Yesterday the qualification stage has been completed, and we now know the entire list of participants for the IEM European Quake Live Championship.
Half of the players were invited, while the other half had to go through four qualifier cups. Next Wednesday the groups will be announced on ESL TV!

These are the 32 Quake Live European Championship participants:

Invited players
Richard 'noctis' Gansterer
Magnus 'fox' Olsson
Michael 'madix' Hindersson
Benjamin 'calipt' Jakob
Aaron-Anton John 'VIZARI' Jones
Alessandro 'stermy' Avallone
Marcel 'k1llsen' Paul
Kévin 'fnaticMSI.ql strenx' Baeza
Pelle 'fazz' Söderman
Jeffrey 'draven' Debipersad
Alexey 'srs/rzr/cypher' Yanushevsky
Anton 'Cooller' Singov
Sebastian 'Spart1e' Siira
Maciej 'Av3k' Krzykowski
Pierre-Emeric 'l1nkje' Portier
Felix 'smoke' Pafel

As most of you know, Multiplay's i38 LAN was home to the FIRST EVER Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Tournament.

Fnatic.MSI took the win. And deservedly so!

The game mode was different to the usual Search & Destroy that the COD scene is used to. This time, Capture The Flag was the choice of mode to be used.

The 1st map was Sub, chosen by Fnatic. Dignitas seemed comfortable & in control until Fnatic managed to even the scores up.

There was a slight delay as some of the players had technical problems with their PCs between maps, but this didn't put Fnatic off their stride.

The second map was Quarry, picked by Dignitas. Quarry is quite a large map with lots of high ground and sneaky hiding spots. Surely Dignitas' Blackmane would be rubbing his hands with glee at the though of getting his hands on a sniper rifle. He did just that making a few decent shots but nothing spectacular. He then decided to pick up a Riot Shield and try to ram his way through Fnatic. However, this ended up with him being stabbed numerous times. It was quite clear he wasn't taking it serious.

So, congratulations Fnatic.MSI on their well-deserved win!

Lineups, scores & some more links can be found on the original newspost in the source link below!

Source

For those western eSports fans who were willing to stay up until the small hours of the night to follow this years WCG they were rewarded by some of the most entertaining eSports matches in history. WCG 09 has its champions now and there were surprises in almost every game with twists and turns in each final, the last day was cheered on by a capacity crowd of 8,000 fans!


CounterStrike

Again (former MYM) - $35,000
Fnatic - $18,000
mTw - $10,000

Fnatic still werent able to take the one crown that has illuded them all these years, with cArns pending retirement time will tell whether this is it for the most successful team of the year. They dropped 6 map points against Again and then lost in the 4th overtime to concede map one, and after an amazing start on T side on train fell by the wayside despite some phenominal clutches from f0rest.

Warcraft 3

Infi - $14,000
Fly100% - $6,000
Lyn - $3000

This was the biggest game of the event for the locals and they cheered their favourites to glory. The atmosphere for the grand finals resembled that of a football match and was brought to life when eventual champion Infi, GG'd after just 3 minutes on map 1! He turned it around late in map 2 and kept Fly on the back foot to win 2-1 - the only two maps Fly dropped all tournament long.

The non-existant console for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 has now, somewhat, been unveiled! However, this isn't an official change to the game. MW2 fanatic, AgentGOD, has spent time "breaking" the game & coming up with a great little application. This allows the player to tweak his/her config via the console in-game. Just like in previous versions of the Call of Duty series.

However, AgentGOD does issue a warning with his smart application:

Quote

By using this program, you agree that any consequences of usage
shall not be imposed on the programmer (AgentGOD). Use at your
own will and risk! I, the programmer, will NOT be held responsible
in the event that you are banned by VAC.

With that in mind, the program should NOT trigger a VAC-ban, but I cannot
make any guarantees.

Just a day ago it was reported that Modern Warfare 2 smashed sales records all across the globe in a matter of hours. The most anticipated game of the year had certainly got off to a great start but at the Newbury Racecourse hundreds of gamers would beg to disagree. Advertised as the first ever Modern Warfare 2 tournament in the world, this would be the first of many competitive Modern Warfare 2 tournaments. Held at the famous i-series LAN, organizers Multiplay were confident that this was going to be a success story from the start. Signing a deal with Activision months ago to hold this tournament, the community was geared up for the prospect of a great competitive game and a decent prize purse.

The first week of the Early Xmas Cup has passed, the seeding matches have been played and the real deal is about to begin. Not many surprises happened. The most impressive team was without any doubt 118 proving that they are still more than capable of destroying any oponent even with the recent lineupchanges. With lightning fast offences on both beach and assault KiH were simply overrun and could not find an answer.

In another match rewind have played their first official rtcwmatch in 5 years against fixed. Before the game many expected rewind would not have any chance however they started off with an impressive beach round setting a 3minutes time and held fixed on the beach during their defence. Although fixed then managed to turn the tide and win the remaining 3 rounds, rewind have shown potential and maybe with some more practise can aim for the top again.

The next stage of the cup we will have 4 groups of 5 teams playing for the first three spots in their group. The first will directly move on to the quarter finals while the second and third placed will play against each other for the right to be their oponent.
The playoffs will be played in single elimination mode.



[bShedule:[/b]]
Matchweek 1: (15.11-17.11) - ice, assault + decider beach

KiH vs sexxy
fixed vs xeimos     
118 vs liquids       
highbot vs skk!
raw vs Estonia    
falx vs rewind
nP vs pmcg
jrf vs indomitus

Qualifier 1: halabarda vs aR
Qualifier 2: mad vs #truppenküche

Matchweek 2: (18.11-22.11) - frostbite, ice + decider assault

KiH vs xeimos         
fixed vs cave
118 vs skk!          
highbot vs aR
raw vs rewind     
falx vs mad
nP vs indomitus
jrf vs normality

Matchweek 3: (23.11-25.11) - base, frostbite + decider ice

fixed vs sexxy
xeimos vs cave      
highbot vs liquids  
skk! vs aR
rewind vs mad
falx vs estonia    
jrf vs pmcg
ind vs normality

Matchweek 4: (26.11-30.11) - village, base + decider frostbite

KiH vs cave
xeimos vs sexxy    
118 vs aR
skk! vs liquids       
raw vs mad
rewind vs estonia
nP vs normality
pmcg vs ind

Matchweek 5: (01.12-07.12) beach, village + decider base

KiH vs fixed
sexxy vs cave      
118 vs highbot    
liquids vs aR
raw vs falx          
estonia vs mad
nP vs jrf
pmcg vs norm

Matches are supposed to be played in the given period - if a match for some reason cant happen during that time it is possible to play it earlier/later (thus the longer 5th matchweek).

Good Luck and Have Fun!

Demos from the seeding games can be found here (newer games will be added aswell): http://demos.palacewolfenstein.de/

Today ClanBase is proud to introduce Heroes of Newerth (HoN) ladders! We are opening 2on2, 3on3 and 5on5 ladders for All Pick mode. Heroes of Newerth is a new game developed by S2 Games based on the famous Warcraft 3 map know with the name DOTA Allstars.

After it became known that Modern Warfare 2 was going to be hosted at the i-series, a lot of players and enthusiasts frowned their eyebrows on how this would translate to competitive gaming.
Multiplay has now released the details by which the MW2 tournament will be ran.

The biggest change is the gametype, which is now Capture The Flag instead of the Search & Destroy mode featured in all previous Call of Duty games.

The mappool consists of the following 6 maps:

• Favella
  
• Quarry
  
• Karachi
  
• Highrise
  
• Sub base
  
• Terminal

Activision says you should "expect" paid-for online models such as those in World of Warcraft to make the transition to other games, including Call of Duty.

Activision Blizzard CFO, Thomas Tippl said the following during yesterday's BMO Capital Markets Conference:

Quote

While WoW's model is difficult to replicate, players should expect new monetization models for its other games soon.

It's definitely an aspiration that we see potential in, particularly as we look at different business models to monetize the online gameplay. There's good knowledge exchange happening between the Blizzard folks and our online guys.

We have great experience also on Call of Duty with the success we had on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. A lot of that knowledge is getting actually built into the Battle.Net platform and the design of that.

I think it's been mutually beneficial, and you should expect us to test and ultimately launch additional online monetization models of some of some of our biggest franchises like Call of Duty.