• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 04:24
CEST 10:24
KST 17:24
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Team Liquid Map Contest #22 - The Finalists13[ASL21] Ro16 Preview Pt1: Fresh Flow9[ASL21] Ro24 Preview Pt2: News Flash10[ASL21] Ro24 Preview Pt1: New Chaos0Team Liquid Map Contest #22 - Presented by Monster Energy21
Community News
2026 GSL Season 1 Qualifiers11Maestros of the Game 2 announced32026 GSL Tour plans announced10Weekly Cups (April 6-12): herO doubles, "Villains" prevail1MaNa leaves Team Liquid20
StarCraft 2
General
Team Liquid Map Contest #22 - The Finalists Weekly Cups (April 6-12): herO doubles, "Villains" prevail MaNa leaves Team Liquid Oliveira Would Have Returned If EWC Continued 2026 GSL Tour plans announced
Tourneys
2026 GSL Season 1 Qualifiers Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament Master Swan Open (Global Bronze-Master 2) SEL Doubles (SC Evo Bimonthly) $5,000 WardiTV TLMC tournament - Presented by Monster Energy
Strategy
Custom Maps
[D]RTS in all its shapes and glory <3 [A] Nemrods 1/4 players [M] (2) Frigid Storage
External Content
Mutation # 521 Memorable Boss The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 520 Moving Fees Mutation # 519 Inner Power
Brood War
General
BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ Pros React To: Tulbo in Ro.16 Group A ASL21 General Discussion BW General Discussion [BSL22] RO32 Group Stage
Tourneys
[ASL21] Ro16 Group B Small VOD Thread 2.0 Korean KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 2 [BSL22] RO32 Group D - Sunday 21:00 CEST
Strategy
Simple Questions, Simple Answers What's the deal with APM & what's its true value Any training maps people recommend? Fighting Spirit mining rates
Other Games
General Games
General RTS Discussion Thread Nintendo Switch Thread Battle Aces/David Kim RTS Megathread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Starcraft Tabletop Miniature Game
Dota 2
The Story of Wings Gaming Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
G2 just beat GenG in First stand
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Vanilla Mini Mafia Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas TL Mafia Community Thread Five o'clock TL Mafia
Community
General
Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread YouTube Thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books [Manga] One Piece Movie Discussion!
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread McBoner: A hockey love story Formula 1 Discussion Cricket [SPORT]
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
[G] How to Block Livestream Ads
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Reappraising The Situation T…
TrAiDoS
lurker extra damage testi…
StaticNine
Broowar part 2
qwaykee
Funny Nicknames
LUCKY_NOOB
Iranian anarchists: organize…
XenOsky
ASL S21 English Commentary…
namkraft
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1751 users

$7000 Ultimate Series: Format & Schedule

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Tournaments
Post a Reply
Alex007
Profile Joined December 2010
Ukraine211 Posts
Last Edited: 2018-09-22 14:36:28
September 12 2018 11:16 GMT
#1
Ultimate Series: format, qualifiers, schedule

[image loading]

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):

[image loading]

Ultimate Series schedule (CEST time zone):

[image loading]

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!
Senior Product Manager for ESL SC2 Pro Tour
Thorix77
Profile Joined August 2012
Poland12 Posts
Last Edited: 2018-09-13 13:11:29
September 13 2018 13:10 GMT
#2
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
Profile Joined December 2010
Ukraine211 Posts
September 13 2018 13:51 GMT
#3
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.
Senior Product Manager for ESL SC2 Pro Tour
Thorix77
Profile Joined August 2012
Poland12 Posts
September 13 2018 14:49 GMT
#4
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
Profile Joined January 2012
Italy3651 Posts
September 13 2018 15:00 GMT
#5
(Wiki)Ultimate Series
ModeratorSC2 LP Admin - My Life for Aiur - Let the Metal flow - @Cynical_Death
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 1h 36m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft: Brood War
Sharp 1409
Stork 326
Leta 296
Tasteless 276
Soma 140
Mini 118
Hm[arnc] 116
soO 59
Backho 45
ggaemo 31
[ Show more ]
JulyZerg 28
yabsab 16
Sacsri 15
910 12
Bale 7
ZergMaN 7
Dota 2
XaKoH 498
ODPixel152
NeuroSwarm77
League of Legends
JimRising 560
Counter-Strike
Stewie2K1152
shoxiejesuss457
allub166
Super Smash Bros
Mew2King76
Heroes of the Storm
Trikslyr22
Other Games
summit1g9372
gofns8302
singsing1485
crisheroes191
Organizations
Counter-Strike
PGL102
StarCraft: Brood War
UltimateBattle 41
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 13 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH290
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• TFBlade666
• Jankos631
Upcoming Events
Escore
1h 36m
WardiTV Map Contest Tou…
2h 36m
OSC
6h 36m
Big Brain Bouts
7h 36m
MaNa vs goblin
Scarlett vs Spirit
Serral vs herO
Korean StarCraft League
18h 36m
CranKy Ducklings
1d 1h
WardiTV Map Contest Tou…
1d 2h
IPSL
1d 7h
WolFix vs nOmaD
dxtr13 vs Razz
BSL
1d 10h
UltrA vs KwarK
Gosudark vs cavapoo
dxtr13 vs HBO
Doodle vs Razz
CranKy Ducklings
1d 15h
[ Show More ]
Sparkling Tuna Cup
2 days
WardiTV Map Contest Tou…
2 days
Ladder Legends
2 days
BSL
2 days
StRyKeR vs rasowy
Artosis vs Aether
JDConan vs OyAji
Hawk vs izu
IPSL
2 days
JDConan vs TBD
Aegong vs rasowy
Replay Cast
3 days
Wardi Open
3 days
Afreeca Starleague
3 days
Bisu vs Ample
Jaedong vs Flash
Monday Night Weeklies
3 days
RSL Revival
3 days
Afreeca Starleague
4 days
Barracks vs Leta
Royal vs Light
WardiTV Map Contest Tou…
4 days
RSL Revival
5 days
Replay Cast
5 days
The PondCast
6 days
WardiTV Map Contest Tou…
6 days
Replay Cast
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-04-15
RSL Revival: Season 4
NationLESS Cup

Ongoing

BSL Season 22
ASL Season 21
CSL 2026 SPRING (S20)
IPSL Spring 2026
KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 2
Escore Tournament S2: W3
StarCraft2 Community Team League 2026 Spring
WardiTV TLMC #16
Nations Cup 2026
IEM Rio 2026
PGL Bucharest 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 1
BLAST Open Spring 2026
ESL Pro League S23 Finals
ESL Pro League S23 Stage 1&2
PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026
IEM Kraków 2026

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S2: W4
Acropolis #4
BSL 22 Non-Korean Championship
CSLAN 4
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
HSC XXIX
uThermal 2v2 2026 Main Event
2026 GSL S2
RSL Revival: Season 5
2026 GSL S1
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
PGL Astana 2026
BLAST Rivals Spring 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.