MLG Details StarCraft II Winter Season
Major League Gaming releases the full details of their StarCraft II Winter Season.
With the release of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm coming on March 12, eSports organisations and players alike have started to make the switch from Wings of Liberty to the new expansion. Today eSports goliath Major League Gaming has finally detailed their plans for their Tenth Annual Winter Season, which will feature Heart of the Swarm.
The Winter Season will conclude in Dallas at the MLG Winter Championships on March 15-17, and as we already know will not include open qualifiers, instead MLG has come up with a new format. The new format will see 56 of the best StarCraft II players play an invite-only best of 5 Winter Season Showdown match each, the winners will qualify for the Winter Championships.
The Online Winter Season Showdowns will take place between “February 4-March 8: 28 Matches, 28 Days broadcast each weekday at 5pm ET and select Sundays” on MLG.tv and twitch.tv.
The Broadcast schedule follows:
- Monday, 2/4: Parting vs Fantasy
- Tuesday, 2/5: Roro vs Hero
- Wednesday, 2/6: Innovation vs Ty
- Thursday, 2/7: Soulkey vs Last
- Friday, 2/8: Rain vs Flying
- Sunday, 2/10: Sase vs Snute
- Monday, 2/11: Nerchio vs BabyKnight
- Tuesday, 2/12: Stephano vs Titan
- Wednesday, 2/13: Mana vs Bly
- Thursday, 2/14: Socke vs Thorzain
- Friday, 2/15: Ret vs Feast
Broadcast dates for the following matchups will be announced soon:
- Grubby vs Dimaga
- Sen vs Moonglade
- MC vs Alive
- Taeja vs Violet
- Hero vs Polt
- Creator vs Nestea
- Mvp vs Curious
- Sniper vs Seed
- MarineKing vs Gumiho
- DongRaeGu vs Jjakji
- Scarlett vs Goswser
- Idra vs Ddoro
- Fenix vs State
- Vibe vs Illusion
- Suppy vs Maker
- Killer vs Qxc
- Huk vs Sasquatch
The player pool is comprised of the following: 10 KeSPA players competing for 5 spots, 10 ESF players competing for 5 spots, 6 Western or Independent Korean Players competing for 3 spots, 14 North American players competing for 7 spots, 7 European players competing for 7 spots and 2 SEA players competing for 1 spot.
The map pool for the Winter Season Showdowns:
- Akilon Wastes
- Bifrost
- Cloud Kingdom
- Daybreak
- Entombed Valley
- Korhal City
- Newkirk City
- Ohana
- Planet S
- Star Station
- Whirlwind
This is a mix of new maps form Heart of the Swarm and maps from Wings of Liberty. In addition, “each Showdown, both Players will veto three Maps. The Map Pool will be trimmed down to seven for the Exhibition Tournament at the Winter Championship.”
The 28 winners from the Winter Showdowns will be joined in Dallas by Life, Leenock, Flash and Bomber – the top 4 from the 2012 Winter Season. The Winter Championships will be a 32-Player Single Elimination Bracket (Bo5s & 7s), all 31 matches will be broadcast from the main stage and feature stage.
The prize-pool for the Championships in Dallas will be split as follows:
Prizes: $75,000 total
- 1st = $25,000
- 2nd = $15,000
- 3rd = $9,000
- 4th = $6,000
- 5th = $3,000 (4 Players)
- 9th = $1,000 (8 Players)
That's a total of 15 players walking away with at least $1,000.
The Winter Championships are set. 56 of the best StarCraft II players in the world competing for their place at the MLG Winter Championships in Dallas. MLG has also announced their plans for Call of Duty: Black Ops II and League of Legends, you can find all the details on the official MLG website.