TeamLiquid StarLeague 4

We are excited to officially announce the TeamLiquid StarLeague 4. It's been a long year, but we're finally back. The TSL4 will feature three returning seeds and twenty-nine open qualifier spots. It will have a live finals and after party in New York City, as well as full news and coverage on TeamLiquid.net. But most of all, it will hopefully recapture the spirit that made TSL3 special to not only the TL community but to StarCraft fans everywhere.




The sponsors for the TSL4 include Razer and Twitch.tv, two consistent supporters of TeamLiquid.net, the Liquid team, and StarCraft in general. We're very happy to work with them again and grateful for their continued support. The video and art for this TSL is done by Salon Alpin, the same studio behind our popular Spirit Swarm Steel shirts.






Just over one year ago, two Swedish players qualified for the TSL3 and advanced to the finals. One was a polarizing Protoss who cared only about winning, and the other was a creative Terran who captivated fans with his smart builds and play style.

NaNiwa went on to win MLG tournaments and is the only foreign player alive in the GSL Code S Quarterfinals. ThorZaIN currently has the highest international player ELO and recently won DreamHack Open: Stockholm. Many fans may not have known very much about these two when the TSL3 began in 2011, but today they are two of the best StarCraft 2 players in the world.

"TSL was the tournament I made a name for myself in.
I owe so much to it. Since it is so special to me,
I am very much looking forward to defending my title."
-- Marcus 'ThorZaIN' Eklöf

We believe that the TSL is a special tournament. It is a tournament run for the community and for StarCraft fans, with excitement and interest built organically through news articles, player interaction, and fan support on our forums. Our goal is to put a face on every single player in the bracket, and to allow our viewers and fans to experience an event together in a truly unique way. We want passionate discussion, funny posters, and interesting interviews to flood our website each week between matches. It is a spirit that is difficult to describe, and if you've never experienced the TSL, now is your chance.


One of the things that makes the TSL unique is its open qualifier system. In fact, all four TSL3 semifinalists were open qualifiers. Our defending champion, ThorZaIN, had never won a major event until the TSL. Many sporting events fear the unknown player. They want big names and big ratings. But the TSL thrives on the unknown, rising player. This tournament makes big names. The TSL3 had three seeds from TSL2, sixteen qualifiers from NA/EU, and thirteen players invited from Korea and Asia. The partial-invite system was for practical purposes. Then, we were simply not ready to run qualifiers on Korea. Now, we are.

The TSL4 will feature three returning seeds from TSL3: mouz.ThorZaIN, Quantic.NaNiwa, and Empire.Kas. The other twenty-nine players will come from open qualifier TL Open tournaments: eighteen from North America and Europe, and eleven from Korea and Asia.


Stay tuned for announcements about our casters, prize pool, and contests, as well as details about the TSL4 qualifiers and format.