hmmmmm cool

Hmm. All of these are too far for RIT to travel, given the current situation, I think.

But best of luck to the organizers and teams!

We need to bring this to NC

Kick ass. You can count on UTA to be at the Tespa LAN ;D

What seed are the playoff spots. Have you thought about how the change in playoff qualification format will impact the the lan playoff spot?

In the new format, top 32 gets into playoffs anyways.

Top 30 get into playoffs in every region, 2 spots are reserved for each LAN. If you qualify through West you take the last two seeds for West. No double qualification into multiple regions.

Sucks for Canadian teams :(.

It does... we REALLY want to host a LAN in Canada, but there are a lot of problems with doing so (I.E. travel costs are higher, there is no real centralized location, Canada is really big, etc).

Well no, it's also the fact that there's no travel stipend to the Minnesota LAN. That sentence is a real dreamcrusher :(. Also, Toronto/Montreal are the standard centralized locations. The US is really big too, that doesn't mean that there aren't huge population hubs. You wouldn't have a LAN in North Dakota, just like you wouldn't have one in the Yukon.

EDIT: I am a fool, Princeton is closer. Shows how well I know American geography ;).

@hazelynut

I would like to suggest a change. Prize for 1st and 2nd is last playoff seed or +5 ranks in playoff seeding.

Reasoning is that most teams who win the lan will probably get into playoffs anyways. Making it useless to give them last 2 playoff seeds, assuming that seeds matter.

Half of the best teams are from Canada, we need Canadian LAN!

Woot woot, Princeton LAN!

Where is the love for the Florida colleges? D:

Texas will welcome Florida teams, npnp!

Canada deserves 2 LANs. Canadians in Central Canada are used to long travel distances.

I suggest 1 LAN in the west:

Vancouver (UBC, UVic, BCIT, Simon Fraser are all in vicinity.) NOTE: So is Washington.
Edmonton (Grant MacEwan, UofA, GPRC, Calgary are all in vicinity)

And East:
Toronto (Waterloo, Laurier, UofT, Ryerson, McMaster, UOIT, Windsor, Humber)
Ottawa (Has 3+ schools in CSL AND is Central to both Quebec and Ontario)
Montreal (There's like an entire division of Quebec schools)

BTW: The schools in brackets are generally less than 1hr drive. Most are within the same city.

@shooter dont get rid of the Texas lan!!!
But this news is absolutely nuts cannot wait for the Texas lan, SC2 is huge in Texas!

I agree about most schools who attend the LANs would likely qualify anyways to top 30... it seems kind of silly to give out playoff spots if the LANs are only in the US, and if a great team wins a LAN they could just field their B team the rest of the season which would mess up this whole mmr thing. Maybe I just don't understand things.

Love the idea of the LANs, the only thing I would change is maybe a more clear prize/incentive for teams that are already going to make the playoffs from attending. While the idea that 4 schools who didn't qualify will have Cinderella stories and qualify via the LANs is nice, it's also unrealistic. It should definitely increase seeding for the schools who already qualified, and the highest ranking non-qualified school should perhaps get in even if they don't finish first in their regional LAN.

Definitly need at least two lans in Canada, one in the West and one in the East (Toronto/Montreal). Canada has a much bigger sc2 scene than US. Look at Barcraft Montreal!

lol my team's pretty psyched

I think the major cities in Canada that are viable to host these LAN regionals would be: Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.

By the way, maybe in the future, we could have a vote between all the coordinators about where the LAN should be like the way they decide where the Olympics should be held?

For that to work, schools would have to submit bids to the selection committee.

HazrD, cities actually pay the Olympics to host the event, there's a really complex bidding system that's involved. We also asked who would be able / willing to host CSL LAN events in emails throughout the summer, and we went begun the conversations then with people who said they had the resources to do it, for the most part.

In future seasons, we're going to have different locations, and really make a push to have a Canadian LAN, since there haven't really been any major ones in Canada.

Yea, nothing major... It's not like Montreal had the biggest Barcraft event ever or anything.

UBC has LANs all the time. I'm sure if you contacted them, they would organize.
Peto?

We've talked to them. There's a lot that goes into it besides just being able to host it.

I think a LAN series that was just for Canada would be amazing. There are huge obstacles to overcome though, since there are very few Canadian schools compared to North America and they are all spread out. Why a Regional LAN event works very well in the states is because one location such as UC Irvine or UT Austin, you have 10+ schools ready to attend. Canadians are enthusiastic for sure, but an event up there may end up with 1-2 schools attending unless we planned way ahead of time and had people make travel arrangements.

That being said, I want to see a LAN in Canada just as anyone. Canadians are SICK GOOD at Starcraft 2 and the some of the best talents in the CSL reside in Canada. They definitely deserve an event and recognition. Its something I personally want to see/make happen.

A CSL without Canadian schools is almost like a major SC2 tournament with Koreans.

I suppose I can't argue for (my) west coast (altho, the close proximity of Washington schools should be considered).

But, Toronto area certainly has enough schools and they should get on it. :)