Blizzard's turn to show their support for esports

Blizzard's, Battle.net World Championship is taking place on November 17th-18th in Shanghai, China. Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty World Championship Series Global Finals will be broadcast on Twitch.tv for US fans. The prize pool is $250,000 to be spread out to all 32 qualified players. First place is $100,000 it isn't as much as other tournaments but this is a 1v1 format so of course it'll be less than team-based games like Dota 2 and League of Legends which require 5 people. More updates on the tournament after this weekend if you'd like to watch well be prepared to wake up early or stay up all night because of the time zone difference. All information for the Starcraft 2 and World of Warcraft tournament can be found at the Battle.net BWC webpage.

Valve recently finished their tournament, The International 2 Dota 2 Championship. Invictus Gaming took first place, the Chinese Dota 2 team received $1 million for their fantastic play in Seattle, Washington. They beat last years champions Natus Vincere a Ukranian Dota 2 team that received $250,000 for second place. If you'd like to know what the tournament was like I recommend watching this video documentary of the tournament.

Riot also finished their League of Legends World Championship. Taipei Assassins a Taiwanese team won the tournament, beating Azubu Frost a Korean team. Taipei Assassins won $1 million and Azubu Frost received $250,000 for second place. The prize pool was $2 million spread out to the top 12 teams that qualified for the finals. Again, if you'd like to know what the tournament was like watch this recap video.

Overall I think it's fantastic that the companies that created these competitive games are putting the effort to continue their game being a source for competitive gaming. It's now Blizzard's to show their support for growing electronic sports by putting on two fantastic finals tournaments at the same time. 

UPDATE

Tournament was alright, I didn't watch much of it didn't stay up long enough to watch the matches played later on. It wasn't a great tournament though, because there were sound issues and lag since the stream came from China. The breaks in-between matches were just cut-scenes from Starcraft 2's campaign game. A korean won the tournament, Startale.Parting. He won $100,000 good for him. I was hoping an American would win it all, or at least a European. Koreans dominate tournaments too much. Even though this is set up as like the Olympics of Starcraft 2 it didn't feel like it since it was in China and the production for the English viewers was horrible. I was really disappointed with the tournament, luckily Blizzard will be having next years tournament in the US so production won't be bad and I can actually watch the entire thing.