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MLG Dallas Passes are on sale now!
The MLG Dallas event will take place April 1st - 3rd (The StarCraft 2 Schedule has not yet been released)
Passes are $70. Unused Dallas Player Passes can be saved and used as credit ($45) toward the purchase of any pass for a future 2011 or 2012 Pro Circuit Event
As always, please feel free to ask any questions regarding the event, and I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability. Please keep in mind that there are still details to be released, so if the information is not below, it's likely not available yet.
The link to purchase the pass can be found HERE.
Venue:
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Venue/Tournament Location: Dallas Convention Center.
THE ALOFT HOTEL
CROWNE PLAZA DALLAS
THE ALOFT HOTEL
- 1033 Young Street, Dallas
- Rate: $139/night + 15% tax
Reservations: 214-761-0000, mention booking code "MLG" for discount. - Reservation deadline: March 15
CROWNE PLAZA DALLAS
- 1015 Elm Street, Dallas
- Rate: $115/night + 15% tax
- Reservations: 214-742-5678
- Reservation deadline: March 11
The two Airports closest to the venue:
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- DFW (Dallas Fort Worth International),
- DAL (Dallas Love Field)
Transportation from Airport:
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- Super Shuttle services all three airports. Rates and more are available at Super Shuttle - 25$ each way from DFW, and 15$ each way from DAL
Pass Breakdown:
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- 256 total players
- 70$ per pass
- Additional details to come
Prizes ($14,000 in prize money is now up for grabs):
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- 1st Place: $5,000
- 2nd Place: $3,000
- 3rd Place: $2,000
- 4th Place: $1,400
- 5th Place: $1,000
- 6th Place: $700
- 7th Place: $500
- 8th Place: $400
Tournament Maps:
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- Check out the map information HERE
Event Schedule
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The event will begin on Friday at 5:30 PM Local Time, and end anywhere from 7:30 PM-9 PM Local Time on Sunday, depending on the length of the matches.
A more detailed schedule will be announced soon
A more detailed schedule will be announced soon
Additionally, MLG's SVP of Network Operations and Executive Producer of the SC2 live stream, Lee Chen, has been interviewed by TeamLiquid's own motbob regarding the recent competition format and map list announcements.
TeamLiquid: The open bracket is 256 players. About how many players are you expecting to show up to each circuit event? Based on past experience, about how many of those do you think will be hardcore competitors and about how many will be local players looking to just have some fun?
LC: I don’t think anyone has ever done a bracket size this large for a live event 6 times a year, so we’re definitely interested to see the results here ourselves. But that said, I think anyone that comes to an MLG is a serious competitor. Their skill levels might vary, but it’s not a trivial investment in time, money or energy to come to an event. So regardless of where they place, it’s a huge accomplishment to come to a live event and play through your matches.
TeamLiquid: he major criticism of MLG's new format is the disparity between the amount of games a seeded and unseeded player have to play in order to place highly in the tournament. Explain what protecting the top 16 players does for the quality of the tournament, and explain why MLG believes that the change is worth making the road for new talent much more difficult.
LC: I think we should clear the air on that—Your (motbob) analysis was spot on about how the format works, and technically it’s absolutely accurate that someone who gets knocked to losers in round one of the Open Bracket would play 21 matches to get to the finals. But the averages for players who are going to make it to the Championship Bracket should work out to more like 13 or 14 matches (bo3’s) to placement. By comparison, a Championship Bracket seeded player will play 7 to 14 matches to the Finals. That’s the nature of having a 272 team tournament, no matter how you slice it, it’s going to be an endurance run. We could run smaller tournaments, but I don’t think that really helps advance eSports.
As far as new talent having a more difficult time, I think that’s the nature of any sport. If you’re new to the scene, you’ve got a lot to prove. I think the MLG format means that you have to fight a little harder for it, but, to some extent, we need consistent faces at the top. And while we need to protect them a little bit, our format means they can also get knocked out of that top placement and, more to the point of your question, new talent can eventually replace them by consistently performing well.
TeamLiquid: What was your philosophy when it came to picking maps for this season? The more specific you are regarding this question, the better! If you would touch on individual maps you were waffling on, that would be fantastic.
LC: We looked at map choices this season to emphasize competition within the context of the MLG Tournament Format. We looked at all the usual variables: average duration, map balance, spawns/positions, exploits, race advantages and a variety of other factors. All of these were weighed carefully in considering their eligibility for the final map pool for Dallas. One thing that hasn’t been really discussed (which is a bit of a unique consideration for MLG) is the average duration criterion. We need to complete a 272 team tournament in just 2.25 days of play. That means that “just five more minutes” on a map can add up to cause our tournament to not finish on time. So we did a lot of data mining on how the maps performed in the most recent tournaments to see how long maps were taking to play out. Crossfire, for example, is one of the smaller (and therefore shorter) maps in the GSL rotation. I’m personally a huge fan of Crevasse, but Crossfire ended up being our pick because Crevasse was averaging 25+ minutes.
The adjustments we made to prevent blocking and to enforce cross-spawns are part of an effort to increase competition quality. Close spawns can basically make the game a quick micro rush (translation: CHEESE) on one hand or emphasize the early to mid game more than late game on the other hand. We really want to see the macro game evolve more. We looked pretty hard at how this would impact different races but felt that the risk was minimal given the size of the maps that we’re using in our pool. We’ll, of course, be keeping an eye on it, but enforcing cross-spawns mean that each match will evolve into more interesting gameplay (we hope!), which in turn will bring out the best (or worst!) in each competitor.
I also want to point out that the map pool we’ve announced is only for Dallas. It’s by no means fixed for the whole season. In the 2010 season, we locked it in because we were being very conservative on rule changes due to the late addition and our “newness” to SC2. We plan on being much more aggressive with map pool adjustments this year.
TeamLiquid: There are a lot of leagues starting around the world / upping their prize pool / expanding, like IEM, NASL, GSL, Dreamhack etc. Do you feel like you're competing with those tournaments for customers? Have those leagues affected at all the way you run/promote MLG?
LC: Great question. The short answer is, absolutely not. I’ve been long-time friends (or at least colleagues) of all the organizers in each of those leagues. We all have one objective, advance eSports and make it even more popular than it already is. The more that happens, the more we all win—whether that’s as a fan, a player, a business person or a league. The reality is that there are so many factors in operating an event or league that what one organizer has to consider is completely different from another. That ranges from geographical location to prize money to operational costs, staffing, logistics and the myriad of other factors. How one league/event operates can be totally different from another.
How we run and promote MLG has everything to do with what we’re trying to accomplish (which is make Starcraft 2 a huge title and a big part of our league). I think some of the changes you’re going to see at our Dallas event will reflect that attitude, and we have more things in store for the rest of the year. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to see and meet more of you in Dallas!
Thanks for taking the time to chat with me!
Lee has also made several posts here on TL regarding these issues, and I encourage people to read through them.
A more exhaustive all-inclusive thread regarding all MLG 2011 happenings will be compiled and posted later this week, with users able to ask questions easier.
I switch so much I don't know what's happening on either event. 
