After sitting out of the blooming event twice for various reasons in the past, Manuel 'Grubby' Schenkhuizen will be returning to the PGL for the second time, where he was outdone by Chinese Human duo Xiang 'TH000' Huang and Xiaofeng 'Sky' Li in the first season. Having said that, with both WCG and Extreme Masters Seoul titles in hands in less than a month’s time, there seems to be no other but a third championship title this year could add to his interest.

Another returning European is the Ukrainian Nightelf player Mykhaylo 'HoT' Novopashyn. The former SK Gaming international was closed in breaking into top 4 last season, barely edged out by the eventual winner TH000 in the knockout stage. He has since then missed out a couple of Chinese tournaments such as World E-sports Masters and International E-sports Festival 2008 due to visa problem. Whether he will be able to have his visa application approved is still open to question, and PGL committee is said to be ready for any changes.

Opposed to Grubby and HoT, it will be Happy’s debut season at PGL next year. The young Russian has been among the top-notched players in Europe for years, but it was his international breakthroughs this year that caught the Chinese organizers’ eyes. Although staying away from any team for over 5 months, he scooped both third place in BlizzCon 2008 and World Cyber Games 2008. However, it remains uncertain whether he will make appearance as he still has to wait for the Chinese to approve his visa application like HoT.

Earlier this week June 'Lyn' Park was named as one of 4 Korean attendees together with Hyeong Ju 'Check' Lee, Dae Hui 'FoV' Cho and Du Seop 'WhO' Chang. While winner and runner up last season, TH000 and Jae Ho 'Moon' Jang received auto berth to the event, the rest of the places will go to the PGL Season IV Chinese Qualifier.

Invites so far

4 Korean invites
June 'Lyn' Park
Du Seop 'WhO' Chang
Dae Hui 'FoV' Cho
Hyeong Ju 'Check' Lee

Winner and runner up of Season III
Xiang 'TH000' Huang
Jae Ho 'Moon' Jang

3 Europe or USA invites
Manuel 'Grubby' Schenkhuizen
Dmitriy 'Happy' Kostin
Mykhaylo 'HoT' Novopashyn

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Tatazu.com