Today, we are excited to share with you some additional information regarding the 2013 World Championship Series, as well as insight into some of the decisions we’ve made for the new format.
We redesigned the World Championship Series to help accomplish one of our primary goals—level up the eSports scene by building the type of vibrant, professional StarCraft II eSports ecosystem in North America and Europe that we see in South Korea today. We are very excited about this new format, which we feel will lead to a more consistent storyline through the crowning of a true world champion, higher quality and more exciting matchups globally, and more positive overall experiences for players and viewers alike. We also believe the tournament’s design features a relatively open system which affords both new and veteran players the opportunity to advance quickly if they perform well in a given season.

Just as players have historically traveled from around the globe to participate in GSL, this new WCS system is designed to allow players to participate in one of three similarly prestigious tournaments in America, Europe, or Korea. Rather than creating residency requirements for competitors, we, in cooperation with our partners, aim to encourage players to choose a region as their base by having them participate in offline studio matches within that region. The number of in-studio matches will increase over time, and we believe this will encourage players to both train and reside within the region from which they choose to compete.
As you read through WCS details below, please keep in mind that we consider this system to be a starting point that will evolve over time as we continue to make improvements.

For more information go to http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog

Watch live video from esltv_sc2 on www.twitch.tv

Well known players in WCS first qualifyer

• Paranoid (Acer/Z)
• Adelscott (Millenium/P)
• Bischu (Teamless/P)
• Bling (Dignitas/P)
• Daisy (Western Wolves/P)
• Giantt (Drop Bears/Z)
• Diestar (Millenium/T)
• Dayshi (Millenium/T)
• Elfi (ENCE/P)
• Beastyqt (Empire/T)
• BratOK (Empire/T)
• Happy (Empire/T)
• Siw (Empire/P)
• Feast (Millenium/P)
• Fuzer (Awesome Gaming/T)
• Goody (ESC/T)
• Hanfy (Alien Invasion/Z)
• Harstem (Fnatic/P)
• hOpe (mouz/Z)
• Xigua (Invictus Gaming/Z)
• JohnnyREcco (Z)
• Shuttle (Clarity/T)
• Miniraser (Fnatic/Z)
• Morrow (Western Wolves/T)
• Tails (MVP/P)
• duckdeok/finale (MVP/P)
• Krolu (MYM/P)
• Happyzerg (Na’Vi/Z)
• Lowely (Na’Vi/Z)
• Minato (Na’Vi/Z)
• Strelok (Na’Vi/T)
• Naama (Fnatic/T)
• Nightend (Fnatic/P)
• Noname (3D Clan/T)
• Noticimus (Gamers League/P)
• Krass (Newrosoft/T)
• Welmu (Newrosoft/P)
• Pandatank (Teamless/P)
• Protosser (mouz/Z)
• LiveZerg (RoX.KIS/Z)
• Sasquatch (complexity/Z)
• Sjow (Team Property/T)
• Stardust (Teamless/P)
• syz (K1ck eSports/Z)
• Targa (Teamless/Z)
• Tarrantius (Alien Invasion/P)
• Tarson (mYinsanity/T)
• Tefel (Dignitas/Z)
• vipro (Karont3/P)
• White-Ra (White-Ra/P)
• Xlord (XMG/Z)
• Ziktomini (Western Wolves/Z)

/Thanks to StarVeTL at reddit for making the list.

Match format
Best of 1 until the Round of 128.
Best of 3 from the Round of 128 onwards.
The Final is Best of 5.

Reddit thread found here: www.reddit.com/r/starcraft

Brackets for the WCS Qual 1 : www.esl.eu

Statement from Dignitas

It has come to our attention that during yesterday’s Major League Gaming Summer Championship League of Legends Event, our League of Legends team have engaged in misconduct. We have found at least some of the accusations to be valid. As a consequence, we have decided to investigate the situation fully to accertain all the facts. We will release a statement describing our responsive actions within two days.

Michael O’Dell, Managing Director of Team Dignitas, said: “Team Dignitas, our members and all of our partners have never, and will never, stand for conduct that disrespects our team values MERIT, PRESTIGE, WORTH, DIGNITY”.

We are committed to supporting the eSports community and once our investigation is complete we will respond accordingly.

Curse apology for MLG Grand Finals

Part of the interview

Hi Helen, thank you for taking the time to do this interview with us. To start, can you please introduce yourself? What do you do outside of eSports? Who is Helen Georgallidis

Hi everyone and thanks for asking me. I was born in London, Ontario Canada and raised in a very traditional Greek background (think Big Fat Greek Wedding!) I played sports all through High School and my favourite was basketball. I was on a team with our Church Youth Group and we travelled all over in tournaments in the U.S and Canada. I was involved in various community and Church organizations.

You’ve spent quite a bit of time in the education field before becoming Counter Logic Gaming’s new CEO. How did you choose this career path?

I taught at our community Church School and Greek School. When I was seventeen I travelled to Spain for a six week program. Then a few years later I travelled to Quebec for a cultural program and finally when I was twenty I lived as an “au pair” in Paris for a year. While studying to become a translator at a bilingual university, a professor of mine suggested that I apply to teacher’s college to teach French Immersion.

Can you walk us through your journey in this field? What sort of experiences have you gotten out of it, any favorite memories or specific moments that have impacted you?

Well, I remember when George hit 20,000 viewers and he was streaming. He said “mom, 20k people are watching me.” I was “What? What are you doing that 20k people want to watch you?” And that was the first time I saw him streaming and being “entertaining.” I thought “I hope none of my friends from work ever ask me what my kid does for a living.” He was such a quiet and well-mannered guy and he got a reputation for being a “rager.” Some days I would go in the basement and really yell at him. It wasn’t until his grand-parents came over and told him they didn’t like his cussing and that they wanted him to be a better role model, that he started to make changes to his “style.”

While your son focused more on becoming a hardcore gamer, you’ve followed a more traditional route. Growing up, though, what were your favorite hobbies? Did you ever get into any video games yourself.

Computers really didn’t come out until I was thirty and we got one and George played “alphabet games” on it. I was really busy growing up… I had waitressing jobs, worked at the community, played sports and was always involved in clubs at school. The only video games we played were Pac Man and Tetris back when I was in University.

Going back to your son, we all know him as the famous George “HotshotGG” Georgallidis. However, there was a time at a young age when he was just a regular gamer. Through your own eyes, how did George get involved with video games?

George’s dad is a techno-geek and we had tons of electronics in the house. He always had the latest systems, games etc., so he played from a young age. I only had one rule… no first person shooter games until he was a teen. He was pretty good with that and got into role playing, fantasy and adventure games.

For full interview: www.mobafire.com

Watch live video from OneMoreGame.TV on TwitchTV

Statement from Associate Game Designer Classick

In an upcoming patch we’ll be revisiting one of our original classic champions: Twitch, the Plague Rat. Twitch’s Ambush ability will be seeing some changes to shift him toward a more aggressive role on the battlefield. Since this ability allowed Twitch to remain invisible for significant periods of time, enemy players were forced to adopt an extremely cautious and defensive playstyle in response. Since we want League of Legends to be a fun, fast-paced experience, we decided to update Twitch with a new version of Ambush.

Even beyond its duration, we saw some major issues with the Ambush ability, primarily surrounding the nature of the Attack Speed bonus that it provided. While Attack Speed helps quickly stack up charges of Deadly Venom, this bonus ramped up over the total duration Twitch remained invisible. This forced players to strike a balance between selecting the ideal time to strike and attempting to lurk for as long as possible in order to reach the maximum bonus. This was especially problematic for Plague Rat enthusiasts, since it forced Twitch to forego farming gold in order to reach his maximum Attack Speed bonus.

To shift emphasis towards a more action-oriented style of play, we retooled Ambush to promote aggressive repositioning over stalking. The first step in accomplishing this was to change the ability so that it always applies the maximum Attack Speed bonus, solidifying the emphasis on selecting the opportune moment of attack. We also drastically shortened the duration to give the ability a more tactical context, and gave Ambush a Movement Speed boost to help Twitch quickly outflank his opponent.

Another issue Twitch faced was an over-reliance on the enormous damage potential of his ultimate ability. More often than not, Twitch’s success or failure on the battlefield depended on his ability to output massive amounts of damage over the course of Spray and Pray rather than on Deadly Venom and Expunge. Since most of his interesting gameplay revolved around poison combos, we wanted to augment this aspect of his kit both to make him more interesting to play and to make him less one dimensional.

For starters, we noticed most Twitch players using Debilitating Poison to begin every engagement rather than waiting to build up stacks of Deadly Venom. For this reason, we decided to replace this ability with one that was better suited to initiating combat. This new ability, Venom Cask, not only allows Twitch to initiate by slowing a group of enemies at range, but also gives him a head start on his combo by adding stacks of Deadly Venom to those caught within the area of effect. To top things off, while Expunge still adds bonus damage for each stack of Deadly Venom on the target, it no longer consumes those stacks when cast, allowing your poisons to continue to tick away. Expunge will also now receive a damage bonus based on your total Attack Damage, preserving its function as a heavy hitting nuke even into the late game.

The final step in the process was repurposing Spray and Pray to better support this new emphasis on poison gameplay. To do this, we scaled back the massive, team-wide damage potential by making each missile deal reduced damage after passing through each target. To compensate for this, we increased its missile speed to make attacks more difficult to dodge and removed the ammunition requirement, allowing Twitch to spray poisoned arrows to his heart’s content for the full duration of his ultimate. This allows tanks to take the brunt of the initial assault for their team through good positioning, but still allows Twitch to douse the more vulnerable enemies at the back of the formation with stacks of Deadly Venom. These more powerful poison-delivery options help Twitch maintain a constant threat level, allowing him to take down high value targets without leaning so heavily on Spray and Pray.

Abilities

• Deadly Venom (Passive): Twitch’s basic attacks infect the target, dealing true damage over time.
• Ambush: Twitch becomes invisible for a short duration and gains Movement Speed. At the end of this effect, Twitch gains Attack Speed for a short duration.
• Venom Cask: Twitch hurls a cask of venom that explodes on contact, slowing targets in the area and applying Deadly Venom.
• Expunge: All nearby enemies secrete Twitch’s Deadly Venom from their bodies, dealing damage for each stack.
• Spray and Pray: Twitch closes his eyes and rapidly fires his crossbow, quickly spraying powerful poisoned bolts ahead of him.

Watch live video from TeamLiquidNet on sv.twitch.tv

Info about the tournament: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/TeamLiquid_StarLeague_4

Watch live video from IPL League of Legends Channel on sv.twitch.tv

Brackets: http://www.leaguepedia.com/wiki/IPL_Face_Off:_San_Francisco_Showdown

Stats: https://elobuff.com/events/2012-ign-face-off

DreamHack present record-breaking stats from their last event: DreamHack Summer 2012. 15 531 gamers invaded Jönköping 16-19 June and over 4 million gamers around the world tuned in to watch the DreamHack livestreams.

DreamHack Summer 2012 will be remembered as the event when Summer reached the same scale as Winter:
- For the first time in DreamHack history we had to use all of Elmias 34,000 squaremetres to host the event. Opening up Hall A, B, C & D in a Summer event was a huge step forward, said Marcus Lindmark, Event manager and Admin at the festivals.

The Biggest DreamHack Summer Ever
DreamHack Summer 2012 had 15 531 visitors which is an increase with 19% compared to DreamHack Summer 2011. The biggest increase was the LAN-tickets including the full event experience with a personal seat in the LAN. The most expensive ticket option increased with 30%.
- Our conversion from World’s largest LAN to become a real digital festival was more definitive then ever before. More music, eSports and entertainment on stages, but the clearest message was definitely that LAN is not going away and that the LAN is still the core of DreamHack, said Robert Ohlen CEO of DreamHack.

According to statistics from DreamHack Tech crew 12 446 unique devices connected to the network. A new record for a Summer-event and was made possible thanks to our sponsors Telia and Cisco. You can find more network stats at http://dashboard.dreamhack.se/

In eSports DreamHack hosted 16 official and partner tournaments with a total prize purse of 1 765 000 SEK (equals USD 243,000).

4 million tuned in to DreamHack.TV
DreamHack and partners produced 31 live streams from the event – all broadcasted through our streaming partner Twitch.TV. 807 hours of content was produced and we had 12,522,319 views and 4,068,303 unique views on the streams with League of Legends, StarCraft II, Dota 2 and Heroes of Newerth being the most watched titles.
- We had 1.5 million unique views at last Summer event so it’s really crazy and it’s definitely over our expectations. It’s also smashing record since we also beat last DreamHack Winter event with a large margin, said Tomas Hermansson, Head of eSports.

We want to thank all visitors, fans, viewers, partners, sponsors and supporters of DreamHack. Finally a huge thanks to DreamHack Crew that made this record-breaking event possible.

Event visitors:
15 531 visitors

LAN stats:
12 446 connected devices

Streaming stats:
Total views: 12,522,319
Unique views: 4,068,303
Average viewing time: 45 minutes

Source: www.dreamhack.se