What are Proleagues?
Crowdfunded competitions between teams of BW pros
When do they happen?
Every night when there are enough players who are willing to play (even during ASL nights). If there are a lot of players available, multiple proleagues are run concurrently (as many as 3 per night). If there are not enough players, no proleagues will open.
Rough start time is late evening in Korea and usually goes well past midnight KST.
Are there different types of Proleagues?
There is a rough split between the top "major proleague," the 2nd level "K league" and the lower "moonlight proleague" - but the boundaries are not well defined and there are a lot of hybrid proleagues
In the past there was a big funding gap between the major proleague and the K league, but these days funding tends to be more level (on some days K league is funded better than the major proleague happening on the same day)
How are these organized?
A player will "open" a Proleague, and then invite other players to join, usually eight players in total (occasionally 6 players and rarely 10). Players are not invited in advance, invites are mostly based on who is streaming at the time.
How are these funded?
The player "opening" the Proleague usually has already been given some base funding by their viewers (it is not a good look to open a Proleague without having some money lined up already). Once all the participants are invited, there is a fundraising period of several minutes where each player appeals (or begs) for donations on their stream.
Each player is expected to bring back at least 300 star balloons per winner - so for a 4v4 Proleague, each player will need to raise a total of at least 1200 star balloons (300 star balloons X 4 winners) in funding. (Very roughly 100 star balloons = $10USD)
If a player can't reach the expected star balloon amount through viewer funding, they will simply put up their own money so they can participate.
How are teams picked?
major proleague - players are supposed to be the best so teams are usually picked on 자연 사다리 (literally "natural ladder") system - all players are in 1 pool and are divided completely randomly
K league - more emphasis on balance, even at the invitation stage the organizer tries to avoid inviting anyone too strong or weak unless they have someone else they balance out with. Most of the time they will pick 2 players who are relatively well balanced to serve as captains and then the rest of the teams are picked taking turns (뽑기 "selecting" system).
Of course there are a lot of hybrid arrangements depending on the personnel, if major proleague has 2 members who are perceived as weaker than the rest, they sometimes separate those 2 players and then randomly divide the rest. If there's only one player that's super strong in K League, they will usually let the other team pick the next 2 strongest to try to balance it out.
What is the competition format?
A team needs to win 2 out of 3 sets to win the Proleague
1st set is always an "entry" proleague best 4 out of 7 games. Each team simultaneously puts out an entry of their 4 players, which are the matchups for the first four games of the set. For Game 5 (if needed) each team uses an online program to randomly choose a player to play. For Game 6 (if needed) each team uses the online program to choose randomly among the 3 players that did not play in Game 5. Game 7 (if needed) is back to using the online program to choose randomly among the 4 players. The map pool is predetermined but the order is randomly chosen after the first 4 matchups are already set.
2nd set has some variation. The major proleague usually does a winner's league as the 2nd set. The K League usually just repeats the same format as the 1st set. Occasionally you will see a loser's league format.
The 3rd set (if necessary) is a single winner-takes-all Super Ace match where each team randomly picks their Ace. In Proleagues where there may be some balance issues, there may be bans permitted to avoid an unbalanced Super Ace match. K league sometimes has the worst performing player for each team come out in the Super Ace match - the Narak ("hell") matchup
The winning team wins all the star balloons raised, the losing team gets nothing.
How do I watch?
Check the live streams around late evening in Korea, and look for stream titles that have "4:4" or "프로리그" (Proleague)
While one teammate is playing, the other 3 teammates observe the game and discuss/cheer/ridicule in a discord call
You have up to 8 POV to choose from in each Proleague. These days, the highest fundraisers are given the observer slots where you can see the supply and resource counts. Some players are great streamers who put in a good effort to show the score and who is playing (sometimes even in English), others don't really care. Try out a couple of players and see whose observing style you like, or check out the FPV of the current player.
Purpose of this thread
This thread is meant to serve as a place for everything related to these daily proleagues. This includes posting the notifications when the proleague starts, discussing the games live as they happen, and collecting the results and VODs after they finish.
Additional content might include making it easier for someone to post the spoiler-free VODs to the Small VOD Thread, calculating the various statistics (player, race, map win percentage), adding the matches to the Liquipedia, etc.
Useful resources
Mini's archive - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBuuRmyub6YoJyoJpJfCvMN5Ra1OTqrkQ
History
+ Show Spoiler [January 2023] +
Jan 01 2023 -
Royal
hero
Rush
Mini vs
Soma
Soulkey
Snow
Shuttle
Jan 02 2023 -
Bisu
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hero
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hero
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Mini vs
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JyJ
Jan 05 2023 -
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Royal
Bisu
Sharp vs
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hero
Mini
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Jaedong
YSC vs
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free
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Jan 07 2023 -
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Sharp
PianO vs
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Jaedong
EffOrt
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Jan 08 2023 -
Mini
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Rush
Royal vs
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Jan 08 2023 (K-League) -
EffOrt
JyJ
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Mong
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Jan 09 2023 (K-League) -
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PianO vs
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Jan 10 2023 -
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Jan 11 2023 (K-League) -
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Queen
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Rush vs
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EffOrt
JyJ
Motive
Hyuk vs
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Queen
Soma
Rush
free vs
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Mini
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Snow
Rush
sSak vs
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Mini
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EffOrt
Jaedong
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Jan 19 2023 -
ZerO
Royal
Shuttle
Stork vs
Soma
hero
Light
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Jan 19 2023 (wG Clan vs Guest) -
Snow
Rush
Sharp
Shine vs
Best
Mini
Mind
EffOrt
Jan 20 2023 -
Mini
Best
Shuttle
Mong vs
Soma
Jaedong
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Jan 21 2023 (K-League) -
EffOrt
Shuttle
Stork
YSC vs
Jaedong
Sharp
JyJ
Mind
Jan 23 2023 (K-League) -
BarrackS
Mind
Dear
TY vs
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YSC
HyuN
Calm
Jan 24 2023 (K-League) -
Sharp
EffOrt
Stork
PianO vs
Jaedong
Rain
Mong
Motive
Jan 24 2023 -
Royal
Snow
Bisu
Soma vs
Rush
Mini
Best
hero
Jan 25 2023 -
Royal
Mini
Bisu
hero vs
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Jan 26 2023 -
Royal
Queen
Bisu
Shuttle vs
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Soma
Mini
Sharp
Jan 27 2023 -
Rush
Soma
Jaedong
Sharp vs
Royal
Stork
Mini
Shuttle
Jan 29 2023 (K-League) -
Best
Mong
PianO
Shine vs
EffOrt
BarrackS
Stork
Dear
Jan 29 2023 -
Snow
Royal
Sharp
Soma vs
Shuttle
hero
Soulkey
Action
Jan 30 2023 -
Best
Shuttle
Queen
Soma vs
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Royal
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Jan 31 2023 -
Snow
Shuttle
Royal
Soulkey vs
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Rush
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