EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GFSrG.png)
Something to tide you over...
SHOUTcraft is back with a new tournament and this time it's a little different. We're taking a break from the regular format which will hopefully be back upon HotS launch in full force with a big prizepool, to try something a little more personal and a little bit different.
When? - Monday, Dec 17 1:00am GMT (GMT+00:00)
Stream? - http://www.twitch.tv/totalbiscuit
House of the Swarm?
Welcome to a Heart of the Swarm House tournament in which every player currently living in the temporary Axiom team-house will play each other in a grand round-robin format with the top 2 going on to the grand finals for a chance at the lions share of the prizepool. What's more, we will be playing the entire tournament on Heart of the Swarms new patch.
Prizepool
First Place : $600
Second Place : $250
Third-Fourth Place : $50
Fifth Place : $50 and must wash the dishes for a week.
Format
Everyone will play each other in a BO1. So that means 10 maps in all. A vs B, A vs C, A vs D, A vs E, B vs C etc etc. The top 2 players with the highest map score will go on to the finals to face each other in a BO5.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Xn3as.jpg)
Map Pool
Maps will be selected at random and then removed from the pool until the last map is used, at which point the pool will be refreshed. This means each map will be played twice in the round-robin stage. The finals will use all 5 maps via a standard loser-picks format with the player with the highest round-robin score choosing the first map.
* Ohana
* Antiga Shipyard
* Newkirk City
* Daybreak
* Cloud Kingdom
Players
The tournament will be brought to you by the 5 players currently living in the temporary Axiom house. Many people do not know that for quite some time, these players have been living together, even before the founding of Axiom and this arrangement has remained at the players request. Soon we will be looking for and picking out the perfect team-house for our players but for now, we have access to a great deal of talent in a small space. Here are your contestants.
Ax.CranK - Team Captain and founding member of Axiom will be bringing his unique brand of Protoss play to the Heart of the Swarm beta in this competition. Fresh off a 3rd place finish at Lonestar Clash 2 he has a little downtime before his next tournament competition and he'll be using it to play some HotS.
coL.Heart - The Hobbit Terran, why? Because he's tricksy that's why. Heart became known for his cheesy play and unusual builds in foreign tournaments finishing 3rd at the MLG Winter Championship and Spring Arena, however his excellent 5th place finish at the Fall Championship resulted from lengthy and impressive macro games against the likes of Scarlett, Thorzain, Golden, Hwangsin and Polt. It remains to be seen how his unique style will transition into HotS.
Ax.Ryung - Code S RO4 GSL semi-finalist Ryung has finally been able to relax after his best GSL finish yet, narrowly losing to eventual champion Sniper in a nail-bitingly close series. Now the TvT master that many say has the best TvT in the world gets to go up against 3 Terran opponents in a different game entirely where the rules have very much changed. Will his trademark defensive and positional play still work with new units and distinct changes to the Terran faction? We're about to find out.
Acer.MMA - The mighty MMA has a bevy of championship wins under his belt not least of which a GSL and after the SlayerS disband has found a new team in the form of Acer. With a lot of expectations riding on his shoulders, MMA is now coming to Heart of the Swarm with a clean slate and a chance to show his talent once again.
Ax.Miya - Some call him the Practice Bonjwa, others Hipster Zerg, what is for sure is that this Zerg player has a ton of potential and some of the biggest glasses in the industry. He is also perhaps the biggest threat in this tournament, having played the most HotS out of any in the line-up. Along with new units, HotS has only a few short days ago made extreme changes to the Zerg to strengthen the viability of Muta and Hydralisk play while heavily nerfing Infestors with a fungal projectile attack. For the first time we will get to see how a changed Zerg competes at a high level.
Player Interviews (a new interview every day
MMA
CranK
Miya
Why the small format and prizepool?
Personally, it's because I wanted to focus on Heart of the Swarm and I don't believe throwing something like a $10k prizepool at a potentially unbalanced beta is a good idea. What I'd rather do is have a fun one-day tournament with a smaller format that everyone will have the time to enjoy, exploring the possibilities that Heart of the Swarm has to offer and using top-tier players to do it. The fact that they're all living in the same house, practice together and know each other very well will hopefully lead to some highly entertaining and no doubt thoroughly BM matches. This is not a serious tournament and we hope it'll be very entertaining for the fans and a great way to round out the year with a positive attitude towards the future of SC2 in the next few months. I want to aim for a big SHOUTcraft Invitational when HotS launches. SCI has always been about crowd-pleasing above all else and I think HotS is the best way to do that. I suppose this is "technically" SCI5, but I consider this a transition event. The larger 8-? man format will be back in 2013.
Tune in!
HotS hype is ramping up and we're hoping this tournament between these excellent Korean players will showcase what the expansion has to offer. Be there for crazy builds, new units, awesome music and inter-house rivalry and BM.
I hope to see some really interesting games. 
