The FSL World Championship is just around the corner. All details
Only two more tournaments separate us from FarmCon 2020 and thus from the Farming Simulator League World Championship 2019/2020, which will take place from 16 to 19 July 2020 in the Deutz-Fahr Arena in Lauingen. Since the last tournament at the IEM Expo in Katowice, eight teams have already qualified for the final and we think it's time to give you an overview of how the World Championship tournament will work.
If you look at the dates you will have seen it already, the event will be spread over four days, the first two days will be pure group stages, the play-offs, semi-finals and the grand final will be held at FarmCon in front of thousands of spectators on site.
Seeding for the finals
The 16 teams with the most Circuit points from the current season will qualify for the tournament and will then be divided into four groups of four teams each (Groups A,B,C and D). The four first-placed teams will form the group heads of these groups, with places 16 to 13 being allocated to these groups. The 16th place is in group A together with the leader of the table, the 15th place is in group B for the runner-up, and so on. The places 5 to 8 and 9 to 12 are also sorted into the respective groups by drawing lots.
GSL Double-elimination and how it works
The game itself will then be played according to the "GSL Double-Elimination" format popular in esport. What this means exactly is explained below:
First of all: All matches of the group phase (and all matches after that) are best-of-3 with one exception: The grand final on Sunday will be played as best-of-5. "Double elimination" means that a team has to lose two of these best-of-3s in the group phase to be eliminated from the tournament, so you can afford to lose a game without giving up your title dreams.
But let's go through the whole thing step by step:
First of all, the group heads will play against the last in the group (e.g. the leader of the standings against 16th place). The winner advances to the next round, the loser is moved to the loser bracket. Then the two remaining teams of the group play against each other. The winner of this game will then play the winner of the first game in the next round, the loser moves back to the loser bracket and meets the loser of the first game there.
The two winners will now play the winner of the group, the loser of this game will then play for second place in the group. The opponent for second place will come out of the loser bracket. Here the two losers play against each other, the winner fights his way back into the tournament, the loser has now lost the second match and is eliminated (double elimination). So in the last group match the loser from the "winner's match" and the winner from the "loser's match" meet each other and play for second place.
Too confusing? Maybe this little graphic will help you:
The Play-Offs and beyond
The winners and runners-up of the group are now determined. This results in the play-off bracket where the group winner of group A meets the runner-up of group D, the group winner of group B meets the runner-up of group C and so on. Also here is a clear graphic:
In the play-offs, it continues as usual, only that the groups are seeded as you see and, as mentioned, all matches are best-of-3s, the final even best-of-5.
We are looking forward to show you the system in action.
See you on the field.
