Daily Archives: November 28, 2019

Within just 50 light-years from Earth, there are about 1,560 stars, likely orbited by several thousand planets. About a thousand of these extrasolar planets, known as exoplanets, may be rocky and have a composition similar to Earths. Some may even harbor life. Over 99 percent of these alien worlds remain undiscoveredbut this is about to change.

With NASAs new exoplanet-hunter space telescope TESS, the all-sky search is on for possibly habitable planets close to our solar system. TESSorbiting Earth every 13.7 days and ground-based telescopes are poised to find hundreds of planets over the next few years. This could transform astronomers understanding of alien worlds around us and provide targets to scan with next-generation telescopes for signatures of life. In just over a year, TESS has identified more than 1,200 planetary candidates, 29 of which astronomers have already confirmed as planets. Given TESSs unique ability to simultaneously search tens of thousands of stars for planets, the mission is expected to yield over 10,000 new worlds.

These are exciting times for astronomers and, especially, for those of us exploring exoplanets. We are members of the planet-hunting Project EDEN, which also supports TESSs work. We use telescopes on the ground and in space to find exoplanets to understand their properties and potential for harboring life.

Worlds around us await discovery. Take, for example, Proxima Centauri, an unassuming, faint red star, invisible without a telescope. It is one of over a hundred billion or so such stars within our galaxy, unremarkable except for its status as our next-door neighbor. Orbiting Proxima is a fascinating but mysterious world, called Proxima b, discovered only in 2016.

Scientists know surprisingly little about Proxima b. Astronomers name the first planet discovered in a system b. This planet has never been seen with human eyes or by a telescope. But we know it exists due to its gravitational pull on its host star, which makes the star wobble ever so slightly. This slight wobble was found in measurements collected by a large, international group of astronomers from data taken with multiple ground-based telescopes. Proxima b very likely has a rocky composition similar to Earths, but higher mass. It receives about the same amount of heat as Earth receives from the sun.

And that is what makes this planet so exciting: It lies in the habitable zone and just might have properties similar to Earths, like a surface, liquid water, andwho knows? maybe even an atmosphere bearing the telltale chemical signs of life.

NASAs TESS mission launched in April 2018 to hunt for other broadly Earth-sized planets, but with a different method. TESS is looking for rare dimming events that happen when planets pass in front of their host stars, blocking some starlight. These transit events indicate not only the presence of the planets, but also their sizes and orbits.

Finding a new transiting exoplanet is a big deal for astronomers like us because, unlike those found through stellar wobbles, worlds seen transiting can be studied further to determine their densities and atmospheric compositions.

By measuring the depth of the dip in brightness and knowing the size of the star, scientists can determine the size or radius of the planet. NASA Ames

For us, the most exciting exoplanets are the smallest ones, which TESS can detect when they orbit small stars called red dwarfs (stars with masses less than half the mass of our sun).

Each of these systems is unique. For example, LP 791-18 is a red dwarf star 86 light-years from Earth around which TESS found two worlds. The first is a super-Earth, a planet larger than Earth but probably still mostly rocky, and the second is a mini-Neptune, a planet smaller than Neptune but gas- and ice-rich. Neither of these planets have counterparts in our solar system.

Among astronomers current favorites of the new broadly Earth-sized planets is LHS 3884b, a scorching hot Earth that orbits its sun so quickly that on it you could celebrate your birthday every 11 hours.

But how Earth-like are Earth-sized planets? The promise of finding nearby worlds for detailed studies is already paying off. A team of astronomers observed the hot super-Earth LHS 3884b with the Hubble Space Telescope and found the planet to be a horrible vacation spot, without even an atmosphere. It is just a bare rock with temperatures ranging from over 700 C (1300 Fahrenheit) at noon to near absolute zero (-460 Fahrenheit) at midnight.

The TESS mission was initially funded for two years. But the spacecraft is in excellent shape and NASA recently extended the mission through 2022, doubling the time TESS will have to scan nearby, bright stars for transits.

However, finding exoplanets around the coolest starsthose with temperatures less than about 2700 C (4900 F)will still be a challenge due to their extreme faintness. Since ultracool dwarfs provide our best opportunity to find and study exoplanets with sizes and temperatures similar to Earths, other focused planet searches are picking up where TESS leaves off.

Illustration of TESS, NASAs Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center

In May 2016, a Belgian-led group announced the discovery of a planetary system around the ultracool dwarf they christened TRAPPIST-1. The discovery of the seven transiting Earth-sized exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 system was groundbreaking.

It also demonstrated how small telescopesrelative to the powerful behemoths of our age can still make transformational discoveries. With patience and persistence, the TRAPPIST telescope scanned nearby faint, red dwarf stars from its high-mountain perch in the Atacama desert for small, telltale dips in their brightnesses. Eventually, it spotted transits in the data for the red dwarf TRAPPIST-1, whichalthough just 41 light-years awayis too faint for TESSs four 10-cm (4-inch) diameter lenses. Its Earth-sized worlds would have remained undiscovered had the TRAPPIST teams larger telescope not found them.

Two projects have upped the game in the search for exo-Earth candidates around nearby red dwarfs. The SPECULOOS team installed four robotic telescopesalso in the Atacama desertand one in the Northern Hemisphere. Our Exoearth Discovery and Exploration NetworkProject EDENuses nine telescopes in Arizona, Italy, Spain, and Taiwan to observe red dwarf stars continuously.

The SPECULOOS and EDEN telescopes are much larger than TESSs small lenses and can find planets around stars too faint for TESS to study, including some of the transiting Earth-sized planets closest to us.

This artists concept shows what the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system may look like, based on available data about the planets diameters, masses and distances from the host star, as of February 2018. NASA/JPL-Caltech

The next decade is likely to be remembered as the time when we opened our eyes to the incredible diversity of other worlds. TESS is likely to find between 10,000 and 15,000 exoplanet candidates by 2025. By 2030, the European Space Agencys GAIA and PLATO missions are expected to find another 20,000-35,000 planets. GAIA will look for stellar wobbles introduced by planets, while PLATO will search for planetary transits as TESS does.

However, even among the thousands of planets that will soon be found, the exoplanets closest to our solar system will remain special. Many of these worlds can be studied in great detail, including the search for signs of life. Discoveries of the nearest worlds also represent major steps in humanitys progress in exploring the universe we live in. After mapping our own planet and then the solar system, we now turn to nearby planetary systems. Perhaps one day Proxima b or another nearby world astronomers have yet to find will be the target for interstellar probes, like Project Starshot, or even crewed starships. But first weve got to put these worlds on the map.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image Credit: Image by JAKO5D from Pixabay

Read more:

NASA's TESS Spacecraft Is Finding Hundreds of Exoplanetsand Is Poised to Find Thousands More - Singularity Hub

Artificial intelligence is going to overhaul the way we live and work. But will the changes it brings be for the better? As the technology slowly develops (lets remember that right now, were still very much in the narrow AI space and nowhere near an artificial general intelligence), whether it will end up doing us more harm than good is a question at the top of everyones mind.

What kind of response might we get if we posed this question to an AI itself?

Last week at the Cambridge Union in England, IBM did just that. Its Project Debater (an AI that narrowly lost a debate to human debating champion Harish Natarajan in February) gave the opening arguments in a debate about the promise and peril of artificial intelligence.

Critical thinking, linking different lines of thought, and anticipating counter-arguments are all valuable debating skills that humans can practice and refine. While these skills are tougher for an AI to get good at since they often require deeper contextual understanding, AI does have a major edge over humans in absorbing and analyzing information. In the February debate, Project Debater used IBMs cloud computing infrastructure to read hundreds of millions of documents and extract relevant details to construct an argument.

This time around, Debater looked through 1,100 arguments for or against AI. The arguments were submitted to IBM by the public during the week prior to the debate, through a website set up for that purpose. Of the 1,100 submissions, the AI classified 570 as anti-AI, or of the opinion that the technology will bring more harm to humanity than good. 511 arguments were found to be pro-AI, and the rest were irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Debater grouped the arguments into five themes; the technologys ability to take over dangerous or monotonous jobs was a pro-AI theme, and on the flip side was its potential to perpetuate the biases of its creators. AI companies still have too little expertise on how to properly assess datasets and filter out bias, the tall black box that houses Project Debater said. AI will take human bias and will fixate it for generations.After Project Debater kicked off the debate by giving opening arguments for both sides, two teams of people took over, elaborating on its points and coming up with their own counter-arguments.

In the end, an audience poll voted in favor of the pro-AI side, but just barely; 51.2 percent of voters felt convinced that AI can help us more than it can hurt us.

The softwares natural language processing was able to identify racist, obscene, or otherwise inappropriate comments and weed them out as being irrelevant to the debate. But it also repeated the same arguments multiple times, and mixed up a statement about bias as being pro-AI rather than anti-AI.

IBM has been working on Project Debater for over six years, and though it aims to iron out small glitches like these, the systems goal isnt to ultimately outwit and defeat humans. On the contrary, the AI is meant to support our decision-making by taking in and processing huge amounts of information in a nuanced way, more quickly than we ever could.

IBM engineer Noam Slonim envisions Project Debaters tech being used, for example, by a government seeking citizens feedback about a new policy. This technology can help to establish an interesting and effective communication channel between the decision maker and the people that are going to be impacted by the decision, he said.

As for the question of whether AI will do more good or harm, perhaps Sylvie Delacroix put it best. A professor of law and ethics at the University of Birmingham who argued on the pro-AI side of the debate, she pointed out that the impact AI will have depends on the way we design it, saying AI is only as good as the data it has been fed.

Shes right; rather than asking what sort of impact AI will have on humanity, we should start by asking what sort of impact we want it to have. The people working on AInot AIs themselvesare ultimately responsible for how much good or harm will be done.

Image Credit: IBM Project Debater at Cambridge Union Society, photo courtesy of IBM Research

Read this article:

An AI Debated Its Own Potential for Good vs. Harm. Here's What It Came up With - Singularity Hub

Some men aint got game so they take to booze to drown their sorrows while others take matters into their own hands and beat their meat.

But one North Carolina man has emerged with a funny yet marvel idea of creating a dating app which has him as the only male for various females to have access to; that is an app which bars other males.

Aaron Smith, 31, observed his hopes of landing a lady by visiting dating sites were not yielding the desired result because his photos were not displayed boldly enough. So he took the initiative with the help of an app developer friend to outdoor Singularity dating app which he says saves a lady seeking love countless hours of swiping by just matching you with me!

The biggest problem with the other apps is that my face is not featured prominently, he told CBS affiliate WFMY.

Critics note Smith is just eliminating competition but he is unperturbed, confident he will meet the one now.

According to the Greenboro man: If life gives you lemons, you should first make lemonade, adding, then make sure no other companies can produce or distribute their own soft drinks. So the only game in town is lemonade.

Scott McDowell, Smiths engineering friend, said he sympathizedwith his pal when approached with the idea.

All of us who have done online dating in some sorta way canall relate to the fact that it really does sometimes suck, he told the outlet.

Unlike other popular apps like Tinder or OkCupid, women who sign up for Singularity will be met with a rotating collection of pictures that only feature Smith. He has photos showing in a Santa Claus hat, playing the guitar, and jumping in front of an ice cream truck, all sure to be featured prominently on the app.

Smith also has a YouTube channel where he posts footage from rock concerts and music sessions, and he recently uploaded an ad for Singularity that has received over 20,000 views.

Despite the views so far, Smith is yet to line up any dates from the app but believes the tide will soon turn in his favor.

Given that Smith is easy on the eye, its a wonder ladiesare not looking his way even when he says he is gainfully employed.

View original post here:

Frustrated with dating sites, man creates app where he's the only guy available - Face2Face Africa

- Aaron Smith, a 31-year-old handsome man has created a dating app and has made himself the only male user

- The handsome North Carolina man said he did this to eliminate all competition he faces on other dating platforms

- The app was named Singularity and was built with the help of Aaron's friend

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

A 31-year-old man from North Carolina has created a dating software for public use with him being the only man available.

In a video report cited by YEN.com.gh, Aaron Smith says he created the app to cut down on competition he faces with the use of other dating apps.

The handsome gentleman calls the app Singularity which has started making waves as it has caught the eye of the internet users.

READ ALSO: Meet Ephraim Amu, the man behind Ghana's most popular patriotic song 'Yen Ara Asase Ni'

The North Carolina man further explains that other dating sites or softwares he has used did not show his features properly.

In Singularity, he creates several versions of himself showing the Aaron that got a job, the Aaron celebrating Christmas and more.

To promote the software, Aaron smith advertises his app on different platforms to get more and more users.

According to the interview Aaron granted, his friend helped him build the app. Aaron is so grateful as his ploy is beginning to see some success.

READ ALSO: Man breaks 'susu' boxes he started on 1st January; makes almost GHC 2,838 (Photo)

Narrating the need to eliminate competition, Aaron gave a brilliant analogy saying:

If life gives you lemons, you should first make lemonade." He continued, Then make sure no other companies can produce or distribute their own soft drinks. So the only game in town is lemonade.

Matters of the heart have brought interesting news lately. YEN.com.gh earlier reported that Popular Ghanaian artiste Okyeame Kwame has come out to reveal the main cause of many breakups in marriages.

He said it is the fact that many partners practice phubbing.

In a news report put together by GhanaWeb, the Rap Dacta explained that phubbing is the act of ignoring one's partner in other to focus on one's cellphone.

Hurray! YEN.com.gh has won the Online News Portal of the Year award at NCA awards 2019. Click here to view the beautiful photos.

Ghana News Today: Ex-trotro driver becomes one of Legon's best graduating students | #Yencomgh

Have national and human interest issues to discuss?

Get interactive via our Facebook page.

Continue reading here:

Man creates dating app where he's the only man available (Video) - YEN.COM.GH

A TRIO of monster black holes have been spotted crashing into each other.

The galactic fracas is taking place 300million light years from Earth and will lead to the birth of a single, mega black hole.

2

Scientists in Germany discovered the rare event within NGC 6240, a well-studied nearby galaxy.

The black holes are close to each other at the core of the system, and shed light on how massive galaxies are born.

"Up until now, such a concentration of three supermassive black holes had never been discovered in the universe," said Dr Peter Weilbacher, of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam.

"The present case provides evidence of a simultaneous merging process of three galaxies along with their central black holes."

2

Astronomers used the Very Large Telescope in Chile to make their discovery.

The NGC 6240 galaxy is relatively close to our own Milky Way in space terms, and has an odd shape.

Galaxies are often made up of hundreds of billions of stars locked in an orbital dance with a supermassive black hole at the core.

It had long been assumed NGC 6240 formed when two smaller galaxies collided, leaving it with a pair of black holes hence the odd shape.

However, the new observations revealed the galaxy in fact had three black holes crammed into its violent core.

"Through our observations with extremely high spatial resolution we were able to show that NGC 6240 hosts not two but three supermassive black holes in its center," said Professor Wolfram Kollatschny, an astronomer at the University of Gttingen.

"Each of the three heavyweights has a mass of more than 90 million Suns.

What is a black hole? The key facts

Here's what you need to know...

What is a black hole?

What is an event horizon?

What is a singularity?

How are black holes created?

"They are located in a region of space less than 3,000 light-years across, i.e. in less than one hundredth of the total size of the galaxy."

According to the team, the discovery opens new doors for our understanding of the universe.

Up until now, scientists had not been able to explain how the biggest galaxies in the universe evolved through the space processes we know and understand.

This puzzle could be solved if it's proved that three or more supermassive black holes can merge into a single entity.

"If simultaneous merging processes of several galaxies took place, then the largest galaxies with their central supermassive black holes were able to evolve much faster," Dr Weilbacher added.

"Our observations provide the first indication of this scenario."

The study was published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

SUPER SOLDIER Declassified US military report reveals plot to create 'machine humans'

INCOMING! Mysterious interstellar object pictured coming towards us from deep space

BACK TO BLACK 'Impossible' black hole found in the Milky Way is so big it 'shouldn't exist'

END OF THE WORLD Earth has 'reached 9 climate change tipping points', top scientists warn

GREEN GIANT Grass on roof and fingerprint locks - is this Britain's most eco-friendly home?

INCOMING! 'God of Chaos' asteroid capable of killing millions could hit Earth on 10 dates

In other news, scientists unveiled the first ever picture of a black hole in April.

Theres an enormous black hole lurking in this Nasa photo can you find it?

And, here's what happens if you fall head-first into a black hole.

What do you think of the new finding? Let us know in the comments!

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk

Read more:

First merger of THREE black holes in a single galaxy caught on camera by astronomers - The Sun

Michael Brannigan.

Michael Brannigan.

Michael Brannigan.

Michael Brannigan.

We can see each other better when no screen is involved

"One is unable to notice something because it is always before one's eyes."

Ludwig Wittgenstein

There are no mirrors in hell. At least, that's the case in philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's powerfully intense drama "No Exit." Estelle, one of three characters confined in hell to a stifling, brightly lit room, desires to wear makeup. Inez offers to be Estelle's mirror. And so, peering at her reflection in Inez's eyes, Estelle smudges her mouth with lipstick.

The lesson? A logic of self-flagellation: We create our own hell when others are our only mirror. The room's third inhabitant Garcin later utters the famous line "Hell is other people," which now makes sense in this wider context of Estelle's narcissism.

Though not your uplifting holiday missive, the moral is painfully pertinent. These days, we pretty much see everything. It's all right there on some screen, always occupying center position. The screen's two-dimensionality offers "reality" without texture, a flattening that reduces as it seduces. No depth, only breadth philosopher Jean Baudrillard's "triumph of superficial form."

We not only see, but are seen. Unrelenting. And our self-imposed hell occurs the moment we define who we are according to others' gaze. In doing so, we remain vassals in the kingdom of digital utopia, drowning in images devoid of imagination, struggling to master unreality, anything to escape the gravity of time and flesh. Obsessed with self-presentation, caged by what we think others think, deploying crutches to not only fit in but stand out in the process, like wearing makeup in hell, we create our own suffocating abyss.

There's a mockery in all this however. Under the rule of others' gaze, we are faceless. Faceless? Even though we are submerged in Facebook, Facetime, selfies, Instagram, happy-face emoji? We look at each other, but do we really see? Do we truly behold, eye to eye, without a device?

During this sacred season that beckons being-with, being-for and opening our hearts, can we recover depth and meaning? I believe we can. The secret lies right in front of us the face of the other. Not some pixilated, edited version, but the real tangible living face that we can only encounter in embodied physical interaction, unmediated.

Face-to-face conversation is what we desperately need more of. It is indeed a ballet, not always pleasant, of embodied humanness, a dance of spoken and unspoken signals, a slight nod, spark in the eye, thin frown, give-and-take, a tangible connecting that far surpasses connectivity through emotionless tools. Because it is real, reaching out in this way is what makes us human. When you think about it, looking into another's face really looking fractures our visual routine of simply noticing. Only face-to-face can we rediscover the other's peerless singularity, one that can never be captured by a gaze.

Remember this as we break bread and celebrate together with loved ones or see that same person at the same corner with the same sign. As philosopher Emmanuel Levinas puts it, the face is a window to the other's mystery. Stuck in my bubble, I habitually peer out of a shut window, the window frame enclosing all that I see in front of me. The trick is to see without framing, outside the window.

Here are two face-rules for this season and beyond. First, during our face-to-face moments, conversations, dinners, etc., don't just turn off your phones. Put them away. They'll steal your soul. Next, never forget that when we meet each other face-to-face, as we all know but somehow forget, the moment is all the more divine because it will never come again.

Michael C. Brannigan is a philosopher, author and speaker. His email and website: mcbrannigan64@gmail.com; http://www.michaelcbrannigan.com.

Go here to see the original:

We can see each other better when no screen is involved - Times Union

The Rival Series has expanded Rocket Leagues talent pool immensely and has really freshened up the faces in the games competitive scene.

With the regular season concluded in the first division, twelve teams have booked their ticket to the World Championship in Madrid, Spain.

Four teams face dropping into the Rival Series from the Championship Series, and who they face will depend on the results from this weekends Rival Series Regional Championship.

NA and EUs top four teams in the second division will face off to decide who claims automatic promotion into RLCS Season 8, and who will have to test their mettle against Cloud9, G2, Team SoloMid and Complexity next week in the Promotion Playoff.

To be clear, no ones season will end on Saturday and Sunday. The short tournaments just determine who gets to the RLCS without having to play in the promotion tournament.

There are a lot of new teams in the mix given Psyonixs decision to expand the Rival Series to ten teams earlier this season. Lets meet this weekends competitors and perhaps the next stars of the game.

Stats: 2.15 GPG (2nd), 1.72 APG (2nd), 5.51 SAPG (3rd), 1.62 GAPG (T-3rd)

Roster: Jamie Karma Bickford, Jake JWismont Wismont, Daniel Shadow Manso

Season in review: 7-2, 25-14, +11. Beat Afterthought 3-0, RBG 3-2 and Chaos 3-2 in League Play.

Weekend outlook:

This is the former Splyce roster that finished last in the RLCS in Season 7, but with Shadow in place of Trevor DudeWithTheNose Hannah. They looked just as dominant as they did in Season 5 when they earned promotion.

Karma and JWismont have been through this cycle and have experience on their side. All four of the promotion hopefuls in NA have a former RLCS player on the roster, but Charlotte Phoenix houses a team that has played three full seasons in the Rival Series.

They have two chances to qualify this weekend. If they can beat Afterthought in the upper final, then theyre through, but if they lose they get the winner of Chaos/RBG. They beat all three of these teams in League Play, so history might repeat itself and put these veterans back in the first division.

Stats: 2.23 GPG (1st), 1.94 APG (1st), 5.17 SAPG (6th), 1.34 GAPG (1st)

Roster: Nathaniel Shock Frommelt, Matthew Satthew Ackermann, Chris Dappur Mendoza

Season in review: 7-2, 23-12. +11. Beat Chaos 3-2, but lost to Charlotte 3-0 and RBG 3-2 in League Play.

Weekend outlook:

Afterthought were the best team in NA according to goal differential. They had the best offense and the stingiest defense. Their roster makeup is similar to Charlottes with two former RLCS players and a Rival

Series Season 7 standout.

This might be the safest bet to qualify for the RLCS. There is a lot of speed and great communication in this team and it feels right to have Satthew and Dappur in the premier division.

Shock originally brought Nick mist Costello and Colby Hockser James together before WSOE 4, but while his former teammates are heading to the World Championship hes still in the Rival Series. Not for long.

They need to beat Charlotte or the winner of RBG/Chaos to qualify.

Stats: 1.85 GPG (6th), 1.62 APG (5th), 4.54 SAPG (9th), 1.62 GAPG (T-3rd)

Roster: Jalen Rapid Parker, Daniel Aeon Dunfee, Sebastian Sea-Bass Becerra

Season in review: 6-3, 22-17. +5. Beat Afterthought and Chaos 3-2, but lost to Charlotte 3-2 in League Play.

Weekend outlook:

RBG Esports have displayed an aggressive interest in Rocket League Esports, and they would be a fun team to have in the premier division. Rapids super deep voice would be fun to listen to as a team radio segment like mousesports and Pittsburgh Knights often do.

The stats are not amazing, but RBG found a way to win. Sea-Bass never really got his chance after Allegiance demoted to RLRS after Season 6. Now might be his best chance to make it back to the premier division.

They need to win consecutive best of sevens against Chaos and the loser of Charlotte/Afterthought.

Stats: 2.00 GPG (4th), 1.63 APG (4th), 4.58 SAPG (8th), 1.60 GAPG (2nd)

Roster: Gabe CorruptedG Vallozzi, Alexandre Taroco Pedrogam, Jack mectos Privitera

Season in review: 6-3, 23-17. +6. Lost 3-2 against Charlotte, Afterthought and RBG in League Play.

Weekend outlook:

Chaos Esports houses the best defense in the region and a hungry team ready to make RLCS. All three of the series Chaos played against their Regional Championship opponents got away from them in the fifth game during League Play, but two of the losses were decided by one goal.

Good defense can keep a decent team in any series, and CorruptedG is not afraid of big moments. He has been to World Championships and won RLCS player of the week. He wont be scared.

They need to beat RBG and the loser of Charlotte/Afterthought to qualify.

Stats: 2.56 GPG (1st), 2.06 APG (1st), 5.24 SAPG (4th), 1.53 GAPG (3rd)

Roster: Lucas RelatingWave Rose, Nelson Virtuoso Lasko, Nacho Nachitow Gimenez

Season in review: 7-2 24-10. +14. Beat Method 3-0. Lost to AS Monaco 3-1 and Team Singularity 3-2 in League Play.

Weekend outlook:

Discombobulators were the best RLRS team from either region, and they absolutely exploded onto the scene. Their game margin, goals per game and assists per game were higher than any Rivals Series team.

Three of the top four goal scorers in the league play for this team. They can run the score up and are the only team from either region to have three players in their first RLRS season in the top four.

Theyve struggled against more experienced teams, but they have two chances to qualify. If they can beat AS Monaco or the winner of Method/Singularity, theyre in.

Stats: 1.68 GPG (5th), 1.29 APG (6th), 4.12 SAPG (8th), 1.18 GAPG (1st)

Roster: Jordan EyeIgnite Stellon, Maik Tigreee Hoffmann, Alex Extra Paoli

Season in review: 6-3, 21-13. +8. Beat Discombobulators, but lost 3-1 to Method and Singularity in League Play.

Weekend outlook:

This team might have a little bit of Veloce in them. AS Monaco had the best defense in either region. They play quickly and aggressively to constantly keep offensive pressure.

AS Monaco is a classic EyeIgnite team that decides the game in the midfield. They allowed the fewest shots in the region and finished second in the region in shots per game. Theyre the good ol bim and bam mistake punishers, and theyre an experienced, fast bunch.

If Disombobulators and the winner of Method/Singularity make any mistakes, AS Monaco will punish them on the way to qualification.

Stats: 1.97 GPG (2nd), 1.75 APG (2nd), 5.69 SAPG (1st), 1.75 GAPG (6th)

Roster: Euan Tadpole Ingram, Boris Borito B Pieper, Rix Rix Ronday Ronday

Season in review: 6-3, 18-14. +4. Beat AS Monaco 3-1 and Singularity 3-0, but lost 3-0 to Discombobulators in League Play.

Weekend outlook:

Method is the complete opposite of AS Monaco. Theyre a much more offensive team but are also willing to take the game into their own half.

They led the league in saves because they gave up a ton of shots, but Method can create from their own goal better than anyone else in the region. They can pass the ball well, Tadpole is incredibly dangerous offensively and his teammates are desperate to finally make RLCS.

Method has been on the outside looking in for Promotion Playoffs for so long, and they should try and avoid it altogether. Theyd need wins over Team Singularity and the loser of Discombobulators/AS Monaco to qualify for RLCS.

Stats: 1.86 GPG (4th), 1.35 APG (4th), 5.27 SAPG (3rd), 1.62 GAPG (4th)

Roster: Leon Godsmilla Mares, Thomas ThO. Binkhorst, Joseph Noly Kidd

Season in review: 6-3, 20-17, +3. Beat Disombobulators 3-2 and AS Monaco 3-1. Lost 3-0 to Method.

Weekend outlook:

Poor ARG. ARG finished with a +7 game differential and didnt even make it to the Regional Championship. Thats because Singularity found a way to close out series, and theyll have to keep that up to make RLCS.

Method is a tough matchup for Singularity, but they looked good against the other two teams in the bracket. If they can slow Tadpole down, then they might make RLCS through the lower bracket.

Saturdays Rival Series Regional Championship kicks off Saturday at 2 p.m. ET in NA and continues Sunday beginning at noon ET.

Like Loading...

Related

Link:

Get to Know the Teams Vying in the Rival Series Regional Championship - The Game Haus