Global esports tournament organiser ESL Gaming has announced details surrounding its upcoming season of the ESL Pro Tour in StarCraft 2.
The season, set to run from May 2022 to February 2023, will be centred around three core competitions that will take place at DreamHack SC2 Masters in Valencia, DreamHack SC2 Masters in Atlanta and Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2023. According to the release, the Pro Tour’s total prize pool will be $1.3m (~£960,000).
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ESL Gaming also noted that this year marks the introduction of partner tournaments. Tournaments organised by TakeTV and Team Liquid will now join the Pro Tour, with help from ESL Gaming.
Some of the tournaments included are the Home Story Cup 21, TSL 9, and the Home Story Cup 22. ESL Gaming added that its focus this year is to further cooperate with tournament organisers and facilitate ESL’s ‘Zero to Hero’ framework.
Shaun Clark, Director for Product Management at ESL Gaming, said: “We are proud to share the 2022/23 plans for our ESL Pro Tour SC2 tournaments. Our SC2 work with Blizzard Entertainment has gone from strength to strength, and we have some really exciting plans in the pipeline as we look to work closely with tournament organisers new and old.”
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As with all ESL Pro Tour competitions, StarCraft 2’s edition will also support a range of online qualifiers and regional competitions. ESL Gaming pointed out in a release that these supported regions are Europe, North America, Latin America, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Oceania, and ‘Rest of Asia’.
Esports Insider says: StarCraft 2 esports is a mainstay in the scene and the introduction of new partner tournament highlights ESL’s commitment to the scene. With new partnerships and tournaments taking place, this could be an interesting year for StarCraft 2.