World Championship Series (WCS) Season 2 is ramping up and soon we will have StarCraft II players in WCS Europe, Korea and America fighting to the top in Premier and Challenger League. We want to make sure everyone has a chance to watch their favorite players go head-to-head or pick up the gauntlet to compete themselves.

We've broken down all the details by WCS Region below. Live streams and information on broadcast times can always be found at www.starcraft2.com/wcs

WCS America

Premier League - WCS America Season 1 Challenger is still underway, so no information on groups yet. We will have a special edition of WCS Today to announce Season 2 Ro32 groups, so subscribe to the WCS StarCraft YouTube.

Challenger League and Qualifiers - For Season 2, the number of WCS America qualifiers is expanding dramatically. There will be four 512-player, single-elimination tournaments held, with live shoutcasting from Blizzard headquarters in Irvine, California.

WCS Europe

Premier League - Round of 32 groups and broadcast times have already been announced by Electronic Sports League (ESL) and start next week. Check them out on the WCS Portal - Europe Bracket.

Challenger League and Qualifiers - We don't have exact dates for you yet, but check www.starcraft2.com/wcs for up-to-date WCS Europe information.

WCS Korea

Premier League - Premier League kicked off this morning with Group A & B. Tune in to the OnGameNet stream on the WCS Portal every Tuesday and Thursday at 2:00 a.m. PDT for all the round of 32 action. If you want the full season schedule, we have all the Premier Dates on the WCS Portal - Korea Bracket.

Challenger League and Qualifiers - Challenger League Qualifiers take place all this week for WCS Korea and will be run by GomTV. You can find more details here.

If you are curious about the format for WCS Season 2, review our 2013 Format, Prizing and Points.

After a short break following INnoVation’s WCS Season 1 Grand Championship, Season 2 of WCS Korea begins tonight. Matches will take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 2:00 a.m. PDT every week until the WCS Korea Season 2 Finals on Saturday, August 10.

The round of 32 will be played in dual tournament format (best-of-1) with the winners moving on to the round of 16 round robin tournament (best-of-3). Those who advance to the round of 8 will compete in a single elimination bracket (best-of-5), with the top players advancing to what should be a thrilling best-of-7 Semi-Finals and Final.

Maps used in the tournament will be drawn at random, and include all of the following:

Whirlwind
Bel'Shir Vestige
Akilon Wastes
Star Station
Newkirk Precinct
Gwangalli Beach
Anaconda

Groups A and B begin tonight with:

Soulkey
YugiOh
Flash
RagnaroK
INnoVation
Savage
Flying
Bbyong

A complete listing of all the groups can be found on our bracket page.

You can watch all the action live on Twitch at Twitch.tv/WCS_OSL, or right here via our WCS Portal.

We’ve just published a new custom version of Derelict Watcher, called "Derelict Watcher TE (2.0.8 Balance v1.1)", in which we’re testing small balance changes to StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm. This map features slightly reduced numbers for the Warp Prism changes found in the previous version we published on May 30, as well as a few changes we’d like to try out for the Hellbat and Banshee. Today, we’d like to share the new adjustments we’ll be testing, as well as a few thoughts from the StarCraft II Balance Team on each change.

Protoss

• Warp Prism
  • Movement speed increased from 2.5 to 2.953 (previously 2.5 to 3.375.)
  • Acceleration increased from 2.125 to 2.625 (previously 2.125 to 3.25.)
  • The Gravitic Drive upgrade has returned to the Robotics Bay and will increase movement speed to 3.375 and acceleration to 3.25 when researched.

Thank you for playing on the previous balance test map. We heard your feedback and agree that completely rolling the Gravitic Drive upgrade in to the Warp Prism is probably too big of a change. The pro players we contacted for extra balance testing generally agreed that this change does make Warp Prism harass a lot more effective from an earlier point of time. Therefore, we’d like to try a lesser version of these changes in today’s balance test map. We’re still watching to find out if Protoss is in fact slightly weaker than the other two races at the highest skill levels, and if this turns out to be the case, we’ll likely go with a smaller change such as this one.

Terran

• Hellbat
  • Attack damage decreased from 18 +12 vs. light to 18.
  • The Infernal Pre-Igniter upgrade increases attack damage from 18 to 18 +12 vs. light.

We’re haven’t decided whether or not Hellbat drops are a problem yet. It’s looking like it could be, so we’d like to try a nerf in this balance test map.

• Banshee
  • Cloaking Field research cost decreased from 200/200 to 100/100
  • Cloaking Field research time decreased from 110 seconds to 90.

We don’t feel the overall strength of Terran is an issue at this point, and Terrans aren’t overperforming by any means, but we’d like to compensate the Hellbat nerf with another buff. While we’d like to see fewer Hellbat drops, we don’t want Terran to suffer because of it. Also, we think it would be cool for Terran players have a variety of harassment options. Whenever we saw awesome banshee usage in the past, those games were exciting to watch and we believe having a reduced cost for Banshee tech will allow Terran players to utilize them more easily.

Though it will be pinned to the top of the Custom Games list, we’d like to remind you that this rendition of the test map is called "Derelict Watcher TE (2.0.8 Balance v1.1)." Make sure to pay close attention to the map’s title before you hit that “Start Game” button in the game lobby, so you can be certain you’re testing the latest changes found in version 1.1 of the test map.

Once again, these aren’t final changes, and we’re looking for feedback that is based on playtesting. After you’ve thoroughly tested the changes listed above, please join us in this discussion thread.

Thank you very much!

Season 1 of the StarCraft II 2013 World Championship Series is in the books, but before we get into the thick of Season 2, we have a Tier 1 event coming this weekend with DreamHack Summer Open in Jönköping, Sweden.

Join Tim Frazier and James Reilman as they preview this summer showdown all this week with WCS Today:

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/