The EVO Championship 2017 swept the leg under all other esports events last week, with 2.3 million hours of viewership across all its fighting game competitions. For most watched, single esport tournaments however, the CS:GO Dreamhack Valencia bout allowed Valve’s FPS to hold its spot for a second week running.

Every week, The Esports Observer breaks down the most watched Twitch content, and analyzes the major esport competitions, events and news affecting video game streaming. The titles are ranked according to the total number of hours watched for each title, from Monday to the following Sunday, with data compiled using Influencer.gg.

The arrows signal whether a game has risen or fallen in the rankings.

1. League of Legends (- 3.7M)

After the previous week’s Rift Rivals reprieve, the NA LCS retains its high standing among esports events with 1.1 million hours of total viewership. We’re only a few weeks away before the round-robin concludes, and we begin to see which teams will clash in the playoffs. This is the same affair for the EU LCS, which generated 530,000 hours of viewership – roughly the same as the previous set of matches. The European league has risen once again above the LCK, although when you separate its English and Korean broadcasts, which generated 446,000 and 475,000 hours each, respectively.

2. PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS (+ 0.9M)

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Playerunknown himself confirmed that PUBG had surpassed GTAV for highest peak player count on Steam.[/perfectpullquote]

It was another standard week for PUBG viewership, which would still be a dream for any non-AAA video game. Just a few days ago, the game’s own creative director (the eponymous Playerunknown) confirmed that his once little project had now surpassed Grand Theft Auto V for highest peak player count on Steam, making it 4th overall.

The battle royale shooter is also encountering its growing pains. While Summit1G’s full-focus on the game made him last week’s top streamer yet again, Dr. DisRespect (a former Activision-Blizzard employee and popular personality) was banned from the game for killing his teammate. Developer Bluehole Studios stuck to its principles and said no one was above its rules, but the resulting back-and-forth on Twitter (in which violence was insinuated) shows that PUBG’s biggest personalities could end up being its biggest hurdle.

3. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (- 3.3M)

[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Following ESL One Cologne’s success, the Counter-Strike competition at Dreamhack Valencia brought in 1.4 million hours of viewership.[/perfectpullquote]

CS:GO has stolen the prize for most watched esport tournament of the week twice in a row now. Following ESL One Cologne’s success, the Counter-Strike competition at Dreamhack Valencia brought in 1.4 million hours of viewership. Just under half of that came through the grand finals, which saw once-legendary squad Ninjas in Pjyamas take a long-deserved victory.

Of course Dreamhack shouldn’t overshadow the two back-to-back events broadcast on the Starladder Twitch channel. The fifth season of the Hellcase Cup, which rewards its winner with a qualifying spot in the SL i-League Season 4, accumulated 660,000 hours of viewership. The PGL Major Kraków 2017 began the following day, and is likely to help CS:GO top the esports list again next week.

4. Hearthstone (+ 0.0M)

It’s strange to see Hearthstone actually retain the same viewer count the week after a season championship event. The game’s usual circuit at Dreamhack Valencia brought in just under 380,000 hours of viewership, which is basically half that of the HCT Spring Championship. The game itself is progressing into a better state following the recent Quest Rogue nerf, and the community is likely to be abuzz as more card-reveals come out in the lead up to the Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion.

5. Overwatch (+0.9 M)

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]With the hype regarding the Overwatch League, one should not forget the highly viewed Overwatch World Cup.[/perfectpullquote]

With all the hype and debate regarding the Overwatch League, one should not forget that the Overwatch World Cup was actually a pretty successful broadcast during its initial season. The Shanghai group stage last week suggests this success could carry on into Blizzcon 2017, with 730,000 hours of viewership on the main Overwatch Twitch channel. In related news, Blizzard also confirmed last week that the OGN Apex – one of the game’s more successful recurring competitions – will carry on even as the OWL starts to take shape.

Honourable mentions:

While none of the individual fighting games in the EVO 2017 championship could break into the Twitch top 5, individually the games all had an impressive showing throughout the competition. Out of all the main-event finals, Super Smash Bros Melee garnered the highest spectatorship, with 500,000 total hours of viewership.