A few days ago we posted a leaked teaser for StarCraft II’s first expansion, Heart of the Swarm. Today the embargo on HotS has been lifted and a whole slew of information and videos have been made public.

While most of the information released focuses on the singleplayer aspects of StarCraft II, Blizzard has stated that HotS will bring new maps and units to the multiplayer. Aspects of the multiplayer is discussed in the “community roundtable Q&A.”

From the gameplay trailer, one can see that the singleplayer portion of the game will now include Winter/snow based maps, something that has yet to be seen in StarCraft. One can also see how HotS’s Zerg focus differs from StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. For example:

Zerg units can evolve to yield improvements or even all-new units. Blizzard offered the Zergling as an example; they can gain the ability to split into Broodlings when killed as a basic upgrade. They can also further evolve into either Swarmlings, which spawn as three units instead of two, or Raptors, which are stronger and can leap at an enemy.

To check out all the details click here.

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Today Blizzard released a short teaser for StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, the upcoming expansion to StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. While it doesn’t show any actual in-game footage, it does provide some hints as to where the single-player story is headed.

While no official release date has been announced, rumor has it that it will be released around April 2012. Heart of the Swarm will add additional units to the multiplayer game mode, which will cause some massive changes to the current SC2 metagame.

Today Major League Gaming revealed the full player list for next week’s MLG Columbus event. Listed in order of “Rank Points” earned from previous MLG tournaments, the list contains all 271 competitors from North America, Europe and Asia.

As expected, the top 10 includes:

• Dignitas.NaNiWa
• KiEiKaKi
• SeleCT-
• EGiNcontroL
• LiquidTLO
• EGIdrA
• FXOmOoNan
• SLush
• ROOT-drewbie
• SjoW

It is important to note that the four Korean players invited from the League Exchange Program (MMA, Bomber, Losira and Moon) have been seeded 17th-20th.

To check out the full list, click here.

Today an interview with Major League Gaming’s Co-founder Sundance DiGiovanni found its way onto an unlikely website, the national business magazine Forbes. Discussing everything from the validity of eSports to the recent GOMtv GSL partnership, the Forbes article gives gamers a unique look at the competitive gaming scene from on outsiders point of view.

The response for the last MLG event in Dallas was so overwhelming, it caused a lot of technical headaches for both you guys and the viewers. Can you talk a bit about what exactly went down then, and what lessons you guys have taken into MLG Columbus?

The tune-in numbers for the Dallas event were amazing. Unfortunately, we weren’t prepared for that level of traffic. A couple things happened: First, our websites were overwhelmed with the demand for our live streams. Our development team was able to spin up capacity very quickly to meet the demand but the initial load dramatically exceeded our expectation. Secondly, the local network suffered a series of failures which circumvented our backup precautions. We’ve now adjusted our network planning to account for the scenario in Dallas and several other issues. More importantly, we’ve dramatically upgraded our stream delivery infrastructure in partnership with Streamworks who recently handled the streaming for the Royal wedding.  Using a unique technology solution, Streamworks delivers seamless cross platform video with dramatically increased picture and audio quality so our community can count on a great viewing experience. Additionally, the HQ stream will be available in up to 720p and there is no download required; you can watch both the standard and HQ streams directly from the video player on majorleaguegaming.com.

How did this newfound partnership with Korea come about? How much overlap do you think there will be between the American and Korean Starcraft scenes, and how is MLG helping that union?

We’ve been fans of GOMTV and the Global eSports League (GSL) in Korea for a long time now. Blizzard, who has been a great partner to work with, made some formal introductions for us earlier this year and our conversations clearly indicated an alignment of strategic global initiatives. The two scenes have some cross-over today, but nowhere near the level required for the sport to truly advance at an international scale. Our partnership with GOMTV is going to accelerate that growth in some really powerful ways, in addition to giving professional players in both regions the opportunity to compete globally on a regular basis. This can only lead to a more integrated global scene for competitive gaming.

The full interview can be seen here.

CompLexity’s Mike “Twixz” Shane is in Sunnyvale, California as the Fry’s Tactic3D Tour continues tomorrow (Saturday, May 28th). Mike will be promoting the Tactic3D Pro-Am Gaming Tournament that is in the grand tournament stage starting today. Twixz will be on hand to provide tournament information, autographs and special giveaways to lucky winners. He will also be promoting the recently announced compLexity Academy.

If you’re in the Sunnyvale area, be sure to stop over at Fry’s Electronics! The address can be found below:

Frys Electronics

1077 E. Arques Ave
Sunnyvale, California 94085

Click here to RSVP on Facebook!

Continuing through today, PNY is having a blowout sale on their Newegg Store. Everything from cables and video cards to memory sticks and flash drives are on sale, but the deals will not last long!

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The League of Lengends Season One Qualifiers have been officially announced! This weekend, the top 8 teams from both North America and Europe will be battling it out to see who deserves a spot at the becoming the Season One Champions and winning $100,000. coL.LoL will be competing in this event.

Format

There will be two full tournaments hosted this weekend – One for the North American Teams and one for the European teams. The top three teams from each bracket will be able to advance and compete at Dreamhack 2011 for the title of Season One Champions. The bracket is double elimination format.

The action all starts this weekend (May 28-29, 2011) at 5AM EST for European matches, and 2PM EST for North American matches. compLexity’s first match will be against Defy All Odds at 2PM EST.

For more information, check out the official Season One Qualifier Page.

Today WCG USA officially announced that it will be holding a StarCraft 2 tournament in New York City on June 18th-19th. Held at the Samsung Experience, the StarCraft 2 Summer 2011 Event will feature $2,000 in cash prizes for its two tournaments. The first tournament (“the main event”) will be a double elimination standard bracket. The side tournament will feature a group play format. Each event has a 32 player limit, so if you’re interested register fast. “Note that eight spots will be reserved in the main tournament for invited players.”

To register click here. There is a $10 reservation deposit, but it will be completely refunded upon the start of the event.

The prize pool breakdown looks like:

StarCraft 2 – Main Event
1st – $1,000
2nd – $500
3rd – $250

StarCraft 2 – Side Tournament
1st – $125
2nd – $75
3rd – $50

There will be live streaming of the games for both days, however the actual location of the stream has yet to be announced.

If you’re in the New York City area and would like to spectate the games live, there is no entrance fee, so you can get in for free. There will be “16 panel 184″ display for live matches, lounges, and the latest Samsung technology on display,” so it should be a pretty entertaining event.

Yesterday Major League Gaming announced that StarCraft II Player Passes have sold out. For those of you who don’t know, MLG sells two types of passes to their events. There are “Spectator Passes” which admit you to the event to observe. “Player Passes” on the other hand, are for gamers who are looking to try their luck in the open pool tournament.

According to the post on the MLG forums, MLG will be creating a waiting list “to reserve Player Passes if any become available due to cancellations.” In order to sign up for the waiting list, leave a post on the forum link above.

While it’s unfortunate that not everyone who wants to participate in MLG Columbus will be able to, one can always be an optimist and take this as a sign that eSports is growing larger and larger.