TaKeTV Sc2-Newsflash #2

Hey folks!

It's time for your weekly dose of SC2-Newsflash! While you could note an absence of big events this week (like MLG, Dreamhack, NASL finals, etc.) there has been quite a lot of worthy things to talk about nonetheless.

Stay informed about the most important news, developments and stories here on our blog!

Ok, enough of the self-advertising now...

NOT!

First things first: HomeStory Cup V News!

Yes, we were busy preparing the HomeStory Cup V powered by XMG for you. This time, our server didn't fail us. As a result, we can announce the name of the second American player to have sucessfully qualified for the event: It's none other than: CheckSix Sleep!

Uh... okay, not so American after all, but being a resident in the US, he fulfilled our requirements to participate in the qualifier. With the outcome being as it is, our first triplet of players is fixed: Empire.Kas, Golden.Light and said xSix.Sleep. Funnily enough, after both American qualifiers have been finished, no American player ist yet confirmed. What a shame!

But worry not! We still have 27 spots to fill after the qualifiers, so we might, in our limitless generosity, award some spots to your favourite American pros.

Until then, three more qualifiers are still ahead of us. You can find all the information related to it HERE. The first EU qualifier is due on June 5th. Unfortunately, we had to reschedule the date for the Korean qualifier, so make sure to check the news regularly!

MLG Spring Championship aka. the „No Day[9] show“

We are just a few days ahead of the MLG Spring Championship, which takes place from June 8th to 10th in Anaheim, California, and the last droplets of information are just streaming in.

We already knew, which players were qualified for the pools, but now we know the pools themselves, too:

Pool A: Violet, Inori, Leenock, Ryung
Pool B: Symbol, Dream, Grubby, Marineking
Pool C: Stephano, Polt, Alicia, Ganzi
Pool D: MC, Heart, DongRaeGu, Socke

Apart from those in the pools, many skilled and intriguing players are confirmed to try their luck in the Open Bracket. As expected, a literal barrage of great matches will rain down on us this weekend.

In case you forgot: 8 of the most prestigious KeSPA players will attend the MLG Spring Championship as well, playing in their own secluded showcase tournament. Read all about that in last week's Newsflash HERE.

DJWheat

The casters for the event, along with some other information, have been declared in the meantime. Pretty much every well known MLG caster is going to try to sweeten your experience on the six Sc2 streams. Everyone but one. Everyone but the fan favorite – Day[9].

The result? Drama. Conspiracy theories were hastily woven in order to explain the missing DayJ. Soothing explanations were hastily thrown back. In the end, he's not there. But with great casters such as DJWheat, Apollo, Total Biscuit, Tastosis and more, the quality of the casting shouldn't be a concern.

While the Spring Championship will mark the End of the Spring Season of the MLG, the following Summer Season has already been announced.

MLG Summer Season 2012 – „Rofl!!! You said LoL!!!1“

After Winter Season and Spring Season tournaments, the announcement of a Summer Season by Major League Gaming didn't come as a huge surprise. The exact schedule of the events are:

A Summer Arena from July 20th to 22nd most likely arranged the same style as the Spring Arenas (small cast of handpicked players, no crowd).
A Summer Championship from August 24th to 26th in Raleigh, North Carolina, most likely with a huge crowd like the Championships before.

Official infos regarding the style of the events are yet scarce, but it's probably fair to assume that it won't be all too different from the usual Arenas and Championships we have already seen. So the good old format, eh? But wait, no second Arena? What's up with that?

I hope denying creeps isn't your thing

Surprise? There will be a second Arena from August 3rd to 5th. But there won't be any Starcraft 2 to watch. Instead, the second arena will be LoL-exclusive. That is LoL as in League of Legends. What a twist! LoL fans rejoice! I guess it's a safe bet to expect more LoL events from MLG in the future.

But for now, let's enjoy the Starcraft action we got at hand!

Dreamhack Open Summer – A new strategy for more foreigner sucess? Fewer Koreans!

Phew, it's hard to get a rest these days when seemingly every weekend a great competition is scheduled. The Dreamhack Open Summer, this year from June 16-19th, has pretty much always been one of the biggest LAN events in Europe and this time ought to be the same.

Meanwhile, the full competitor list has been released and reveals some great names that promise great gameplay. To name all of them would require too much space, but one thing should be noted: The number of Korean participents is not as big as one might expect on such a big stage, just 6 Koreans will attend.

Granted: Hero, Dragon, Ganzi, Puma, TaeJa and JYP are all good enough to be counted as favorites, but with such an overwhelming advantage in sheer numbers, the chance of a foreigner victory is not bad at all. That, and Stephano is playing.

GSL Season 3 – Groups are decided

After the spectecular show that was the 2nd GSL Season this year, the 3rd season is about to start and up the ante just a bit more. The invites this time are EG.Thorzain and Empire.violet. Both are expected to pull of a good run, their skill should definitely suffice.

These are the starting groups of the new season:

Group A: Hero, Ghostking, Seed, Curious
Group B: Naniwa, Creator, TheStC, Nestea
Group C: Squirtle, Thorzain, Keen, Gumiho
Group D: Mvp, Suhosin, Happy, Genius
Group E: SuperNova, Sniper, Ganzi, MC
Group F: Parting, Symbol, Yugioh, Marineking
Group G: Oz, violet, Maru, DongRaeGue
Group H: Taeja, Ace, Ryung, Leenock

CBSi and the big controversy

The monetizing of e-sports seems to go on in a rather rapid fashion. The latest achievement of the corporate thinktanks driving this change is the unification of advertisement rights. CBSi, the gaming related subsidiary of CBS, managed to strike a deal, which grants the corporation full selling rights for advertisements on live streams of the biggest events for audiences in the United States. Those events include the NASL, Dreamhack, ESL, GSL, EVOlution (a fighting game tournament), MLG and IPL.

With such a strong roster, CBSi controls the market of a good 96% of global e-sports related live content advertisement in the US. Some of the deals will also enable CBSi to control the advertisement for the worldwide market. One premise is the use of the streaming portal twitch.tv, which is already in a contract relationship with CBSi.

The full scale of this deal is not yet clear but it shows the way of e-sport in the future. I recommend to read the article linked above for a full impression of the situation, as this newsflash can merely cover the outline.

Look out for next week!

We hope you are a little better informed now! The Newsflash is scheduled to be released on mondays. So see you until next week!

My parting words will include a shoutout to the patch 1.5 Beta, that has begun. Can Blizzard keep their promise of revamping the often critized UI? Only one way to find out: Install it!

Also mind the Season Lock, that starts on June 5th

Season 8 is approaching!

So, there you have it! You would make us happy if you'd leave your feedback! For nicer formatting, check out the version on our site HERE.

With lots of love,
the TaKeTV crew

TaKeTV Sc2-Newsflash #2

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