First details about MLG 2012 Season announced

Photo by: MLG

Switching from circuit stops to season events, the Major League Gaming returns with some major format changes. With the fights for the Winter season coming shortly, the MLG crew reveals in what way will popular North American event be altered.

As it was announced last year, the Major League Gaming will undergo a major restructuring in terms of format and number of events. Instead of the six circuit stops that built up last year's run, MLG will be reworked to feature four separate seasons - Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn.

Each season will consist of two main events - a Season Arena preceding a Season Championship. The 2012 experience for MLG will fire off with the qualifiers for the Winter Arena that is to be held February 24-26 in New York. 139 of the best performing players from last year, based on their major achievements, will be invited to take part in one of the three Winter Arena qualifiers:

EU Server qualifier: January 31 - February 2

KR/TW Server qualifier: February 3-5

NA Server qualifier: February 6-8

The top eight of each qualifier will join the top eight from the 2011 national championship in Providence (namely Leenock, Naniwa, DongraeGu, MVP, HuK, MC, HayPro and Idra) to form the total of 32 contenders that are to be seeded into the Winter Championship in Ohio in March 23-25. The top sixteen finisher at the Winter Arena will flow into the pool play of the championship, while the bottom sixteen will receive seeds into the open tournament winners bracket round 5.

The Winter Championship itself will be a large live event, unlike the Winter Arena that will still be streamed live but will have no audience attending, and will be close to the 2011 MLG circuit spots in terms of format and atmosphere. Besides bringing home some hefty prizes, the top eight finishers in Ohio will be directly seeded into the Spring Arena (details about the Spring season are to be announced).

Speaking of prize money, MLG have also announced the total money pool up for grabs at the Winter Arena. It will total up to $26,000, broken down as follows:

1st place - $10,000

2nd place - $6,000

3rd place - $3,600

4th place - $2,200

5-6th place - $1,400

7-8th place - $900

Additionally, MLG CEO Sundance DiGiovanni talked to Forbers regarding some more details about the upcoming 2012 MLG experience. Aside from the talks about the seasons and how each of them "will have its own vibe to it", DiGiovanni also brings the joyful news that MLG will provide even more hours of content than before.

- "We have some things we’re really excited about in the pipeline for the summer. There’s going to be a lot more live competition streamed out of the MLG universe then there was last year, because we’ve see that there’s a huge appetite for it. We think that we put on the best show out there for competitive gaming, so we’re going to keep doing it, and do more of it."