With the culmination of the IPL Season 2 qualifiers taking place earlier today, IGN has announced the first group of qualifying players that will join IdrA, KiwiKaki, SeleCT, and Axslav, in the second season of the IPL.
The following players successfully made it to round 8 of the qualifying tournament, securing their spot in the IPL Season 2 main event.
Diestar Fenix 
MaNa 
Ret coL.Stalife Destiny ViBE
For the original announcement, with player introductions, click here.
With today’s announcement of MLG’s and GOMtv’s League Exchange Program, it should come as no surprise that MLG will need to make some changes to the format of their tournaments.
For MLG Columbus, the Korean competitors will be seeded directly into the existing competition format:
- There will still be four Championship Pools. The Top 16 finishers from MLG Dallas will be seeded into the Pools based on their rank, just as in Dallas.
- One GSL pro player will be added to each Pool, based on their GSL rank, as follows:
The #1 GSL pro player will go to Pool D
The #2 GSL pro player will go to Pool C
The #3 GSL pro player will go to Pool B
The #4 GSL pro player will go to Pool A
- As before, one undefeated player from the Open Bracket will eventually join each pool, for a total of six players per Pool.
- Each member of the Pool will play a total of five Pool Play matches, rather than four, which significantly increases the amount of games you will see played by top players.”
For the other MLG events after Columbus, the format will be shifting slightly, to accommodate the Korean invites.
- The [player] Pools will always contain the Top 20 players (four invited GSL pro players, and 16 top-ranked MLG players) and four undefeated Open Bracket players, for a total of 24.
- The 20 players who start in Pool Play on Friday will be seeded according to their Pro Circuit Rank Points.
- No matter what their MLG seed is, the invited GSL pro players will be placed in Pools based on their GSL rank. The #1 ranked GSL pro player will always be placed into Pool D, etc.
- In the National Championship, where there are no Pools, the GSL pro players will be seeded based on their MLG Rank Points.”
MLG noted in their announcement, “Adding four players to the tournament has some ramifications for the format that go beyond Pool Play, so Regular Season competitions will work in the following way from MLG Columbus onward:
- A round (Open Losers Round 9) will be added to the Open Bracket
- 12 Players will advance from the Open Bracket into the Championship Bracket:
- The four undefeated players will move into the Pools
- The eight players with only one loss will be seeded into the Championship Losers Bracket
- At the end of the tournament, 52 players—rather than the usual 48—will receive Pro Circuit Rank Points.
For all the details visit MLGs official competition format page.
Today MLG and GOMtv announced that they have partnered up to establish a League Exchange Program that will send the best MLG players to compete in the GSL, and allow top Korean talent to play live in the US.
Pro Circuit Players Competing in the GSL
- At MLG Columbus, the Top 3 non-Korean finishers will each be placed into GSL Code A.
- At every 2011 Pro Circuit Live Competition after MLG Columbus, GSL placement will occur as follows:
- Code S status will be awarded to the highest placing player, regardless of country of origin, who does not already have Code S status.
- Code A status will be awarded to the next three highest placing non-Korean players.
- If Code S status is awarded to a Korean player, Code A status also will be awarded to the 4th highest placing non-Korean player.
- All travel and accomodation expenses for these players will be provided by the GSL.
GSL Pro Players Competing on the MLG Pro Circuit
- MLG will invite four Korean pro players to each Pro Circuit Live Competition.
- These players will be placed directly into the Championship Pools, one into each Pool.
- Their placement in the Pools will be determined by their GSL rank.
- All travel and accomodation expenses for these players will be provided by MLG.
- For MLG Columbus, we will also be inviting a player from the CSN tournament, currently in progress. This player will be seeded into the Open Bracket, and their travel and accomodation expenses will be covered by CSN.
This is historic news because this will be the first time the GSL has ever granted Code S status based on the results from another tournament. It will also be the first time Korean progamers have ever competed live in an open-registration StarCraft 2 tournament in the US.
The GSL players who will be attending MLG Columbus are:
For all the official announcement, click here.
Korea is often seen at the capitol of Starcraft and Starcraft II, and it’s hard to argue against that. It is important, however, to remember that eSports are pretty big across Asia as a whole. For example, today broadcasting company eSport TV Thailand announced that it will be holding a StarCraft II tournament from August 8th to the 19th.
Featuring a massive prize pool of over $100,000 USD as well as 32 of the best SC2 players around, the Starcraft II Open Season 1 will be broadcasted from Bangkok, Thailand with a live studio audience similar to the GSL. A major difference between this tournament and the GSL, however, is that the players will play online and the audience will actually get to interact with the gamers.
Registration for the tournament will begin on May 15. Any progamer is free to sign up, but eSport TV Thailand will have the final say on who gets to play. The full player list will be released sometime in June. The actual format of the tournament will follow a Single Elimination 32 Player system with random seeding. One interesting aspect of the Starcraft II Open Season 1 is that there will be 2 showmatches between players whom the audience picked. This you are sure to see the fan favorites duke it out.
The primary sponsor and host of the tournament, eSport TV Thailand, wishes to differentiate their event from others by including an unprecedented amount of viewer interaction—the audience will affect the players in the 2 showmatches while subscribers will be able to win random prizes, including coaching lessons and gift vouchers.
Another similarity between the Starcraft II Open Season 1 and the GSL is that there will be a free medium quality stream along with a paid HD stream ($9.99) that includes access to the VODs.
To check out all the details, click here.
One of the most popular weekly European StarCraft II tournaments is the ZOTAC Cup. Every week European gamers go head to head hoping to get their hands on the €100/computer hardware prize, not to mention bragging rights as well.
Today ZOTAC announced that it’s coming to North America. Starting May 14th, North American gamers can compete weekly for $100 plus hardware prizes. The ZOTAC Cup will be held each Saturday at 15:00 PST and will follow the same format as the European version. Much like the European predecessor, the North American ZOTAC Cup will feature maps from Blizzard, iCCup and the GSL.
The ZOTAC StarCraft II North America tournament will be played in a “pool system” with high and low seeds until the quarter finals. Starting with the quarter-finals each round will then be played in a single elimination grid system. Pool rounds will be held in Best of one, Quarterfinals and Semifinals in Best of three mode and the Final will be best of five. Maps will be vetoed until the right set of possible maps is found.
During the tournament, the pool system will find the next available opponent automatically for the participant to minimize waiting times between the matches. A limited number of players receive high seeds in order to not eliminate each other before the final rounds. If a high seeded player loses his match, his opponent will inherit his high seed slot.
If you think you have what it takes, click here to sign up.
A week ago the IGN Pro League finished up Season 1 of their StarCraft II tournament. Today the league has released a full replay pack for you to download for free. This means that you can watch your favorite players from within StarCraft II, allowing you control over observation. This is a big deal because replays essentially allow you to study exactly what the pros are doing, which lets your incorporate their style into your play.
IGN Wrote:
IGN eSports is now releasing the replay pack of all of the games from the first season of the IGN Pro League. We know this is something that people really like so for our first season we are happy to be able to provide this for you. We hope you learn a lot from the games contained within, hone your game skills and play in IPL Season Two! If you think you have the skills, stand up and fight for a spot in the IPL Season 2!
To get your hands on the replay pack, click here. Also, if you missed out on Season 1 of the IGN Pro League, you can check out all the VODs for free.
Today, League of Legends was updated to v1.0.0.118. The update included the new champion – Vayne, the Night Hunter – and a new stat for items. The new stat, Tenacity, helps reduce the durations of slows, stuns, taunts, fears, etc. (crowd controls) Mercury Treads now have tenacity, as well as three new items: Cloak and Dagger, Moonflair Spellblade, and Eleisa’s Miracle. Tenacity is non-stackable, so only one item with tenacity is needed. Other big changes saw Gangplank getting a buff and Karthus receiving a nerf as well as changes to Rod of Ages, and Wit’s End. Here is part of the changelog, specifically the skills for the new champion Vayne:
Vayne, The Night Hunter
- Night Hunter (Passive): Vayne ruthlessly hunts evil-doers. She gains bonus Movement Speed when moving toward nearby enemy champions.
- Tumble: Vayne tumbles, maneuvering to carefully place her next shot. She rolls toward the cursor and her next attack deals bonus damage.
- Silver Bolts: Vayne tips her bolts with a rare metal, toxic to evil things. The third consecutive attack or ability against the same target deals a percentage of the target’s maximum Health as bonus true damage. (Max damage vs. Monsters is capped)
- Condemn: Vayne draws a heavy crossbow from her back, and fires a huge bolt at her target, dealing damage and knocking them back. If they collide with terrain, they are impaled, dealing bonus damage and stunning them.
- Final Hour (Ultimate): Readying herself for an epic confrontation, Vayne gains increased Attack Damage, stealth during Tumble, and quadruple the bonus Movement Speed from Night Hunter.
For the complete release log, look here.
This morning Blizzard released patch 1.3.3 for StarCraft II. Addressing a number of bugs and balance issues, patch 1.3.3 should make some pretty substantial changes to the game. The most important thing to note is that the decreased Gateway unit training time that we saw on the Public Test Realm didn’t make it into the final patch.
The full patch notes are:
General
- The default hotkey to toggle in-game music on/off has been reverted to its hotkey prior to Patch 1.3.0. The hotkey to display APM in the observer stat panel has been changed as a result. Balance
PROTOSS
- Archon
Now a Massive unit.
Range increased from 2 to 3.
- Cybernetics Core
Research Warp Gate research time increased from 140 to 160.
- Gateway
Sentry train time decreased from 42 to 37. (
Warp Gate unit train times remain unchanged.
Pylon power radius has been decreased from 7.5 to 6.5.TERRAN
- Bunker
Salvage resource return reduced from 100% to 75%.
- Ghost
Cost changed from 150/150 to 200/100.
- Thor
Thor now has 200 max energy, and starts with 50 energy. *250mm Strike Cannons now cost 150 energy to use.
ZERG
- Infestor
Speed decreased from 2.5 to 2.25.
- Spore Crawler
Root time decreased from 12 to 6.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where Ghosts could not quickly EMP the same location.
- Fixed an issue that allowed players to stack air units when issuing a queued stop command before the units reached the end of their patrol point.
- Fixed an issue where unplugging your USB headset while another player was talking to you could cause a crash.
- Fixed an issue where the APM statistic could be artificially increased.
- Fixed an issue where 3D unit portraits were not animating smoothly at slow game speeds.
- Fixed an issue where, when viewing a replay, no text message was displayed when a player left a game.
- The Taiwanese hotkey to display/hide the game UI while in Observer mode now works correctly
Anyone who follows Korean eSports knows of the IP rights war between Blizzard Entertainment and the Korean eSPORTS Association. For those of you know may be new to the scene, basically Blizzard wanted OnGameNet and MBC Game (the medias broadcasting KeSPA-affiliated BroodWar games) to pay for the rights to broadcast StarCraft on television.
Today Blizzard and the Korean eSPORTS Association have come to an agreement. According to the official statement:
The fight over the intellectual property rights seems to be coming to a close.The dispute between Blizzard and Kespa will be settled amicably as of now, and a license contract will be signed shortly. The scheduled court date on the 13th has been delayed, the reason being the three parties, ongamenet, mbcgame, and Blizzard coming to an agreement.
Three parties are currently discussing the terms for a brighter future of e-sports in Korea. Ongament, and MBCgame will be at liberty to produce and sell starcraft contents, and open starcraft tournaments. Both tv networks have agreed to give exposure to blizzard with the logo, and the license fee will be given to Blizzard each year, the fee is unspecified at this time.
For those of you who want an indepth look at the history of the Korean eSports scene, check out this article. It does a pretty good job summarising the league battle between Blizzard and KeSPA.
