Starcraft 2 Added to 2010 MLG Pro Circuit

Starcraft 2 Added to 2010 MLG Pro Circuit Starting in Raleigh
Major League Gaming is thrilled to announce the addition of Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty to the 2010 MLG Pro Circuit. Starting with our Raleigh Pro Circuit Competition, August 27-29, the highly anticipated sequel to Blizzard Entertainment's real-time strategy game will join the MLG Pro Circuit as an open registration title. Blizzard has selected MLG as its Official North American Partner for Starcraft 2, and we’re tremendously excited to extend our relationship with them and foster a competitive tournament experience in this game as well as in World of Warcraft.

The First Live North American Starcraft 2 Event Kicks Off at MLG Raleigh:

* 1v1 format
* 32 players, open registration
* Double-elimination format
* Over $5,000 in cash prizes
* Passes are $60 per player
* Registration opens Tuesday at 7pm ET on MLGPro.com
* Culminates in National Championship in Dallas, November 5-7

Join us in Raleigh and Be a Part of Starcraft 2’s First Live Tournament!

* August 27-29
* Raleigh Marriott City Center (more info)
* Open Competitions in Halo 3, Tekken 6, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, World of Warcraft, and Starcraft 2 (more info)
* Spectator passes are $25 for the weekend
* Get a free spectator pass by wearing an MLG UMAD? Hot Topic t-shirt (more info)

The inaugural Starcraft 2 Pro Circuit Season will surely boast an unbelievable array of epic matches and historic events. More information regarding Starcraft 2 will be released in the coming weeks. Get your build orders ready and your hotkeys set, and we’ll see you in Raleigh.

On to the topic at hand - We are extremely excited to be able to partner with Blizzard to bring fans SC2 tournaments. Raleigh will just be the beginning. We've got some big plans for players and fans alike.

Thanks

- Sundance (co-founder and CEO)

Back to the topic at hand, I've been working on SC2 and adding it to the Pro Circuit along with Adam and Sundance for a couple of years now. Can't tell you how excited we are to be able to announce it and the details that will be coming up. Very excited to be Blizzard's Official NA Partner for SC2.

As Adam says, 32 spots is what's open for the first event. We'll see how it goes from there, although we are very much aware of how popular this game is. There's a whole PC division here at MLG that has done nothing but drool over SC2 since it was unveiled 2+yrs ago.

- Lee (senior vice president, premium services)

The more tournaments we have, and the more people we have that sign up for the tournaments, will directly influence the amount of people we accommodate at future tournaments. Show us how bad you want the extra slots for Raleigh and buy them out in 30 minutes, then we might have some more news.
- JP

This is our FIRST ever event for this title. Halo has been on the circuit for 7 years. Let's sell 32 passes first and then go from there. We all want this to be huge (emphasize ALL), but we need to build in steps. I would love to put down a flag that says 'HUGE' every time we pick up a title and know for a fact that given a specific formula of (bracket size, prize pot, # of stations=success). Sadly, it does not work like that.

Give us time. We want to build this right.

- Adam (senior vice president, league operations and production)