An ambitious new tournament series for StarCraft: Brood War has been announced.
The "Premier Star League," or PSL will begin with a 30,000,000 won tournament this August, with ambitions to expand to larger individual tournaments and a Proleague-style tournament in 2025.
The PSL introduced itself at a press conference held at the Esports Hall of Fame on Wednesday. The PSL is backed by PNB, a telecommunications equipment company. Ex-KTF head coach Jung Soo Young, a long-time acquaintance of PNB's chairman (and presumed owner), will be the overall director. Former STX coach Kim Min Gi will also be involved in operations. Kim Chul Min and Nal_Ra have initially been announced as the Korean casters.
The PSL will begin with the "PSL Challenge League" on August 3rd (qualifiers on July 27th), with games played offline from the RedForce PC Arena in Sadang-dong (a PC Bang with an esports tournament stage). The tournament will be divided into three rounds and conclude with a season finals. Each round will be played as an 8-player single-elimination tournament, with 5,000,000 won in prize money awarded per round. The total prize money for the event is 30,000,000 won (ambiguous wording in the articles, but the assumption is that the season finals would award 15,000,000 won).
The tournament will have a weekly broadcast every Saturday, with the games to be streamed via PNB's AfreecaTV channel. One media outlet, Sports Kyunghyang, reported that PSL plans to stream on Chzzk and YouTube as well.
While the reporting from the press conference is somewhat unclear, it appears that PSL plans to hold three total PSL Challenge League tournaments in 2024 ( unclear if this means starting this year, or if this is the plan starting in 2025). The top 6 players from the three Challenge League tournaments will join 10 players from preliminaries in a final "Korea Championship" with 100,000,000 won in total prize money.
Going forward, PSL's goal is to hold a "Starleague" tournament by Q1 2025, and a Proleague-style tournament with 6+ teams by Q2 2025.
If they actually revive Proleague for BroodWar (and not just in name only) I will totally take credit for that, considering I literally just said a week or two ago that Proleague not being revived is a clear indication of BWs failing popularity in Korea over time. I anti-jinxed it!
On a more serious note: That sounds amazing, even as a non-BroodWar fan. Though it also feels a bit sketchy? How can there be a "presumed owner" for something that must be quite the name in Korea? ._.
Edit: Now that I think about it...could this be connected to Flashs rumored return?
On July 11 2024 13:01 Balnazza wrote: If they actually revive Proleague for BroodWar (and not just in name only) I will totally take credit for that, considering I literally just said a week or two ago that Proleague not being revived is a clear indication of BWs failing popularity in Korea over time. I anti-jinxed it!
On a more serious note: That sounds amazing, even as a non-BroodWar fan. Though it also feels a bit sketchy? How can there be a "presumed owner" for something that must be quite the name in Korea? ._.
Edit: Now that I think about it...could this be connected to Flashs rumored return?
Business titles are weird in east Asia and not 1-to-1 with western equivalents; it's 99.999% that this guy is the owner/CEO but I wrote "presumed" cause it's not 100%. No need to read too deeply into it.
Hope they can find interested orgs for the Proleague style tournament. If it’s just groups of players on silly named teams it would still be fun, but probably won’t have the same lasting impact.
If Sea, Guemchi, Bisu and allegedly Flash can return, maybe Kim "procurer" Carrier can make his return as well. But if KCM is involved, I doubt those last 2 can actually return lol
Looking forward to it, and I hope this time there's not going to be any beef and scheduling conflicts between PSL and ASL.
Hopefully we get a round-robin group stage and Bo5's back???
On July 11 2024 13:01 Balnazza wrote: If they actually revive Proleague for BroodWar (and not just in name only) I will totally take credit for that, considering I literally just said a week or two ago that Proleague not being revived is a clear indication of BWs failing popularity in Korea over time. I anti-jinxed it!
On a more serious note: That sounds amazing, even as a non-BroodWar fan. Though it also feels a bit sketchy? How can there be a "presumed owner" for something that must be quite the name in Korea? ._.
Edit: Now that I think about it...could this be connected to Flashs rumored return?
Sorry but I have to chime in here, I was actually projinxing it a couple of weeks back too:
On June 27 2024 07:20 PVJ wrote: First of all thanks for continuously keeping us posted! Especially these old-team showmatches, it was tense and wild and made root and shout in all sorts of positions of the set that I was surprised by myself. I hope that one day afreeca tries a round robin proleague with weekly matches, with 4 fully stacked teams that would be 6 or 12 weeks with 1 or 2 matches or rounds, then 4 weeks of play-offs would give a quarter-year competition that I believe watching these pl every now and then, and the Kcm league constantly, is still the pinnacle of scbw.
I also want to add after watching two Samsung matches and the two proleagues before, + Show Spoiler +
Stork is playing some amazing games! Even if some are against less accomplished players or on maps where strategic thinking is more important than its execution like Monty hall, I can't deny I think I haven't seen such good calls and battles from him since the Ksl Ro4 run. It makes me radiate my inner child.
Not sure how realistic it is for them to deliver on their goals, but at least we have some decent mid-size tournaments to look forward to in the near future
I don't think bringing back the magic of proleague is realistic because it wasn't just about the format, but the entire structure of the BW scene. Still, good to see more tournaments coming up.
Yea hard to see a traditional proleauge coming back given current structure of the scene, especially when it's so financially beneficial to current players to keep on their current streaming schedule. Hard to see team league popping up that is anything more than a fun little event like KCM's team battle last year. Would love to see something happen longer term that funneled more money/energy to younger talent to energize the next generation of players though.
Me googling 100 mil won thinking "thats a buck load of money" then seeing the converted amount to usd and my astonishment shrank. That's still a lot for BW, but the converted figures are not that impressive.
On July 13 2024 17:46 BulgarianToss wrote: Me googling 100 mil won thinking "thats a buck load of money" then seeing the converted amount to usd and my astonishment shrank. That's still a lot for BW, but the converted figures are not that impressive.
lol yea. But ASL is generally only 80 mil won total per tournament, so it's a bit more actually.
On July 13 2024 17:46 BulgarianToss wrote: Me googling 100 mil won thinking "thats a buck load of money" then seeing the converted amount to usd and my astonishment shrank. That's still a lot for BW, but the converted figures are not that impressive.
bruh, what are you smoking?
it's A LOT of money for any 1v1 game, especially a 26 year old RTS..
On July 13 2024 17:46 BulgarianToss wrote: Me googling 100 mil won thinking "thats a buck load of money" then seeing the converted amount to usd and my astonishment shrank. That's still a lot for BW, but the converted figures are not that impressive.
bruh, what are you smoking?
it's A LOT of money for any 1v1 game, especially a 26 year old RTS..
I don't have the statistics on that, but i'll take your word for it. On a personal note, no i'm not smoking anything and my last sentence does confirm that this is indeed a lot of money for BW. People trying to pick fights these days on every word anyone has ever typed..
On July 13 2024 17:46 BulgarianToss wrote: Me googling 100 mil won thinking "thats a buck load of money" then seeing the converted amount to usd and my astonishment shrank. That's still a lot for BW, but the converted figures are not that impressive.
bruh, what are you smoking?
it's A LOT of money for any 1v1 game, especially a 26 year old RTS..
I don't have the statistics on that, but i'll take your word for it. On a personal note, no i'm not smoking anything and my last sentence does confirm that this is indeed a lot of money for BW. People trying to pick fights these days on every word anyone has ever typed..
The amount of money in some of the GaaS games like League, DOTA and CSGO have kind of skewed figures, but the prize money for those games is more than often not entirely funded by the companies that make the game and the games make millions due to microtransactions even now so the prize pools are massive.
BW figures are crazy for something not funded by the developer these days.
On July 13 2024 17:46 BulgarianToss wrote: Me googling 100 mil won thinking "thats a buck load of money" then seeing the converted amount to usd and my astonishment shrank. That's still a lot for BW, but the converted figures are not that impressive.
bruh, what are you smoking?
it's A LOT of money for any 1v1 game, especially a 26 year old RTS..
I don't have the statistics on that, but i'll take your word for it. On a personal note, no i'm not smoking anything and my last sentence does confirm that this is indeed a lot of money for BW. People trying to pick fights these days on every word anyone has ever typed..
I was not trying to be combative just cheeky. Sorry if that read as an attack on You, it wasn't.
On July 15 2024 03:25 Freezard wrote: More BW is nice, although I'm not sure yet what it's gonna be. I don't really believe in Proleague anymore but who knows.
Great to see Kim Chul Min returning!
He basically never went anywhere though? Been hosting most prestigious race war tournaments since.. 2015 or something like that. Almost 10 years. He has a great YT channel, You should check it out.
Old school proleague was so much fun. It'd be great to have something analogous to that in the modern era. I know about the daily proleagues etc. etc. and that's great, but it's not the same thing.
Any news on English coverage by starcast or any of the tastosis duo etc? It is still amazing if there are new leagues, but I feel there are many already in Korea and it would be even more hype if we had some (semi) live coverage in English too.
On July 17 2024 03:16 ImbaTosS wrote: Old school proleague was so much fun. It'd be great to have something analogous to that in the modern era. I know about the daily proleagues etc. etc. and that's great, but it's not the same thing.
Yeah it’s fun and there’s some great StarCraft on show, but the real team element is lacking, that would be cool to see if they can get it going
On July 17 2024 03:16 ImbaTosS wrote: Old school proleague was so much fun. It'd be great to have something analogous to that in the modern era. I know about the daily proleagues etc. etc. and that's great, but it's not the same thing.
Yeah it’s fun and there’s some great StarCraft on show, but the real team element is lacking, that would be cool to see if they can get it going
That was the only bad thing about MPL. If they kept the same teams for both Season 1 and 2 it would've been amazing, but they changed it up and it lacked that feel of supporting a team anymore. Then it died when Britney I guess figured it wasn't making him enough money.
On July 17 2024 03:16 ImbaTosS wrote: Old school proleague was so much fun. It'd be great to have something analogous to that in the modern era. I know about the daily proleagues etc. etc. and that's great, but it's not the same thing.
Yeah it’s fun and there’s some great StarCraft on show, but the real team element is lacking, that would be cool to see if they can get it going
That was the only bad thing about MPL. If they kept the same teams for both Season 1 and 2 it would've been amazing, but they changed it up and it lacked that feel of supporting a team anymore. Then it died when Britney I guess figured it wasn't making him enough money.
Maybe I'm misremembering but wasn't the main reason ASTL kind of taking over?
On July 13 2024 17:46 BulgarianToss wrote: Me googling 100 mil won thinking "thats a buck load of money" then seeing the converted amount to usd and my astonishment shrank. That's still a lot for BW, but the converted figures are not that impressive.
bruh, what are you smoking?
it's A LOT of money for any 1v1 game, especially a 26 year old RTS..
I don't have the statistics on that, but i'll take your word for it. On a personal note, no i'm not smoking anything and my last sentence does confirm that this is indeed a lot of money for BW. People trying to pick fights these days on every word anyone has ever typed..
The amount of money in some of the GaaS games like League, DOTA and CSGO have kind of skewed figures, but the prize money for those games is more than often not entirely funded by the companies that make the game and the games make millions due to microtransactions even now so the prize pools are massive.
BW figures are crazy for something not funded by the developer these days.
I feel like events outside of developers control have actually got insane prize pools. Like the IEM's and other various multi event tournaments. I think BroodWar in some way would be competitive with those style events if Blizzard hadn't tried to kill it and further butchered Blizzard's esports though. But BW would still be smaller in some regard being largely isolated in Korea and on a game that has a limited fan base, but right now would be in a far better state.
So blizzard is still taking 100k for this tournament? How difficult would it be to split this tournament up into an annual with individual 'part seasons' so to just pay the fee once?
Anyways, this is a lot of money given that it is not made from saudi slave/oil money to wash away all atrocities
On July 19 2024 05:49 Expensive-Law-9830 wrote: So blizzard is still taking 100k for this tournament? How difficult would it be to split this tournament up into an annual with individual 'part seasons' so to just pay the fee once?
Anyways, this is a lot of money given that it is not made from saudi slave/oil money to wash away all atrocities
Microsoft just took over. Of course Blizzard is probably going to put their hand into the jar like the leeches they are.
On July 28 2024 16:03 Navane wrote: It must be nice to have a developer who puts money into your game scene instead of extracting it.
One can dream. But Blizzard .. I mean Activision..i mean Microsoft is not gonna care. Well we are the oldest esport surviving DESPITE the intentions of its developers
first round qualifiers were today but cant find results anywhere
edit: love how its been 24 hours since the qualifiers yet still no posts from them regarding who actually qualified. i don't have much hope for this league if they can't get the basics right.
On August 03 2024 18:51 GTR wrote: first round qualifiers were today but cant find results anywhere
edit: love how its been 24 hours since the qualifiers yet still no posts from them regarding who actually qualified. i don't have much hope for this league if they can't get the basics right.
Yeah.. this is definitely not looking great so far..
PSL can host a new league but they can't find any maps is different from ASL. They even choose bad maps from the last ASL while new season of ASL is coming soon with some great maps.
How about these maps:
(2)Detonation (2)Enter The Dragon (3)Alchemist (4)Luna (4)Nostalgia (4)Arizona (4)Namja Iyagi
I think people want to watch players use knowledge and skills in 2024 to play maps in 2004
probably because a lot of them are focusing on asl + probably make more money from doing sponsor matches online artosis said it perfectly though that this tournament is a great platform for that tier who dont make ro16 in the asl - although i expect snow to sweep the field here.
There are 3 rounds. This is only the first. There will be 2 more in the same format. The 8 players above were selected from an offline preliminary round of supposedly 64 players held last weekend.
I had a look at the participant list for that preliminary, but they censored the middle name so no way to 100% confirm who registered. But there are some familiar words, like Jo-*-Jang (likely Hero), or Yoon-*-Hee (likely Mong) (these two are the less common Korean names so I doubt there are other BW players with similar names). But then it raises the question that if they played there's no way they didn't make it to the top 8, unless they didn't show up.
On the other hand, there's no Kim-*-Sung in the preliminary list, but somehow Royal is in the top 8???
Also why do they hold the Ro8 on the same day as the first day of ASL qualifiers? Are Zelot Scan and Royal not gonna play the first day?
On August 08 2024 09:53 GTR wrote: probably because a lot of them are focusing on asl + probably make more money from doing sponsor matches online artosis said it perfectly though that this tournament is a great platform for that tier who dont make ro16 in the asl - although i expect snow to sweep the field here.
But you are basically playing 2 best of 3 and 1 bo5 to win 3k. In different dates etc. Is such a short format that is not really the hustle of playing an entire season of SSL. on Top of that u are getting into the final event that is 15 millions won. I imagine this thing is played online too. Idk what is going on. Snow about to make bank with this thing lol .
On August 08 2024 09:53 GTR wrote: probably because a lot of them are focusing on asl + probably make more money from doing sponsor matches online artosis said it perfectly though that this tournament is a great platform for that tier who dont make ro16 in the asl - although i expect snow to sweep the field here.
But you are basically playing 2 best of 3 and 1 bo5 to win 3k. In different dates etc. Is such a short format that is not really the hustle of playing an entire season of SSL. on Top of that u are getting into the final event that is 15 millions won. I imagine this thing is played online too. Idk what is going on. Snow about to make bank with this thing lol .
No this is 100% offline and there are 4 sessions (QL, R8, SF, F) which are held on 4 separate days.
I think like any other first time competition, it takes time for this to get momentum. At the moment it's more or less still an offline Starcast TV Starleague with a bigger prize pool and more famous caster.
On August 08 2024 09:53 GTR wrote: probably because a lot of them are focusing on asl + probably make more money from doing sponsor matches online artosis said it perfectly though that this tournament is a great platform for that tier who dont make ro16 in the asl - although i expect snow to sweep the field here.
But you are basically playing 2 best of 3 and 1 bo5 to win 3k. In different dates etc. Is such a short format that is not really the hustle of playing an entire season of SSL. on Top of that u are getting into the final event that is 15 millions won. I imagine this thing is played online too. Idk what is going on. Snow about to make bank with this thing lol .
No this is 100% offline and there are 4 sessions (QL, R8, SF, F) which are held on 4 separate days.
I think like any other first time competition, it takes time for this to get momentum. At the moment it's more or less still an offline Starcast TV Starleague with a bigger prize pool and more famous caster.
Oh so its offline. I wonder if that is the reason many decided to no participate.
On August 08 2024 10:21 TMNT wrote: There are 3 rounds. This is only the first. There will be 2 more in the same format. The 8 players above were selected from an offline preliminary round of supposedly 64 players held last weekend.
I had a look at the participant list for that preliminary, but they censored the middle name so no way to 100% confirm who registered. But there are some familiar words, like Jo-*-Jang (likely Hero), or Yoon-*-Hee (likely Mong) (these two are the less common Korean names so I doubt there are other BW players with similar names). But then it raises the question that if they played there's no way they didn't make it to the top 8, unless they didn't show up.
On the other hand, there's no Kim-*-Sung in the preliminary list, but somehow Royal is in the top 8???
Also why do they hold the Ro8 on the same day as the first day of ASL qualifiers? Are Zelot Scan and Royal not gonna play the first day?
ASL only goes on for like 4 months a year and they decide to start their competing tournament at the same time as one? wtf lol
Why not just wait until the winter when ASL is over???
I'm hopeful about this not because of the immediate hype it may create but of the recurring competitive opportunities next to SSL that it may provide for potential amateurs and semi-pro to strive for. The University league serves more as a public open playground of the game than PSL or SSL which are professional competitions.
I think they picked poor timing. Terror's massive university tournament is still ongoing and that gets MOST of the attention from the StarCraft viewers. It is also right after en exhausting morning of ASL qualifiers. Had they picked any time other than this, I think they'd have more viewers. Also we have to account for the usual viewer numbers of the players involved.
Well atleast it seems people participating in PSL could still play SSL qualifiers.
But when I read "with games played offline from the RedForce PC Arena in Sadang-dong (a PC Bang with an esports tournament stage)" I was expecting a bit more of a stage and not just two webcams showing ppl playing from a PC Bang...
Snow and other Protoss players have been dying a lot to 5 Fact lately and can't produce an answer. Not sure if the return of ladder Flash has an influence in it. But since July, Royal is actually 65% vs Mini and 56% vs Snow (normally he's like 20-30% vs Snow)
EPT
![[image loading]](https://www.gamechosun.co.kr/dataroom/article/20240710/206822/551368_1720595711.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://tl.net/staff/rotinegg/BBata_Jung.jpg)
ZeLoT
