In a post by ESEA, the format for the new Starcraft II league has been detailed. According to the post, 50 teams have signed up for the chance to compete for one of the 36 slots that are available.

Below is an official explanation of the format:

 

The format for the brand new Starcraft 2 league will be as follows. All matches will pit teams of four or more players against each other in a best of 5 series with each match in that series consisting of a best of 3. Although it may sound confusing, I assure you it is not. It is simpler to think of this in broad terms. The first team to win three best of threes will win the match. The way it works is each team sends out a player to play against a player from their opponents team and whoever wins that three game series will have earned their team a point, first to 3 points wins. This will repeat with a different player from each team playing in all the matches until a team has either accumulated the necessary 3 points or a tiebreak is required to decide the winner. Up to this point, no player has played in more than one game. But wait, There’s more!

The tiebreak match, also referred to as the ACE match, is the same format as the previous four best of three series with the exception that the teams can send any of their players even if they have played in a previous match leading up to this. As you might have guessed, the ACE match features the team’s best players going at it head-to-head to determine who will take home the W. Teams will be playing twice a week with the first map of each match predetermined well in advance. However, every map after the first is up to the discretion of the loser of the previous match. If you lose the first game, you are given the opportunity to choose the second map and so on and so on until a winner is determined. Also worth noting, a player must use the same race for every map in each match. So if you start out playing Zerg, you have to play all the games of your best of three series as Zerg. That is unless you have the cojones to roll the dice and play as random, but few dare.

 

More information about ESEA’s SC2 league can be found by clicking here.