ESL Starcraft 2 World Championship Series Announces Grand Finals Dates, Over $200,000 In Prizes

Starcraft II players should polish up on their French. ESL, the world's largest e-sports gaming network, has announced that the Starcraft II World Championship Series will be held this April at the Gamers Assembly convention in Poitiers, France. How do you say 'Zerg rush' in French? Because that is what is about to happen to the small town.

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The Season 1 championship pot is set at a hefty $217,000 and will be fought over by the top 16 teams in the world. Hey, at least these kids get paid for their services (looking at you, NCAA).

"France boasts one of the world's most concentrated StarCraft II communities in the world," said David Kugelmann, Product Manager at ESL. "Gamers Assembly, which has been steadily growing since its conception in the early 2000s, was the perfect choice of location for the Season 1 Finals as it offers a fantastic setting in which to have some of the world's best players compete."

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The popular casting team of O'Gaming will be calling the event. Don't worry, they'll be joined by a bunch of English speaking commentators who will provide insight and evaluation over the course of the tournament. More info to be announced in the coming days.

"Gamers Assembly is proud to host one of the most famous competitions in the world. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Blizzard and ESL for their confidence in our organization," said Vincent Colas, President of FuturoLAN, organizers of Gamers Assembly. "We see it as recognition of years of work and passion provided by our volunteers who contributed to this event."

The event will be a grand celebration of e-sports in general, and Starcraft in particular. Several of the greats will take the stage in various events and tournaments, such as:

Jens 'Snute' Aasgaard (Norway)
Choi 'Polt' Seong Hun (South Korea)
Grzegorz 'MaNa' Komincz (Poland)
Sam 'Kane' Morrissette (Canada)
Park 'ForGG' Ji Soo (South Korea)
Joona 'Serral' Sotala (Finland)
Wang 'XiGua' Lei (China)
Dario 'TLO' Wünsch (Germany)
Patrick 'Bunny' Brix (Denmark)
Jared 'PiG' Krensel (Australia)
Sébastien 'FireCake' Lebbe (France)
Tobias 'ShoWTimE' Sieber (Germany)
Shin 'Hydra' Dong Won (South Korea)
Vesa 'Welmu' Hovinen (Finland)
Hu 'MacSed' Xiang (China)

You can head over to the official ESL site for more information as it is presented in the coming days. Good hunting out there.