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ESL Pro Tour Revamped: Regional Divisions, Season Finals,…

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ESL Pro Tour Revamped: Regional Divisions, Season Finals, Bigger Weekly Cups

Text byTL.net ESPORTS
Graphics byESL SC2
May 13th, 2020 15:07 GMT

ESL Pro Tour Revamped

by Olli

ESL have announced a revamp of the ESL Pro Tour due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. As offline competition is made impossible by current circumstances, the Pro Tour will shift almost entirely to online play for the 2020/21 season, with a view of slowly re-installing offline play as the situation allows. While this much was expected, the particularly interesting news are a change of format for this season, as well as a boost in prize money for ESL’s weekly cups. Instead of four offline Masters events, the EPT will play out largely in regional online competitions, with global Season Finals, reminiscent of the 2013 WCS Circuit capping off every season. The circuit is still planned to finish offline at IEM Katowice 2021.

Seven Divisions, Three Seasons



The format change sees the international scene split into six divisions, each with their own points ranking similar to the split between international and South Korea previously. The South Korean circuit will continue to run unchanged. We were told that ESL’s main consideration in implementing this new system was to optimize playing conditions and competitive integrity and therefore avoid cross-server play wherever possible. As a result, every division is played exclusively on the home servers of its region unless both players agree to a different server. Players will keep previously earned EPT points and carry them over to the regional divisions.

The player pool of these divisions is not equal across the board, but rather based on ESL’s analysis of player pool depth of different regions — we were told Aligulac and an internal evaluation scheme were used to determine this. The leagues are split as shown below.

[image loading]

Each division is played across a season of three weeks; 25% of the player pool of each region will be invited based on EPT standings while the rest is determined through qualifiers. These invites will be sent out after the conclusion of the TeamLiquid Starleague 5, as that tournament awards EPT points. Every division has a slightly different format, from which a set amount of top finishers re-qualify for the next season. In Europe, for example, the top 12 of the division retain their spots in the league.

The formats for each division:
  • Europe: Four Round Robin groups of 8 players will feed into a 16-player double elimination bracket. The top four of each group advance; the top 12 of the final bracket retain their spots in the division for the following season.

  • North America: Two Round Robin groups of 8 players will feed into an 8-player double elimination bracket. The top four of each group advance; the top 6 of the final bracket retain their spots in the division for the following season.

  • Latin America, Oceania & Rest of Asia, China, Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau/Japan: Two GSL style, 4-player groups feed into a 4 player double elimination bracket; the top 3 of the final bracket retain their spots in the division for the following season.

Which region a player competes in will largely be determined by residency, meaning there will be no possibility for a player to switch regions unless their residency status changes. One concern and, as Apollo admitted, even potential weakness of the system, is non-Korean players currently residing in Korea. The EPT system will allow them to compete both in Korea and in their home region, although Apollo stressed they would have to compete on the server designated for each division unless both players agreed to playing on a different one. More detail will follow in the official rulebook that is to be published soon.

One of the concerns that came up in the development of this regional system, Apollo said, was a fear that ESL would “eat up” too much broadcast time and thereby push out smaller tournaments like Wardi’s online cups. To address this, ESL have consulted with a number of them and are planning to involve them in the coverage of the new divisions and qualifiers—instead of their own streams, they would then be working for ESL directly and be compensated that way.

Prize Money & EPT points

As a result of these format changes, prize money and points distribution have also changed, but the overall prize pool remains the same. There is still a total of $238,500 to compete for every season, now split as follows:
  • Europe: $84,000
  • North America: $38,000
  • Latin America: $17,200
  • Oceania & Rest of Asia: $14,100
  • Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau & Japan: $14,100
  • China: $14,100

  • Season Finals: $57,000

A more detailed overview can be found on ESL’s website.

Season Finals are back!



The Season Finals add an additional week to each season, with breaks in between every season to allow room for third party organizers to step in and contribute tournaments to the circuit. Three seasons are planned in total — Summer, Fall, and Winter, with a yet to be announced global tournament taking place in January, replacing the previously unannounced global event towards the end of the 2020/21 season. The format of the Season Finals has four GSL style groups of 4 players each, from which the top two advance into an 8-player double elimination bracket.

The sixteen spots at these Season Finals are distributed this way:
  • South Korea: 6
  • Europe: 4
  • North America: 2
  • China: 1
  • Latin America: 1
  • Taiwan, HK, Macau & Japan: 1
  • Oceania & Rest of Asia: 1

Asked about point allocation, Apollo says ESL want players to earn the majority of their points in the regular regional divisions as opposed to Season Finals. They should instead be viewed as a chance for the top players of each season to earn additional EPT points as a reward for their performance — at the very least these could make the difference in seeding at Katowice 2021. These Season Finals will be global, which means the top players from all international regions and South Korea will participate in them.

One interesting aspect we discussed with Apollo was the possibility of returning to offline play should safety measures be reduced or even removed. While he admitted the split into different regions makes a return to the previous EPT system impossible for the remainder of the 2020/21 season, Apollo left the window open for Season Finals to be held offline if the situation allows. All regional divisions will, however, remain online competitions even in that scenario.

IEM Katowice 2021: Mostly Similar



IEM Katowice, as well as the TBA Global Tournament in January, are still planned to take place offline. The format of the Global Finals at IEM Katowice 2021 will remain the same, but there are some obvious differences to seeding. There are still five direct seeds into IEM Katowice 2021. One of them has already been claimed by Rogue at Katowice 2020, another is on the line at the TBA global event in January, and the additional three go to the winners of all three GSL seasons. The other spots will be determined among the regions as follows…

[image loading]

ESL Open Weekly Cups



There will still be EU, NA and Koreans weeklies, but the prize pool of each will be increased by $300 per week, partially as a result of high interest and participation. These cups will also move from Sunday to Monday to avoid clashing with regular division play and third party organizers whose tournaments would also take priority on weekends. On a potential boost to EPT points for these weeklies, Apollo said it was an option ESL would continue to monitor, but they currently wanted to avoid inflating the importance of these weeklies and thereby “making the decisions for players” to compete in them. Points gained from these cups will remain global points and will therefore not be split into different regional points.




ESL are currently in talks with Blizzard to counteract map-hacking and other forms of cheating in its online competitions, a concern Apollo stressed ESL “take very seriously”. The official rulebook for the revamped EPT Circuit will be published by ESL soon. All information can found on their website.



Credits and acknowledgements

Written by: Olli
Photos: ESL

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TL+ Member
acoolguy
Profile Joined January 2020
1 Post
May 13 2020 15:11 GMT
#2
Very cool changes, happy to see that the weekly cups are getting some love after all the attention the community has been giving them. Apollo has done a great job so far!
dbRic1203
Profile Joined July 2019
Germany2655 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-05-13 15:23:13
May 13 2020 15:19 GMT
#3
On May 14 2020 00:07 TL.net ESPORTS wrote:
IEM Katowice, as well as the TBA Global Tournament in January, are still planned to take place offline. The format of the Global Finals at IEM Katowice 2021 will remain the same, but there are some obvious differences to seeding. There are still five direct seeds into IEM Katowice 2021. One of them has already been claimed by Rogue at Katowice 2020, another is on the line at the TBA global event in January, and the additional three go to the winners of all three GSL seasons. The other spots will be determined among the regions as follows…

[image loading]


So the number of points are irrelevant? If the 8th EU player has double the points than lets say Has or Cham, they still don t get the spot?
Appart from that point this looks pretty reasonable to me
I feel like they could easily put for example Taiwan and Australia together with one less spot and give that one to either EU.
MaxPax
ZigguratOfUr
Profile Blog Joined April 2012
Iraq16955 Posts
May 13 2020 15:22 GMT
#4
Heavily regionalized play to supplement the weekly cups and deal with server issues is a pragmatic call. There's a lot of changes here, and it looks like ESL put a lot of thouģht into this.
RPR_Tempest
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Australia7798 Posts
May 13 2020 15:33 GMT
#5
Very cool. Hopefully we get as many offline events as possible once corona dies down. The Australian scene in particular is in dire need of LANs.
Soundwave, Zerg player from Canberra, Australia. @SoundwaveSC
fastr
Profile Joined February 2011
France901 Posts
May 13 2020 15:38 GMT
#6
This looks very good overall, obviously a ton of hard work went into this, thank you Apollo.

The prize pool increase to the weekly cup is excellent news, but I'm a bit puzzled by the Monday switch. I feel Sunday was perfect for a lot of people, especially non-pros with day jobs who could compete on the weekend.

If I had to nitpick, I'd say giving China the same number of seeds (2) as latin america and tw/hk/jp/macau is a bit unfair. I would have gone 4/1/1 or 3/2/1. On the other hand, really happy to see most of the seeds going to Korea and Europe, where they should be.
ploguidice
Profile Blog Joined June 2013
United States230 Posts
May 13 2020 15:49 GMT
#7
On May 14 2020 00:19 dbRic1203 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 14 2020 00:07 TL.net ESPORTS wrote:
IEM Katowice, as well as the TBA Global Tournament in January, are still planned to take place offline. The format of the Global Finals at IEM Katowice 2021 will remain the same, but there are some obvious differences to seeding. There are still five direct seeds into IEM Katowice 2021. One of them has already been claimed by Rogue at Katowice 2020, another is on the line at the TBA global event in January, and the additional three go to the winners of all three GSL seasons. The other spots will be determined among the regions as follows…

[image loading]


So the number of points are irrelevant? If the 8th EU player has double the points than lets say Has or Cham, they still don t get the spot?
Appart from that point this looks pretty reasonable to me
I feel like they could easily put for example Taiwan and Australia together with one less spot and give that one to either EU.


I don't think there's any other choice with the way the league is set up. You could treat the regional leagues like Challenger and the Season Finals like Premier but then you're heavily weighting cross server play. I like the approach ESL took where they've allocated a set amount of spots to each region, and the players within that region are fighting for those spots.
I'm Joe
dbRic1203
Profile Joined July 2019
Germany2655 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-05-13 15:58:52
May 13 2020 15:53 GMT
#8
On May 14 2020 00:49 ploguidice wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 14 2020 00:19 dbRic1203 wrote:
On May 14 2020 00:07 TL.net ESPORTS wrote:
IEM Katowice, as well as the TBA Global Tournament in January, are still planned to take place offline. The format of the Global Finals at IEM Katowice 2021 will remain the same, but there are some obvious differences to seeding. There are still five direct seeds into IEM Katowice 2021. One of them has already been claimed by Rogue at Katowice 2020, another is on the line at the TBA global event in January, and the additional three go to the winners of all three GSL seasons. The other spots will be determined among the regions as follows…

[image loading]


So the number of points are irrelevant? If the 8th EU player has double the points than lets say Has or Cham, they still don t get the spot?
Appart from that point this looks pretty reasonable to me
I feel like they could easily put for example Taiwan and Australia together with one less spot and give that one to either EU.


I don't think there's any other choice with the way the league is set up. You could treat the regional leagues like Challenger and the Season Finals like Premier but then you're heavily weighting cross server play. I like the approach ESL took where they've allocated a set amount of spots to each region, and the players within that region are fighting for those spots.


Well, that s also true I gues.
At least they used Aligulac for it and not WCS Points from last year, as those were quite screwed by the challengers anyways..
It s defnatly not a perfect solution either, but all in all a reasonable one

Edit: In the Top 36 are exactly 18 Koreans and 18 Foreigners as well, so a 50/50 split makes perfect sense from that point at least. It s WAY more EU heavy though, but some compromises had to be made I gues. Time, Special, Neeb and Scarlett are the only non-EU foreigners up there.
So its
18 KR
14 EU
2 NA
1 Chinese
1 Latam
MaxPax
Andi_Goldberger
Profile Joined July 2018
Germany1608 Posts
May 13 2020 16:08 GMT
#9
I imagine a lot of this will run on Sundays so it only makes sense to move the Cup, why would they run 2 events on the same day.
I think this is the best overall solution. Reminds me a bit of WCS 2014/15, just scaled down obviously
~~~~~
Zzzapper
Profile Joined September 2011
1796 Posts
May 13 2020 16:26 GMT
#10
This is all very reasonable imo, the format seems like a good solution given the circumstances and the seed allocation is quite fair. Of course you can always argue about the details but in this case, I think it would be a question of moving at most 1 or 2 slots.

Considering the amount of Korean seeds (and taking the inevitable retirements into account), I think both Scarlett and Special should have decent shots at qualifying through KR which would be cool to see.
Musicus
Profile Joined August 2011
Germany23576 Posts
May 13 2020 16:32 GMT
#11
EPT weekly on Monday will be weird, but it's still better than overlapping with the bigger stuff on Sundays.
Maru and Serral are probably top 5.
HeroSandro
Profile Joined July 2019
530 Posts
May 13 2020 16:42 GMT
#12
Good job. Looks like we are going to have some great SC2!
stilt
Profile Joined October 2012
France2749 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-05-13 17:10:09
May 13 2020 17:07 GMT
#13
The regional approach all over again ? Damn this sucks. :/
If I understand corretly, risky and probe are favorites to go for the season finals alongside Maru, Serral, right ?
Nakajin
Profile Blog Joined September 2014
Canada8989 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-05-13 17:19:14
May 13 2020 17:11 GMT
#14
Great!

My only problem is with China having only 8 players/ 1 season final spot. I feel like you could have joined Taiwan with SEA and give only one spot for both. I don't think anyone from SEA has a real shot at beating anyone else at those season final. (Sorry probe )
With that said IDK what the lag is like from TW to Australia
Also is Mexico NA or Latam?

On May 14 2020 02:07 stilt wrote:
The regional approach all over again ? Damn this sucks. :/
If I understand corretly, risky and probe are favorites to go for the season finals alongside Maru, Serral, right ?


The real question is whether 60k is enough to get Maru to play in an online tournament.
Writerhttp://i.imgur.com/9p6ufcB.jpg
RealityTheGreat
Profile Joined January 2018
China564 Posts
May 13 2020 17:36 GMT
#15
Hope everything will go well.
Betrayed, forgotten, abandoned.
argonautdice
Profile Joined January 2013
Canada2719 Posts
May 13 2020 18:04 GMT
#16
Looks well thought-out and fair. My nitpick is that I'm not a big fan of the 8-person round robin group. I think 4-person GSL-style groups would be better because it can help the players to focus on studying their opponents better. Also the presentation is less confusing.
very illegal and very uncool
Mettis
Profile Joined June 2019
84 Posts
May 13 2020 18:05 GMT
#17
How much discussions have you guys had with other event hosts to have more events distribute points? Would be cool to have the Red Bull tournament give points like the ESL weeklys
ZigguratOfUr
Profile Blog Joined April 2012
Iraq16955 Posts
May 13 2020 18:22 GMT
#18
On May 14 2020 03:05 Mettis wrote:
How much discussions have you guys had with other event hosts to have more events distribute points? Would be cool to have the Red Bull tournament give points like the ESL weeklys


The issue there is that the Red Bull events aren't equal opportunity. The ESL Weeklies have an event in each region, TSL had qualifiers in each region (kinda and that also didn't go too well).

Whereas the Red Bull events are EU server events with Reynor set up as the final boss which works fine as a standalone event, but not so much when it comes to handing out EPT points.
Drfilip
Profile Joined March 2013
Sweden590 Posts
May 13 2020 18:33 GMT
#19
On May 14 2020 00:19 dbRic1203 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 14 2020 00:07 TL.net ESPORTS wrote:
IEM Katowice, as well as the TBA Global Tournament in January, are still planned to take place offline. The format of the Global Finals at IEM Katowice 2021 will remain the same, but there are some obvious differences to seeding. There are still five direct seeds into IEM Katowice 2021. One of them has already been claimed by Rogue at Katowice 2020, another is on the line at the TBA global event in January, and the additional three go to the winners of all three GSL seasons. The other spots will be determined among the regions as follows…

[image loading]


So the number of points are irrelevant? If the 8th EU player has double the points than lets say Has or Cham, they still don t get the spot?
Appart from that point this looks pretty reasonable to me
I feel like they could easily put for example Taiwan and Australia together with one less spot and give that one to either EU.

I think it would be hard for the EU to have many players with more points than Has since they are more people competing for the points. Has is isolated in a smaller player pool, separate from the EU pool. He competes for points the EU players cannot access.
Add to that the comment about season finals not being a dominant point giver. This means that the points the few great players in small regions accumulate have a bigger impact on the final total. Depending on point distribution it might pay off to be a big fish in a small pond. No need to care about Qui-Gon Jin's "there's always a bigger fish" in that situation.
Random Platinum EU
Waxangel
Profile Blog Joined September 2002
United States33388 Posts
May 13 2020 18:41 GMT
#20
Shades of WCS 2012 here by shifting focus to smaller, continent/region level tournaments. Quite interested to see how viewership is for non-Europe regions!
AdministratorHey HP can you redo everything youve ever done because i have a small complaint?
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