CPL has changed its CS format for the first time since 2000 (?) Why did you decide to change?

This is a change we have been discussing internally for the last year. We were not fans of single elimination for teams that travel to the CPL and play only one match and if they lose are completely out of the tournament. We were looking at something that can offer the gamers a better tournament experience at the CPL. The old format was single elimination to double elimination format, but the majority of gamers never made it past the first round. By switching the tournament to group play, we give every team at least three matches to play in a full tournament. We believe that this is going to offer gamers an enhanced experience at the CPL, by giving them more matches against differently skilled teams. The way it worked in the past was that a #1 seeded team played #64, now the way it will work is say #1, #17, #33 and #49 will play each other in group play. There is a better shot for some of those teams to get a win. The other change is going from double elimination to best of 3.

You guys recently announced a new team committee. Did they have any input on this change?

The new committee did help in some of the discussions after we had decided on group play. We discussed single, double and best of three. We debated a few key points before we settled on best of 3. What we took into account was the amount of time for matches and the best way to determine a team’s skill. Going to best of 3 format will give teams a chance to play at least two maps against a team and is a better factor to determine the superior team than just one map.

How many teams advance out of the first stage of group play?

32 teams will advance from the first stage of group play, and move into a second stage of group play.

How will maps be chosen for the best of 3 single elimination format?

The way maps will be chosen is quite different as well. We will have a five map pool and the higher seeded team chooses the map they want and from the four remaining maps the lower seeded team chooses their map. Then the lower seeded team chooses one of the three maps remaining in the pool and that map is discarded, then the higher seeded team does the same with the remaining two maps, leaving one map in the pool that will be played as the tie-breaker should a match go to three maps.

How will ties in group play be dealt with?

We will go by record first and in the event of a tie we will use head-to-head play to determine any remaining ties in group play.

Summer CPL is usually much larger in terms of teams. Will there be more stages of group play or will you limit the number of CS teams to 64 for that event as well?

Well with the time allotted for the CS tournament 64 teams in group play is the most that we can do. We will have some waiting list spots for cancellations and no-shows.

You recently announced that the top 3 CAL I teams would receive berths to the CPL. How will this work?

This CAL I season will determine the seedings that the teams get when they move into the tournament. The online tournament in CAL will be a double elimination format, run over a few weeks and the top 3 teams will receive berths into the CPL Championship Finals.

During the World Tour some events ran side events that were not sanctioned games. Such as a CPL Brazil Counter Strike tournament was not an official tour game so was not subject to CPL rules. What will be the policy for the World Season?

The official games for the CPL World Season are only Counter-Strike 1.6 and Quake 3, these games will follow the CPL rules, policies and regulations. A few National Finals may host other games and those will not be sanctioned by the CPL.

What involvement if any will the CPL core staff have on the World Season events?

The CPL is totally committed to the success of its world partners. While some difficulties should be expected, we have integrated our entire staff to the operational systems of our national partners, have created several share points for free exchange information and have a closer relationship with our partners now than we have ever had before. Overall, we all feel that with the help of our sponsors AMD and ATI, we are raising the bar on global scale deployments of CPL tournaments.

Can we expect any more changes to the CPL format for Winter?

Yes, the way that we seed teams will be changing but that is something that we are still working on with the help of our tournament committees.