Roald 'ROYCHEZ' Van Buuren

Fnatic has been hyping and hyping the addition of their new player, and tonight at 20:00 CET they will announce it via a live show. Watch it here. 

All times are in CET.

20:00 - The show is live with MrBitter and RotterdaM from the ESL studio!

20:04 - MrBitter is just chatting, trying to buy time I guess. 

20:05 - MrBitter starts a video where the player is announced, screws up, has to play again

20:08 - The player is non other than WC3 legend and "The Fifth Race", Jang 'Moon' Jae Ho! 

20:12 - The video has finished. Pretty cool drawing video!

20:12 - Moon his tag will be FnaticRaidcall, not FnaticMSI. 

Fnatic Main SC2 line-up: Moon, ToD, Rain and NightEnD. Moon will be playing SC2 full-time.

20:14 - RotterdaM and MrBitter are now interviewing Elroy 'Noname' Pinto, General Manager of Fnatic.

20:21 - Elroy says Fnatic's main focus in 2012 will be StarCraft 2.

20:22 - He continues to say Fnatic will be looking to add players in 2012, but he cannot comment on it yet. They are scouting, but nothing concrete yet. More announcement in the coming weeks.

20:24 - Fnatic will announce a new title sponsor tomorrow! He goes on saying a Korean training facility is on the cards!

20:25 - The interview is over. More information on the new Fnatic title sponsor tomorrow on fnatic.com.

20:26 - RotterdaM and MrBitter will now cast games by Moon.

20:30 - MrBitter hints at a new StarCraft 2 management at Fnatic.

20:33 - The announcement is now also in a news article on Fnatic.com, with statements by General Manager Elroy Pinto, and Moon himself. Check it here.

A newly formed French based organisation has launched a new tournament, with the funky name Iron Squid.

Iron Squid will be host to sixteen of the world's best players, fourteen of which will be invited, and two will be added via qualifiers. $25,000 will be at stake and English casting will be handled by British duo Shaun 'dApollo' Clark and Ben 'MrBitter' Nichol.

The tournament will start with four groups, each holding four players. The top two of each group will head into the playoffs. Everything up until now will be played online, but from the semi finals onward the players will head over to Paris, France on 5 May. These matches will be held at a "famous place", where 2500 spectators will be able to attend.

Counter-Strike 1.6, League of Legends, StarCraft 2 - what an amazing weekend will this be! The best of the best in terms of players, teams, casters and epicness have lined up to attend ESL's Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge Kiev.

Below are the groups for each game, and their casters and prize pools.

Counter-Strike 1.6:

Group A:

Lions (Sweden)

SK Gaming (Sweden

Natus Vincere (Ukraine)

DTS (Ukraine

Group B:

Moscow Five (Russia)

Fnatic (Sweden)

WinFakt (Finland)

mousesports (Germany

Casters:

Joe Miller

Paul 'ReDeYe' Chaloner

Prize Pool ($40,000):

1. $16,000

2. $8,000

3. $4,500

4. $3,100 

5-6. $2,200

7-8. $2,000

Best place for live coverage: HLTV.org

League of Legends:

Group A:

SK Gaming (Europe)

White Lotus (Ukraine)

Team SoloMid (USA)

Curse (USA)

Group B:

aAa (France)

Moscow Five (Russia)

Team Sypher (France)

Team Dignitas (USA)

Casters:

Leigh 'Deman' Smith

Daniel 'Zenon' Klein

David 'Phreak' Turley

Joe Miller

Prize Pool ($32,000):

1. $12,000

2. $6,000

3. $3,400

4. $2,400

5-6. $2,100

7-8. $2,000

Best place for coverage: ESL-World.net

StarCraft 2:

Group A:

Naniwa - Quantic Gaming (Sweden)

Strelok - imba.FXO (Ukraine)

Titan - RoX.KiS (Russia)

KiLLeR - Team Dignitas (Chile)

Group B:

Kas - Team Empire (Ukraine)

NightEnD - Fnatic (Romania)

Grubby - Team Grubby (Netherlands)

Zenio - Team Liquid (South Korea)

Group C:

HasuObs - mousesports (Germany)

Pomi - RoX.KiS (Russia)

TargA - Team inFinity (Norway)

MMA - Team SlayerS (South Korea)

Group D:

Dimaga - mTw (Ukraine)

Feast - Millenium (Belgium)

qxc - Complexity (USA)

HerO - Team Liquid (South Korea)

Casters:

Shaun 'dApollo' Clark (Groups A & C)

Ben 'MrBitter' Nichol (Group B & D + Playoffs)

Kevin 'RotterdaM' van der Kooi (Group B & D + Playoffs)

Prize Pool  ($21,000):

1. $6,500

2. $3,300

3. $1,750

4. $1,250

5-8.  $800

9-12. $650

13-16.  $600

Ahn 'HongUn' Hong Wook is the third (not counting "pepe" - more info here) to join French powerhouse eSahara.

After welcoming South Korean and former Prime player Kwan Han 'Maka' Eul, eShara welcome yet another Korean player and bolster there roster incredibly. The Protoss player was also formerly of Prime, and has had some magnificent places at events such as GSL and MLG.

HongUn said this on the eSahara website:

"I am happy to join my former team mates Maka and Check in eShara. It is a great opportunity for us and I hope to join as much American and European competitions as soon as possible!"

eSahara's StarCraft 2 team now bolsters:

Kwan Han ‘Maka’ Eul (Terran)

Santeri ‘Naama’ Lahtinen (Terran)

Souaib ‘cArn’ Hanaf (Terran)

Ahn 'HongUn' Hong Wook (Protoss)

Artem ‘VERDI’ Avramenko (Protoss)

Georgiy ‘Ackiy’ Baikov (Protoss)

Madeleine ‘MaddeLisk’ Leander (Zerg)

Lee Hyung ‘Check’ Joo (Zerg)

Image in courtesy of rakaka.se

It was a long time ago since the last female Counter-Strike 1.6 competition, so the Rockstar World Cup in Stockholm attracted a lot of teams from all around, but it were the Russians who conquered Sweden.

Moscow Five started in a tough group, facing stiff competition from Team Alternate, Definitive, ASUS Ladies and LDLC.com. With two ties and two victories, the team progressed in second place, behind favorites Team Alternate, to the playoffs.

In the playoffs they first faced off against Millenium in a Best of Three match, but M5 dispatched the French with a 2-0 wipe-out in maps. In the final they would meet Team Alternate again, who won versus Extensive in their previous match, and who the Russians had already drawn against in the group stage.

The grand final was again a 2-0 score, meaning the Russians ladies of Moscow Five crowned gold at the Rockstar World Cup. Second came Team Alternate and third place went to Millenium

The top four:

Moscow Five - €5,625 (Russia)

Team Alternate - €1,125 (Germany)

Millenium - €281 (France)

Twitter and Facebook were rumbling yesterday evening, as Manuel 'Grubby' Schenkhuizen this after the SHOUTcraft Cup:

Later on, the former WarCraft 3 pro replied to his fans on Facebook, saying: 

Yes, unfortunately I lost Steelseries as a sponsor end of 2011. I did not produce good enough results in the 9 months of solo sponsorship. However, believe me when I said I had tried my utmost best in the first year of my SC2 career, and will continue to do so in 2012.

I am extremely grateful for Steelseries for their support during the beginning of my solo career, they are one of the most professional organisations I've had the pleasure and honor to work with. Will continue to wish them all the best in their business.

This year I've partnered up with TwitchTV, and will be streaming regularly to earn my trips to tournaments. Appreciate everyone who supports me, I hope to achieve good results this year!

SK Gaming's DotA2 side have added former Ravens and MYM star Brian 'MaNia' Strandby, while removing Alexander 'CalculuS' Rathcke. 

Much reason on the move has not been given in the news article on the SK-Gaming website. MaNia did have this statement to share:

"I'm really happy to be able to play alongside these wonderful Danes in SK Gaming. It has especially been a wish to play with Angel and miGGel again, who I played with in Ravens which became MYM. That has been the main reason to join this specific roster. Also both Link and Ryze are really nice guys, and I know they have been rising stars in the Danish DotA scene for a while now. I hope I can bring something extra to this already strong roster. I will definitely do my best to represent the SK tag the best I can."

SK Gaming's DotA2 roster now looks as followed:

Mikkel 'miGGel' Berg (Denmark)

Sylvestert 'Link' Hoelgaard (Denmark)

Martin 'AngeL' Olson (Denmark)

Christoffer Borregaard 'Ryze' Winther (Denmark) 

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Livestream: Rockstar World Cup - Counter-Strike 1.6 Female tournament

Tomorrow, Saturday 14 January, female Counter-Strike action will take place in the Stockholm E-Sports Arena in Sweden. 62,000SEK is what will be fought for by ten of the world's best female teams.

The ten teams are divided into two groups, of which the top two will progress to the playoffs. Group A will kick off tomorrow at 12:00 CET, while Group B starts at 18:30 CET. 

Group A:

Team Alternate (Germany)

Definitive (Sweden)

Moscow Five (Russia)

ASUS (Czech Republic)

LDLC.com (France)

Group B:

unFinished (Sweden)

Millenium (France)

Extensive (France)

myRevenge (Romania)

TeGrlz (Romania)

Quantic Gaming have found a partner for StarCraft in South Korea, in the form of Startale.

The American based gaming team is not unfamiliar with a partnership with a Korean team, as they already had a short stint with Incredible Miracle in October last year. But after terminating the partnership with iM in December, they have now partnered up again with Startale.

Image in courtesy of SK-Gaming.com

StarCraft 2 legends Min Chul 'MC' Jang has left Korean pro team oGs to fully join their partnered team, SK Gaming. This comes as no surprise, as SK manager reis was known to be close with the player.

SK Gaming and oGs were already collaborating together, as SK sent out both NaDa and MC to all non-Korean events. With this move, MC has also moved out of the oGs team house, and the partnership between the two teams has been terminated, meaning NaDa is no longer with SK. 

MC gave this statement on SK-Gaming.com:

"First of all I am really happy that I am a full member of SK Gaming. I think it is a big opportunity for me and a good start for 2012. I will work hard for SK and do my best for my new organization. I will try to bring good results for SK."