There's a lot of components to this season three announcement. So I'm going to break it down in to sections to make it easier for everyone to read and understand.
The Leagues
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This season we will have two leagues. SGL-One and SGL-Two. We are opening up a proleague and an amateur league to bring a whole new level to the Starcraft Gaming League. SGL-One will have GnR as the head admin still, but SGL-Two will be run by SGL]BlueCow, who I'm sure a lot of you know from the first season as one of the most active and consistent match administrators. We will also be expanding SGL-One to 10 teams, and opening SGL-Two as a 10 team division as well. This not only brings more competition to the league, it increases the community and support the fans will have for us. This will give us 10 clan wars a week which our current administrative staff can certainly handle. Here at the SGL, we give the best service and administration offered in SC2, we have admins present at every clan war and treat each and every player or fan with respect. We are happy to give more teams the chance to be a part of the organization and we want everyone to be able to enjoy it. The prizes for the league will be announced at a later date. However what I can tell you, is that there will be a cash prize for SGL-One and SGL-Two will be purely for the experience, and may have a product prize depending on what our sponsors can provide for us.
The Qualifiers
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The SGL Qualifiers will begin April 3rd for both leagues. Each league will have a different qualifier and different teams. We encourage teams to choose one league they would like to participate in, SGL-One will be a VERY difficult qualifier and league, if you are not one of the best teams outside Korea, I don't suggest applying for that league unless you're purely interested in competing for money, rather than competing for a team experience. You may only choose one league to play in, so this decision is crucial in your teams participation.
SGL-One Qualifier
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The SGL-One qualifier will accept 16 teams to participate. The 5th and 6th place team from SGL Season 2 will receive the 1st and 2nd seeds of the qualifier. The participants will be playing in a double elimination bracket with only 6 teams moving on to the regular season. These matches will be assigned and cast by the SGL Media Team. There will be teams from all over the world playing, and time zones will be taken in to account while scheduling. One major thing about this format, is that you have the ability to pre-arrange matches for the players who cannot make it at the assigned time and have it casted by the replay. With this involved, there is no excuse for not having your match completed each week. The application for this league will be listed near the end of the post.
SGL-Two Qualifier
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The SGL-Two qualifier will accept 20 teams to participate. The 7th and 8th place team from SGL-One will receive the 1st and 2nd seeds in the qualifiers. Unlike SGL-One, we will be holding a group stage qualifier with 5 groups of 4 teams each. We will be taking the top two teams from each group, and bringing them to compete in the regular season. I would love to be able to accept more teams, however we don't want to put too much on our plate and ruin the experience for everyone. This will be a basic round-robin group stage competition, with all of your playtimes also being assigned by SGL]BlueCow. The league will be played under the same format as SGL-One, with the ability to pre-arrange your match times. The difference here though, is that you will not have a caster assigned to your clan war, these will be casted by any team casters, or any caster who would like to stream the selected clan war. The match admin at the clan war however has the final say of who is going to be casting the clan war and there will be only one stream per clan war unless it's of different languages. The application for this league will be listed near the end of the post.
The Format
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We found a lot of issues with the new format that we're using. Some love it, some hate it, some don't care either way. Unfortunately we have to change our format from last season and I believe it's all for the better! The new format will be fun and exciting and will spice things up. We want to be original and unique, and we have found ourselves a way to stand out from the rest. With the SGL format, we are increasing the strategy factor in the game. We will be having a format similar to what the GCPL uses, however we're adding significance to certain series. With our format, there will be two BO3 series, and two BO1 series. The BO3s will count for two points each, and the BO1s will count for one point each. This obviously makes the BO3s a big deal in winning the clan war. We will have the standard starting map and veto system, and you will assign four different players to the four series. If there is a tie, you will continue in to an ACE match. This will be a BO3 where you can choose any player on your roster to score the winning point for your team. Here are a few scenarios of a sample clan war:
Scenario 1:
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Team A vs. Team B:
1 vs. 5 -- Starting map 1(Bo3)
2 vs. 6 -- Starting map 2(Bo3)
3 vs. 7 - Bo1 Map 1
4 vs. 8 - Bo1 Map 2
1 [2-0] 5
2 [0-2] 6
3 [1-0] 7
4 [1-0] 8
Score: 4-2
Scenario 2:
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Team A vs. Team B
1 vs. 5 -- Starting map 1(Bo3)
2 vs. 6 -- Starting map 2(Bo3)
3 vs. 7 - Bo1 Map 1
4 vs. 8 - Bo1 Map 2
1 [2-0] 5
2 [0-2] 6
3 [1-0] 7
4 [0-1] 8
Tie = ACE Match
Ace Player 1(determined once tied) [2-0] Ace Player 2
Score: 4-3
Scenario 3:
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Hopefully this helps everyone to further understand the format. If you have any questions or comments about how anything with the format will go, email us at SGLeague@sgleague.net or comment on the thread. We will be more than happy to answer your questions and discuss what we're doing here at the SGL.
Scenario 1:
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Team A vs. Team B:
1 vs. 5 -- Starting map 1(Bo3)
2 vs. 6 -- Starting map 2(Bo3)
3 vs. 7 - Bo1 Map 1
4 vs. 8 - Bo1 Map 2
1 [2-0] 5
2 [0-2] 6
3 [1-0] 7
4 [1-0] 8
Score: 4-2
Scenario 2:
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Team A vs. Team B
1 vs. 5 -- Starting map 1(Bo3)
2 vs. 6 -- Starting map 2(Bo3)
3 vs. 7 - Bo1 Map 1
4 vs. 8 - Bo1 Map 2
1 [2-0] 5
2 [0-2] 6
3 [1-0] 7
4 [0-1] 8
Tie = ACE Match
Ace Player 1(determined once tied) [2-0] Ace Player 2
Score: 4-3
Scenario 3:
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1 vs. 5 -- Starting map 1(Bo3)
2 vs. 6 -- Starting map 2(Bo3)
3 vs. 7 - Bo1 Map 1
4 vs. 8 - Bo1 Map 2
1 [1-2] 5
2 [1-2] 6
3 [1-0] 7
4 [1-0] 8
Score: 2-4
2 vs. 6 -- Starting map 2(Bo3)
3 vs. 7 - Bo1 Map 1
4 vs. 8 - Bo1 Map 2
1 [1-2] 5
2 [1-2] 6
3 [1-0] 7
4 [1-0] 8
Score: 2-4
Hopefully this helps everyone to further understand the format. If you have any questions or comments about how anything with the format will go, email us at SGLeague@sgleague.net or comment on the thread. We will be more than happy to answer your questions and discuss what we're doing here at the SGL.
Application Process
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Teams will send their application via email. Below you will find the application for the SGL's third season, you will fill out the information requested and send it to SGLeague@sgleague.net. You should receive a response within 3 hours requesting more information if you filled it out incorrectly, or a response confirming that we received your application and further instructions will be given. The application period will be open from today, February 27th, to March 20th. This gives you plenty of time to either form a team to play, or get your team prepared for the competition that awaits you Here is the application format for SGL season 3:
Application
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Remember to send this to SGLeague@sgleague.net. Keep in mind, the better your application quality, the better your chances are of being accepted in to the qualifiers. We are a professional organization and we don't want to accept unprofessional teams or people. Keep that in mind while filling out your application. We will provide a received applications list and will update it on a weekly basis!
Application
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Team Information
Team Name:
Team Country:
Tag:
Website:
Team Logo(a 200x200pixel high quality image): If you don't have a logo, get one.
How long has your team been together:
Team and Player Achievements(highly suggested -- but optional):
Past 5-10 Clan War Results(highly suggested -- but optional):
Which league are you applying for:
Anything you would like us to know:
Managerial Information
Team Owner:
Name:
Alias/Character Code:
MSN:
eMail:
Skype:
AIM:
IRC:
Others:
Best way to contact:
Past Managerial Experience(optional):
Head Manager: If this is the same as Team owner you don't need to fill this out:
Name:
Alias/Character Code:
MSN:
eMail:
Skype:
AIM:
IRC:
Others:
Best way to contact:
Past Managerial Experience(optional):
Assistant Manager(s):
Name:
Alias/Character Code:
MSN:
eMail:
Skype:
AIM:
Others:
Best way to contact:
Past Managerial Experience(optional):
Player Information
Team Captain(Optional):
Roster(please include country, race, league alias, [North American] character name and [North American] character code)
Team Name:
Team Country:
Tag:
Website:
Team Logo(a 200x200pixel high quality image): If you don't have a logo, get one.
How long has your team been together:
Team and Player Achievements(highly suggested -- but optional):
Past 5-10 Clan War Results(highly suggested -- but optional):
Which league are you applying for:
Anything you would like us to know:
Managerial Information
Team Owner:
Name:
Alias/Character Code:
MSN:
eMail:
Skype:
AIM:
IRC:
Others:
Best way to contact:
Past Managerial Experience(optional):
Head Manager: If this is the same as Team owner you don't need to fill this out:
Name:
Alias/Character Code:
MSN:
eMail:
Skype:
AIM:
IRC:
Others:
Best way to contact:
Past Managerial Experience(optional):
Assistant Manager(s):
Name:
Alias/Character Code:
MSN:
eMail:
Skype:
AIM:
Others:
Best way to contact:
Past Managerial Experience(optional):
Player Information
Team Captain(Optional):
Roster(please include country, race, league alias, [North American] character name and [North American] character code)
Remember to send this to SGLeague@sgleague.net. Keep in mind, the better your application quality, the better your chances are of being accepted in to the qualifiers. We are a professional organization and we don't want to accept unprofessional teams or people. Keep that in mind while filling out your application. We will provide a received applications list and will update it on a weekly basis!
For those of you still reading, I'm glad you care! I would like to thank our current head sponsor, Bigfoot Networks for providing us with the resources that make our success possible! Please visit them at www.bigfootnetworks.com and 'Like' their facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/bigfootnetworks!
About our Head Sponsor:
Bigfoot Networks is a leading networking technology company that develops hardware and software solutions that significantly improve the online gaming experience. Its products are designed to provide maximum network performance for online gaming and other real time applications.