News

CPL 10

By dada78641
Posted Sept. 29, 2023, 7 p.m.

No, I'm sorry, this is not another joke announcement. It's the real thing this time.

CPL 10 IS HERE!

You've all been anticipating it. You've all been clamoring for it. It's been a long wait, but we're finally ready to start CPL again.

With this being the 10th edition of CPL, we're hoping to make this our most historic and awesome yet. If you want to be part of it, sign up now!

SIGN UP FOR CPL 10

Alright, all good, but when does it actually start?

Sign-ups will run for two weeks from today. The first week of preseason starts right after, on Monday, October 16. If you have friends who are interested in maybe playing BW, now is the time to get them to sign up!

Anything new this time around?

As you might have guessed from the preseason map pool that was posted earlier, we will have a three week preseason this time around. We know you all want to get to the regular season portion as soon as possible, but we had some tiering issues last season and wanted to make sure we got an as accurate picture of everyone's skill level as possible.

I want to help out! How can I volunteer?

Feel free to hit up someone from @ staff if you're interested in helping out with organizing, casting or any other area. This league runs 100% on volunteer work and we can always use help!

Damn, I'm hype! I can't wait to start!

Tonight Airn will be kicking off the season with a CPL FFA and a showmatch on his stream, if you're interested in getting your hands warmed up. Keep an eye out for the link, it should be starting around 6pm US Central. We'll be starting up other CPL related activities eventually, and once preseason starts up we'll be casting games too!

I'm new here! What's CPL?

For anyone who's new: the Coach-Pupil League (CPL) is a StarCraft: Brood War league designed to help newer and lower skilled players learn and improve their skills in a competitive team league format.

You sign up, get ranked with other players of around your same skill level, and then sign up to play a best of three match each week. Each team has one or more experienced coaches who give players tips on improving their play and set up special practice sessions.

After the end of a week, the matches we played get cast on Twitch from replay. Keep an eye out on our stream announcements for your moment in the spotlight.

We welcome anyone at any skill level, even if you're completely new to the game. If you're interested in giving it a shot, do sign up!



CPL9 Royale Phase 2

By y2kid
Posted June 5, 2023, 6:20 p.m.

It is time. We are steadily advancing into the CPL9 Royale. All players are ready and phase 2 is about to commence!

First off, congratulations to all players who made it to CPL9 Royale. This is no small achievement. You are the real winners of CPL9, the crème de la crème, and the pride of the league. Now, in a true Broodwar spirit, it is time to reap your rewards by competing with players of similar skill for the entertainment of the BW community.

Participants

  1. Silent Storm (Terran seed)
  2. Azhi Dahaki (Protoss seed)
  3. Yenta1 Xun (Zerg seed)
  4. Exit (CPL9 Royale Q1 winner)
  5. ash.Kik0 (CPL9 Royale Q2 winner)
  6. 440[ReV] (CPL9 Royale Q3 winner)
  7. ash.Baal (First buy-in)
  8. Earob[ReV] (Second buy-in)
  9. Vermin (Third Buy-in)

1 Due to inactivity Yenta forfeited their spot. The spot was therefore offered to Xun. Xun was supposed to be the Zerg seed for CPL8 Royale, but due to inactivity had to forfeit their spot at the time.

Conditions and Prize pool

All players are seeded into a round-robin tournament. All matches are best of one. Map for the match is selected randomly. There is a $2 bounty for every match. The player with most wins at the end of the round-robin is seeded directly into phase 4 (the grand finals) of the tournament1.


1 If there are two players with the same result, the outcome of their individual match from the round-robin will be used as a tie-breaker.

Contributing

We will be using PayPal and Ko-fi to collect donations. We encourage you to use the provided PayPal link, as this way 100% of your donation is received. We pledge to keep updating the public Ko-fi donation tracker with your PayPal contributions. Alternatively, if you cannot use PayPal or prefer to use the provided Ko-fi link that would also be appreciated.



CPL 9 Royale Announcement

By y2kid
Posted May 14, 2023, 9:42 p.m.

CPL 9 Royale

The CPL 9 Royale will be held in three phases. First, a seeding process. After that a round-robin tournament that will determine one of the finalists, followed by a 8-player tournament to determine the second finalist. Event closes with a grand-final between the two finalists.

Phases

Phase 1

  1. Top Pupil of each race gets a direct seed in phase 2.
  2. Three qualification tournaments are held for three of the remaining spots.
  3. The other three places are taken by buy-in players.

Everybody who participated in CPL9 as a pupil is allowed to join the qualification tournaments.

Anybody who donates $20 or more to the prize-pool is able to nominate any pupil, including themselves, as the buy-in spot for the tournament subject to the first 3 $20+ donations.

Phase 1 Tournament Details:

WB all matches bo3, finals bo5
LB all matches bo1, finals bo3

WB First map Polypoid, then loser picks
LB map is Eclipse

All participants agree that their games might be casted if requested by y2kid or any other official CPL caster.

Phase 2

Round-robin with 9 remaining players. Each pair plays a single game. Winner proceeds straight to Phase 4. Upon reaching donation goal X, a player would receive $2 per win for this phase of the tournament.

Phase 3

8-man tournament with randomly drawn opponents. Winner of this proceeds to Phase 4

Phase 4

Grand Finals. Bo7 on the CPL 9 map pool. If applicable the seventh game will use the same map as map #1.

Prize-pool breakdown

  • $72 for Phase 2 (if goal is met)
  • $50 for the winner of the Royale
  • $25 for the runner-up
  • $18 for third place (if goal is met)

Total: $75 + up to $100 community support

Donation Goals

Starting prize-pool pot with $75 (granted by CPL staff)
  1. $100. CPL9 Royale prize-pool donation goals are met. See prize-pool breakdown above.
  2. $160. Staff will attempt to coordinate a master-class led by a CPL Coach for each non-mirror matchup. Upon reaching this goal the CPL Staff agrees to pledge additional $75 more to cover the rest of the master class fees
  3. $280. CPL Staff will attempt to organize mirror master-classes too.
  4. $280+. All donation goals met. We love you guys, we will use any excess funds for league maintenance costs.
We will be using PayPal and Ko-fi to collect donations. We would prefer if you used our PayPal, as this 100% of your donation is received. We would also keep updating the public Ko-fi donation tracker with your PayPal contributions. Alternatively, if\you would like to use Ko-fi directly to donate you can do that as well.



CPL9 100 Game Challenge

By cplwhiskey
Posted April 4, 2023, 9:37 p.m.

I want to work on getting some more ladder games and get them on 1 ID, so to motivate myself I'm putting up a challenge and anyone is welcome to join. I want to work on a few things so I'll mainly just have an opening per matchup. If you want to commit to the challenge & pledge just ping y2kid or me in #cpl-help. Toss the ID you will use in there and the date you want to start the challenge. 

Start date: Mar.26 - End date: Apr.8

Rules: 

  • Play 100 ladder games on a new ID
  • Main race (with the goal of trying to climb & improve)
  • Cheese only as much as you get cheesed
  • Leavers count
  • Failure to meet 100 games by deadline is pledge to donate 20 USD to CPL. Link to make donations can be found here for bookkeeping please quote CPL100 when donating.

Current list of people accepting challenge:

  1. Green
  2. Manadog
  3. Yaqoob
  4. Memnon
  5. TripleT
  6. Champian donated
  7. Dada
  8. K1mura
  9. Mutaller

Good Luck & Have Fun all

  ~cplwhiskey aka WhiskeyDingo (ash.Green)



Development Log#4

By y2kid
Posted Nov. 28, 2022, 1:43 p.m.

Make sure that you need our most recent update. It features a crucial new replay sharing policy, and some QoL changes.

Replay sharing and visibility

We are experimenting if a new replay visibility change should be rolled-out or not. In the past we have received many requests from participating players asking us that we allow everyone to access everyone else's replays from the league. We cannot do that and will not do that. Here is the rationale. We want everyone who participates in CPL to feel welcome and not at a disadvantage. We understand that CPL is an educational league before everything else but even still some of our participants do not want to share their replays as they see that as a disadvantage and we respect that. However, there has now been a critical amount of players who also want to see replays of other players, so with this new change we are trying to account for everyone's needs!

We are now entering a data gathering process to gauge what portion of the community truly supports this idea. We have added a new "Public replays" field on everyone's profiles. This field is enabled by default. If you are happy with sharing your replays - good news - you have nothing to do. Check-in again on Dec 5th when the first week of the preseason begins. However if you do not wish to share your replays. Make sure you untick the Public replays box in your profile settings and then hit save.

Unless there is a huge opt-out wave, once the preseason begins, we will enable this and allow players to download their replays if they have given a consent about it in their profile.

Other changes


Changes to "Find a Game"

If you have followed the news in Development Log #2 you should be aware that we allow users to link their accounts to a recovery email, and discord. We introduced both of these, so that you can login using passwordless methods and recover your password if you happen to forget it.

Now we are taking it a step further! We allow players that have their discord account linked and use the webapp's "Find a game" feature to be @'ed when posting into the Discord server "Looking-for-game" channel.

Note: In order to use this feature you will need to have your discord account linked to your web app profile! If you have not already, there is an detailed tutorial how to do this in Dev log#2 or you alternatively you can follow the link here.

Country Flag changes

One of the features that we rolled out with CPL9 sign-ups has seen a huge use. It is the feature that allows players to pick a country that they wish to be representing in CPL9. There were some requests that we add more countries and we did that. We are now using all countries provided by flagpedia.net. We may keep expanding the list in the future and will announce here when we do so.



Development Log#3

By y2kid
Posted Nov. 20, 2022, 1:02 p.m.

Eskalade was getting very impatient and asked me what was I doing that was not working on CPL9, so I thought I would give you an update on everything new that has happened to the web-app. To procrastinate announcing CPL9 a bit more!

Various minor tweaks have made their way into the codebase. For each one I thought it did not deserve a dedicated post, but looking back at them I see that it has been a lot of these so perhaps a post is overdue needed. Lots of changes including: profile pages, match scheduling, changes to the index page, timezone management QoL improvements, and others. Details below:

Profile Pages
You can now access personalized profile pages for each player in the league. Example here. The page would show your Name, Race, Affiliations, CPL Team, Timezone, and other information that can be useful for other players. Going forward, this page would also keep an individual's match history.

Scheduling Matches
Another useful functionality of the profile pages would be scheduling matches. You can now use the web-app to negotiate time that works for both you and your opponent and keep a permanent record that you have both agreed to play at said time.
Why use this feature? Well, for once it makes it easier for us, the admins, to keep track of the conversations that have happened and gives us a reassurance that both of you have agreed to a particular time, rather than having to chase discord PMs etc. But additionally, let me answer this with a story.

Player 1: Let's play at X I am UTC-a.
Player 2: Sounds good.
**Player 1 shows-up at the agreed time, while Player 2 is not there**
**15 minutes later Player 1 messages Player 2**
Player 1: Where are you mate? We agreed to play right now!
Player 2: Oh sorry, you meant now, I thought UTC-a time was not until another hour! I cannot play now, sorry.


And so, both Player 1 and Player 2 have wasted their times, and would potentially not find another time that fits both so the match will end up being a walk-over...

Now... All of this could be avoided if you used the schedule match feature! It allows you to set the time that you want to play, then send a request to your opponent, who will see the time converted to their preferred time! This means that when both parties agree you can have another level of security that the agreed time was as intended by both parties.
Here is how it works. Go to your opponent's profile page, locate the "Schedule Match" button and follow the instructions. Once you are done the proposed time would be sent to your opponent. After you send a time proposal, if your opponent does not find the time to be useful/possible for them they can suggest another time and you can keep circulating the process for as long as you like until you find some time that works for both.

All that is required for both players is that they have set-up their timezone correctly, which leads me to the next update.

This is a new feature that we hope you will find useful but it is still to see experimentation and hopefully adoption by the userbase. If you do not like the feature, think it could be improved, find any bugs, or otherwise have suggestions or input, then please contact me directly.

Sidebar changes
Currently the sidebar on your left hand side shows you upcoming events and the three times from timezones that work for the Americas, Europe, and Asia respectively. We have tweaked how the upcoming events are rendered, but have also added a new time called "My Time". This is the time according to your selected timezone preference. Make sure that this time matches what you expect so that you know your timezone is configured correctly.

Other changes
There have been a number of other smaller changes, that include improvements to the rendering or QoL features for during the season. For example, once the new league starts you will see information of whether you participate in any matches this current week on your homepage page. The calendar view has been changed as well and it now shows your selected timezone.



CPL Showmatch Series

By y2kid
Posted July 14, 2022, 10:53 a.m.

Hi everyone. With CPL coming to an end and the finals currently in the process of being cast, we know you're all craving that extra content in the inter-season downtime. Don't worry, we've got you covered—we're organizing a special series of CPL showmatches for your entertainment! We're planning three separate matches:

  1. The CPL Top Pupils Invitational, an exclusive invite-only event pitting the top 6 CPL pupils of the last season against each other on CPL maps.
  2. A series of CPL coaches showmatches, where your favorite coaches vie for supremacy. You get to vote for the participants!
  3. A series of top foreigners showmatches: pick your favorite players and watch them show us all how it's done. As with the coaches showmatch, the line-up is subject to a community vote.
However, to make all this possible, we need your help! We're putting together a prize pool for our players that you can donate to. The more donations we get, the more content we'll be able to produce. Besides that, any money you donate beyond our showmatch costs will go directly into the CPL web app hosting fund! Contribute to the prize pool by donating to the following link:


CPL Showmatch Series Prize Pot


Here's a breakdown of our funding goals for the showmatch:
  1. $10 - CPL Top Dogs Invitational prize pool
  2. $25 - 1x Coach showmatch (Bo3)
  3. $40 - 2x Coach showmatches (Bo3)
  4. $55 - 3x Coach showmatches (Bo3)
  5. $85 - 3x Coach showmatches (all matches upgraded to Bo5)
  6. $100 - Top foreigners showmatch picks become publicly revealed
  7. $120 - 1x Top foreigners showmatch (5 games)
  8. $170 - 2x Top foreigners showmatches (5 games)
Any donations past $170 go to the CPL web app hosting fund. If we manage to get donations past $270, we can guarantee that the app stays up for at least two more seasons and will put the remainder towards future events.

Support funding goals:
  1. $270 - covers the hosting fees for the web app for one year. We are able to guarantee the app stays up for at least two more seasons


This format is subject to change at the discretion of CPL staff. All players agree to standard ICCUP rules and to practice sportsmen-like behavior.


July 15th Update:

After just over 24 hours since we started the initiative, we have reached the $170 goal, securing us a guaranteed 5 game showmatch between Bonyth and Sziky.

FAQ


Q: How does the voting process work for the coaches/top foreigners showmatches?
A: Read up on Voting Process below.

Q: What does the yellowish background in the funding goals list stand for?
A: That's the currently unlocked funding level of the showmatch.

Q: Are only one-time donations accepted?
A: You can donate however many times you want with whatever amount you like, or you can subscribe to my Ko-fi. All forms of donations count and will be taken into account.

Q: Who are the top foreigners we can pick between for the top foreigner showmatch?
A: Their names will be revealed once we hit the $100 funding goal!

Q: My question was not answered by this FAQ. What can I do?
A: If something is still unclear you can always find me (y2kid) in the CPL discord and ask me there directly. I will try to expand the FAQ and keep it up to date to cover anything related to this event.

Q: Ok, ok, but really, can you tell me when CPL9 starts?
A: CPL9 will happen, this is all I can say. for now

Voting Process


In order to select the possible three showmatches that you want to see the most, we are creating a poll and you decide who plays and when!
The voting process will consist of two stages: The first, opens on July 16th 20:00 UTC and runs until July 29th 20:00 UTC will determine the top 10 pairs you want to see.
After that we will open the second stage and you will be able to select your favorites only from the 10 pairs, determined in the previous stage. This vote will close on Aug 1, 12:00 UTC to ensure everyone in any time zone can cast their vote over the weekend.
Voting link:

Vote Here



Acknowledgements


Special thanks to our big D(onator)s:
  1. Shimmer[ReV] ($50)
  2. nOm.TaDDe ($50)
  3. Forte ($50)
  4. martingb ($35)
  5. Manadog ($25)
  6. WhiskeyDingo ($25)



Development Log#2

By y2kid
Posted May 28, 2022, 11:30 p.m.

Two updates in a week? Somebody stop this guy! Or like give him money, that is also acceptable.

Yes, you read it correctly, SECOND post this week! You can tell I was bored...
Folks, without further ado let me get straight to the point.
Had kind of a productive day and managed to tick some items off the backlog. In no particular order, here are the most recent updates:

  • First, and probably most noticeable, you've got that new icon in the top navigation bar that alerts you of when I post something new here. Let us not fool ourselves - this is probably the reason why you came to this page in the first place.
  • Secondly, this week I opened the "view matches" page and saw that team scores were not being properly updated. **Gulp** Well that was embarrassing.Anyhow, I have fixed this now and when you navigate to the view matches page you will now see the team scores up to the previous week. Also, going forward, at the end of every week, when I update the individual player records, the team scores are also being updated. Ya welcome!
  • Next, some quality of change improvements for all of you who still keep forgetting their passwords. I mean, come on people, I am trying to make your life easier here but you ain't making it easy for me, sigh. In any case, you can now link your discord account to the web app! To do that, follow the link I provided or press on your name, located in the right hand side of the top navigation bar and then select link accounts. Once you link your accounts, you will see "Discord status: Verified" located now at the option you previously used to link your accounts. Now for the fireworks. Once you have linked your web app and discord accounts, you can login by either using your web app credentials (as you have been doing so far) or you can use the new "login with discord" option. (You are welcome, dada, yeah I am calling you out!)
Stay tuned for the next update, it might be in a week it might be in time for CPL 9, who knows :shrug:



Development Log

By y2kid
Posted May 23, 2022, 12:46 a.m.

We have a news section, say whaat? What is that monstrosity, I ASK!

On a serious note, I thought that giving you updates via the discord feed kind of works but also not really and is best to keep the web app updates within the web app!
So, without further ado, I present you some of the new exciting features of the web app:

  • You can now link an email to your account! You can also check what email is currently linked. Head over to this page to make use of this exciting new feature. (You will have to be logged-in).
    Note:
    To make sure it is you (the profile owner) who is changing the email you would need to re-type your password before the update is successful.
  • You can now report walkovers!. Note that this is just a cosmetic change and reporting a walkover does not influence your (hidden) CPL MMR.
  • You can now find more ways to support us and read about the league's credits on the support us page

Dev notes:
The walkover reporting was long overdue feature that needed to be there and I feel the email linking will be particularly useful to those of you who are forgetful and think they may end up not remembering their password. Linking your email with the app ensures that the app will use that email to send you password recovery instructions. I will NOT be sharing your email with anyone or using it for CPL spam/advertisement. You will be notified if this ever changes and you can opt-out at any point. Also note that email linking is done on entirely voluntary basis.

The support us page has been added as some have contacted me already asking what would be the best way to show their support for the league or have expressed a desire to donate to the league or the developers. Everyone now has a transparent way to do this via the support us page, which can be found in the middle of the bottom navigation bar.