It's 2017 and the momentum SHOUTcraft Kings gained in 2016 yielded excellent results. Far surpassing estimates and expectations, SHOUTcraft Kings is one of the most successful online events in Starcraft history, surpassing viewcounts for even big offline events such as Dreamhack Austin and GSL. We intend to continue to build on that success in 2017 and once again bring you the exciting action of our "no second chances" format. Our success in 2016 allowed us to bring on a co-sponsor in Ting, who we worked with several years ago to produce the SHOUTcraft America Winter event. With their involvement, the overall prize pool is raised to $7500, paying out $350 per map win. With even more money on the line and access to the best players in the world, we expect even better games, more tension and greater excitement. But TB, $7500/20 isn't $350. Ok Commander Mathematician, well that's because...
Introducing The Kings Bounty
A notion has been flying around in my head for a little while. Kings has been about epic streaks and great storylines. The format lends itself well to that. So how can we raise the stakes when it comes to finally knocking a long-reigning King off their throne? Should somebody who beats a guy that 10 other people couldn't beat be awarded an even bigger prize?
Now they will be. We've set aside $500 per month as a bounty pool. The way it works is very simple. Defeating a player with a winning streak will award $25 extra for every map the now-defeated King won before their eventual defeat.
eg: Defeating a King with only a single win to their name will award a total of $375. Defeating a King on a 10 win steak will award $525 and so on.
In the highly unlikely event that a King manages a 20 win streak, the bounty will roll over to next months event and continue to pay extra to the challenger who eventually defeats the King.
The Kings Bounty adds an extra little dimension to a victory and spices up the efforts to break the streak of dominant players.
Well well, it's been a while and I'm finally happy to announce my new tournament venture, SHOUTcraft Kings, which is directly sponsored by and partnered with Blizzard Entertainment. I've been thinking for a while now about what the Starcraft 2 scene could do better and my conclusion is, story-telling. Any sport lives or dies based on stories. Stories get people to tune in. Stories fuel the passion of the fans. Stories are the basis of competition. Storytelling can be tricky with a complicated system and so many different tournaments. It can be hard to keep track. I wanted to host a format in which it wasn't, something where the story could not be simpler.
Who is at the top of the mountain? How long can they defend it?
King of the Hill is that format. It's a little underused in Starcraft 2, which is a shame, because it's easy to follow and it naturally creates stories. Epic runs, surprise opponents, shock dethroning. I wanted to create something akin to WWEs Royal Rumble, but in Starcraft. Why do people watch that? For surprise entrants, long runs, big elimination streaks. It's exciting to tune in and be surprised. King of the Hill does all of that naturally and it's a compact, easy to follow format with month-to-month continuity.
We're going to do 20 maps in a one day event every month. Each map victory pays out $250 prize-money to the winner. The winner of the map becomes the King and will then play their next opponent. They will not know who that opponent is in advance, it will be a surprise to both them and the audience. If they keep winning, they keep playing and they keep getting paid. If they lose, they're out of that months event, to be replaced by the new King. That said, being King has its advantages. The King gets to choose the map. We use a 5 map pool from the ladder. Once a map is picked, it cannot be used again until the entire pool is exhausted. The King will choose the map and there are no vetoes.
I'm excited to bring you this event in close cooperation with Blizzard who will be providing the prizepool. We've been working on this idea for a number of months and we think it will provide something awesome to the online tournament scene and an entertaining event for the viewers. Join us on July 24th live for the first edition and on Youtube for spoiler-free VoDs. We will be revealing some of the players who will participate over the next month, but of course some will remain a mystery until they appear during the event.
On January 17 2017 10:06 Ctone23 wrote: Really excited to see The Kings Bounty play out, I think it really changes the way players will approach matches. Awesome all around.
It makes it more exciting for viewers, but I don't see how it would affect the players' approach.
On January 17 2017 10:06 Ctone23 wrote: Really excited to see The Kings Bounty play out, I think it really changes the way players will approach matches. Awesome all around.
It makes it more exciting for viewers, but I don't see how it would affect the players' approach.
More money on the line so I imagine players will be more liberal in their build choices, that was my thought anyway. $350 per map win is plenty of incentive to get creative, but playing ByuN for example on a 10 map streak really spices things up imo.
ShoutCraft January is scheduled for the worst day it could be, the day for the qualifiers of the IEM. All servers, by the way.
May be many koreans will end their road in the qualifiers by that time, but 16 EU players will start their qualifiers about the time of the ShoutCraft time, and I guess NA players will be preparing for their qualifiers.
At least we'll see many koreans and many games on the korean server this time, even though this event is a kind of a challenge for the foreigners as it is one of not that many where the best koreans participate as well as the best foreigners.
On January 25 2017 20:26 bulya wrote: ShoutCraft January is scheduled for the worst day it could be, the day for the qualifiers of the IEM. All servers, by the way.
May be many koreans will end their road in the qualifiers by that time, but 16 EU players will start their qualifiers about the time of the ShoutCraft time, and I guess NA players will be preparing for their qualifiers.
At least we'll see many koreans and many games on the korean server this time, even though this event is a kind of a challenge for the foreigners as it is one of not that many where the best koreans participate as well as the best foreigners.
Shoutcraft was announced first and TB said in the past he wouldn't budge just because it overlaps with something else. But I'm sure he'll still get a great lineup.
On January 25 2017 20:26 bulya wrote: ShoutCraft January is scheduled for the worst day it could be, the day for the qualifiers of the IEM. All servers, by the way.
May be many koreans will end their road in the qualifiers by that time, but 16 EU players will start their qualifiers about the time of the ShoutCraft time, and I guess NA players will be preparing for their qualifiers.
At least we'll see many koreans and many games on the korean server this time, even though this event is a kind of a challenge for the foreigners as it is one of not that many where the best koreans participate as well as the best foreigners.
We have had no issues what so ever getting a lineup laden with champions for this event. We will broadcast as the KR qualifiers end. We are unconcerned about the other regional qualifiers that day.
On January 25 2017 20:26 bulya wrote: ShoutCraft January is scheduled for the worst day it could be, the day for the qualifiers of the IEM. All servers, by the way.
May be many koreans will end their road in the qualifiers by that time, but 16 EU players will start their qualifiers about the time of the ShoutCraft time, and I guess NA players will be preparing for their qualifiers.
At least we'll see many koreans and many games on the korean server this time, even though this event is a kind of a challenge for the foreigners as it is one of not that many where the best koreans participate as well as the best foreigners.
We have had no issues what so ever getting a lineup laden with champions for this event. We will broadcast as the KR qualifiers end. We are unconcerned about the other regional qualifiers that day.
I'm sure you'll have a great collection of players and I'm looking forward to the event regardless, but it would be sad if SHOUTcraft Kings favorite and current probable best player in the world INnoVation can't make it because it interferes with the European qualifier or he just wants a break between the Korean qualifier and the European.
On January 26 2017 11:45 DieuCure wrote: The best player is TY i think, he is the only one with a decent performance since the release
After Cure btw but he is outside category
I was expecting so much from Cure after Maru said he wasn't confident in his TvT since he kept get wrecked in practice which I assume meant against Cure, but that obviously didn't translate over to his GSL group.
On January 25 2017 20:26 bulya wrote: ShoutCraft January is scheduled for the worst day it could be, the day for the qualifiers of the IEM. All servers, by the way.
May be many koreans will end their road in the qualifiers by that time, but 16 EU players will start their qualifiers about the time of the ShoutCraft time, and I guess NA players will be preparing for their qualifiers.
At least we'll see many koreans and many games on the korean server this time, even though this event is a kind of a challenge for the foreigners as it is one of not that many where the best koreans participate as well as the best foreigners.
We have had no issues what so ever getting a lineup laden with champions for this event. We will broadcast as the KR qualifiers end. We are unconcerned about the other regional qualifiers that day.
I'm sure you'll have a great collection of players and I'm looking forward to the event regardless, but it would be sad if SHOUTcraft Kings favorite and current probable best player in the world INnoVation can't make it because it interferes with the European qualifier or he just wants a break between the Korean qualifier and the European.
Innovation will play in our event this Saturday.
If we have a lack of European players, we will just get more Koreans and Americans. Ultimately there's little we can do when IEM blankets an entire weekend from top to bottom in qualifiers that they scheduled at short notice without consulting any other events before they did so. Qualifiers already suffer weak viewership as it is, going head to head with our event will only result in that viewership going down even further.
Wow, while that's great to hear, I kinda feel bad for Innovation having to play so many games back-to-back. Then again, he's played 22 games in a row, twice, for GSLTV, so I guess he's used to it.
Not sure if Inno is the best atm, since Maru, TY, and Dark are also looking extremely strong. But he's definitely a contender for #1.
If you guys want to be cruel and you do, you should give Scarlett a chance to avenge her absolute dismantling at WESG by pitting her first against Maru if he's on your list. Then if Maru wins, give him TY if he's also on your list.
It's against TL rules to post Twitch emotes - you might wanna remove that.
edit: although it's odd since it's not in the TL commandments... I'll make a website feedback topic about this.
edit edit: I was just informed that it's stickied in the subforum but isn't visible on the sidebar, but it's present in the actual subforum if you click on it.
On March 11 2017 09:05 Elentos wrote: Well, some rather unfortunate news, Solar is barred from participating in the next two Shoutcraft Kings events after what happened in the Ting Open.
On March 11 2017 09:05 Elentos wrote: Well, some rather unfortunate news, Solar is barred from participating in the next two Shoutcraft Kings events after what happened in the Ting Open.
What happened?
ByuN and herO forfeited their Ting open group while Solar and aLive did not initially. Solar was told to stay around for a seeding match against aLive but told them he was going out with friends and forfeited too so the 3 players were punished with Solar's being the harshest I believe
On March 10 2017 23:41 BasetradeTV wrote: The summary of today's events:
Byun and herO forfeited a few hours before the broadcast was to begin, citing different reasons. To note, Byun forfeited BEFORE he knew he was locked out of his house.
Solar was notified of these potential forfeits and told to wait 15 minutes before it was confirmed. Fifteen minutes later, Solar was told he was to play a BO7 against Alive to determine seeding. Despite being told to wait, Solar said he was already outside with friends and couldn't play, so he forfeited. This forfeit was less than an hour before the broadcast was to start.
The punishment that is to be handed out to Byun and herO is an official warning and loss of invite to the BTSL finals.
The punishment for Solar as of RIGHT NOW is a loss of invite to the BTSL finals and AT LEAST an official warning, but further punishment could be given once Solar has been talked to about the situation.
Alive was willing and ready to play, and will advance to the RO8 in the winner's seed. Keen was the only person from the KR RO16 that responded willing to play and will be awarded the loser's seed in the RO8.
Bumping dis thread. A quick note to folks, the US has moved to Daylight Savings time, which means that the tournament will start an hour earlier than usual in other regions. On the plus side, since South Korea does not use daylight savings time, they start play at 9pm rather than 10pm, meaning the players should be a little less tired.
On June 08 2017 07:26 DieuCure wrote: I notice that all JinAir have been invited except Cure ( even when he was a beast )
I would guess that Cure doesn't like playing online tournaments. I mean, he hasn't been playing any despite having lots of free time in 2017. I'm assuming that Jin Air would let him since they've been letting Creator stream and play in them.
"See the best players from Korea.....and see them potentially lose in under 5 minutes to a Swede who's training consisted of Hearthstone and falling asleep to the Nathanias announcer pack on loop"
On June 22 2017 14:49 showstealer1829 wrote: "See the best players from Korea.....and see them potentially lose in under 5 minutes to a Swede who's training consisted of Hearthstone and falling asleep to the Nathanias announcer pack on loop"
The issue with having this right after GSL is that if you're unable to watch GSL live and don't like to have the results spoiled, you can't watch this live since GSL results absolutely will be.
Unfortunately, SHOUTcraft Kings that was expected to be held on Sunday, December 17th has been cancelled due to illness. We apologize for any inconvenience caused. We'll see you in 2018!
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/d6YR2xT.png)
aLive
