posted by Moose

ADVERTISING:

First and foremost, we would like to give our new sponsors for The Defense, ROCCAT and own3D.tv a warm welcome. With their help, we were able make The Defense Season III possible and even raise the prize pool to USDFor this season we have added some changes to the tournament format, like a tougher qualifier and a longer group stage, but also raised the total amount of teams from 24 to 32. We have invited 24 teams, and it is now up to you and your team to become one of the remaining 8 teams through the open qualifier.The sign-up for the qualifier will start today, effective immediately and will have room for up to 512 teams.The Prize Distribution (USD 20,000)$10,000$5,000$3,500$1,500The invited teams are (in alphabetical order):The QualifierAnyone can compete in the Qualifier, but only the eight best teams can take a slot. If you and your mates think you have what it takes, hurry over to joinDOTA, take a deep breath, and sign yourselves up Sign Up!Qualifier InformationSign-ups for 512 teams starts November 12thSign-ups close November 25th, 2012, 23:59 CESTQualifier starts November 26th, 19:00 CESTQualifier ends November 28th ~23:00 CESTPool system until top 32Double elimination grid from 32 teams onwardsTriple elimination grid from 12 teams onwardsTop 4 upper bracket teams qualifyTop 2 middle bracket teams qualifyTop 2 lower bracket teams qualifyTriple elimination means that there are three brackets (instead of two like in double elimination). Whoever loses in the upper bracket on day 2, moves to the middle bracket. Whoever loses in the middle bracket on day 3, moves to the lowerbracket. A more detailed explanation will be published on www.the-defense.com soon.The 512 qualifier slots are first come first serve, so be sure to sign up as early as possible. They might be gone more quickly than you anticipated.Everything else you need to know about [B]The Defense[/B] can be found on The Defense website Last but not least, you can expect a nice surprise shortly before the official start of the group stage, so stay tuned for a small piece of awesomeness!