With the year starting to wind down, organizers were eager to get in their last few big events, most notably including the multi-national and massive Battle.net World Championship Series Global Finals. Just under $540,000 was awarded at a large number of diverse events.
ESFI contributor Zach Brown breaks down the month’s tournaments and prize distribution in the November edition of our StarCraft 2 money ranking.
November 2012′s Top Tournaments
| Tournament Name | Total Prize Money | Winner | Number of Players | |
 Battle.Net World Championship |
$250,000 |  PartinG |
32 | |
 DreamHack EIZO Open:Winter |
$82,885 |  HerO |
24* | |
 MLG Fall Championship |
$76,000 | Life |
32† | |
| Electronic Sports World Cup |
$40,000 |  MaNa |
24 | |
 Intel Extreme Masters: Singapore |
$29,000 | Sting |
12* | |
| International E-Culture Festival |
$17,000 |  SaSe |
16 | |
| Lone Star Clash 2 |
$15,000 |  Stephano |
48 | |
| MLG vs Proleague Invitational |
$10,000 | SoO |
8 | |
 Acer StarCraft Challenge |
$7,503 | Sage |
32 | |
 Ritmix Russian StarCraft 2 League Season 2 |
$7,500 | Leenock |
32 | |
| Stim to the Win Tournament |
$1,800 |  LucifroN |
8 | |
| MSI Pro Cup: Asian Qualifier | $1,305 | Seed |
32 | |
| ESL Pro Series Germany – Winter Season: Cup #5 |
$913 | HasuObs |
32 |
*Group stage and finals – †Finals only
The Big 5 and our Spotlight Player
| Rank | Name | Total Prize Money | Placed In: |
| 1 | PartinG |
$100,000 | Battle.net World Championship |
| 2 | HerO |
$43,175 | DreamHack EIZO Open: Winter, Battle.net World Championship |
| 3 | Creator |
$40,000 | Battle.net World Championship |
| 4 | Life |
$25,000 | MLG Fall Championship |
| 5 | MaNa |
$23,768 | Electronic Sports World Cup, DreamHack EIZO Open: Winter |
Bold indicates tournament win.
Philipp “monchi” Simon, the Austrian Protoss sponsored by XMG, continued the rapid rise that he started last month and is this month’s spotlight player. In his breakout performance, monchi ended DreamHack Winter’s group stages at the top of his group, putting him in the company of TaeJa, MaNa, and HerO. His eventual 3rd/4th place finish was good enough for the largest paycheck of his career and included wins over Nerchio and NaNiwa, with only the eventual winner, HerO, knocking him out of the finals bracket.
Putting it in perspective
November’s $540,000 in major event prize money is the highest in StarCraft 2 history so far. Even discounting the Blizzard-funded Battle.net World Championship, a respectable $310,000 was played for. December should be similarly impressive with over $340,000 awarded in just the first 10 days. Of November’s winnings, just 8% went to Brood War-based teams. With team EG-TL’s recent ProLeague opener woes, it can’t be denied that the Brood War players are quite skilled. Why then are there not significant numbers of Brood War players venturing to outside events? Disruption to the team’s ProLeague chances? Not quite adjusted to a new game? With signings like JaeDong to EG, maybe Brood War teams will start to see value in sending more of their players overseas.
With its March 12 release date steadily approaching, increasing scrutiny has been paid to the Heart of the Swarm expansion and if Blizzard will be able to match its success with Brood War. With players like Flash grudgingly saying that they don’t mind playing StarCraft 2, and games like League of Legends easily topping the PC bang charts in South Korea, it will be very interesting to see if the changes that Heart of the Swarm brings can win and keep the attention of fans and players alike.
