After announcing a QuakeLive tournament for the EM event coming up in Dubai recently ESL have now released the list of 16 invited players, nearly all of whom are very well known within the world of Quake. SK's own Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson is among the names, deservedly at the head of the list. The event will take place from the 17th-19th of October and see the 16 players divided up into four groups of four.

Dubai invites
Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson
Richard 'noctis' Gansterer
Tim 'DaHanG' Fogarty
Anton 'Cooller' Singov
Magnus 'fox' Olsson
Sebastian 'Spart1e' Siira
Alexei 'Cypher' Yanushevsky
Alessandro 'stermy' Avallone
Marcel 'k1llsen' Paul
Kevin 'Strenx' Baeza
Chance 'Chance' Lacina
Pelle 'Fazz' Söderman
Michael 'mAdix' Hindersson
Pierre-Emeric 'link1n' Portier
Felix 'smoke' Pafel
Zhibo 'Fan Zhibo' Fan (a.k.a. Jibo)

Rapha is the Quakecon and Gamescom champion and essentially considered the best QuakeLive player in the world right now. Spart1e was 2nd at Quakecon but lost to noctis who was the runnerup to Rapha at Gamescom. fox is a quake 3 TDM legend and has a string of top 4 placings across major Quake 3 competitions but no major win as yet. Cooller is considered by most to be if not the best then one of the top 2-3 to ever play Quake 3, thanks in large part to his domination from 2003-2005 which included two ESWC 1v1 titles.

DaHang has performed well in Quake 4 and QuakeLive, winning the CTF competition at Quakecon, and is well known as a versatile player down to his duel strategies against different opponents on different maps. Cypher was the elite Quake 3 player in 2008 winning pretty much everything until Rapha took ESWC Masters Athens, the Belarusian is well loved for his fast paced and aggressive play style. Stermy was a contender during the Quake 4 era and has proven impressive online in QuakeLive but has yet to take down a big placing. fazz was a top Quake 3 player back in 2003, as shown by his 4th at ESWC that year.

Jibo is a fan favourite for his impressive aim and ability to seemingly hang in there with any player during any era, though he is famous for not being able to close tournaments out in the latter stages. link1n/l1nkje is perhaps the best CTF attacker in the world, though a little out of place with so much legendary duel talent in this tournament. strenx is a young frenchman known for his lock-on lightning gun aim and k1llsen is the best German player of the modern Quake era, who recently travelled to Quakecon thanks to sponsorship from Fatal1ty.

The prize money for the tournament breaks down as follows

1st place: $3,000
2nd place: $1,500
3rd place: $800
4th place: $400
5th to 8th place: $200

Source: ESL-World