Before they hit 6^th Street and fill up on barbeque, sixteen StarCraft II grandmasters will come together at the North Austin Event Center to compete over a $15,000 prize purse at the Lone Star Clash 3. An illustrious field of competitors, including returning two-time champion Ilyes “Stephano” Sartouri, is headed to the hill country of Central Texas:

Protoss

Chris "HuK" Loranger (Canada)
Ryan "State" Visbeck (USA)
Aleksey "White-Ra" Krupnyk (Ukraine)
Ahn "Seed" Sahng Won (Korea)

Terran

Choi "Polt" Seong Hun (Korea)
Choi "Bomber" Ji Sung (Korea)
Ryoo "SeleCT" Kyung Hyun (Korea)
Juan Carlos "MajOr" Tena Lopez (Mexico)
Kim "Heart" Min Hyuk (Korea)
Sung Bin "binski" Lee (USA)

Zerg

Lee "Jaedong" Jae Dong (Korea)
Paulo "CatZ" Vizcarra (Peru)
Kim "viOLet" Dong Hwan (Korea)
Ilyes "Stephano" Satouri (France)
Mackenzie "Petraeus" Smith (New Zealand)
Park "Armani" Jin Hyuk (Korea)

Seed, Heart, Petraeus, and Armani earned their berths in the Clash by winning an open qualifier that included Stork, MMA, aLive, HyuN, INnoVation, and many other top-tier pros. Meanwhile, binski defeated Zerg Sangjae “ZingZingZing” Park in the grand final of the Collegiate Star League qualifier, and will represent the University of North Texas and college-based players everywhere when he heads downstate.

Unarguably the story of the event leading into the Lone Star Clash 3 is the return of Stephano. He’s the only person to ever hoist the Lone Star Clash trophy, and his path to a third triumph is a positively steep one. After retiring from professional play in August of last year, Stephano has been an occasional interloper on the StarCraft II scene, popping up at HomeStory Cup VIII in November, and then again just a few days ago in the Season 2 European Qualifiers, when he took out uzer, DIMAGA, and DeMusliM in short order. Questions about Stephano’s preparation will be quickly answered in group play on Saturday and, regardless of the outcome, he’ll remain the most successful foreigner of all time.

But the capital of the great state of Texas is Polt’s adopted hometown, y’all. Whatever you might make of the concept of a homefield advantage in StarCraft II, Polt is coming off a tremendous 2^nd place finish at IEM-Cologne, coupled with a tied for 3rd place finish in Katowice. By all accounts, Polt is determined to maximize his share of the Lone Star Clash’s 1800 WCS points, and he’ll have to get past a number of powerful opponents who are hungry to make it out of the group stage. What will White-Ra do if he meets Polt in a Texas-sized PvT match with elimination on the line?

Anna Prosser Robinson will host, while Geoff “iNcontroL” Robinson and Kevin “RotterdaM” van der Kooi will cast both days of play May 3-4. WellPlayed Productions will stream the entire show online, and you can watch it in free HD right here on StarCraft2.com/WCS.