Thule

Go to the US Server, we're all over there.

Tournament is now a double elimination tournament, by the way. We've got 9 people right now and that's not enough for anything like a group phase. Double elim should still work fine however, let's hope we get a few more people joining in in the next half hour.

http://binarybeast.com/xHotS1304271

Sign-ups are now live! The tournament will begin in a little under 4 hours from this post on.

@jixashauser

I can't really help you with that. Maybe try a full reset or check the Blizzard tech support forums to see if someone else is experiencing the same issue.

Tournament is still a go as far as I'm concerned, although I might be forced to go back to the good old double elimination format if we don't get enough players to run a group stage format comfortably. Hope to see you all tomorrow!

Added the map pool. Only added one non-ladder map, which probably won't cause you any problems, because it's been featured in many tournaments by now and you will have probably seen it at least once.

Sure, that's fine. As long as they know what Giant Bomb is. :)

Big thanks to MacEG for the awesome banner!

Hello and welcome to the very first Giant Bomb Starcraft II Heart of the Swarm Community Tournament!

This tournament is open to all players regardless of skill level. You're also welcome to come observe games if you don't feel like playing.

Previous Tournaments:

Giant Bomb Community Tournament #1 won by Domorin. (click to view bracket)

Format:

Together with my fellow tournament organizers(Harris, Hennet_sim and Moztacular) I've decided to change up the double elimination format we used in Wings of Liberty tournaments.

A group stage will precede the bracket. Players will play against people in their own group and the players with the most wins will advance to the bracket stage. The size of the groups will probably lie between 6 and 8 players per group, which means everyone will get to play a minimum of at least 5-7 matches.

The number of groups and number of people who get to advance to the bracket stage is very dependent on the number of participants and will be determined by me before the tournament once I get an idea of how many people will participate.

We've decided to make this change to make sure people get to play more games against one another. We hope you will enjoy it.

All matches in the group stage will be played as a best-of-1.

The bracket stage will be played as a single elimination bracket.

Quarter finals (and any matches before) are best-of-1.(Or they might be best-of-3 if we have enough time left)

Semi-Finals are best-of-3.

The Finals are best-of-5.

Changes to this format may occur in tournaments after this one, depending on what I, my fellow organizers and you, the players, think works best and is the most fun.

Rules:

- No use of hacks or exploits is allowed.

- If a player drops from a match, you can restart from a replay.

- Please only spectate other people's games if you're eliminated from the tournament or are waiting for your match. Due to the nature of a group stage, it's important everyone plays their games as soon as possible in order to prevent holding up the rest of the tournament.

- Please be courteous enough to leave other people's games if you're lagging while spectating. (General rule is that you should leave if it happens more than once)

Map pool:

This is the map pool for this tournament:

• Newkirk Precinct LE
• Neo Planet S LE
• Bel'shir Vestige LE
• ESV Cloud Kingdom
• Daybreak LE
• Whirlwind LE
• Akilon Wastes LE

The only non-ladder map is ESV Cloud Kingdom, which should be very recognizeable for most people considering it's been a map in the GSL and numerous other tournaments.

Map to play on for the group stages:

• Group stage, round 1: Whirlwind LE
• Group stage, round 2: Newkirk Precinct LE
• Group stage, round 3: ESV Cloud Kingdom
• Group stage, round 4: Daybreak LE
• Group stage, round 5: Neo Planet S LE
• Group stage, round 6: Akilon Wastes LE
• Group stage, round 7: Bel'shir Vestige LE
• Group stage, round 8: Whirlwind LE

In the bracket stage the first map will be detemined by me. If the games are best-of-three or best-of-five then the loser will pick a map from the map pool after the first game.

Map to play on for the bracket stage:

• Bracket stage, round of 8: Daybreak LE
• Bracket stage, Semi-Finals: ESV Cloud Kingdom
• Bracket stage, Finals: Newkirk Precinct LE

Official sign-ups:

The official sign-ups will be done on the day of the tournament itself. I will post a link to the sign-up page in this thread and in this post when that time has come. We'll be using Binary Beast to organize the tournament. Please prepare a personal account there so you're ready to quickly sign up once you're able to. (It's free!)

Please let me know in the thread if you're willing to participate so I get an idea of how many players will show up. (Remember, posting in the thread does not automatically sign you up for the tournament. See above.)

When and Where:

The tournament will start on Saturday, April 27th 19:00 GMT, 20:00 CEST, 14:00 EDT, 13:00 CDT, 12:00 PDT (Check your timezone here)

Please make sure you sign-up before that time, otherwise you won't be able to participate.

When you log in to Battle.net, make sure you log into the US Server as we'll be playing our games there.

Once you're logged in, join the 'Giantbomb' chat channel on Battle.net in order to set up matches with eachother.

Prizes:

One participant in the tournament will win the raffle. Each contestant will be given a random number and once the tournament is complete I (or Moztacular) will generate a random number using random.org. Whoever's number gets picked will get to choose a single game from the following list:

• Serious Sam 3
• Deus Ex: Goty edition
• Payday: The Heist
• Dungeon Defenders
• Binary Domain
• Trine 2

Raidcall group:

We've got a Raidcall group now where you can hang out in and talk to fellow Bombers if you want. The group's called 'Giant Bomb SC2' (Group id: 5863394).

Tournament streams:

As usual, Moztacular will be streaming his games and will commentate as many games as he can.

You can find his stream here.

If you're also willing and able to stream, please let me know. I'll add a link to your stream in this post.

GHLB!

Have you tried completely shutting down your Macbook, booting it back up and then launching Starcraft again?

Your best bet however, would be to ask on the Blizzard tech support forums as they might be more familiar with this problem.

GG's everyone, thanks to everyone for playing.

Remember you can download all uploaded replay on the tournament bracket page: http://binarybeast.com/xHotS130310126

You can also rewatch Moz's stream on his stream page here: http://www.twitch.tv/moztacular

Big props to Wunder for casting alot of the games in the late night/early morning hours in Malaysia. Your a boss Wunder.

Also, let me know what you think about the new format or any other aspect of the tournament. I might consider hosting seperate tournaments for lower and higher ranked players in order to make the games more interesting for everyone, but we're going to need a few more participants next time if we want to make that work. There will definitely be a next tournament though, so keep an eye on these forums for that!