Partnered with the prestigious Chinese video production ImbaT, Starladder ‘s XIII tournament edition will be now named SL i-League StarSeries and is ready to kick off today, October 21st with its groups stages.
Teams from Europe, China, South East Asia and America will fight for a qualifying spot into the LAN finals that will be held at the beginning of next year, January 13th to 17th.
No less than twelve best teams that will result from the group stages plus the directly invited ones will take the trip to Minsk, Belarus and will face each other at the one of the most modern multifunctional buildings in Europe, Minsk Arena.
First region to begin its group stage is South East Asia with eight teams enrolled at the starting line.
The eight participating teams from each region will be divided into two groups consisting of four teams each. The first two teams from each group will advance to the regional paly off where only one team will secure the ticket for the LAN finals.
Saturday, October 24 the European group stage one will start with four groups featuring the following teams: Squadron, NiP, Natus Vincere, Power Rangers, Stark, HellRaisers, Alliance, Team Empire, 4CL, TBE, (monkey) Business, Liquid, CIS Rejects, MFF, Team Alternate, GoldenBoy and SFZ.
First places from each group will advance to the second group stage, where Team Secret and Virtus. Pro will also join the competition. The runners up from the first group stages will play relegation games to decide which two will also advance to GS2. First two places from the second group stages will directly advance to LAN finals.
Prize pool distribution:
1st: $120,000
2nd: $60,000
3rd - 4th: $30,000
5th - 6th: $15,000
7th - 12th: $5,000
source: starladder
