The ESL has been hosting the Intel Extreme Masters for quite some time now and the yearly seasons seem to turn more grandior by the year and Quake Live will play a big role in this year's fifth season without a doubt. Last year saw Shane "Rapha" Hendrixson walk away with the title at the IEM S4 World Finals and he has already qualified successfuly for this year's World Finals, looking to take home back-to-back titles.
To figure out who will be his main opponents at the coming World Finals, the majority of the contenders have to qualify through the IEM European Championship and the best twelve players will have to dug it out at the European Finals in Kiev, Ukraine in January 2011 to determine who gets to complete the list for the World Finals.
The online stage of the European Championship will already feature quite the amount of unique and interesting matches between some of the best and most talented Quake Live players Europe has to offer us. Surely, the biggest names out of each group will be amongst the strongest contenders and favourites to land themselves a spot at the LAN Finals. However, with this being played over the internet and the bulk of the European top players having taken a Summer break after an active few months, they will need to shape up quickly or they might see themselves surprised by some of the storming talent.
ESL-TV usually streams matches each Wednesday (usually 2) and Level Up TV always cast some other matches on the same match day as well. So should be plenty to be seen either live or in VODs
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