As well all know (or most of us know), PL 3R is coming soon. And there have been speculations about what the format would be. Many have swayed to the full SC2 format, some have stayed with the current (and horrible) double BO3 format.
But all of this aside, the 3R needs to be all BW. BO7, All BW, and maybe a pinch of Winner's League on the side. Seriously, BW is going to vanish from pro-Korea. Might as well give it one last HURRAH. (Pretty sure 3R will take place after OSL Finals) But seriously, the game has come this far. Is KeSPA really going to make the last of team league BW, one of suffering, and uninspiring games? I mean, I understand. KeSPA is just trying to get the players ready for SC2. And I get that. But for real, let's be honest. How many of you want BW as a final season. Just one more season. Is that too much to ask for? The fans want it. You go to PL games, seats are jam packed during BW, and then slowly, the people leave at the SC2 games come up. Now I'm not trying to insult SC2, I'm stating the truth.
So for those who are Korean and have access to threads that the esports community is a part of that maybe can generate big enough news for KeSPA to look at, please try. From the bottom of my heart, I would lose a year of my own life just to see the final season be all BW.
<3 BW. BW Fighting. Till the last breath. We will never surrender. Never. Say. Die.
Poll: What should 3R be?
All BW (40)
70%
All SC2 (17)
30%
Split Format (0)
0%
57 total votes
Your vote: What should 3R be?
(Vote): All BW (Vote): All SC2 (Vote): Split Format
I love BW more than anything, but I think it's the best for players, teams and fans to put an end to BW. If kespa players want to compete with sc2 players on next Starleague, they need to ditch BW and start sc2 full time.
And I like to go out with a bang, with this Starleague finals the last BW matches.
as a sc2 player and fan i think that PL should just stay BW forever, however much most people like bw players playing sc2, i feel like PL is a BW thing and should stay that way
it's just that kespa wants the starcraft franchise to be as high making money as it is now instead of just scaling back.
If special forces can get an LG sponsorship for their league, I don't see why bw couldn't get a sponsor; the sponsor would just pay less though and the money would have to go away some. Same with the disbanding of teams---it's too high of an entrance cost for some new company to come in and pick up hwaseung oz/wemade fox/mbc game and maintain all of the same salaries of the players (remember how kespa made a big deal how all the player salaries on team 8 were maintained).
BW is/was popular enough in korea to continue a pretty high level league 5-10 years from now, but it would have to scale back a little. And kespa wanted starcraft to always keep growing and always keep high level of prize pool.
Like OSL has a prize of something like ~40,000 USD (40 million krw) for first place and payout was distributed pretty reasonable from that iirc (maybe it's like 30k first 15k second 7.5k semis 2k r08 1k ro16). They probably asked sponsors to always maintain that level rather than cut back to like 20k first 10k second etc.
tl;dr- Of course it should be bw in my heart, but I also think financially it would have worked out if they were willing to scale back. I get the impression that they weren't willing to. And of course I could be wrong entirely.
Maybe I also am underestimating special forces a lot. Maybe that is hugely popular and the progamers get paid the same top end amounts.
OSL already switching to SC2, PL needs to just switch to all SC2. It's just hurting the players at this point to switch them 50/50 and delaying them from practicing more sc2 will just ensure they are further behind, especially with HotS on the horizon.
sad as it may be for me personally, that means fully going SC2, I don't want for them to torture themselves in playing 2 games like they do now. Even if R3 is fully BW, they will still practice SC2 because they know its meaningless after and that OSL(and potentially GSL) and other tournaments are waiting for them.
I'd prefer BW to just keep on going, so in that sense I'd like PL 3R to be BW-only.
That said, I feel like I owe the players for all the entertainment they've provided over the years. They're being forced to play SC2 in the future anyway, and while I would like watching some pure BW, it will only hold them back and put them at a disadvantage against the GSL pros if they keep on splitting practice time. In that sense, I'd rather just switch entirely to SC2 to help their careers, and just keep my fond memories of BW. I won't watch them play SC2 because I just don't care for the game, but if that's what will allow them to keep their lifestyle (assuming they still want it), I'm all for it. They deserve that much.
I wonder what the percentages would be like for all of the korean fans, or maybe everyone who watches bw. I wish people walking away from the SC2 games in the audience would sway the sponsors back towards bw but sadly it won't happen
EPT
