Chinese StarCraft II-focused production company SCBoys, esports organization Team WE, and NewTV announced that they plan to co-host a StarCraft II competition called StarsWar from May 18-19 at Xiโan Qujiang Esports Center, the home venue of League of Legends Pro League (LPL) organization Team WE. The competition will feature ยฅ200K RMB (roughly $27.6K USD) in total prize money, with eight top StarCraft II players competing from China, Europe, and South Koreaโincluding 2023 Intel Extreme Masters StarCraft II Champion Li โOliveiraโ Peinan from China, and Team Vitality StarCraft II South Korean player Cho โMaruโ Seong-ju.
The competition has five sponsors, including hardware brand AGON, Chinese home appliance company TCL, gaming chair maker AutoFull, display brand FFALCON, accelerator NetEase UU, and live streaming platform DouYu. In addition, the competition will be exclusively streamed on DouYu.
It should be noted that StarsWar 2024 is Chinaโs first in-person StarCraft II event in the past five years. The pandemic in 2020 and the break-up between NetEase and Activision Blizzard in 2023 had a serious impact on the esports ecosystem of StarCraft II in China. Chinese StarCraft II players have not been able to play the game in the country since the server shut down in January 2023. With NetEase and Microsoftโs Activision Blizzard reunited again, the Chinese StarCraft II community has finally seen a return to the esports event.
The third-party production company SCBoys was founded by Chinese shoutcaster Huang Xudong and former StarCraft professional player Sun Yifeng in 2012. They will also attend the competition as shoutcasters.
Saudi Arabiaโs Esports World Cup (EWC) also features StarCraft II, and French esports organization Team Vitality acquired South Korean StarCraft II team ONSYDE, showing its ambitions to compete for the $1M prize money for the game at EWC. The other 29 teams that joined the EWC Club Support Program might also pay attention to the results of StarsWar, especially for two Chinese esports organizations Weibo Gaming (WBG) and LGD Gaming. Peinan will be the ideal target for them in competing for EWC.