[MLG] Winter Season featuring Heart of the Swarm - Page 24

On February 02 2013 02:37 Doodsmack wrote:
Didn't the last IPL not have an open bracket? And it was a great tournament. Needless to say people like to complain for the sake of complaining. I just hope they're not under the impression that their complaining in this thread is consequential.

On February 02 2013 03:37 RemarK wrote:


Yeah just a bunch of whiners here circle-jerking about their hatred for MLG, I haven't read a single legitimate criticism yet. R)

On February 02 2013 03:37 RemarK wrote:


Yeah just a bunch of whiners here circle-jerking about their hatred for MLG, I haven't read a single legitimate criticism yet. R)

On February 02 2013 04:11 MLG_Adam wrote:
There is a reason we did not have Open Online HOTS qualifiers. We originally had spots for each region awarded by open online qualifiers.

There is always more to the story, and I'm curious to how this is going to shake out.

Regardless we have more to announce and this is again a format UNIQUE TO DALLAS.

On February 02 2013 04:11 MLG_Adam wrote:
There is a reason we did not have Open Online HOTS qualifiers. We originally had spots for each region awarded by open online qualifiers.

There is always more to the story, and I'm curious to how this is going to shake out.

Regardless we have more to announce and this is again a format UNIQUE TO DALLAS.

On February 02 2013 04:17 Necro)Phagist( wrote:

Keep being awesome MLG! Sad to not have OB for Dallas but also kind of glad. Open bracket is extremely taxing for everyone.Open online qualifiers before the event might just be a better route in the future anyway!

My only criticism... Why no HyuN invite?? T.T

On February 02 2013 04:22 MLG_Adam wrote:



Believe it or not we actually have an internal ranking based on global finishes from every tournament that occurred in 2012. We used that ranking to invite players per region.

On February 01 2013 02:21 MLG_Adam wrote:
We wanted to have huge open online qualifiers for each region but due to HOTS beta stability we had to run only invitational activity.

On February 02 2013 04:22 MLG_Adam wrote:



Believe it or not we actually have an internal ranking based on global finishes from every tournament that occurred in 2012. We used that ranking to invite players per region.

On February 02 2013 07:30 pureability wrote:
Oh btw. There is a 192 TEAM COD open bracket but no HOTS open bracket. Meanwhile there are I think 4/5 people on a COD team. MLG rocks.

On February 02 2013 09:53 MLG_Adam wrote:
To quote my boss…

“I get it”

I really do. I understand exactly why everyone is mad that there is zero open components to our Dallas competition. I can tell you with 100% sincerity that every single person at MLG (all 30ish of us) agree whole heartedly. We started out as an underdog in this space 10 years ago with the aim of making video games an aspirational, competitive “sport”. That trait as a company culture is still what drives us today and serves as the back bone of what we strive to do from a tournament offering.

So how did we get to the situation at hand with Dallas SC2? For starters, when we picked 3/15-3/17 as our first date of 2013 and went about sourcing venues, HOTS’ release date was not announced. The activity you see planned out now for Dallas was similar to our original plan for WOL that we had started dreaming up in 2012. However, the key difference was we had planned to have nearly all of the spots awarded via open competition within each region. When HOTS was announced for the same weekend as our event we immediately consulted Blizzard and we mutually decided that large open competition on beta servers might not lead to the best customer experience. So we improvised as best as we could to create the structure that we have now. We did an internal ranking of players taking into account every single global event in 2012 and meted out regional invites based on that hierarchy. While some of you might not like the new structure, it will still harbor many of the very best SC2 players based on 2012 global performance and we couldn’t be more excited about seeing it unfold.

I’d also like to point out some key items that we strove to fix based on community feedback, and just general milestones:

• “MLG books over other events” Early in 2012 we reached out to other organizations to ensure that any event we were planning to book was not in conflict with any other global tournaments.
• “MLG and GSL don’t like each other” While this entire situation was boiling publicly, behind the scenes we have always been on good terms with GSL. When I set about creating our 2012 structure, I reached out Mr. Chae and with his help we worked with directly with the ESF to include them in our qualification.
• “MLG and KESPA don’t want anyone else involved” KESPA will continue to be our partner and ally within this space. As we expanded out our league relationships, we were able to not only maintain our great KESPA relationship, but strengthen it through increased communication.
• “MLG’s production needs to step up” We agree. With 200+ open participants and TBD group results, creating a stellar broadcast was a hectic endeavor. Our goal for 2013 was to slow down and do more by doing less. What does that mean? It means I don’t want a great series to happen on the floor and no one outside of those in the room knows it even happened. Players deserve to be treated like stars and if in attendance to have their matches broadcast. So we set about exploring a structure that allowed us to prepare an incredible live event production and broadcast SHOW weeks in advance not the day of the tournament.
• “MLG looks like a trade show” Agree again. Expect our first complete event overhaul since 2006. Hell, since 2003 as the current iteration is the same basic floor plan that we have used since the beginning. Everything will be elevated this year.
• “Double elimination is not a great fan experience” We want every match to mean something and for our structure to be EXTREMELY easy to follow. Winner advances, loser goes home.
• Other items to note:

o $75,000 in prize money with 16 players earning money
o Every single qualified player will have a flight and hotel paid by MLG
o Enhanced broadcast experience. We’re not done announcing AMAZING broadcast perks for our events

So in conclusion, and to reiterate our previous comments on the situation: this format is being used ONLY for Dallas. We are not done announcing details for the 2013 season and I am very confident that many of the concerns will be squelched once they come to light. I know many people are not happy with us right now, and I know others are taking shots while we appear to be down, but I ask you to bear with us and understand that this is a very unique situation. We have ALWAYS had an open component to our season, and we will strive to do so in the future. Dallas will be an amazing kick off to Heart of the Swarm and I promise we will put on an amazing tournament and show.

Thank you for your support. This is our 10th year operating tournaments, and we could not have done it without our fans.