[E-sports dail-E] with Dustin #4

Salutations, sit awhile and listen competitive gaming fans – may want to get some popcorn ready, drama aplenty and so much more today! Let’s get right down to it, shall we?

Call of Duty Tournament $1 million prize pool

Activision has released details of their Call of Duty tournament to take place at their Call of Duty XP weekend September 2nd and 3rd, there will be four slots open at the event for teams to qualify via the Gauntlet (I’m assuming this is what they call their preliminary rounds) on September 2nd. The other 28 slots are being competed for currently via Call of Duty Black Ops tournaments around the world. Qualifiers for the CoD XP tournament get their travel and accommodations paid for, so that’s nothing to sneeze at either. The top squad will take home a sizable $400,000 purse. All of this is in addition to receiving a free copy of Modern Warfare 3 Hardened Edition and all of the other activities going on that weekend.

Team SCV Life (TSL) expelled from Korean Starcraft Association

Controversy in the Korean Starcraft 2 scene today as Team SCV Life has been expelled from the Korean Starcraft Association. The drama surrounds two of their former players, Won Ki ‘Fruitdealer’ Kim and Ki-Soo ‘Trickster’ Seo, who had recently transferred to Team StarTales.

The drama stemmed from the manager of TSL (Lee) withholding wages from Fruitdealer and Trickster as a result of them not wishing to participate in team rebuilding after the departure of NASL champion PuMa to team Evil Geniuses last month. Lee lied to his team, saying that his sponsors had stopped funding the team, even though there was clearly evidence he was still receiving funding. He even stooped as low as to slander the two, saying that they were selfish for wishing to be paid their contracted fees when the team had fallen on hard times. After they left the team, TSL continued to use images of Fruitdealer to advertise the team, something that obviously is frowned upon.

The Korean Starcraft Association requested that Lee either pay the duo $60,000 or $46,000 and apologize in an interview. Lee refused, and this resulted in TSL’s ejection from the KSA. The future of TSL looks bleak indeed after losing 3 of its top players and now with this expulsion, many new players will not wish to join the team.

Global Starcraft League Code A and Code S groups set for the August season

The Global Star League a monthly Starcraft 2 tournament that showcases some of the best Starcraft 2 talent in the world has released the qualifiers into Code A (their lower bracker) as well as folks who fell from Code S (the upper bracket) into Code A.
Damn, that was confusing – let me explain how the GSL works.

Code A consists of players that enter the open GSL qualifiers every month and make it to the top 16 in the qualifying tournament, top players from code A of the previous season and players who were knocked out of Code S in the up and down matches (I’ll explain these below). If you finish lower than top 16 in Code A, you are forced to go through the qualifying tournament the next season. Winning the Code A bracket guarantees you a spot in Code S the next season, and placing 2nd through 8th gets you a spot in up and down matches with the bottom 8 players from Code S.

Code S consists of 32 of the best players from around the world (though usually dominated by Koreans). Placement into Code S was originally determined by the GSL qualifiers held before the monthly series began, but after season 1, the top 24 from Code S stay in code S, with the bottom 8 players moving to up and down matches with the top 8 from Code A.

Up and down matches provide a chance for new talent from Code A to be seeded into code S by fighting the lower code S players for their spot. These matches take place at the beginning of a month before the season begins.

Phew. I think that’s just about everything – there’s also group selection for Code S, where players get the opportunity to make decisions on the starting brackets, but this is a complex process that I’m not going to get into here. With that being said, here are the lists for Code A this season:

Code A invites and qualifiers

Dignitas.NaNiwa
mYm.SaSe
mouz.ThorZaIN
FnaticMSI.Fenix
FXOTheBest
NSHoSeoJjakji
MvPDongRaeGu
SlayerS_GanZi
MaruPrime.WE
NEXtreme
SlayerS_TaeJa
MakaPrime.WE
ZeNEXHack
TSL.JYP
SlayerS_BoxeR
MvPSniper
FXOLucky
SlayerS_YuGiOh

Fell from code S or stayed from last season

LiquidJinro
oGsLuvsic
oGsInCa
FXOLeenock
FXOsC
NSHoSeoTassadar
NSHoSeovanvanth
IMYoDa
CheckPrime.WE
anyproPrime.WE
MarineKingPrime.WE
MvPDream
MvPTAiLS
ST.FruitDealer

Some notable names in Code A this tournament are ST.Fruitdealer who won the first GSL, MarineKingPrime.WE who was a runner up in season 2 of the GSL, as well as Naniwa, Fenix and Thorzain who were invited due to high placement in MLG Anaheim.

On to the Code S groups – only one non-Korean this time. Good luck to LiquidHuK of Canada, you’re going to need it. Group B in particular looks fierce, with three former GSL winners in one group.

Group A:
Jae-Duck ‘NesTea’ Lim
Joon ‘Kyrix’ Han
Seong Won ‘MMA’ Mun
Ho Jin ‘happy’ An

Group B:
Min Chul ‘MC’ Jang
Jong-Hyun ‘Mvp’ Jung
Seong Hun ‘Polt’ Choi
Doh-Joon ‘Noblesse’ Chae

Group C:
Choi Ji ‘Bomber’ Sung
Dong-Hwan ‘viOlet’ Kim
Chris ‘HuK’ Loranger
Sang-Ho ‘Killer’ Shin

Group D:
Jong Hwan ‘CoCa’ Choi
Kyo-Seok ‘Keen’ Hwang
Yoon-Yeol ‘NaDa’ Lee
Yang ‘Alicia’ Joon Sik

Group E:
Hyun Wo ‘Byun’ Byun
Jung-Min ‘Zenio’ Choi
Lee Dae ‘asd’ Jin
Kim ‘Puzzle’ Sang Jun

Group F:
Ki-Soo ‘Trickster’ Seo
Kim Dong ‘Ryung’ Won
Lee-Seok ‘aLive’ Han
Jung Hoon ‘TOP’ Kim

Group G:
Hong Wook ‘HongUn’ Ahn
Park Joon ‘Virus’ Yong
Kyu Jong ‘Clide’ Han
Young Jin ‘SuperNoVa’ Kim

Group H:
Hwang Kang ‘Losira’ Ho
Sang Cheol ‘Ensnare’ Kim
Sung-Jun ‘July’ Park
Min-Soo ‘Genius’ Jung

Keep it tuned here to the dail-E for more coverage on the GSL as competition for the August season begins on the 8th. Most likely going to be doing weekly roundups of the competition, but for more daily information, check out www.gomtv.net.

Hype Worthy Moment
This moment is perhaps one of the most famous in competitive gaming history – Daigo “The Beast” Umehara vs Justin Wong at Evo 2004 Finals in SF3 Third Strike.

I still get goosebumps every time I watch that… That’s it for today’s dail-e! Game on, true believer!

’nuff said!
Dustin Steiner is Gamezone’s E-sports Correspondent! Be sure to tune in here to catch the [E-sports dail-E] everyday at 11:00PM! Follow Dustin on Twitter @SteinerDustin