Revealing the last invited players for the ASUS ROG Summer 2019 StarCraft II Tournament, which kicks off in Helsinki next week on August 1-3, 2019!

The player line-up for the ASUS ROG Summer 2019 StarCraft II Tournament is now complete as the last two big names finish off the invite list. They are the last, but they certainly are not the least as these two Korean players have written their names in the StarCraft II history books with capital letters. We’re super excited to welcome Stats and INnoVation to Helsinki!

First off, you might be wondering if we lost count of the invites in all the excitement, as now there would be nine players on the invite list counting all the announced players. However, the number is right as previously invited SpeCial has unfortunately cancelled his participation to the event due to scheduling issues with the GSL. We wish him luck in the round-of-16! While losing an invite is sad, we’re happy to have such an amazing replacement in Stats.

Lee Shin Hyung is known in the esports world as INnoVation, or simply as “The Machine” for his calculated play and emotionless posture. The man is a legend in StarCraft II and every time an all-time greats list is discussed it’s impossible to not hear his name mentioned. He earned his first major championship in 2013 and has managed to grab at least one big title each year after that including the current year. This year he claimed the WESG championship by defeating none other than Serral in the finals. A final like that would be a dream come true in Helsinki as well!

Kim "Stats" Dae Yeob is another contender who has bested the Finnish defending World Champion this year. Stats and Serral have a rivalry already since last year when they met in the finals of both highlight events of the year, GSL vs the World and the WCS Global Finals. They call him “The Shield of Aiur” for his defensive tactics and often being the last Protoss player still kicking in a tournament. We’re eager to see how far this two-time GSL champion will get in his very first ASUS ROG tournament.

With the player list now finalized, the next thing to do it draw the initial tournament groups! Stay tuned for the release in a couple of days.

Complete List of Invites

Serral - Joona Sotala, ENCE

Reynor - Riccardo Romiti, Gamers Origin

soO - Eo Yoon-soo, Chivo CS

GuMiho - Koh Byung-jae, PSISTORM Gaming

Neeb - Alex Sunderhaft, Ting

Dear - Baek Dong-jun, Newbee

INnoVation - Lee Shin-hyung, Team Reciprocity

Stats - Kim Dae-yeob, Splyce*



*Stats replaces SpeCial who cancelled due to a scheduling conflict.

More info

Read more about the tournament from the event page