Don t be scared, it s just esports! Ok, no, wait, there is quite a lot of it, maybe you should be mildly concerned. This Halloween weekend is stuffed fuller than a trick or treater s cheap plastic candy basket with professional gaming action. Unlike a Jack O Lantern full of off-brand Mars bars, this week s matches are guaranteed to get you hyped without the associated sugar crash afterwards. It is unknown which of these two options is better for your teeth, though. It s the season finale of League of Legends and Counter-Strike s yearly dramas, as well as some prep work for Blizzard s festival of electronic sport next week. There is literally something for everyone, so get a pail of candied corn in and celebrate death (or whatever Halloween is about) with some fine esportsmanship.

League of Legends Worlds 2015 Finals

Worlds comes to a creepy close this All Hallows Eve, as finalists SK Telecom T1 take on their surprise contenders KOO Tigers in Berlin. Though not the all-Europe final many were hoping for after the elimination of both Fnatic and Origen in last week s semifinal bouts, this still promises to be a thrilling conclusion to the LoL year. KOO, the Korean rejects , will be looking to prove their fellow countrymen wrong to pass over them when putting together this year s rosters. SKT, however, fill the role of the infallible professionals with Faker the final raid boss before KOO can lift the Summoner s Cup. It all ends Saturday at 04:00 PDT / 11:00 GMT and you can catch it on the official Riot Games Twitch or Azubu.

Counter-Strike: DreamHack Cluj-Napoca

Throughout this weekend, the world s best CS:GO teams will be fighting their way through the final Major of the year, and the last chance to bag glory in 2015. Things are already looking a bit shaken up for this one as Luminosity Gaming have gotten out of their group and into the playoffs ahead of the year s reigning champs, Fnatic. The ESL Cologne winners now have one more match on Friday 02:00 PDT/09:00 GMT against the massively improved US Cloud9 side to determine if they continue on with a chance to defend their title. After that, the quarters play out on Saturday, starting 02:00 PDT/09:00 GMT and the last at 11:00 PDT/18:00 GMT. Then Sunday concludes with the semis from 02:00 PST/10:00 GMT and the final at 09:00 PST/17:00 GMT, all streamed via DreamHack s Twitch channel.

Dota 2: Nanyang Championship 2015

The conclusion of this month s Nanyang Championship plays out over Friday and Sunday this weekend, with Team Secret already overcoming a shaky start to the new season and finding themselves in the final. Friday s losers bracket playoffs will decide who faces them in that final (Sunday 01:00 PST/09:00 GMT—watch that daylight savings change, America) and Vici Gaming, Team Liquid and EHOME are all still in the running to do so. You can catch all of those on the BTS twitch.

Hearthstone World Championships group stages

BlizzCon proper isn t until next weekend, but there are quite a few matches to get out of the way before those grand finals. For Hearthstone, the groups have already begun and will continue until Saturday as players bid to secure their spot on stage for the quarterfinals on November 6. Some standout matches include ThijsNL vs Kno (Friday 09:00 PDT/16:00 GMT), the Japanese contender who finds himself second in Group A after edging out JAB 3-2 in his first match. The top two battles continue with Kranich vs Zoro at 10:00 PDT/17:00GMT and Ostkaka and Hotform face off just after at 11:00 PDT/18:00 GMT. Chinese and Taiwanese competitors Zihao and Pinpingho round out the battle for the top of their groups at 12:00 PDT/19:00 GMT. You can catch all matches on Friday and Saturday on Blizzard s official stream.

StarCraft: WCS Global Finals 2015

Also on the BlizzCon prep list is the StarCraft Round of 16. These start on Sunday, with the top-vs-bottom matchup of herO vs FanTaSy (10:00 PST/18:00 GMT) and continue down the WCS rankings, pitting the top players against their inverse rank qualifiers every 90 minutes or so. This leaves Europe s wonderchild, and the last remaining non-Korean competitor in the competition, Lilbow playing against last year s champion Life at 14:30 PST/22:30 GMT. Tune in then to lend him your energy by pasting those same four BibleThump emoticons over and over in Twitch chat on the official 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!

Following three earlier parts in this series, we have finally gotten to the four best teams in the world who are most likely going to be competing for the title of world champions at DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca, which had its first group matches today (here's the schedule). Three of these teams are old champions—though EnVyUs s win featured two different players—while TSM are still hoping to score their first elusive major championship. Let s take a look at the four biggest favorites, in no particular order.

fnatic 

Sweden — flusha, JW, KRiMZ, olofm, pronax

fnatic are the defending champions, having won the last two majors at ESL One Cologne and ESL One Katowice. However, in the past couple of months their level of play has seemingly decreased, with losses piling up against all of the teams they will be competing with for the title. The competition is only going to get tougher, and sometimes what you need to get a boost of motivation is to lose a couple of times, in order to want to put in work again. It is surprisingly easy to get complacent when you are at the top, and if fnatic end up winning their third straight major title, they will be the first ones to tell you it was key to lose some tournaments leading up to it.

In Cologne, fnatic was the clear favorite going in. This time it should be a much closer affair. Any of the three other teams here—TSM, Virtus.pro, or EnVyUs—could realistically take down pronax s squad in a best-of-three series. In a vacuum I would still pick fnatic as the likeliest champions, but the world is not a vacuum—and things like motivation matter. I do not think fnatic will lose to Virtus.pro or EnVyUs, but if they face TSM earlier than the grand final, it is possible that the Black and Orange may miss on a three-peat. On the other hand, if they get to grand final and someone else has already knocked TSM out, they could complete a three-peat, which no one will, most likely, ever repeat in CS:GO. Talk about a legendary team.

Team SoloMid

Denmark — cajunb, device, dupreeh, karrigan, Xyp9x)

TSM is obviously going to be competing for the title at Cluj-Napoca. The team has an incredible record in Romania—not that it really matters—and has been trending up in recent months. They still seem to have fnatic in their back pocket, but their kryptonite is EnVyUs, and their record versus Virtus.pro is not much better either. As a result, device s and Team SoloMid s final placing at the next major, if they do not significantly improve on their game, will likely depend heavily on the bracket draw.

In simplest terms, you would pick TSM as a slight favorite versus fnatic, an underdog versus EnVyUs, and a 50-50 shot against Virtus.pro. That is a great situation to be in, considering those are your main competition for the title, but at the same time it still shows how much this major s title is up for grabs. If the trio of device, dupreeh and cajunb play like stars, karrigan has the occasional impact round he s had recently and calls well, and Xyp9x continues clutching big rounds, I could easily see this being TSM s event. And when you think about what each team has going for them motivation-wise, I think that only makes sense. My money is on TSM at this coming major.

EnVyUs 

France — apEX, Happy, kennyS, kioShiMa, NBK

EnVyUs won their first tournament with the new roster—IEM Gamescom—with four map wins over TSM. They placed second, only to fnatic, at ESL One Cologne, and aside from the sloppy play at ESL ESEA Dubai Invitational, have mostly looked like the kind of team who might make another grand final run at Cluj-Napoca. I still believe this may be the most skilled roster ever assembled, and while Happy s playing style comes under scrutiny at times, there s no denying his system works, and that he is the most skilled in-game leader in the game. The ceiling of EnVyUs, when firing on all cylinders, is incredibly high. That is the number one thing they have going for them with the amount of skill this roster packs.

On the other hand, kennyS has not been the force we became used to since the AWP update, apEX remains very up and down, and while both kioShiMa and NBK are star lever players at times, both also have the occasional bad series. This team s problem is that they do not have a single go-to guy who is able to win them terrorist rounds when needed—which has a lot to do with the fact their lurker is their in-game leader. It has not been much of a problem in the past, but I would bet that a team doing their homework would have it the easiest versus EnVyUs out of these four teams. If they are on fire, they can win it all, and the trio of Happy, kioShiMa, and NBK can secure their second major, a year removed from the first one. But if multiple players have a bad series at the wrong time, these guys could exit in the semis, or even in the quarter-finals.

Virtus.pro

Poland — byali, NEO, pasha, Snax, TaZ

Virtus.pro is the ultimate underdog team. Their form comes and goes, and while Snax is the team s best player over the long haul, any one of their five players is capable of being the best player in any series. Out of these four squads, it s possible that Virtus.pro match-up the best against the others overall. After the win over fnatic at the PGL Season 1 Finals they overcame the mental block of dropping the ESL One Cologne semi-final, and should feel very confident going into this event. It is a clich at this point to say the Poles play better at the majors, but it still holds true—and there is little reason to expect that to change.

If pasha is able to step up his game and become the kind of force he was in early 2014—when he was briefly considered a top five player in the world—this team could become world number one. Without him putting up huge numbers, there is not enough consistent firepower. TaZ and NEO still come and go, though the latter has improved a ton in recent months, and byali s ups and downs are legendary at this point. Snax contributes constantly, but one player is not enough to overcome the likes of fnatic, TSM, or EnVyUs. I expect Virtus.pro to make the semi-finals, and it would not be at all surprising to see them in the grand final. But that will depend on what kind of performance kuben is able to draw from his players over a five day period.

You can reach @lurppis_ on Twitter.

PC Gamer Pro is a new channel 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!

In the third part of our DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca preview series (here are parts one and two), we finally take a look at teams who are expected to still be competing in the $250,000 tournament when it reaches the playoff stage. These four teams are, by odds, expected to go out in the quarter-finals—or, in other words, there are four teams at the event who are expected to do even better. We'll go over them tomorrow, but from here on out, anyone could win if things break out right.

Gamers2

Europe dennis, fox, jkaem, Maikelele, rain

Much like for NiP, for Gamers2, at least in its current formation, this major will effectively be its last hurrah. We do not know how these two rosters will look in January, but it is a given at this point that some of those rumors will come true. Kinguin defeated Cloud9 after a Tec-9 round win at 13-14 at ESL One Cologne, giving them a spot here. They added jkaem—who impressed at the DH Cluj-Napoca qualifier—to replace ScreaM, who was reportedly bought out for 150,000 to join Titan during the period in-between the majors. This team has a lot of skill, but that will only get you so far.

With four players speaking Swedish to some degree, fox is obviously the odd man out. In fact, getting your average, pretty good Swedish player likely would improve this team. However, since the team s days are numbered to begin with, there is probably no point in making changes anymore. I think the skill of this team will get them through the lower tier teams, but at the same time it would not be at all surprising if a team like Cloud9 or Titan knocked them out. They simply have the higher seed to guard them from having a tough group. I m willing to side with G2 and assume they have what it takes to make the playoffs, but there is no faith in them making the semi-finals.

NiP

Sweden — allu, f0rest, friberg, GeT_RiGhT, Xizt

The NiP farewell tour has been mostly a success—their run at ESL ESEA Dubai Invitational was their best result in who knows how long, and they have had some decent results online as well. This team will not yield this roster come January 1, but we still have some two months left where the legendary NiP core will, together with allu, try to add an international title to their resume. And, interestingly enough, in my opinion this team is now more dangerous than it has ever been, save for the first two months or so after allu joined the team in late February.

Everyone on this team is now, to some degree, playing for themselves. This team is not staying together, so while winning would be great, what these players care about, or should care about, is how they portray themselves going into 2016—as that will largely decide their future. GeT_RiGhT will have takers no matter what, but what are allu or friberg going to do if they have poor showings? Those players must play well in the last months they have with NiP, which is exactly why I believe this team will be dangerous. Xizt s calling and leadership will never win them games, let alone events, but the individual skill of these five players combined? It s possible. Expect NiP to cruise through to the playoffs, and honestly, I would not be at all surprised if they made the semis.

Titan 

France  Ex6TenZ, RpK, ScreaM, SmithZz, shox

Titan are an odd bunch. The addition of ScreaM definitely added considerably skill they did not have with Maniac on the team, but at the same time they still have three players who are not ever going to blow up the bank with their individual efforts. RpK s comeback has been disappointing, SmithZz is not a top tier player, and while Ex6TenZ does his job when it comes to leadership, he has never been much of a contributor on an individual basis. That leaves an awful lot of pressure on shox and ScreaM to bring it day in and day out, but that duo just might be able to do it.

While Ex6TenZ s teams have not made it out of the group stage at a major in what feels like forever—nearly two years by the time this event kicks off—they are still a dangerous group to go up against simply because of the Belgian s leadership and tactics. They often cause issues for the very top teams in the world, and the addition of ScreaM should be enough to put them over the top against lower level of competition skill-wise. I think Titan will finally get out of the groups and, if shox is as motivated as I assume him to be, could even scare a team in the quarter-finals. This team makes sense on paper, and it seems they are much more motivated than one would have assumed after the former EnVyUs duo s ugly exit from the team that led to them joining Titan in July.

Na`Vi 

Ukraine  Edward, flamie, GuardiaN, seized, Zeus

Natus Vincere s future largely depends on how the ex-CIS powerhouse does at Cluj-Napoca. The leaked screenshot of GuardiaN s chat with STYKO revealed that the team was close to replacing both Edward and Zeus. That never wound up going through, and now STYKO is playing for HellRaisers as a stand-in, but that may be temporary. Rumors say Na`Vi s future will be decided after this event, so an exit in the group stage or even where I am assuming they will go out—in the quarter-finals—will likely mean this team will not look the same in 2016.

Na`Vi have had a strong year overall, being ranked in the top two at their peak. However, they have had multiple instances where seemingly they allowed constant bickering and complaining get to them—an issue that existed in Zeus s Na`Vi teams going as far back as at least 2011—and it seems they are not going to be able to fix those issues. Instead of Zeus leading, the task will be on their coach and former member starix, which could help alleviate some issues in-game, but the issues of whining and not playing as a team are likely too prevalent to fix. Those rumors have existed about Edward for a year, and it s hard to see them being fixed for good. Expect Na`Vi to be good, but not great. Base case is quarter-finals exit, and if things go well, they could reach the semis.

You can reach @lurppis_ on Twitter.

PC Gamer Pro is a new channel 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!

A brief lull descends over the esports scene this weekend in the calm before next week s storm. The LoL Worlds finals, Dota 2 Frankfurt Major, BlizzCon and CS:GO s last Major of the year at DreamHack Cluj-Napoca all loom close on the horizon, so it seems only right to get some respite before then. Despite there being no trophies to hand out this weekend, there are still plenty of top flight games to tune into as both the CS:GO ESL ESEA Pro League and Dota DreamLeague seasons continue their early group round robin stages. And let s not forget the penultimate stage of Worlds as the European road trip to the Summoner s Cup draws to a close.

Here are the biggest esports fixtures of the weekend.

League of Legends Worlds 2015 Semifinals

Having shed all but four teams from their tour around Europe, the Riot banterbus rolls into Brussels this weekend for the semifinals. It s a very EU affair, too, as Origen and Fnatic have made it through the gauntlet on opposite sides of the bracket, meaning a home continent derby finals is still on the cards. For that to happen, however, Origen would have to best SKT Telecom T1 who have been on striking form this season. And Fnatic will need to send home KOO Tigers, who staged a surprise coup against their Korean rivals KT Rolster who swiped the second seed spot from them in the playoffs. The quarters at Wembley were a bit of a whitewash, with three of four matches resulting in one-sided sweeps, but the talent seems closer in these matchups. Find out when Origen face SKT on Saturday at 07:30 PDT/15:30 BST, and KOO take on Fnatic Sunday at the earlier time of 05:30 PDT/12:30 GMT (watch out for that British daylight savings change, folks). You can catch it all on the official Riot Games Twitch or Azubu.

Counter-Strike: ESL ESEA Pro League Season 2

In the interim before Cluj-Napoca, you can catch HellRaisers, Titan, Ninjas in Pyjamas, TSM, Virtus.pro and EnVyUs in some regular season matches. This weekend s specific matchups in the round robin pit all of the North American teams against one another over the course of two days. Starting from 15:00 PDT/23:00 BST until 20:00 PDT/03:00 GMT on Saturday night Cloud9, CLG, Team Liquid, EnemyGG and Coastless will face off against one another before repeating the matchups again on the Sunday. The rest of the European action takes course earlier each day, from 08:00 PDT/16:00 BST on the Saturday and 08:00 PDT/15:00 GMT on the Sunday. You can catch those on ESL s Twitch channel. 

Dota 2: DreamLeague Season 4

Another run-of-the-mill round robin bracket continues this weekend to determine who will get a crack at the $150,000 prize pool at November s DreamHack Winter finals. Though the Frankfurt Major is around the same time, many of the invited and qualified teams are competing which has led to some clenchworthy finishes in recent games. Don t be surprised to see scenes reminiscent of Alliance battling back against megacreeps to defeat NiP during the Major qualifiers. Matches begin at 04:30 PDT/12:30 BST on Saturday with 4CL versus Monkey Freedom Fighters and finish at 12:00 PDT/20:00 BST with MFF facing off against NiP. Catch the action on the DreamLeague Twitch channel.

Dota 2: The Summit 4 American Qualifiers

Sunday s Dota fix comes in the form of The Summit 4 s American qualifiers, also Saturday s, if you want to catch the winner s bracket final of ROOT Gaming play Digital Chaos at 14:00 PDT/22:00 BST (which, of course, you do). Sunday s matches represent the final chances in the loser s bracket (14:00 PDT/21:00 BST) for Cloud9 and whoever survives today s game between paiN Gaming and Elite Wolves. And after that, at 17:00 PDT/midnight GMT, Wizards & Priests will take on the victor s of today s compLexity versus Team Archon showdown. You can catch all of those games on Beyond The Summit.

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!

In the second part of our four-part DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca preview, we take a look at four more hopefuls who are not favored, but unlike the earlier bunch, could realistically all make it to the playoffs. Here comes the next tier of competition at the $250,000 major.

Luminosity

Brazil  boltz, coldzera, FalleN, fer, steel

The Brazilians had a solid showing at ESL One Cologne, scoring their second consecutive top eight finish at a major. In the group stage they bested Kinguin, and after multiple overtimes, FlipSid3, before ultimately being knocked out of the event by fnatic in the quarter-finals. Luminosity has a strategic approach to the game, and that combined with the fact Europeans don t see them play too often and them now getting quality practice in North America helps their game tremendously.

In the right group Luminosity could have a very good shot at advancing—think having the likes of Gamers2 or Titan in theirs—but unfortunately a lot of it will come down to luck. What they do have going for them is the legend-seed, due to their top eight finish in Germany. FalleN s troops will be hoping for another top eight finish, one that would definitely solidify them as a top eight team in the world despite being fairly inactive as a team outside of the majors.

mousesports

Europe  chrisJ, denis, gob b, nex, NiKo

I d been saying for months that NiKo would replace either Spiidi or denis in mousesports after the major, and that their ceiling would, as a result of getting the highly skilled Bosnian rifler onboard, increase. However, so far it seems that the fragging load has simply moved towards NiKo, while nex has seemed to struggle individually after the change. Obviously some spots and roles had to be shuffled around, but if mouz want to compete for a playoff spot, they need nex to get back to the level of play he showcased during the late spring and throughout the summer.

chrisJ has finally started playing like a top level AWPer should, more consistently. He has a very explosive playing style that can win rounds for mousesports at any point—not unlike NiKo s, though the latter is far more consistent. If nex can step up his game and gob b comes into Cluj-Napoca sleeves filled with new tricks, I would not be at all surprised to see mousesports continue through to the playoffs. However, at this point based on what we have seen, it is more likely that they will once again fall short. And if they do, I m not sure this team can continue as it is.

Cloud9 

USA  fREAKAZOiD, n0thing, sg@res, shroud, Skadoodle

Every North American s favorite team has officially started struggling badly right after the incredible streak of top two finishes in July ended. Following second place finishes at ESL ESEA Pro League Season 1 Finals, ESWC and FACEIT Stage 2 Finals, they first went out in the semi-finals at the CEVO Professional Season 7 Finals, then crashed out in groups at ESL One Cologne against what should have been an inferior Kinguin team, and then went out in last place at the ESL ESEA Dubai Invitational. In other words, the magic, if there was any, is far removed from this team.

Skadoodle is the team s star and will always put up the necessary numbers for Cloud9 to have a chance. The issue, therefore, lies elsewhere. Shroud is still incredibly inconsistent and until he figures out how to show up more often, must be considered one of the most overrated players by today s fans. Sure, in Cologne in July he had an incredible showing, especially in the grand final versus fnatic, but it s been nearly four months since then. Sg@res will have to make all the right calls, while fREAKAZOiD and n0thing will need to put up impact rounds. There are a lot of question marks here, which is why I do not expect Cloud9 to advance from its group.

dignitas 

Denmark — aizy, Kjaerbye, MSL, Pimp, schneider

Dignitas looked promising throughout the summer with Nico on the roster, though there were probably a grand total of zero people who expected that to last, even if the final blow was not his choice this time around. On paper schneider seems like a strong pickup, a former fnatic player who has won the first major ever held for the game. However, it is unclear how effectively he can communicate with the rest of the team due to only speaking Swedish, and this team actually seemed to be quite reliant on their tactics. Besides, Pimp moving to an AWPer role has not worked out whatsoever.

There is potential here for sure. Kjaerbye will someday put it all together—remember he is still incredibly young at just 17 years old—and he can become a fourth wheel if this roster sticks together. They have four capable fraggers as it is, and MSL has proven to be a decent leader in this situation. This team will figure all their issues out sometime in the next twelve months, most likely, and start competing for semi-final spots. In the past they would have become a farm team—someone the top tier teams poach players from—but stronger contracts have changed all that. Expect dignitas to go out in the groups, but not without a fight.

You can reach @lurppis_ on Twitter.

Update: After this article was written, dignitas removed schneider and added tenzki as a stand-in.

PC Gamer Pro is a new channel 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!

In the first part of this four-part preview for the next Counter-Strike: Global Offensive major, DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca held from October 28 to November 1 in Romania, we take a look at the four participants who are the least likely to be competing for the $100,000 first place prize on the fifth and final day of the tournament.

In the time leading up to the event we ll cover the other 12 teams competing for the title, but now, let s take a look at the first four teams, in no particular order, who will be traveling to Romania for the next $250,000 major. These are all great teams, but they ll be dark horses at Cluj-Napoca.

Vexed

Poland — Furlan, GruBy, Hyper, peet, rallen

Locals expected these guys to do well at ESL One Cologne after they took down the days old Titan line-up at the qualifier, but naturally the Poles were quickly eliminated by stronger competition—namely fnatic and CLG. At this event s qualifier, GruBy s team lost to HellRaisers in the opening round, but bounced back with a win over Skyred, and the same HellRaisers squad, to book them their second consecutive major event appearance.

Now that they have already been to a major, this team must be hungrier than before. It is likely they will not be happy with going out 0-2 this time around, yet it s most likely that will still be their destiny. However, they took down Titan and HellRaisers before, both clear upsets versus teams not many thought they stood a chance against. They could once again score an upset at DreamHack, and even if they do not progress from the groups, as is expected, it can still be a positive learning experience.

FlipSid3

Ukraine — B1ade, bondik, DavCost, markeloff, WorldEdit

FlipSid3 have continued playing well since s1mple s departure in July—in fact, I would bet that not many people that are unaffiliated with the team expected them to continue putting in good results. The Ukrainian team was already low on individual skill and high on tactics and teamplay, so losing one of the world s most skilled players and your most skilled player certainly did not help. Yet here they are, markeloff heading to yet another major, and again hoping to be the cinderella story of the event.

FlipSid3 will most likely finish either third of fourth in their group. They possess enough potential to even make it through to the playoffs if placed in a favorable group that breaks out just the right way, but realistically the depth in teams is probably too much for this team in Cluj-Napoca. In a sense, they remain gatekeepers newcomers in Europe must get through to break into the top sixteen of the world—a ranking that does not sound like much, but entitles you to a healthy salary, and a chance for glory at all the majors.

CLG

USA — jdm646, FNS, hazed, reltuC, tarik

CLG have shown promise here and there, though to this day their greatest achievement was probably the upset win over fnatic on de_mirage at ESL ESEA Pro League Season 1 Finals in early July. The fact is this team simply lacks the ability to close games out, and that has a lot to do with individual skill. While the duo of jdm64 and tarik have shown they are capable of putting up numbers and competing with the best of them, the rest of the team just does not show up often enough.

For some reason FNS gave up the calling duties months ago to reltuC, but he has not picked up on fragging one bit since then. Meanwhile reltuC has never been an impact player, and while hazed has the occasional good game, he is not going to put them over the top in a best-of-three series versus an elite team. This team could do with some coaching, but more than anything, they need consistent star level play from tarik, and one other player to step up to the plate. I don t expect that to happen, so they will probably go out in the groups, once again having been close to advancing.

Team Liquid

USA — adreN, EliGE, FugLy, Hiko, nitr0

EliGE has finally started stepping up his game, and Hiko is a real asset to any team in the world. Even nitr0 has the occasional good game. When looking from afar it seems that this team should have plenty of potential, yet we all know from over three years of CS:GO that adreN has never made any team go anywhere since switching over from Counter-Strike: Source. He hasn t been much of a player in this version of the game, but as one of the few in-game leaders in North America, still continues on one of the region s best teams.

In my mind, what Liquid must going against them is how happy they looked after qualifying for the major—it s one of those cases where you could tell from their players faces, if you were watching, that this was it. There was no hunger left in their faces, aside from Hiko s. They will get bounced early on if they don t luck out, and next time they will want more. This team will gradually improve and may ultimately become a real contender for the top spot in North America, but for the time being they will have to be content with just getting to take in the atmosphere at the major.

The next part of this four-part series will feature four more teams that I expect to head out early from DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca. After that, we ll get to the eight teams who will have the best shot at a spot in the semi-finals and ultimately, the next major title.

You can reach @lurppis_ on Twitter.

PC Gamer Pro is a new channel 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!

CS:GO's deathmatch maps don't get a ton of love. They're generally thought of as arcadey warm-ups for its traditional, team-based modes. But modder Zool Smith has been experimenting with an interesting Quake-themed free-for-all map for CS:GO. With lava waterfalls as a backdrop, F4ST Castle lays out jump pads, item and health pickups alongside accelerated movement that enables easy bunnyhopping and makes players more elusive. Does the AWP make a decent railgun replacement? You be the judge.

CS:GO's lack of a rocket launcher may leave you missing true arena style-weapons in this context, but it's neat to see someone tinkering with this sort of crossover. F4ST Castle isn't yet up on Steam Workshop, but you can admire Zool's other projects in the meanwhile, which include a first-person take on Mario in Garry's Mod, new particle effects for TF2, and turning TF2's go-kart minigame into Mario Kart.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is an ultra-competitive first-person shooter, but who said it couldn't be a clothing line too? One fashion label has decided it can be and, in partnership with Valve, is taking votes on the best designs. As the image above suggests, if all goes to plan you'll soon be able to wear jackets brandished with your favourite weapon skin. 

Who wants this, though? Plenty of people apparently: according to Betabrand the above jacket has racked up over 11,000 votes. And it doesn't stop at jackets. Blouses, short sleeve shirts, athletic tees and chicken dresses are also available, and they're all surprisingly tasteful too. Much better than the boxshot-on-a-cheap-black-shirt fare we're used to around these parts, but then, I'm no authority on fashion so you can be the judge. 

Check out some more options below:

Grenades are one of CS:GO's most unique elements. On the one hand, they're secondary equipment in a game that's very much about aim, angles, and scoring headshots. On the other hand, they're the closest thing to a hard counter in countless situations—knowing how to angle a flashbang or smoke off the wall can save your team from destruction in CS:GO's popular competitive mode.

Last week we featured 10 useful grenade throws on the maps Dust2, Mirage, and Cache. Knowing that all of these angles and arcs are a lot to take in at once, this week we complete that series with some recommended 'nade tosses on three more well-treaded CS maps: Nuke, Cobblestone, and Inferno.

de_nuke

Situation: Smoking off big garage as Terrorists

Situation: Flashing bombsite A from the roof overlooking Terrorist spawn

Situation: From lobby, flashing B ramp as Terrorists to initiate a push

de_inferno

Situation: Smoking off CT spawn in order to attack bombsite B

Situation: Defending B and banana as CT, deciding where to smoke

Situation: As a Terrorist, checking baby room (aka 'dark') near mid for a camping CT

de_cobblestone

Situation: As CT, smoking off B main from CT spawn

Situation: Dropping through skyfall as Terrorists to take bombsite B

Situation: Smoking off highway to initiate a B main push as the terrorists

PC Gamer Pro is a new channel 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!

This weekend is all about warm-ups. League of Legends ongoing group stages heat up in Paris; Blizzcon gets its latest pair of Hearthstone competitors; the Dota 2 Frankfurt Major begins its massive international qualifier process; the Smite Pro League rumbles on. Fancy something different? Try the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive World Championships 2015, a rare example of a competition featuring national teams rather than established orgs.

League of Legends: LCS Worlds Group Stages

This has been arguably the most dramatic group stage in the history of the League of Legends World Championship. The action continues this weekend, with matches between Team SoloMid, Origen, KT Rolster, LGD Gaming, Invictus Gaming, ahq e-Sports Club, Fnatic, and Cloud 9. Games run from approximately 10:00 BST/02:00 PDT on Saturday and from 08:00 BST/00:00 PDT on Sunday. Find a full schedule right here, and follow the action on the official livestream. Need to catch up on the teams? Check out our massive group stage preview.

2015 Hearthstone Americas Championship

Hot on the heels of last week's European Road to Blizzcon, the best Hearthstone players in the Americas head to San Francisco to compete for a prize pool of $25,000 and one of two spots at the World Championship at Blizzcon. Play is scheduled to occur all day on Pacific time, and you can follow it all on the official stream.

Dota 2: The Frankfurt Major 2015 Regional Qualifiers

The first Dota 2 Major will find its final set of teams this weekend as all four regional qualifiers happen at once. This includes teams that qualified through the open qualifiers, which have been running all week. There are big names mixed in with the newcomers - Invictus Gaming in China, Na'Vi, Alliance and Ninjas in Pyjamas in Europe, Fnatic and MVP Phoenix in South East Asia. It'll be difficult to follow the entire thing, so I recommend picking a region and sticking with it. Play starts on Saturday at the following times:

• USA: 18:00 BST/10:00 PDT.
• South East Asia: 03:00 BST/19:00 PDT (Friday night in the USA.)
• Europe: 11:00 BST/03:00 PDT.

In China, the games start on Sunday at 03:00 BST/19:00 PDT (Friday night in the USA.)

Games can be spectated in the client, or check the official site for Stream info.

Counter-Strike: The World Championships 2015

They may well have called this 'Technically The World Championships 2015'. TWC is one of the few esports events to involve national teams rather than sponsored squads. As such, it's a bit of a novelty: a chance to see the USA face off against Singapore, Kyrgyzstan, Sweden and so on. Most players are drawn from multiple esports orgs, with a bunch of free agents in the mix to round things out. The winner takes home $50,000. The group stages are happening right now, with the main bracket to be played over the course of the weekend. Scheduling info isn't currently available that far ahead on the official site, but you can watch the stream here when the time comes.

Smite: SPL Fall Split Week 8

Smite's Super Regional draws closer as the Fall Split marches on. Play starts at 18:00 BST/10:00 PDT on both Saturday and Sunday, and all of the games will be streamed on the official Smite Twitch and available afterwards on YouTube. Look out for Cloud9 vs. COG on Sunday. C9 is made up of the players who won the first Smite World Championship under the COG Gaming label earlier in the year: they face off against the team brought in to replace them.

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!