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The IGN Pro League makes its mission to spread eSports to every corner of the world. In October 2011, the IPL brought IPL Origins to Atlantic City, an event that created an unexpected amount of buzz for Caesars Atlantic City and had people wondering about the true potential of eSports as a source of entertainment for the general public.

For our next endeavor, the IPL is travelling to Austin, Texas for South by Southwest. South by Southwest (SXSW) is one of the most prestigious conferences and festivals in the entire world. The event is broken up into different events for Music, Film and Interactive media held throughout the Spring. SXSW Film has quickly become one of the top tier film festivals for distribution in recent years, SXSW Music has long been an outlet for aspiring musicians to get noticed on the world stage and similarly, SWSX Interactive is where creative new ideas can find the venture capitalists and corporate backing they need to flourish.

Video games live in Screenburn, a specifically designed section of SWSX interactive for new and upcoming games. In this edition of Screenburn, the IGN Pro League is hosting special show matches for StarCraft II and League of Legends to show the greater multimedia community how fascinating eSports can be!

The players for this showmatch are being determined entirely by user voting. The voting is live now for StarCraft II and League of Legends so vote for your favorite players to watch them live on stage, where in person or online!

IPL South by Southwest takes place March 9th to 13th so don’t miss a minute of the action and stay tuned to www.ign.com/ipl for all your SXSW updates.

The IGN Pro League's popular StarCraft II tournament Team Arena Challenge concluded just before the holidays in dramatic fashion – ending with the short-lived team partnership of Quantic and Incredible Miracle winning the tournament and being crowned Team Arena Challenge champions.

The tournament had many surprises throughout. The favorite to win the tournament, SlayerS, fell to the much maligned Mousesports who was the only Western based team to break into the top 4. Behind their star player and tournament MVP, Marcus “ThorZaIN” Eklöf, Mousesports charged into the Grand Final against all odds. But the powerhouse team Quantic Incredible Miracle proved to be too strong and emerged victorious.

The community outcry and commercial success of Team Arena Challenge led to the IPL renewing the experimental tournament. TAC1 showcased eight of the best teams in the world, but this time around, IPL has decided to double its efforts to include 16 teams of the world’s best teams to compete for $20,000!

The teams invited for IPL Team Arena Challenge 2 include:

SlayerS, coLMVP, Mousesports, Team ReIGN, Team Dignitas, Team Liquid, FXO, Quantic, Evil Geniuses, Empire, oGs and TSL. The remaining four teams will be determined by semi-open qualifiers that will have to play their way into the tournament.

The tournament begins Monday January 8th at 5:00pm PST.

Hello everyone! We at IGN Pro League are thrilled to announce that Erik "Doa" Lonnquist of GSL casting fame has decided to join the in-house casting team here in San Francisco, California at the IGN Headquarters!

Doa has been casting with the GSL since March 2011 but now he is coming back stateside to join Kevin "CatsPajamas" Knocke, Alexander "HDStarCraft" Do, and Taylor "PainUser" Parsons to form a dream team of casting and other production. He will begin making appearances on our IPL stream ( http://www.ign.com/ipl ) in early 2012.

Please note that IGN Pro League's relationship with GOMTV and the GSL is still as healthy and strong as ever, and Doa's decision to change companies should not be viewed as discord between IPL and GSL. Thank you and please help us welcome Doa to the team!

"I'm beyond excited to join the team at IGN. They've demonstrated that they've got the ambition and the ability to really take western esports to new heights and I thrilled that I'll be able to be a part of that.

I want to be very clear that leaving GOMtv was a personal choice based on where I felt the best place for my wife and I is at this time. I have absolutely loved living in Korea and I'll miss hanging out and working with all the friends that I've made here. It's an awesome country and an awesome esports scene and I know I'll be back to at least visit in the future!

I'd like to express my utmost thanks to Mr. Chae and GOMtv for giving me the opportunity that they did at the GSL. It's been a blast casting with my fellow Code A casters throughout the seasons and the good advice and kindness that Tasteless and Artosis have given me since day one has been invaluable. I've learned an incredible amount here and I'm extremely grateful to everyone that's helped me.

Thanks to all my fans as well for the support they've shown me throughout my stay at the GSL. I promise that I'll continue to work hard at IGN to personally improve at my craft and make the games I cast as fun as possible.

Esports in the west is growing at a rapid rate and it's a wonderful and humbling experience to get to contribute. 2012 is going to be a great year!"

-Erik "Doa" Lonnquist

Hey everyone! Last week had some crazy games in the IPL!

Click here to check the top 5 plays in the last week of StarCraft 2!

It’s been almost two months since IPL3’s exciting conclusion and things are already shaping up nicely for IPL4! i44 finished up over the weekend ending in Stephano ‘going to the bank’ again for his third major tournament victory since his IPL3 win. After a very impressive run where Stephano showed mastery over his opponents, Stephano looked almost bored in the final when he had to face TAiLS, but when the score got close, Stephano managed to pull out the 4-2 victory.

Previously at the PPSL, MarineKing proved he is one of the top players in the world and worthy of his fanfaire as he executed an almost flawless run through the tournament to the final where he defeated Moon 2-0 for the tournament win.

Since the three winners of IPL events, IdrA, White-Ra and Stephano, auto-qualify for IPL4, the additional invites from the regional qualifiers include MarineKing from his PPSL victory and TAiLS from his second place at i44. Online qualifiers for IPL4 will begin sooner than you think, so keep an eye to www.ign.com/ipl for all your IPL4 updates and information!

In a tournament that featured a lot of Europe's top talent, as well as SlayerS_Ryung and coLMVP TaiLS flying in from South Korea to compete, nobody really knew what to expect.  Sure, Stephano was one of those talked when people wondered who would win, but could he really continue his streak of successes?

The answer was a resounding yes as Stephano commandingly took the tournament versus a roster of players including the likes of:

Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen

Marcus "ThorZaIN" Eklöf

Dennis "HasuObs" Schneider

Aleksey “WhiteRa” Krupnyk

Kim “SaSe” Hammar

Ilyes “Stephano” Satouri

Benoît “Adelscott” Strypsteen

Benjamin “DeMusliM” Baker

Jonathan “DarKFoRcE” Belke

Dong Won “Ryung” Kim

Won Hyung “TAiLS” Kim

We at the IPL applaud his performance and the performance of TaiLS for 2nd place as well as SaSe for 3rd.  Thank you to Multiplay, the i44 event crew, the players and the spectators for putting on a great event!  Please stay tuned to our website for news about upcoming events!

Prize money won:

1st     $10,000 Stephano

2nd     $5,000 TAiLS

3rd     $2,000 SaSe

4th     $1,000 Ryung

5th-6th $500 BlinG & $500 Bischu

7th-8th $500 DarKFoRcE & $500 DeMusliM

It's hard to believe that it's now been two weeks since IGN Pro League: Origins wrapped up.  Over the course of four days we were all treated hundreds of hours of live content from IGN's roaming interview teams; panels with eSports' brightest and most well known personalities; and to an uncountable amount of amazing games, some of which will certainly become legendary in Starcraft 2 and League of Legends history.

We at IGN eSports would like to recap the event and thank everyone who was involved.

I think it's appropriate to start by thanking all of the hardworking IPL staffers that worked behind the scenes to make this event possible.  We were absolutely honored to have so many passionate people join us in our efforts to put on the best eSports tournament possible.  The IPL: Origins staff has to have been one of the best ever assembled in eSports.  Thank you everyone, again, for your hard work.

Much is owed to the hundreds of players that came from around the world to compete to compete for their share of our $120,000 prize pool.  Their efforts will not be forgotten by the thousands that came and watched live or the tens of thousands that tuned in online.  It was the excellent and masterful showings from all these players that really made IPL: Origins what it was.  Congratulations are owed to Ilyes 'Stephano' Satouri for taking first in our Starcraft 2 tournament and Dignitas for taking first in our League of Legends tournament.

We'd like give a gracious thank you to Allyn, Lani, Megumi, and Sumi for keeping us entertained with their wireless roaming interviews.  They managed to charm communities with their wonderful personalities, and they gave us content when New Jersey's internet ground the rest of the tournament to a halt.  We look forward to seeing what else they can cook up in the future.  We here at IGN eSports encourage you to follow them on twitter and keep in touch with them:

Follow Allyn Follow Lani Follow Megumi Follow Sumi

During the IPL: Origins weekend we were able to host two different progamer Question and Answer panels as well as two Live on Threes.  We'd like to thank Chris 'HuK' Loranger, Greg 'IdrA' Fields, Ilyes 'Stephano' Satouri, KyungHyun 'SeleCT' Ryoo, Aleksey ‘White-Ra’ Krupnyk, Geoff ‘iNcontroL’ Robinson and Jang 'MC' Min Chul for taking the time to participate in our panels and field questions from their fans.  We also owe a big tip of the hat to Marcus 'djWHEAT' Graham, Rod 'Slasher' Bresleau, and Scott 'SirScoots' Smith for hosting two Live on Threes during our tournament weekend.

Finally we'd like to thank all our wonderful sponsors and partners who's contributions made this event a reality.  Big shout outs to AMD, Samsung, Visine, Harrah’s, Riot Games, SquareEnix, Razer, LiveU, ASTRO Headsets, Mountain Dew, Playhem, IGN Prime, Korea Daily, ESFI World, and Teamliquid.

There are amazing deals and then there are IGN Prime deals.

If you sign up for a month of IGN Prime ($6.95)  you'll be eligible for either free two silver level spectator passes OR a free competitors pass for IPL: Origins in Atlantic City.  This giveaway is limited, and it's on a first come first serve basis.  If you want to follow up on this deal, we urge you to be hasty.

For more information, click here.  You'll be prompted to either login with or register your IGN Prime account.  Follow the directions from there to take advantage of this amazing offer.