Hi, everyone! I am Olivia Wong, Tournament Admin for Team Liquid. It is my immense pleasure to announce Shopify TSL 8! Although TSL 8 is not the first TSL I’ve worked on, it is the first TSL I will be leading alongside SeaGnome and Wyf. Together we are dedicated to upholding TSL’s legacy by making fantastic tournaments.
Speaking of legacies, it would be remiss of me to not introduce our production crew for TSL 8, who has an amazing legacy of their own within StarCraft 2. No matter if they’re in a studio or at a water park, the fun and casual atmosphere they bring to events make it feel like home…Yes, our production crew for Shopify TSL 8 is none other than TakeTV!
Of course, we cannot forget how this is possible in the first place: thanks to our sponsors Twitch, Secretlab, IMC, and Shopify!
We also have an additional sponsor we’d like to introduce: Twitch user Sifolyy! This particular individual has been a subscriber of our TLnet Twitch channel for over 110 months (or over 9 years!) and recently brought to our attention we haven’t been broadcasting on that channel. That’s why the entirety of TSL 8 will be broadcasted on twitch.tv/TLnet!
Congratulations, Sifolyy! You were the change you wanted to see, and to thank you for all your dedication we have added you to our list of TSL 8 sponsors! Once again please be sure to express your gratitude to our sponsors: Sifolyy, Twitch, Secretlab, IMC, and Shopify!
Thanks to some incredible additional support from our sponsors, the success of TSL 7, and the help of TaKeTV, we're happy to support more players and a bigger TSL. Let’s dive into the details of TSL 8!
Tournament Details
Shopify TSL 8 is a 32 player, double elimination tournament awarding $30,000 USD and 1290 EPT points. The tournament will last for 3 weeks, with games every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday starting from Friday, November 26 at 7:00 EST / 13:00 CET / 21:00 KST.
32 players double elimination bracket, seeded by EPT points
Best of 3 (Bo3) until Winner’s Semifinal and Loser Quarter Final
Best of 5 (Bo5) Winner’s Semifinal / Loser Quarter Final / Losers Semifinal
Best of 7 (Bo7) Winner’s Final, Loser Final, and Grand Final (Winner’s advantage)
Our previous TSL champion, Trap, has happily accepted his invite. The remaining 31 spots will be open through server qualifiers.
Qualifiers
31 player spots divided amongst 9 server qualifiers (no region restrictions)
All matches Best of 3 (Bo3), Qualifying matches Best of 5 (Bo5)
Server
# Qualified
# Qualifiers
Seeding
South Korea
10
3
EPT Points
Europe
11
3
EPT Points
North America
10
3
Aligulac Score
Please note: Players must change their display name when signing up to their player name or risk incorrect seeding. We will not be liable for any incorrect seeding if your player name does not match.
(If a bracket has less than 32 players, the bracket will be converted to Double Elimination)
Community casters who would like to cover the qualifiers should fill out this community caster form at least twenty-four (24) hours before the qualifier(s) you’re planning on covering begins. You must also be a member of the Discord server with your identifying nickname. For non-English coverage of the main event (beginning on November 26th!), please also fill out the form, and we’ll be in touch after the qualifiers wrap up.
Changes Made
The most prominent change is our return to a 32 player bracket. To accommodate the larger bracket without fatiguing players and production, additional tournament days were added, and the amount of Best of 7s was reduced while adding in Best of 3s. A lot of our changes were also driven to counteract player (and production) fatigue, such as starting the event one hour earlier than TSL 7 (from 10 PM KST to 9 PM KST). We hope by making the tournament start time earlier and reducing series length, our players will bring their A-game to each match instead of slogging through the end of the day.
Another major change was made to the qualifiers. Before I dive into it, I would like to thank the numerous players and community members who provided feedback. The region restrictions for the qualifiers were removed and the amount of qualifiers has increased. Each region qualifier was scheduled with consideration to competitors' schedules and availability. More notably though, our North America Server Qualifiers will be the only qualifier not seeded by EPT points. Aligulac score will be used for NA qualifiers due to the wide range of players expected to participate. We hope this will provide fairer seeding.
We have an incredible group working on TSL 8 and we can’t wait to showcase all we’ve prepared. If you happen to have any questions about the tournament, we’ll be happy to answer them here or on our official TSL Discord server. Thanks again to our lovely sponsors, and thank you for your continued support of Team Liquid, TSL, and StarCraft 2.
I’m so happy TSL has become a regular occurrence in SC2 again. I’m especially excited that Team Liquid and TaKeTV are joining forces for this edition. Having two organisations with such deep roots in the StarCraft scene are a perfect match to work together on TSL and I’m looking forward to a really fun event!
— Dario "TLO" Wuensch Head of Player Development, Shopify Rebellion
Well, with the amount of slots for the tournament, and open-region qualifier, we might as well invite top 16 players in the world (8KR + 8 non-KR) base on EPT pts anyway. While its great to have pretty much everyone who want to play will be able to qualify, it makes the qualification a bit less essential for the most part.
So happy to see TSL continue and be in such good hands. Hopefully I can make it to one of these qualifiers for old times' sake. In any case, I hope you all have a great event!
Wow, that's big!!! Great tournament, so many days of quality Starcraft and quality production. Big thanks and hugs to all responsible to make this happen!
On October 17 2021 05:15 sneakyfox wrote: Everything about this sounds amazing. TakeTV producing, Olimoley as the organiser, earlier start to accomodate Korean players... Yes, yes, and yes!
Plus ditching the region lock. Looks to be an all around great tournament.
On October 17 2021 13:32 Vindicare605 wrote: Yay more TSLs.
Also yuck at seeding with aligulac score. Why not just EPT points for all of them?
Imho seeding by EPT points won't leed to any fair seeding. EPT points depend on region, i.e. ESL Pro Tour and GSL. There is huge difference in point distribution, so you can't compare the points, especially between EPT Korea and EPT World. For example, 1st place is awarded 825 pts in Korea (GSL), 600pts in EU, 400 pts in NA, 300 pts in LA etc.
Though Aligulac is far from absolut truth, too, it may be a bit less unfair for cross region seeding.
Just a friendly reminder that if you applied to be a community caster, you need to be a member of the Discord server with your identifying nickname. I'm aware the Discord links on the announcement post were a little wonky, but they have since been fixed!
On October 16 2021 07:50 NonY wrote: So happy to see TSL continue and be in such good hands. Hopefully I can make it to one of these qualifiers for old times' sake. In any case, I hope you all have a great event!
That would be so sick, would love to see how you play in the LoTV meta. Best of luck to all the players! + Show Spoiler +
I would be so happy if there was a Brood War/SCR component to this as well, like a companion tournament. But I can’t complain
gg's i had some good games it was fun to play a little. i wish the qualifier times had a little more variety. NA ones are only on friday night and weekends. i think this EU #1 was the only one i could go to. gl hf everyone
On October 30 2021 03:10 NonY wrote: gg's i had some good games it was fun to play a little. i wish the qualifier times had a little more variety. NA ones are only on friday night and weekends. i think this EU #1 was the only one i could go to. gl hf everyone
It was great to see you play! Unfortunately we had to schedule them this way due to other tournament conflicts, or other tournaments encroaching on our reserved time frame. Hopefully next time we'll be able to schedule at different times so everyone has an opportunity!
Based on the volume of players we are receiving and the amount of forfeits we're seeing in the lower bracket, the following adjustments will be made to EU and NA qualifiers:
If the participant pool is higher than 32 players, the bracket will revert to Single Elimination to Round of 16, then double elimination onward
Adjustments made to all qualifiers
All qualifying matches will be Best of 5 (Bo5).
These changes will be made effective immediately, with the next qualifier EU Qualifier #2 ()
On October 30 2021 05:26 aringadingding wrote: Gogo, lets see if we can have a token toss who will end top 8 later on and cause some terrans to say toss is impossible to beat.
Looking at the qualies results its already happening
On October 30 2021 03:10 NonY wrote: gg's i had some good games it was fun to play a little. i wish the qualifier times had a little more variety. NA ones are only on friday night and weekends. i think this EU #1 was the only one i could go to. gl hf everyone
It was great to see you play! Unfortunately we had to schedule them this way due to other tournament conflicts, or other tournaments encroaching on our reserved time frame. Hopefully next time we'll be able to schedule at different times so everyone has an opportunity!
well it would've been as simple as swapping one of the EU ones with one of the NA ones, not changing any times. or implement some things like server swapping between games or playing on a server in between the players so the latency discrepancy is smaller
regardless im sure the tournament will have a strong field so the qualifiers will successfully serve their primary purpose
EPT
Trap, has happily accepted his invite. The remaining 31 spots will be open through server qualifiers.
