Ethan Davison Profile - Dot Esports

As of this afternoon, Team Liquid seems to be moving on from its entire pro Apex Legends roster. While the team will continue to compete under the Team Liquid banner for the time being, its players are now actively hunting for a new organization to represent.

Brandon “Nocturnal” Singer, who has played for the organization since 2019, announced the decision in a tweet soliciting offers for sponsorship in the upcoming ALGS Pro League, which begins in November.

EA announced details on year three of the ALGS today, which is set to return in early October. The top professional circuit in Apex Legends esports will include a $5 million prize pool, three international LAN events, and some changes to the format from year two of competition. 

In-person tournaments will be played for the Split One playoffs in winter 2023, the Split Two playoffs in the spring, and the ALGS Championship next summer. Information on the location of these LAN tournaments is not yet available.

The popular legend Valkyrie is getting nerfed in the new season of Apex Legends, which releases tomorrow, while less-loved legends like Newcastle and Mad Maggie are receiving some big buffs.

In the patch notes for season 14 of Apex released today, Respawn detailed a series of changes that will slightly decrease Valkyrie’s effectiveness. The missile-spewing, jetpack-using recon legend will have all of her abilities affected except her scanning passives, which remain untouched. Most of these changes are minor, making them unlikely to convince players to ditch the versatile and powerful character.

Not even esports is safe from the effects of climate change.

As traditional sports events across the U.K. have been canceled or shortened in an effort to protect players from the dangerous heatwave sweeping the country, the esports tournament platform Hyperluxe followed suit today by postponing a planned Apex Legends tournament for players in the EU.

FURIA finished in second place at the ALGS Championship this past weekend in Raleigh, taking home $300,000. The Australian team DarkZero may have won the tournament, but the majority of the buzz around the event focused on FURIA.

It’s easy to see why FURIA stole the show: their aggressive style and unorthodox team composition using Seer and Horizon was a breath of fresh air in a field dominated by more conservative strategies. Throughout the tournament, FURIA looked fearless, taking on fights that most professional teams would have avoided—and winning them nearly every time.

Competition breeds innovation—at least in Apex Legends. The competitive meta at the ALGS Championship in Raleigh saw innovative team compositions emerge that proved more than capable of defeating the most popular picks at the $2,000,000 LAN. 

Though Valkyrie is still the star of the show when it comes to ALGS play, the international mix in Raleigh also ensured lesser-seen competitive Apex legends had their time to shine. APAC South teams still favor Wattson and Crypto. Even Mad Maggie got a spotlight on the big stage.

A large and enthusiastic crowd gathered on the night of Saturday, July 9 at the PNC Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina to watch Apex Legends. But this show wasn’t on the main stage. Instead, it took place inside a small glass vestibule in the lobby. The area around the enclosure, probably a repurposed merchandise shop for the Carolina Hurricanes NHL team, had been packed with people since the ALGS Championships began on Thursday, July 7, disrupting the flow of traffic and causing many passersby to stop and see what the fuss was about.

Fans were there to watch Jack “NiceWigg” Martin and Athanasios “Greek” Alestas, the popular “B-stream” casters recruited by the ALGS for the Stockholm LAN and the Raleigh championship, work. Inside their little booth, snacks littered a side table and a box of popcorn had spilled across the floor, giving it the vibe of a crowded movie theater instead of the broadcasting studio it had become. 

The $2,000,000 ALGS Championship in Raleigh, North Carolina concluded Sunday night with Australian squad DarkZero winning $500,000 and taking home bragging rights as the reigning monarchs of Apex Legends esports.

The Raleigh victory marks the Aussie team’s second straight Apex title.

Day three of the $2,000,000 ALGS Championship in Raleigh, North Carolina saw another 10 teams eliminated from contention today. Most of the better-known Apex Legends organizations made the grand finals, particularly those from North America, and teams like NRG and Furia looked primed for success in tomorrow’s finals.

The first match of the day in the winners bracket ended in classic fashion, in a duel between NRG and TSM, the two most winning organizations in the game. TSM clutched up, but that win had to serve as their highlight reel for the set of games, since they failed to reach the same heights for the rest of the stage.

On day two of the $2,000,000 ALGS Championship in Raleigh on Friday, the group stage of the tournament concluded and bracket play began. That meant that the top 20 teams in the tournament earned berths to the winners bracket and a well-deserved break, while the bottom 20 were forced to fight for survival in a losers bracket. By the end of the day, ten teams had been eliminated from the tournament. Many of them were duos, forced to play without full rosters after the original players tested positive for Covid. But PULVEREX, a Japanese team who were playing as a duo, managed to squeeze by on placement points and lived to fight another day, becoming crowd favorites in the process.

The day on the stadium stage in PNC Arena early Friday afternoon began with fans chanting “TSM!” and waving the team’s flag. The much-loved North American squad notched a victory in their first game with great positioning in the endgame, and won its last crucial moments thanks to some late-game dancing from ImperialHal and Verhulst.