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The Australian Pro League is a new group of passionate dudes who love StarCraft, we love watching as much as we love playing, to this end we're in the business of hosting Sydney BarCrafts (seen here: BarCraft!) and now we're introducing the first of many tournaments to come.
The first season of the Australian Pro League will showcase some of SEA's best and upcoming players. Sixteen players comprised of eight qualifiers and eight invites will fight it out for a part of the $1500 prize pool.
The first stage of this occurs two weeks from now on the 27th of November. The Open Bracket Qualifier will take place where out of 256 players, eight will battle through to secure their spot in the next round of play.
The group stages will be composed evenly of invitees and qualifiers, with four players per group, played on the 10th of December. The two players of each group will advance into the Championship Single Elimination Bracket and have secured themselves a piece of the prize pool. The championship bracket will be played out on the following day, December 11, where the best player will prove themselves as the victor and champion of the first season of the APL!
There are many fantastic players in SEA and we couldn't invite them all but we can say with certainty these eight will show us some awesome games:
Sign up here: z33k Australian Pro League Open Bracket page
The tournament is restricted to those who have a SEA account and are Masters/Grandmasters players, there are 256 available spots based on a first-come first-served basis.
Summary
- Start date and time: Sunday, Nov 27 12:00am GMT (GMT+00:00)
- Tournament registrations will be handled via our z33k tournament page:
- Players must have their account configured to use their SEA account information
- All registrated players must check-in for the event in order to be included in the bracket.
- Check-in begins 1 hour prior to the start of the tournament and ends 15 minutes before the start of the tournament.
- Brackets will be released at the specified start time.
- Every round is Best of Three (Bo3) with the initial map predetermined. The loser of the preceding game will decide the next map to be played.
- After each series, players are to report their match results through z33k as well as provide the appropriate replays.
- The Top 8 players will proceed onto the Group Stages.
Map Pool
- Antiga Shipyard
- Shakuras Plateau
- MLG Shattered Temple
- MLG Metalopolis
- MLG Tal’Darim Altar
- GSL Daybreak
- GSL Crossfire SE
If there are any issues during the open bracket, admins will be in the channel 'APL'.
For full event details, please see the APL z33k page: z33k APL Open Bracket
For the full schedule, rules and format information: APL Season 1 Information Package
In regards to streaming the Open Bracket:
- Players must not stream their open bracket games in the spirit of fairness. We absolutely want to make sure that all players are on the same playing field and malicious intent cannot get in the way. We'll be pushing this rule by not having the open bracket appear on the TL Calendar to help alleviate this issue.
While the APL games are being played on November 27, December 10th and 11th, we'll be broadcasting the matches on the following weekend, meaning you (and I! :D) will be watching the APL on December 3rd, 17th and 18th.
This week delay will be used to deliver the best imaginable stream we can. We want to add our own special flavour of production to the pre-games, produce videos and content, and most importantly of all: stream in near 1080p high quality.
We'll be covering some of the open bracket games to showcase the players heading in to the group stage. Namely, we'll be broadcasting select open bracket's round of 16 matches on December 3rd, 11am AEST (for non-Australians, this would be: Saturday, Dec 03 12:00am GMT (GMT+00:00))
Select matches of the group stage and the championship bracket will be broadcast on December 17 and 18 respectively, again at 11am. (Saturday, Dec 17 12:00am GMT (GMT+00:00) and Sunday, Dec 18 12:00am GMT (GMT+00:00))
Casters: We're happy to have Duckvillelol cast for the Australian Pro League. He's a fantastic caster, who hasn't lost his passion , and is a pleasure to work with. Get a taste of his work here: Duckville: HuK vs Sjow at MLG
Finally, be sure to tune into the Dox Cup #2, it will feature some of SEA's best talent as they go up against some international stars, we can't wait for it and neither should you!
Sydney people, quite a number of well known players are heading to CityHunter's Burwood competition coming up shortly!
Lastly, our second BarCraft is planned for GomTV's "Blizzard Cup"! Look out for more details on our Facebook, just like last time
Thank you, good luck and have fun!
Like what we're doing? Show us some love on whatever social website you use!
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/australian.pro.league
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/ausproleague
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/ausproleague
GradConnection (Sponsor): http://www.gradconnection.com.au
Website: http://www.ausproleague.com (WIP)
Liquipedia page: APL Season 1