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Red Bull Battlegrounds

This Memorial Day weekend, Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater in Austin, Texas sets the stage for Red Bull. Battlegrounds, the ultimate professional videogame tournament set to elevate the exploding eSports movement. 16 pro gamers of Blizzard Entertainment’s global eSports flagship, StarCraft® II, will converge in Capitol City, coming from South Korea, France, The Netherlands, Sweden, Canada and the USA, to compete for $41K in cash prizes and the honor of being crowned champion of Red Bull Gaming’s first-ever professional eSports tournament.

The roster of elite international talent competing this weekend has been set:

Lee Sak “PartinG” Won Ilyes “Stephano” Satouri

Chris “Illusion” Lee Dong Ju “Ganzi” Kim

Joseph “Ret” de Kroon Dong Hwan “viOLet” Kim

Marcus “Thorzain” Eklöf Christopher “Ostojiy” Ostojic

Ji Sung “Bomber” Choi Young Suh “TaeJa” Yoon

Sang Ju “Puzzle” Kim Chris “HuK” Loranger

Min Chul “MC” Jang Kim “SaSe” Hammer

Shawn “Sheth” Simon Nick “LastShadow” De Cesare

Sean “Day[9]” Plott, internet personality and host of www.day9.tv, and Marcus “djWHEAT” of Twitch.tv, two of the commentators at Red Bull Battlegrounds, have weighed in with a few predictions and thoughts

Sean “Day[9]” Plott

Among the interesting stories developing around the Red Bull Battlegrounds tournament is the continuing rivalry between MC and HuK, who have repeatedly faced off in competition and are very closely matched. Then there is Ret, a fascinating player who has been an inconsistent performer. I’m looking forward to seeing whether he can overcome that tendency in this competition. Finally, there is viOLet who has been destroying everything he touches. Will his run continue at Red Bull Battlegrounds?

I want to point out that the players invited to Red Bull Battlegrounds were specifically selected because they had interesting storylines going in: they are rising eSports stars, falling stars, winners of recent tournaments, partners in epic rivalries, players with unusual play styles. Every single one of them represents the epitome of great play and great eSports entertainment.

Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham

I'm really looking forward to this event and I'm very excited to be a part of it. I personally am going to be keeping an eye on empire viOlet in this competition. He won his first major event almost 6 months ago, and he continues to show amazing consistency in his gameplay and results. Regardless of the outcome, it's going to be very difficult to pick a winner from this solid pool of 16 internationally recognized players. I expect upsets, come backs, some great player insight, and an amazing crowd to cheer their favorite players on!