TeamLiquid StarLeague 8 – TSL preview and tournament bracket

The TSL series of events is part of the StarCraft Pro League and they are a pretty major event in the season. There is rarely any downtime for competitive StarCraft 2, and the latest version of this tournament is just about to kick off.

The qualifiers have now successfully wrapped with some of the best StarCraft 2 players in competition. We now have the full details for how the bracket is going to look at the TSL 8 tournament. That’s alongside a brand-new sponsor for the event.

TSL 8 – Format

TSL 8, or the TeamLiquid StarLeague 8, will feature a $30,000 prize pool in total. The event is going to be running from November 26^th through to December 12^th. The tournament is one of the last parts of the ESL Pro Tour 2021/2022 for this year, before things heat up in the Masters Last Chance.

The TSL 8 itself is going to have 32 players in competition. These players have been pulled in through a few qualifiers. 3 Korean Qualifiers were held featuring 10 players each in a single-elimination bracket. 3 EU qualifiers were held with a double-elimination bracket for 11 qualifying players. Finally, 3 AM Qualifiers were held for 10 more players in a single-elimination bracket. Alongside these players, Trap has been invited rather than coming from the initial qualifiers.

The tournament itself is going to be played in a 32-player double-elimination bracket. Each player starts out in the initial round of 32, played in best of 3. The winners move forward to the round of 16 while the losers head to the losers’ bracket. These winners make their way through to the quarterfinals, before the semis, and eventually for the top player the full winner for the final match. The winners final and Grand Finals are both played in Best of 7 rather than 5.

The losers in each of these rounds head into the losers bracket, where they have the chance to climb their way back up to the winners’ finals.

Competitors and Bracket

That’s how TSL 8 is going to work over the next few days. If you’re looking for predictions for StarCraft betting, there are loads of matches taking place making it a little hard to call a full winner. However, there are a few key games in the initial part of the bracket.

The earliest marches in the game all have relatively solid esports odds, with a clear winner being favourites. For Trap v GuMiho, Trap definitely has the edge. As does ZZest up against Ragnarok, Reynor in his match against Elzer, and Maru playing Harstem. However, there are plenty of less-close matches that are scheduled through the first few weeks. We can likely expect to see some of these players in the later rounds of the event though.

You can see the full bracket at the following link.

New Sponsors at the TSL 8

The TSL 8 is going to have some fun match-ups, it will also be sporting some different sponsorships than usual though. The event’s title sponsor is going to be Shopify. IMC will be sponsoring a $1,000 prize to the player with the most cost-efficient army along with a brackets contest for fans throughout. SecretLab is also returning as a sponsor. This event will have a new sponsor in Coinbase though.

That’s everything that’s taking place at the TSL 8. Be sure to tune in for the matches and see which players make it through in this part of the StarCraft Pro League.