What a busy few weeks May has been! After a surprisingly quiet April, everything seems to have happened in the world of esports over the last few weeks. Major events have moved locations just a few weeks before they start, some massive sponsorship deals have been signed and there have been a ton of top tier events, including the likes of Evo, majors and one of the biggest streamer tournaments ever.
Sometimes the esports industry just decides to throw a lot at you over the course of a month or so, and keeping up with everything can feel like an impossible task. So we are here with our newsletter full of the biggest news, results and everything you might need to know from the world of esports over the past month.
Industry News
Credit: Esports World Cup/Esports Foundation
Esports World Cup Moves To Paris
In a blockbuster move, the Esports World Cup will now take place in Paris, France, rather than the planned location of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Due to the ongoing war between Iran, the USA and Israel, the event has been moved from Saudi to Paris at the last minute, to ensure the event can run smoothly. With just a couple of months to go until the event kicks off it is quite the last minute move, but with backing from the French government, and even President Macron personally, it seems the event will continue to operate at the same scale as planned.
G2 Signs Deal With McDonalds
G2 Esports has announced a deal with McDonalds Germany, that sees the fast food chain become the presenting partner of the organisation’s League of Legends academy team, and perhaps more importantly, fund the return of the female League of Legends roster. While this isn’t the first time McDonalds has entered the world of esports, seeing them specifically back the female side of G2 is an encouraging step.
Dota 2 Casters Release Debut Game
Veteran Dota 2 casters Shannon “SUNSfan” Scotten and Andrew “Jenkins” Jenkins have released their debut standalone game; Relic Arena. The free to play title is an auto battler, like Auto Chess or Teamfight Tactics, and a spiritual successor to the pair’s Dota 2 custom game that was shut down by Valve. The launch appears to have gone well, with a peak concurrent player count of over 1600 players.
EFG Takes Esports Vertical
Tournament organiser EFG has announced a new deal with streaming platform TikTok that will see the company’s biggest events streamed in a native vertical format. The deal kicked off with a vertical stream of IEM Atlanta earlier this month, which seemed to go down well with TikTok fans. Given the popularity of vertical video platforms, it would not be a surprise to see all major tournaments appear natively in vertical form over the next few years.
Rapper Duki Joins 9z Globant As Shareholder
Rapper Duki, who is best known in South America, has joined esports organisation 9z Globant as a partner and shareholder. The move isn’t totally unexpected, with the rapper being a vocal supporter of the organisation over the years, and has now formalised that support in an official capacity.
Rainbow Six Picks Japan For Next Major
The next Rainbow Six Major will take place in Osaka, Japan this November. The event will run from November 6th to 15th at the ATC Hall, and feature the best Rainbow Six teams from around the world competing for a share of the $600,000 prize pool. It will be the first time a top level Rainbow Six event has been held in Japan since 2019, which should mean the crowd will be eager to see the action live.
Tournament Results
Credit: RLCS
Karmine Corp Take Home Victory At RLCS Paris
Karmine Corp took a very popular victory at the RLCS Paris Major earlier this month, beating Twisted Minds 4-1 in the grand final. The French org had a dominant run throughout the competition, with their closest match coming against local rivals Team Vitality in the semifinal, but other than that they barely broke a sweat. Twisted Minds on the other hand had an impressive lower bracket run, but fell just short at the final hurdle.
Team Heretics Finally Win The EMEA VCT
Team Heretics has been one of the most successful European Valorant teams ever, reaching the final of both a Masters and Champions event, and winning the Esports World Cup last year. But despite the international success, the organisation had never won the European VCT, until now. The squad took down Team Vitality in the EMEA VCT final to claim the trophy for the first time, and will now move on to Masters London and the Esports World Cup.
Parivision Win DreamLeague But Miss Out On TI Invite
Parivision won the DreamLeague Season 29 Dota 2 tournament earlier this month, but despite the victory the squad did not earn a direct invitation to The International 2026, and will instead have to play in the qualifier. Their opponent in the DreamLeague final, Aurora Gaming, did get a TI invite, alongside Team Falcons, BetBoom, Team Liquid, Tundra Esports, Xtreme Gaming and Team Yandex.
NAVI Dethrone Team Vitality at IEM Atlanta
After months of writing that Team Vitality has won another Counter-Strike tournament, we can now finally say that they have been defeated, with NAVI taking the trophy at IEM Atlanta. With Vitality in attendance many assumed this would be yet another trophy heading back to France, but in the quarter final NAVI took down Vitality 2-1, sending them home and opening the tournament up for the remaining teams. NAVI would go on to beat BetBoom and GamerLegion to lift the trophy.
DarkZero Claims Rainbow Six Salt Lake City Major Victory
DarkZero has won the Rainbow Six Salt Lake City Major, beating Shopify Rebellion 3-1 in the all American final. With two US teams competing for the trophy the crowd was incredibly hot for this one, with both teams showing some impressive skill throughout. However, it was DarkZero who came out on top, to claim the first Major of the season.
Vejrgang Wins The eChampions League
Taking place alongside the main Champions League final, the electronic version of the competition offered up some incredible EA FC action, with Anders “Vejrgang” Vejrgang beating Lucio “HHezerS” Vecchione in an incredibly close final. It ended up 3-2 in Vejrgang’s favour, but easily could have gone either way, with the final being one of the closest matches of the entire competition.
Vic0 and Malibuca Win FNCS Major 1 Summit
Danila “Malibuca” Iakovenko and Taylor-Petrik “vic0” Gatschelhofer took the win at the Fortnite FNCS Major 1 Summit in Düsseldorf, Germany this past weekend, with a nailbiting finish. Heading into the final game multiple duos were still firmly in contention, but in the end it was the pair representing BIG that took the win, with a fourth placed finish in the final game enough to secure the trophy and $250,000 first place prize.
And Finally…
Jynxzi Hosted The Fourth Most Popular LoL Tournament Of 2026
We’re now almost half way through 2026, which is a somewhat crazy stat itself, but what is even crazier is that streamer Nicholas “Jynxzi” Stewart’s recent LoL tournament is the fourth most popular of the year. According to data from Esports Charts the stream of the tournament that featured many of the top streamers in the world, peaked at 920,000 concurrent viewers, the fourth largest peak for any LoL tournament this year. It was beaten only by the LCK Cup, First Stand and LCK regular season, meaning it outperformed all Western leagues. We’ve seen popular streamer tournaments in the past, but this was on another level.
