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As IEM Katowice comes to a close, GSL Season 1 and WCS Winter are upon us. At Katowice, Eo “soO” Yoon Soo emerged on top, taking home the $150,000 first place price and beating out Kim “Stats” Dae Yeob in the final, securing his seat in the 2019 World Championship StarCraft Global Finals. While he enjoys his victory, the rest of the professional scene will continue to compete for a shot at the global title.

With all of the global and regional StarCraft II events every year— offering a prize pool of over $2 million —keeping track of the tournaments can be a little daunting. We have created this guide to help fans sort through the festivities.

Blizzard Entertainment, along with gaming partners like Twitch, AfreecaTV, and the Electronic Sports League, host three premier tournaments and multiple regional events each year. You can find the entire schedule here.

The first international tournament, the Intel Extreme Masters (or “IEM”) Katowice wrapped up this month. Their next global event, GSL vs. The World, will take place from August 2 to 5 in Seoul, South Korea. In this single elimination tournament, 16 players from around the world compete in both single player and team matches. Last year, Joona “Serral” Sotala won both the single player main event as well as the team event, with Stats securing second place. For the complete schedule and links for viewing in 8 different languages, check out the GSL vs. The World Viewer’s Guide.

At the end of the year, StarCraft II fans will gather to enjoy the main event: the World Championship StarCraft Global Finals held at Blizzcon. Last year, Serral secured his place in history as the first non-Korean to win this event.

Throughout the year, Blizzard also hosts regional premier tournaments which essentially act as qualifiers for the WCS Global Finals. These events are divided into two circuits: WCS Korea, based in South Korea, and the WCS Circuit, based internationally for all regions outside of South Korea.

In WCS Korea, players compete in three seasons of GSL Code S throughout the year. Season 1 lasts from February 1 to April 13 with a prize pool of about $150,000. So far, Lee “Bunny” Jae-Seon, Lee “Rogue” Byung Ryul, Jun “TY” Tae Yang, and Cho “Maru” Seong Ju have made it to the Season 1 quarterfinals. On March 20 and 23, the remaining eight players compete for the remaining playoff spots. You can watch the matches live on the official GSL Twitch Page

In the WCS Circuit, international players compete in the WCS Seasonals, aptly named Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. WCS Winter Europe and WCS Winter Americas will finish up on March 23 and 24. You can watch these matches live on the official StarCraft Twitch Page.

Players earn WCS “points” from the WCS and GSL events, even if they do not win the entire event. Leading up to the WCS Global Finals, the winners of IEM, the three GSL seasons, the WCS Seasonals, and the top five seeds by point value from WCS Korea and the WCS Circuit compete in the WCS Global Playoffs. The top eight players move onto the WCS Global Finals. Stay tuned for more information.

You can find all of the StarCraft II WCS premier matches and results at the WCS 2019 page. There are also a few more premier tournaments throughout the year. WESG–the World Electronic Sports Games–is going on right now through March 17. You can find their listing on their main page–confusingly labeled as 2018–and watch the games on their official WESG SC2 Twitch Page. You can also watch the 2019 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament in April on the GSL Twitch page. We’ll be sure to cover those tournaments as they happen. Last but certainly not least, you can find the results of each tournament on Liquipedia, the community-run wiki hosted by Team Liquid.

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