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In celebration of the launch of Heroes of Newerth and the upcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup, SteelSeries and GosuGamers are proud to present the SteelSeries HoN World Cup.

As players of national football teams around the world prepare for the premier competition in their sport, you can prepare for and take part in the premier competition of our very own eSport. The SteelSeries HoN World Cup boasts a whopping $40,000 prize pool, and offers chances to win cold hard cash for top competitive players, casual gamers, replay enthusiasts, and soccer fanatics alike.

No World Cup would be complete without spectacular coverage and commentary. So, in addition to the exciting launch of our HoN section on GosuGamers, we are proud to announce that the one and only Toby "TobiWanKenobi" Dawson will be partnering with Honcast.com to provide live guest shoutcasts and coverage of the tournament’s most anticipated matches! Each week Toby will be taking votes from the GosuGamers community on the most popular match to shoutcast from a selection of that week’s most anticipated matches. Now without further ado, here are the details of the SteelSeries HoN World Cup.

Qualification
GosuGamers will be holding qualifiers for each of the 5 main regions:

- Southeast Asia Qualifier *
- Eastern European Qualifier
- Western Europe & Africa Qualifier
- North & South America Qualifier
- Asia, Oceania & Mixed Qualifier

* = Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines through Garena

Tournament registration will begin on May 19th and close on June 1st so don’t be late in registering!

Registration for the Southeast Asia Qualifier will be on a first-come, first-serve basis with a maximum of 128 teams composed of 5 members each. We will be receiving and distributing Closed Beta keys from Garena to those 128 teams so they can compete in the tournament once registration closes.

A select number of top teams from each qualifier tournament will be admitted to the Group Stage of 64. Each region’s number of qualification slots will depend on the proportion of registered teams that belong to that region and will be determined once registration ends, so help make sure that your region is well-represented to get the maximum amount of qualification slots!

Group stage
The 64 qualified teams will battle it out “World Cup-style” in 16 groups of 4 teams with a Bo1 format, and the top 2 teams of each group will advance to the next phase, the playoffs!

Playoffs
A bracket featuring the remaining 32 teams will give us the thrills, excitement and drama that only elimination playoffs can provide, and through the chaos we will crown the HoN World Cup Champions! The playoffs will be played in a double-elimination tournament bracket. Best of three (Bo3) for all rounds in the Winner Bracket, while the first two rounds of the Loser Bracket will be best of one (Bo1). All the rounds thereafter are best of tree (Bo3). The Grand Final is played best of five (Bo5) with the winning team starts up 1-0.

Prize pool
1st Place - $10,000 + Full SteelSeries Package *
2nd Place - $5,000
3rd Place - $3,000
4th Place - $2,000
5th to 8th - $800
9th to 16th - $500
17th to 32nd - $300
33rd to 64th - $200
* = (Choice of Headset, Keyboard, Mouse and Mousepad)

5 SteelSeries Siberia v2 Headsets for each regional qualifiers winners will be handed out.

Some of you will realize that the total prizes outlined above fall just short of $40,000. Don’t worry, you will not be short-changed! In addition to the run-of-the-mill prizes awarded to the tournament’s standout performers, we will be awarding cash prizes to the winners of three fun side competitions!

Tournament rules
A detailed list of the tournament rules and complete registration instructions will be announced in the next few days!