The tournament organiser behind the ESWC, Camille Versteeg, has revealed more details of the CS:S tournament.

Just minutes ago we published information on the first set of invites for this years ESWC CS:S tournament, one of which went to Team Dynamic who duly accepted. It appears that various rumours surrounding invited teams were wrong, as we have just found out from the ESWC tournament organiser. Speculation began to rise earlier in the evening that CKRAS, Reason Gaming, Virus and mTw had received invites to this years event, speculation which now seems to be ill founded.

After a brief conversation with Camille, we found out that the first wave of invites have been sent out primarily to American and Canadian teams, with only two going to European sides. The reasoning for this was that European teams have the recently announced online qualifier to earn a spot at this years event, whilst those on the opposite side of the Atlantic do not.

He also revealed that thanks to the enormous feedback from the CS:S community - something the ESWC themselves did not expect - they have chosen to increase the number of slots from 8 to 12. In order to fit the extra 4 teams the DotA tournament has been slightly rescheduled and although they would have liked to increase it more there are spacing issues given the fact that the event will take place at Paris Games Week.

It is still up to the invited teams to decide whether to enter the tournament and pay the $200 registration fee per player, and the invited teams have one week to do that before their invite is given to someone else. Although the ESWC have declined to reveal the details of the five invited teams, they have stated that the teams are free to do so if they wish. They also reminded us that, should a team qualify via the online qualifier after paying the registration fee, the money will be refunded.

Camille Versteeg said the following to Cadred.org:

We've just accepted 5 teams into the ESWC CSS Grand Final. As soon as their payment is received we will confirm it publicly. Its up to them to make it public or not. We have focussed mainly on US or Canadian teams simply because the EU teams have a chance of qualifying online.

The tournament was set for 8 teams, we never expected to have so many applications and signups in the online qualification. The international Counter-Strike: Source scene has suprised me. Due to the fact that ESWC is taking place at a fair, we have a limited availability in square meters. So in order to get more teams, we moved DOTA in the schedule. It will make increase the tournament with only 4 slots. Making it 12 in total.

There will be 5 teams accepted via application, 4 teams will get placed via online EU qualification and the last 3 teams will qualify via national qualifiers.

The 12 slots are not final yet, but its starting to look that way.

The ESWC will take place from 21st-25th of October 2011. Stay tuned to Cadred.org for further updates regarding the event, as well as live coverage from Paris when the time comes.