EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Ddn09.png)
"Colin Smith is saving ESPORTS!"
The $5000 SHOUTcraft 2-day Invitational
Powered by the community, for the community
The SHOUTcraft Invitational series is the biggest, self-funded, unsponsored tournament series in Starcraft 2. Thus far we've done everything with no corporate sponsorship and intend to keep doing that. This tournament is a community-fueled, high-stakes, electrifying live event with some of the best players SC2 has to offer, battling it out in the SHOUTcraft Single-elimination format.
STOP THE PRESSES, SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF GREAT GRAVITY AND IMPORTANCE
The SHOUTcraft Single-elimination format is no more. It has been ground to a fine paste and rebuilt in a new player and spectator friendly form.
"In our tournament, every group is a Group of Death!"
Format - Introducing the SHOUTcraft Single-elimination group-stage invitational format. After careful discussion with various players and casters we have come up with a revamped format which we will test in this tournament. The RO8 will consist of 2 groups of 4 players. Each player will play a BO3 against every other player in the group. The top 2 players will proceed forward and the bottom 2 players will be eliminated. The remaining 4 players will be seeded into the RO4 depending on their performance. Seed 1 from group A will then play Seed 2 from group B. Seed 1 from group B will play Seed 2 from group A. These matches will be BO5. The tournament proceeds as normal from that point with the winners advancing to the Grand Final for a BO7 matchup and the losers entering the bronze match to compete for a 3rd place prize.
Solving the problem of the "meaningless match"
Over the past few months, particularly in the recent Blizzard Cup incident, the issue of "meaningless matches" has come to light. The idea that if a match does not gain you anything because you are already out of the tournament having lost too many games in the group-stage. Not only is this an issue when two players who cannot possibly advance in the group end up playing each other, but it is also a problem when who advances can be determined by a match with a player who is already out and may not play seriously as a result. This can affect the validity of the results of the tournament.
SHOUTcraft has always been about both entertaining the audience with star-studded matches and giving back to our pros, so to deal with this issue we will be trialling a "bounty" system. Players who have no chance of advancing (which will occur if they lose have lost their first 2 BO3s) will qualify for a $50 comeback bounty, if they are able to win their final BO3. As always, nobody walks away empty handed from the SHOUTcraft Invitational and disheartened players have the chance to win back their pride and an extra cash prize if they are able to rally for a glorious last-stand.
This system will be on trial this invitational and we'll see how it works out. The tip-jar system will also make a return, allowing spectators to "tip" their favourite players. Last tournament over $1500 was given to players out of respect for their skills and entertaining matches.
When? - Saturday, Jan 14 10:00am GMT (GMT+00:00) and Sunday, Jan 15 2:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00)
How will you split up the games between the two days? - All group-stage games will be played on the Saturday. This will result in a whole lot of games, as you can imagine, but myself and Apollo are confident that we are capable of pulling it off without issue.
Is this live? - The entire event will be streamed live, no replays will be used and broadcast delay will prevent ghosting.
Why has it taken so long to do another invitational? - Myself and Apollo have had extremely busy schedules, as have the players, making it impossible to schedule another invitational. We made several attempts but we had to abandon plans for a 4th invitational in 2011 due to schedule clashes for players and casters.
Prize distribution - Once again, everyone gets paid for their time. The participation fee we pay to the players for their time is $100, so every player walks away with that. The rewards grow significantly larger as we hit the RO4.
First Place - $2500
Second Place - $1200
Third Place - $600
Fourth Place - $300
Knocked out in RO8 - $100
Who sponsors this tournament? - This tournament is paid for by the ad revenue from the Showcraft livestreams and generous donations from the community during SHOUTcraft Invitational 3. Of special mention is Colin Smith, after whom this tournament is named, who has donated an outstanding amount of money to this series not once, but twice.
Casters - TotalBiscuit and d.Apollo. Once again, we will return with our casting duo, now adding SCI3, IPL4 UK, ASUS ROG and Dreamhack Winter to our duo experience. We continue in our mission to try and climb to the top of the EU casting scene.
Players - We will once again invite US and EU players to this tournaments. Koreans will not be invited due to the impossibility of playing a tournament live across so many timezones.
Stream - As always the event will be streamed on http://www.twitch.tv/totalbiscuit
VoDs? - Will be available on my Youtube channel after the fact as well as in raw uncut form on Justin.tv.
Any other improvements? - We have we believe nailed down the final problems with our audio setup and are prepared for a clean and smooth tournament experience. The ground-loop based humm that could be found in the audio of SCI3 has been eliminated thanks to the additional of ground-loop isolation equipment. We have also revamped the map-pool which was out of date. Xel'naga caverns, Shattered Temple and Crevasse are gone. We have replaced them with the no-goldbase variant of Antiga, Dual-sight and Daybreak. The map pool is completed by Terminus, Taldarim, Shakuras and Metalopolis.
So who is playing? - We will only be inviting back our #1 champion from SCI3 this time around in order to increase the variety of players in our line-up.
![[image loading]](http://www.cynicalbrit.com/wp-content/uploads/player_reveal4_4.png)
Thorzain Player Intro
Grubby Player Intro
Socke Player Intro
DarKFoRcE Player Intro
Liquid`Ret Player Intro
ClouD Player Intro
NightEnD Player Intro
Stephano Player Intro
What about the cryptic message that was given several months ago at the end of SCI3? - This plan has sadly had to be put on hold due to various factors however we fully expect to be able to have it happen in the near future.
Updates can be found at the SHOUTcraft.com website : http://www.shoutcraft.com
