Global StarCraft II League (GSL)

Sport	eSports (StarCraft II)
Founded	September 2010
CEO	Jung Chan Yong
Country	South Korea
Most recent champion(s)	Park "Dark" Ryung Woo
Most titles	Cho "Maru" Seong Ju (8 titles)
Official website	https://bj.afreecatv.com/gslenglish

Global StarCraft II League (GSL) is a StarCraft II tournament held in South Korea from 2010 to the present. It has been hosted by afreecaTV since 2016;^[1] GOMeXp (formerly GOMTV) hosted it from 2010–2015. Blizzard Entertainment was involved in co-producing and co-funding it for much of its history, although their involvement reduced in later years. For the first two years of the tournament, it featured two leagues, Code S (major) and Code A (minor); afterward it ran as a single combined tournament.

An English language stream is available, aimed at a global audience. The English cast was mainly performed by Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski and Nicolas "Tasteless" Plott until 2022; in 2023, it switched to Tasteless and Ryan "State" Visbeck. Early broadcasts were done on GOMTV's website and player; it switched to Twitch and Afreeca's own platform after Afreeca took over; and the program now broadcasts on Mondays and Thursdays, with the English casts on YouTube, since 2020.

As of the end of 2015 GSL Season 2, GOMTV has awarded over 3.6 billion Korean won (over $3.1 million USD) from the individual GSL and Arena of Legends leagues in StarCraft II.

The 2010 Open Seasons were the first tournaments for the GSL, featuring three initial events with an overall prize pool of 600 million Korean Won (approximately US$500,000) and a prize of 100 million Won for the winner. These attracted attention as they featured the largest prize pool in the history of e-Sports.^{[citation needed]} The Open Seasons were used to sort the players into Code S and Code A for the 2011 season.^[2]

The major tournaments of the early era were divided into Code S and Code A. Code S is the major league and consists of 32 top players in Korea, with the winner of Code S crowned GSL champion. Code A is the minor league, also of 32 players. The initial rules were that the winner of the Code A tournament automatically qualifies to Code S. The top seven Code A players and bottom eight Code S players participate in Up & Down Matches in groups of five players. The top two of each group qualified to Code S. Code A qualifiers were also held before the start of a new season. Top ranking players (informally called Code B) on the Korean Battle.net server were allowed to participate, as were invited foreign players.

For the 2011 GSL November season, it was announced that the format would be changing.^[3] The new format would be a dual tournament format with double-elimination four-player groups (also known in esports generally as "GSL-style groups"), where losing players in Code S immediately drop to Code A.^[4] The new GSL format meant that there would no longer be a Code A champion, but rather victors would proceed into the Code S tournament.

The 2012 tour changed the tournament format slightly, resulting in a longer season. Due to the extended season, there was only be 5 GSL tournaments in the year.^[5]

In 2013, the GSL and the OnGameNet Starleague (OSL) jointly ran the Korean qualifier league for Blizzard Entertainment's World Championship Series (WCS) under the name "WCS Korea".^[6]

OnGameNet stopped its StarCraft II activities in 2014, and the GSL became the only individual league in South Korea. It ran every season of WCS Korea under its own name again (GSL).^[7]

In 2015, the GSL and SPOTV's newly established StarCraft II StarLeague (SSL) ran parallel to each other as the focus of professional play in South Korea. Each league had three seasons throughout the year, for a total of six individual league seasons.^[8]

The GSL and the SSL continued to run as parallel leagues in South Korea for 2016. Each league had two seasons throughout the year, for a total of four individual league seasons, with the finalists of their first and second seasons playing in the first and second season Cross-Finals events.^[9] The first season of GSL for WCS 2016 was preceded by two GSL Pre-Season tournaments which both granted seeding into the main competition to their respective winners.^[10]

Some years, the organizers have run Super Tournaments as side events. The 2010 Super Tournament was a 64-man tournament featuring a prize pool of 202 million Korean Won. Participants are determined by the total GSL points obtained throughout the year.^[11] Super Tournaments were also run in 2011 and in 2017–2022.

In 2023, it was reported that the GSL will continue, but with a reduced presence: the first tournament in 2023 played the preliminary matches online, presumably due to Blizzard no longer funding the prize pools.^[12] They reversed the decision to move early round matches online after the conclusion of the first season, and restored the event to the studio for the later 2023 seasons.^[13]

The English-language broadcast was performed for years by Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski and Nick "Tasteless" Plott, a combination known as "Tastosis." The pair were considered a major draw of the tournament and helped establish a new standard in esports commentary in the English-language market, with the pair praised as "fan favorites" and their work praised as iconic to the medium. Artosis departed from Korea to move to Canada in 2022, with his last cast being of the 2022 GSL S3 Final in October 2022.^[14] From 2023 to the present, the cast is done by Tasteless and Ryan "State" Visbeck.

This is a list of all major GSL tournaments. They are considered equal by AfreecaTV and the winner of any of these tournaments is called a GSL champion.

• 2011 GSL October took place in Anaheim, California during BlizzCon. This was the first GSL final to take place outside South Korea.^[15]
• 2012 Hot6ix GSL Season 5 took place at IPL 5 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Preceding the beginning of 2016 HOT6 Global StarCraft II League Season 1, two Pre-Season tournaments were held by AfreecaTV, with the winner of each being seeded into the main event.

Separate Code A tournaments were only held in 2011. The format changed in November 2011, where Code A become a direct qualifier into the main Code S tournament rather than a separate tournament.

Champions of special tournaments are not considered GSL Champions.

The third Arena of Legends tournament's name comes from Hong Jin-ho, a Brood War legend who was famous for getting second place. It invited non-champion runner-up players from previous GSL tournaments.^[16]

GOMeXp (then GOMTV) ran a team league named GOMTV Global StarCraft II Team League (GSTL) from 2011 to 2013. In late 2011–2012, the rival KeSPA-run Proleague, which was also a team event, switched from Brood War to StarCraft II (with 2011-12 SK Planet Proleague Season 2). GOMeXp stopped running its own team league, with the last event run at the end of 2013.^[17]

GOMTV used to run a house for select foreigners to live in while attempting to qualify for Code A. The house could accommodate up to 8 players. Players are responsible for travel to the GOM house, but all expenses other than food were covered by GOMTV.^[18] The house closed in November 2012.^[19][20]

Major League Gaming and GOMTV announced a player exchange program between the tournaments. MLG will invite and provide travel for four Korean players every tournament and the players will be seeded directly into Championship pool. Starting from MLG Anaheim 2011 the winner of the tournament is given GSL Code S seed and top three non-Korean players (top four if the winner is Korean) are given Code A seeds.^[21]

MLG Columbus 2011 was the first event to see Korean invites. Moon "MMA" Sung Won won the tournament and the other invites finished 2nd, 3rd, and 8th. Non-Korean players accepting Code A seeds were Johan "NaNiWa" Lucchesi, Marcus "ThorZaIN" Eklöf, and Jian Carlo "Fenix" Morayra Alejo. They participated in both GSL August and GSTL August team leagues. For the team league, they formed a team, F.United, together with players from a Korean pro team, WeMadeFox.^[22]

It was thought that NaNiwa would have gotten the Code S spot for his second-place finish at the national finals at MLG Providence 2011, but it was revealed afterward that Code S would not have been given out at that event.^[23]

The GSL-MLG Exchange Program has since been nullified, as GSL is now partnered with IPL.^[24] MLG CEO Sundance DiGiovanni has hinted at the Naniwa Code S scandal as possible reasoning for the breakup of the partnership.^[25]

With the closure of IPL, the partner program between the two is now finished. Since 2013, the GSL took over as the Korean part of the World Championship Series created by Blizzard Entertainment.

2011 and 2012 saw "Blizzard Cup" tournaments for an invited set of 10 players: 5 determined by GSL ranking, and 5 invitees from champions of other events such as MLG, BlizzCon and World Cyber Games 2011.^[26]

The World Championship was a yearly tournament that invited eight of the top non-Korean players to South Korea to play against the top eight Korean players. This was a two-part tournament; the first being a Korea versus the World team tournament, the second being a 16-man single-elimination tournament.^[27]

• StarCraft II StarLeague
• Global StarCraft II Team League
• StarCraft II in esports

• AfreecaTV website
• AfreecaTV eSports on YouTube
• GOMEXP (October 2015 archive)
• GSL's Broadcast on TwitchTV (2019)