2019 StarCraft II World Championship Series
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Overview[edit]
The 2019 StarCraft II World Championship Series is a series of events organized by or in cooperation with Blizzard Entertainment. They are designed to include four major StarCraft II broadcasters, AfreecaTV, DreamHack, ESL and StarLadder. Like in 2018, there will be a 2 million USD prize pool, that will be spread out among multiple events throughout the year. WCS will be essentially split between the WCS Circuit and WCS Korea, only reunited in WCS Global Events and in the WCS Global Playoffs and Finals that conclude the season.
Sixteen spots in the WCS Global Playoffs will be available, either by winning specific events (IEM Katowice, WCS Circuit events or WCS Korea GSL seasons), or by being one of the top-ranked players of the WCS Circuit or WCS Korea.
Format[edit]
The WCS system is split in two: WCS Korea and WCS Circuit. Both systems have their standings, with points earned at various events.
Throughout the year[edit]
WCS Korea[edit]
Three seasons of Global StarCraft II League (GSL) awarding points.
GSL[edit]
The Global StarCraft II League is organized by AfreecaTV, and operates as follows:
- Code S has two group stages and a final elimination tournament. As in 2018, only the semifinalists are seeded into the next season's first Code S group stage.
- Three GSL seasons in 2019, as in 2018.
WCS Circuit[edit]
Events[edit]
Three WCS Circuit Events and two regional WCS Winter Events awarding points.
Regional Challenger tournaments seed into the Circuit events, and provide additional points.
Global Events[edit]
Besides the WCS Global Playoffs and Finals, WCS Global Events will reunite players from both regions.
Global Playoffs[edit]
At the end of the year, sixteen players (eight from each region) qualify to the 2019 WCS Global Finals.
- The winner of the global event IEM Season XIII - Katowice.
- The winners of the three GSL seasons, and the three WCS Circuit events. If one of them is the winner of the IEM Katowice, then the next-highest placing player qualifies.
- With WCS points:
- WCS Korea: 5 seeds from the standings.
- WCS Circuit: 5 seeds from the standings
If a player has won multiple GSL seasons, or multiple Circuit Events, then there will be one more seed from the corresponding standings. There will be one less seed in the region where the winner of IEM Katowice plays.
There will be four groups of four players :
- Two players from WCS Korea, two players from WCS Circuit
- Dual Tournament format
- Best-of-three
- Top two qualify to the WCS Global Finals
Global Finals[edit]
The 2019 WCS Global Finals features 8 players qualified from the Global Playoffs, playing in a single-elimination bracket, with Bo5 matches leading to a Bo7 Grand Final, crowning the 2019 WCS Champion.
2019 StarCraft II World Championship Series Events[edit]
| Event | Date | Winner | Runner-Up | Score |
|---|
| World Championship | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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2019 StarCraft II World Championship Series Global Finals | 2019-10-24 – 2019-11-01 |   Dark
|
 Reynor
|
4-1 | |
| GSL | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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2019 Global StarCraft II League Season 1 | 2019-02-02 – 2019-04-13 |  Maru
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 Classic
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4-2 | |
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2019 Global StarCraft II League Season 2 | 2019-04-29 – 2019-06-22 | Dark
|
Trap
|
4-2 | |
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2019 Global StarCraft II League Season 3 | 2019-07-03 – 2019-09-28 | Rogue
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Trap
|
4-0 | |
| WCS Korea Events | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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2019 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 1 | 2019-04-18 – 2019-04-21 | Classic
|
GuMiho
|
4-1 | |
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2019 AfreecaTV GSL Super Tournament 2 | 2019-10-03 – 2019-10-06 | Dark
|
TY
|
4-0 | |
| WCS Circuit Events | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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2019 WCS Winter Europe | 2019-01-31 – 2019-04-07 | Reynor
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 Serral
|
4-3 | |
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2019 WCS Winter Americas | 2019-01-31 – 2019-04-06 |  Neeb
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 Scarlett
|
4-2 | |
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2019 WCS Spring | 2019-05-17 – 2019-05-19 | Serral
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 SpeCial
|
4-0 | |
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2019 WCS Summer | 2019-07-12 – 2019-07-14 | Reynor
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Serral
|
4-2 | |
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2019 Assembly Summer | 2019-08-01 – 2019-08-03 | Stats
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Solar
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4-2 | |
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2019 WCS Fall | 2019-09-06 – 2019-09-08 | Serral
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Reynor
|
4-1 | |
2019 WCS Global Events[edit]
| Event | Location | Date | Winner | Runner-Up | Score | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
IEM Season XIII - Katowice |  Katowice
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2019-02-25 – 2019-03-03 | soO
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Stats
|
4-2 |
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2019 GSL vs. the World | Seoul
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2019-08-15 – 2019-08-18 | Serral
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Elazer
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4-2 |
Trivia[edit]
- Serral, Neeb, SpeCial and
Has won all their Challengers (Europe, North America, Latin America and Taiwan respectively). - All of the Latin America Challengers ended with the same result: SpeCial,
Kelazhur and Cham, respectively in first, second and third places. - All of the Oceania, SEA Challengers were won by non-SEA players with
RiSky winning the Spring one and ButAlways winning the Summer and Fall ones. - The 8 WCS Circuit Global Finals participants all have different nationalities apart from
HeRoMaRinE and ShoWTimE who are Germans. - The 8 WCS Korea Global Finals participants are all from South Korea.
- Consistency of the Circuit Global Finals participants:
- Serral, Reynor, Neeb, SpeCial,
TIME and Elazer reached at least the Ro8 in all three WCS Circuit (offline) main events. - While HeRoMaRinE and ShoWTimE only reached the Ro16 in WCS Spring and WCS Fall respectively, being barely eliminated with scores of 2-3 by other BlizzCon participants (Reynor and HeRoMaRinE respectively), they still reached at least the Ro8 in their other two runs.