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Maestros of the Game/2
Hello everyone !
Maestros of the Game is coming back with a second edition, we know you guys loved the 1st one and we're super excited to confirm we're going through with the second edition, all throughout June !
This time around we upgraded to a "proper" show venue in Paris called La Bellevilloise, with 320 seats all sold at the time i'm writing this post !
As with the 1st one, MoG2 will be a hybrid Online/Offline event but this time instead of inviting the whole field of players, we're hosting qualifiers to add 8 players to the top 16 of the previous season.
Format Rundown
Qualifers
8 qualifying slots, open to players from all servers
Preliminary stage :
8 Best-of-5 matches, winners earn their spot in the Group Stage
Group Stage (GSL Format)
Opening Matches are Best-of-3
Winners, Losers and Decider matches are Best-of-5 Top 2 of each group advances to Playoffs
Playoffs (Double-elim Bracket)
Upper Bracket Quarterfinals & Semifinals - Best-of-5
All remaining matches are Best-of-7
Grandfinal will feature a Best-of-7 with potential reset in Best-of-3 if the player from the loser's side wins the Bo7.
As last year, final four matches will be played live in Paris, this time at La Bellevilloise in front of 320 + hyped Starcraft Fans !
Prize Pool : $10 0000 potentially more if we reach the last stretch of crowdfunding up to $20 000
Who's playing ?
Top 8 from last season will get invited straight to GSL Group Stage :
Reynor Classic Serral Zoun Clem Bunny Showtime herO
Top 9-16 from last season will play in the Direct elimination Preliminary Stage against qualified players from the global qualifier.
Trigger SHIN Byun Ryung Solar Rogue Maru Lambo
When is it happening ?
The global Qualifier will take place on Friday, May 29th starting at 3PM CEST
Preliminary Stage will take place on May 30th starting at 1PM CEST and 31st starting at 3PM CEST
EDIT ! WE CHANGED GROUP STAGE DATES AND BRACKET DATES TO AVOID A CONFLICT WITH UTHERMAL'S 2V2 CIRCUIT PLEASE BE ADVISED !
Groupstage will take place Tuesday to Friday on June 2/3/4/5 One group per day, starting at 5:30PM CEST
Online portion of the bracket will happen on Wednesday to Friday June 10/11/12 at 5PM CEST
Offline finals will complete the entire tournament on June 27th, live in Paris.
Where to watch ?
Tournament will be cast in french on ComeBackTV's Twitch channel and as last year, it will be opened to community casting in other languages, list will be updated later.
We hope you are as excited as us to bring back another edition of Maestros of The Game, last year was a blast and featured some of the greatest games of 2025, the atmosphere was electric and we're confident we'll see it happen again !
If you wish to contribute to the Crowdfunding you can still do it and know that any participation is greatly appreciated, wether its a couple euros of more.
fr.ulule.com
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Thank you for organising this!
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Awsome!
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Hell yeah, looking forward to this.
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Crowdfunding is now secured !
41k at the moment with a goal of 45K to double prize pool from 10K to 20k !
We might have to change the dates of the online portion of the bracket to avoid conflict with Uthermal's 2v2 circuit.
The qualifier page is also live, everybody is welcome to register.
challonge.com
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this much crowdfunding wow. congratulations!!
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On May 12 2026 01:13 FunKa wrote:Crowdfunding is now secured !41k at the moment with a goal of 45K to double prize pool from 10K to 20k ! We might have to change the dates of the online portion of the bracket to avoid conflict with Uthermal's 2v2 circuit. The qualifier page is also live, everybody is welcome to register. challonge.com This is amazing.
20k Eur prize pool for a single iteration would make this the biggest SC2 tournament of the year (so far), wouldn't it?
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It is funded right? Let's make it this years World Championship tournament!
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Stretch Goal REACHED !
We just finished the crowdfunding last night with 45K secured, which means that we can assure that the prizepool for MoG2 will be 20 000$ !
We're really happy that we have been able to fund such a nice amount and we're confident that the event is going to look and feel even greater than last year !
If you feel like donating still, the crowdfunding page is in "overtime" right now which means that people will be able to donate until the end of May (which coincides with the 1st three playdays, being the qualifier and the preliminary stage)
That being said we have indeed some scheduling conflict with Uthermals 2v2 tournament and we will change the dates to let the players play confortably both tournament and not be a headache trying to fit everything in the same days.
June will be a busy month for the StarCraft fans :D Let us celebrate the amount of content and prizepool that will be up for grabs during that time !
I will edit the original post to reflect the changes to the schedule (group stage and online bracket will be modified)
Thanks a lot for the support guys and happy to see you guys are excited by the tournament, we're cooking quite hard at the moment to make it memorable <3
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France13015 Posts
Amazing news, kudos to the organizers and obviously all the donators Now that sc2 is officially in its grassroots phase, events like this help keeping the game alive and kicking
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On May 14 2026 02:40 Antithesis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2026 01:13 FunKa wrote:Crowdfunding is now secured !41k at the moment with a goal of 45K to double prize pool from 10K to 20k ! We might have to change the dates of the online portion of the bracket to avoid conflict with Uthermal's 2v2 circuit. The qualifier page is also live, everybody is welcome to register. challonge.com This is amazing. 20k Eur prize pool for a single iteration would make this the biggest SC2 tournament of the year (so far), wouldn't it?
Bit confusing. Liqiuidpedia says it’s USD. Does anymore know if is confirmed usd or euros?
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France13015 Posts
On May 18 2026 23:11 TeamMamba wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2026 02:40 Antithesis wrote:On May 12 2026 01:13 FunKa wrote:Crowdfunding is now secured !41k at the moment with a goal of 45K to double prize pool from 10K to 20k ! We might have to change the dates of the online portion of the bracket to avoid conflict with Uthermal's 2v2 circuit. The qualifier page is also live, everybody is welcome to register. challonge.com This is amazing. 20k Eur prize pool for a single iteration would make this the biggest SC2 tournament of the year (so far), wouldn't it? Bit confusing. Liqiuidpedia says it’s USD. Does anymore know if is confirmed usd or euros? Liquipedia (no d) is right, it’s 20k$/USD. Funka above said 20k$, the Ulule page also says it’s USD. Basically the crowdfunding is in € because the organizers are from France I guess (and Ulule might be too?), but the prizepool number was either 10k USD or 20k USD (and it’s the latter now)
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Yeah, I just wrote Eur above without much thought as it is a tournament by a French/EU organization, with offline finals in Paris.
Anyway, $20k prize pool is amazing, making it the biggest tournament of the year in terms of prize money, right?
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On May 20 2026 03:08 Antithesis wrote: Yeah, I just wrote Eur above without much thought as it is a tournament by a French/EU organization, with offline finals in Paris.
Anyway, $20k prize pool is amazing, making it the biggest tournament of the year in terms of prize money, right?
We hade the two chinese tournaments at the start of the year
Rongyi Cup 21.5k USD prizepool
Thunderfire SC2 Allstar/2025 50.2k USD prizepool
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preliminary Groups up, they will be doing a swap tomorrow though so we will have players change groups
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Maru switched place with rogue, group A & B looking hot
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On June 02 2026 01:19 Kreuger wrote:Maru switched place with rogue, group A & B looking hot Groups are looking great. This is the most complete and competitive line-up for a SC2 tournament in a while.
And the group stage already begins this week, being live right now!
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Maru need to stop playing that full turtling macro style now. While most Terran trying to get an early massive army on 3 bases and try to crush the Protoss before they get too far, hes trying to sit home on a worse economy and trying to survive all those attacks passively.
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On June 03 2026 02:42 tigera6 wrote: Maru need to stop playing that full turtling macro style now. While most Terran trying to get an early massive army on 3 bases and try to crush the Protoss before they get too far, hes trying to sit home on a worse economy and trying to survive all those attacks passively.
Doing his 2raxes against Trigger now atleast :D
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France13015 Posts
I am glad Maru qualified! We lost Reynor but this group was brutal with 3 favorites who might have a shot at the title, and a strong dark horse in trigger Games were pretty fun
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Tough group for Percival tonight! gl hf
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Serral & showtime to advance today hopefully
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Serral forgetting upgrade is a rare error. Game lasted way longer than it should have
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Game3 between Serral and Showtime was awsome
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Game 3 from the decider, Shin with the tactics :D
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Last in the group all 0-5 except our boy trigger who manage to take a game off Maru. Maru what a noob
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Busy day for Clem. Has to play 2v2 uthermal tournament and maestro at the same time
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Bracket playoff is up
Classic vs Lambo Clem vs Maru Serral vs Rogue Shin vs HerO
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France13015 Posts
Wow, tough bo5 between Maru and Clem, I only managed to catch game 5 and it was back and forth. Will try to Watch the vods. I am glad Maru pulled through (sorry French fans, Clem is a traitor playing protoss anyways)
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On June 11 2026 03:12 Poopi wrote: Wow, tough bo5 between Maru and Clem, I only managed to catch game 5 and it was back and forth. Will try to Watch the vods. I am glad Maru pulled through (sorry French fans, Clem is a traitor playing protoss anyways)
It was a pretty entertaining series. Messy chaotic cheese on both side.
I prefer these type of games than the usual macro games. Where we either see the toss rolls over the Terran with supreme economy. Or watch the toss suffer a slow death to mass lib ghost late game
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Serral on another all-star run against the Koreans. 3-1 vs. Rogue, 3-1 vs. herO, and next up we get Serral vs. Maru in the UB finals.
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On June 13 2026 01:56 Antithesis wrote: Serral on another all-star run against the Koreans. 3-1 vs. Rogue, 3-1 vs. herO, and next up we get Serral vs. Maru in the UB finals.
How were the games against hero?
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Top4 is done:
Maru Serral Classic Hero
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France13015 Posts
Wow, Clem got beaten up badly by herO. Turns out it's easier to beat terrans in PvT offrace than beating the top protosses as terran, so I am not sad for him Serral is the favorite but herO/Classic might cook something up?
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On June 13 2026 05:15 Poopi wrote: Wow, Clem got beaten up badly by herO. Turns out it's easier to beat terrans in PvT offrace than beating the top protosses as terran, so I am not sad for him Serral is the favorite but herO/Classic might cook something up? Funny that his pvt also denied him from advancing then isnt it
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France13015 Posts
On June 13 2026 05:23 darklycid wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2026 05:15 Poopi wrote: Wow, Clem got beaten up badly by herO. Turns out it's easier to beat terrans in PvT offrace than beating the top protosses as terran, so I am not sad for him Serral is the favorite but herO/Classic might cook something up? Funny that his pvt also denied him from advancing then isnt it  Not good enough for the GOAT Maru but far too close given the discrepancy in level
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On June 13 2026 05:46 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2026 05:23 darklycid wrote:On June 13 2026 05:15 Poopi wrote: Wow, Clem got beaten up badly by herO. Turns out it's easier to beat terrans in PvT offrace than beating the top protosses as terran, so I am not sad for him Serral is the favorite but herO/Classic might cook something up? Funny that his pvt also denied him from advancing then isnt it  Not good enough for the GOAT Maru but far too close given the discrepancy in level Is the Level really that far apart? Maru recently hasnt looked Like He is the Most on top of His Game (pre These Games) and clem Has been heavily practising pvt and Has the (arguably) 2nd best korean Terran on His Team. Edit: Clem is also Just a Generally extremly gifted Player in Terms of Speed etc.
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On June 13 2026 05:51 darklycid wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2026 05:46 Poopi wrote:On June 13 2026 05:23 darklycid wrote:On June 13 2026 05:15 Poopi wrote: Wow, Clem got beaten up badly by herO. Turns out it's easier to beat terrans in PvT offrace than beating the top protosses as terran, so I am not sad for him Serral is the favorite but herO/Classic might cook something up? Funny that his pvt also denied him from advancing then isnt it  Not good enough for the GOAT Maru but far too close given the discrepancy in level Is the Level really that far apart? Maru recently hasnt looked Like He is the Most on top of His Game (pre These Games) and clem Has been heavily practising pvt and Has the (arguably) 2nd best korean Terran on His Team. Edit: Clem is also Just a Generally extremly gifted Player in Terms of Speed etc.
I feel like Clem has been in a slump lately. He has been losing quite a lot of games here and there even in the weeklies.
Maru is Maru. He id usually the favourite against anyone except Serral. He just gets stomps most of the time
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Maru been doing better against serral latley though.
Sure he lost the last 5-1 but he won the 2 bo7 before that.
Dont think it will be onesided at all
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United States33681 Posts
Reddit saying finale will be played on 5.0.15 but can't find confirmation on official comms channels. Anyone got a link?
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On June 27 2026 10:29 Waxangel wrote: Reddit saying finale will be played on 5.0.15 but can't find confirmation on official comms channels. Anyone got a link?
Dont have any link. But Rotti confirmed it last night on his stream when casting bbb.
So looks pretty set that it will be on 5.0.15
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France13015 Posts
This matchup already feels impossible, luckily for herO they play on a rollback 5.0.15 patch Good luck Maru, Hopefully he takes at least 1 game
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Seems Like serral Has Maru figured Out again?
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Maru really hasnt felt Like His Champion self for quite some time.
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Maru just isn’t as good as he was before. He still good just not as unbeatable as before
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France13015 Posts
herO is playing like a monster Unlucky to have the heat wave during the tournament, but luckily it’s not as bad as previous days
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herO is going to pull off a miracle, win a BO7 PvZ against Serral, and then lose the grand finals reset, isn't he?
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France13015 Posts
Poor herO thought he had won the whole thing
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On June 28 2026 03:45 Elentos wrote: herO is going to pull off a miracle, win a BO7 PvZ against Serral, and then lose the grand finals reset, isn't he? All set for Serral to become champion by losing the finals 3-4
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On June 28 2026 04:20 Elentos wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2026 03:45 Elentos wrote: herO is going to pull off a miracle, win a BO7 PvZ against Serral, and then lose the grand finals reset, isn't he? All set for Serral to become champion by losing the finals 3-4  As was foretold
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Another amazing tournament with lots of energy and crowd chanting
The players looked like they had lots of fun too (except classic maybe)
GOAT Serral with another championship
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Congratulations to Serral for this 3-4 victory!
In all seriousness, he's so clutch and I feel bad for herO but herO has been winning so much lately so I shouldn't feel too bad here.
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lol I turned of the stream after the 4:1 Then today I open up TL.net to find out Serral has won
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France13015 Posts
On June 29 2026 20:29 Harris1st wrote: lol I turned of the stream after the 4:1 Then today I open up TL.net to find out Serral has won They should have explained to herO that it would be bracket reset, he lost all momentum with the akward trophy lift But I think bracket reset is a bad format for StarCraft 2, it can be hype on other esports but in sc2 it seems far too difficult, especially since you can use up strats in the first bo7
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On June 29 2026 20:29 Harris1st wrote: lol I turned of the stream after the 4:1 Then today I open up TL.net to find out Serral has won
Same thing happened to me at the first Maestros of the Game, when I was just letting the stream run along my Japanese learning play list... Serral wins 4:3 only to find out the next day that he lost 2:0 to Clem in the reset match, which I didn't watch.
On June 29 2026 20:36 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2026 20:29 Harris1st wrote: lol I turned of the stream after the 4:1 Then today I open up TL.net to find out Serral has won They should have explained to herO that it would be bracket reset, he lost all momentum with the akward trophy lift But I think bracket reset is a bad format for StarCraft 2, it can be hype on other esports but in sc2 it seems far too difficult, especially since you can use up strats in the first bo7
Yeah, that threw him off completely. Imagine not knowing about the rule and simply prepping for a Bo7, only to find out you have to go for another Bo3. Especially after already having played Classic and Maru in that French sauna.
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Poland3772 Posts
On June 29 2026 20:36 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2026 20:29 Harris1st wrote: lol I turned of the stream after the 4:1 Then today I open up TL.net to find out Serral has won They should have explained to herO that it would be bracket reset, he lost all momentum with the akward trophy lift But I think bracket reset is a bad format for StarCraft 2, it can be hype on other esports but in sc2 it seems far too difficult, especially since you can use up strats in the first bo7 I generally disagree and believe that lack of bracket reset is unfair to winners bracket winner who is the only person in whole tournament who got to be eliminated on first series loss.
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France13015 Posts
On June 30 2026 02:18 nimdil wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2026 20:36 Poopi wrote:On June 29 2026 20:29 Harris1st wrote: lol I turned of the stream after the 4:1 Then today I open up TL.net to find out Serral has won They should have explained to herO that it would be bracket reset, he lost all momentum with the akward trophy lift But I think bracket reset is a bad format for StarCraft 2, it can be hype on other esports but in sc2 it seems far too difficult, especially since you can use up strats in the first bo7 I generally disagree and believe that lack of bracket reset is unfair to winners bracket winner who is the only person in whole tournament who got to be eliminated on first series loss. Yeah if there is no advantage it’s completely unfair, that’s why 1 map advantage can be a decent tradeoff
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On June 30 2026 02:18 nimdil wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2026 20:36 Poopi wrote:On June 29 2026 20:29 Harris1st wrote: lol I turned of the stream after the 4:1 Then today I open up TL.net to find out Serral has won They should have explained to herO that it would be bracket reset, he lost all momentum with the akward trophy lift But I think bracket reset is a bad format for StarCraft 2, it can be hype on other esports but in sc2 it seems far too difficult, especially since you can use up strats in the first bo7 I generally disagree and believe that lack of bracket reset is unfair to winners bracket winner who is the only person in whole tournament who got to be eliminated on first series loss.
Group Stages having double elimination feeding into a single elim bracket already has the same discrepancy and no one cares. Groups are really nothing but a big double elim bracket. Just split the finals into its own thing separate from the rest of the bracket the way we do with groups. The purpose of double elim is making sure the second best player still makes the finals which is still accomplished with only the final being single elim.
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On June 29 2026 20:36 Poopi wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2026 20:29 Harris1st wrote: lol I turned of the stream after the 4:1 Then today I open up TL.net to find out Serral has won They should have explained to herO that it would be bracket reset, he lost all momentum with the akward trophy lift But I think bracket reset is a bad format for StarCraft 2, it can be hype on other esports but in sc2 it seems far too difficult, especially since you can use up strats in the first bo7
Simple just no loser bracket format. Once you lose your out
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Time to go full chess and do proper swiss tournaments .
But it'd be pretty boring to watch Serral win nearly everything.
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Even as a big Serral fan: Bracket Reset is just a hype killing format and honestly too big of an advantage. But I'm also not a big fan on these awkward "1-map advantages"-things.
I would still say the most elegant solution is presented to us via Valorant: Just give a Veto-advantage for the WB-Player. In this case, instead of both of them vetoing a map, only Serral would have gotten 2 vetos.
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United States33681 Posts
Honestly I'm 100% fine with 'true' double elim formats, and I think most of the discontent is just people disliking things that go against conventions/tradition within the scene (also think MLG extended series was a perfectly fine format, but people just didn't want to wrap their heads around it for some reason).
That said, people's attachment to existing conventions in a scene are a 100% valid thing to take into account, even if they may seem odd from an outside POV.
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On June 30 2026 12:39 Waxangel wrote: Honestly I'm 100% fine with 'true' double elim formats, and I think most of the discontent is just people disliking things that go against conventions/tradition within the scene (also think MLG extended series was a perfectly fine format, but people just didn't want to wrap their heads around it for some reason).
That said, people's attachment to existing conventions in a scene are a 100% valid thing to take into account, even if they may seem odd from an outside POV.
In general I don't prefer this over that. But having a TROPHY LIFT to then go and play another Bo3, that is just bullshit. Otherwise this was a great event on all fronts!
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Everyone seems to assume that nobody told hero the format. Is there any proof of that? I would guess that he was told, but there was a misscommunication due to the languege barrier.
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The bracket reset in the finals is just too much of an advantage in SC2. One player has to win 6 maps to become champion, in the most extreme case the other player could scrape through with just 2. On top of that, the matches are back to back and the vetoes different so you are likely down some builds with little time to come up with something.
I don't have an elegant solution that's not going to crash tournament schedules, but I wouldn't be opposed to organizers just trying something different.
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On June 30 2026 12:39 Waxangel wrote: Honestly I'm 100% fine with 'true' double elim formats, and I think most of the discontent is just people disliking things that go against conventions/tradition within the scene (also think MLG extended series was a perfectly fine format, but people just didn't want to wrap their heads around it for some reason).
That said, people's attachment to existing conventions in a scene are a 100% valid thing to take into account, even if they may seem odd from an outside POV.
I think the "problem" is that this convention essentially comes from WC3, atleast as far as RTS is concerned. But in WC3 the "Super-Advantage" in the finals wasn't that much of an issue, because everything was Bo3 anyway. But with more extended formats we got these awkward Bo7/Bo3 situations, that don't really make much sense
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How about the winner has to win two Bo3 while loser has to win three Bo3? Like a Bo3 is a set and 3 sets win the match? Similar to Tennis, Darts or whatever
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