Photo by: redbull.com
With $100,000 in prizes and 2 team tickets to Seoul up for grabs, European powerhouses will soon make their final preparations.
Just 2 short weeks away, the ESL HoTS Championship Katowice will be a first taste of the competition mounting for the Spring World Championships. The prize pool is set at a hearty $100,000, but truly ambitious teams will have their eyes set on a top 2 finish. This would net them a guaranteed spot to compete in Korea at the start of April, and allow them to compete for a much larger pool of $500,000.
The groups are locked in, and the first matches set. The tournament will be executed as a best of three, double-elimination bracket.
Glancing over Group 1, the most exciting match-up immediately jumps out. Na'Vi and Dignitas are building a history together, and the tension generated when these archrivals compete is worthy of a Global Championship. Na'Vi's record speaks for itself, but historically have fallen short in their matches against Dignitas, whose recent roster changes will no doubt affect the outcome. In the matchup between the less popular mYinsanity and GIZ teams, anything could happen. While recently mYinsanity has been winning more matches overall, underdog GIZ has showed what can happen in this matchup during Enter the Storm EU #4.
In Group 2, Team Liquid's history of experience, and recent immaculate record makes them the clear favorites against the young Pigs in Blankets. On the other hand, we expect an exciting matchup between Fnatic and Virtus.Pro, with a slight edge being given to Fnatic.
The casting team will feature big names that have become frequent flyers on the road to Blizzcon, including
- Stage Host: Marcella “Nysira” de Bie
- Desk Host: James “Kaelaris” Carrol
- Commentator: Wolf “Wolf” Schröder
- Commentator: Christopher “Tetcher” Ivermee
- Commentator: Thomas “Khaldor” Kilian
- Analyst: Michael “KendricSwissh” Kratzel
- Observer: Jonathan “reinforce” Larsson
- Observer: Jason Kaplan
The tournament will be held at the Spodek Arena, in Katowice, Poland from Saturday, March 5th to Sunday, March 6th. There is no entry fee, so with a venue capacity of 11,500 now may be the time you have been waiting for to take the trip to Katowice and find out just why it is commonly referred to as the "Polish Las Vegas". For the vast majority that can't make it in person, the European Qualifier will of course be streamed in its entirety on Twitch.
For more information visit the official website of ESL Heroes of the Storm Championship - Katowice.
Follow us on twitter @GosuGamersHots for more Heroes of the Storm eSports news.
