EPT
Quick reference links
What is the GOMTV Classic?How did the GOMTV Classic come about?
Who can play in the GOMTV Classic?
What maps are used in the GOMTV Classic?
How does the GOMTV Classic work?
How can I watch the GOMTV Classic?
What is the GOMTV Classic?
The GOMTV classic is a huge single elimination tournament hosted by Gretech, makers of the GOMTV media player. The tournament has attracted large foreign interest because of Nick "Tasteless" Plott being hired to commentate each game in English.
How did the GOMTV Classic come about?
Gretech have been long time sponsors of the professional Starcraft scene. They sponsored four seasons of the MBCGame Starleague which were all very successful. Off the back of this success the company decided to host it's own invitational tournament called the GOMTV Star Invitational or GSI. The GSI served a dual purpose as it also was a vessel to test the foreign market. With the superb English commentary by Nick "Tasteless" Plott, the English stream reached 1,000,000 hits and surprised the sponsors and Gretech.
With the conclusion of the highly successful GSI, Gretech announced that it would begin it's own league that would run simultaneously with the MSL and OSL and called it the GOMTV Classic. After picking up a few sponsors the show went on the air, once again with premium quality English commentary thanks to Tasteless. The rest you could say, is history...
Who is Daniel Lee?
Daniel Lee is the ex-coach of the eSTRO team. He is a veteran of the Progaming scene and has been around since it's conception. Indeed, due to his multilingual talents, he was the manager for Grrr... and the majority of all other foreign players in Korea. He retired form his position as coach in 2008 and took up running IEG's English Starcraft site, scforall.com. Later that year, he was called back to the forefront of progaming - this time as a Caster for GOMTV. His depth of knowledge about the Progaming scene, his sharp strategic mind and his experience as a Coach has been a huge asset to the English GOMTV Cast.
Who can play in the GOMTV Classic?
Because KeSPA did not use recognize this tournament as an official tournament, some proteams were reluctant to allow their players to participate. As a result, only 7 of the 12 Proteams participated in the event, these are;
Any player from any of the above teams is eligible to enter the tournament.
Why do some teams choose not to participate?
In essence, politics. Since GOM refuses to be controlled by KeSPA (i.e. they want to have complete control over every aspect of their tournament), KeSPA has refused to sanction the tournament. Since the teams MBCGame Hero and OnGameNet Sparkyz are sponsored by the companies responsible for the MSL and OSL respectively, they do not participate as the GOM tournament is a rival (unsanctioned) tournament to their own. eSTRO do not participate in GOM since their parent company, IEG, owns the rights to Proleague, hence also have a vested interested in excluding competitors. Lastly, the current SKT1 Coach is the head of KeSPA currently as well, as such, he has disallowed SKT1 form participating.
What maps are used in the tournament?
Unlike the other leagues, Gretech does not commission map makers to create maps for the tournament. To reduce the work load on the players, and make the tournament more attractive to players, Gretech uses the 6 1v1 maps from the current Proleague. You can find an up-to-date list of maps for Proleague in the TLPD.
Okay, but how does the tournament actually work?
Well, it works very similarly to a regular 128 man single elimination tournament, however there are some slight differences. Because of the large number of participants in the tournament, the top 32 KeSPA ranked players automatically qualified for the 3rd round of the tournament. The other 128 odd players play as if it were any other Bo3 single elimination tournament. After two rounds the original 128 gamers are reduced to 32 and then the top 32 KeSPA players rejoin the player pool. From there the tournament progresses as a normal single elimination tournament, with all the rounds being Best of 3 except the Semifinals and Finals which are Best of 5.
Quickly summing up, the tournament plays out like this;
Ro128 -> Ro64 I -> Ro64 II -> Ro32 -> Ro16 -> Ro8 -> Semifinals -> Finals
Awesome, but how can I watch this tournament?
All theinformation you need for watching live Starcraft, including the GOMTV Classic can be found in this thread
Do you understand now?
Hopefully? If you have questions feel free to post in this thread without fear of ridicule. I'm always happy to help a fellow fan understand the ways of the Koreans. I would prefer if you didn't PM me though, some people may have the same questions so feel free to ask them in the thread.
