We’re a bit shorthanded in the competitive gaming mines this week, so let’s get straight to the best stuff that to beam into your eyeballs over the next few days...
Hearthstone: Archon House Cup
Not the kind of competitive tournament which has BlizzCon points on the line, but likely to be the most fun involving Leper Gnomes you’ll find this weekend. Taking place from Team Archon’s house in Las Vegas, eight players are competing over three days (April 8-10th), with various challenges involved. At time of writing they’re playing against each other using Arena decks, and they’ll probably be something involving Standard restrictions before it’s over. On the line is a prize pool of $8,888, the lion’s share of which will go to whoever accrues the most, hmm, “Amaz points” over the three days. Still, the talent isn’t question: Trump, Orange, Dog, Purple, Zalae, Chakki, Strifecro and Admirable on the playing side, with Noxious and, double hmm, Reckful doing the casting. The stream can be found here, and it already looks like players will be doing additional casting when not involved in matches.
League of Legends: Spirit of the semifinals
This Saturday, Counter Logic Gaming takes on Liquid in the North American LoL Championship Series playoffs semifinals. On Sunday,Immortals go toe-to-toe with TSM to round out the semifinals before the series is sorted. Meanwhile, Europe is chugging through their own playoffs, with Origen vs H2K on Saturday and G2 Esports vs Fnatic on Sunday. If you don’t mind waking up early, the Korean (LCK) series is hosting KT Rolster vs Kongdoo Monster and Jin Air Green Wings vs Longzhu Gaming this Saturday. China’s LPL has a few regular season matches scheduled as well: Team World Elite vs Qiao Gu Reapers, Snake Esports vs LGD Gaming, and Energy Pace Maker vs Master3 enter the arena this Saturday (that’s later tonight and through the early morning for you Westerners).
CS:GO
Looking ahead to next week, we’re anticipating the DreamHack Masters event from Malmö, Sweden on April 12 through next weekend, which should make for a fun follow-up to last weekend’s MLG Columbus Major. Most of the big teams will be there, including Columbus finalists NaVi and Astralis, although Fnatic, arguably still the world’s best CS:GO team, will miss the event due to an injury to player Olofmeister. $250,000 is up for grabs. In the meantime, there's a tournament of retired, veteran Counter-Strike players happening in Sweden.
Smite: Spring Split
Smite season 3 started its Spring Split this week, which is the first significant series of matches for Smite’s Pro League. There have been some major roster shake-ups since the end of season two, making this a good time to check in on how these new teams are working together. You can see an overview of the weekend’s matches on the Smite Pro League website here, but if you’re going to catch any matches, we recommend Saturday’s bout between Dignitas and Paradigm and Sunday’s two Team EnVyUs match-ups. Paradigm narrowly missed making it to the grand finals at the Smite World Championship in January, and EnVyUs’ roster includes two players who won 2015’s championship. MLCst3alth and Omega are a fearsome duo. Stream the Smite matches on Twitch right here.
Heroes of the Dorm
It’s Heroic Four time for Heroes of the Dorm, leading into the Grand Finals this weekend. At the CenturyLink Field Event Center in Seattle, We Violin and Dark Blaze will face off while Tricky Turtles take on Real Dream Team. The action kicks off at 5 pm PT on Saturday with the Grand Finals following at 5 pm PT on Sunday, live on ESPN 2. You can also watch it streaming on ESPN’s site here. For more event details, or if you’d like to attend in person, here’s all you need to know.
PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!
