ESL announced on Friday that it will hold the first ever global offline StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm tournament at the IEM World Championships March 6-9th in Hanover, Germany.
The 24 participants that have qualified throughout 2012-2013 will all culminate together to fight for their share of a $100,000 prize pool. The news didn’t come without question and debate from community “Whichever side you are on in the HotS vs WoL debate, neither is clearly right or clearly wrong. We chose the future.”figure heads, along with a few players.
“If it’s only 2-3 players I guess it doesn’t matter that you screw them over. Oh well, you get more viewers this way,” said Canadian Zerg Sasha “Scarlett“ Hostyn to ESL e-sports director Michal “Carmac” Blicharz via Twitter. Former Evil Geniuses executive Scott Smith added via Twitter, “You promoted a tournament series on WoL. Players/teams paid to attend and compete on WoL and earn points towards a WoL Final event.” He continued, “If ONE qualified player said no, then it should have been no to the switch. Simple.”
Blicharz responded to the criticism by saying, “Whichever side you are on in the HotS vs WoL debate, neither is clearly right or clearly wrong. We chose the future.”
Source: ESL
