The Esports Heaven weekly has returned this week. Amidst total IRL chaos, we've compiled some information for upcoming events and those already having wrapped up to close out the month of May in esports. Without further adieu, let's dig right in. Dota 2 First thing’s first. The International 2010 Battle Pass has been released, bringing much needed joy on the lovely faces of the community, waiting to empty their wallets and sell their souls to the Almighty Gaben. Better yet, it’s been only five days since the battle pass release and the prize-pool has shot up north of $11,000,000, for the crown jewel event of Dota 2; The International 2010 -- that has been postponed to 2021 owing to Covid 19. (https://www.dota2.com/international/battlepass) It’s great going back to where it all began. In this unfortunate time of the Covid pandemic, Dota 2 is once again seeing a huge surge in online tournaments. Yes, at times the ping issues do play spoilsport, but it feels nice to see a resurgence of the good ol’ days of online competition. Helping people around the world in staying safe and entertaining them at the same time; talk about killing two birds with one stone. Speaking of tournaments, ESL ONE Birmingham 2020 is going on at full throttle across regions around the globe. Things I’m most impressed with are some of the teams competing like Nigma, Viking.gg, Cyber Legacy and Virtus Pro Prodigy. Team Secret is as usual the dominant force it always has been; however, it is pleasing to see Nigma (ex-Team Liquid and TI7 winners) displaying dominance in this tournament. That said, their real test will be against Secret when Kuroky goes up against his long time friend Puppey on May 30th. That said, seeing new teams emerge and give strong competition to established teams is like icing on the cake. VP.P replacing the “A” roster of VP in this competition and topping their group is another surprise, and Viking as well as Cyber Legacy being in the top of their groups is another delight to the eyes. (https://liquipedia.net/dota2/ESL_One/Birmingham/2020) It is also difficult to see OG -- two time TI winners -- struggle and see them eliminated from ESL ONE Birmingham, although they have just debuted with their new original roster a few days ago. Perhaps they are still a bit rusty?   League of Legends The Mid Season Cup —a replacement to the usual Mid Season Invitational due to the COVID-19 pandemic— has taken place. T1, predicted as a strong contender to win the event, had surprisingly been knocked out of the group stage. Some would say this is due to the event format itself being a short Bo1 with 1st place and last place having a win difference of one. The more important thing to take away from this tournament isn’t the strength of the teams, since the format is a bit lacking, it’s that this may give us a peek into what global meta will take hold for the Summer Split. After two days of BO1 games, only four teams qualified to the BO5 Knockout stage. Despite the aforementioned high expectations around LCK teams like T1 and DRX, only Gen.G managed to make it out of groups and were convincingly taken down by TOP Esports, a roster widely considered the best in the LPL despite losing the Spring Finals. On the other side of the bracket, FPX managed to take JDG down 3-1 after losing the first game, giving us an LPL final. TES and FPX didn’t actually meet in the Spring Split Playoffs, so it should be an entertaining match between two very talented rosters. The lack of a truly competitive format has affected the quality of the Playoff Games, but the Blind Pick games at the start of the BO5 series have been a fun and welcome addition—while being a nostalgic throwback to the Game 5 Blind Pick that used to happen in OGN Champions. MSC has been part of a multi-day streamathon created by Riot to raise funds for COVID-19 relief. This event has included a variety of games, shows and guests from every region around the World. From the fallout of the TSM debacle, Dardoch has found a team in Dignitas. After the departure of Huni and the joining of V1per from FlyQuest, the team will still have to decide which jungler to start between Dardoch and Akaadian. TSM have also stated that their starting jungler will be former academy player Spica, who, in a controversial move, previously filled in for the 2019 Summer Split playoffs in place of both Grig and Akaadian. Spica has large expectations, but he has been touted by some to be an exceptional uprising talent, with the likes of solo queue player Tarzaned also praising him in the past. The average LCS player salary has been revealed to be over $400,000 by Hal Biagas, the executive director of the NA LCS Players Association, on the talkshow Essential Esports. While the number is sure to impress onlookers, there was little mention if this was the mean or median average. The reason why this is important is because the mean is sure to bring up the overall average number if the top end *cough*Huni*cough* heavily outweighs the bottom. As I’m sure is tradition, Riot will continue to give as much context to their stats as they do on broadcast. Overwatch Breathing life into the competitive Overwatch space, the May Melee has finished across the globe. Asia saw the unlikely Seoul Dynasty, a team that has been incredibly inconsistent all year long, match up with the best team in Asia, the Shanghai Dragons. In what will become an iconic match, the Seoul Dynasty managed to score the first three map wins in the best-of-seven, but were ultimately reverse swept, losing their next four straight maps. In North America, the reigning 2019 Overwatch League champions San Francisco Shock continued to cement their legacy in the space with a convincing run throughout the top side of the bracket. However, the real story is at the bottom where the Florida Mayhem not only performed well, but they upset the team that many pundits and analysts predicted would meet the Shock in the grand finals, the Philadelphia Fusion. The Mayhem would then go on to look competitive against the Shock in a handful of maps, but would ultimately take second place and take home two added regular seasons wins. The Overwatch League has also announced a small hiatus was taking place to allow players to relax during the midseason. The league has also announced that the next set of matches will take place on June 13th and will seed directly into another tournament set to take place at the end of the month. While the Overwatch League takes a much-needed break from the regular season, the community has been much more chaotic than normal. In an unprecedented move, Overwatch League commentator, Josh "Sideshow" Wilkinson, is now a part of the Florida Mayhem after “besting” their DPS ace Jun-ki "Yaki" Kim in a Pharah duel. Claiming he could score 5 kills before the professional’s 20 kills, Sideshow beat the odds and now has joined the team with a two-week contract. Valorant The closed beta ended on the 28th of June. No one will be eligible to play until the main game begins on June 2. There is currently no clear start period for that date. All beta progress will be reset when the game begins, except for any bonuses won by players in the closed beta campaign. It will be added to the account when the complete game launches next week. https://www.esportsheaven.com/features/an-overview-of-valorants-closed-beta-everything-we-know-about-launch/ The Twitch Rivals tournament will be the first major VALORANT event to be launched. Riot Games and Twitch are working on this project collaboratively. The prize pool for this tournament is $200,000. The 11th VALORANT agent, Reyna, is from Mexico City. The announcement video posted to Twitter shows 30 seconds of her gameplay, including a brief introduction to her abilities, but no explanation. https://twitter.com/PlayVALORANT/status/1266836999270363137 Aside from the new character, a new map and game mode are making their way into the game following launch. New servers will also be implemented so that other regions can enjoy playing VALORANT. VALORANT European Brawl II was the final tournament before VALORANT’s beta ended. Belgium won the tournament after a relatively quick final, with Finland destroyed 13-4 on the first card and then 13-7 on the second. The Finns have won the €10,000 given to the champions, whilst the second place took home €2,500. _ _ _ Tune in next week for more weekly coverage! And don't forget to check out our freshly added VALORANT section!