What distinguishes IEF from WCG is that there are no huge multi-national preliminary tournaments of any kind, just a couple of small amateur qualifiers. Other than that it's purely on invitational and entertainment basis with only a handful of countries involved. It's not all about professionals though, it also features an Internet Café & Club League, a University League and the opportunity for those kids to play a couple of games with professionals.
What interests us in this whole International gaming pie is StarCraft, specifically Koreans. This year, as reported by Fomos, Korea will be represented by none other than Bisu, Effort, BoxeR, Stork and Terror[fOu].
China will be represented by: PJ, F91, LBH and Rushgoon.
BoxeR was invited by the IEF organization, while EffOrt was recommended by KeSPA to go. Bisu and Stork are in due to being last year's champion and runner-up. Terror[fOu] entered through an amateur qualifier.
The foreigner list is reported to come very soon.
The map pool is pinned down to Byzantium III 3.0, Carthage III 3.0, Destination 1.1, Heartbreak Ridge 1.2 and Outsider SE 2.0.
Previous winners of IEF StarCraft events:
2006 - NaDa (over iloveoov)
2007 - Bisu (over sAviOr)
2008 - Bisu (over Stork)
IEF 2009 will be held a Suwon, Korea on the final weekend of October, specifically 30.10 - 01.11. So far it's looking up to be a very exciting event, we'll of course keep you updated on details and so on so forth.
Links
Fomos.kr - Source
TeamLiquid.net - Source