OnGameNet Starleague (OSL)
From Liquipedia Starcraft Wiki
The OSL (OnGameNet Starleague) is a semi annual Starcraft tournament broadcasted on the channel OnGameNet (OGN). Ongamenet is a cable gaming company in Korea, that heavily focuses on Starcraft. The OSL's roots date back all the way back to 1999, but it wasn't until 2001 when the tournament was considered professional. Being the oldest professional tournament in Korea, many consider the OSL to be the most prestigious Starcraft tournament.
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[edit] Trademarks
- The Royal Road
A Royal Roader is a player who wins the OSL the first time they participate in the OSL. Any player who achieves this feat is said to have walked the "Royal Road". Currently the following players have walked the Royal Road; Boxer, Garimto, Nada, July, Anytime, Savior and Jaedong.
- The Legend of the Fall
The Legend of the Fall is a belief that a Protoss player will win the OSL in the Fall. This Legend started in SKY 2001 where Garimto defeated Boxer in the fall, stopping Boxer from winning three back to back OSLs. This curse was perpetuated the following fall in SKY 2002 OSL where Reach defeated Boxer once again in the Fall.
- The Golden Mouse
The Golden Mouse is an award for any player who wins three OSLs. Currently there are three recipients of the award; Nada, July and Jaedong. The award was created in late 2005 before the finals of So1 OSL. The award is a solid gold mouse statue worth approximately $8000 USD. There is also a Platinum mouse awarded for a player who has won 5 OSLs and a Diamond mouse for a player who has won 7 OSLs
- Curse of the OSL Champion
The champion of the previous Starleague would fail to advance out of the Round of 16, usually with a victory in their opening match and then two subsequent losses.
- Groundbreaking Map Pool
The OMAT was created in 2005 and introduced its first radical map in Ride of Valkyries. Since then, the OMAT have released maps which have either been hits or misses. Notable favourites include Peaks of Baekdu, 815 and Fantasy, while notable failures include Pioneer Period, Tears of the Moon and Demon's Forest.
- Most watched starleague to date.
From its inception in 1999, the OSL is still the most watched Individual e-Sports League in Korea. Statistics show that the MBCgame's MSL has always been behind in terms of ratings.
[edit] Tournament Format
The OSL is a 40-player tournament that goes takes about 4 months to finish. There are multiple stages, all of which will be explained. Usually after an OSL is finished, the season has ended and there is a short break. Afterwards, another OSL is started and the cycle continues.
There are two levels to the OSL; OSL (the StarLeague) and the offline preliminaries. The OSL is the major tournament and the other rounds are preliminaries to qualify for the OSL. The OSL itself is divided into Round 1 and Round 2 - both of which will be explained. Of the 40 OSL players, those who finish in the top four of the previous OSL are rewarded with what is called a seed. Seeded players are guaranteed a spot in the second round of the next OSL.
[edit] The offline preliminaries
The offline preliminaries, or PSL, are the qualifiers for OSC. PSL stands for Pc-Bang Star League and is not the official name, just one that became popular with the Korean communities. The official name is OSC Round 1, but for simplicities sake we just call it the PSL. Any registered Progamer who is a member of a Progaming team can participate in the tournament, and as you can imagine, it is a very very large tournament. There are 24 groups in which only one person advances. The groups generally have around 7 to 8 people each, groups with 7 generally have one player having a bye round. This player is ranked highly on the KeSPA rankings and is given an advantage because of it. Each group is played out like an 8-man single elimination tournament. Each match is best of 3, as to increase the chances the better player will advance. The 24 group winners then advanced to OSC. Typically the groups are played out over 2 days.
[edit] Round 1
The 12 players who qualified for Round Two of the previous OSL but didn't receive seeds to Round 2, automatically get a place in the following seasons Round One and have a small advantage which will be explained soon. In each of the 12 groups there is 1 player who was in the previous OSL and didn’t get in the top 4. The other 2 spots in each group are taken by those who passed through the offline preliminaries. One person from each group advances. The two players who advanced from the offline preliminaries who were randomly assigned to the group play each other in a best of three match. The winner of this match plays the player in the group who played in last seasons OSL Round 2. The winner of this second Best of 3 advances to the OSL round 2. The advantage that the player who played in last seasons round two gets is that they only need to play one Bo3 to advance from the group whereas the other two gamers must play two.
In the end, 12 players advance from Round One into Round Two. 4 Seeded players + 12 qualified players = 16 players.
[edit] Round 2
There are two parts to Round Two of the OSL - the Group Stage and the Elimination Stage
[edit] Group Stage
- Group Selection
The 4 seeds are placed in separate groups so that Seed #1 is 1st in Group A, Seed #2 is 1st in Group B and so on. The seeds then get to choose their groups. Seeds #1->#4 get to pick one player each from the player pool which then joins the seed in their group as the 2nd player. After that the 2nd player in Group D picks a player, then the 2nd player in Group C, then Group B then Group A. Then the 3rd player in Group A picks, then group B, then Group C, then Group D. And Viola! We have 4 groups of 4 players.
- Group Play
Each of those groups plays in a round-robin style so that everyone plays everyone else. The top 2 qualifiers from the group enter into the Bracket Phase. Occasionally there are ties in the group, for example 3 players are on 2-1. In the event of such a tie another round robin takes place between the tied players until usable results are attained. For example, if there are three tied players and they each go 1-1, they play another round of tiebreakers until one player goes 2-0, 1-1 and 0-2. This way it allows the players to be ranked even in the event of a tie. If two players are tied first with 2-1, the player who defeated the other one takes the first spot.
[edit] Elimination Stage
The elimination stage is the final round of the OSL. It works in a classic 8 man single-elimination tournament. The quarterfinals (the first round of the bracket phase) are best of 3, whereas the Semifinals and Finals are best of 5. Originally, the OSL used a group round robin system similar to the Round of 16 with two groups instead of four to determine the semi-finalists. All players would play on the same day over three weeks, but it was announced by OnGameNet at the start of the Gillette OSL that they would switch to the more fan-friendly single-elimination system.
[edit] Trivia
Total: 28 OSLs
[edit] Medals won per Race
As of October, 2009, there have been:
| Race |  1st |  2nd
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|---|---|---|
 Terran | 11 | 9 |
 Zerg | 9 | 12 |
 Protoss | 8 | 7 |
[edit] Medals won per Player
[edit] Gold
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| NaDa · July · Jaedong
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| GARIMTO · Boxer · iloveoov
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| Freemura · Grrrr... · Kingdom · Reach · Xellos · Sync · Nal_rA · Anytime · Casy · Savior · GGPlay · Flash · Stork
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[edit] Silver
| 4 x
| Boxer
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| H.O.T-Forever, YellOw, ChoJJa, July, Stork, fantasy
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| TheBOy, SKELTON, JinNam, Nal_rA, Zeus, Reach, Goodfriend, Anytime, NaDa, Iris, BeSt, YellOwArnC
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