Experienced casters join regional talent to bring us the next WCS tournament which features some of the best players from around the world facing off against two All-Stars from Korea.
Lucas "Tenshi" Collard announced the casters for WCS Circuit: Shanghai Tournament, also known as Gold Series International, on Twitter today. Tenshi will be casting along with the venerable RotterdaM and PiG as well as Zeweig. While RotterdaM and PiG are well known Tenshi and Zeweig are not house hold names but that shouldn't disqualify them. Both have been in the scene for a while working mainly with the Chinese scene and this seems like a good move by Blizzard and NetEase, the organizers of the tournament, to reward casters who have worked hard casting that region. They are joined by SMIX as host along with the Chinese side of casters.
While smaller than IEM the GPL International has a strong track record running China's main tournament scene as well as the largest Major class tournament of Legacy of the Void with the the GPL International Challenge which saw Snute defeating iAsonu in the finals as well as an Archon aspect to the tournament. The WCS Circuit: Shanghai Tournament will feature two Korean All-Stars that will get invites and a number of qualifiers. Most of the spots are already filled, with only the on-site and Chinese qualifers remaining, here is the current roster:
Qualified:
- 
Elazer (Z)
- Nerchio (Z)
- 
puCK (P)
- 
Scarlett (Z)
- 
MajOr (T)
- 
Has (P)
- 
PtitDrogo (P)
- MarineLord (T)
- 
iAsonu (Z)
- Xigua (Z)
All-Stars:
- 
ByuN (T)
- Stork (P)
While the Koreans look very good, with arguably the best Terran in the world attending in ByuN and Code S participant Stork, you have nice players from the WCS Circuit: Winter Finals attending and we don't even know who will be attending the event to qualify in person. Of the known foreigners you have the Chinese hometown hereoes of Xigua and iAsonu who rank as likely the best Chinese players right now, with iAsonu recently knocking TLO out of the WCS Winter Finals before falling to viOLet. Of the others you have the always popular Scarlett in attendance as well as the now Polish legends Elazer and Nerchio.
The players will be competiting for a $50,000 USD prize and 5,000 WCS points. Here is the breakdown:
- 1st: $16,000 and 1,000 WCS points
- 2nd: $8,000 and 700 WCS points
- 3rd-4th: $5,000 and 450 WCS points
- 5th-8th: S2,000 and 300 WCS points
- 9th-16th: $1,000 and 150 WCS points
The WCS Circuit: Shanghai Tournament will take place March 21st to 26th, 2016.
