"The 2021 edition of Intel Extreme Masters Katowice hosting the Championship events for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, StarCraft II and Warcraft III: Reforged will not take place in Spodek due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Information for ticket holders is at the bottom of this post.)
All three tournaments are planned to be played without an audience, but as in person competition hosted on location in Europe. Should COVID-19 remain a major barrier to the safety of our talent, players and staff we will then revert to online play in Europe.
The competitions are intended to be played as otherwise planned (with the exception of a date change in the DreamHack Warcraft III Championship):
IEM Katowice: StarCraft II
ESL Pro Tour Masters Championship Dates: February 23-28 (unchanged) $500,000 prize purse 36 player tournament (format unchanged) Check the StarCraft II Overview for details.
We expect that winning IEM Katowice will be as difficult as it ever has been and that it will be the best competition it can be.
We are still looking at options for our future tournaments in 2021 and when we can bring our events back to arenas, and will look to provide an update on this in January 2021.
We understand that many of you have already purchased tickets and are offering these people two options: you may keep your tickets for IEM Katowice 2022 OR you are entitled to a full refund. Ticket holders can get the full information here.
We thank you for your ongoing support during these adaptive times and will keep you up to date. Be sure to follow us on Twitter and check our website for further updates!"
IEM will be releasing more information about the future of the StarCraft II Pro Tour tomorrow:
Should COVID-19 remain a major barrier to the safety of our talent, players and staff we will then revert to online play in Europe.
I gues online play in Europe means, that they would still fly all players from outside Europe in, just not to the same location? It s phrased a bit weiredly IMO.
Good to see that offline Event without an audience, simmilar to GSL is the intended solution. I belive it s the best option there is at the moment..
Katowice being played offline would be the best solution but playing on EU servers wouldn't be that bad if every player could be flown to Europe; a 500k cross server World Finals event, instead, wouldn't be acceptable.
I believe they could succeed in setting up an offline event, let's hope they will.
Great news until we get any travel restrictions. International sport events held in the USA for example are currently pretty weird and a lot of international athletes drop out. Hope that goes better with poland, really wanna have some offline StarCraft! Especially when its about the biggest tournament of the year.
Off topic: is EPT Finals THE tournament of the year for Counter-Strike? Kinda suprised they "only" got twice the amount of prizepool as Starcraft 2 does (especially concidering that they are 5 players per team)
On December 15 2020 00:38 SmoKim wrote: Thank Flash god it will be offline!
Off topic: is EPT Finals THE tournament of the year for Counter-Strike? Kinda suprised they "only" got twice the amount of prizepool as Starcraft 2 does (especially concidering that they are 5 players per team)
EPT Finals is not THE major tournament of the year for CSGO.
On December 15 2020 00:38 SmoKim wrote: Thank Flash god it will be offline!
Off topic: is EPT Finals THE tournament of the year for Counter-Strike? Kinda suprised they "only" got twice the amount of prizepool as Starcraft 2 does (especially concidering that they are 5 players per team)
EPT Finals is not THE major tournament of the year for CSGO.
Cool, is it The International/whatever Valve calls their event? or is that only for DOTA 2?
On December 15 2020 00:38 SmoKim wrote: Thank Flash god it will be offline!
Off topic: is EPT Finals THE tournament of the year for Counter-Strike? Kinda suprised they "only" got twice the amount of prizepool as Starcraft 2 does (especially concidering that they are 5 players per team)
EPT Finals is not THE major tournament of the year for CSGO.
Cool, is it The International/whatever Valve calls their event? or is that only for DOTA 2?
The International is just Dota. Valve does "majors" for CSGO, but they're run by the normal tournament organizers by bid. EPT finals just isn't one of the majors. It will be the largest tournament in early 2021 because valve canceled the Spring 2021 major though.
This is great news but will players accept likely getting quarantined to play in the tournament where half of them will drop out during the first day? In many cases it would mean almost a month of isolation - two weeks in Poland/Europe, another two back home. And if they will, who will cover the expenses for additional two weeks worth of accommodation for all the quarantined players?
Fingers crossed but it looks like a huge organizational challenge.
On December 15 2020 04:44 stardog wrote: This is great news but will players accept likely getting quarantined to play in the tournament where half of them will drop out during the first day? In many cases it would mean almost a month of isolation - two weeks in Poland/Europe, another two back home. And if they will, who will cover the expenses for additional two weeks worth of accommodation for all the quarantined players?
Fingers crossed but it looks like a huge organizational challenge.
In theory depending on how they organize things, players could play from quarantine in Europe which means they'll only need to quarantine on the way back. But that and obtaining visas will certainly be a challenge.
with SC2, isn't offline still online just with players on site? without audience it wouldn't make much of a difference for me. that said, it would be nice for the players if they can meet in person
On December 15 2020 16:25 MrMischelito wrote: with SC2, isn't offline still online just with players on site? without audience it wouldn't make much of a difference for me. that said, it would be nice for the players if they can meet in person
It evens out the conditions for the players which is a huge part of why we consider offline results to be much more valuable.
I mean offline is great and all but has ESL seriously considered the prospect for non-EU players to actually get a visa and travel to Poland? Like if somehow all the Korean players can't acquire a visa because the government says no what would ESL do about it?
On December 15 2020 20:31 yht9657 wrote: I mean offline is great and all but has ESL seriously considered the prospect for non-EU players to actually get a visa and travel to Poland? Like if somehow all the Korean players can't acquire a visa because the government says no what would ESL do about it?
As fair as I understand if travel to the location isn't possible, they'll try to get players as close to it as possible, so they can host on EU servers only which will minimize lag. Meaning somewhere in Germany, Sweden, Switzerland or whatever
Let's be realistic, offline is going to be extremely difficult for Korean and Chinese players. Plane tickets are super expensive, and at the moment non-EU residence can't fly to Poland afaik.
On December 15 2020 22:26 osliang wrote: Let's be realistic, offline is going to be extremely difficult for Korean and Chinese players. Plane tickets are super expensive, and at the moment non-EU residence can't fly to Poland afaik.
Travel is paid for apparently, there is a discussion going on twitter that the tournament prize distribution is extremely top heavy and then that came up. Still hope they address the distribution stuff
On December 15 2020 09:51 iMECH_KolosS wrote: Makes Sense. On a different note, have they announced in-game perks for watching the event ? Couldn't find info anywhere.
I doubt they will produce any in-game content after they announced SC2 is going into maintenance mode with no further development. If I recall correctly even the artist doing the portraits in previous years tweeted that there will be no portraits this year.
For non-EU players, through they may manage to get visa and have the ability to travel, it is even more difficult to find an airplane and necessary steps (such as nucleic test) to allow them to go back, and they would face another 2 weeks of quarantine at own expense after they are back to home.
ESL sometime back announced that they built a studio to do preliminary CS tournaments offline. Somewhere in western europe, don't recall the exact location. Maybe they'll use that for the world championship.
Will ESL announce the country and location of the offline studio soon? It takes long time for players of certain countries, such as China, to apply the visa. Yes, even announcing after DH Last Chance may be too late.
On December 17 2020 03:35 ooCast1 wrote: Will ESL announce the country and location of the offline studio soon? It takes long time for players of certain countries, such as China, to apply the visa. Yes, even announcing after DH Last Chance may be too late.
I'm guessing that IEM Katowice will be held in Katowice. Shot in the dark though.
The fact that this is offline is nice, but I can't help but feel like it'll weed out some players depending on their countries' covid situation (and visas etc.)
Korean apologists are going to be in shambles--if one of their players loses they won't be able to blame it on ping I guess "they just don't care" will have to suffice as an explanation.
On December 27 2020 22:28 mierin wrote: Korean apologists are going to be in shambles--if one of their players loses they won't be able to blame it on ping I guess "they just don't care" will have to suffice as an explanation.
On December 27 2020 22:28 mierin wrote: Korean apologists are going to be in shambles--if one of their players loses they won't be able to blame it on ping I guess "they just don't care" will have to suffice as an explanation.
Yep, and it's not like most of the EU vs KR matches are played on NA with similar ping to both as well
EPT
I guess "they just don't care" will have to suffice as an explanation.
