User:Peksi/GSL

GOMTV Global Starcraft II League (GSL) is a StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty tournament hosted by GomTV and Blizzard Entertainment in South Korea. There is an English stream available for non-Korean viewers. The tournament features two leagues, Code S (major) and Code A (minor). Code S and other major events are casted by Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski and Nick "Tasteless" Plott, whereas Code A has a series of rotating commentators and is currently being casted by "Wolf" Schröder. The event is broadcasted Monday to Friday on GomTV, with the regular individual leagues occurring Monday to Wednesday, and the GOMTV Global Starcraft II Team League on Thursday and Friday.

GSL-MLG Exchange Program
Major League Gaming and GOMTV have announced a player exchange program between the tournaments. MLG will invite and provide travel for four Korean players every tournament and the players will be seeded directly into Championship pool. Starting from MLG Anaheim 2011 the winner of the tournament is given GSL Code S seed and top three non-Korean players (top four if the winner is Korean) are given Code A seeds. Players may use the GOMTV foreigner house during their stay in Korea.

MLG Columbus 2011 was the first event to see Korean invites. Moon "MMA" Sung Won won the tournament and the other invites finished 2nd, 3rd and 8th. Non-Koreans players accepting Code A seeds were Johan "NaNiWa" Lucchesi, Marcus "ThorZaIN" Eklöf and Jian Carlo "Fenix" Morayra Alejo. They will participate in both GSL August and GSTL August team league. For the team league they will form a team F.United together with players from a Korean pro team WeMadeFox.

2010 Open Seasons
The 2010 Open Seasons were the first tournaments for the GSL, featuring three initial events with an overall prize pool of 600 million Korean Won (approximately 500,000 USD) and a prize of 100 million Won for the winner. These attracted worldwide attention as they featured the largest prize pool in the history of e-Sports. The purpose of the Open Seasons was to sort the players into Code S and Code A for the 2011 season.

Sponsorship League
Sponsorship League is the regular tournament that is held multiple times a year. Code S is the major league and consists of 32 top players in Korea. Winner of Code S is crowned GSL champion.

Code A is the minor league of 32 players. Winner of code A qualifies to Code S. Top seven Code A players and bottom eight Code S players participate in Up&Down matches in groups of five players. Top two of every group qualify to Code S. Code A qualifiers are held before the start of a new season. Only top ranking players (called Code B) in Korean Battle.net server are allowed to participate. Foreign players are allowed to attend qualifiers without meeting the criteria though.

World Championship
The World Championship is a yearly tournament that invites top eight non-Korean players to South Korea to play against the top eight Korean players. This is a two part tournament, the first being a Korea versus the World team tournament, the second being a 16 man single elimination tournament.

Super Tournament
Similar to the 2010 Open Seasons, the Super Tournaments are a 64 man tournament featuring a prize pool of 202 million Korean Won. Participants are determined by the total GSL points obtained throughout the year.

Blizzard Cup
Top 10 players in GSL ranking qualify to the Blizzard Cup. It is a play-off type tournament where 10th ranked player plays against 9th ranked player. The winner of that match plays against 8th ranked player and so on until a victorious player faces the 1st ranked player.

Champions
This is a list of all major GSL tournaments. They are considered equal by GOMTV and the winner of any of these tournaments is called a GSL champion.

GSTL
GOMTV Global Starcraft II Team League (GSTL) is a StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty tournament hosted by GomTV and Blizzard Entertainment in South Korea. The GSTL focuses on team play to see which is the best team. The GSTL is broadcasted on Thursday and Friday, whereas the GOMTV Global Starcraft II League is broadcasted on Monday to Wednesday.