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1184 Posts
Hello everyone! We have decided at IGN Pro League that Team Arena Challenge was better suited for a league style format instead of a self-contained qualifier and tournament. Once Team Arena Challenge 3 has concluded, we will be changing the format of our team league to a division-based system and call it the IGN Pro Team League or IPTL.
The new format introduces three divisions: Amateur, Challenger (8 teams), and Premier (8 teams). Let's take a look now at each of these three divisions and how they interact.
Premier Division These 8 teams are the cream of the crop. They are the best teams around the world and are competing for a big chunk of change. The first 8 teams in the Premier Division of IPTL will be seeded in from the top 8 of Team Arena Challenge 3. These 8 teams will be placed into two groups. The top 3 teams from each division will move on to the playoffs, and the bottom teams in each group will be relegated to up and down matches with winners from the Challenger Division.
Round Robin will play out like this: Match 1 - Team A v Team B Match 2 - Team C v Team D Match 3 - Winner of Match 1 v Winner of Match 2 Match 4 - Loser of Match 1 v Loser of Match 2 Match 5 - Loser of Match 3 v Winner of Match 4
The top 6 teams will go to the playoffs, a single-elimination bracket where the top team from each group gets a bye into WR2. The bottom 2 teams move to up and down matches to face the top 2 teams from the Challenger Division.
Challenger Division These 8 teams are incredibly good, but not quite at the tip-top of the heap. The first Challenger teams will be teams that place 9th-16th in Team Arena Challenge 3. These 8 teams will play a single-elimination bracket, with the top 2 teams receiving a cash prize and moving on to face the 2 weakest teams from Premier in up and down matches. Teams eliminated in the first round of this bracket will fall out of Challenger Division and must re-qualify through the Amateur Division.
Amateur Division This is the rest of the field. The 4 teams dropping down from the Challenger Division will be seeded into a massive open (not semi-open like TAC, actually open) bracket that will contain all other interested teams. The top 4 teams will enter the Challenger Division in the next season.
We hope that you'll enjoy this new format and that many teams show us what they're made of in the Amateur Division. Please post here with any feedback or questions you may have, and please join us for Team Arena Challenge 3 over the next couple of months! Thank you!
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OMG this is SOOOO awesome, I'm so glad you guys are changing the format up, really excited to see the round robin play. You just keep improving it's been great to see this past year.
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Dual-tournament team league? Awesome.
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thast cool to hear an amateur teamleague
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Oh yes.
Can we get fantasy IPTL?
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Sounds awesome. I just wish we didn't have to put up with cross server play.
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OOOOOOOOOOO Yes~~~~~~~~~~~~
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I don't like how the challenger league has no chance of winning the whole thing. I liked random teams facing off against Korean teams and taking a few games. Now the system is going to get regimented into the top Korean teams plus mouz
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This is really cool like that team tournaments get more and more attention!
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United States1050 Posts
Hey all,
We designed this new system in order to make our tournament systems clearer to both the teams involved as well as ours spectators. We think this will be a lot easier to follow and understand and gives more of a story to the teams involved as they progress up or down the divisions. In addition, we felt that a lot of the up-and-coming teams who qualify for TAC don't get the love they deserve because often they are eliminated early because of a lack of depth of roster. By providing more divisions, we hope to shift some of the spotlight on them and give them a feeling of accomplishment by winning or placing high in the Challenger Division.
If you have any questions let us know! We will reveal more information on things like prize pool distribution and schedules as TAC 3 gets close to finishing. Also we plan on integrating the results of IPTL into our IPL live events in the future but haven't decided how to do so yet.
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Wow, now it's going to get REALLY confusing. People already call the IPL TAC "IPTL" and now they're actually going to be different things o_o
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United States1050 Posts
On May 10 2012 09:18 Hulavuta wrote: Wow, now it's going to get REALLY confusing. People already call the IPL TAC "IPTL" and now they're actually going to be different things o_o
The IPTL will replace TAC, so there will only be one thing running.
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That's awesome to hear a new format. Only thing I would change is have more than two teams, maybe four, from the premier division be able to fall to the up/down matches. I can't wait to find out how it works out though.
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On May 10 2012 09:17 McFeser wrote: I don't like how the challenger league has no chance of winning the whole thing. I liked random teams facing off against Korean teams and taking a few games. Now the system is going to get regimented into the top Korean teams plus mouz
I think you mean just Korean teams. Mouz without Thorzain have little chance and TAC2 was pure Korean domination.
The teams like Fnatic, EG and Liquid can probably do reasonably as they have some really good Koreans plus top end foreigners.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
This looks really great! I'm kind of excited about the open Amateur Division as well.
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On May 10 2012 09:19 Alex.IGN wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2012 09:18 Hulavuta wrote: Wow, now it's going to get REALLY confusing. People already call the IPL TAC "IPTL" and now they're actually going to be different things o_o The IPTL will replace TAC, so there will only be one thing running. 
Yes, but I meant more like when talking about results. For example, NASL is saying "mousesports was the runner up in the first IPTL Team League" and stuff like that.
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opterown
Australia54784 Posts
ahhh interesting format haha
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