The Global Finals of the StarCraft II World Championship Series (WCS) will return to BlizzCon in 2014, bringing all the passion and glory of one of the world's top eSports events. Last year, Kim “sOs” Yoo Jin broke out of the pack to stake his claim as Global Champion while millions watched. The journey to BlizzCon is only just beginning for this year’s hopefuls.
BlizzCon Structure
After three intense seasons of WCS competition, we will lock the WCS Standings and invite the top 16 players in the world to compete at BlizzCon, taking place November 7–8 in Anaheim, California. The players will have all of October to develop unique strategies and prepare themselves mentally for one of the most challenging trials of their pro-gaming career.
The 16 competitors will battle in a ruthless single-elimination bracket, where the WCS Standings determines each player's initial seeding. The championship round is a best-of-seven series, while all other matches leading up to it are best-of-five. The winner will be crowned the WCS Global Champion and earn $100,000, along with the admiration of the entire StarCraft II community.
All of the eSports stages at BlizzCon, including WCS, will be streamed free of charge on BlizzCon.com and Twitch.
Road to BlizzCon
You don’t need to wait until November to watch thrilling StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm competition. The best players regularly go head-to-head in the three WCS regions: America, Europe, and Korea. Based on how they place in each region’s WCS League, players earn points that are tracked through the WCS Standings. Players can bolster their placement in the Standings by traveling to Global Events --approved StarCraft II tournaments that reward additional points.
The journey to BlizzCon is a year-long process, and players will compete for more than $2 million USD in WCS League and Global Events over the course of 2014. To follow the full road to BlizzCon or get a glimpse of where your favorite player stands right now, head over to StarCraft2.com/WCS. There you can find:
Streams—Never miss a broadcast again. StarCraft2.com/WCS always has the latest WCS streams live.
Schedule—Want to find the best matches to stay up late for? Check our schedule for the entire season.
Standings—Only the top 16 players will make it to BlizzCon. Our WCS Standings page is where we track the points each player earns as they claim titles and crush competitors.
VODs—Our Videos page makes it easy to find the exact match you want. Sort by league, player, race, or a variety of other options to find the video you want to watch.
$100k grand prize 16 competitors Single elimination Best of five series Bo7 Championship round
I was hoping they would have the WCS finals happen over 2.5/3 days and that all games are played on a live stage. It was disappointing to not see everyone play who got eliminated. Do some matches on Thursday and spread it out some.
I expect at BlizzCon:
Legacy of the Void reveal Future Hearthstone content Heroes of the Storm released/open beta, map editor D3 future content, ladders, etc WoW...hard to say when Draenor will be released. Will it happen in Sept? After BlizzCon? Likely panels on patch 6.1, 6.2 and beyond along with talking about all the new content.
They may also announce stuff in August like they did with Reaper of Souls announcement, with all the information shown at BlizzCon.
On April 23 2014 04:29 n0ah wrote: Yeah, I said it's *barely* been out for a year...
You have a point, but based off of the timelines for WoL-HotS, it seems like a potential Blizzcon 2015 would be right before a LotV release, so that's too late for any reveal. I suppose I was only thinking in terms of Blizzcons - there's certainly room to do a reveal at another event around a year from now.
Heart of the Swarm was revealed Summer 2011, 10 months after Wings of Liberty was released Journalists and others were invited to try out the a couple campaign missions (Summer/Fall 2011) BlizzCon 2011 revealed the new multiplayer units, campaign missions and units playable (RIP ultra burrow charge) Units and abilities were changed between reveal, beta and release Beta Sept, 2012 No BlizzCon 2012 Heart of the Swarm was released March, 2013
There was a 21 month gap between reveal and release. Its possible to see at BlizzCon and still be a long time before it is released.
Warcraft 4 will be announced at blizzcon 2016. Warcraft movie should air on november 11th to increase the hype to unimaginable levels. The story of warcraft 4 will continue where the movie ended in order to force people into playing it to finish the story.
Warcraft 4 will be announced at blizzcon 2016. Warcraft movie should air on november 11th to increase the hype to unimaginable levels. The story of warcraft 4 will continue where the movie ended in order to force people into playing it to finish the story.
Didn't they say that the movie is in the Warcraft 1/2 timeline?
As someone who knows the frustrations of ticket sales (I'm a 2x attendee) I hope their 3rd party service (Everbrite) holds up to the 25,000 spam request that will look awfully like a DDOS attack on their servers.
Already had my money put aside weeks after the last Blizzcon.. I knew I was going over a year ago-- I was starting to worry since they hadn't released any details and they had canceled a Blizzcon before.
Anyone else looking forward to seeing JD break through and hopefullying capture a win at Blizzcon!
On April 23 2014 20:38 GENerateSAYing wrote: As someone who knows the frustrations of ticket sales (I'm a 2x attendee) I hope their 3rd party service (Everbrite) holds up to the 25,000 spam request that will look awfully like a DDOS attack on their servers.
Already had my money put aside weeks after the last Blizzcon.. I knew I was going over a year ago-- I was starting to worry since they hadn't released any details and they had canceled a Blizzcon before.
Anyone else looking forward to seeing JD break through and hopefullying capture a win at Blizzcon!
BlizzCon wasn't cancelled before imo. BlizzCon 2012 was never announced, they actually stated there won't be a BlizzCon early 2012, it was replaced by Battle.Net World Championship in China.
Warcraft 4 will be announced at blizzcon 2016. Warcraft movie should air on november 11th to increase the hype to unimaginable levels. The story of warcraft 4 will continue where the movie ended in order to force people into playing it to finish the story.
Didn't they say that the movie is in the Warcraft 1/2 timeline?
I was just guessing ^^. I have no idea except that it should really come out on that day.
On April 23 2014 20:38 GENerateSAYing wrote: As someone who knows the frustrations of ticket sales (I'm a 2x attendee) I hope their 3rd party service (Everbrite) holds up to the 25,000 spam request that will look awfully like a DDOS attack on their servers.
Already had my money put aside weeks after the last Blizzcon.. I knew I was going over a year ago-- I was starting to worry since they hadn't released any details and they had canceled a Blizzcon before.
Anyone else looking forward to seeing JD break through and hopefullying capture a win at Blizzcon!
BlizzCon wasn't cancelled before imo. BlizzCon 2012 was never announced, they actually stated there won't be a BlizzCon early 2012, it was replaced by Battle.Net World Championship in China.
Sorry but according to every wiki source and the official Blizzcon website : Blizzcon is an annual event--thus if they don't have one it would mean it was canceled for that year.
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Anyways, I'm still looking for any information on this new process from Eventbrite. Last year and previous years as well you just had to go to the ticket page and spam F5.
Any idea on what will change? What page will we need to break this year?
EDIT: I submitted a ticket to blizzard. Hopefully they will answer and I'll post the results in this thread.
On April 23 2014 20:38 GENerateSAYing wrote: As someone who knows the frustrations of ticket sales (I'm a 2x attendee) I hope their 3rd party service (Everbrite) holds up to the 25,000 spam request that will look awfully like a DDOS attack on their servers.
Already had my money put aside weeks after the last Blizzcon.. I knew I was going over a year ago-- I was starting to worry since they hadn't released any details and they had canceled a Blizzcon before.
Anyone else looking forward to seeing JD break through and hopefullying capture a win at Blizzcon!
BlizzCon wasn't cancelled before imo. BlizzCon 2012 was never announced, they actually stated there won't be a BlizzCon early 2012, it was replaced by Battle.Net World Championship in China.
Sorry but according to every wiki source and the official Blizzcon website : Blizzcon is an annual event--thus if they don't have one it would mean it was canceled for that year.
"In light of our jam-packed schedule, we've decided to hold the next BlizzCon in 2013."
"We didn't have a BlizzCon in 2006 either, and at that time we were really strong on the idea that BlizzCon isn't really supposed to be and doesn't have to be an annual event. Of course then we have it for five straight years in a row... which obviously built some expectation."
I'm expecting the final player list to be disappointing. The Season Finals gave out a HUGE amount of points and taking them away removes a lot of the points from WCS Korea players.
On April 24 2014 00:16 ZAiNs wrote: I'm expecting the final player list to be disappointing. The Season Finals gave out a HUGE amount of points and taking them away removes a lot of the points from WCS Korea players.
I agree that this change in the structure of WCS will dilute the player pool for the Global Finals. Still excited, though.
If anyone is interested in sharing hotel room space I got reservations at the Desert Palms (>1 block from the convention center) send me a PM if interested.
My 3 man group is arriving at 8pm local the night of Blizzcon (thurs) if anyone needs a ride to form the airport to the convention center or Desert Palms hotel feel free to PM for arrangements.
We will be making a quick(>20min) detour to CoCo Ichibanya for dinner- you're welcome to eat with us, or we can just grab it to go.
On May 08 2014 00:33 Wolfstan wrote: Unintentionally derailing into a blizzcon thread, apologies.
Regardless they'll probably still show some of the WoW movie content there at Blizzcon.
The WCS standings are looking pretty good so far but I'd really like to see some more showing from players like Maru, Innovation, and PartinG as I feel like players like Dear and HerO are falling away from that top 16.
If anyone has an extra ticket, I can help it off your hands. I wasn't on game with buying one. I was sleeping for the full 4 minutes they were on sale.
On April 23 2014 03:55 Antoine wrote: You figure there will probably be a LotV reveal, given timelines. Also interesting to me that the Heroes world championships will be there.
How is it interesting? Didn't they have an invitational for it last time as well?
On April 23 2014 03:55 Antoine wrote: You figure there will probably be a LotV reveal, given timelines. Also interesting to me that the Heroes world championships will be there.
How is it interesting? Didn't they have an invitational for it last time as well?
they had a hearthstone invitational, but heroes was first playable at last year's.
On April 23 2014 03:55 Antoine wrote: You figure there will probably be a LotV reveal, given timelines. Also interesting to me that the Heroes world championships will be there.
Hearthstone invitational was Artosis' chance to win Blizzcon, now it's Idra's turn.
EPT
