Welcome to another edition of the [E-sports dail-E]! Some big announcements have dropped in the last 24, so let’s get down to it!
Starcraft 2/DotA Team CCM purchased for 6 million dollars
A few days ago, I reported on the DotA 2 invitational tournament being held with a million dollar prize pool, and how impressive it was. Apparently, that was just chump change in comparison to this story – CCM (Catastrophic Cruel Memory) has been purchased by Chinese businessman Sicong Wang for 6 million dollars! This is a truly insane amount of money, especially for a team of only 5 players. The team is being rebranded as Invictus under the new ownership, and is still anticipated to attend Gamescom in Germany later this month.
With prize pools shooting up, viewership in the millions, perhaps E-Sports is finally approaching the point of truly having a place in today’s culture as a true competitive sport. Of course, keep it tuned here to the dail-E to see how things turn out for Invictus.
Blizzard Announces EU/NA Battle.net Invitational, Player lists released
Late last night, Blizzard announced most of the details regarding their upcoming Battle.net invitational tournaments for Starcraft 2, starting with the EU tournament being followed a week later by the US division. Not only are these competitions for their respective prize pools upwards of $20,000, they are also competing to qualify for the Global Battle.net invitational to be played at this year’s Blizzcon. Below, I’ve listed the details that have been released so far.
EU Invitational
August 6-7
Warsaw, Poland
Format: Double Elimination
Prize Pool: $24,500
Players:
Johan ‘Naniwa’ Lucchesi
Oleksii ‘White-Ra’ Krupnyk
Giacomo ‘Socke’ Thus
Marcus ‘ThorZaIN’ Eklof
Tomasz ‘Tarson’ Baron
Eugin ‘Strlok’ Oparyshiev
Arthus ‘Nerchio’ Block
Joeseph ‘Ret’ de Kroon
US Invitational
August 8-9, August 12-13
California, USA
Format: TBD
Prize Pool: $20,000
Casters: Sean “Day[9]” Plott & JP “itmeJP” McDaniel
Players
Jonathan ‘KiWiKaki’ Garneau
Chris ‘HuK’ Loranger
Payam ‘TT1’ Toghyan
KyeongHyun ‘SeleCT’ Ryoo
Lee Dong ‘dde’ Yeon
Gregory ‘IdrA’ Fields
Shawn ‘Sheth’ Simon
Christopher ‘OstoJiY’ Ostojic
Keep it tuned here to the dail-E, as we’ll be covering this invitational as it occurs, with links to the live stream. Should be a great competition, with wonderful competitors both here and across the pond in Europe.
League of Legends season 1 to end in Late August
After many months of fierce competition, the inaugural League of Legends season is set to end in late August just a few weeks from now. Though the competitive season has been over for a bit now, since Dreamhack in which team fnatic was crowned World Champion, the ELO ladders have still been in full flow, with many players competing for the top slot.
For the rest of us scrubs, the prizes have been announced. Check out the official release from Matt Marcou of Riot Games below!
“Summoners!
Recently, we announced that we would be extending Ladder Season One. We also announced that we would provide rewards to those players who finished the season at each tier of our ladder rankings. Today we are here to announce that the first League of Legends Ladder Season will officially close in late August. Following the end of Ladder Season One, your stats will be archived in your summoner profile, and Pre-Season Two will officially begin.
Now, about those ladder rewards. As we previously mentioned, all those who participated in Season One by playing at least 10 matchmade games will receive the commemorative Judgment Kayle skin. Additionally, after your stats have been archived, and all players that are currently holding a tiered rating (bronze, gold, silver, or platinum) in our ladder rankings will receive the following additional rewards:
Bronze-rated players will receive a bronze banner in their summoner profile.
Silver-rated players will have their summoner icon framed in silver and receive a silver banner in their summoner profile.
Gold-rated players will have their summoner icon framed in gold and will receive a special skin for Jarvan IV, a gold banner in their summoner profile, and a gold forum badge.
Platinum-rated players will have their summoner icon framed in platinum and will receive a special skin for Jarvan IV, a platinum banner in their summoner profile, and a platinum forum badge.
During Pre-Season Two, there will also be several opportunities to improve your team’s status for the Season Two Championship. Over the past few weeks we’ve announced qualifiers for the Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenges in Germany, China, and the United States. We’re happy to announce that top placing teams in these qualifiers and during the Global Challenges will be credited Circuit Points for the Season Two Circuit retroactively once the season begins. Circuit points will be used to determine a team’s rank in their respective region and qualify them for the Season Two Regionals. Stay tuned for more details, but if you’d like to see a recap of the Season One Regionals, then check out our Season One Regional site.
We are looking forward to seeing everyone make one final push to finish out Season One in style and bring home some fantastic rewards.”
Better get to farming if you want those rewards. What do you think readers? Good enough prizes? Comment and let the community know what you think.
North American Star League Season 2 Player List announced
Only a few weeks after the conclusion of season 1 of the NASL Starcraft 2 tournament, the community is already getting hyped for season 2. Earlier this week, the player list was released for this season. The list includes 14 players that have seeded into the later rounds in the event due to their high placement in season 1, 12 of which are Korean, as well as 31 other players that are returning from season 1 to compete in the preliminary rounds. Also listed are some of the players that either failed to qualify or declined their invite for season 2.
Who’s Qualified: 14 players
PuMa — winner NASL Open Tournament
aLive — 2nd NASL Open Tournament
Clide — semi final NASL Open Tournament
Revival — semi final NASL Open Tournament
LoWeLy — top 8 NASL Open Tournament
NightEnD — top 8 NASL Open Tournament
Rain — top 8 NASL Open Tournament
sC — winner NASL S2 Qualifier
TOP — 2nd NASL S2 Qualifier
Hero — semi final NASL S2 Qualifier
MarineKing — semi final NASL S2 Qualifier
Moonan — top 8 NASL S2 Qualifier
Check — top 8 NASL S2 Qualifier
Polt — top 8 NASL S2 Qualifier
Who’s Returning: 31
Moon — top 8 NASL S1
Sheth — top 16 NASL S1
MorroW — top 16 NASL S1
KiWiKaKi — playoffs NASL S1
Fenix — playoffs NASL S1
TLO — playoffs NASL S1
July — 4th NASL S1
White-Ra — top1 6 NASL S1
SjoW — playoffs NASL S1
TT1 — playoffs NASL S1
DarkForcE — top 8 NASL S1
MoMaN — playoffs NASL S1
CrunCher — playoffs NASL S1
iNcontroL — NASL S1
Strelok — NASL S1
Squirtle — top 8 NASL S1
Axslav — playoffs NASL S1
dde — playoffs NASL S1
mOOnGLaDe — NASL S1
Ret — top 16 NASL S1
SeleCT — top 8 NASL S1
Ace — playoffs NASL S1
MC — 2nd NASL S1
HasuObs — top 16 NASL S1
BRAT_OK — playoffs NASL S1
Sen — 3rd NASL S1
Zenio — top 16 NASL S1
IdrA — playoffs NASL S1
MaNa — playoffs NASL S1
Socke — playoffs NASL S1
Ensnare — NASL S1
Who Decided not to Return:
Stalife — work
Naniwa — personal reasons
ThorZaiN — going to Korea
Boxer — declined to comment
NaDa — personal reasons
Failed to Qualify:
ViBe
Rainbow
Grubby
Artosis
qxc
KawaiiRice
HayprO
SLush
CatZ
Machine
GoOdy
Drewbie
PainUser
ClouD
Tyler
This looks to be an extremely promising tournament with some of the fiercest competition ever in an international tournament. We’ll follow up with the NASL season 2 as it begins later this year.
Hype Worthy Moment
Today’s moment comes, yet again, from Evo 2011. This time from the SSF4: AE competition, a match between Tokido and FlashMetroid, both of whom placed high in the rankings.
I love Tokido’s showboating here, or trolling as the commentators called it.
That’s it for today’s dail-e! Tune in tomorrow at 11:00PM EST for the next daily, true believer!
‘Nuff Said!
Dusitn Steiner is Gamezone’s E-Sports Correspondent! Be sure to catch the [E-sports dail-E] everyday around 11:00PM EST for your recap of the day’s events! Follow Dustin on Twitter @SteinerDustin
