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Introducing: The Rival StarCraft II League
I know we've been seeing some more grassroots efforts to create more content (Basetrade, Ascended StarCraft II League, Top 5 Community Plays, etc etc) and I think my contribution to this will help continue that trend! I am teaming up with a couple of other players from my clan Rival Gaming to be able to execute the production of this initiative.
I wish to introduce the Rival StarCraft II League. The league is set up to be very similar to a GSL-like format tournament, and if upon successful execution of Season 1, will extend even further and grow beyond that. I've always thought it'd be cool to run a StarCraft II tournament and here is the chance to finally be able to contribute to a community that has fueled my gaming passion beyond just laddering occassionally.
The intent is to provide non-professional players an opportunity to participate in a GSL like experience. With that being said, professional players will not be allowed to play in this tournament. The details on how this will work is still being worked on, but essentially, players like Huk, Kane, Minigun, and other players who are in the professional StarCraft 2 scene who already have many opportunities to compete will not be able to participate. The line blurs a bit when you start seeing players like desRow, Ruff, and others who may belong to organizations and compete occasionally. Those details are still be worked on. If you're in doubt, sign up anyways and we'll discuss it.
Since my Reddit Post, I've made some modifications to the the tournament framework and changed the broadcasting schedule to allow for players to play their games the week before and the broadcasts will be via replay. This should provide flexibility for both the tournament organizers and the players.
The first season will have $200 prize pool going to the top four ($100 for 1st, $50 for 2nd, $25 for both 3rd/4th) and League sign ups and qualifier sign ups open today and go until Monday, February 2nd! Then, on the 7th and 8th, we'll jump right into the qualifiers (16 players from each session will be advancing to the actual tournament) and we'll jump right into the season on February 7th! You can see more dates on the Calendar link below.
Links include:
Calendar of Season 1 Broadcasts/Events
Rules and Regulations Document
League Sign ups (Google Forms, must sign up prior to participating in the qualifiers)
Admin/Volunteer Sign ups (If you would like to help out with this production in any capacity, let me know!)
Official Twitch Stream (No official branding yet, working on it!)
Twitter Account (Very basic branding, haven't got there yet!)
Liquipedia Page
+ Show Spoiler +The deadline for player sign ups is Midnight Monday (02/02/2015 12:00:00am PDT) and qualifiers start the next weekend (7th and 8th of February).
I have extended the signup period to Friday, February 6th at midnight PDT (so through Thursday, February 5th).
Please ask questions in this thread and sign up if you're interested!
Cheers!
Hawkeye
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Are you going to get a TL page up?
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The deadline for player sign ups is Midnight Monday (01/01/2015 12:00:00am PDT)
Hold on, that's already over xD I assume there's a mistake there, however the sign-ups deadline is meant to be happening in 2 days from now?
That aside, it's such a nice initiative, I also see you have Kaboosh by your side, the guy is a great person to work with!
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On January 31 2015 04:14 dipwood wrote:
Are you going to get a TL page up?
Yes sir. It's in the works, but it's right here!
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On January 31 2015 04:54 PowerOfOne wrote:Show nested quote +The deadline for player sign ups is Midnight Monday (01/01/2015 12:00:00am PDT) Hold on, that's already over xD I assume there's a mistake there, however the sign-ups deadline is meant to be happening in 2 days from now? That aside, it's such a nice initiative, I also see you have Kaboosh by your side, the guy is a great person to work with!
haha! I am pretty sure I wrote this while super tired! Thanks for the catch! Corrected!
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Aww shite. ItsHappening.gif
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One thing I would prefer is if in the sign up sheet you didn't have to give your paypal.
It doesn't really make sense to have EVERYONE's paypal instead of just asking the top 4 afterwards.
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Not streaming things live and using replays kinda takes away some of the interest in watching.
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On February 02 2015 11:36 Cacao wrote:
Not streaming things live and using replays kinda takes away some of the interest in watching.
Personally, I agree. But the schedule convenience for all involved will be nice, as most players that sign up have more than just StarCraft in their lives. The Grand Finals will be live though, which usually turn out to be the most exciting series in my opinion. We'll go off there based on feedback from the first season.
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uhh.. What if we don't want to give out our personal info, but still want to play?
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On February 03 2015 04:45 GGuMake wrote:
uhh.. What if we don't want to give out our personal info, but still want to play?
The only information that will be publicly broadcasted is your online alias when we cast (NA handle, non-character code). The name is a formality and the accounts are for NA and EU for back up. The email address will only be used for communication purposes regarding information from the league to you, and if you want to get paid, then supply a PayPal address ahead of time helps the process (although not required at signup).
I consider this to be standard information on any form submitted. Games will be organized via an Online SC2 Channel (information to be handed out via email upon registration) so you will be able to find your opponents there and consult with an admin if need be.
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Hi! The calendar lists times for the qualifiers, but what time zone are they listed in?
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Didn't see this till now, shucks. gl hf gg
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The oversleeping is real T_T GL everybody, see you tomorrow I guess xD
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Qualifer #2 is tonight at 6:00 check in is at 5:30!!!
Link to sign-up here: http://challonge.com/RSL2015S01Qualifier2
Current Players qualifed:http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Rival_StarCraft_II_League_Qualifiers
Anyone can sign-up as long as your not a pro such as Minigun/Serral/CranK/etc
16 players qualify today most likely have to play only 1 bo3.
Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/RSLsc2
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So if our opponent isn't on and not in the RSLsc2 channel, when do I report the no-show? I know it hasn't technically started for another 3 minutes. I was looking through the rules & regulations but I guess I'm bad, lazy, or both, lol.
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Is there gonna be another qualifier? I could've sworn a few days ago I read the TL thread and it said qualifier was going to be on the 9th, so I realized 15 mins too late that it was today and missed out. I don't know if it changed or what but I totally could've sworn I read "9th" I even marked it as that on my calendar a few days ago.
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On February 09 2015 08:28 DuckloadBlackra wrote:
Is there gonna be another qualifier? I could've sworn a few days ago I read the TL thread and it said qualifier was going to be on the 9th, so I realized 15 mins too late that it was today and missed out. I don't know if it changed or what but I totally could've sworn I read "9th" I even marked it as that on my calendar a few days ago.
Hi DuckloadBlackra,
There are no more qualifiers for this season of the RSL. However, future Seasons will have their own qualifiers, so stay tuned for those! Hope to see you in future events!
- Hawkeye59
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On February 09 2015 12:54 hawkeye59 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 09 2015 08:28 DuckloadBlackra wrote:
Is there gonna be another qualifier? I could've sworn a few days ago I read the TL thread and it said qualifier was going to be on the 9th, so I realized 15 mins too late that it was today and missed out. I don't know if it changed or what but I totally could've sworn I read "9th" I even marked it as that on my calendar a few days ago. Hi DuckloadBlackra, There are no more qualifiers for this season of the RSL. However, future Seasons will have their own qualifiers, so stay tuned for those! Hope to see you in future events! - Hawkeye59
Thank you, I realized I got your tournament mixed up with the Lycan League (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-tournaments/477477-lycan-league-week-1-signups) thinking they were the same thing. The Lycan League actually is on the 9th.
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Who will be casting the groups!? Where can we see some of your previous work  ?
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On February 11 2015 08:09 -HuShang- wrote:Who will be casting the groups!? Where can we see some of your previous work ?
I have a variety of players from the Rival Clan volunteering to cast games as well as myself. If you wish, you can check out my previous casts (and my low level playing >_>) at my youtube account!
https://youtube.com/user/therealjakek1
http://twitch.tv/hawkeye59
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Group A going live in under 20 mins!!!
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So, just like every other eSports personality out there, I had the pleasure of putting off this task for a long time and then finally deliver it weeks later than I said I would. Here is your Season 1 recap. I will be breaking this into a couple of different sections, outlining what we felt during and after the season. This may or may not be more rambling, but it does outline several initial thoughts I had about this season.
Overall
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For the most part, everything worked out smoothly. We had a ton of bumps on the backend side of things and the round of 32 was a mess, but then afterwards, we had minimal issues and the rest of the tournament flowed smoothly. For being a brand new, grassroots, shooting from the hip, tournament organization (yes, we’re using that word!), we did a fantastic job. Obviously, we had no sponsors to please or any other complexities that current tournament organizations face, but the daunting task of launching a whole new tournament was a bit overwhelming. From a personal side of things, I enjoyed it and felt empowered to do more, seeing that we hit every success metric I placed for this trial season.
The Goal
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The goal ultimately was to trial a long running season that drew its value from the GSL tournament experience. This season lasted five weeks and provided many hours of content. Personally, my goal was just to run the tournament, hit the success metrics, and enjoy the experience. I can’t comment on the goals of my teammates who helped run it, but I know they enjoyed the experience as well. Overall, we had a very successful trial run and we feel confident that the experiences we had this round will help influence future seasons of the RSL.
Success Metrics
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I used the following metrics for success
Live Viewers - 40 concurrent viewers at peak overall all broadcasts
Behind the Scenes messes - No more than 10 issues that had to be handled by Admins
So, as my team and I are new to the tournament scene, we found ourselves learning and adjusting along the way. These numbers we set (well, I set) were just a rough estimation. For Live viewers, the max hit 97 at one point. We never went to 100, but we were super close! As for behind the scenes messes, we’ve had around seven incidences. I don’t plan on going into details about each circumstance, but we did learn from these experiences.
Replay vs Live Broadcasts/Scheduling
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Biggest thing we learned, The Live Broadcasting method is the way to go. In the round of 32, we decided to try a system where players played their games during non-broadcast hours ahead of time. This hypothetically would allow players to schedule their own matches at their own convenience so there wasn’t a strict schedule to go off of. The idea behind this was that a majority of the players in the tournament are not 100% focused on StarCraft in their life and they have commitments like work and family to attend to. This system hypothetically would have given them the flexibility to play their games at their own convenience.
We ran into issues with players contacting each other. The first was not establishing an absolute line of communication among players. Originally, there is a RSLsc2 group on the NA Server (in Game) that was going to be the place players would go in and out of and contact their opponents. However, without any way outside of that, it was difficult for players to contact their opponents. This led to players being disqualified, players forfeiting due to frustration, and an overall poor experience for the players during the Round of 32 Group Stages. This resulted in awkward to explain/cast Round of 32 broadcasts where games were missing. After running into all of these issues, we decided to switch to a live broadcast format.
After switching, our incidences dropped. We had only one player from the Round of 16 and onwards who couldn’t commit to playing due to outside commitments. Everyone was on time and games progressed nicely. This ultimately was the best decision we made for the tournament and if we started this way before, I think we would have gotten a lot more reception from players. I know RuFF was an example of a player who forfeited because there were difficulties in players getting in contact with others.
A rookie mistake we made was not setting all the broadcast dates in stone. This caused confusion amongst fans, players, and even admins. Next season, we’re planning on the entire season on a calendar prior to starting Season 2.
Another topic we are still discussing on the backend is if a long running season would be an ideal format to run off of, or if we should move something more closely to a shorter tournament run time. In our world, a short tournament would either be a week of straight broadcasting nights or a single/two weekends. Long and short run tournaments each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and I think from running a long run to start with, we feel confident that we can make a decision on if we want to continue with that format or choose to make shorter tournaments. The decision is still being finalized by us as a team, but that’s the thought we’re working off of.
Participants/Volunteers
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We had around 70 players sign up for the tournament and about 60 players who showed up for the qualifiers. Out of those, the usual number of 32 qualified and then got placed into the Round of 32 groups. We had 8 different casters and 5 tournament administrators who helped out with administrative decision making. We also had 1 fantastic graphic designer who did a on of the branding/design work. Most of the talent came from Rival Gaming for the backend content production, but the players represented many different eSports organizations and community clans. Overall, it was a good mix of talent that created a cool experience.
One shortfall we had was that I ended up running almost the entire tournament. Every decision routed through me and I felt obligated as the tournament Founder and Producer to do 90% of the heavy work. This resulted in an amazing feat, but definitely was an unsustainable amount of work and effort. A lot of amateur mistakes were made later on in the tournament season with the broadcasts due to the workload, but luckily they weren’t major impact mistakes. They weren’t anything huge, but it was definitely things we could have avoided. All production work was done on a pro bono basis, so no one was compensated except with verbal praise and a virtual high five.
Format
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Our admin team got together after the tournament and we talked about the tournament format as a whole and we all agreed that a 32 man tournament is the most ideal/optimal tournament moving forward. However, we do acknowledge that a 16 man tournament (cutting the first round of group stages) might be something worth looking into to condense the season enough so we don’t overlap with major tournaments that are ongoing. We’re still debating what Season 2 is looking like, but we’re definitely sticking to this general format.
Moving Forward
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A couple of almost 100% solid details regarding the future of the RSL
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* There will be a Season 2
* Season 2 will be a GSL format tournament with either 32 players or 16 players
* The starting prize pool will be $200 with room for growth through a donation line
* Top 4 or Top 8 players are invited to compete again (depending on amount of players) and qualifiers will be set for the remaining spots
* More hands will be needed for production
* Live broadcasts WILL BE NA TIMES.
* The entire season’s schedule will be decided and set in stone prior to official details being announced.
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Final Thoughts
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I greatly enjoyed putting on this tournament and am looking forward to Season 2. Before Season 2, the RSL will be putting on a showmatch or two during the off season to continue with community engagement. Please give me any feedback you had as a player, spectator, or volunteer by responding to this post, PM me through TL, or emailing me at hawkeyesc2cast@gmail.com. Special Thanks goes to my clan Rival Gaming for being supportive and stepping up to help cast, administrate, and everything in between. I’d like to thank TUXerino for all the work he did on the Branding/Graphic Designs. He went above the initial call of duty to create observer UI, a special Gameheart extension mod (which never got used, sorry!), all the stream overlays, and more. Thanks to all the players who had to suffer through my disorganization but played their best anyways! And thank you to everyone who tuned in to watch! Nothing feels better than knowing that people tuned into something we put on!
Semper Text Interview
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Since Semper did not want to do a live broadcasted interview, I emailed him some questions regarding his experience with the RSL. Here it is, in all of its glory!
Q. You started in Group A in the Round of 32 against SeigSean, GAMETIME, and Ninkazi. Did you do anything specifically to prepare for this group, or did you feel confident enough to just wing it once you were in game with your opponents?
A. I didn't prepare anything specific for the round of 32. I asked my teammates about GAMETIME as I knew he was a NA GM Zerg player. I was informed that he prefers to play roach hydra in TvZ so I just adjusted my build to counter that style. Other than that, I just played standard.
Q. In the Round of 8, you played against Rival Gaming's FoxeR, who's a Masters level player and at one point a GrandMaster level. Did you take time to study him? What kind of approach did you take to prepare for him?
A. I am confident in TvT as I practice the matchup extensively with EU GMs. Once again, I asked my teammates what they knew about Foxer and they told me that he plays an aggressive / cheesy style. I looked at some of his build orders from ladder games and confirmed what I was being told, thus I played as safe as possible to take the win.
Q. What sort of preparation did you take to play against TtSEED Revolution? He had some early aggression builds planned out that almost looked like he could have won from. Did you find yourself up against the ropes when he pulled out those strategies?
A. For revolution, I simply looked at some of his ladder builds and I noticed that he likes to do baneling busts, so I definitely had that in mind going into the series. However, on game 1 (Expedition Lost), he managed to sneak around my hellion / banshee with his roach - ling all in and I only spotted his attack once it hit my natural. I thought I was dead after that happened, however he made several mistakes that allowed to me to come back. I approached the rest of the series with a "play as safe as possible" mindset.
Q. In the Finals against Creature, something we noticed on Vaani Research Station is that you got an early Raven after the first Widow Mine Drop to use the PDD with a huge drop at his natural. Is that a normal TvP opener you use a lot, or did you pull that out specifically for against Creature?
A. The Raven build in TvP is very rarely used in pro games. I took it from a CJ Bbyong proleague game from last year, played on Nimbus. Both Nimbus and Vaani are similar as in they have an in-base natural that is easily drop-able. Thus, I took the build, made some adjustments and use it sometimes to surprise my opponent. It only works on a limited selection of maps, so I would not recommend it as a "staple TvP build".
Q. After the finals, Creature noted on Twitter that he was not prepared for all of the factory openers you used. Is that a style you like to open with in TvP specifically or did you plan those around Creature's play?
A. The factory style is the most standard build in TvP nowadays. It's quite safe and it provides ample opportunities to do damage, so it's definitely my favorite style to play in TvP right now.
Q. How long have you been with Team Gravity and how has your experience been on the team?
A. I've been on Team Gravity since it was created (almost 2 years ago), but I took a break last summer to focus on my own play without a team environment. However, I decided to rejoin at the end of last summer as I realized that playing in team leagues is enjoyable and it motivates me to practice harder. Plus, having teammates and a manager to talk to about the game can be very helpful at times.
Q. How do you feel being one of the bright and upcoming NA terran players in the professional StarCraft II scene?
A. I don't feel anything in particular. I just like to play the game and if I can get some good results I will be happy, as everyone likes winning. However, I am still a full time student so I generally put little pressure on myself to perform well. I feel like I am slowly improving over time, but only time will tell if I can truly get to a pro level.
Q. In the Post Game chatter we had, you mentioned that when you win, you tend to dominate in the series, but other times you get completely crushed. Can you comment on this trend and how you feel about it?
A. I think it's just coincidence. When I qualified for WCS Challenger, I didn't drop a map, similarly to how I won this tournament. Obviously, one cannot expect to win every single game, so I'm definitely okay with losing certain games. I can usually take losses well, so I am not worried about going down 1-0 in a BO3 or something of that nature. It is easier to play from an advantage in a series, but comebacks are always possible.
Q. Any up and coming events we should be looking for you in?
A. There's not much going on at the moment. I will try to qualify for WCS S2 Challenger and I am mostly looking forward to getting to watch and play LotV beta.
Q. Final question, do you have any shout out, thanks, etc to share with the world and do you have any social media or twitch streams fans can follow you on?
A. Thanks to RSL for hosting the tournament. When I saw that the tournament was going to be dragged over several weeks, I was reluctant to sign up because such a format can be difficult to manage, but you did a good job at it and I have no complaints. Shoutout to Team Gravity and the manager of the team - BeaSt - who helped me prepare for my opponents. You can follow me on twitter @SemperSC.
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EPT
