Blizzard Entertainment revealed that the Korea StarCraft League will be returning in 2019. This is the third season for this StarCraft: Remastered tournament.
?The Korea StarCraft League is back with Season 3 of the #KSL! New year, new venue and more StarCraft esports! ?https://t.co/KaFEzbOmcE pic.twitter.com/ZfgRcxpDv8
— StarCraft Esports (@esportstarcraft) February 20, 2019
The tournament will be held in Seoul this year. Despite the name, the tournament itself will not be limited to players coming from Korea. StarCraft players around the world are invited to participate.
KSL had two seasons back in 2018, and its return this year is expected to be in April.
Season 1 was held between July and September 2018 with the top 256 players of the online qualifiers advancing to the offline stage. The top 16 players from this stage moved on to the main tournament. The championship match ended up between Zerg player Lee "Jaedong" Jae Dong and Terran player Kim "Last" Sung Hyun. The battle would be one-sided as Last overpowered Jaedong 4-0.
Season 2 took place between October and December 2018. Unlike the previous season, this tournament would only get 12 players from the offline qualifiers with the top four players of Season automatically joining the competition. Jaedong was slated to particpate but withdrew for undsiclosed reasons. The crown would go to Kim "Neo.G_Soulkey" Min Chul who would trounce Last at the semifinals 4-0 before winning the finals 4-1.
With the 2019 season, fans are excited to see who claims the KSL trophy and is crowned the champion. A prize pool of around $71,000 is up for grabs as well.
Online registration for the new KSL season is expected to begin on March 8 with the deadline being March 20. Online qualifiers will follow on March 23 and 24. Offline qualifiers are scheduled for March 30. The top 16 players of the qualifiers will form the roster of the 2019 KSL season.
For the Group Stage, the tournament will follow a dual format best-of five. The top two players for each stage will then move to the next round. Quarterfinals will follow a best-of five format while semifinals and the championship will have players go head-to-head in a best-of seven series.
The opening match is scheduled to take place on April 18 with later matches scheduled to occur every Thursday and Friday.
Matches can be viewed on the Blizzard’s StarCraft Twitch channel.
