The best players in the world

DreamHack has invited 8 of the best and biggest stars from the StarCraft II world to Stockholm Invitational, for instance the South Korean players Lim ”SlayerS BoxeR” Yo-Hwan, who in his country and among hundreds of thousands of eSport fans the world over, is considered as the greatest of all time. Boxer is accompanied by his fellow South Korean Jang “MC” Min Chul, who with his two wins in the GSL league is considered as the best protoss player in the world right now.

Sweden is represented by the pro players Jonathan “Jinro” Walsh and Stefan “MorroW” Andersson, both of whom have excellent chances to advance far in the tournament. The other players are all from the world’s elite players and come from USA, Canada, Ukraine and Germany.

Bringing eSports to the broader public

DreamHack have for many years supported the evolution of eSports in Sweden and the world with the large number of tournaments held at the main festivals in Jönköping, Sweden. Stockholm Invitational is start of 2011 5 major tournaments in Sweden and Europe with a prize purse of SEK 810 000. The Grand Finals are held at DreamHack Winter 2011 in November and the season is expected to be followed by an audience numbered in the millions.

– eSports has gone from being a marginal youth culture to become a spectator sport just as traditional sports, where the practitioners are role models and idols. The fact that Aftonbladet will broadcast the tournament live is a receipt on the fact that there is a huge demand for eSports in Sweden right now, says Tomas Hermansson, Head of eSports at DreamHack.

– The line-up of players in Stockholm cannot be better and having world stars as Boxer, MC and Jinro on site is a milestone for DreamHack. This is a confirmation of Sweden as one of the leading eSport nations in the world right now, says Hermansson.

The live broadcast at Aftonbladet of DreamHack Stockholm Invitational start at 14.00 CET on Tuesday April 12th and will apart from commented matches in English also contain analysis and player interviews in Swedish.

Player Line-up:

Jonathan “Jinro” Walsh (Sweden)

Lim “SlayerSBoxer” Yo Hwan (South Korea)

Stefan “MorroW” Andersson (Sweden)

Chris “HuK” Loranger (Canada)

Greg “IdrA” Fields (USA)

Aleksey “Duckload-Ra” Krupnyk (Ukraine)

Dario “TLO” Wünsch (Germany)

Jang “MC” Min Chul (South Korea)