Yesterday, via MLG’s website, the organization announced the MLG Global StarCraft2 Invitational, a 24 player online event that will play host to some of the world’s best players. Taking place over a 2 month span, the players will compete in three regional brackets, featuring North America, Korea, and Europe.  Players from each region will look to battle their way through the bracket in the hopes of making it to the Grand Final, held live at the 2011 MLG National Championship in Providence, RI on Friday, November 18th.

MLG provided the following information with the announcement:

The Format

Each bracket will consist of eight players from that region, who will compete in best-of-three matches in a double elimination tournament. In the end, the winner of each region will take home $2,000 in cash, and will also earn an all-expenses paid trip to MLG Providence, where they will take on the winners of the other two regions, and the Blizzcon Champion. These four players will play best-of-three matches in a single-elimination Finals for the Championship. The winner of the Global Invitational Finals will take home an additional $3,000, bringing the total winnings for 1st  Place to $5,000.

Full Prize Breakdown

Regionals

• 1st in Region = $2,000 per player = $6,000 Total (plus all-expenses paid Providence trip)
• 2nd in Region = $1,000 per player = $3,000 Total
• 3rd in Region = $500 per player = $1,500 Total
• 4th in Region = $250 per player = $750 Total
• Blizzcon Winner = All-expenses paid Providence trip

Finals

• 1st place Global = $3,000
• 2nd place Global = $1,000

The Players

MLG has reached out to some of the best players in the world from each of the three represented regions. Here are the full rosters:

Europe:

• Naniwa
• Sjow
• Ret
• Haypro
• Thorzain
• White-Ra
• Jinro
• SaSe

North America:

• Idra
• KiwiKaki
• Slush
• Sheth
• Tyler
• Major
• Destiny
• iNcontroL

Korea:

• MMA
• MVP
• Losira
• Boxer
• Puma
• Hero
• Bomber
• CoCa

Brackets

North America
Europe
Korea

JP McDaniel and Artosis will be providing live casting of each match via MLG.tv, though some matches may be casted off of replays due to the time-zone differences. More information, including the broadcast schedule and map pool can be found by clicking here.

Today some disappointing news came out about this year’s World Cyber Games finals. Apparently the WCG is having some financial trouble, and as a result, will only be sending two national finalists from the United States to the WCG Grand Finals in Korea this December. The real kicker is that the finalists will be from the League of Legends and Crossfire tournaments. That means that the StarCraft II and Counter-Strike 1.6 finalists will have to pay their own way if they want to play in the Grand Finals.

Rather than providing for the SC2 and CS finalists to travel to Korea, the WCG will send them to the WCG Pan-Am games in Sau Paulo, Brazil this November 4th-6th.

The main reason for this change in plans is that the WCG is having some troubles with their sponsors. The main sponsorship partner for the WCG is the electronics company Samsung. Apparently the Samsung executives who were involved with the founding and management of the World Cyber Games for the past decade have had their roles shifted in the company. The new management team within Samsung have been cutting the budget surrounding the WCG.

Hopefully there is a big resurgence in interest about this years WCG, so that Samsung will see the merit in hosting a world class event like this.

One of the best, albeit lesser known StarCraft II tournaments is the ESV TV Korean Weekly (formerly iCCup TV). Every week this tournament offers the top Korean talent $200 in prize money, plus the shot at $500 in the monthly final.

Today this tournament just got sweeter. GOMtv and ESV TV have partnered up to offer a Code A slot on top of the $1300 in monthly prizes. This is the first time an online tournament has offered a spot in the GSL.

According to the announcement, the reason this partnership was reached was “to help funnel more prize money to more players, as Korea is severely lacking in tournaments aside for the GSL.”

To check out the ESV TV Korean Weekly, tuned into the stream here at 6PM EST on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. To check out previous games, you can find the VODs here.