You may remember Nipper as the creator of cs_gonehome, a CS:GO map that inserts terrorists and counter-terrorists into the previously machine gun-free setting of Gone Home. Earlier this month Nipper posted cs_wildrefuge, a map based loosely on the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, which six members of an anti-government militia occupied for 24 days before federal authorities intervened. 

Like the Gone Home map, shooting your way through the site of one of the most controversial news stories of the year reveals an odd mixture of comedy and discomfort. Intentionally or not, the map operates as political criticism, as satire, and simply as a casual siege in the style of cs_militia and thousands of others that have come before it. While the map isn't a 1:1 recreation of the real-life refuge, it's more detailed than you'd expect for something created in reaction to national news. I've recorded some footage in the video above; a snowy compound of closed buildings surround an interior, main building where the pair of 'bird watchers' are held captive beside couches and brochure stands.

Nipper explains the map's backstory on its Steam Workshop page:

"A group of heavily armed patriots known only as 'Vanilla Isis' have decided to launch a rebellion against their tyrannical government! Using their brilliant tactical mind they chose their first target: a mostly unoccupied bird sanctuary and wildlife refuge. After about 2 days of holding this territory from the feds they have unfortunately run out of vital supplies like slim jims, energy drinks and beer. In an act of desperation for more supplies they have taken a couple of orange jumpsuit wearing bird watchers hostage. Now with human lives at stake the feds have been forced to respond."

What a time to be alive, where we can where we can play out the political events of our time in team deathmatch as they're still happening. What would a CS:GO map based on the Boston Massacre look like? cs_wildrefuge isn't the first map modeled after a controversial event, of course—fy_abbottabad, a more authentic recreation of Osama bin Laden's Pakistan compound, was a well-circulated Counter-Strike: Source map in 2011.

You can download cs_wildrefuge from Steam Workshop.

Back in July, Valve asked Counter-Strike: Global Offensive server operators to stop providing services that falsify the contents of a player's profile or inventory, like letting them have temporary ownership of items that aren't in their inventory. We will continue to monitor the players experience on community servers, and may reevaluate if further actions need to be taken to ensure that server operators comply, it warned in the Server Operation Guidelines. And It would now seem that Reevaulation Day has come.

The first indication that the hammer had fallen came a few days ago by way of the CSGO_Servers mailing list, when server operators began reporting surprise bans of server login tokens. That led to a beefy Reddit thread and a debate about whether Valve's warning included completely custom weapon models, which some operators thought were allowed, and complaints that some of the banned servers simply had inactive plugins sitting in a disabled directory. Despite some operators' claims that the server restrictions don't cover their specific circumstances, Valve appears to be drawing a hard line in the sand.

In January 2016, we permanently disabled Game Server Login Tokens belonging to server operators that were providing free or paid services that falsified the contents of a player s profile or inventory. The Steam user that generated the tokens is now also permanently restricted from creating new GSLTs, it wrote. A new Steam user account associated with a new qualifying phone number (http://www.steamcommunity.com/dev/managegameservers) will be required to create new GSLTs. To avoid future disruption game server operators are best advised to comply with CS:GO server operation guidelines described above.

Some Redditors think Valve's crackdown is harsh and punitive, especially against a game that itself originated as a mod, but a large number of others don't seem to mind, or at the very least appear to think that Valve's warning was a sufficient heads-up that shenanigans will not be tolerated. Valve itself took to the CS:GO subreddit to point out that there hasn't been any change to its policy, although an update to the post (which has since been corrected) could be taken to indicate that there was.

Innovation is awesome and almost every mod we see is fine, the rep said. Our only concern, as the community correctly understands, is with mods that specifically misrepresent a player's skill group/rank or the items they own.

Govern yourselves accordingly, as they say.

The grip of winter can t save you from hot hot electric sport. There s major Dota 2 in China and minor CS:GO in Romania. In League of Legends the North American Championship Series thunders on leaving drama in its wake, and we round off with a bit of punching for good measure. Have a great weekend!

Dota 2: MarsTV League Winter 2015

That's right! 'Winter 2015'. Like the saying goes, it doesn't matter if you're not sure what year it is when you've got a great set of international Dota 2 teams competing for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's taking place in China, so eight hours ahead of GMT/seven ahead of CET/sixteen ahead of PST. If you tune in over the weekend you can catch the winner's bracket final and a bunch of lower bracket games on Saturday followed by the lower bracket final and grand final on Sunday. The grand final begins at 10:00 GMT/11:00 CET/02:00 PST, and you can find up to date schedule information on Gosugamers. You can also find the English language Azubu stream here.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive: PGL European Minor Championship 2016

Eight European CS:GO squads fight for $50,000 in Bucharest. There's a mixture of established and aspiring talent in contention, so this comes recommended to talent scouts as well as fans of the European scene. The group A matches are taking place today, with group B to follow on Saturday followed by playoffs for the top four teams on Sunday. Play begins at 11:00 GMT/12:00 CET/03:00 PST and runs throughout the day. You can find the stream on Twitch.

League of Legends: North American Championship Series

The new season rolls on with a full weekend of play in North America. Expect a lot of action packed into a relatively short span of time, and after a dramatic first week there's a lot to live up to. In particular, look to TSM to want to improve their performance— they face Cloud9 on Saturday and NRG on Sunday. Check out this page on LoLesports for a full schedule and stream info and the main page for the other regional leagues—there are also games in the LCK and LMS over the weekend.

Killer Instinct: World Cup

Yes, yes, it isn't a PC game. If you don't like it, stop asking for fighting game coverage. Even then it won't matter, because fighting games are awesome. In any case: there's $30,000 on the line in San Antonio as the KI community dukes it out for the world title. Find tournament info here and the stream here. At the moment there isn't a schedule available, but expect games throughout the weekend on Pacific time.

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!

Cobblestone has seen many iterations over the years. Up until this current version, it's been heavily CT-sided. Since this isn't the case anymore, you will have to be a bit more creative if you want to score those rounds.

First, let's talk about the map itself. Most games tend to be centered around the B-site. There are several reasons for this. First of all it's easy to isolate defending players on B with smokes. Secondly the terrorists will generally use AK47 whereas you are stuck with M4A4 or M4A1-s. They can prefire the most common angles with a weapon that has the potential to kill you with a single bullet. You will have to react to them stepping out, and if you're fast enough you will still have to hit them at least twice.

Then you have the stairs between B-halls and mid. If they rotate from B to A they can simply drop down the stairs and be there in no time. It takes a lot longer to run up the stairs and rotate from A to B.

The lone soldier on A

Unless you notice that the terrorists have a tendency to attack A, I would recommend to play with only one defender on A. His job will be to support the B-players as much as he can as well as to push for information and call for backup if needed. A lot of the time he won't need his smoke, so he can throw it over to B and smoke off long. That way you'll have four smokes ready on B.

After that he should sit around corners at CT ramp, long A or stairs. He will listen for footsteps and check for flashes and smokes. If he thinks that they're coming to A, he should try to survive for as long as possible. If the B-players manage to take control over long B or other key areas around B, the A-guy can fall back to the bombsite and one of the players from B can rotate and support him.

If he can't see or hear anyone he can try to move in for the backstab through Z. If he does, timing is crucial. Wait for the terrorists to initiate their attack, or else there s a good chance they will have at least one player waiting for the lurker coming in from behind.

Should problem arise over at B, your brave soldier from A shouldn t hesitate. He can either go in through connector door and call for a flash from drop room or throw the flash himself. This flash will blind any terrorist tucked in the corner outside door, making it a lot easier to initiate the retake attempt.

On the next page: getting creative around B.

Creative B-plays

If you decide to play with only one player at A, you will have four players at your disposal for some really creative B-plays. For starters you want to go for less obvious angles and try your best to cause communication breakdown (great song, great band, great hair!) and force the terrorists to check more angles. Boosting a player up on top of the cube is one way to achieve this effect. That player will also be able to peek over most of the smokes that the terrorists might use:

If your opponents have a tendency to push long B, you can slow them down with a smoke, followed by a molotov and a flash. Stand next to the cube and throw the smoke. After that you can line up the molotov and call for a flashbang from a teammate. What will happen is that your enemies will get blinded and hopefully back off to the corner just outside arch. If that's the case, they won't know that they're slowly burning to death!

Even if they don't you will slow down the push, allowing both the A-player to move in from behind and the guys around drop to be a little creative. Used with proper timing the boost from drop room can be lethal, but remember: it's a risk! First of all you want to lay down a smoke screen before you boost, unless the boost is used to peek for information. Try to smoke sometimes even if you don't boost. That way it will be more difficult for the terrorists to read the play when you actually go for it.

Drop room can be quite tricky to defend. I like to have one player just outside and one close to connector, ready to assist. If you stand inside drop, chances are you will get flashed and subsequently killed without being able to help your team at all that round. This flash can work wonders. Try it a few times and you'll get the timing right. If the terrorists turn their backs, you will turn those backs into swiss cheese. If they don't, they won't be able see a thing and you can just finish them off.

Be careful!

It's tempting to hide inside the hen house and try to be a little sneaky. But remember that a single molotov will force you out in the open to a very disadvantageous position where you can consider yourself lucky if you're able to fire even a single bullet.

You have to be careful when you try to lurk around the map. If the A-player gets caught with his pants down, you might not have enough time to rotate over to A. And even if you do, they might turn around and attack B instead. Cobblestone is a map where you really need all your players alive until your opponents commit to one site.

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!

Buckle up, friends, for another packed weekend of pro gaming. There's high-level play happening across the biggest competitive games on PC. League of Legends continues its Spring season, CS:GO has a massive DreamHack tournament to enjoy, the excellent Hearthstone Starladder StarSeries finally comes to a conclusion, and Dota 2 has something a little more leftfield to check out.

Dota 2: Captain's Draft 3.0

The Captain's Draft 3.0 tournament just kicked off and sports a hefty prizepool of $100k, which can be expanded further through community contributions. Captain's Draft 3.0 is named as such because it uses the slightly different Captain's Draft game mode for the entire tournament. Qualifiers began on the 19th and will continue all weekend. You can find a schedule and results of the matches here, and the stream here.

Hearthstone: StarLadder i-League StarSeries Finals

The Hearthstone StarSeries is finally reaching its LAN climax this weekend. Games have already gotten underway today, but the winner will be crowned on Saturday, walking away with a sizeable chuck of a $50k prizepool. There's a lot of Hearthstone going on this weekend, but this is the most reliable source of high-quality casting and play. You can check the schedule here, albeit in Russian, and find the english version of the stream here.

League of Legends: NA LCS, LPL, LMS, and LCK

LoL's spring season started back up last week, and will continue to be a great watch overthe next few months. North America, China, and Taiwan continue their regular competition as the NA LCS, LPL, and LMS respectively, and we can also add Korea's LCK to this week's list. You can find schedules for the games at the links above, while the big, friendly 'watch live' button on the lolesports.com homepage will take you straight to the stream. 

CS:GO: DreamHack Leipzig 2016

As with Hearthstone, there's a whole bunch of CS:GO being played this weekend, but the biggest tournament by far is DreamHack Leipzig. Na'Vi, Virtus.pro, Dignitas and more will square off at the German LAN event, with the winners taking home $50k for themselves. Games began today and the full schedule is right here. You can also find the stream here.

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!

Almost a decade ago, I found a gamemode for Counter-Strike called KZ - short for Kreedz Climbing . A few months ago I stumbled upon it again, this time in CS:GO, and I instantly fell in love with it. Players compete to climb increasingly complex level geometry, testing their understanding of Counter-Strike s movement mechanics. The more I played the more intrigued I became and it only felt natural to dig a little deeper into the competitive aspect of KZ. To that end I spoke to Kenneth, founder of kz-climb.com, and ruben - one of the most prominent climbers in the scene.

"KZ is a custom game mode for Counter-Strike that involves difficult jumps and hard obstacles. The goal is to traverse through the map with the fastest time. However, for many maps, even reaching the finish point is a challenge in itself" Kenneth tells me.

As ruben puts it: it's basically like parkour for CS:GO."

The ultimate goal for a climber is to beat world records. To hold a global record for an official map carries prestige and takes a lot of practice. If you put in a lot of hours, blood, sweat and tears you might find yourself on top of the map crowned the new champion of the world. One of those champions is ruben, a humble guy from Sweden.

PCG: You hold some global records. Which ones are you most proud of and why?

ruben: I do. I'd say i'm most proud of my kz_haki_v2 run. It took me weeks if not months to get it down below seven minutes. Unfortunately Valve changed crouched bhops in a patch a while ago. As it is right now, it might not be beaten any time soon. Other than that, I think my kz_gigablock_go record is solid.

PCG: What does it take to get good at KZ?

ruben: I have played kz for about eight years and still have some issues. For example, people make fun of my long-jumps all the time. It definitely takes a lot of practice to get good at it. And a lot of patience... records won't come easy these days.

More than jumping

The basic idea of a long-jump is to manipulate the physics of the game in order to be able to jump further than you normally can. You do it by strafing before you jump and while you're still in the air. I don't claim to be an expert (or even good, for that matter) but here's an example of the technique:

"There is a lot more depth to KZ than simply jumping onto blocks until you make it to the end. Kenneth says. In many cases, players will need to make use of advanced movement techniques such as strafing, long-jumps, bunnyhops, and much more to complete the map. To add even another layer of difficulty, some players choose to do PRO runs, which are runs done without the use of any checkpoints."

"My personal favorite part about KZ is the competition he continues. There are currently hundreds of maps released for KZ, and each one has a global leaderboard. Players compete with other players from all around the world and new global records are set daily. This, along with weekly released maps, means that there's always something exciting going on in the KZ community."

We talked a little about Kenneth's website, kz-climb.com. "It's an internet forum where players can gather and discuss the game mode. There is a whole array of active members, ranging from beginners who would like to get better, to KZ veterans who want to prove their skill."

It's also a good resource for players who wants to improve their game. "In the forum, you can find tutorials on how to execute specific movement techniques, discuss the official released maps, watch the latest world record runs, or just talk about anything related to KZ Kenneth says. People who are new might be intimidated by the whole competitive aspect of KZ, but the KZ-Climb forum provides a friendly place where players can chat about their favorite game."

As the founder of a large KZ community, Kenneth has seen a lot of record runs over the years. I asked him which record he finds the most impressive.

"The most insane run is inarguably eightbO's PRO run of kz_cursedjourney in 20:43.25 he says.  kz_cursedjourney is a famous map known for its unparalleled difficulty. The majority of players who attempt it cannot even reach a quarter of the map, and those that do finish take an average of over two hours. What makes this run especially impressive is that eightbO manages to complete it without using a single checkpoint."

Advice for new players

Kenneth: Definitely start with the easy maps. I recommend the maps kz_beginnerblock_go, kz_frozen_go, kz_summercliff2_go, and kz_j2s_westbl0ck. These maps are all designed to give beginners a good feel of what KZ is and help you practice jumping and positioning. Learning how to airstrafe correctly is also very important. Airstrafing lets you control your movement while in the air and is useful to jump around corners. There are many tutorials online for it.

ruben: Don't be afraid to ask for help. There are always admins online and even better players often help people through the voice coms in-game. And you need patience. Lots of it.

I would strongly recommend climbing a few maps. Not only is it great fun, but it also helps you in normal games: being able to maneuver your character smoothly will help you win a lot of duels. Also, there are some really cool jumps on the competitive maps that you won't be able to land unless you learn some of these techniques. Have fun and see you at the top!

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!

With ESL One Cologne already on the cards, it's hardly a surprise that Counter-Strike: Global Offensive's best-endowed league is also returning for 2016. Last year, we streamed 30 million hours of the ESL One Pro League, and it looks as if ESL is planning to push the event from 'large' to 'ludicrous' starting February 9 and coming to a head in May.

The prize pool has increased 50% to $1.5 million, and live, in-person viewership will be heavily promoted, but it's a snippet from Vice President of Pro Gaming Ulrich Schulze that has my attention:

"It s not just offline audiences we re aiming for: television broadcasts, a higher standard of online production, a continued emphasis on competitive integrity—these are just some of the things you will see this year.

The statement reads as an acknowledgment of the pitfalls esports has skirted in 2015 and a major boast: yes, there's been trouble, but look, we're on telly! Despite being altogether more inconvenient than streaming, television is still treated as the Grail of acceptance and respectability for esports. I'm intrigued to see how and where CS:GO will be broadcast, and who that televisual CS:GO-watching demographic consists of.

The full rundown and schedule of the 24 teams taking part will soon be available on the ESL Pro League website.

A new year in electric sport gets underway as the League of Legends championship machine thunders to life after a post-Worlds hiatus. There's money to be won by the best Dota 2 and CS:GO teams in Minsk, and even a little Chinese Heroes of the Storm if that's what you're into.

Dota 2: StarLadder i-League StarSeries XIII Finals

After a week of group stage matches, season 13 of StarLadder will come to an end this weekend in Minsk. The remaining teams in contention are LGD, Evil Geniuses, Team Liquid, Alliance and Team Secret—although we'll lose either Alliance or Secret very shortly (at the time of writing, their quarterfinal set is about to begin.) The Dota 2 metagame has changed dramatically in the aftermath of 6.86b's overhauls, so this is a good opportunity to get up to speed. The quarterfinals run on Saturday from 08:00 CET/07:00 GMT/23:00 PST (Friday night: sorry, America.) The grand final will take place on Sunday at 11:00 CET/10:00 GMT/02:00 PST. Find the stream here.

CS:GO: StarLadder i-League StarSeries XIV Finals

Running alongside Dota 2 in Minsk, the year's first subsantial CS:GO tournament has been underway for a little while. The quarterfinals are being played right now to determine whether Na'Vi or ? progress to the next stage (Fnatic have already earned their spot.) They'll join Luminosity, Fnatic, and EnVyUs in tomorrow's semifinals, which begin at 10:00 CET/09:00 GMT/01:00 PST. The grand final will begin on Sunday at 14:00 CET/13:00 GMT/05:00 PST. Here's the stream.

League of Legends: NA LCS, LPL, and LMS

LoL's new season kicked off earlier in the week across the world. Play this weekend will take place in North America, China and Taiwan as the NA LCS, LPL, and LMS all get underway. Click those links to check out schedules for each individual league, and you can find streams at lolesports.com: look for the 'watch live' button on the homepage when games are on.

Heroes of the Storm: Gold Series Heroes League 2015 Grand Finals

The playoffs aren't until next week, but this weekend will see China's best Heroes of the Storm teams battle through group stages for a shot at a share of $100,000. Play begins at 17:00 local time/09:00 GMT/01:00 PST on both days. You can find English-language casting on Gillyweed's Twitch stream.

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!

As of January 13, competitive gaming group Titan is dead. Founder and CEO Damien Grust announced the disbandment on Titan's website, releasing all players and staff on its roster, which included Smite and CS:GO teams.

The group previously placed in the top 10 at The International 4, won in Quake at two DreamHacks and a QuakeCon, claimed a CS:GO Title at the DreamHack Invitational 2 and placed second in the 2015 Smite World Championships. However, as Grust details in his farewell post, the VAC ban dealt to CS:GO team member Hovik 'KQLY' Tovmassian in November 2014 would mark the beginning of the end.

"All the bad press that this brought and the major hit the image of an otherwise respectable brand took was too much," Grust writes. "Sponsors and partners with whom we were about to sign understandably backed out of deals, not wanting to be associated with a company that had just been tarnished. Needless to say, our budget for 2015 had gone up in smoke from one day to another."

It was a financial hit from which Titan has been unable to recover—a catastrophically high price for one member's cheating.

Last time we had a look at some cool tricks as CT on Overpass. Now it's time to indulge in the fine art of attacking the very same map.

My philosophy is that it's best to take control over key areas on the map before deciding where to attack. That gives you many more options as well as the freedom to back off again should anything go awry. In my CT guide I identified connector, lower tunnels and outside restroom as the key areas you want to control. This holds true when you're on the T-side as well. If you have connector you can change your mind and attack the other bomb site in a matter of seconds. But that s for later. The important part is how to actually execute the attack.

Utility grenades on B

A spot you almost always want to smoke off is sniper s nest. I always feel like a fool when I get killed from there because the solution to the problem is rather simple.

Note that this smoke is a really neat trick to use in one-on-one situations. Think about it: When the counter-terrorist finds himself alone it makes sense to go sniper s nest because it's close to both A and B. A very common reaction to getting smoked off in snipers nest is to go around down towards jungle. I've won more than one round by using this smoke and then run up through connector and plant the bomb on an empty bomb site on A.

You know that counter-terrorist who's on fire behind barrels? The guy who constantly stops you from getting through the pipe in canals? It's time to torch him, literally:

After that molotov it won't feel like you're crawling through the sewers anymore. Attacking canals will be a walk in the park.

If you know they usually have a guy behind barrels, and you have more time, you can use this boost instead:

This will save you the money you'd otherwise spend on a molotov, but after you've used it once they will be prepared for it. That guy might think twice before going barrels again.

Sometimes you want to smoke off the bridge to make it easier for your bomb carrier to enter the bombsite:

This smoke combined with the smoke on sniper's nest can also be used if you have an eco round and want to get the bomb down for that $4000 bonus ($800 per player.) Be careful, though: they can use the smoke to jump up on the ledge towards the water and sneak up on your guy while he's planting. It can be easy to forget that smokes aren't brick walls.

On the next page: controlling A and changing your mind.

Lay down a smoke screen on A

Bombsite A on Overpass is infamous for all the angles you have to clear when you enter the site. The counter-terrorists can hide on either side of the truck, around the van, inside bank, on the stairs or dance around the boxes. You get the point. Once you attack the site you don't want to have to worry about the guys rotating from B. For that reason you're going to lay down a smoke screen on the back of the site.

The first smoke is used to make it less attractive to go up the stairs as well as forcing a guy already peeking from there to change position. An enemy moving between positions is always an easier target. Simply aim slightly above this sign while standing on top of the bench outside restroom:

The second smoke is used to smoke off the bank, and can be quite tricky. Hold down the walk key (default is shift) and take two steps before you throw it. Otherwise it will bounce off the box on site and do more harm than good.

Where do you want to plant the bomb?

On bombsite A it's almost always preferable to plant the bomb towards restroom while using the boxes as cover. If you plant in that spot you can stop the defuse from all angles on the terrorist side of the site.

You're often very limited as to where you can plant the bomb on B. You need the cover from the woodblocks in order to get the bomb down safely. Not only is it the safest spot to plant in, but it gives you a lot of options for post-plant positions. You can stand back in canal, hide behind the pillar, fall back to construction or even go down to pit.

Final words

Like I mentioned earlier, it's important to take control over key areas of the map. Overpass is a map that's all about fast rotations. Use fakes a lot and don't be afraid to fall back if you notice that your opponents have a strong defense on the site you planned to take. Because of how fast the counter-terrorists can get to the other site it's almost always a good idea to have one guy engaging the enemy on the side of the map. Once you notice that the CTs are adapting to your slow style of play you can start playing a little bit faster and sometimes go for a five man attack. They won't rotate straight away if they're used to fakes. GLHF!

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!