[APL] A preview of the APL with interview

-Ok. Can you tell me about the American ProLeague?

-The American ProLeague is going to be a team league with multiple seasons with teams of 3+ players playing in best of 5 matches every week. Every season will have two leagues. Alpha and Beta leagues with 32 teams each.

The American ProLeague will feature a round of 32 that is group based; each group will have 4 teams. Week 1 will have A vs B and C vs D, week 2 will have the winners from week 1 play against each other and the losers play each other.

The winner of the winners’ game from week 2 will advance to the ro16, and the loser of the loser’s game will be eliminated. Week 3 will give the eliminated team and the winning team a break while the two other teams from week 2 battle it out for the final spot in the group to the ro16.

Unlike a lot of other tournaments this league will allow the "eliminated" teams one more game. However this game will be slightly more tense especially as the seasons progress. The losing team from the eliminated teams will be forced into up and down matches much like the GSL and eventually Alpha league will be the top teams and Beta league will be with lesser teams but still strong teams. I don’t want to discount the strength of any team participating in the APL.

-What skill level players are participating in the APL?

-Currently I know of many masters’ level players that are currently participating. I have not yet sorted through all of the registrations to know the precise skill level, but we expect to see Diamond and Platinum players playing in the league as well. And since it is a team based league Diamond and Platinum players can still be a part of a winning team!

-Very nice. Do you know of any notable players we should look out for in the league?

-Of the list that I currently have we can look out for Cyrain, NerZhuL, LunatonePKM from UHBF, meFTW and Birdkicker from Standard Gaming, the VPGamers team. There is also another team that has clan tags built into their names, it is a Columbian team cLS but it seems like competition will be fierce and we will have some really good games.

-Why did you decide to start a team league and not a 1v1, which seem to have more success?

-I have actually run a 1v1 tournament, called the CMSL. Collegiate Masters StarLeague and that was a huge success. We held it live at my school UMBC and had students come from all over the entire VA, DC, MD, DE, PA area come and play in it. I have participated in the CSL, the collegiate starleague, and really enjoyed that league. If you haven’t heard of CSL check them out at www.cstarleague.com. I also did some casting for CSL and it was a lot of fun. Since I am graduating this year I decided to provide that team league experience to all players regardless of them being in college or not. I also know that there are people who participate in CSL but are not able to play with their regular clan members so the APL represents an opportunity to do that. The APL sort of brings that CSL experience to everyone who has graduated or is not yet in college.

-I have seen the CSL! Sadly my college doesn't participate! Do you plan on seeking sponsorship for APL?

-Yes, we are seeking sponsorship for the APL. We hope to grow the league into a large and well recognized organization. It is hard to get sponsors as a new organization but I hope that the strength of season 1 and the volume of players that we will attract can help us secure a sponsor to make the league even more competitive.

-Why do you think fans like team league? And why will they like the APL?

-A team league is not just dependent on the skill of one player and people will be able to watch many different players from each team battle it out. In addition to this type of diversity in players, the APL has added an additional dimension to team leagues. The APL will not only feature an on the spot choice of who will play an ace match by both teams as in the CSL. We will also add the ability of the losing team to be able to choose the map for the 4th game. This will add to the reward of practicing a certain build on a certain map. And make the choice of 4th map dynamic and really bring out the full skill set of all the players. The APL also will use maps from the GSL and iCCup to bolster the lineup of maps that blizzard has provided us. These additional maps will show a diverse range of strategies on such maps as Match Point, testbug, crevasse.
I think people will be pleased to see different maps being played in a major league and be thrilled to see the dynamics of team play. Especially with the rules that we have implemented.

-Alright! Sounds exciting, some new stuff in there for sure. What about an All kill, does your league have the capability for it?

-Unfortunately for the teams with just one star player, we do not. We have limited play for each player per week to a maximum of 2 games. Games 1-3 must also have unique players so that your top two players don’t just take games 1-3 and end the match. We have adopted these rules to make sure that it isn’t a single player playing a best of 5 against another team and cleaning it up. The team league is what it is called, and there isn’t an I in team XD. We will hold other events that will allow individuals to show their skill in bracket style tournament play along the way as well. But those events are still in the pot of ideas and are not set in stone as of yet.

Oh yes, speaking of ideas in the pot, we also have an idea of extended series show matches during off season periods. We hope fans will enjoy this, but I can’t elaborate on the details of that yet.

-Ah very interesting! Truly bring "teams" to the league! Along with some offseason banter.

-Yea we want the off season to be the time when we all get pumped for the next season. Therefore we will be coming up with exciting series for people to see during an off season periods

-Very good. Looking forward to see some of those as well. How much time have you dedicated to the APL? How much staff are you working with?

-I have dedicated a lot of time to the APL. We have set up a site, made contact lists, web lists, all kinds of information that we are preparing to place onto the web. I have been advertising the APL through team liquid and have been getting the word out to participants of the CMSL as well. We are setting up team pages for each team on our website and are looking forward to receiving "about me" blurbs from each team to talk about their team if they so desire. I have been working with just 3 other people so far but we are looking to sign on a lot more staff before season 1 begins. We are going to set up division staff, casters, and a tech crew to take care of things at the APL. I have also spent a lot of time just communicating with teams about their registration.

-Ah casters and tech crews. Perfect lead into the next question! How will games be casted/live streamed and how often will we see the stream?

-Early in the season we will have set match times for all teams on Saturday and we will have casters to stream select games at specific times. Every weekend we can expect at least one stream up casting games from the APL. Casters may sometimes be casting different games at the same time so it will be up to the viewer which one to watch, or you could watch many with multiple monitors! However, for the semifinal games we will be streaming them at separate times to allow for the best viewing experience. All games casted will be available as vods either on youtube or on the site on which it was originally streamed. During the week I may also set up times to stream exciting matches that we did not cover on the day of the match. Additional matches will simply be casted as vods and available to watch whenever you are free. I will be casting quite a few of the games myself so we will also be setting up a way for teams to tell us about exciting matches or exciting games so we can make sure those are delivered to the community. Casting will most likely be streamed from justin.tv.

-Anything else you would like to add?

-Make sure to check out the APL website at www.machtechcorp.net/apl and check out my youtube at www.youtube.com/aegisstarcraft2 and follow me on www.twitter.com/aegisstarcraft to hear more about the league and its developments. I also want to thank machtechcorp for hosting our site! We really hope that the APL will be a great experience for the players and spectators alike and result in great seasons for years to come.