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This is DreamHack EIZO Open 2012

The World’s best eSports show has evolved! Today DreamHack in cooperation with EIZO, SAPPHIRE and AMD are proud to present the 2012 season – DreamHack EIZO Open in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. With five stops starting in Stockholm this April we travel to DreamHack Summer 2012 in June, Valencia in September, Bucharest in October and the Grand Final, held at DreamHack Winter 2012. The DreamHack EIZO Open featuring a total prize purse of SEK 1 200 000 and a brand new exciting format.

There is one more thing. And it´s really important. Together with our partner Twitch.TV DreamHack will broadcast DreamHack EIZO Open, In High Definition, For Free.

The official tournament game will be StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and boost a total prize purse of SEK 1 200 000 which equals around USD 178 000. EIZO, SAPPHIRE and AMD will support the tour together with our Streaming partner Twitch.TV. DreamHack Open will consist of four events and the Grand Finals at DreamHack Winter November 22-25.

– DreamHack returns to Stockholm and Valencia again, as well as adding Bucharest to strengthen the DreamHack presence in Eastern Europe. Our ambition is to create something unique and solid for the European eSports scene, that will be highly interesting for the worldwide audience, says Fredrik Nyström, from DreamHack.

Events including dates and prize purse:

DreamHack Open – Stops:

DreamHack Open: Stockholm – April 21-22 (Prize purse: SEK 150 000)

DreamHack Open: Summer – June 16-19 (Prize purse: SEK 200 000)

DreamHack Open: Valencia – September 21-23 (Prize purse: SEK 150 000)

DreamHack Open: Bucharest – October 27-28 (Prize purse: SEK 150 000)

DreamHack Open – Grand Finals:

DreamHack Open: Winter – November 22-25 (Prize purse: SEK 550 000)

The Open Tournament Format

All four Open Stops will be based on a new and open tournament format with more players participating than ever before. Each Tournament stop will have an open sign-up with a tournament fee. Each tournament consists of a group-stage format where only the best players will qualify for the single elimination playoffs. All quarter-finals, semi-finals and the Grand Finals will be played on a stage in-front of a huge audience with a full show production.

– We expand the format with one more tournament day, creating a new and more competitive atmosphere around each stop. We are keeping the best parts from the DreamHack Invitational format of having all important playoffs matches played on stage together with the unique DreamHack show attached to it, explains Nyström.

How to qualify to the Grand Finals

Top-2 finishers from each event will be directly qualified to the Grand Finals at DreamHack Winter 2012 (a total of 8 players), 12 players will be qualified through points from each DreamHack Open stop. Grand Finals at DreamHack Winter 2012 will offer one last chance to qualify to the event through the BYOC-qualifier, where 4 remaining players qualify for the main tournament.

– DreamHack Winter 2012 will be much more exclusive compared to previous years. It will be harder to qualify for the Grand Finals in 2012. Players need to participate in one or more stops in order to deserve a slot in the Grand Finals, says Nyström.

Free HD powered by Twitch.TV

DreamHack will partner up with Twitch.TV for 2012 and offer all eSports fans highlighted tournament matches in free HD (minimum 720p) during the year. DreamHack will bring in some of world’s best casters to provide on-site commentary and expert analysis. Additional community streams will be available.

More information and registration

More details about each event, how to register as a player and how to buy tickets as a spectator will be released in the upcoming days.

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Legal information:

StarCraft®: Wings of Liberty is the copyrighted product of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. © 2010 Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved.”