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Apollo, representing ESL and IEM, has finally posted their decision on how to handle the NA Qualifier fiasco.
Hey all, sorry for the delay on resolving this situation. We wanted to talk with all parties involved and ensure we were making the right decision. All stakeholders in this have been informed and are happy to proceed with our choice to resolve. As most of you know on December 12th we ran a qualifier for NA participants, at that time our main event in PyeongChang had a date collision with WESG with both happening through the dates of January 1-8th. WESG was a scheduled offline event in California between 1-4th and IEM PyeongChang was a scheduled offline event in PyeongChang, KR, between 4-7th meaning players who wanted to compete in both, couldn't.
We had players who were affected by the clash of dates and at the time we decided to ask these players which to choose between events and if WESG was the event they wanted to compete in we removed them from our IEM NA qualifier. Understandably this situation is very unfair to the players we decided to take time to resolve this.
After our original qualifier concluded on December 12th, we took discussions with WESG in attempt to resolve this and we were shared news to enable us with options to solve this. The end result is that this is resolved, there will be a follow on the how exactly early next week. Players who are affected by the situation are now able to compete in both events as originally intended.
Moving forward our solution is now to change IEM PyeongChang to become an 18player tournament. The players who qualified on December 12th retain their spot to complete in PyeongChang while we will also replay the NA qualifier on December 16th for the remaining players who were originally disqualified. The 4 NA representatives will compete against each other at IEM PyeongChang in a round prior to the Ro16 where two players will move forward to compete against the rest of the world.
Each of the 4 players will be awarded travel and accommodation to PyeongChang and we will also extend the prize pool from 1-16 to 1-18.
Thanks!
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Well done. Love the extra round before the ro16.
Hopefully ESL learns to reach out to other tournament organisers, that announced their events months earlier, to avoid conflicts like that in the future.
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that is... a pretty awesome resolution to this, tbh
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Austria24422 Posts
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That's.... actually a pretty good solution tbh.... not really penalizing those who fairly filled in the weaker bracket, not really penalizing those in other qualifiers who might suffer from a larger representation pool, and still giving the best players the chance to compete.
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Hats off to you guys, well handled and resolved!
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I'm surprised this was actually an option considering all the extra costs involved.
Now how do we get an admin to mess up the KR qualifiers to get extra Koreans at IEM PyeongChang... 
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Apollo is doing god's work. Single-handily saving SC2.
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Gentlemen's handling of the situation.
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On December 16 2017 03:30 ZigguratOfUr wrote:I'm surprised this was actually an option considering all the extra costs involved. Now how do we get an admin to mess up the KR qualifiers to get extra Koreans at IEM PyeongChang...
Haha that poor admin probably got some troubles for forcing ESL to spend more money
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China6331 Posts
And yeah this is a very elegant solution.
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2 additional spots for NA hype  meanwhile EU central has 1 spot
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Wow.....you post so fast when you just finished playing Showtime 5 minutes ago. I guess pros have high APM in real life too.
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Thank you to the person/people who worked as the peacemaker. Someday, in some unexpected way, I hope you see a reward.
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The only solution that made sense. Good on ESL for fixing it like this, looking forward to watching this tournament.
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Now bring back Khaydrian Amulet.
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Was checking the bracket for EU west qualifier, then central... basically only one top EU will go to korea vs 4 NA players... doesn't sound right...
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On December 16 2017 03:41 Nerchio wrote:2 additional spots for NA hype meanwhile EU central has 1 spot
Well let's make it a 32 player tournament and double all the slots 
Really well handled by iem and a better solution than I expected.
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Yay for lizard people, well solved
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Ro16 will still have only 2 from NA. This is a good resolution.
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Canada8989 Posts
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I appreciate them trying to accommodate everyone and being fair towards the players. Really good save by IEM, hopefully everything works out as planned moving forward.
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Nice save Apollo/Carmac/IEM. That's a really great solution.
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On December 16 2017 03:58 DieuCure wrote:
4 NA, 2 KR, lol
From what I understand the actual ro16 will end up being 2 NA 2 KR anyway
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Good solution thanks to Apollo I assume. Such a great guy. Missing him as a host. I wish we can have him back as a host for BlizzCon 2018.
Will see how this IEM turns out. Not a fan of country/region quota thing.
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On December 16 2017 03:55 ArtyK wrote:
Was checking the bracket for EU west qualifier, then central... basically only one top EU will go to korea vs 4 NA players... doesn't sound right...
EU is heavily over-represented compared to normal competition. 5 EU + Stephano. The country manip is real (admittedly, it does give the S Europe and African qualifiers better players).
Only 2 NA players get to be part of the top 16, so the others don't get diluted as a result. But anyways, I think maybe only two qualifiers for EU would have been better with two spots each (find the 5th somehow), but that is the drawback of getting more qualifiers than any other region.
I personally think the only region that will end up being heavily over-represented is South America, but it's also pretty harsh to just go all of that continent gets one person.
All of china gets exactly one spot... you know, the biggest esports country in the world.
Top 20 WSC last year 5 NA, 9 EU, 1 SA, 1 Oceania, 2/3 China, and True.
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On December 16 2017 04:55 curufinwe_wins wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2017 03:55 ArtyK wrote:
Was checking the bracket for EU west qualifier, then central... basically only one top EU will go to korea vs 4 NA players... doesn't sound right... EU is heavily over-represented compared to normal competition. 5 EU + Stephano. The country manip is real (admittedly, it does give the S Europe and African qualifiers better players). Only 2 NA players get to be part of the top 16, so the others don't get diluted as a result. But anyways, I think maybe only two qualifiers for EU would have been better with two spots each (find the 5th somehow), but that is the drawback of getting more qualifiers than any other region. All of china gets exactly one spot... you know, the biggest esports country in the world.
My problem is who gets to represent EU because of this, i mean, netherlands is central europe? Like i said only one top EU will be in korea. No offense to the others but 4 of our 5 best are in that central qualifier.
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On December 16 2017 04:39 Fango wrote:From what I understand the actual ro16 will end up being 2 NA 2 KR anyway
Yeah they basically extended the NA qualifier and added an offline portion in PyeongChang
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On December 16 2017 04:59 ArtyK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2017 04:55 curufinwe_wins wrote:On December 16 2017 03:55 ArtyK wrote:
Was checking the bracket for EU west qualifier, then central... basically only one top EU will go to korea vs 4 NA players... doesn't sound right... EU is heavily over-represented compared to normal competition. 5 EU + Stephano. The country manip is real (admittedly, it does give the S Europe and African qualifiers better players). Only 2 NA players get to be part of the top 16, so the others don't get diluted as a result. But anyways, I think maybe only two qualifiers for EU would have been better with two spots each (find the 5th somehow), but that is the drawback of getting more qualifiers than any other region. All of china gets exactly one spot... you know, the biggest esports country in the world. My problem is who gets to represent EU because of this, i mean, netherlands is central europe? Like i said only one top EU will be in korea. No offense to the others but 4 of our 5 best are in that central qualifier.
Yeah it should have been a combined EU qualifier, but it will be 2 top EU players. Serral and whoever wins Central.
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Or a global one !
But I'm happy that they thought about it
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On December 16 2017 04:59 ArtyK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2017 04:55 curufinwe_wins wrote:On December 16 2017 03:55 ArtyK wrote:
Was checking the bracket for EU west qualifier, then central... basically only one top EU will go to korea vs 4 NA players... doesn't sound right... EU is heavily over-represented compared to normal competition. 5 EU + Stephano. The country manip is real (admittedly, it does give the S Europe and African qualifiers better players). Only 2 NA players get to be part of the top 16, so the others don't get diluted as a result. But anyways, I think maybe only two qualifiers for EU would have been better with two spots each (find the 5th somehow), but that is the drawback of getting more qualifiers than any other region. All of china gets exactly one spot... you know, the biggest esports country in the world. My problem is who gets to represent EU because of this, i mean, netherlands is central europe? Like i said only one top EU will be in korea. No offense to the others but 4 of our 5 best are in that central qualifier.
Serral, Snute both are arguably in that top 5, both in Northern, with Serral advancing.
I'll admit that the Southern Qualifiers were particularly anemic, and the eastern was basically only Bly for any one of note. But the Western didn't look too bad either. Denver has been carving up online, even against top competition, and DNS has really been looking on point as well (not to mention ptitdrogo).
When it comes down to it... only 2 NA players will get to participate in the Ro16, which at best gives 2 of the top 5 there as well.
I'd rather have the top 4 from N+SA, but it is what it is.
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thanks dAppoloooooo
nice; major can stop complaining
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Beautiful resolution of an ugly mistake
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United States97276 Posts
that was the longest few hours of my life
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This is a great way to fix this. They acknowledged their mistake and essentially found a way to keep everybody happy. Well played!
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Big surprise, well done IEM!
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i think Apollo the diplomat and ambassador has surpassed Apollo the C&C champion.
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On December 16 2017 06:10 Shellshock wrote:
that was the longest few hours of my life
It felt more like two days than two hours.
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nice! mad props to apollo and his crew!
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The situation is slightly different, but I hope something happens for puCK too.
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Apollo saves esports once again
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Unfortunate but it makes sense, though he might be one of the invited players for the "I Got DQ'd From IEM" tournament to make up for it. (fingers crossed)
Otherwise, a pretty good solution. Now, is everyone going to start talking to each other and working together for planning big events going forward, or are things going back to being a mess, I wonder.
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So in fact you give a special bonus to players that were DQ? If whatever you are doing is right you have to put them through full qualifiers - if not what? You cannot give them special rights.
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So how did they solve the schedule conflicts between IEM PC and WESG NA & SA Qual. ?
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In my opinion, this is the best resolution possible. Honestly, I had significantly lower expectations.
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On December 16 2017 10:46 Kafka777 wrote:
So in fact you give a special bonus to players that were DQ? If whatever you are doing is right you have to put them through full qualifiers - if not what? You cannot give them special rights.
The issue is IEM straight up messed up, and yet they already held the qualifiers. You can't penalize the people who got through the weaker qualifier directly, they did exactly what they were supposed to,but you also have to deal with it.
Thus this option, where basically no one loses. Eventually only two players will still represent NA in the ro16, iem gets two more series, and no one loses money (minus IEM ofc heh)
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Hats off to both parties. Very well handled.
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Thiss is such a positive surprise. Usually these things never get resolved, big props to IEM and Apollo, thanks so much. It would not have been the same tournament without Need, Scarlett and Special.
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ESL is the best esport company even if they mess up things sometines like everyone
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The distribution of player sucks.
But after the rather bad handling of the situation, IEM to finally respond in a positive way, at least.
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Finland963 Posts
Props to ESL, good solution to a bad problem.
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Such a good solution.
I'm so impressed with how flexible ESL and IEM are
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After messing up royally they came up with a reasonable way to fix it. Cool.
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Very well handled!
Will players be able to compete in both if they qualify? Will they be able to make it in time since both are offline?
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On December 16 2017 23:18 Zephyp wrote:
Very well handled!
Will players be able to compete in both if they qualify? Will they be able to make it in time since both are offline?
This! I'm curious too
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I thought it was due to the conflict date of WESG AM qualifier and IEM, so is it not a problem anymore?
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Well done! 
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On December 17 2017 04:30 Gaofushuai wrote:
I thought it was due to the conflict date of WESG AM qualifier and IEM, so is it not a problem anymore?
"The end result is that this is resolved, there will be a follow on the how exactly early next week."
It's solved, but we don't know how exactly yet, more to come.
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Expected nothing less from Apollo and IEM, to be honest.
They do great things.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRGwnEVUEAAGNcO.jpg:large)
