ESL and DreamHack have today announced their plans for the second year of the ESL Pro Tour for StarCraft II. The Covid-19 pandemic forced changes upon the EPT mid-circuit in 2020 and, as the pandemic is still very much ongoing, it comes to little surprise that the current system of regional divisions culminating in Season Finals is maintained.
There are, however, significant changes to the organization of this system, including plans for the Season Finals of each season to be held offline in a studio — albeit without audiences, as it stands — and the removal of the ever-controversial region-lock ruling for Season Finals, the rule that previously prevented South Korean players from entering most international competitions.
With Season Finals returning to offline competition, their status in the EPT Tour is boosted in the 2021/22 season. The three Season Finals winners now qualify directly for the Ro24 of IEM Katowice.
Schedule & Points
The schedule for these five events looks like this:
DreamHack SC2 Masters: Summer 2021 — $170,000
Qualifiers: May 11-16
Regionals: May 19 - June 6
Season Finals: July 1-4
DreamHack SC2 Masters: Fall 2021 — $170,000
Qualifiers: July 20 - 25
Regionals: July 28 - August 15
Season Finals: September 9 - 12
DreamHack SC2 Masters: Winter 2021 — $170,000
Qualifiers: September 21 - 26
Regionals: September 29 - October 17
Season Finals: November 11-14
DreamHack SC2 Masters: Last Chance 2022 — $40,000
Qualifiers: December 14 - 19
Finals: January 11-16, 2022
EPT Championship: IEM Katowice 2022 — $500,000
February/March, 2022
The complete distribution of prize money and EPT points allocation is available on ESL's website. Perhaps the most significant change is that points awarded for Season Finals have increased massively: from a total of 1,370 EPT points per event to 4110. This increase, we were told, is due to Season Finals being planned as offline events in 2021. ESL and DreamHack were hesitant to put too many EPT points on Season Finals in 2020 due to concerns over cross-server issues. Further changes see prize pools reduced slightly, as well as EPT points being slightly reduced for the "weaker" regional divisions.
Season Finals to revert to Open Bracket events if Covid-19 allows
ESL & DreamHack have also formulated alternative plans, the realization of which depends on the development of the ongoing pandemic:
If COVID-19 remains a barrier, we will be required to revert these competitions back to global online tournaments the same we saw in 2020. If we feel more positive through 2021, our hope is that we will be able to take one of these back to a DreamHack festival. In that case, the tournament formatting would adjust to our familiar format from festivals of recent years with an 80 player tournament. The 16 players who would have previously qualified for the online/studio finals would now be deep seeded into Group Stage 3, skipping the first few rounds of the competition.
It was also confirmed to us that if Season Finals events had to be scaled back to online competition, points distribution would be reverted as well. Whether Katowice 2022 seeding would also change has not yet been decided.
ESL Open Cups continue unchanged, but will stop awarding EPT points for a while after the January 11 cups, due to the 2020/21 season concluding around that time. Points will be awarded again starting April 5th and will count towards the new season.
The Partial Demise of Region-Lock
While the rules for regional divisions remain unchanged, qualified experts previously pointed out that region-lock had, on paper, already been removed, but the residency or passport requirements still effectively prevented most players from switching regions.
These requirements do not change for the 2021/22 season, so regional divisions will still effectively be "region-locked". But where region-locked will fully be removed is with Season Finals reverting to Open Bracket competition as soon as the pandemic allows. Since the introduction of separated regions in WCS 2016, South Korean players have been unable to attend DreamHack Open and IEM events unless they were classed as "Global Events". This rule change opens up the Open Bracket stages of these international events — now Season Finals — to them.
Shaun "Apollo" Clark had previously stated that ESL and DreamHack felt "that StarCraft II is definitely in a position where a conversation about region-lock should be held. Our agreement and partnership with Blizzard was only completed recently, so it would have been a lot to ask for us to readjust and make any drastic changes to the existing system in such a short time. That means for the first season it will stay the same, but we are going to have an honest discussion about it for later seasons", and that he did not feel as if "the same fears of Koreans flooding tournaments and winning everything are still as relevant".
However, as the Covid-19 pandemic is still ongoing, it is unsure yet whether and when these Season Finals can be held at DreamHack festivals again. This means that due to the pandemic, it may be a while before the removal of region-lock actually leads to South Korean players participating freely in international events again. We were told that DreamHack had hoped to be able to hold Open Bracket competitions throughout the whole 2021/22 season but had to alter its plans due to the pandemic.
Changes to Seeding for Katowice 2022
With Season Finals, including the Last Chance event, reverting to offline play, seeding into the EPT Championship event in Katowice has been adjusted to reward offline performance. Where previously Season Finals only added to the EPT points, the four Masters winners now receive direct seeds into the Ro24 along with the three GSL champions. Thirteen more players are seeded into the Ro24 according to their EPT ranking, with twelve more qualifying for the Ro36 play-in stage this way.
removal of region lock which will see South Korean players able to compete on a regular basis in international SC2 tournaments since 2016
Similar to 2020, there will be reserved slots for South Korean players to compete in each of the respective tournaments. Another change we are happy to announce is that upon the return of DreamHack festivals South Korean players will be able to sign-up, travel & compete within the open bracket of these offline tournaments.
...so are there going to be EPT points only, or will there be region specific points next season too? It seems that Koreans have at least 3 tourneys where they can gather EPT points fairly undisturbed from EU/NA competition (GSLs + any GSL Super tournaments that may be added).
It would be good if the overall EPT standings were easier to understand next season.
On December 16 2020 00:18 BaneRiders wrote: ...so are there going to be EPT points only, or will there be region specific points next season too? It seems that Koreans have at least 3 tourneys where they can gather EPT points fairly undisturbed from EU/NA competition (GSLs + any GSL Super tournaments that may be added).
It would be good if the overall EPT standings were easier to understand next season.
On December 16 2020 00:25 ilax30 wrote: Only fair if gsl would make it easier for foreigners to play in it then as well if we are removing region lock no?
So what would you suggest that doesn't attack the prestige of the competition? By which I mean what's a good solution that doesn't enable cross server play, doesn't include outright invites and doesn't condense the tournament's entire schedule into about 3 weeks?
On December 16 2020 00:25 ilax30 wrote: Only fair if gsl would make it easier for foreigners to play in it then as well if we are removing region lock no?
So what would you suggest that doesn't attack the prestige of the competition? By which I mean what's a good solution that doesn't enable cross server play, doesn't include outright invites and doesn't condense the tournament's entire schedule into about 3 weeks?
Well, you make it sound like mission impossible. You're a smart guy and if you can't figure our a solution, I wonder who can.
But then, as a matter of principle, if foreigners cannot enter GSLs due to Corona and other difficulties due to the format, the GSLs should not be awarded EPT points on a global ranking. Or we have two sets of EPT points again, which at least I don't think is a good solution.
On December 16 2020 00:25 ilax30 wrote: Only fair if gsl would make it easier for foreigners to play in it then as well if we are removing region lock no?
So what would you suggest that doesn't attack the prestige of the competition? By which I mean what's a good solution that doesn't enable cross server play, doesn't include outright invites and doesn't condense the tournament's entire schedule into about 3 weeks?
Each season, there is a regional competition plus a global final, let's assume Code S is the korean one and everything is fine; however, GSL has three more competitions in Super Tournaments, which should be easier to play in as a foreign player.
The trick here is that EPT Korea points are ideally accessible to anyone but, in reality, you have to reside in Korea to play korean tournaments; since the spots to the Global Finals are allocated separatedly for each region, I don't see why the points for global tournaments count towards EPT Korea only. They should count for the standings of the region in which the players who won them play. If this was the situation, playing Super Tournaments not being a korean wouldn't realistically net you valuable EPT points; otherwise, Super Tournaments should provide global EPT points but this doesn't seem a viable option now that ST grants the only direct spots for the following Code S seasons.
On December 16 2020 00:25 ilax30 wrote: Only fair if gsl would make it easier for foreigners to play in it then as well if we are removing region lock no?
So what would you suggest that doesn't attack the prestige of the competition? By which I mean what's a good solution that doesn't enable cross server play, doesn't include outright invites and doesn't condense the tournament's entire schedule into about 3 weeks?
Each season, there is a regional competition plus a global final, let's assume Code S is the korean one and everything is fine; however, GSL has three more competitions in Super Tournaments, which should be easier to play in as a foreign player.
The trick here is that EPT Korea points are ideally accessible to anyone but, in reality, you have to reside in Korea to play korean tournaments; since the spots to the Global Finals are allocated separatedly for each region, I don't see why the points for global tournaments count towards EPT Korea only. They should count for the standings of the region in which the players who won them play. If this was the situation, playing Super Tournaments not being a korean wouldn't realistically net you valuable EPT points; otherwise, Super Tournaments should provide global EPT points but this doesn't seem a viable option now that ST grants the only direct spots for the following Code S seasons.
Since they're essentially glorified qualifiers for Code S now, the Super Tournaments could be stripped of their EPT points entirely. That leaves every region with their regional competition and the offline season finals for points (and if we're lucky, bonus content like TSL). Lack of smaller point gains from ST could incentivize players to participate in ESL open cups more frequently as well.
Either way I don't see a need to make GSL more open to non-Koreans because of the end of region lock.
On December 16 2020 00:25 ilax30 wrote: Only fair if gsl would make it easier for foreigners to play in it then as well if we are removing region lock no?
So what would you suggest that doesn't attack the prestige of the competition? By which I mean what's a good solution that doesn't enable cross server play, doesn't include outright invites and doesn't condense the tournament's entire schedule into about 3 weeks?
Each season, there is a regional competition plus a global final, let's assume Code S is the korean one and everything is fine; however, GSL has three more competitions in Super Tournaments, which should be easier to play in as a foreign player.
The trick here is that EPT Korea points are ideally accessible to anyone but, in reality, you have to reside in Korea to play korean tournaments; since the spots to the Global Finals are allocated separatedly for each region, I don't see why the points for global tournaments count towards EPT Korea only. They should count for the standings of the region in which the players who won them play. If this was the situation, playing Super Tournaments not being a korean wouldn't realistically net you valuable EPT points; otherwise, Super Tournaments should provide global EPT points but this doesn't seem a viable option now that ST grants the only direct spots for the following Code S seasons.
Since they're essentially glorified qualifiers for Code S now, the Super Tournaments could be stripped of their EPT points entirely. That leaves every region with their regional competition and the offline season finals for points (and if we're lucky, bonus content like TSL). Lack of smaller point gains from ST could incentivize players to participate in ESL open cups more frequently as well.
Either way I don't see a need to make GSL more open to non-Koreans because of the end of region lock.
But that would leave Korea with 7 major tournaments to collect EPT points and EU/NA with 4, no? Aside from the weekly and any bonus tourneys?
Each region has its separate quota, there's no need to worry about different regions having different amount of tournaments to earn different amount of points.
P.S. It was only a problem this season due to the cancellation of the 2nd global event.
On December 16 2020 01:40 FCHK wrote: Each region has its separate quota, there's no need to worry about different regions having different amount of tournaments to earn different amount of points.
P.S. It was only a problem this season due to the cancellation of the 2nd global event.
That each region has its own quota is true, but it seems that Koreans have the chance to increase its number of participants in the global final in a way that is not particularly fair, hence there is still a need to worry about having different amount of tourneys in different regions the end..
On December 16 2020 00:25 ilax30 wrote: Only fair if gsl would make it easier for foreigners to play in it then as well if we are removing region lock no?
So what would you suggest that doesn't attack the prestige of the competition? By which I mean what's a good solution that doesn't enable cross server play, doesn't include outright invites and doesn't condense the tournament's entire schedule into about 3 weeks?
Each season, there is a regional competition plus a global final, let's assume Code S is the korean one and everything is fine; however, GSL has three more competitions in Super Tournaments, which should be easier to play in as a foreign player.
The trick here is that EPT Korea points are ideally accessible to anyone but, in reality, you have to reside in Korea to play korean tournaments; since the spots to the Global Finals are allocated separatedly for each region, I don't see why the points for global tournaments count towards EPT Korea only. They should count for the standings of the region in which the players who won them play. If this was the situation, playing Super Tournaments not being a korean wouldn't realistically net you valuable EPT points; otherwise, Super Tournaments should provide global EPT points but this doesn't seem a viable option now that ST grants the only direct spots for the following Code S seasons.
Since they're essentially glorified qualifiers for Code S now, the Super Tournaments could be stripped of their EPT points entirely. That leaves every region with their regional competition and the offline season finals for points (and if we're lucky, bonus content like TSL). Lack of smaller point gains from ST could incentivize players to participate in ESL open cups more frequently as well.
Either way I don't see a need to make GSL more open to non-Koreans because of the end of region lock.
But that would leave Korea with 7 major tournaments to collect EPT points and EU/NA with 4, no? Aside from the weekly and any bonus tourneys?
Well EU and NA should get significant amounts of points from their regional events. So Korea has 3 Code S, EU has 3 Dreamhack EU, NA has 3 Dreamhack NA, etc. to get points in and all of them have the 4 season finals.
I think it's funny that ESL accidentally fell into having no anti-Korean region-lock this year, and none of the Korean elitists really noticed .
Instead, we basically had a system with a FULL region lock in 2020, with players being protected inside of the six EPT regions + GSL. Ironically, it was only third party tournament TSL that voluntarily kept the old, anti-Korean region-lock in place with its separated qualifiers.
Realistically speaking, we're not going to see the effect of a true, open-region EPT until 2022, when they shift the focus of tournaments away from EPT regionals and back to live DreamHack Open events. 2021 Is only going to have one such event (it seems), and even that may not happen at all if COVID continues to be a global issue.
I'm happy about region-locking being further reduced. What I'm not happy with, and has been maybe the central reason for declining levels of new pros, is the continuation of absurdly top heavy prize distributions for tournaments. I wish I could be the one to determine the distribution haha. For Katowice 2021 it would go as follows:
This lends itself to a much healthier scene. First place prize should not be 485 times more than 33-36, that is absurd. Even 35 times more in my distribution is a lot, but much more reasonable. Looking over it a second time, I think the distribution could be tightened even more. And this same idea should be implemented in all tournaments/regions.
Thank you ESL! Another Year of Starcraft II And we dont even have to wait for information till the end of the season. Isn't it great? Also hope HSC can give EPT points this time.
EPT![[image loading]](https://tl.net/staff/Olli/EPT_2021.png)
![[image loading]](https://tl.net/staff/Olli/EPT_Katowice_spots_2021_v3.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/HCC1DxK.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/nHRkxus.jpg)
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