Before I became affiliated with a team, I was woefully unaware of the scene below the professional scene. Like QxC, these players straddle school, work and Starcraft and do there damnedest to balance personal development and personal passion. You won't always see the pinnacle of the game, but what you do see is heart. I feel like a significant portion of the community is missing out on that beating heart of the scene.

Not always having the time to digest the sheer quantity of material churned out daily by the community myself, I was content to take the birds eye view. Big tournaments, big teams, big players. For a while, I had weekends where I was completely unaware of what was going on for tournaments in the Starcraft community. Truth be told I had missed the pulse by fractions of a centimeter.

I have nothing against the larger teams, far from it. If I want to watch the highest level of play I will tune into players that literally play all day. In terms of me realistically turning this around and using it at levels below high masters\s is tantamount to me watching any professional sporting event and expecting to be able to replicate it in my backyard.

Some of you may not have heard of leagues like the Indie Starcraft League (ISTL), the Under Rated Team League (Actually sponsored by Team UR.), CSL tournaments in their many forms (beyond the Lonestar Clash). Not to mention the plethora of Playhem dailies minor streams of high masters play that go unnoticed by the rest of the community;but this is where the community is really developed.

The next time you are looking for streams to watch, take a look beyond the top streamers. Pop into streams with thirty or so viewers, or find a tournament with players you have never heard of in the sidebar of TL. We all know Battle.net 2.0 has left us for want of connectivity as players, but the venues to engage one another in discussion about our mutual passion.