Esports week in review: Cloud9 announce female squad, FIFA21 National Dutch team coach and more.

Cloud9 announce fully female roster.

One of the biggest esports organizations, Cloud9 has announced the signing of a fully female VALORANT team. The team was known as Team MAJKL, but from this moment will now compete under the C9 banner as ‘Cloud9 White’. The male Valorant roster will be renamed to ‘Cloud9 Blue’, in order to make the distinction in articles and media items easier.

Cloud9 Senior General Manager Gaylen Malone is happy with the arrival of the Team MAJKL roster and stated the following ;

“They are a talented group of women who came together with the goal of being the best at the game and were committed to doing what it took to get there, and watching their improvement over just the past few months has been incredible.”

Team ‘magical’ announced themselves through a YouTube introduction video with highlight reels of the players the 29^th of June 2020, accompanied by the following text on their social media profiles;

“We are MAJKL. We will compete with the best in VALORANT. We will be Radiant. We are the best NA female team. We are orgless.”

It seems as though the last part of their statement has been fixed within halve a year of their inception as a Valorant team. The C9 white roster consists of Melanie “meL” Capone, Alexis “alexis” Guarrasi, Katsumi, Annie “Annie” Roberts and Jasmine “Jazzy” Manankil. 

The team has been eliminated from the Valorant NA First Strike qualifier, but is expected to try again in the second 128 teams open qualifier for a spot in the finals.

Verdict comes in; EA to pay fines for sale lootboxes.

For the past years EA has been offering their trademarked FUT mode in their FIFA games. FIFA Ultimate Team. Players can buy and earn packs with random players in them, and find out which players they get when opening these packs. Some have spend ten thousands of dollars on these packs, and some get rich selling or trading their digital players online for massive amounts. All of this raised flags in the past years at gambling commissions around the world.

While in Belgium the gambling Committee has already banned EA Sports’ FIFA loot boxes a year ago, the judge in the Netherlands has just this week ruled in favor of the Dutch Gambling Committee and against EA as well. As of now, selling the player packs in the Netherlands is considered illegal gambling and EA will have to pay fines up to 5.000.000 $. EA will appeal to the decision.

The reason is said the buying and opening of packs by the gaming youngsters could cause the gamers to become addicted to gambling or esports betting. Hard evidence this is the case does not exist, but the Dutch Trimbos Instituut, an authority on addictions, has stated their concerns over the FUT system earlier. It remains to be seen whether EA will just start selling player cards without the random packing element, or take the fine on the chin if their appeal does not work out and accept the loss of income, while still probably making a profit.

DreamHack to host more 100K Open Fall events.

One of the oldest large tournament organizaters in the world of esports, DreamHack, will be following up on their DreamHack Open Fall event in October with several other big events. We reported Heroic’s grand final win against team Vitality to take home 33.000 $ just last Tuesday, and now DreamHack announced two more 100.000 $ events this year.

The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments in November and December will be held in a timespan of a few weeks, with dates pegged at Nov. 26-29, and Dec. 10-13. Players will compete online, and broadcasting will be arranged from the Monster Energy DreamHack Studio in Stockholm.

Teams will be invited according to the ESL European World Rankings, and will be combined with qualified teams coming from the Norwegian League, the Elgiganten Ligaen, the Telia Esports Series, the Polish ESL Championship as well as two teams qualifying through ESEA. For the December event four teams will once again be selected through the ESL World Ranking, and completed by winners of events such as the DreamHack Spain Qualifier, the ESL Masters Espana, the DreamHack Showdown Summer and once again an ESEA qualifier.

KNVB announce digital squad and national team coach.

Koen Weijland will act as national coach for the upcoming FIFA season. It is the first time KNVB has decided to select a squad of national players through a qualification process, and the first time they select a national coach. 

Koen Weijland is a multiple Dutch FIFA champion, and was under contract for AFC Ajax during the first eDivisie season in 2017 as a backup for Dani Hagebeuk, without actually getting to play. Hagebeuk managed to win that season unbeaten, and is to this day still with Ajax.

Among others, top four finishers in eDivisie will have a chance to be selected for the national team.