It may be the next big sensation for the ESL and the IEM, as the World Championship of the current IEM season is going to be played in the beta of Heart of the Swarm.

The community and professional gamers alike were wondering how tournament hosts would react, as the add-on for Starcraft II will be released on March 12th 2013. Many tournaments have already been started or will start before the release and therefore many people were wondering if WoL or HotS will be the game to be played.

People, who have been around when the Starcraft II WoL beta was out, will still remember that the change from the WoL beta to the actual WoL made quite a difference in many aspects. Additionally the HotS beta will be ending on March 1st in 2013. The professional gamers will still be able to play the HotS beta, so there should be no major problems for the players to adapt. Still it is (partly) a new game and many new tactics could be seen.

The IEM World Championship will take place on March 5th - 9th in Hannover, Germany - about one week before HotS is released. Once again it will be played as CeBIT will take place as well. The price pool offers $ 100.000 and the motivation for each player will be high to do his absolute best.

Only the best players from the current season will be playing at the tournament. Among them one can also find SK's own Min Chul 'MC' Jang, who recently managed to advance to the playoffs in the last WoL season in the GSL. Other notable players can be found at the official homepage.

Source: esl-world.net