Fnatic and TyLoo at IEM Shanghai.

The past couple of weeks have been packed with action and I sadly haven’t had time to update the blog on the achievements of our teams, so I figured I’d give you guys a quick overview. Better late than never-ish. :P

Both on PC and console there’s been quite a few grand slam events across the globe, and naturally a big involvement from the SteelSeries teams.

Fnatic’s Gux at IEM Shanghai.

At Intel Extreme Masters in Shanghai end-July, Fnatic, once again assisted by the SteelSeries 7H headset, came out victorious with local Chinese heroes TyLoo having their two Counter-Strike teams take 2nd and 4th place:

Counter-Strike
1. Fnatic ($14,000)
2. TyLoo raw ($7,000)
3. Natus Vincere ($5,000)
4. TyLoo ($3,500)

TyLoo at IEM Shanghai.

Same weekend saw the first European Console League event take place in the UK. ECL is a new series of competitive Xbox 360 gaming events offering Halo 3, Gears of War and Call of Duty 4 tournaments with cash prizes in the realm of $40,000.

Fnatic at ECL in Liverpool.

Power Gaming came through strong and beat Fnatic to take home the Halo 3 gold medal, while Fnatics CoD4 team came out victorious in the their respective tournament. Full results (in GBP) below:

Halo 3
1. Power Gaming (£4,000)
2. Fnatic (£2,000)
3. LowLandLions (£1,000)

Call of Duty 4
1. Fnatic (£,2000)
2. Team Gamerhut (£,1000)
3. Royalty Gaming (£,500)

Power Gaming at ECL in Liverpool.

Oh yeah, and on a final note: This weekend SK Gaming took home the World Cyber Games Nordic qualifier, beating Power Gaming in the finals, which means we will be seeing SK Gaming’s Swedish Counter-Strike team represent the Nordics at the WCG Grand Finals later this year.

Last weekend as well, Power Gaming’s Call of Duty 4 PC team scored 1st place and €6,000 at the SteelSeries supported Antwerpen Esports Festival in Belgium.

Coming up this weekend is the e-Stars 2010 in Seoul, Korea - an event offering over $70,000 in cash prizes to the Counter-Strike and WarCraft III tournaments. Keep yourself posted picture-wise over on HLTV.org or SK Gaming.

I’ll keep you posted!

/Casper

If you haven’t heard, Bloodline Champions is the new, thirsty kid on the block. If you dig fast-paced PVP’ing, then you will love this new game where developers Stunlock Studios have put focus on short cooldowns, no grinding, farming and even no mana, to put complete focus on the duel itself.

Anyways - we’ve just announced a serious load of product prizes for the upcoming SteelSeries Beta Cup for the game which is happening on the 5th of September. To compete in the tournament, simply enter your 3-player team and climb up the Bloodline Champions team ladder. The top8 teams will battle it out for the following prizes on the 5th of September:

1st Place:
1x In-game title “The SteelSeries Cup Champion” and qualification to the Beta Championship finals
3x SteelSeries Xai Laser Mouse
3x SteelSeries Merc Stealth keyboard
3x SteelSeries 9HD mousepad

2nd Place:
3x SteelSeries Siberia v2 Headset
3x SteelSeries 4HD mousepad

3rd Place:
3x SteelSeries Kinzu Optical mouse
3x SteelSeries 4HD mousepad

Finally, as an extra drool-feature and to celebrate the announcement of this tournament, Stunlock Studios will open arms this Friday and invite an additional 500 gamers who have been on the e-mail waiting list, to play the Bloodline Champions beta. Well done, guys. :-)

/Casper

A big piece of news is announced from the SteelSeries camp today, as our sponsorship of ESL’s Go4SC2 Cup is now public.

The sponsorship ensures a weekly €200 cash prize as well as a monthly €500 cash prize for the monthly finals, in one of Europe’s largest, free-to-enter StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty online tournaments.

Check out the full news over on ESL, sign up for the tournament and give it a shot! :-)

/Casper

SteelSeries teams TyLoo (CN) and Team Immunity (AUS) managed to pull in 1st places at their respective regional World Cyber Games 2010 qualifiers last weekend, which means that we’ll be seeing both teams represent their countries at the WCG 2010 Grand Finals, end-September in Los Angeles.

Team Immunity in action (Image source).

Big congratulations to the teams - I’ll keep you posted as more qualifier results pop in. :)

/Casper

This weekend saw Fnatic cruise to the top of the podium at GameGune in Bilbao, while also taking the SteelSeries 7H headset out on its first date.

Fnatic cashed in €12,000 and could not have kickstarted their Summer 2010 World Tour in a more elegant way.

More pictures available over on HLTV.org.

Next up: The $57,000 Extreme Masters V Global Challenge Shanghai starting Thursday July 29th, where also TyLoo (Counter-Strike), EHOME (DotA) and Grubby (WarCraft III) will be in attendance.

/Casper

Join us, as we host another “SteelSeries Pro Night” tomorrow, on July 27th. This time around, we’ve invited Europe’s undoubtedly #1 Call of Duty 4 PC team, Fnatic.

Be a part of the live chat session with the entire team, experience the tricks’n'tips broadcast by team captain, and “Call of Duty Player of the Year 2009″, Stevy ‘Stevy’ Verheyen - and finally play alongside the team on the public Xfire servers. The full time schedule looks like this:

19:00-20:00 CET: Chat with FnaticMSI
During the Live Chat you will have a chance to ask all your questions to these Call of Duty 4 experts about the game, eSports, their careers and much more LIVE on Xfire.

20:15-20:45 CET: Live Broadcast by Stevy (Xfire Streaming Series)
Stevy from FnaticMSI, one of the greatest Call of Duty players of all time, will reveal various tips and tricks while broadcasting live over Xfire. Over the course of the tutorial Stevy will also provide commentary and personal insights.

21:00-22:30 CET: Play with FnaticMSI
Last but not least we will end this event with Play with the Pros! Play with FnaticMSI on various public Call of Duty 4 servers.

You’re welcome to bring friends and family. See you tomorrow. :P

/Casper

The $22,500 GameGune Counter-Strike tournament is well underway, with Fnatic cruising undefeated through group play and into playoffs. This is their first event sporting the SteelSeries 7H headset - check a few pics below:

Check out more pictures from the event over at HLTV.org.

/Casper

We all know that the Monday evenings sometimes tend to end up in a mix of unhealthy food and sleeping halfway through a terrible Hollywood flick. But not this one.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is launching at 00:01 on Tuesday the 27th of July, which means that it’s once again time for the most awesome midnight openings. We’re providing prizes for the queuing gamers mainly in the official German, Swedish, French, English, Mexican, Brazilian, Australian and Russian midnight openings but also the smaller, unofficial events taking place to celebrate the launch of this game.

One happening that I have to bring up is the midnight store opening in Media Markt Rotterdam Centrum, Netherlands, where Team EG’s world famous WarCraft III player Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen will be in attendance over the course of the night to hang out, meet’n'greet and sign your copy of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.

See you at 00:01 on Tuesday. :-)

/Casper

Our E3 announcement this year has been revealed, and I’m happy to present to you the SteelSeries Spectrum 4xb and 5xb headsets as well as the SteelSeries Spectrum AudioMixer for Xbox 360 gamers.

Read all there is to know about these new babies that’ll heavily increase your Xbox 360 pwnage, over on SteelSeries.com/spectrum.

The guys at Blizzard Netherlands recently threw an awesomely-looking press conference for the to-be-released StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.

Judging from the pictures, these guys seriously know how to create an immersive atmosphere. :-)

/Casper