$7000 Ultimate Series: Format & Schedule

Alex007

Ukraine211 Posts

September 12 2018 11:16 GMT

Ultimate Series: format, qualifiers, schedule

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With StarLadder Amateur Series concluding this weekend and the total number of sign-ups coming close to the 2,000 players mark, we’re proceeding to announce general details of Ultimate Series – an international tournament with a $7000 USD prize pool, sponsored by Blizzard Entertainment.

GENERAL FORMAT. Three regional group stages held in Swiss Triple Elimination System, eight players in each of the regions (CIS, Europe, North America). Four winners of each regional group stage advance to global playoff.

PARTICIPANTS. Four players are invited into each regional groups stage. For CIS region, Ultimate Series 2018 Season 1 Round of 4 finishers are invited. For EU and NA, current WCS Challenger Round of 4 finishers are invited. If anybody rejects the opportunity, players among Round of 8 finishers of corresponding tournament will be chosen as a replacement.

Current invites status:
CIS - Rail, BratOK, HellraiseR, Kas
EU - Serral, Elazer, MaNa, uThermal
NA - Neeb, Scarlett, TRUE, MaSa

PRIZE POOL. $7000 is spread between all 24 participants as following:
1st place: $2000
2nd place: $800
3rd-4th places: $500
5th-8th places: $300
9th-12th places: $200
13th-24th places: $100

Note that prizes for participation are paid for the players to compete according to the schedule set by organizers and for always showing up in time. No games will be casted by replays. Please don’t sign up for the tournament if you might be unable to follow the schedule.

QUALIFIERS. Amateur Series Grandmaster league held at sc2.starladder.com is the qualifier for the Ultimate Series. To sign up for the qualifiers, you need to speak Russian (CIS region) or be eligible for European (EU region) / North American (NA region) WCS Challenger while also having an active in-game Grandmaster league account on the corresponding StarCraft II server. Follow our detailed step-by-step player guide if you have any difficulties.

Amateur Series GM will be held on the weekend of September 15th-16th and will consist of (up to four) GSL group rounds. Four winners of each regional Amateur Series Grandmaster league will be invited to the corresponding Ultimate Series.

NOTE: If you have earlier participated in WESG qualifiers organized by StarLadder, you might have some technical difficulties while signing up on our website as our Battle.net API integration has changed since then. Please don’t hesitate to contact us via starcraft@starladder.tv (or me personally via Twitter @Alex007UA, DMs are open) - we’ll make sure to assist you.

SCHEDULE. Current Amateur Series Grandmaster stage (Ultimate Series qualifiers) schedule looks as following (CEST time zone):

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Ultimate Series schedule (CEST time zone):

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COVERAGE. Amateur Series is fully open for community broadcasters - just follow our instructions and you’ll be good to go on September 15th. Ultimate Series coverage might be possible for major community broadcasters: if you are interested in covering Ultimate Series, please contact us via starcraft@starladder.tv. StarLadder will make sure to cover all tournament stages in Russian on our TwitchTV channel.

Good luck and have fun!

Thorix77

Poland12 Posts

September 13 2018 13:10 GMT

You can't do swiss triple elimination(I assume that is the format often used in cs:go events) properly with only 8 participants. As seen in ESL One New York 2016 https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/ESL/One/2016/New_York where in round 4 you had 2 teams with different scores play each other(which shouldn't happen) and these 2 teams played again next round(which again shouldn't happen).

Alex007

Ukraine211 Posts

September 13 2018 13:51 GMT

On September 13 2018 22:10 Thorix77 wrote:
You can't do swiss triple elimination(I assume that is the format often used in cs:go events) properly with only 8 participants. As seen in ESL One New York 2016 https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/ESL/One/2016/New_York where in round 4 you had 2 teams with different scores play each other(which shouldn't happen) and these 2 teams played again next round(which again shouldn't happen).

Yeah, the format will look exactly like ESL One NY 2016. We don't consider issue #1 (team/player with 2-1 competing against team/player with 1-2) to be major, while issue #2 is not set to happen - it depends on exact seending and results. Also, it's OK if players are matched two times in one group - this often happens in GSL group scenario.
Basically, 8-players STE is the plain analogue of 4-players DE which is exactly GSL group.

Thorix77

Poland12 Posts

September 13 2018 14:49 GMT

Oh I see, I'm glad to see it wasn't an oversight. Nice to see a fresh format in sc2, I swear every tournament lately has been GSL groups into SE bracket (where are all the double eliminations brackets).

CynicalDeath

Italy3725 Posts

September 13 2018 15:00 GMT

Ultimate Series

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