EPTMy name is Colton, i'm the creator/sponsor of GauntletSC2. For those of you who don't know,
The Gauntlet has been around since May of 2015, we've hosted a variety of tournaments and showmatches, from Archon to Global events. You can find a full list of matches we've done on our Aligulac page.The purpose of this blog isn't to list off our accomplishments, but more for the community to understand what we're about, and why we're doing it. We essentially came out of nowhere, but I've always wanted to run a SC2 league of my own and that opportunity was afforded to me through meeting Elementfini and Bobbyawesome of Nexusrecall.com. These guys are wizards in terms of video production, streaming capabilities, and overall really good people. i'm glad they decided to partner with me, we're all passionate about SC2 and I believe that shows in our broadcasts. We also have a dedicated admin/graphic artist in Sinistro, aka Dimitri, a guy who takes his responsibilities very seriously, and does a great job. My goals when I created GauntletSC2 were simple, and they hold true today:
- Positive and Professional - The last thing I want associated with us is drama, I feel a positive environment helps keep the Twitch chat somewhat calm. Bob and Element do an excellent job giving the stream a professional look and keeping things lighthearted.
- Transparency - Over the years we've seen some shady business ventures in SC2, something not lost on me. I wanted to be as transparent as possible, which meant holding prize money in escrow with ESL as we got started. These days we host events on Matcherino, but the prize money will always be pre-paid, and I'll never be in a game-lobby of one of our events.
Broken Promises?
So back in February, I posted our info on GauntletSC2 Season 1, http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/504313-gauntletsc2-2016-season-1-details , a post with a clear format with dates, etc, all in one place! What could go wrong? Well, a lot of things.
Firstly, we haven't had our Season 1 Finals yet, which was suppose to happen in May! It became apparent very quickly that in SC2, you need to be flexible and ready to change your plans at any time. I don't think we've broken any hearts with the mass number of changes we've made, but it's something I'd like to point out here. In the future we will definitely be a bit more flexible in our announcements. I was naive to think that we could "announce dates" and stick to the schedule, but it turns out that the Dreamhack and other big name events take priority over an online series, and rightly so.
It's almost mid-July, and with DH Valencia, Totalbiscuit's new monthly tournament, and IEM Shanghai, it's looking like more delays for our Season 1 Finals, which btw will include
Polt, 
Neeb, 
Snute, Bails, Hydra, viOLet, Cham, and puCK. We'll probably end up doing the finals on a weekday, more info to come soon, a lot of players are either at the community summit right now, or preparing to travel to Valencia. Just to get this out of the way, we will 100% be having a 2nd season of Gauntlet StarCraft! I would love to hear any feedback on our first season, what you liked, what you hated, etc.. My personal feelings toward our first season:
- Open qualifier days had minimal turnout from players as the season progressed. It's unclear to me if we continue with that format.
- I loved the $300 Monday Night Gauntlet format, with double elimination and a BO7 Finals. Question is, do we make the other matches BO5 instead of BO3 as it was this season?
- The hardest part of this season has been scheduling. There's quite a few orgs and tournaments out there, with overlaps happening on multiple occasions. I would never tell someone to not stream their tournament, but wish there was a bit more cohesion between organizers, who at the end of the day, are trying to build a brand and help SC2 grow. Hopefully relations/scheduling continue to improve between orgs.
So, that's it for now. I want to thank NexusRecall, ESL, Matcherino.com, SC2ReplayStats.com, OSC, all of our subs, and the people who have been with us from the start. Without them, GauntletSC2 would still be a pipe dream.
If anyone has any feedback, good or bad, or any questions, feel free to ask! YouTube VOD's are here for anyone interested.
