What is the Proleague?
The Proleague is a joint venture between MBC, OGN, KeSPA and IEG. It is hosted on both cable channels, OGN and MBCGame, while a company called IEG holds the broadcasting rights. It is a long tournament where the 12 Professional Starcraft teams compete, and lasts the whole year. More games are played in the Proleague than all the other leagues combined, and the progamers themselves consider it to be the most important.

What's so good about the Proleague?
The Proleague is a great way to follow your favorite team or player. Because of the fickle nature of the individual qualifiers, the Proleague is often the only place to see a gamer who is not in the major leagues. Click the spoiler below to read a great overview of the biggest tournament in esports.

Who competes in the Proleague?
The 12 KeSPA registered professional teams are;

Air Force ACE	CJ Entus	eStro	Woongjin Stars
KTF MagicNs	Lecaf OZ	MBCGame Hero	OGN Sparkyz
Samsung KHAN	SK Telecom T1	STX Soul	WeMade FoX

If you’re ever wondering about anything about any of the teams, the first place to check is TLPD which has information on each team’s roster, team history and some statistics.

What about the maps?
The maps get renewed every season. These are often commissioned by KeSPA for the Proleague. A list of up to date maps can be found in TLPD. The 2008-09 season of Proleague was the first to feature periodic breaks, during which KeSPA could change the map pool. They took advantage of that rule for the first time in November 2008 switching the map Raid Assault II for Rush Hour 3.

Ok, so how does the tournament actually work?
The teams play each other in round robin format four times, twice on OGN, twice on MBCGame. For example, Air Force ACE will play WeMade Fox four times; twice on the OGN channel and twice on the MBCGame channel.

Here is a diagram explaining how the next season will work;

How is a match structured?

Each match between the teams are best of five. The 2008-09 season is the first season without 2v2 in the format, there are four 1v1 matches and one ace match. Prior to the match (about 3~5 days) each team submits a roster to KeSPA stating their entries for the upcoming matches they are playing. These entries are for the first 4 sets of a match. If the teams are locked at 2-2 after the 4th set then an ‘Ace match’ or 'Closer' is held. An Ace match differs from a regular match in that the players don’t know who they’re up against until the moment they step into the booth. Each team gets to decide who plays the Ace match right before its held.

There are some limitations on the entries teams can submit in;

No player can be submitted twice in the first four sets
The player entered for the Ace Match can be one that has already played

What happens after the Round Robin?
After each team has played every other team twice, the top six teams qualify for playoffs. The playoffs work like a slightly modified single elimination bracket. The following diagram explains the system;

The biggest difference between the regular season and playoffs is the length of the match. The playoffs are Best of 7; with games 1,2,4, 5, 7 being 1v1 and games 3 and 6 being 2v2. Teams submit their entries for the first 6 Sets and the 7th set is the Ace Match. All the normal Proleague rules still apply.

How do I watch Proleague live?
The Ultimate Starcraft VOD/Live Stream Guide has all the different ways you can watch Proleague live.

Do you understand now?
Hopefully? If you have questions feel free to post in this thread without fear of ridicule. I'm always happy to help a fellow fan understand the ways of the Koreans. I would prefer if you didn't PM me though, some people may have the same questions so feel free to ask them in the thread.

Schnake

Germany2819 Posts

July 20 2008 16:25 GMT

Please edit the link to the Ultimate Starcraft Media Guide so that no other fellow TLers have their ip and username sent to an admin due to trying to edit other people's posts.

cgrinker

United States3824 Posts

July 20 2008 16:43 GMT

wow it said it and I still clicked on it hahah

plz don't ban, as they say.

Great post thanks a lot

tyr

France1686 Posts

July 20 2008 18:05 GMT

Clicked on it as well ..

Excellent FAQ, still.

LaughingTulkas

United States1107 Posts

July 21 2008 23:17 GMT

Minor point: having the exact same proleague diagram twice so close together they can be on the same screen seems a little unnecessary.

Love all the graphics though, nice work.

spydernoob

Canada1066 Posts

July 22 2008 03:38 GMT

wow, did not know they didnt allow mirror teams. thats odd

jckwik

United States7 Posts

July 24 2008 00:37 GMT

No, it's not all that odd. If they allowed mirror teams most of the teams would be zz.

Avidkeystamper

United States8556 Posts

July 24 2008 04:36 GMT

Because that's so much worse than zt 100% of the time.

randombum

United States2378 Posts

July 24 2008 05:36 GMT

On July 24 2008 13:36 xenero wrote:
Because that's so much worse than zt 100% of the time.

You see more zp's than zt's. Regardless theres always a Z

Avidkeystamper

United States8556 Posts

July 24 2008 05:45 GMT

#10

Ack typo, the point is, Terran is never used in 2v2 unless they can implement some sort of crazy contain and gain map control since they're too defensive.

oatboy

United States198 Posts

December 20 2008 04:57 GMT

#11

sorry to bump an old thread, but i have a question. Are there any restrictions on what race teams have to field? Or would it be possible to field an all terran team or whatever? If this is the case then why do they seem to strive for balance so much, is this because of matchups?
Sorry to be a noob.

MuShu

United States3223 Posts

December 20 2008 04:59 GMT

#12

Recently, they made a rule that all 3 races must be used by each team for each match, so they can't field an all terran team. The leftover races can be any race, like 1 terran, 1 protoss, and 2 zerg

Crunchums

United States11144 Posts

December 20 2008 16:29 GMT

#13

Does anyone know why whenever the observer clicks on a goliath the image of the unit under the menu button doesn't appear - it just freezes on the "TV snow" image that flashes when you change what you're selecting?
I've seen this happen in multiple games now though it doesn't always happen when a goliath is clicked on.

Ota Solgryn

Denmark2011 Posts

December 20 2008 17:28 GMT

#14

How is it determined who will play who in the first 4 games. Does the league descide that or what?
Because for instance (Z)

Jaedong have been playing zvz alot lately, how has that been descided?

Puosu

6990 Posts

December 20 2008 17:34 GMT

#15

On December 21 2008 02:28 Ota Solgryn wrote:
How is it determined who will play who in the first 4 games. Does the league descide that or what?
Because for instance (Z)

Jaedong have been playing zvz alot lately, how has that been descided?

The teams both send the list of their players to KeSPA without knowing the opposing teams players.

The reason to Jaedong facing other zergs is simply because the maps he is sent on are zerg favored, so most of the teams send a zerg resulting in a lot of mirror matches.

Baddieko

Singapore855 Posts

January 17 2009 09:44 GMT

#16

They changed the proleague rules to 7sets for the rest of season?

Plexa

Aotearoa39261 Posts

January 17 2009 09:46 GMT

#17

For the rest of round 3, and this guide needs to be updated to reflect the changes in the WL

5 Games will return in round 4 and 5

nataziel

Australia1455 Posts

January 17 2009 12:08 GMT

#18

Wow, I actually understand how this all actually works now. You should include details of the scoring system though during the normal season.

Also, why do the progamers consider the proleague the most important? It's not like they can win as much money as they can in the individual leagues, so wouldn't they place those above this in terms of importance?

Origami

United States266 Posts

January 21 2009 23:07 GMT

#19

I didn't really start following this until roughly when the 08-09 season first started so I would like to ask two questions:

1. The guide shows that the playoffs will be Bo7 with two rounds of 2v2. I was under the impression that they got rid of 2v2 sets in 2008 so I just want to check if this is still true since it seems odd that 2v2 would be completely irrelevant until when it matters most.

2. Given that the Proleague playoffs are Bo7 instead of the usual Bo5, are they planning on extending the Winner's League playoffs to Bo9 or so? I can't seem to find any real info on how the WL end-season will work.

Zona

40426 Posts

June 09 2010 00:55 GMT

#20

I've taken the section that's no longer valid and edited it:

Each match between the teams are best of five. Due to the match fixing scandal, the format was changed in Round 4 in the 2009-10 season and now none of the players who play during a match are determined beforehand. Instead, just before a match begins a representative from each team, usually the manager or coach, decides which player the team will send, without knowledge of his opponent's pick. There are up to five 1v1 sets in the format, the first team to win 3 sets wins the match. A player cannot play in more than one of the first four sets, however, if the match reaches the fifth set (sometimes known as the "Ace match" or the "Closer"), any player can be chosen to play, even if that player had played in one of the first four sets.