The rivalries between the states and territories of Australia are some of the most competitive rivalries in sport. Each year the highlight of the sports calendar down under features State vs State competitions across various codes of football, and the StarCraft II State of Origin competition seeks to bring this same competitive rivalry to the online arena. The event was memorable for various reasons, as the BW scene in Australia at the time was all but dead. The community rallied together to make SoO a closely-fought tournament with a massive participation rate, even bringing big names out of retirement such as Legionnaire, and featuring future SC2 stars like Pinder, deth and mOOnGLaDe.
Continuing on from the popular first SoO series in StarCraft: Brood War the competition will see defending champions Queenslandtake on season 1 finalists New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and newcomers Australian Capital Territory.
Queensland have been historically strong in RTS games in Australia, producing the only internationally recognised BW player in Legionnaire, as well as arguably the best WC3 player mOOnGLaDe. This was accentuated with a convincing win in the finals of season 1, but in SC2 the scene has undergone drastic change. No longer is there a lack of depth in the Australian scene, and participation is at an all-time high with events in the SEA server prospering. Queensland and New South Wales are again title contenders, but Victoria and ACT have stronger teams that previously, and WA and SA are strong enough to field their own teams.
Continuing the traditions of previous seasons, there will be a B-Team competition run parallel. While there is no prize, there is still a lot of state pride on the line. Separately run BSG and PD level state competitions are being organised by independent admins as well.
The matches are best of 5 (First to win 3), ProLeague format with an ace match. The lineups are submitted confidentially by team captains and the full lineups are published before the match day. A lineup will consist of four players to play a Bo1, and an ace player who can be any player, even one who has already played. Each of the teams play each other once in the round robin phase, before qualifying for an elimination playoff. All six teams will be involved in the playoffs for the finals with the bottom four seeds playing off in preliminary finals for the right to face the top two in the semi finals.
The format was chosen in order to promote a fair competition, and in homage of the Brood War team leagues that inspired this competition. By limiting the series to Bo1 and just four players rather than an all-kill format teams with less depth are given a chance at the title. An additional rule in place to prevent the vastly favoured teams from killing the competition is that QLD and NSW teams cannot use the same lineup twice in the round robin stage of the tournament (it resets for the playoffs). This way they have additional factors to manage and it mitigates the problem of superior depth.
The B-Team competition will follow the same format with the exception of the playoffs - the B-Team competition winner will be determined purely by ladder standings and will contain more teams (so far just Tasmania).
Captains
State
A Team Captain
B Team Captain
ACT
santi
Loach
NSW
Mafia
HuT
QLD
SenSei
minimat
SA
EdgE
Potthead
VIC
inFeZa
MiLes
WA
SedZ
Zealo
The event will span a total of seven weeks with games being played on the Sundays (except for major event clashes, where Saturday will be the preferred day):
Schedule
Round
Date
1
Sunday 24th June
2
Sunday 1st July
3
Sunday 8th July
4
Sunday 15th July
5
Sunday 22nd July
Prelim
Sunday 29th July
Semi
Sunday 5th August
Final
Sunday 12th August
$650* Cash Prize
To the first placed team, distributed evenly among the active members.
*Note that this value is subject to change as some people have expressed interest in donating!
blind has thrown another $100 in to the prizepool! Total is $650. Anything from $700 onwards will go towards something in the b-team if anyone else wants to donate.
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Brendan "TAdeL" Ferguson Clan TA | Twitter | YouTube
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