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It is almostlike Christmas, waiting for something extra special. It is that time of yearwhere more than 350 progamers from around the globe find their way to Paris,France. All eager to perform and with the desire to win the progamers have always madeESWC something special, but there is different this year.

Changing lanes

This year, the ESWC Grand Finals will not take place in the French capital ofParis. For the first time in ESWC history, the grand finals will take place inSan Jose, USA. Did ESWC make the right call by moving to a new continent, orwas it simply a fact that they had no other choice due to sponsorships? Neverthe less, Paris will not miss hosting ESWC in 2008. As a special gift this year,ESWC decided to host the ESWC Masters on European soil. the reason behind thedecision of hosting ESWC Masters remains unknown, but  theorganizers will not forget the 5000 fully-energized fans from last years ESWCfinal between PGS and NoA.

Is it really that difficult?

Earlier thisyear we saw that the title-holders from last year had to re-qualify for thisyears ESWC Grand Finals. The Polish 1.6 team from PGS changed to MYM andgot caught by an odd and earlier unseen rule, forcing them tore-qualify. Making it even moredifficult for MYM, the Polish ESWC national qualifier collided with the KODE5Global Finals which the team had already qualified for. MYM went to Russia toconquer the KODE5 trophy, but got beaten to it by several teams and placedfourth. The Americans from Evil Geniuses were also stuck with a choice of KODE5 or the American qualifier for ESWC, as both events took place during sameweekend. This is the absolute last chance for MYM and Evil Geniuses to qualifyfor ESWC Grand Finals 2008.

After several years of events colliding, events still continue to plan theirevent on top of already scheduled events. It used to be ESWC and CPL collidingover the summer, fighting to get the most top teams to attend their event. Nowthat CPL dropped threw in the towel and totally gave up, it should preventevents from colliding? But no, for a fact that is not the case and it is a pitywhen we continue seeing events close down, we clearly need all the events wecan get in this industry. Should planning really be the toughest aspect we have toworry about in professional eSport?

Throwing a spanner into the works

Joining the race for a berth to ESWC GrandFinals 2008, are Danish and Finnish teams.

Denmark and Finland both lacked a national qualifier for ESWC this year. Thefact that the Grand Finals would take place in USA, made the expensesfor the organisations arranging the qualifiers go up a notch. Was this thereason for the previous organisations to drop out and not organise a nationalqualifier this year, or is there more to it than just numbers?
This has for a fact forced at least four teams to seek the last possible wayfor them to qualify for ESWC Grand Finals 2008. Excello, mTw, roccat and Spiritof Amiga are all in Paris fight out the last opportunity to attend the ESWCGrand Finals in San Jose, USA.

Practice and cash

Several of theteams attending ESWC Masters have already qualified for the Grand Finals in SanJose. Attending for the practice and the cash to grab would be the onlyconcerns these teams should have. But there is more to it.

While some of the biggest names in 1.6 have already qualified, we missing a few big names for the Grand Finals of 2008. Will the already-qualified teams putan end to the dream for the teams attempting to qualify? With the groups announcedearlier this week, we can already now draw a picture of want can possible gowrong.

Teams already qualified – fnatic, mibr, Alternate, mousesports, SK Gaming(additional two French teams will qualify from French qualifier taking placeFriday).

Hot names yet to qualify – roccat, MYM, mTw, Evil Geniuses, e-STRO

Already before tournament kick-off; one of these teams will not be qualifyingfor the 2008 Grand Finals. Evil Geniuses, e-STRO and mTw ended up in the samegroup and only two teams can advance from the group stage to the playoffs.roccat also ended up in a group where things could go many ways. With fnatic,mibr and SoA, this group is almost a repetition of the group stage at ExtremeMasters II finals (where mousesports was playing, here it is dimension4). We all remember what happened at the backthen, where roccat and SoA advanced in front of fnatic and mibr, time for revengeor a repetition of what happened last time?

The teams yet to qualify might even miss out qualifying by being beaten by oneof the already qualified teams. There is a berth to ESWC Grand Finals 2008 forthe top3 finishing team, who  have not already qualified. It is tricky to figureout who will make the cut and who will get caught up in the middle and go homeempty handed.

It all comes down to this event actually being the Masters of 2008. There ismore at stake than just pride, honour and big checks. Put all of the aspectsmentioned above and go figure out what’s REALLY at stake at ESWC Masters inParis, France.