 and becoming one of the best players in the world, in 2009 he first came into contact with who would become his long-time teammate, Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund, in the same organization. The two players then left for SK Gaming in late 2010, and in 2012 created NiP Gaming for CS:GO who would go on to break records.

 The Swede has established himself as a legend, as he's been one of the best players each year of his 10-year journey. This year he shows up outside of the top 10 for the first time in the five-year history of our top 20 players rankings; he placed 6th in 2010, 5th in 2011, 2nd in 2013, and 7th...

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Valve: "Match-fixing bans permanent"

  Valve has announced that players involved in match-fixing activities are permanently banned from its tournaments.

 Exactly one year ago, match-fixing became a hot topic in the Counter-Strike scene as a report from the Daily Dot's Richard Lewis revealed that the former iBUYPOWER had lost a CEVO match on purpose to profit from high-value bets placed by smurf accounts on the opposing team.

 An investigation launched by Valve resulted in bans being handed out to seven people, including ex-iBP quartet Sam "DaZeD" Marine, Braxton "swag" Pierce, Keven "AZK" Lariviere and Joshua "steel" Nissan.

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Rising Stars Series schedule released

  E-frag.net has released the dates for the remaining Rising Stars Series tournaments.

 The Rising Stars Series consists of eight-team online tournaments hosted across the globe, each one with a minimum prize purse of $2,000. These cups aim to give lesser known players the chance to prove themselves and eventually make the leap to the next level.

 Initially, the tournaments were due to take place from December to April, but all the unfinished cups have now been shifted to January. The previously-announced North American Rising Stars cup will no longer take place, with two new tournaments - one for CIS teams and one for...

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