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SCboys and Team WE Host StarCraft II Competition in China

Published by

Hongyu Chen

2 months ago

StarCraft II competition returns to China after a lengthy hiatus

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 Xi’an Qujiang Esports Center, the home venue of League of Legends Pro League (LPL) organization Team WE. The competition will feature ¥200K RMB (roughly $27.6K USD) in total prize money, with eight top StarCraft II players competing from China, Europe, and South Korea—including 2023 Intel Extreme Masters StarCraft II Champion Li “Oliveira” Peinan from China, and Team Vitality StarCraft II South Korean player Cho “Maru” 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 China’s 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 Microsoft’s 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 Arabia’s 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.

Hongyu Chen

Hongyu "Eddie" Chen serves as conduit from China to the rest of global esports scene as the only Chinese journalist living in China while writing for Western media outlets. For the last four years Eddie served as the China esports correspondent for The Esports Observer and Sports Business Journal. He is a bilingual graduate of MA Business and Marketing and a certified BEng Electronic and Communication Engineer.