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Watching the recent GSL code A finals made me realize something. Here were two extremely good players battling it out for a seat among the code S weaklings. These players are rightfully the top players in Korea (as of this moment) and they're still in code A?
It's not as bad as it sounds. The starleague system in Korea is one based on merit. You have to be good in order to win. And to win a starleague, you have to extremely good, consistent, and even lucky. So yea, Mvp was good, but he had some bad performances/slump and got demoted pretty quickly. The same thing with Bomber, he was known to be good but couldn't qualify or get through code A until now. You have to be good and you have to deliver results when it matters.
This is what makes it so much more epic. Instead of Idra being auto-invited and seeded to a billion tournaments, winning or losing some tourneys means nothing to him. It’s just a way to make money wherever he can. In the GSL however, it’s like Charles Martel, King of France, defending Europe from the Muslim invasion. You have this one moment, one battle where everything is on the line. You fall and it’s all over. For Idra, he just goes to the next tourney that he was invited to. For Mvp, he has to go home, regroup and wait for the next season.
Korea's starleagues are cruel. Fan favorites fall all the time. Even if you have the potential to be really good, bad performances or blunders will still end your run. This isn't entirely bad because it's a competitive system. Heroes will fall, to be replaced by new challengers who will be the future heroes.
The same cannot be said for foreigner tournaments. The SC2 Tournaments forum is full of new foreigner leagues and tournaments. Guess what? I see basically the same players invited to pretty much all of them. A player can get famous/popular and basically ride his way to invitationals/show matches. I’m not saying these players aren’t good. But the whole invite thing basically gives them free rides and creates a huge barrier of entry for newcomers. Bisu would’ve never had the chance to face and defeat Savior. Instead Kingdom or some old guard Protoss player would’ve been invited and predictably lose.
It seems to me like the esports competitive spirit lives in Korea. Many foreigner tournaments are just trying to cash in on the popularly of SC2, its player's popularity, or trying to push products on consumers. This is why for me none of the foreign tournaments can compare to the GSL. The competitiveness of the GSL will give rise to far superior players.
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I gotta say, I don't really envy the players competing in korea at all. You must have balls of steel to go up on that stage and deliver, and you're always just a couple of mistakes away from falling out of code S or the tournament entirely. Meanwhile GSL is everything they have over there so practically every waking hour of every day is focused on succeeding in that tournament. It's fucking brutal.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
On May 07 2011 07:41 hifriend wrote:
I gotta say, I don't really envy the players competing in korea at all. You must have balls of steel to go up on that stage and deliver, and you're always just a couple of mistakes away from falling out of code S or the tournament entirely. Meanwhile GSL is everything they have over there so practically every waking hour of every day is focused on succeeding in that tournament. It's fucking brutal.
Most important, since there are basically no other tournaments within Korea itself and only a fraction of the people(only TSL afaik, maybe Slayers) get salaries.
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not getting salaries isn't rly a huge problem when everything is paid for them
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Netherlands45349 Posts
On May 07 2011 07:49 Lyter wrote:
not getting salaries isn't rly a huge problem when everything is paid for them
It isn't? ST_July mentioned that he needed to win a tournament quickly because he was basically living off his GSL earnings at that time. I doubt that anything but the basics are sponsored for them.
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1. IdrA is invited to a lot of tourneys, which fuels this invite cycle, but you have to remember that he is good. There are better examples than him for the retarded invite system.
2. There are a ton of tourneys every week for the unknowns to make a name for themselves. Spanishiwa came from nowhere and look at his fame now. Also, the TSL did a great job of giving these unknowns a chance to shine.
3. Korea is better right now because the entire esports scene has been established in one city. If the foreign scene were centralized like that, there would definitely be a GSL equivalent.
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I agree with the OP. The foreign scene is divided between mercenaries and entertainers. Mercenaries are the small minority of good players, abusing the lack of quality of the foreign scene to reap a much money as possible on huge and sometime small tournament. Idra is a good example of it: good player who hates SC2 (at least, he has stated a lot of times the SC2 is "not fun" and that BW was a better game/show) staying in the scene for the money.
Most of the other players are entertainers. They may win a small tournament from time to time thanks to the volatility of the game, but most of time they will just fall in the initial brackets. Therefore, they abuse gimmicks and strange builds/timings to a) win the occasional game against better players b)win new followers to their stream as ads become their n°1 source of income; but even if they don't get money, at least they become popular. Minigun or Spanishiwa are good examples: great personality, a nice build for Spanishiwa and zero results (small "show-match" against handpicked opponents don't count).
Of course, sports have a lot to do with money and entertainment, but they are more than that. Sports are about competition and about huge stakes. "Losing" doesn't matter in the foreign scene as there's always a new tournament around. In Korea at least, you know they are under pressure.
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Paper, what you're saying makes a lot of sense too, haha.
Personally I'm just on the fact that the Koreans still only really have one tournament (THAT WE KNOW OF) and thus it must be much rougher if you get crushed... whereas in the rest of the world, we can just go from tourny to tourny where winning one and losing the other isn't AS big of a deal because we'll have sponsors and more chances to win big.
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Yep, once you strike gold in the foreigner scene, you are set for lyfe y0. auto-invited into every tourney ever.
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???
I thought Korea has smaller tournaments other than GSL?
Also, I don't think foreign tournaments are denying access for newcomers at all. There are seeded players and there are qualifiers for foreign tournaments all the time.
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The only way to get to the point of Korea. is to promote the scene in your own country and have the competition be from your country for the majority of the players. You will not have the best competition right off the bat but a lot of players will be "homegrown". It centralizes players more and then once or twice a year you can have a world championship tourney with whoever won the most out of their respective regions.
This will take a lot longer but the scene will be stronger in the future.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
On May 07 2011 09:10 youngminii wrote:
???
I thought Korea has smaller tournaments other than GSL?
No, because Blizzard gave GomTV exlusive rights to Starcraft 2, hence each tournament will have to have the permission of GomTV. So there are not many tournaments if at all aside from the GSL there.
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United States7313 Posts
On May 07 2011 09:10 youngminii wrote:
???
I thought Korea has smaller tournaments other than GSL?
Also, I don't think foreign tournaments are denying access for newcomers at all. There are seeded players and there are qualifiers for foreign tournaments all the time.
I vaguely remember some tournament organizer (IGN?) saying that in order to award prizes over a certain $ amount you have to get permission from Blizzard. Since Blizzard gave exclusive rights for SC2 in SK to GOM, the only other tournaments are ones with tiny prize money like the IMS invitationals and the occasional showmatch.
There are of course, tournaments other tournaments in that Koreans can participate in such as NASL, FXOpen, StarWars, etc. However since these tournaments are mostly invite based, only players who have made a name for themselves in the GSL get in.
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On May 07 2011 07:53 Kipsate wrote:Show nested quote +On May 07 2011 07:49 Lyter wrote:
not getting salaries isn't rly a huge problem when everything is paid for them It isn't? ST_July mentioned that he needed to win a tournament quickly because he was basically living off his GSL earnings at that time. I doubt that anything but the basics are sponsored for them.
Then what did July spend all his BW mone... oh wait nvm
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Sc2 needs the equivalent of BW Shinhan PL
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It would be awesome if they had a version of the old Kt-KTF league. That shit was awesome!
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EPT![[image loading]](http://skitguys.com/images/sized/images/products/agonyofdefeat_lg-200x200.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Smx2RdNYnrY/TOac3qUnQ8I/AAAAAAAAAJA/VRIxzFR9av0/s320/access%2Bdenied.jpeg)
