UPDATE: 7-19-2010

Last Wednesday's Open Cup winner, Silver, was looking like the dark horse of last nights cup too. Beating KawaiiRice 2-1 in the semi-finals and advancing to the finals. qxc beat xav to advance into the finals. According to last nights GosuGamers.net poll (thanks to puremiss), qxc was heavily favored for the win. Silver showed some fight in the first map and just as qxc was making his final push, SC2 errored on Silver causing his game to disconnect. qxc was up 1-0 moving into the second map. Silver was a little late with building some key things and resulted in a much shorter match than the first map and qxc winning 2-0. Congrats to both players for putting on great matches tonight and congrats to qxc for the win. We look forward to seeing everyone return post-release where will have more competitions for SC2. Thanks to puremiss for the coverage last night, had a few hardware issues but it happens :)

Original Post

The SC2 Beta is coming to a close in a few days so why not end it with a bang? National ESL is holding a 128 Player, 1v1 SC Beta Cup this Sunday (7/18). The top 8 player from our previous 1v1 SC2 Open Cup will be seeded into Sunday's Cup and the remaining players will be randomly seeded. Be sure to join our IRC channel #esl.sc2 on Gamesurge.net

Rules and Info

Format

Single Elimination
Rounds 1-5 = best of 1 map
Rounds 6-7 = best of 3 maps

Map Rotation

Round 1 - 6:00pm EST - Blistering Sands
Round 2 - 6:30pm EST - Metalopolis
Round 3 - 7:00pm EST - Scrap Station
Round 4 - 7:30pm EST - Steppes of War
Round 5 - 8:00pm EST - Lost Temple
Round 6 - 8:30pm EST - Toss Toss Pick Pick (see below)
Round 7 - 9:00pm EST - Toss Toss Pick Pick (see below)
*Match length may vary. If you spill over into the next round, that is fine. Your next match will be delayed until you are finished.



Toss Toss Pick Pick
Starting with the lower seed, each player will "toss" out a map from the map pool. That map is no longer allowed to be picked for play for that match. This alternates between players until 3 maps remain. The higher seed picks one of the 3 maps as the first map of the match. The lower seeds picks one of the 2 remaining maps as the second map of the match. The 1 remaining map is then used as the tie breaker map if a third map has to be played for the match.

Map Pool
Steppes of War
Blistering Sands
Scrap Station
Desert Oasis
Lost Temple
Kulas Ravine
Metalopolis

Server Settings

Race: Any (yes, Random is allowed)
Color: Any
Category: Melee
Mode: 1v1/2v2 (depends on competition)
Game Speed: Faster
Observers: National ESL Staff and Casters ONLY

Prize Info

First Place: $50 and 1 month of premium membership
Second and Third Place: 1 month of premium membership

Important Times

Check-in Starts: 5:00pm EST
Check-in Closes: 5:30pm EST(Sign-ups open again for anyone who didn't check-in)
Sign-ups after check-in Closes: 5:40pm EST
Bracket Seeding and Construction Starts: 5:40pm EST
Matches Start: 6:00pm EST


Please note this is for North and South Americans only.

Shoutcast Stream

Tonight's matches will be casted by "puremiss" of GosuGamers. The stream can be found here:
Click to view the stream.


// Your ESL Admin Team