Hello everyone! IPL5 is still months away, but it's coming back with a whole new format! This time around we are running multiple Satellites that will earn you a spot in our live event, and one Regional for North America, Europe, Korea, China, International, and International Amateurs that will earn you a spot in the tournament AND a free trip to the event!
Here is the list of online Regional qualifiers (these will have a small entry fee and will earn the winners free flights and hotels for the live event) Players must live in and be able to fly from the listed region at the time of the qualifier and may only play in one of the European, North American, or Korean Regionals:
European Regional - 1 Player North American Regional - 1 Player Korean Regional - 1 Player Amateur Championship (Amateur Regulations Below) - 1 Player International Qualifier - 2 Players Chinese Regional (Live Event) - 1 Player
Here is the list of Satellites (these will not have an entry fee and will not receive flights or hotels) These players will only earn spots in the live event. Players must live in the listed region at the time of the qualifier and may only play in one of the European, North American, or Korean Satellites:
North American Satellite – Top 8 Qualify European Satellite – Top 8 Qualify Asian Satellite – Top 8 Qualify International Amateur Satellite – Top 4 Qualify Team Arena Challenge 3 – Top 4 Players Qualify (The top 4 teams from TAC3 will each choose one player subject to our approval to enter the event)
Dates and Times
North American Regional – Saturday Saturday, May 26 7:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) (3:00pm EDT) European Regional – Saturday Saturday, Jun 02 1:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) (3:00pm CEST) Korean Regional – Saturday Sunday, Jun 24 6:00am GMT (GMT+00:00) (3:00pm KST Sunday) International Regional – Saturday Saturday, Jun 30 5:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Amateur Championship – Saturday Saturday, Jul 07 5:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00)
North American Satellite – Saturday Saturday, Jul 14 7:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) European Satellite – Saturday Saturday, Jul 21 1:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) Asian Satellite – Saturday Sunday, Jul 29 6:00am GMT (GMT+00:00) Amateur Satellite – Saturday Saturday, Aug 04 5:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00)
Amateur is defined by the following:
Amateurs must not have earned more than $1,000 in live events.
This rule were put in place to encourage new players to sign up and try to earn a free trip to a major tournament that they otherwise would not be able to attend. Players defined as Amateurs may also play in their appropriate Regionals if they choose to.
These Satellites and Regionals will provide us with 39 players total. They will be joined at IPL5 by FnaticRC.aLive, our IPL4 Champion, to make a field of 40. The format of IPL5 will be one large double-elimination tournament. Regional winners and FnaticRC.aLive will receive a seed into Winners Round 3. Satellite qualifiers will start as usual in Winners Round 1. More details about the format of IPL5 are still to come.
Sign-ups for these Regionals and Satellites will be available very soon, so keep your eyes open on TL, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and our site for information!
Please keep in mind that anything here is still subject to change! We will respond to feedback and suggestions, as well as try to answer any questions or concerns you may have about the new format. We are excited to open the doors to each region as well as amateur players all over the world to see who will earn their way to our next major event!
Stay up to date with IPL5, IPL TV, IPL Fight Club, and IPL Team Arena Challenge by checking our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch.TV!
Thank god, I found the last tournament format was terrible. Invites into pool play where they immediately win money is ridiculous. Having pure qualifiers (with the exception of aLive, which is reasonable) is definitely the best process and I love double elimination too.
Also, I think the qualifier restrictions (with the living and flying rule) is a better way of doing qualifiers than MLG.
Very exciting stuff! I guess the bit about "The top 4 teams from TAC3 will each choose one player subject to our approval to enter the event" just means that you won't let them send a player who barely contributed to TAC3?
One major question might be "Why the major sweeping changes to the IPL live event format?"
After IPL 4, we sat down and read as much of the feedback we could get our hands on. We ended up with the following goals for changing out event:
Have the format be simpler Have more distribution of players from around the world Have more coverage of the bracket
We feel like with these changes we've accomplished these goals. By only have 1 bracket, it makes it easier for people to understand how the tournament is progressing. Having region-specific regionals and satellites gives us a more varied player base. Having a smaller bracket at the actual event means that we can stream and cast a much higher percentage of the games, in addition to having the average quality of the games played at the event be higher overall. Basically we moved the live open bracket online and ensured the high quality of players actually at the event.
Does this mean that a player like violet plays in the NA qualifier and a player like Jinro plays in the Korea one because its based off where they live? Or is it based off of citizenship?
On May 16 2012 07:44 mrRoflpwn wrote: Why not invite the second place from IPL4? Squirtle is more than worthy of an invite.
Squirtle is absolutely worthy but there are tons of worthy players who deserve an invite. We ended up with the simpler choice of just inviting the previous winner from the last live event, which is a trend we plan on continuing, rather then taking up a large amount of the player spots with previous winners.
Cool, I like the changes, though I hope it does not adversely affect the level of competition too much. Interesting to see the addition of the amateur championships
On May 16 2012 07:53 Xeris wrote: Are these "regionals" held online? When is IPL 5 ? Do you need to be from the region, or just located there to participate ?
This is interesting news but it's still very vague.
The regionals will be held online with the exception of the Chinese Regional. IPL 5 date is TBA. Players must live in and be able to fly from the listed region at the time of the qualifier and may only play in one of the European, North American, or Korean Regionals:
This sounds so much better than the IPL 4 format! That's if , and I hope I understood this correct, all the players who qualify for the IPL 5 live event will have the same start and noone will have an advantage (seeded into pool play) like last time!
Loving that you will also have a good amount of players from each region and prevent koreans from taking all the NA spots. Damn MLG could really learn a lot from IPL!
On May 16 2012 07:53 Xeris wrote: Are these "regionals" held online? When is IPL 5 ? Do you need to be from the region, or just located there to participate ?
This is interesting news but it's still very vague.
The regionals will be held online with the exception of the Chinese Regional. IPL 5 date is TBA. Players must live in and be able to fly from the listed region at the time of the qualifier and may only play in one of the European, North American, or Korean Regionals:
clear for the regionals and you would have ruled it out, if its not like that, but...
@ the Satellites all players can participate in all Satellites? (so e.g. NA Satellite just means its played on NA server?^^)
edit: you might wanna change that?
topic: don't really like the idea of the Amateur thing, but ok, we will see how it turns out. Format: I don't like 'regular' DE brackets, too much luck... but yes, its simple so prob better
On May 16 2012 07:58 Champloo wrote: This sounds so much better than the IPL 4 format! That's if , and I hope I understood this correct, all the players who qualify for the IPL 5 live event will have the same start and noone will have an advantage (seeded into pool play) like last time!
Loving that you will also have a good amount of players from each region and prevent koreans from taking all the NA spots. Damn MLG could really learn a lot from IPL!
aLive and the qualifiers from the regionals will be seeded into Round 3 of the Winner's Bracket.
As much as I loved playing in the open bracket at IPL4, I really wasn't up there with a lot of the big names, there were WAY too many great games that no one still knows about (Ganzi vs Dragon, open bracket, game 2.) and this seems like a great way to address these issues. Also with how many people got shafted at MLG by not getting a player pass(not blamin them, was a big surprise) it seems like this needs to be the future. There are just too many great unknown players that need the chance to prove themselves.
this will certainly help address the issue of the tournament going way over the scheduled time slot, my biggest beef with ipl4. sometimes more isn't always better
Interesting. I like the smaller tournament since it means more of the tournament gets covered. Not really a fan of double elim though, some kind of group play into single elim still produces the greatest tournaments imo and the final gets so much more interesting when one player doesnt start with an advantage.
Cool idea with the amateur part, will see how it plays out. Although it seems like it could just end up being a few randoms making it there only to get knocked out, should anyone of the make it past a few round it would be really cool.
On May 16 2012 07:44 VirgilSC2 wrote: Not a fan of the lack of an open bracket
Especially with the qualifiers being this far out from the main event.
Yes, I completely agree with this. Especially with the way MLG Anaheim was handled, and probably Raleigh too with the NA Championships being there. Basically no major tournaments for the vast majority of NA player to participate in the rest of the year. This is sad.
On May 16 2012 07:53 Xeris wrote: Are these "regionals" held online? When is IPL 5 ? Do you need to be from the region, or just located there to participate ?
This is interesting news but it's still very vague.
The regionals will be held online with the exception of the Chinese Regional. IPL 5 date is TBA. Players must live in and be able to fly from the listed region at the time of the qualifier and may only play in one of the European, North American, or Korean Regionals:
So what about a Korean player currently living in the United States? What if he plays the North American Qualifier and could fly from the listed region at the time of the qualifier, but then goes back to Korea?
On May 16 2012 07:53 Xeris wrote: Are these "regionals" held online? When is IPL 5 ? Do you need to be from the region, or just located there to participate ?
This is interesting news but it's still very vague.
The regionals will be held online with the exception of the Chinese Regional. IPL 5 date is TBA. Players must live in and be able to fly from the listed region at the time of the qualifier and may only play in one of the European, North American, or Korean Regionals:
So what about a Korean player currently living in the United States? What if he plays the North American Qualifier and could fly from the listed region at the time of the qualifier, but then goes back to Korea?
That's the important question (that I was asking as well), because the NA qualifier has a specific date but IPL 5 is "TBA," kinda need to know the date of IPL 5 soon because Golden for example is in the USA right now and would qualify for the NA regional, but in August he'll probably be back in Korea... dunno what regional to sign him up for
It'll be interesting to see which koreans come over now because even with 8 kr qualifers, without paid flights, I don't know how many of those will be able to afford the flight. IPL went from paying for last invites, plus 2 gsl teams and having an open bracket, to now only paying for 8/40 flights and no open bracket. That's a lot of cost savings there compared to ipl 4.
WoW the word satellite really put me off at first.
These changes seem reasonable it always good to have more diverse player line up and i find it interesting that Alive is put to the winners round 3 it seems like a huge advantage.
This new format sounds really awesome. I also like how since the open bracket has become satellites and regionals, you can cast more of the games that go on. The region specific aspect is really cool, it lets a distribution of the best players from each area in, and we get to see stories like the winner of the NA vs the winner of the EU or KR, best of the west vs beast of the east kind of matchups. GL to you all with the new format and I hope IPL 5 gets to be the biggest one yet. IGN FIGHTING!!!
One problem I thought IPL4 had and it seems IPL5 might also have is that you are hosting the qualifiers without a date announced for the main tournament. I would be kind of mad if I played through a qualifier to win it and realize the date is one I can't be able to attend.
On May 16 2012 11:51 Corrik wrote: One problem I thought IPL4 had and it seems IPL5 might also have is that you are hosting the qualifiers without a date announced for the main tournament. I would be kind of mad if I played through a qualifier to win it and realize the date is one I can't be able to attend.
I have to say this is my only qualm with IPL too. I'm not a pro, but planning a vacation is kind of a big deal, especially if it will be in Vegas like IPL4 (pretty likely). It would be extremely helpful to know 3-4 months in advance (rather than 1-2) so that proper planning can be done.
So are the satellite qualifiers the amateur-only portion of the event?
In the post you say,
This rule were put in place to encourage new players to sign up and try to earn a free trip to a major tournament that they otherwise would not be able to attend.
does that mean that the regional qualifiers are also amateur-only? If so, then everything is amateur-only except FnaticAlive? O_o
You said there's only 1 bracket, so amateurs will be playing with the "pros"; they're simply just given a chance to attend, kind of like an online open bracket.
If there are only 40 spots total, how many of that will be "amateur-only" attendees ?
This rule were put in place to encourage new players to sign up and try to earn a free trip to a major tournament that they otherwise would not be able to attend.
does that mean that the regional qualifiers are also amateur-only? If so, then everything is amateur-only except FnaticAlive? O_o
You said there's only 1 bracket, so amateurs will be playing with the "pros"; they're simply just given a chance to attend, kind of like an online open bracket.
If there are only 40 spots total, how many of that will be "amateur-only" attendees ?
Amateur Championship (Amateur Regulations Below) - 1 Player International Amateur Satellite – Top 4 Qualify
to be frank I can see the quality of players in the international amateur group being as high as any of the other except the Korean. Certinly there is a huge amount of Korean players that hasnt made 1k in LIVE tourneys and still kick a metric ton of ass =).
Tournaments really, really need to stop seeding players deeper into the bracket. It creates an extremely unfair bracket that puts even heavier bias on certain players and makes it far less likely to see breakout performances. It's just bad and it needs to go. I think getting a free plane ticket to the event is more than enough of a reward for taking one of the regional qualifiers.
I actually like this. I'm sure that players who can qualify via the satellites may either already have a team who will send them, or based on said results earn a sponsorship for the tournament. Overall I like it a lot.
Shrinking the tournament doesn't improve anything but making it easier to stream every single match and cutting the costs of hosting a larger tournament IMO. From what I see it will be a 40 player double elim bracket.
On May 16 2012 13:23 RaiKageRyu wrote: Double elimination all the way?
Sorry, unsubscribed if the case.
Single elim isn't that lucrative if you are travelling from afar, which is exactly what IPL wants. They want players from across the globe to flock to IPL5 and make the tournament just as ridiculously competitive as it was at IPL4.
considering the number of koreans that participated in the NA and EU events of other tournaments (and the question of whether or not they should be allowed to), the restriction on living in the region they wish to participate in AND being allowed to participate in only one tournament was a smart decision. great job with the new format!
On May 16 2012 22:54 eXeElNino wrote: What if we have earned over $1000 from another game (BW, WC3, even other genres of games) ... would we be classed as amateur?
On May 16 2012 07:53 Xeris wrote: Are these "regionals" held online? When is IPL 5 ? Do you need to be from the region, or just located there to participate ?
This is interesting news but it's still very vague.
The regionals will be held online with the exception of the Chinese Regional. IPL 5 date is TBA. Players must live in and be able to fly from the listed region at the time of the qualifier and may only play in one of the European, North American, or Korean Regionals:
So what about a Korean player currently living in the United States? What if he plays the North American Qualifier and could fly from the listed region at the time of the qualifier, but then goes back to Korea?
That's the important question (that I was asking as well), because the NA qualifier has a specific date but IPL 5 is "TBA," kinda need to know the date of IPL 5 soon because Golden for example is in the USA right now and would qualify for the NA regional, but in August he'll probably be back in Korea... dunno what regional to sign him up for
On May 17 2012 05:41 Morrolan wrote: I also dislike the idea of no open bracket. The open bracket is where the stories come from.
They've transformed the open bracket into these online qualifiiers. Honestly, it's a lot better for the people who want to play in the open bracket - they don't have to fly out on their own time on a hope and a prayer. This way they basically are "through" the open bracket already and get to focus on doing well in the champ bracket.
The first event is this Saturday, May 26th for the North American Regional. This tournament has a $10 entry fee but the winner will receive free airfare and hotel for the upcoming IPL5 live event later this year.
Should've been open when you announced this thread. I checked for a few days afterwards as evidenced by me posting in the thread. But it's not like you check every single tournament organizers website every day, or happen to be browsing teamliquid during the 10 minutes where your thread was featured after you made that update post on May 22nd.
Too late now either way. See you the next available opportunity.
Is there any confermation that we've signed up? I signed up I think 2 weeks ago and almost tempted to do so again because I haven't recieved anything, other than that page following the application.
Can we get some confirmation as to when the finals will be and where? If they are going to be in August like people have been saying it doesn't seem like a lot of notice for people to take off work, book flights, and hotels, etc...
Asian qualifiers are going to be interesting since it's unpaid trips, so I see a lot of the koreans qualifying but then not affording to go, defaulting to people on foreign teams as replacements.
On July 29 2012 06:20 Canucklehead wrote: Asian qualifiers are going to be interesting since it's unpaid trips, so I see a lot of the koreans qualifying but then not affording to go, defaulting to people on foreign teams as replacements.
Over a third of the bracket is comprised of players from either Prime or NSHoseo. It'd be a bit sad if those teams weren't prepared to pay for flights in the event that their players qualified.
2) An IPL without Stephano? Does not seem right. And even though the previous winners of IPL are likely to get stomped, people (for the most part) want to see the guys like IdrA and White-Ra in major tournaments.
On July 29 2012 23:33 CooLWoLF wrote: Not a fan of this new format...
1) No open bracket? Boo
2) An IPL without Stephano? Does not seem right. And even though the previous winners of IPL are likely to get stomped, people (for the most part) want to see the guys like IdrA and White-Ra in major tournaments.
Yeah, if anything there is a lot more chances for players to qualify, like vVvGlon qualified via the IPL American Satelite, I doubt (no offense to him) that he would have qualified in an open bracket (which is possibly one of the most difficult things to get through, and players coming through them usually get knocked out really easily.
(Tournament starts Saturday, Aug 04 5:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00))
Among Korean teams, there is only one entrant (NSHSting; Shuttle is on LegioN now, but may well have registered while he was on NSHoSeo). I mention this because it was feared by some that this would be full of Code B Koreans (there are only about five in total out of the 46 entries in the bracket).
ipl announcement coming on monday! hahah considering how full november is, IPL5 will probably be on the 10-11 weekend? 3-4 is MLG and ESWC 17-18 is WCS world champs 24-25 is dreamhack winter
On August 10 2012 09:55 opterown wrote: ipl announcement coming on monday! hahah considering how full november is, IPL5 will probably be on the 10-11 weekend? 3-4 is MLG and ESWC 17-18 is WCS world champs 24-25 is dreamhack winter
This. Also, where is IPL5 even going to be held? Hoping for another Vegas show. :D
On August 10 2012 09:55 opterown wrote: ipl announcement coming on monday! hahah considering how full november is, IPL5 will probably be on the 10-11 weekend? 3-4 is MLG and ESWC 17-18 is WCS world champs 24-25 is dreamhack winter
This. Also, where is IPL5 even going to be held? Hoping for another Vegas show. :D
i think vegas yeah
IPL5 will take place in November at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.