Building up your hero is automated by default. If you don't "pre-order" a late-game item, the game will prompt you to buy the next affordable recommended item as soon as you have the gold. When you level up, the game will automatically apply a point to an ability. Since you can't freely choose targets with a mouse pointer, there's a priority system. With a click of the left stick, your hero will cycle between targeting creeps, structures, or enemy heroes. It's all streamlined, designed for console players who probably never played a PC MOBA. Fortunately for experienced players, it can all be turned off. Well, except for the game pad controls. The devs are planning to eventually put Genesis on PC, but have stated that they don't plan on incorporating mouse and keyboard contr

Genesis has a top-down view, mid goes solo, bottom duos, and hopefully someone jungles. Thankfully, every champion has the ability to teleport to friendly towers. There's a cooldown, of course, but it's still nice to have that ability not locked to a summoner spell. The shop is also available everywhere, not just at base. This all seems designed to expedite the laning phase. There's even an option to begin with your character at level four. It's like the Genesis devs know that farming creeps is boring and are helping players get to team fights fas

Genesis opens by explaining that humans and aliens teamed up to go through a portal in space. There are unknown dangers on the other side, which warranted the formation of a group of specialized individuals. Right after, you're dropped onto a single-lane bridge and put in control of the beginner-friendly archer hero. Sound familiar? I immediately had flashbacks to the League of Legends tutorial. Genesis does try to set itself apart by focusing more on story. The tutorial introduces mysterious aliens that attack our alliance of heroes. What they are, and why they're hostile, is a matter for the campaign. Oh yeah, there's a full-on campaign mode. Too bad it doesn't work at the moment, an issue the devs are actively fixi

Tank units need to be up front to take the brunt of the damage while you’re weaker magic and damage dealers need to be in the back to stay alive. Knights get beefy damage resistances if they’re standing close to each other so it’s important to keep them spread enough to protect weaker units, but clustered enough to get the bo

The Jungle is all the space between the three lanes, and inside there are neutral creeps that spawn at Camps, remaining stationary until attacked and killed by either team, and knowing when and how to deal with them is important. Players should be careful when traversing through the Jungle, because the opposing team may be waiting to ambush you, known as Ganking. Falling prey to a ganks is a sure way to let your team down by providing a lead to the opposing t

At the end of the day, esports is still relatively new. In the current state of things, most games are simply not worth watching. However, that may change. The most popular games will likely develop more polished ways of conducting business, acting as their own miniature industries. As a result, better coverage for games will take some time to arrive, with bigger titles leading the

Still, esports is often treated like one entity. In reality, individual games play out more like anthologies—unconnected by the umbrella term that defines them. Like a thin layer of algae on the surface of an abandoned pool, esports as a title masks the diverse ecosystem that exists beneath the surface, suffocating its variety and preventing outsiders from getting in the water. Even if you are a huge fan of one title, other games remain largely uninteresting and impossible to watch. As a result, can anyone really call themselves a fan of espo

For instance, coverage of a battle royale is going to be drastically more complex than a game like Mortal Kombat and completely different than MOBA coverage. Asking one entity to develop the infrastructure to cover all games is quite a reach. This leaves developers in charge of covering their own events and lets them dictate how they set up tournaments, pay athletes, and cover the events. Could there ever really be a unified esports community under this system? Probably not. This means a lack of regulation, consistency, and viewership will always be an industry-wide conc

The goal of each match is simple and draws from core idea of League of Legends , where two players face off to take the opposing Nexus down to zero from the Mobapulse blog 20 health. Each player has an initial drawing of cards and a single mulligan phase like Hearthstone, and like that game, the mana pool grows each turn so there is no need to worry about mana or land managem

With its campaign, the one thing that could really set it apart, inactive, Genesis has your typical MOBA modes. There's training, a humans vs. AI mode, and 5v5 competitive. There's only one map in the rotation right now, the usual three lane battlefield where you aim to destroy the enemy towers and reach their core. That's not to fault Genesis for having this familiar element. The setup is just typical to MOBAs. In fact, there are some smart things going on in Genesis that address common MOBA probl