With WCS Korea competition already underway, we'd like to highlight some important dates and details for the fast-approaching WCS America and WCS Europe leagues.

Since there was no preceding season to qualify players for Season 1 of WCS America and WCS Europe, we’re going to do things a little differently from how they’ll be done in future seasons.

For this inaugural season of WCS America and WCS Europe, 24 players will be invited to compete in each region based on their performance in past StarCraft II tournaments. In addition, a round of special qualifiers will be held to determine 8 players who will join the invited 24 (more details soon). Once all 32 players are locked in, play will commence and run for a few weeks.

The rest of Season 1 will then play out via the same structure planned for future seasons. The top 8 players in each region will compete in their region's finals, which will be a weekend offline event. Once all three regional finals have concluded, the top performers from each region will battle in an epic global Season Finals at a live event hosted by one of the regions. To seed that event, the top 6 players from the host region will be joined by the top 5 players from each of the two other regions to engage in a fierce tournament in order to crown the best StarCraft II player in the world for that season.

Important dates for Season 1 in each region are listed below. Note that the qualification rounds for future seasons take place during the current season. So, in addition to the intense Season 1 competition described here, the qualifiers for Season 2 will be taking place. Stay tuned for further details.

*League Finals for WCS Korea will be held offline from May 14 through June 1, rather than over the course of a weekend.

All of the dates listed above are subject to change. We'll be providing more information on broadcast dates and times for WCS Season 1 as soon as possible.