UPDATE: Star Series Season IV

UPDATE: No Tidehunter and We haz Asian have been confirmed as the last two challengers for this Star Series, as the winners of the Preliminary Qualifiers.

UPDATE 2: The team formerly known as Gamer University has been changed in this article to 3DMAX to reflect their recent new sponsorship.

Season IV of the SLTV Star Series is already upon us. With a crammed schedule, the action will come thick and fast as a new-look top division goes all-out in an attempt to climb the ladder as high as they possibly can in the search for prize money. Once again, we at joinDOTA will be bringing you live English coverage of selected matches.



Schedule

The competition starts this Tuesday, November 13th, and will go until Tuesday, December 11th. The LAN finals at the CyberSport Arena in Kiev will be from December 20th to the 23rd.

Tournament Format

The tournament will once again be played in a round-robin style, with every team playing one match against the other teams to determine the rankings. However, unlike last season, Season IV will only distribute money to the top four teams. The top four in the online ladder phase will then be invited to participate at the LAN finals, where each match will be a best-of-three contest in a double elimination bracket, up until the grand final, which will be a best-of-five.

Prize Pool

The tournament will again have a prize pool of $15,000 USD, but with prizes only being given to the top four now, the stakes are much higher this time.

The prize money distribution is as follows:

1st place – $8000
2nd place – $4000
3rd place – $2000
4th place – $1000

Preliminary Qualifiers

Two slots remain unoccupied in the ladder owing to the removal of Evil Geniuses and Quantic Gaming due to their inability to attend last season's LAN finals. The teams that will fill them will be determined in best-of-one, double elimination preliminary qualifier tournament this Monday, November 12th, starting at 17:00 CET.

Up to eight teams will compete in these qualifiers: iCCup, No Tidehunter, We haz Asian, mTw, Kaipi are all confirmed, with Team Shakira and a new Moscow Five team possibly taking part, and one more team yet to be announced.

Competing Teams

In total, 16 teams will once again populate the ladder. 3DMAX, FUBAR, eVo and eL'Pride all earned the right to participate in the Star Series this time, having been rewarded for their successful campaigns in Season III of the Pro Series. The final two teams will be decided in the preliminary qualifiers, as stated above.

Saying goodbye to the Star Series for this season is NEXT.kz and Darer, whose performances last season saw them slide into the relegation positions and thus into this season's Pro Series.

Additionally, the slots belonging to the former Moscow Five and Eclypsia have been taken by XX5 and iLuminate respectively for Season IV, as both rosters contain at least three players from the teams who competed in Season III.

The teams and rosters in full (subject to changes/updates):











So, tune in here on Tuesday (times to be confirmed) as the Star Series kicks off once again, as our very own Toby 'TobiWan Kenobi' Dawson brings you all the action. Don't miss it!

Sources: SLTV (Season IV overview), SLTV (preliminary announcement)