Gfinity are proud to present the G3 live event taking place in London, UK this August 2nd/3rd
Formed by gamers and with the backing of successful investors, Gfinity was created to help push eSports within the UK to a professional level, to raise awareness and to provide an arena for gamers to showcase their talent.
Gfinity was launched as a company in early 2013 and plans were immediately set in motion to deliver events and user experiences unlike any that had been seen in European eSports before it. So far we've hosted 2 successful major events for League of Legends and Call of Duty, we've since replaced League with DOTA2 and added Starcraft 2, Counter Strike: Global Offensive and Fifa.
In total the G3 event will have a minimum prizepool of $160,000 spread over all the games with Starcraft getting $30,000, that also includes the 3375 WCS points the event has been given.
The Starcraft tournament will boast 12 of Europe and the worlds best player's fighting it out over who gets the title of G3 winner. There will be 9 invites given out and 3 open qualifiers held on EU battle.net.
Jesus.. so bored seeing always the same players invited. I am really curious how the European scene even survives like that currently. The silliest thing is that you receive so many WCS points... it's simply distortion of competition if you give some players the chance to earn WCS while others not.
too much money, too many wcs points and too many invite for way too few players in total =/ at least it is offline... but it really help some players too much in the wcs ranking that's its becoming really unfair
i understand why people want to see other players than the "typical" invites, but these guys are invited because they're some of the best the scene has to offer (both from Koreans and foreigners). i'd rather see top level ability being rewarded for their play, rather than getting some lesser players just for the sake of them being there.
WCS points for an invitational are pretty damn stupid. We're going to end up having a lot of popular guys with free WCS points from invitationals while the WCS Korea players can get about 1/2 spots for themselves, so we can crown a world champion and act like he is the best player of last year while in fact, he's probably nothing like that and just a skilled player with a ton of free WCS points?
On June 25 2014 23:15 SC2Toastie wrote: WCS points for an invitational are pretty damn stupid. We're going to end up having a lot of popular guys with free WCS points from invitationals while the WCS Korea players can get about 1/2 spots for themselves, so we can crown a world champion and act like he is the best player of last year while in fact, he's probably nothing like that and just a skilled player with a ton of free WCS points?
Generally WCS Points for tournaments outside WCS is stupid, doesnt matter if HSC or MLG or DH or Shoutcraft or whatever else. WCS should do 3 weekend-tournaments (one on each region), which everyone can attend, I am sure DH/ESL/GSL or Proleague staff likes to do this for WCS/Blizzard.
I highly doubt that this tournament here is getting lesser recognition without wcs points.
On June 25 2014 20:06 Yhamm wrote: of the 9 invited players, 8 are 100% sure to receive 250 WCS point
Hasn't it been a rule before that a player has to advance at least one round to earn points? Coming through qualifiers fill the requirement. At least that's how it's put in the 2014 GSL Global Championship page.
Edit: Speaking of WCS Global Event rules, they require 16 players minimum from which 25% has to be from qualifiers. If I understood correctly, in this tournament there are only 12 players, but at least the 25% requirement is fulfilled. However, the 16+ player requirement might have the qualifiers included, in which case there surely will be more.
On June 25 2014 20:06 Yhamm wrote: of the 9 invited players, 8 are 100% sure to receive 250 WCS point
Hasn't it been a rule before that a player has to advance at least one round to earn points? Coming through qualifiers fill the requirement. At least that's how it's put in the 2014 GSL Global Championship page.
yes, but there is a really small group stage where only 4 ppl will be dropped. that mean of the 9 invited, only 1 player is sure to be dropped and the other can all earn points.
ok my 100% was a bit wrong since it depends on how the groups are done. but still...
Maybe Blizzard are counting the qualifiers as making it a more than 12 man tournament. They meet the 25% rule by having 3 qualifiers. They meet the 16 competitor rule by having qualifiers for the 3 qualifier spots.
It's really weird such exclusive tournaments with so many wcs points
But I hope by the end of the year one of these players are not qualifying to blizzcon by the skin of their teeth only because of the benefits of invitationals
Can someone clarify what time 12PM BST is in EST? I believe it is 7AM but it would be nice to not have to worry about making sure you get the time zone conversion right...
I wish gfinity hosted a starcraft tournament back in July 2013 when they first started with CoD and league. They are a bit late getting involved in the sc2 scene, so I am afraid there won't be that much interest from sc2 viewers. Hopefully, I am wrong and the tournament will be a success.
On June 25 2014 23:15 SC2Toastie wrote: WCS points for an invitational are pretty damn stupid. We're going to end up having a lot of popular guys with free WCS points from invitationals while the WCS Korea players can get about 1/2 spots for themselves, so we can crown a world champion and act like he is the best player of last year while in fact, he's probably nothing like that and just a skilled player with a ton of free WCS points?
Generally WCS Points for tournaments outside WCS is stupid, doesnt matter if HSC or MLG or DH or Shoutcraft or whatever else. WCS should do 3 weekend-tournaments (one on each region), which everyone can attend, I am sure DH/ESL/GSL or Proleague staff likes to do this for WCS/Blizzard.
I highly doubt that this tournament here is getting lesser recognition without wcs points.
I guess I understand in theory why people are upset about this tournament giving out WCS points but if you look at the players that are invited so far their chances for Blizzcon are pretty set already. Grubby and TLO are basically out already MC and Hyun are almost guaranteed to be in, it might effect Jjakji and Stardust but they will most likely make it or not regardless of this event.
Who knows who else they will invite, people like MMA, Snute or Welmu who are on the cusp could have a great impact on their qualification but for the players who are in now it probably won't impact their chances.
Maybe this event should not have WCS points but the idea of not having points for any non-WCS events is crazy, the whole point is to tie the entire year of competition together and make it interesting to watch players fight for competition and personally I think it is very effective. But at the same time its does favour players like MC who are both very good and able to attend huge numbers of tournaments. I think that instead of punishing a player like MC who does well all over the world in a tonne of events add points to Proleague so that players who only play in that and GSL have more opportunities for points.
On June 25 2014 23:15 SC2Toastie wrote: WCS points for an invitational are pretty damn stupid. We're going to end up having a lot of popular guys with free WCS points from invitationals while the WCS Korea players can get about 1/2 spots for themselves, so we can crown a world champion and act like he is the best player of last year while in fact, he's probably nothing like that and just a skilled player with a ton of free WCS points?
Generally WCS Points for tournaments outside WCS is stupid, doesnt matter if HSC or MLG or DH or Shoutcraft or whatever else. WCS should do 3 weekend-tournaments (one on each region), which everyone can attend, I am sure DH/ESL/GSL or Proleague staff likes to do this for WCS/Blizzard.
I highly doubt that this tournament here is getting lesser recognition without wcs points.
I guess I understand in theory why people are upset about this tournament giving out WCS points [...]
No upset, as expected every tournament (99%) is giving wcs points. The one "upset" is that such is unfair for many many players and Blizzard does/did nothing. Even WCS global seasons last year were pretty unfair, if we talk about wcs points.
Maybe this event should not have WCS points but the idea of not having points for any non-WCS events is crazy, the whole point is to tie the entire year of competition together and make it interesting to watch players fight for competition and personally I think it is very effective.
I highly doubt that this is true. I still feel more like Trap made a huge/nice step for Blizzcon than he won MLG. I had more fun without giving wcs points, because players have much more indepedent and tournaments were more important itself than feeling like "tournament is important because it gives wcs points".
On June 25 2014 13:28 pajoondies wrote: really excite to see how this pans out
i understand why people want to see other players than the "typical" invites, but these guys are invited because they're some of the best the scene has to offer (both from Koreans and foreigners). i'd rather see top level ability being rewarded for their play, rather than getting some lesser players just for the sake of them being there.
and innovation pls, as said above =x
And how do you determine the top-level ability of the players? By letting them play qualifiers, so they actually can prove that they are worth it. This lack of fair competition is one of the reasons I think why non-Korean players aren't able to live up to the level of play the Koreans perform.
For me as a spectator, I would say aswell that I'm more interested in seeing a tournament, where I know that the players play because they deserve it, rather than because they performed well in tournaments where they anyway were invited.
On June 27 2014 04:00 Littlebert wrote: Just sorted my accommodation out and will be heading to this as my first Esports event watching live , Cant wait!
Sick city!
If you see me walking around or with a moment to spare you're absolutely more then welcome to say hello =) (I actually demand that you do)
Interesting caster lineup, i've never heard of 2/4 Casters (JaRoSaR and Tetcher) and of the other two I've only ever heard Khaldor cast. Should be fun to hear new voices, Hopefully I can find time to watch it.
On July 04 2014 11:10 Josh_Video wrote: Interesting caster lineup, i've never heard of 2/4 Casters (JaRoSaR and Tetcher) and of the other two I've only ever heard Khaldor cast. Should be fun to hear new voices, Hopefully I can find time to watch it.
Gfinity are UK based and heavily want to involve the people from our local scene, we will have another 2 casters and a host announced soon though =)
On July 06 2014 21:24 Pughy wrote: The RO8 for the last qualifier starts soon!
Will have Kas vs Armani Bly vs Mana Stork vs Sleep Patience vs Bunny
One of these will be the 12th player heading to the UK!
Lots of cool matches in the qualifiers! Please consider to have 3 invites and 9 qualified players instead of the other way around for the next tournament! With the level of WCS points and money I'm sure you will get lots of cool qualifiers too to show prior to the main event!
If anybody is interested in getting involved backstage for the G3 event, GFinity are still looking for people to write articles following the Starcraft tournament. Applications already closed for CoD etc, but they're still open for SC2 so I'd say people here have a pretty good chance if you want to apply!
damn looks sick, calling jjakji vs hyun finals. and snute as a darkhorse to take it all.and wish for a TLO vs MMA finals and TLO takes it, now wouldnt that be awesome
I hope it will be a good event. I am taking my nephew down to London for G3 as he wants to meet the Optic COD Gaming Squad, but what sealed it for me is the chance to see my first SC2 tournament in person.
Anybody know if there is any SC2 merchandise on sale???
It's so awesome to be having a big event (G3 is for lots of games, not just SC2) in the UK... it's actually about 10 minutes drive from my current place of residence in East London, haha. Shame I didn't get tickets, but still.
UK scene fighting!
Though I agree with the criticisms about it being invite + WCS points. Just good to see some big names in the UK. Home Demuslim can perform well with the home crowd wonder what kinda turnout it'll get. I expect most of the people are going for CoD and Fifa etc rather than SC2, UK gamers tend to be a bit more, dare I say it, casual...
HyuN will probably crash the 1-million-WCS-Points-mark this season, measured by how many invite-only tournaments he plays, which give out tones of them...
On August 03 2014 03:11 Kimb3r wrote: HyuN will probably crash the 1-million-WCS-Points-mark this season, measured by how many invite-only tournaments he plays, which give out tones of them...
Yup. One of the worst parts of the WCS system, that it's actually possible for the vast majority of points to go to invite-only players.
EPT![[image loading]](https://gfinity.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/news/image/2/1/745x0/750x303_7934.png)
Grubby, 
jjakji, 
HyuN, 
2014 GSL Global Championship
. Is it possible to get tickets on the door, as I doubt I'll be able to get them before Saturday?
