When Starcraft 2 fans wander through Krefeld on a Sunday morning, it can only mean one thing: it's Homestory Cup again. The TaKeTV gaming bar is then something like the living room for the international SC2 scene.

The tournament has a lot of LAN party charm. Keyboards and mice click at the entrance, fans can also play here themselves. The smell of pizzas and kebabs is in the air, non-alcoholic wheat beers and coffees are ordered at the bar. One or the other visitor is fighting a hangover: the after-show party of the previous day went until five in the morning. Here fans and e-athletes celebrate together.

Starcraft 2 community celebrates their fan favorite

"It's absolutely fantastic that we can finally do events again where people from all over the world come together," says TAKETV founder and Managing Director Dennis Gehlen. "This makes the Homestory Cup a special event when people from Asia, the USA, Canada and Europe live out their hobby here together and have fun together.»

On the final day of the tournament, the bar filled at about 14 o'clock and with it the volume level increased. Fans spread out on the coveted seating: sofas, bar stools, table groups. The rest stand around it or form seating circles on the floor. But everyone is looking spellbound at the numerous monitors and watching the matches between the e-sports professionals. Fan favorites like the Finn Joona "Serral" Sotala are loudly supported and cheered, between the matches there is an opportunity for photos and small talk.

Homestoy Cup for the first time part of the ESL Pro Tour

But the pros are not here just for fun. For the 21st edition of the Homestory Cup, the tournament is officially part of the ESL Pro Tour for the first time. This means that the players are looking for qualification points for the World Cup in Katowice at the beginning of 2023.

This has not changed the ambition of the e-athletes, says Gehlen: "Even though the players here have a lot of fun whenever we have gone to the players, even in the past, they are focused, as if it were about the World Cup. These are highly competitive people, they didn't come to lose.»