When inviting players, we created a system based on two criteria:

1. It had to be objective and verifiable. The system, once in place, should have no input from us.
2. The system needs to strike a balance between Korean players and players from the rest of the world.

With those criteria in mind, we chose to base the invites on the current EPT standings and have a 50/50 split between Korea and the rest of the world. We built one list of the highest ranked Korean players in the Korean EPT Standings and one list with the highest ranked non-Korean players on the Global EPT Standings. We then started at the top of both lists, inviting the players one-by-one. As you can infer from the final invitees, some Korean players declined invitations, but we are very happy with securing Zest and INnoVation as our Korean invitees.

EPT Points

In addition to the $30,000 prize pool, there are more than 1500 EPT points up for grabs. Here is the breakdown:

EPT Points Breakdown
Place	Points
1st	250
2nd	180
3rd	140
4th	110
5th - 6th	85
7th - 8th	65
9th - 12th	50
13th - 16th	35
17th - 24th	25
Total:	1,520

Qualifier Updates

Qualifier Sign-ups
The sign-up page for the qualifiers is now live. A hub with links to all the qualifiers can be found here on ESL Play. The Qualifier info thread has been updated with a direct link to the individual server qualifiers.

NA Qualifiers Update
After our initial post, several players reached out to us regarding the starting time for the North American qualifier. Both the EU and NA qualifiers are meant for players from both regions. With the current setup, North American players can fairly easily participate in the European qualifiers, but not vice versa. This was due to the starting time for the North American qualifiers.

After discussions with players and DreamHack we have decided to move the starting time of the North American server qualifiers from 23:00 GMT (+00:00) to 21:00 GMT (+00:00). The Qualifier info thread has been updated to reflect this change.

Korean Qualifiers Update
As a result of discussions with ESL and DreamHack regarding TSL5’s eligibility for ESL Pro Tour points, we have revised our participation policy for the Korean server qualifiers. Here are the new rules regarding participation in the Korean server qualifier:

This change was primarily made to offer players from regions such as East Asia or Oceania an alternative to the NA/EU servers to ensure they could play under fair connection conditions.

We believe this revised policy preserves TSL’s original goal of allowing broad international participation while also avoiding the ‘double-dipping’ issues of non-Korean players residing in Korea.

Feedback
Please leave a message here, or contact Julmust if you have any questions.

Let’s hear from you!

The TSL is looking for community casters for the qualifiers. If you are interested in sharing your voice with the world, check out this thread here