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United States33388 Posts
SKY PRO LEAGUE 2004
Progaming in Korea has grown immensely over the past few years. Starting off as small tournaments in net cafes, the televised Starleagues now regularly defeat professioanl sports in the ratings. Not just a popular computer game anymore, Brood War has become Korea's 4th major professional sport alongside baseball, soccer, and basketball. The latest developlemt is OGN's new venture. OGN seeks to further obscure the line between pro sports and progaming.
Starting on April 17th, the SKY Pro League is the start of OGN's annual 40 week long pro team league. Every progaming team in Korea will compete in this huge league, which will eventually culminate in playoffs and a grand final.
The sheer scale of this league differentiates it from any other tournament. 40 weeks long, 2 broadcasts a week, 2 series per broadcast, 3 games per series. The money is good, too. Over 250,000,000 won (approximately $200,000) dollars are to be spent in prize money.
Competing Teams
All 11 Pro teams were invited
KTF Magic N's, SK T1 (previously 4Union), Suma Greatest Ones, Toona SG, Korea (KOR), Hanbitsoft, Hexatron Dream Team, Soul, Ktec Plus, Samsung Khan, POS (Pirates of Space)
Maps
1v1: Nostalgia, Neo Guillotine, Valley of Wind, XenoSky (Legacy of Char edit)
2v2: The Huntress, Vertigo Plus
The map maker/editor for OGN posted a long descriptive post here
Format
The format is the most complicated ever seen in progaming
Round 1
- The 11 teams play a round robin, 11 weeks and 44 matches in total
- Each series between two teams is a best 2 of 3, the order of games being 2v2 - 1v1 - 1v1
- At the end of round 1, the two teams with the most victories will face each other in a best 4 of 7 to decide the champion of the round
Round 2
- The team with the lowest win percentile in round 1 is temporarily eliminated
- The remaining 10 are divided into two groups of 5 according to their rankings in round 1. Each group plays a round robin, with a few additional games with between the two different groups. 11 weeks, 45 matches in total.
- Each series is best 2 of 3, but the order is 1v1 - 2v2 - 1v1
- At the end of the round, the first place teams from each group play in a best 4 of 7 round final.
Round 3
- The lowest ranked team from each group in round 2 face each other, with the losing team having to face the team temporarily eliminated from round 1. The loser of that match is eliminated from round 3
- The remaining 10 teams play in the same format as round 2
- Again, each series is best 2 of 3, but the other order is 1v1 - 1v1 - 2v2
- At the end of the round, the round champion is decided in the same method as round 2
Championship Series
- The 3 winners of each round compete, with a wild card being given to the team with the highest win percentile (asides from the round champions). If a single team has won more than one round, more wild cards are given.
- All matches are best 4 of 7
- Week 1: 4th vs 3rd / Week 2: 3rd vs 2nd / Week 3: 2nd vs 1st (Grand Final)
- It's unsure how the 4 teams will be ranked. It appears that the wild card team will receive 4th place, but the 3 round champions could be ranked by various standards (total win %, number of wins, etc).
For each series, each team is told what maps will be used in advance. The teams then select their lineup for the maps, but the lineup is not told to the other team. On the day of the games, each team's lineup is revealed to the other team.
Prize Money
The champion of each round will be given 70,000,000 won (approx. $60,000). The winner in the grand final will be given 40,000,000 won. There is probably some more prize money for various things, not revealed to the public.
Rambling
More BW tourneys is always good news. It's just that I've never really liked the pro league. There's not much that's wrong with it, in fact, there are a lot of good things about it. The format of hiding lineups till the day of the games allows for lots of interesting mind games. The fact that a single player can play only once emphasizes the overall strength of a team, unlike the MBCGame Team League (which is fun in its own way).
However, the fact that they insist on using 2v2 just kills this league for me. For most people, 2v2s are simply boring to watch. Even the best 2v2 games they've had just don't match up to the excitement of 1v1. Though it makes it different from the MBCGame Team League, it also makes it much worse.
The state of the pro teams might kill this league. Since KTF has purchased the most ridiculous team ever, the chance for decent competition looks slim. Everyone is predicting a war between KTF and SK T1, with all of the other teams trying to find a way to survive.
The role of the newcomers will be very important. If players like Casy, JulyZerg, Ddang, GoodFriend etc can realize their potential, the lower ranked teams could create some upsets and some fierce comeptition. The big, rich teamsvs the underdogs would be very interesting of the underdogs could put up a good fight.
However, the lineup of TheMarine, Sync, ArtOfHan, Nal_rA, Reach, Chojja and Yellow (the say he's going back to KTF) makes me doubt anyone's chances.
Anyway, this tourney is a good thing! Now, if only we could get VODs for the general public!
Hexatron Dream Team Fighting!
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that's one hell of a confusing format they have  im going to have to read that over a couple of more times
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40 weeks?! how long was the last one?
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Russian Federation722 Posts
thats like a freakin year
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It's 10 months. The last one was like 5 months or something.
I personally like 2v2...I mean, watching 1v1 all the time is just too boring. I guess it's just different from person to person. Some people like 2v2, and some don't.
XenoSky is the new version of Legacy of Char...changed a little bit. It was at first named Legacy of Char 2004, but they changed the name 
Valley of Wind is the map that is being played over the Prematches of OSL. A 2-player half-island map, Terran-favored.
The maps can be changed by Round to Round. Rose.of.Dream, the main mapmaker of OGN, is planning to design a new 2v2 map for the 2nd Round
There are new rules added also.
1. For each team, no same races can come out on the same map twice. It's hard to explain with my poor English but I'll try my best If Nada (Toona SG) played on the map Nostalgia at one game, at the next game where Toona SG needs to play on Nostalgia, neither Nada nor GoodFriend can come out on the map, since they are Terran. Either Sir@Soni, Silver, or Nal_Rock should come up, since they are other races than Terran.
2. Members of the teamplay (2v2) cannot participate in 1v1 in that game (I'm not 100% sure about this, but people say that this is the new rue). For example, if ForU and Black (Suma GO) played as a team on 2v2, neither ForU nor Black cannot be in 1v1 at that game, so Xellos, GoRush or Ddang should be on 1v1 instead.
Anyway, I'm hoping to see some awesome games from this league
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United States33388 Posts
wow, those new rules make pro league suck more than it already did
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transfer money's got to rise higher so companies are more limited in buying players. with amounts around 100k$ a single company could prolly afford to buy every single pro player out there at once.
guess the problem will solve itself during the next years tho when more sponsors enter the stage and more players turn pro.
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Well, nice that pro gaming is more and more expanding. But on the other side: i will only get reports to read and only few games to see. Companies are smart enough to take the chance of the growing hype about the game but don't use the market potential outside Korea. A Serious mistake. Can't be that expensive to translate OGN page to english and put some english speaking commentators in the background, the return on such an investment would definitely pay off.
I would pay for viewing those games live or at least high speed vod dl.
What's the current price for a paid OGN account btw ?
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MaTRiX[SiN]
Sweden1282 Posts
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Each team plays all other teams. This would be 55 matches with 11 teams involved btw.
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I think that 2v2 can be VEEERY entertaining ,its just its not played enough yet.There are lots of team strats waiting to be found...
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Russian Federation1953 Posts
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hmm we need to have a way to get vods.
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Baltimore, USA22254 Posts
On April 16 2004 12:39 PaleMan wrote:
holy shit!
Holy shit indeed!
Btw, hi Paleman, thanks for all the VoDs! Always wanted to say that to you.
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is goodfriend on ktf too? someone wrote that in a thread
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Could someone write which players are on which major teams? I.E. KTF/SK/SUMA/TOONA?
It would be MUCH appreciated.
Thanks alot in advance.
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Russian Federation1020 Posts
Why is the grand final winner going to receive less money than the round winner?
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cuz u win the round money and final money. It's a good thing when you get more money. Don't question it, just watch and enjoy.
I want GO to rape it up but...
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hey can anyone link me xenosky download? that would be art.
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noone on KTF is unbeatable.
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On April 16 2004 13:09 benzoic-acid wrote:
is goodfriend on ktf too? someone wrote that in a thread
rumor -_-
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if there is a special 2v2 map it would be awesome. The only reason that 2v2 sucks is because its played on 1v1 maps. If they made a 2v2 map where the teammates always started close together and far from the enemies with good defensible positions, the game would turn into a godly war of 2 race late game unit combinations. I've always wanted to see how that would work out when really good players go at it. The highest level of team play I've experienced was when I was with Rice years ago, and that almost never went to late game, but when it did it was uberfun.
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Wonder who is going to finish bottom of the league -_-
I'll go for POS!
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On April 16 2004 19:09 Hautamaki wrote:
if there is a special 2v2 map it would be awesome. The only reason that 2v2 sucks is because its played on 1v1 maps. If they made a 2v2 map where the teammates always started close together and far from the enemies with good defensible positions, the game would turn into a godly war of 2 race late game unit combinations. I've always wanted to see how that would work out when really good players go at it. The highest level of team play I've experienced was when I was with Rice years ago, and that almost never went to late game, but when it did it was uberfun.
They always use 2v2 maps...
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On April 16 2004 10:36 Wirthi wrote:
Each team plays all other teams. This would be 55 matches with 11 teams involved btw.
i think so
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Yes, there are 55 matches total, but 11 matches will not be broadcasted simply because of the time limit. (they only have 11 weeks to go with the 1st round)
Well, those 2 rules are to prevent things like TvT on Another Day, since watching TvT all the time is simply boring. The 2nd rule, I don't know why they have it. I do think that the 2nd rule is stupid, since teams like SouL will have much difficulty going with that rule. (Well, but I guess we can see Tossgirl playing on OGN for the first time!)
I'll post a thread about the teams and members and all that.
Edit: Oh, there's already a post about it, there are just several changes in that members.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=9331
From that list, Nal_rA moved from GO to KTF
Eros~Rage moved from Hanbit to GO
Black moved from KTF to GO
Legionnaire and Assem moved from POS to Hexatron (AMD)
ArtOfTerran moved from Samsung Khan to Hexatron (AMD)
ChRh and SaferZerg moved from GO to Samsung Khan
ogogo moved from Toona SG to KOR
Jinnam and Grrr got out of Hexatron (AMD)
Junior got out of SouL
I guess these are all the changes occurred.
Yellow is about to move to KTF, but he's yet Toona SG
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EPT
