Hey readers! This week’s news is actually written by a new face (or keyboard) here at Broken Myth. Please welcome ARK142. He’s done a fantastic job going over the big eSports news and reveals to look forward to in update 1.20. Take it away ARK142!

1.20 Skin Splash Art Release

Start saving up essence or ICE ’cause the splash arts for upcoming skins in the 1.20 update have been released. Much to a Taka/Petal fan’s dismay no word has come up on tier 3 skins for these heroes. We can all, however, look forward to seeing Northwind Reim Tier 2 (July 12th), Fury Rona Tier 3 (July 5th), Broken Doll Alpha Tier 1 (July 29th) and Summer Party Saw (L.E. July 27th) storm into the fold. No word on the 1.21 mystery skin as of yet.

Keep posted on Vainglory’s in – game news section for Lore, Dev interviews and in-game skin reveals.

While on the topic of skins, from this past Friday (22nd of July) onward up to the release of update 1.20, you can purchase any skin (including Tier 2 and Tier 3 skins) with ICE. Take advantage of this offer if you haven’t enough time to play and need a quicker way to unlock skin than essence, or if you just want help collecting sunlight. It serves the mention that you DONT need to buy skins in order to use them during this event!

To help you along on getting your dream Tier 3 skin, special Bargain Hunter Boxes will be available. These boxes are of varying size and type and are available at discounted rates. Be sure to keep checking in to make sure you don’t miss out.

Vainglory Meme Contest

Any 9-Gaggers here? You are being called upon (no hate for other site loyals). You can all submit your best, funniest vainglory related meme for a chance to win ICE directly from SEMC. These may be captioned GIFs or Pictures depending on your preference. To take part,

– Tweet a GIF or captioned image related to Vainglory with the #VaingloryMeme hashtag.

– Include your player name.

– You must be following @vainglory to enter.

– Your Tweet must not start with the @ symbol.

Update 1.20 Notes

Vainglory has also released the Update Notes for 1.20. To have alook at them, check out the official page here.

Some main additions are different difficulty levels of Bot matches for different purposes making them a helpful training option for Experienced and New players alike. It also includes numerous balance changes. Stay tuned to Broken Myth for a look at the new meta with the coming of the next update.

eSports (Spoilers.. duh)

In a recent acquisition by Ardent Gaming, team Sweet n’ Sour, consisting of players Joshisababe, WisardSibs, Poli5208 and Yazaru3, are now Ardent Aurora.

July 23 marked the start of Split 2 of the Vainglory EVIL 8 Series.

EU – Day 1

In the opening match, Snow Tsunami was matched up against SK Gaming. The first match of the series was ALL Snow Tsunami. Like.. SK Gaming was absolutely destroyed giving Tsunami a perfect game. Lookatme brought out his signature Petal and showed SK why he must be feared. Unfazed by this, however, SK Gaming came back during the second game and showed Tsunami that they have a few tricks up their sleeve as well and dominated (not quite perfectly as Tsunami had previously but still rather impressive).Tsunami, yet again (this really going back and forth, isn’t it?) showed their prowess closing out the series (with another near perfect win) for a 2-1 win.

In the next series, Team Supremacy did not reign supreme but rather were knocked down by the avalanche that is Snow Avalanche. Snow Avalanche closed it out with a 2-0 win without really even breaking a sweat.

Gankstars Cerberus, without their star players L3on and Emirking, were matched up against Mousesports The first match brought about a classic Double-CP (GankStars) vs Double-WP. Mousesports wasn’t able to close the game out fast enough, allowing the Double-CP to outscale them and giving GankStars a sliver of hope after being ahead the whole game. In a last ditch effort, though, Mousesports took out the GankStars team after a late Kraken release and raced the Kraken for the Vain Crystal. They won. Helga will not be too happy with that. GankStars evened the score out with an absolutely dominant game in the next match and followed that up with yet another dominating win for the series.

In the last series of the day for EU, Team Secret won with 2 perfect matches against G2.

NA – Day 1

In the first match of the first series,Nemesis Hydra’s situation was dire with a large early deficit and a late game looming with Krul on Team Phoenix Reign’s side. With two mid game consecutive Aces and 2 Krakens and an epic comeback to go with it, Team Nemesis Hydra won the first match. Nemesis Hydra left no questions to be asked about their regained momentum and won the next match to finish the series with a pretty one sided game. The Phinn pick for Hydra allowed them to shut down Oldskool at the start of every team fight leaving Ezadox and Statusbaked to fend for themselves.

For the second series, team Sweet n’ Sour was matched against Hammers Kinetic. Kinetic took the first match in a very quick 9 minutes using Kestrel and Saw’s double weapon early advantage to the fullest. In the second match that initially didn’t seem to be going in their favor, Sweet n’ Sour turned the game around and took the game for themselves. They weren’t able to follow that up in the next match, however giving Hammers Kinetic the series.

The next series saw a brawl between Necrolyte and Phoenix reborn. It was a close match throughout the entirety of the first match. Both teams were pretty neck and neck throughout with gold leads being pretty much non existent and only about 1 or 2 difference in kills but Necrolyte were able to take the win with a rather odd Jungle Cath pick on Standinsolo and a double Tyrant, Breaking Point Vox on AL3X. The second match saw an equally odd CP Glaive on Standinsolo but this time it didn’t work out so well for them with Phoenix Reborn dominating and scoring the equalizer. Phoenix Reborn capitalize on this newfound momentum and grab up the series in the final match (unusually, Necrolyte had a more usual comp here xD).

To end the day, we had a match between Team Solomid and Hammers Kinetic. You’d hardly recognize TSM anymore except for FlashX. Replacing CullTheMeek and MICSHE, we had BestChuckNA and VONC. Regardless, TSM was abe to win themselves the first match. The second match was rather close but Hammers Velocity tied it up with a 22 minute ace allowing them to finish the game. The third game was clearly in TSM’s favor with VONC going WP Skye so as not to get hard countered by Gabevizzle’s taka. They finished it up in typical TSM fashion with Helga on their side.

EU – Day 2

The first series of the day saw Team Secret against Snow Tsunami. Snow Tsunami took an early lead with three quick kills. They couldn’t do much after that, however. The match was quite even with Team Secret slowly building up a lead till they finally got the first ace of the game art 23 minutes.After a hard push, they moved on to pick up the Kraken after another near ace and were able to finish the game with it.Team Secret won the second match with a perfect game and move on to the finals.

The second series matched Gankstars Cerberus, again without L3on and Emirking, against Snow Avalanche. Avalanche was able to take the first match in a fairly dominant way. Iraqi Zorro’s CP vox wasn’t able to do much and Avalanche’s roam Lyra made their double weapon comp sure effective. Cerberus took their loss and worked on their errors to massive effect pulling a dominant win from the second game. The third game looked really good for Cerberus with a dominant early game, however, Iraqizorro was left in a position where he was forced to 1v1 every fight, which wasn’t possible despite playing the dreaded CP Vox. Waldemar had his signature saw and HF-Guy played an amazing phinn to secure the series for them.

The next series was the third place match between Gankstars Cerberus and Snow Tsunami. The first match was very even throughout. After some beautiful engages by Tsunami, thought they pushed up to Cerberus’s Crystal. Iraqizorro thwarted a backdoor from Lookatme at the expense of his life. To follow, Snow Tsunami picked up Kraken and the end seemed near for Cerberus. Sensing this, they went all in and went in for a base race destroying two turrets and the crystal before helga even reached their base in what was a thrilling end to the match. The later matches of this series were not streamed but Gankstars Cerberus got another win and earned third place for themselves.

In the finals between Snow Avalanche and Team Secret, the first of three games seemed to be in avalanche’s favour. They had a slight gold lead the entire first half of the game. Team Secret, however, with their brilliant team coordination and incredible mechanics were able to win the match. They also had a double CP build against a double WP build which outscaled Avalanche’s comp. The second game was much more clearly in Team Secret’s favor. They did pull out an alternating current on Reim which was pretty unexpected It did however work out given that they had a 10k gold lead and a 17 kill advantage at the 15th minute and were able to close the game out winning the series and more importantly the first week of EVIL 8 in EU

NA – Day 2

The first series between Nemesis Hydra and TSM was a strong showing for the Fold’s first franchise. TSM were able to dominate with a very strong Saw from BestChuckNA and Kestrel from VONC. The second match was much more in Hydra’s favor with a huge gain in momentum on their part and kept it up to win the series against TSM and move into the finals.

The second series was between Hammers Kinetic and Phoenix Reborn.Though the match was very close with less than 3k gold differences, Kinetic pushed way further into the lane than Phoenix and were able to finish the game in TSM fashion with a late 24 minute Kraken. With an insanely strong Kestrel, though, Phoenix Reborn won the second match after a dominating run. The third game was way more evened out. Hammers Kinetic were able to win the series, however with a very strong showing from PONTheOriginal on Skye and MICSHE on Vox.

In the third place match between TSM and Phoenix Reborn, which wasn’t streamed, the first two matches were grabbed up one each with the third deciding match going to TSM.

The final series saw the finals between Hammers Kinetic and Nemesis Hydra. In the first game, Nemesis Hydra took a quick 5 kill lead. Hardek was able to shut down MICHSE in lane keeping him from farming early. At one point Hardek had 190 farm to MICHSE’s 120 farm. Nemesis Hydra pushed up till the base with Kraken and in a late fight, Hardek on Kestrel with 1/4th health was left to 1v1 near full health Skye and came out on top to get the ace and the win. In the second match, there was a turnaround on the early lead. Hammers Kinetic had a 4 kill lead and took a turret in the 5th minute. They were able to expand this up to a 10k gold and 9 kill lead by the 20th minute. They quickly finished the game with Helga’s help. The third and final game was very even between both sides until Nemesis Hydra unleashed the Kraken after a 16-minute ace. After picking up 2 kills with Helga still pushing, Nemesis was able to finish up the game and win the first week of EVIL 8 in NA.

All said it’s been a really exciting week with loads of hype for the new update and a really exciting set of matches during the EVIL 8 competition. Keep checking in for more weekly news round-ups and I hope you enjoy them