Eight professional StarCraft II players will be airlifted to New York City this weekend and dropped into the historic Hammerstein Ballroom. They’ll tear each other part in the same overlarge room the wrestlers do, and one will emerge $50,000 richer. In notes, I like to imagine.
The list of competitors runs the gamut from Red Bull competition winners Myeong Hwan ‘Golden’ Jo and Jens ‘Snute’ Aasgaard, to a man with WCS applause still ringing in his ears – newly crowned Best Player in the World, Kim ‘sOs’ Jin. And the commentators are even better-known.
Commentary will come courtesy of some of the most recognisable voices on the internet – namely Sean ‘Day[9]’ Plott, Marcus ‘djWHEAT’ Graham, Ben ‘MrBitter’ Nichol, and John ‘TotalBiscuit’ Bain.
The matches will be streamed via Twitch in the contemporary fashion on November 23 and 24.
Joining sOs and friends will be Jang Min ‘MC’ Chul and Ji Sung ‘Bomber’ Choi, winners of last years Battle Grounds. Elsewhere there’s Won ‘PartinG’ Lee and Ko ‘HyuN’, who climbed a pile of 750 of his peers in online qualifiers to be here. And finally, toast of the North American servers, Sasha ‘Scarlett’ Hostyn.
You can find tickets at Ticketmaster from $30 for a day or $43 for two. Or you can pay about four times that if you like. Or perhaps you’ll stay home and watch on Twitch?