The time is here to take a look back at last week’s CS:GO going-ons, as once again, we were treated to a plethora of events and roster-moves, but the limelight this time around was stolen by the platform update Valve rolled out. Indeed, the update brought quite a few major changes, among them the debut of Prime matchmaking beta, which is aimed at weeding out hackers and smurfs, by requiring a phone number for the priority queue. Another change with a major impact was the swapping out of de_inferno with de_nuke in the active duty pool. This move will probably lead to de_inferno undergoing a major overhaul, after which it will likely re-enter the pool.
In other news: Cloud9 have finally secured a replacement for Ryan “fREAKAZOiD” Abadir, by signing Alex “Slemmy” White. Slemmy is one of the up-and-coming young talents of the NA scene and he made no secret that he saw his signing as a major opportunity. He said he would do his best to propel the team to greater success and that he was honored to play alongside some of the biggest names in North American SC:GO.
Echo Fox have made their own roster moves too, by dropping Trey “tck” Martin and by bringing in Daniel “roca” Gustaferri in his stead. Martin was on his trial-period with the team, an undertaking which wasn’t shaping up to be a decent one. tck consistently underperformed, so the fact that he was let go didn’t exactly come as a surprise to anyone. The fact however that roca was the one to take his place was rather surprising indeed.
In still other news: the HTC 1v1 Invitational wrapped up last week, its winner Richard “shox” Papillon, who walked away with the top prize of $10k. In the Grand Finals, shox disposed of Michal “MICHU” Muller, whom he defeated 2-1. The tournament took place in Bucharest, Romania and it featured a prize-pool of $25k. There were quite a few surprise results at the event. Vincent “Happy” Schopenhauer finished dead last for instance – quite a major upset – while Casper Moller and Adil Benrlitom struggled as well.
There are several ways one can stay up-to-date with the latest counterstrike rankings and results, but the Chrome extension launched by Gosugamers last week is probably the best. The extension is essentially a portable version of the match ticker available at the website, and it will not just keep fans informed about their favorite eSports matches, it will also allow them to start watching actual live games at a single click.