StarCraft II announced that Assembly Summer is making a return. The competition is from August 1 to August 3 and held in Helsinki. $25,000 is at stake, along with a total of 3,200 WCS Circuit points.
While the tournament is a sanctioned WCS Circuit competition, it is the first time that such a tournament has been held without a region lock in place. In addition, players that are not eligible to be part of the WCS Circuit can still compete based on eligibility as determined by Assembly Summer. The only difference is that if such players win, they do not earn points for their placements.
A total of 32 players are expected to be part of this tournament, with eight players to get direct invites. The other 24 will enter through online qualifiers. To determine if you are eligible to compete, you can refer to the WCS 2019 Rule Book.
So far, three invites have been given including:
- Joona "Serral" Sotala
- Riccardo "Reynor" Romiti
- Eo "soO" Yoon-soo
The 23 players from the Qualifiers have already been selected. The remaining one participant is the winner of the Fuzer Shelter Game Room Open.
As mentioned, there is a $25,000 prize pool and 3,200 WCS Circuit points up for grabs. They are to be distributed as follows:
- 1st: $10,000 + 1,000 WCS Circuit points
- 2nd: $5,000 + 600 WCS Circuit points
- 3rd-4th: $2,500 + 200 WCS Circuit points
- 5th-8th: $1,250 + 100 WCS Circuit points
- 9th-16th: 50 WCS Circuit points
The Group Stage of the tournament follows a double-elimination format, with the playoffs being single-elimination. In the Group Stage, players are divided into eight groups of four players each. The top two players of each group then move to the next stage. The group stage has best-of three matches, the playoffs are best-of five, and the finals are best-of seven.
The tournament is organized by Assembly and sponsored by ASUS ROG. In a statement, ASUS ROG said that this tournament marks the return of this "highly competitive real-time strategy game back to one of its former hometowns." Helsinki has been home to seven international StarCraft II events between 2011 and 2015. What makes this year's Assembly Summer even more exciting is that hometown hero Serral is part of the tournament.
