Roald 'ROYCHEZ' Van Buuren
CS, SC2, MOBA & General E-Sports updates
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Fnatic’s StarCraft 2 announcement show: Live Blog
Fnatic has been hyping and hyping the addition of their new player, and tonight at 20:00 CET they will announce it via a live show. Watch it here. All times are in CET.
- 20:00 - The show is live with MrBitter and RotterdaM from the ESL studio!
- 20:04 - MrBitter is just chatting, trying to buy time I guess.
- 20:05 - MrBitter starts a video where the player is announced, screws up, has to play again
- 20:08 - The player is non other than WC3 legend and “The Fifth Race”, Jang ‘Moon’ Jae Ho!
- 20:12 - The video has finished. Pretty cool drawing video!
- 20:12 - Moon his tag will be FnaticRaidcall, not FnaticMSI.
- Fnatic Main SC2 line-up: Moon, ToD, Rain and NightEnD. Moon will be playing SC2 full-time.
- 20:14 - RotterdaM and MrBitter are now interviewing Elroy ‘Noname’ Pinto, General Manager of Fnatic.
- 20:21 - Elroy says Fnatic’s main focus in 2012 will be StarCraft 2.
- 20:22 - He continues to say Fnatic will be looking to add players in 2012, but he cannot comment on it yet. They are scouting, but nothing concrete yet. More announcement in the coming weeks.
- 20:24 - Fnatic will announce a new title sponsor tomorrow! He goes on saying a Korean training facility is on the cards!
- 20:25 - The interview is over. More information on the new Fnatic title sponsor tomorrow on fnatic.com.
- 20:26 - RotterdaM and MrBitter will now cast games by Moon.
- 20:30 - MrBitter hints at a new StarCraft 2 management at Fnatic.
- 20:33 - The announcement is now also in a news article on Fnatic.com, with statements by General Manager Elroy Pinto, and Moon himself. Check it here.
- 20:51 - That’s it! The show is over. So more info tomorrow regarding Fnatic’s new sponsor on their website - www.fnatic.com
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Iron Squid hosts $25,000 SC2 tournament
A newly formed French based organisation has launched a new tournament, with the funky name Iron Squid.
Iron Squid will be host to sixteen of the world’s best players, fourteen of which will be invited, and two will be added via qualifiers. $25,000 will be at stake and English casting will be handled by British duo Shaun ‘dApollo’ Clark and Ben ‘MrBitter’ Nichol.
The tournament will start with four groups, each holding four players. The top two of each group will head into the playoffs. Everything up until now will be played online, but from the semi finals onward the players will head over to Paris, France on 5 May. These matches will be held at a “famous place”, where 2500 spectators will be able to attend.
Much more information regarding the qualifiers, or which date the event starts at has not been given. If I get more info, I’ll post!
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ESL IEM Global Challenge this weekend
Counter-Strike 1.6, League of Legends, StarCraft 2 - what an amazing weekend will this be! The best of the best in terms of players, teams, casters and epicness have lined up to attend ESL’s Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge Kiev.
Below are the groups for each game, and their casters and prize pools.
Counter-Strike 1.6:
Group A:
- Lions (Sweden)
- SK Gaming (Sweden
- Natus Vincere (Ukraine)
- DTS (Ukraine
Group B:
- Moscow Five (Russia)
- Fnatic (Sweden)
- WinFakt (Finland)
- mousesports (Germany
Casters:
- Joe Miller
- Paul ‘ReDeYe’ Chaloner
Prize Pool ($40,000):
- 1. $16,000
- 2. $8,000
- 3. $4,500
- 4. $3,100
- 5-6. $2,200
- 7-8. $2,000
Best place for live coverage: HLTV.org
League of Legends:
Group A:
- SK Gaming (Europe)
- White Lotus (Ukraine)
- Team SoloMid (USA)
- Curse (USA)
Group B:
- aAa (France)
- Moscow Five (Russia)
- Team Sypher (France)
- Team Dignitas (USA)
Casters:
- Leigh ‘Deman’ Smith
- Daniel ‘Zenon’ Klein
- David ‘Phreak’ Turley
- Joe Miller
Prize Pool ($32,000):
- 1. $12,000
- 2. $6,000
- 3. $3,400
- 4. $2,400
- 5-6. $2,100
- 7-8. $2,000
Best place for coverage: ESL-World.net
StarCraft 2:
Group A:
- Naniwa - Quantic Gaming (Sweden)
- Strelok - imba.FXO (Ukraine)
- Titan - RoX.KiS (Russia)
- KiLLeR - Team Dignitas (Chile)
Group B:
- Kas - Team Empire (Ukraine)
- NightEnD - Fnatic (Romania)
- Grubby - Team Grubby (Netherlands)
- Zenio - Team Liquid (South Korea)
Group C:
- HasuObs - mousesports (Germany)
- Pomi - RoX.KiS (Russia)
- TargA - Team inFinity (Norway)
- MMA - Team SlayerS (South Korea)
Group D:
- Dimaga - mTw (Ukraine)
- Feast - Millenium (Belgium)
- qxc - Complexity (USA)
- HerO - Team Liquid (South Korea)
Casters:
- Shaun ‘dApollo’ Clark (Groups A & C)
- Ben ‘MrBitter’ Nichol (Group B & D + Playoffs)
- Kevin ‘RotterdaM’ van der Kooi (Group B & D + Playoffs)
Prize Pool ($21,000):
- 1. $6,500
- 2. $3,300
- 3. $1,750
- 4. $1,250
- 5-8. $800
- 9-12. $650
- 13-16. $600
Best place for coverage: ESFIWorld.com
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Kim Rom is a nerd. Seriously.: On not sponsoring someone
So, over the past week while I was in Las Vegas for CES, the SC2 community seems to have discovered that SteelSeries no longer sponsors Grubby. A player we have been supporting and sponsoring for an enormous amount of time, as his career has taken him through various teams to now being an…
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HongUn third Korean to join eSahara
Ahn ’HongUn’ Hong Wook is the third (not counting “pepe” - more info here) to join French powerhouse eSahara.After welcoming South Korean and former Prime player Kwan Han ‘Maka’ Eul, eShara welcome yet another Korean player and bolster there roster incredibly. The Protoss player was also formerly of Prime, and has had some magnificent places at events such as GSL and MLG.
HongUn said this on the eSahara website:
“I am happy to join my former team mates Maka and Check in eShara. It is a great opportunity for us and I hope to join as much American and European competitions as soon as possible!”
eSahara’s StarCraft 2 team now bolsters:
- Kwan Han ‘Maka’ Eul (Terran)
- Santeri ‘Naama’ Lahtinen (Terran)
- Souaib ‘cArn’ Hanaf (Terran)
- Ahn ’HongUn’ Hong Wook (Protoss)
- Artem ‘VERDI’ Avramenko (Protoss)
- Georgiy ‘Ackiy’ Baikov (Protoss)
- Madeleine ‘MaddeLisk’ Leander (Zerg)
- Lee Hyung ‘Check’ Joo (Zerg)
- Andrei ‘DeathAngel’ Nodea (Zerg)
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Russian Moscow Five triumph at Rockstar World Cup
Image in courtesy of rakaka.se
It was a long time ago since the last female Counter-Strike 1.6 competition, so the Rockstar World Cup in Stockholm attracted a lot of teams from all around, but it were the Russians who conquered Sweden.
Moscow Five started in a tough group, facing stiff competition from Team Alternate, Definitive, ASUS Ladies and LDLC.com. With two ties and two victories, the team progressed in second place, behind favorites Team Alternate, to the playoffs.
In the playoffs they first faced off against Millenium in a Best of Three match, but M5 dispatched the French with a 2-0 wipe-out in maps. In the final they would meet Team Alternate again, who won versus Extensive in their previous match, and who the Russians had already drawn against in the group stage.
The grand final was again a 2-0 score, meaning the Russians ladies of Moscow Five crowned gold at the Rockstar World Cup. Second came Team Alternate and third place went to Millenium
The top four:
- Moscow Five - €5,625 (Russia)
- Team Alternate - €1,125 (Germany)
- Millenium - €281 (France)
- Extensive (France)
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Fnatic hyping their new StarCraft 2 player. Who will it be? I think we all know.
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No more SteelSeries for Grubby
Twitter and Facebook were rumbling yesterday evening, as Manuel ‘Grubby’ Schenkhuizen this after the SHOUTcraft Cup:
Later on, the former WarCraft 3 pro replied to his fans on Facebook, saying:
Yes, unfortunately I lost Steelseries as a sponsor end of 2011. I did not produce good enough results in the 9 months of solo sponsorship. However, believe me when I said I had tried my utmost best in the first year of my SC2 career, and will continue to do so in 2012.
I am extremely grateful for Steelseries for their support during the beginning of my solo career, they are one of the most professional organisations I’ve had the pleasure and honor to work with. Will continue to wish them all the best in their business.
This year I’ve partnered up with TwitchTV, and will be streaming regularly to earn my trips to tournaments. Appreciate everyone who supports me, I hope to achieve good results this year!
What the exact reasons were for the termination of the partnership is not known. Let’s hope we will find out more details soon, from SteelSeries’ side as well.
