“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”
— Albert Einstein
— Albert Einstein
The Brood War renaissance is upon us! Brood War was proclaimed dead. KeSPA, and even God Young Ho himself left us all alone. But then from the darkness we, the SBWI emerged, as the angel of retribution. Oaths were taken and now has come the time for us to fulfill them! Donations came from foreign lands and we swore to be the Christmas gift that keeps on giving. And now we are here to do just that, giving you the most prestigious team league - of all time! Remember today, young zergling, for today life is good! In Korea, we have Bisu streaming, Sea talking, and Mong eating. Meanwhile in Hungary, the realm of demigods, for the first time in eons a young champion of humanity challenges the gods themselves. He does not eat, he does not talk and he does not stream. Our top foreign players take games off former progamers. Foreigners now hold ranks in the highest leagues in Korea!
We wish to promote this thriving scene, now and tomorrow, by welcoming you all to usher in the second age of Brood War.
- the official administration: Jaevlaterran, mEATshEILd and vOddy
Prize Pool
Prize pool will be $1,000 with the following distribution:
Casters
Hacklebeast
Hacklebeast, the Homecoming Veteran, is an American caster who needs no introduction! He is one of the most famous casters in the scene known for, among many tournaments, ISL, Gambit’s Cup and SBWI Nation Wars. His style is very versatile with both hard core analysis and humour. Hacklebeast writes his own statistics for players, matchups, games and has the ability to bring something new to every cast.
L_Master
L_Master, the Octopus; if Hacklebeast is the master of statistics, then L_Master is the king of strategy. Not only being extremely handsome, this beast of a man has casted both ISL and Gambit’s Cup. He is well known for his strategic build order commentaries, showcasing not only his casting but his deep understanding of all matchups. L_Master has been everywhere recently, casting more leagues than any other caster. His strong dedication to foreign Brood War can be seen all over the forums ranging from organizing tournaments to playing himself.
Map Pool
When picking maps for this tournament we considered a few very basic ideas. We wanted the maps to have variation in tilesets, expansion layouts, the amount of players it was made for, and the country of origin.
This map is a new map made by Freakling. It brings the heavy metal to the STL with inspiration from Match Point while still having the look of a Siege Tank junkyard.
A desert map with a unique look, bringing together the neutral sunken colony and rampless main, which open up possibilities for aggressive play. But at the same time greedy play is safer than on many maps since the natural entrance is through the main.
The expansion layout is most often what catches one’s eye when seeing this map for the first time. It has proven to favor the creative player and produce unorthodox games with high emphasis on air play.
Another foreign made map, by -NegativeZero-. We tried this map in the SBWI Summer Tour, and it was a success. The map is not only beautiful but also brings some interesting ramps that dictate the game flow of this map.
The classic winter map with perfect balance. It is a three player map with heavy emphasis on choke points and map division. However behind the macro facade lurks the evil that is cliff drops and blocked chokepoints.
The map of maps. No map is more famous and no map might deserve more to be in this tournament. It is perhaps most well known for its easily defended thirds, which tend to promote some greedy play, and the easily harassed naturals which give us aggression.
As our ace map we have chosen to go with good ole’ Desti. It is a map of legendary proportions within the foreign scene. It is the map where White-Ra beat Boxer and countless other epic foreign games . It offers great macro abilities along with some of the most innovative aggressive strategies.
Fee: $50
Payment Deadline: 24th of October
Start Date: 26th of October
Cast times: Sundays at 18:00 GMT (+00:00)
First games will be played on the Saturday, Oct 26 5:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00) on ICCUP. The casting times will be on Sundays at 18:00 GMT (+00:00).
The $50 fee is to prevent unserious teams from signing up and not showing up for matches. We learned our lesson from the Nation Wars.
How to sign up
1) Compose an e-mail including team name, logo, managers and roster to:
2) After approval from SWBI, pay admission fee of $50 via PayPal to:
swedish.brood.war.initiative@gmail.com
Format
The format of the group stage will be 6 Bo 1 + ace match. Each teams play each other one time in the group stage. If two teams are on the same score before playoffs, number of losses will determine the winner.
After the group stage, the top four teams will advance for the playoffs. The winner of the group stage will face the fourth team, the runner-up will face the third team.
To generate a high level of participation in the tournament there will be 15% allowed W.O. sets per team in the tournament. This will be 15% of the total amount of games that each team play in the group stage. The exact number is therefore determined by how many teams sign up. This number will be rounded in standard arithmetic manner and presented when all teams have signed up. Out of these W.O:s, 2 will be allowed in the playoffs, the rest in the group stage. This will generate a reasonable amount of W.O. sets allowed for teams, independent on how many teams sign up. If we just put down a single amount of W.O. sets allowed, we could get into a bad situation where teams have unrealistic number of W.O:s.
TL;DR
(8 teams = 5 W.O:s in group stage, 2 in playoffs, )
(9 teams = 6 W.O:s in group stage, 2 in playoffs, )
(10 teams = 7 W.O:s in group stage, 2 in playoffs, )
(11 teams = 9 W.O:s in group stage, 2 in playoffs, )
(12 teams = 10 W.O:s in group stage, 2 in playoffs, )
(13 teams = 12 W.O:s in group stage, 2 in playoffs, )
Before each match, the team captains will hand in a numbered list of players (six + ace player) and one joker player. The player names should be their official nicknames with clan tag and should stay identical throughout the tournament. If the nicknames given by the captain do not correspond to the nicknames being used, it will count as a smurf. No player may play more than once, except for the ace player.
If a player does not sign in after 15 minutes, the joker player must be ready to step in. The joker player can replace any player in any match according to captain decision. If no joker player is ready within 5 minutes after that, an automatic W.O. will take effect. The joker player is allowed to be an ace player, and can only replace one player. If a captain wants to send a joker, he whispers this to the referee before the actual set. The first three games are played simultaneously, the rest of the games played as they come unless captains wish otherwise.
Example list to be sent to swedish.brood.war.initiative@gmail.com:
player1
player2
player3
player4
player5
player6
ace player (one of the above players)
joker player
Example play:
player1 vs joker on Oxide
player2 vs player2 on Colosseum II
player3 vs player3 on Outsider
joker vs player4 on Overwatch
player5 vs player5 on Tau Cross
player6 vs player6 on Fighting Spirit
ace player3 vs joker ace player on Destination
Rules
1) Rules Concerning Executive Decisions
- Executive decisions will be made by a majority vote between Jaevlaterran and Meatsheild plus an independent randomly selected third party from SBWI. (Voddy is not allowed to participate in this vote, since he may be playing in the tournament.)
2) Rules Concerning Interactions between players
- Any bad mannered behavior regarding someone’s race, skin color, nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender, culture or sexual orientation will not be tolerated.
- Typing “gg” is not required at the end of a match
- Bad manner behavior will be dealt with after a formal complaint unless of special circumstances.
3) Rules Concerning Server, Launcher, and Uniform
- All games will be played on the ICCUP server unless arrangements are made with the administration. As we are guests playing on the ICCUP server we will respect all of their rules including blacklisted players not participating in the tournament (to see who is blacklisted, see this thread).
- Teams will initially meet in the channel ‘op SBWI’.
- If under special circumstances ICCUP is down for an extended period of time, an announcement will be made in the main thread about this. The announcement will be at the top of the thread and highlighted in red.
- All games must be played using ICCUP antihack, with LAN latency plugin enabled, independently of the launcher used.
- Players must play under their registered ID with clantag as specified under “format”.
4) Rules Concerning Replays
- Replays must be sent to swedish.brood.war.initiative@gmail.com immediately after the completion of a set by both players.
- If a match is not saved as a replay, the match will be played a second time., and the administration will not go hunting for replays, it is up to the players to send the correct replay. If the players don’t send the correct replay or it is broken, the game will be replayed.
- All replays shall be renamed with clantags and game number in the following manner: “sasVSLRM1”, “repsVSLRM3” etc. so we know which order the games were played in and which teams played in it.
5) Rules Concerning Lag
- If it is found that two players lag with each other, joker players from both teams will take their place. If a team has no joker player, the set will be considered a walk-over in favor of the team that has a joker player. If neither team has a joker player, the match will be a draw. A draw gives both teams 0 points. Then the match will end when one team reaches 3 wins.
- If it is found that a player lags with everyone, there will be a mandatory replacement of the lagging player. If no joker player exists as a replacement, the set will be considered a walk-over in favor of the team without the lagger. The non-lagging player may also be swapped out at their respective team’s discretion for the joker player.
6) Rules Concerning Games Played Outside of the Designated Match Time
- Postponed and pre-played games are forbidden unless the administration has made an executive decision to allow it.
- Games played before the scheduled match time may only use the first four maps of a clan war; Oxide, Colosseum II, Outsider, and Overwatch.
- Replays of pre-played or postponed games should be sent in as soon as the matches have finished.
7) Rules Concerning Walk-Overs
- The first three players and one captain for each team must be present not later than 15 minutes after the first game’s scheduled starting time.
- If a player does not sign in after 15 minutes, the joker player must be ready to step in. The joker player can replace any player in any match according to captain decision. If no joker player is ready within 5 minutes after that, an automatic W.O. will take effect. The joker player is allowed to be an ace player, and can only replace one player. If a captain wants to send a joker, he whispers this to the referee before the actual set. The first three games are played simultaneously, the rest of the games played as they come unless captains wish otherwise.
- Players with technical issues are not exempt from any rules in this section.
- Teams may choose not to take any granted walk-overs. However, the administration can force the acceptance of walk-overs to speed up the progress of the league.
8) Rules Concerning Abuse
- Playing on an account that is not your own, lying to the administration, using rigged maps, and hacking etc will result in a league ban.
9) Rules Concerning Team Composition
- Teams are limited to maximum 15 players and 2 captains, minimum 10 players and 1 captain.
- Captains are permitted to play in clan wars.
- Only captains are permitted to add and remove players.
- Players that are newly added to a roster may not play in a clan war for 72 hours.
10) Rules Concerning Match Observers
- Match observers are prohibited unless the administration and both players agree.
- If, during the first minute of the game, a player or the administration asks an observer to leave, the observer must comply. If the observer doesn’t leave, the set will be replayed.
- The set won’t be replayed if an observer caused troubles after the first minute of the game. (So players must be careful when they agree to play with an observer. Also remind observers not to change the latency setting of a game and don’t chat with players in a game.)
- If an observer is present, players are required to activate ‘/dnd’ mode. If a player does not have ‘/dnd’ activated and does not activate it after a referee’s instruction, the other player will get a W.O.
11) Rules Concerning Proper Map Usage
- If an incorrect map is used, the set must be played a second time.
- The map order is determined by the most recent order under “Map Pool” in this thread. The map folder names are also numbered for players’ convenience.
12) Rules Concerning Spoilers
- Players are forbidden from sharing, implicitly or explicitly, the results of a league match with anyone other than the administration, the players on their own team, and the players on the opposing team.
13) Rules Concerning Race
- Players may play any race they wish, regardless of what is listed in the main thread.
However, if a player plays a race other than what is listed in the main thread, it must be made clear to the opponent before the countdown begins. - If two race pickers cannot come to an agreement on what the matchup will be, both players are to privately message an administrator what their race will be and are forced to play that matchup.
14) Who can play?
- A player who grew up in a location without a professional StarCraft scene; OR
- The player currently residing in a location without a professional StarCraft scene and is not affiliated with a professional StarCraft team; AND
- The player does not have connection lag that would significantly impact quality of play.
15) Play time
- Games will be played on Saturdays 19 CEST and then after the time change, CET.
- World time will be used, not “ICCUP time”.