It's time to crown the first regional champions of the 2023/24 ESL Pro Tour, with all three regions of Europe, Americas, and Asia holding their playoffs over the upcoming week. As usual, it's not just prize money and EPT points that are on the line—six top-placing players will earn seeds and paid flights to the ESL Masters Summer championship, held offline at DreamHack: Summer in Sweden.
Overall Broadcast Schedule:(Start time for earliest match listed. For estimated start times in individual regions, check specific schedules below)
Wednesday, May 17 3:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00): Europe RO16 (1/2)
Thursday, May 18 2:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00): Americas RO8 (1/2) + Europe RO16 (2/2)
Friday, May 19 2:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00): Asia RO8 (1/2) + Europe RO8 (1/2) + Americas RO8 (2/2)
Saturday, May 20 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00): Asia RO8 (2/2) + Europe RO8 (2/2) + Americas RO4 & Finals
Sunday, May 21 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00): Asia RO4 & Finals + Europe Semis & Finals
It turns out that China Region is way, way better than ANZ/ RoA and Taiwan/HK Region. 0 Oceania players and only Nice + Has from Taiwan made it into playoffs
On May 16 2023 13:39 dbRic1203 wrote: It turns out that China Region is way, way better than ANZ/ RoA and Taiwan/HK Region. 0 Oceania players and only Nice + Has from Taiwan made it into playoffs
I would say MeomaikA is still on that Top 8 level and will probably make an appearance next season there. But in general, ANZ is just the worst region - not just in SC2, but basically in any Esports really...
On May 16 2023 13:39 dbRic1203 wrote: It turns out that China Region is way, way better than ANZ/ RoA and Taiwan/HK Region. 0 Oceania players and only Nice + Has from Taiwan made it into playoffs
Yes ANZ/RoA is not very competitive, though Taiwan/HK puts in the work with 2 players advancing to the Top 8 (if we think about a 2/3/3 split of the three regions qualifying for the playoff). It's more that China has a wide breadth of young, high-potential competitive players that took 7 out of 8 qualifier spots for the regional.
It's more of a crying shame that ESL decided the whole Asia region only deserves 1 guaranteed spot in the main event (it was 3 last year).
Those 3 spots that depends on Combined Standing will be a mess to figure out, given that each region has different EPT points for highest un-qualified spot. Asia got the advantage with 300pts, then NA got 275pts x 2 spots, EU got 265pts x 4 spots, and KR got 220pts x 2 spots. Those weekly cup will be huge here, but my guess would be another spot for Asia and 2 spots go to Europe.
On May 17 2023 06:13 Waxangel wrote: I'm going dig up old TL/Reddit posts complaining about Korean invaders in WCS NA and just replace the Korean ID's with Kelazhur
Something something about Kelazhur studying in Europe so therefore it's an EU invasion
If Clem can manage to knock out Serral, MaxPax winning esl eu looks incredibly likely to me… but his run will probably end at semifinals or a 0-4 to serral in the finals more likely.