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Qualifiers for '2024 GSL Season 1' will be held on Feb 15th(Thu)
Details are as below.
■ Participation requirements
- Must be at least 12 years old
- Need to have a SC2 Battle.net account (cannot use your family's or friends' accounts)
- Masters/Grandmaster league players (Any Region)
■ Qualifiers information
- GSL Qualifiers application period: ~ Feb 12th(Mon) 23:59 [KST]
- GSL Qualifiers: Feb 15th(Thu) [KST]
- GSL Qualifiers location: online
- Only players who are in Korea are available to participate in GSL Qualifiers.
- Match schedule for each individual will be sent out via MMS & e-mail to each participant on Feb 13th(Tue)
■ GSL Qualifiers match format
- Best of 3 / Double Elimination format
- 16 players will advance
- Maps: 1Set [ESL] Alcyone // 2Set [ESL] Site Delta // 3Set [ESL] Oceanborn
Please accurately fill out the form below and send your application to gsl@afreecatv.com
- Full Name:
- Birth date:
- Country:
- Phone Number ID:
- KakaoTalk ID:
- Battle.net SC2 Account:
- Ladder Score:
- StarCraft 2 Character Name:
- Team:
- Race:
- Email address:
For any questions please feel free to contact us at gsl@afreecatv.com
Thank you.
AfreecaTV
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Hell yeah, finally confirmed. Let's go esports.
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ESPORTS !!
Would be cool if sOs qualified
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Hopefully we'll see PartinG play and qualify. It's going to be a big ask though.
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Now I wish I did take my company up on going to Busan this month 
Hopefully the stars align a second time this year for the next trip when Quals are.
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Northern Ireland27016 Posts
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Confirmed! Awesome stuff!
Though would have preferred that the Qualifiers could at least be online and non-region-locked so that players outside of Korea can try and play, and only if they are guaranteed a certain prize $ would they be required to be in Korea.
Would definitely make GSL more exciting to see!
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On February 01 2024 18:08 MJG wrote:
Hopefully we'll see PartinG play and qualify. It's going to be a big ask though.
He is No. 1 Stormgate player, so I doubt he has much time for SC2 right now
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Good luck to those participating in the qualifiers this week!
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On February 12 2024 23:01 dbRic1203 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2024 18:08 MJG wrote:
Hopefully we'll see PartinG play and qualify. It's going to be a big ask though. He is No. 1 Stormgate player, so I doubt he has much time for SC2 right now
Good for Parting. I hope he doesn’t waste his time and come back to SC2. Protoss has been in a sorry state for years now
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cheering for Parting! I guess this is probably starting in like 4 to 8 hours from now?
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No Parting, sadly. I guess he's fully a Stormgate player now? Honestly a bit surprising since he was playing in online cups a few weeks ago.
Keen is the only other significant absence. He hasn't really been playing anything but WTL and GSL (Qualifiers) so I wonder if he's retiring, Freecs would probably need some good bracket luck to even make it into the WTL with their current Keen/TY/sOS roster in any case.
Also absent are basically all Korean amateurs with Honmono being the only notable participant, this surprises me a bit. 23 players (with 2 forfeiting along the way) competing for 16 slots in what is essentially a quadruple elimination bracket (everyone made it into group stage 2 for free, even with 0 wins) feels silly. I'd honestly prefer it if they just let the top 12 from one season qualify for the next and have the bottom 4 duke it out with whoever's left. The result would probably be the same, and at least it would hide how shallow the Korean player pool has become. Looking at these brackets makes me kinda sad
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I'm surprised Nice and Rex played in the qualifiers, but they didn't manage to qualify.
The only other players that attempted but did not qualify are TY, sOs, Honmono, Polaris, and Villain. control seemed to sign up but didn't play any games.
Byun had a surprisingly difficult time qualifying, taking the very last spot, he even managed to lose to soO. The other final spot went to Nightmare.
Missing Parting is really sad.
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Saw this comment on Reddit about Parting
He's rank 1 on the Stormgate ladder and automatically qualified for EGC Stormgate Open on 17th-18th. First place price money is 80% of GSL, and 2nd and 3rd/4th are higher.
At least before crowdfunding prize money. If prize money get doubled for GSL, a win in the EGC tournament would still make him as much as second place in GSL, so maybe he'd prefer dedicating the majority of his focus to that.
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Dang, well it makes sense. Stormgate is fresh and exciting, he's finished his military and all. The time to capitalize on Stormgate, esp if he's #1, is now. Maybe he'll play some SC2 as well but would be smart to focus just on Stormgate for at least a few months and see how that game turns out.
Also damn having only like 23 players compete for 16... i was always curious why KR GMs didn't try more to qualify. I mean, i know it's hard to when you have very seasoned veterans, but I'd still think it'd be good exp to try and improve and just have fun too.
TY and sOs didn't qualify again? Nooo...
TY has been doing well in BW qualifying for ASL, really too bad he and sOs didn't make it yet again... there is only so many times you can fail before losing motivation.
I'm glad Creator qualified though (considering how he's inconsistent), whew. Congrats to soO and Nightmare as well!
And Stats made it too! Same with SHIN and DRG (players who sometimes don't make it).
Feels like everyone is here, except ofc it kinda sucks TY and sOs didn't fit. Even Ryung qualified... Ryung has became such a consistent GSL mainstay again since his breakthrough a couple years ago.
Well, it's nice to have such a balanced qualification! 5 zergs (instead of just like 2-3 lol), 5 protoss, 6 terran!
There is at least a little bit of freshness with Stats and soO making it, and DRG and SHIN not missing out.
Kindaa sucks no foreign players, no Astrea or Scarlette, but ofc it makes sense, and kinda good for KR if we let them keep the spots haha.
For sOs's first round, unlucky cus he had to fight Dark, TY, then Dark again in losers (cus Bunny upset Dark 2-1 in winners).
sOs then lost to Stats 1-2 in winners and Rex 1-2 in losers though... so i guess he didn't really have an excuse that time
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GSL should maybe reconsider their qualification process...three BYEs in each group on Round 1 is kinda crazy.
Or maybe just stop the qualification altogether and give out more free spots for the remaining few pros.
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6/5/5 .. very nice. Could be anyone's season, though Maru, Solar, Dark or Cure seem like safe bets. Looking forward to it. 
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I hope soO can get something done in the group stage. One of my favorite players ever and he really hasn't looked great recently so I'm taking that 2-0 against Byun as a sign of things to come
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2-0 Byun is indeed promising
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Why the hell are they making Nice and Rex play each other in the first round
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On February 16 2024 13:38 ssg wrote:
Why the hell are they making Nice and Rex play each other in the first round
Yeah rip. Probably just RNG, or maybe rigged xD
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I remember with each downsizing of GSL we were questioning if it was realy necessary
Seeing these qualifiers, where you had to get 1 or 2 wins in to get into GSL, I honestly think that even 16 spots are to many nowadays.
In like 1 or 2 more seasons just everyone who signs up, gets a spot by default.
The only part that remains actually challenging about qualifing is moving to KR for a few months
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On February 16 2024 21:40 dbRic1203 wrote:
I remember with each downsizing of GSL we were questioning if it was realy necessary
Seeing these qualifiers, where you had to get 1 or 2 wins in to get into GSL, I honestly think that even 16 spots are to many nowadays.
In like 1 or 2 more seasons just everyone who signs up, gets a spot by default.
The only part that remains actually challenging about qualifing is moving to KR for a few months
The root of the problem is that there's no new blood in the Korean pro scene for 10 years now. This is now compounded by the prize pool reduction so now foreigners like Astrea, Scarlett, and Special or Koreans who came back from military don't show up, further reducing the competition by quite a bit. Looking at the current GSL lineup, it's exactly 50/50 pre/post-military service:
pre-military: Creator, Nightmare, Bunny, Cure, Maru, Dark, SHIN, Solar
post-military: Classic, herO, Stats, ByuN, Gumiho, Ryung, DRG, soO
The only ones didn't qualify are military returnees sOs and TY, with PartinG rumored to be playing outside of Korea alongside Stormgate.
Quite a few people returned from the military but are now likely retired from SC2, such as Armani, Curious, Dear, Impact, KeeN, MC, Taeja, Bomber aLive, Innovation, Dream, Patience (and others who left who may/may not have served but have been inactive since 2022 like ByuL and Hurricane).
Currently serving military are: Trap, Zest, Zoun, Rogue, with Trap rumored to not come back to SC2. Zest and Rogue will probably come back.
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On February 17 2024 04:46 argonautdice wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2024 21:40 dbRic1203 wrote:
I remember with each downsizing of GSL we were questioning if it was realy necessary
Seeing these qualifiers, where you had to get 1 or 2 wins in to get into GSL, I honestly think that even 16 spots are to many nowadays.
In like 1 or 2 more seasons just everyone who signs up, gets a spot by default.
The only part that remains actually challenging about qualifing is moving to KR for a few months The root of the problem is that there's no new blood in the Korean pro scene for 10 years now. This is now compounded by the prize pool reduction so now foreigners like Astrea, Scarlett, and Special or Koreans who came back from military don't show up, further reducing the competition by quite a bit. Looking at the current GSL lineup, it's exactly 50/50 pre/post-military service: pre-military: Creator, Nightmare, Bunny, Cure, Maru, Dark, SHIN, Solar post-military: Classic, herO, Stats, ByuN, Gumiho, Ryung, DRG, soO The only ones didn't qualify are military returnees sOs and TY, with PartinG rumored to be playing outside of Korea alongside Stormgate. Quite a few people returned from the military but are now likely retired from SC2, such as Armani, Curious, Dear, Impact, KeeN, MC, Taeja, Bomber aLive, Innovation, Dream, Patience (and others who left who may/may not have served but have been inactive since 2022 like ByuL and Hurricane). Currently serving military are: Trap, Zest, Zoun, Rogue, with Trap rumored to not come back to SC2. Zest and Rogue will probably come back.
Damn, seeing all those names... and how many of them were still playing SC2 not long ago (surprising to me that Byul was around in 2022). GSL feels like it's been such a desert but really it's only gotten this bad the last ~2 years when Blizzard seemingly pulled out and GSL started downsizing a lot. Even around 2020 it was still really good, GSL was still really hard and foreigners including Reynor were still interested, there were players like Patience and Dream around, and military returnees like MMA Taeja etc. were trying to qualify... sad that out of all the SlayerS terrans, only Ryung was able to break through and start qualifying very regularly for GSL, props to him.
Really sad, and I hope and wish that Microsoft might decide it's worth it to inject $50k into GSL each season so they can help pay for the studio/production and to have 1st place prizes that are $15k + crowdfunding to hit $20k for 1st place, maybe even re-expand to Ro24... though, it's pretty sad that now it's too late to start re-expanding, so many good players will have given up or lost interest and not want to risk investing their time into practicing SC2, though if it lets amateurs start qualifying and making KR GMs interested, then it might bring decent new blood in as quick as a couple years. After all it's kinda crazy how well players like Percival and even Spear did a couple years ago when they qualified, and it's kinda crazy but sad that it seems they're gone now and not even trying to qualify anymore.
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Thank you! I don't post often, I'm a noob at the markup. I think I fixed it in the edit.
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On February 18 2024 11:14 Wilshire093 wrote:I'm going to be recording some VODs of the qualifiers from the replays and uploading them to this playlist if anyone's interested.
WOOO thank you!!
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On February 18 2024 11:14 Wilshire093 wrote:I'm going to be recording some VODs of the qualifiers from the replays and uploading them to this playlist if anyone's interested.
thanks! watching maru vs classic right now :D
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EPT
