Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm to be showcased in MLG's Winter Season

Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm will be the focus of two invite-only competitions at Major League Gaming's upcoming Winter Season event. It should give us a nice opportunity to see what the pros can do with those jerk Widow Mines.

First up will be the Winter Season Showdown, a 56 player showcase that will take place on weeknights and select Sundays between February 4th and March 8th. That will be followed up, after the game's release, by a 32 player Exhibition Tournament at Dallas, Texas, between the 15th and 17th of March. All matches will be streamed from the MLG website and Twitch channel .

It's an exciting prospect for esports fans. The Heart of the Swarm meta-game is still changing rapidly as the pros figure out the best strategies, and fit practice around existing Wings of Liberty commitments. It's slightly disappointing to see both events using an invite-only format. Having a qualifying structure would have been great chance to see some serious drama, by opening up the possibility of major upsets from newcomers who'd twigged to some unpredictable builds.

You can see the full broadcast schedule at the MLG site .

Thanks, Polygon .

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.