Welcome to Esports Heaven Weekly -- a new series aiming to bring our viewers weekly updates from games across different genres. From fun, lighthearted and generic updates to dramas and controversies -- we’ve got you covered. Without further ado, let's begin!

DOTA 2

It’s customary we start off with the most adorable love-hate relationship in the game -- Battle Pass. Recently, Valve has been on the receiving end of the community’s ire regarding the Battle Pass. Few concerns voiced by the community are the intrinsic difficulty when it comes to levelling up the pass via quests, challenges, etc as well as how much less rewarding the pass this year has been. A particular redditor also went so far with his theory that received heavy support from the community stating that Valve has successfully shifted the anger directed towards themselves to anger between the community. On the other hand, TI10 prize pool has crossed the $13 million mark. Easy money, ain’t it? You can’t live with it nor can you live without it! https://www.dota2.com/international/battlepass Dota 2’s prodigal son, Jacky “EternalEnvy” Mao, was once again in the news, this time for calling an offensive “GG” against Evil Geniuses Envy later went on to clarify that it was just a “muscle memory” reflex thing. Maybe.

apologize to @EvilGeniuses for the offensive gg. i never type in all chat unless if its gg and it just became muscle memory when i wanted to pause

— EternaLEnVy (@EternaLEnVy1991) June 5, 2020

Virtus Pro Prodigy got a befitting reply from Alliance’s Nikobaby on Saturday for the “washed up” comment from one of VPP’s team members. As they say, you reap what you sow and Niko sure did give them a pretty tight “slap on the face”. Do watch the post match winner’s interview. Bonus clip on Nikobaby taunting VP in-game: https://clips.twitch.tv/SpotlessBlatantToadFloof ESL were once again in the news on Saturday when they issued a def loss to Team Nigma in game one against Team Secret at ESL ONE Birmingham EU/CIS lower bracket semi-finals. Plagued with internet outage across the country for nearly 20 mins, GH was unable to connect to the game and despite the circumstances, Nigma was awarded one game loss. And just like that Team Secret have won yet another tournament. They are your ESL ONE Birmingham 2020 Champions from EU/CIS. The hot streak continues! https://liquipedia.net/dota2/ESL_One/Birmingham/2020/Online/Europe_CIS Last but not the least, please take care of yourself during this pandemic. Stay sanitized and hygienic. To our American friends out there, please be careful and be safe.

League of Legends

One of the greatest legends the game has ever been graced by has retired. Uzi was an icon and largely unrivaled once he bursted onto the scene. On June 3rd, Uzi announced his retirement, and with it, marked the end of an era for League of Legends. The popularization of ADC centric LPL teams can be attributed to Uzi and Star Horn Royal Club. Uzi will, without a doubt, go down in history as one of the greats, taking his place alongside Chinese players like WeiXiao and ClearLove. The only sour note to this is that his retirement was somewhat forced given he has a hand injury that has persisted throughout recent years, along with a diabetes condition.

As of today, LPL0006 @UziRNG will officially retire. Uzi was not only the heart and soul of RNG, but also an icon in the esports world as a whole. From a teenager onwards he never gave up and worked as hard as he could to be the best he could in his role, he inspired many. pic.twitter.com/wsqqOnqE4o

— Royal Never Give Up (@RNGRoyal) June 3, 2020

Riot has announced that they will be revamping the solo queue experience with several changes planned for the future. The removal of inter-division promotions, more ranked MMR transparency, and champion select muting and reporting are just some of the highlights within the announcement. All of these updates have been asked from the community for years, and it looks like Riot is finally giving many players what they want. https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/dev/dev-updates-on-2020-ranked-matchmaking/

Overwatch

The New York Excelsior have signed the 2019 Rookie of the Year, Hyojong "Haksal" Kim, after he and the majority of his team mutually parted ways with the Vancouver Titans. Haksal has been a staple in the competitive Overwatch space since his debut as a Genji ace on the storied team, RunAway. He now takes his talents to one of the most prestigious Overwatch League franchises around and will likely compete with the team in the upcoming APAC side of the June Tournament.

The 2019 Rookie of the Year has a new home. Please join us in welcoming @RunawayHaksal2 to the Big Apple. #Andbox #EverUpward pic.twitter.com/jIoxYpiYOX

— NYXL (@NYXL) June 5, 2020

The Washington Justice will be looking to fill a fairly roll in their coaching staff as head coach Seetoh "JohnGalt" Jian Qing has left the team to further his education. After the Justice recently extended the 14-day contracts of former Vancouver Titans players, Chung-hee "Stitch" Lee and Hyeon-Woo "JJANU" Choi, one could assume that the franchise is simply moving towards a different direction with a full South Korean. JohnGalt joined the team last October as the team prepared for the upcoming 2020 season. The Washington Justice head into the upcoming June tournament with a 3-10 record. https://twitter.com/washjustice/status/1268996220552388615 With that in mind, the Overwatch League is set to return after a two-week hiatus on June 13th. The June tournament presumably will be the continuation of the league format experimentation after the success of the “May Melee.” The schedule has yet to be announced but with the date closing in, the public should expect a word from Overwatch League brass within the coming days. The San Francisco Shock and the Shanghai Dragons will be looking to defend their monthly titles in their respective regions.

VALORANT

The game finally hit Global Markets on 2nd June. The complete release brought with it a new map, game mode, and playable agent, as well as slight adjustments to current maps and Agent capabilities, a slight revamp to the user interface, some buyable cosmetic upgrades to weapons. Anna Donlon, the executive producer of Valorant, had a recent interview with Gamespot. She reportedly admitted to starting prototyping Valorant on consoles. Here’s what she had to say: “We are definitely prototyping that right now," Donlon told the site. "But there's a way to play this game and there's a way to experience this game that we're not entirely sure translates completely to console play. If we feel like we can deliver this experience on those platforms, we absolutely will," Donlon added. "But we really want Valorant to stand for a certain type of gameplay and a certain type of experience.” Major sports organizations are nearly on the verge of completing their professional tournament rosters. We have to realize, in the midst of all this, that the game is here to stay for long. T1 is one of the very first teams ready to go along with their roster. They intend to go all-in on their activities, as opposed to many. In all, they will have three rosters. One South Korean, One North American

Editor’s Closure

It's been another crazy (and mildly intolerable) week in esports. I have to call it as I see it - nothing more frustrating than virtue signaling companies that cannot practice as they preach. Good intentions only take you so far, but fortunately, there're some great examples of esports role models actually taking action. We're happy to have finished our third consecutive week of recurring articles while we wait for LAN events to start back up. Luckily, there's been online activities in the interim, but we can't wait for "the real deal" to start again. Make sure you all stay safe and sane in the meantime, and help us welcome our newest section, VALORANT. We’ll also be launching a new podcast in the coming weeks to look out for, which we’ll be linking on our social media as well as inside these weeklies, so please keep an eye (or ear?) out for that! Until next time!