by Akhila Randeniya | Aug 6, 2019 | News
A familiar face in the DOTA2 community and long time member of Phoenix Gaming Dhanushka ‘HeLLa’ Batuwitaarachchi has joined n00b Alliance.
Hella has been playing Dota for approximately 8 years with most of his time being spent on Dota Allstars.
He joined PnX in 2015 to play the Funnet Tournament in 2015. As a member of Phoenix Gaming HeLLa has been part of a quite a number of prolific teams such as ‘One Night Stand’(that won Kings of LAN DOTA2 2016), Weapons of Destruction and SyFy.RiSinG. In 2018 he was appointed as the Dota2 Wing Leader for PnX.
However for quite some time there have been unsubstantiated rumors that HeLLa was uncertain about his future at Phoenix. At the recent rendition of KoL DOTA2 HeLLa played as a stand in for nA|Infinity. This is a common occurrence in the community where players from an outside clan plays as a stand in due to conflicts between clans, but this only fuelled the rumors.
Naturally we got in contact with Dhanushka to get his side of the story and asked him what motivated his sudden move.
He had this to say:
Truth be told I wanted to join nA from a long time ago but at that time nA community was pretty small and they didn’t recruit much and since my all time favorite and one of my best friends ‘The Kade.Munky’ used to play for PnX I figured why don’t I too. I don’t have much time left in the competitive scene and now I have been selected to a team in which I am really happy (nA|Infinity Gaming ) so therefore I can’t always play as standin. The team has synced up really fast and the team is like family , I have no choice but to join them. I want to thank everyone at Phoenix for giving me exposure that I got over the last 8 years. It hasn’t always been a fun ride but I’m thankful for everything that happened. I am excited about my future at n00b Alliance and hopefully I can reach my full potential with them
We reached out to PnX to get their take on this move and this is what they had to say:
Hella has been a hardworking wing leader for DOTA at PnX. He was great at managing the existing teams and creating new teams. However as a player to move up his career in DOTA, he couldn’t find the right team in PnX to fit in because most of the time the other players around him weren’t upto his skill level and Indomitus already had their squad full leaving no space for Hella. However Hella was quite successful with Team SyFy until when some of the SyFy members had to retire and again Hella was left alone. So most of the time Hella ended up playing for teams in other clans as a Standin. I guess he played more with nA teams than PnX teams and we never stopped him from doing so since we wanted him to grow his career and we didnt want clan rivalry to be an obstacle for it. So we guess that the decision what Hella took is the best that he could do for himself and we aren’t against it. We may have lost a good wing leader but its not fair by us to stop him from being a better player. We wish him all the best in the future and hope he returns back someday when everything in pnx is set and ready for him to play under our banner again. We regard this transfer as a loan out to nA.
by Akhila Randeniya | Aug 4, 2019 | News
Deshan “Demigod” Thathsara is a player that needs no introduction. A prominent figure in the Overwatch community Demigod(Demi) started off with playing COD4 for Xiphos Esports in 2016. During this time Demi also tried his luck at other games like Dota2 and Mortal Kombat competitively. A few months later he left.Unhappy with the Xiphos management, namely the lack of communication with players Demi took his talents to Noob Alliance. It was around this time that Overwatch was released into open beta. His stint in Noob Alliance lasted for around four years.
Demi’s time in Noob Alliance as Overwatch wing leader was spent primarily in grooming younger players for the competitive arena and formed approximately 10-15 teams. His responsibilities included organizing tournaments, allocating referees and hosting streams.
His sudden departure to Phoenix GaminG left many in confusion and disbelief. Phoenix is considered to be Noob Alliance’s biggest rivals not only in the Overwatch community but also in the race for the coveted Best Clan award.
The following is an extract from our interview with Demigod:
Q: What was your motivation behind this move?
A: When I was at Noob Alliance, I gave it my all to make the overwatch wing strong. I don’t know about the current state, but it was one of the strongest wings at Noob Alliance.
I left because of a certain player at Noob alliance. He was appointed as a wing leader for overwatch even though he didn’t contribute anything towards the growth of overwatch at Noob Alliance. All he did was undermine my work .Assigning players positions and moving them up in the hierarchy just because they won’t leave the clan will not work if they don’t have any passion for the clan itself. The person who has it will stay no matter what happens within the clan including this both ups and down they might encounter along the way.
The clan couldn’t do anything about it because he was a player for an overwatch team and a COD team. So, it got to a point where staying in the clan was not a logical thing to do. It was too much stress for me because I have my own life to deal with. In the end I made the decision which was to leave the clan. If cyanide and Gerald were more involved when this was happening this could have been different.
Q:Why Phoenix GaminG? What made it so appealing given the history between the two clans?
A: I’m not a person who stays in a clan for money or titles. This is what phoenix offered me;
“You will be joining as a member and form an overwatch team and you will be captain for that team. Once you put a solid foundation then you can decide whether you will be going as a wing leader or in the direction of our social media or streaming platform. When you build trust and friendship then you can choose which side you want to go. People will not be blocking your growth or be a problem for you for sure”
This is more than enough for me to join them. If they offer me a role or position which suits my personality or skill set I’ll be more than happy to take it if not I’m happy to be a part of the phoenix community
After all, “මාළුවා නහින්නේ කට හින්දා xD “
We reached out to the two clans to get their take on this move and this is what they had to say:
Noob Alliance
Demigod was a key factor in building our Overwatch wing from the ground up, we would even go as far as saying he was a key factor in building the entire Overwatch community in Sri Lanka. These are facts that no one can deny. While it’s sad to see him leave our organization due to conflicts, we have no doubts that he would excel in Phoenix Gaming – bringing their Overwatch wing to new heights, as he did with ours. Our future in Overwatch is uncertain at this point, with other key teams leaving, we have not yet decided on what direction we will be heading.
Phoenix GaminG
Demigod has been a popular figure in the Overwatch scene and we believe that he was the backbone of the Overwatch wing in nA. Our Overwatch wing has always been a close competitor with nA. All credits go to our skilled and dedicated players and management. When demigod left nA due to his personal reasons, despite the fact that we already had a solid Overwatch wing, we considered to recruit demigod since we knew of his potential and the additional value that he could bring into PnX to grow the clan as a whole. He decided to join us without any hesitation since he wanted to be in a place where his efforts are recognized and valued. This has always been the case in a majority of our recruitments. Players want to join us simply because of the unique style of management that we maintain and we guess that is the unique selling point of Phoenix GaminG. We hope that demigod will be a valuable addition and we as a clan will be able to cater at our best for demigod to grow his career in the future
by Akhila Randeniya | Aug 2, 2019 | News
The DOTA2 Kings of LAN (KOL) commenced on the 16th of July and had to be played online due to connection issues. Nevertheless the tournament delivered exciting game play. The fan favorites x3|Victorious Secret breezed through the tournament and managed to snatch another tournament win for themselves. nA-Infinity came in second after valiantly giving it their best at the finals. Meanwhile x3|Death Company managed to land at third place after an intense third place decider match against Maze gaming.
x3|Victorious Secret
Muksith ‘Tenza’ Ajwath
Heshan ‘SathaN’ Sanjaya
Shauban ‘Batman’ Rushdi
Kalindu ‘Torch’ Keith
Isuru ‘Deathwish’ Lokuge
nA – Infinity
Azman ‘Darcrow’ Khan
Dhanushka ‘Hella’ Batuwitaarachchi
Sajid ‘Fearless’ Ali
Inam ‘Fate’ Rishan
Sharintha ‘Smoak’ De Alwis
x3|Death Company
Poorna ‘Legend’ Ranthilake
Anupama ‘Beaver’ Wettasinghe
Mihin ‘Krimjaw’ Lokuge
Mandula ‘Midnight’ Sugathapala
Shenal ‘AB’ Daniel
Stephan ‘Issueno1’ Sam
Nisal ‘Anarky’ Sugathapala
The draw and results can be found at: https://glk.challonge.com/kol19dota2
by Akhila Randeniya | Jul 31, 2019 | News
The knockout stages of the tournament commenced on the 20th of July with four Sri Lankan teams participating. These matches were played on a Bo3 format.
PnX | Lanka Lions and PnX | R [ 3 ] D were able to make their way to the quarter finals and carry the Sri Lankan flag further into the tournament.
However, despite their valiant efforts Team Legendary Noobs and nA| Team Phase were not able to qualify for the quarter finals and were eliminated.
The quarter finals will be played through the 3rd and 4th of August.
The match ups can be found at: https://challonge.com/3ca32svk?fbclid=IwAR2G2B_O39ZeuXEQEpflRl_Q_d_lrbGZa1ktM_U5I4VHmLpxVs66fBpE3T0
by Akhila Randeniya | Jul 29, 2019 | News
Pokémon Go is an augmented reality (AR) mobile game developed and published by Niantic for iOS and Android devices. A part of the Pokémon franchise, it was first released in certain countries in July 2016, and in other regions over the next few months.The augmented reality elements combined with the nostalgic reminder for those who grew up battling the elite four meant that everyone was playing the game when it launched in July 2016. During that time it was a common occurrence to see trainers of all ages roaming the streets in search of exotic Pokemon and gyms to contest.
Two years after its initial release Niantic added the PVP feature. This is a 1 v 1 battle against another trainer. This PVP update meant that avid trainers now had the opportunity to directly battle others instead of just attacking Gyms.
The Sri Lanakan Pokemon Go community has been intensely active and since iits inception; from hosting community meetups to large scale events backed up large corporations. This active of a community coupled together with our fierce competitive nature meant that it was only a matter of time before Sri Lankans competed internationally.
Enter Silph League Arena: an international league for PVP Pokemon GO players. This led to the Silph World Championships where the top Trainers from all over the globe battled it out in Dortmund, Germany.
The Sri Lakan community was one of the few to host a Regional tournament where one of our own Prasanna ‘TheRealPv’ Vasan was chosen to attend the World Championships.
Prasanna is no stranger to competitive esports. Playing CounterStrike (both 1.6 and Global Offensive) for over 6 years, he was able to bag a win at SLCG’14 for CS:GO with NA | Team Encore. He’s also one of the founding members of the Pokémon GO Community for Sri Lanka (Facebook Group) the first community for trainers to interact with one another.
A lifelong fan of Pokemon Prasanna climbed the ranks rapidly reaching level 40 in September 2017 and at the cutoff point for the World Championship was ranked 879 in the world.
When asked about the experience he had at the tournament Prasanna had this to say :
“If I had to sum up the whole tournament experience in one word it would be ”competitive”. I know it is obvious when you have a world tournament with the best players together but to experience it first hand was different for me. Each round of matches I played were won and lost with the very closest margin and it was a great learning experience to be part of. Of course, I was disheartened that I could not make it to the last 8 finalists out of 64 but when I reflect on the whole journey now, it was a great experience throughout the last 8 months of this PVP timeline. “RagingTaz” from Italy won the tournament clearly as an underdog beating top trainers ranked above him in the seed groups. I loved the esports feeling around it where our matches were watched on big screen and live streamed to audience with shout casters. It was great meeting the top ranked players in the world and sharing stories and memories and I hope Season 2 next year will be more grand scale than this.
I would like to thank each and every one who I have battled and learned something along the way and everyone who helped in numerous ways to make this happen. I am also grateful to all the volunteer admins of Pokemon GO Sri Lanka who have done so much behind the scene for the community from 2016 to be where we are right now. Season 2 of this PVP tournament journey will commence again next year in 2020 and I hope to see a lot of new participants from our community”
