Format
The 2019 StarCraft II World Championship Series was separated into two regions, WCS Korea and WCS Circuit. The format of the former remained consistent with the standard set in 2017, featuring three seasons of the long-running Global StarCraft II League (GSL) Code S with two smaller GSL Super Tournament events interspersed. The format of latter region, however, replaced one of the standard four large WCS Circuit events with WCS Winter, separated into WCS Winter Europe and WCS Winter America, two smaller tournaments with an online portion and an in-person playoff portion. Beyond this, the format remained mostly unchanged with three large WCS Circuit events and accompanying qualifiers under the WCS Challenger branding. Two shared World Championship Series Global events featured players from both regions prior to the Global Finals. All these events, excluding the second WCS Global event GSL vs. the World, gave out WCS Circuit and/or WCS Korea points that determined the seeding of the Global Finals.[1]
Seeding
Eight players from each WCS region qualify to the event based on their WCS points-based rankings. Winners of WCS Circuit stops, GSL Code S events, and IEM Katowice receive automatic qualification. The sixteen players are then seeded into four four-player groups for the first round based on their region-specific ranking. A draw is held for the quarterfinals bracket, with winners of each group facing second-place finishers of other groups.[1]
