SilentStorm has a shot at back-to-back championships on ESL soil. Photo: ESL
Hearthstone veterans and recent and established champions alike form the octate invited to the upcoming Legendary Series Katowice in March.
Announced last week, the Legendary Series Katowice tournament, with all its $30,000 prize pool and offline gathering at the esports heart of Poland, was exciting news for the Hearthstone community. Blizzard's card game was introduced to the ESL podiums with the small IEM Katowice invitational, but gradually gathered momentum as the year went by. In July, Hearthstone travelled to Shenzhen, China for a $10,000 tournament and only this weekend it was featured in Burbank, California as the inaugural Legendary Series circuit had its offline culmination.
Last night, ESL started to fill up the slots for next month's grand event. Austin "SilentStorm" Li has received an automatic invitation due to his surprising victory in California over names like Janne "Savjz" Mikkonen, Keaton "Chakki" Gil and Johan "Darkwonyx" Hansson, but his opposition looks as tough as ever. Cloud 9's trio of Cong "StrifeCro" Shu, Aleksandr "Kolento" Malsh and Jan "Ekop" Palys - respectively under #1, #3 and #33 in the world rankings - are storming the bracket alongside other powerhouses such as Dima "Rdu" Radu, James "Firebat" Kostesich, Jan "Faramir" Engelmann and Adrian "Lifecoach" Koy.
These eight will be joined by the eight winners of the open qualifiers, which have also been decided.
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Invites:
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Qualifiers:
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Ekop
Firebat
Rdu
Kolento
Silentstorm
Izual512
Orange
Inderen
SirKristjan
Nalguidan
The invites will meet the qualifiers tomorrow in the first round of the ESL bracket which will be played online. The remaining eight fly to Katowice.
