The KeSPA Cup (

Hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The let ...

: 케스파컵) is an annual

esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...

event organized by the Korean eSports Association. As of the 2021 edition, the tournament is organized for ''

League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a Mod (video games), custom map for War ...

''. Until 2016, the tournament was also organized for ''

StarCraft II ''StarCraft II'' is a military science fiction video game created by Blizzard Entertainment as a sequel to the successful ''StarCraft'' video game released in 1998. Set in a fictional future, the game centers on a galactic struggle for dominance a ...

''.

History

The first KeSPA cup was hosted in 2005 as a tournament to allow professional ''

StarCraft ''StarCraft'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Chris Metzen and James Phinney and owned by Blizzard Entertainment. The series, set in the beginning of the 26th century, centers on a galactic struggle for dominance am ...

'' teams to play against amateur teams. Events were also held for '' Special Force'', ''

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'', and '' FreeStyle Street Basketball''. The second event was held in 2007 at

Sejong University Sejong University (SJU; ) is a private university located in Seoul, South Korea known for its standing in hospitality and tourism management, dancing, animation and rhythmic gymnastics. Founded as the Kyung Sung Humanities Institute, it was rename ...

and also included ''

WarCraft III ''Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos'' is a high fantasy real-time strategy computer video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment released in July 2002. It is the second sequel to ''Warcraft: Orcs & Humans'', after ''Warcraft II: Tides ...

'' and ''

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''. In 2014, seven years since the last event, KeSPA Cup was brought back for its modern iteration and it has been held every year since. ''

'' was the only game that had a tournament in the relaunch of the initiative and it featured 16 of the year's best players playing for 8 million

South Korean won The Korean Republic won, unofficially the South Korean won ( Symbol: ₩; Code: KRW; Korean: 대한민국 원) is the official currency of South Korea. A single won is divided into 100 jeon, the monetary subunit. The jeon is no longer used f ...

. The following year, two tournaments for StarCraft II were held, the first in May and the second in July.

was added as one of the events in 2015. In 2016, Alex "Neeb" Sunderhaft became the first non-Korean ''StarCraft'' player to win a major Korean tournament in sixteen years after winning the 2016 KeSPA Cup. The previous non-Korean champion was

Guillaume Patry Guillaume Patry is a Canadian professional StarCraft player who plays under the alias Grrrr... He is from Quebec City, was a StarCraft world champion in 1999. He dominated the scene as a random player before he arrived in Korea, where he then ...

, who won the first OnGameNet StarLeague in 2000.

Tournaments

''StarCraft''

The format for the original ''

'' KeSPA Cup was a team based event where professional teams under KeSPA played against amateur teams. There have been no more tournaments held for StarCraft since 2007.

''StarCraft II''

KeSPA Cup was relaunched with a ''

'' tournament. All of the tournaments are all part of the

StarCraft II World Championship Series The ''StarCraft II'' World Championship Series (WCS) was a ''StarCraft II'' professional tournament series organized and sanctioned by Blizzard Entertainment that ran from 2012 to 2019. For all but its first year of operation, it was the highest ...

and thus award WCS points to the participants. The format for the tournament is a sixteen player elimination tournament starting with group stages and entering a playoffs round in the round of 8.

''League of Legends''

'' was added as a recurring event in 2015. 16 teams competed in the 2021 edition, including 9 academy rosters of the ''League of Legends'' Champions Korea teams, 3 amateur Korean teams, and 4 invited teams from Asia.

References

External links

Official website
{{Esports competitions StarCraft competitions League of Legends competitions Esports competitions in South Korea 2005 establishments in South Korea StarCraft II competitions