WCS Format Suggestion

Clawfinger

Canada221 Posts

April 10 2013 20:32 GMT

Hello everyone. I'm not sure how many people will actually see this, but it seems like a lot of people are disappointed with the way that WCS has been handled by Blizzard. I think it's too late to implement anything for the 2013 Season 1, but maybe there is a chance that Blizzard will rethink their structure after their first season of Korean domination!

I had an idea that would make foreigners have more to fight for, and Koreans would have a lot more motivation to stay in Korea to make the most potential money.

First of all, in order for this system to work, OGN and GomTV would have to do twice the amount of work because there would be two Starcraft leagues on at the same time each season. It seems like they have the infrastructure in place to already do this (maybe they would have to use the SpoTV for OSL on certain days). It would also make it so there aren't any redundant casts of the GSL/OSL (Tastosis + DoA and MonteCristo casting the same matches). Other than that, it would be the exact same amount of work for everyone else.

One other thing I want to mention is that Korean players would be able to compete in both the GSL and OSL at the same time. They would basically have to implement an equal points system to find out who the top 16 is. There are other ways to do this, but they are irrelevant in this post. The point I'm trying to make is that the top Koreans would benefit greatly from staying in Korea as they would have a shot at 1st place in both the GSL and OSL in every season of the WCS.

Also at the moment this doesn't apply to the other regions of SC2 (SEA/Taiwan/China/etc.). I think that if we had a solid structure in place to begin with, we could add on the other regions to the structure to grow SC2 worldwide.

Here is the format:

2014 WCS Format (Suggested):

WCS Korea (4 Seasons):

GSL - 32 Players - $100,000
OSL - 32 Players - $100,000
Top 16 Players based on a seasonal points system advance to seasonal finals.

WCS North America (4 Seasons):

MLG - 32 Players - $100,000
Top 8 Players advance to seasonal finals.

WCS Europe (4 Seasons):

ESL - 32 Players - $100,000
Top 8 Players advance to seasonal finals.

WCS Seasonal Finals (First 3 Seasons):

Host Region - 32 Players - $150,000

WCS Global Finals (Final Season):

Blizzcon - 32 Players - $250,000

Also in this system residency would be a requirement if you live in one of these 3 regions, if you don't then you are able to play online up to the Ro16/Ro8.

If you disagree with this format it's completely fine, but I think that instead of bashing Blizzard we should try and come up with constructive ways to give them ideas.

I appreciate you checking out the blog, and I encourage everyone to start brainstorming ideas and let's try and grow SC2!

Thrill

2599 Posts

April 10 2013 20:40 GMT

Thanks for posting in blogs so we can rate.

GDeci

Canada13 Posts

May 10 2013 05:11 GMT

WCS NA is basically the professional version of smurfing when it comes to Korean players now seeing as there are eleven Koreans in the top sixteen with even more Koreans coming in next season. I think something needs to change and Blizzard's idea of taking this thing offline sometime in the future possibly is ALSO a terrible idea since:

-Everyone is fighting for the same prize pool yet Koreans can't come to America compete because coming to NA from Korea periodically every once in a while is just no cost effective - and eliminating Koreans entirely from the tournament just lowers level of play.

-Even NA players will find it inconvenient because unlike the GSL in Korea, the players in the this tournament live all over the place from Canada to Argentina, making offline play for them almost as cost ineffective as Koreans flying here.

My suggestion is this, why not make it a requirement that Koreans (and only Koreans) who decide to compete in WCS NA must be above a certain threshold in terms of rank/mmr/ladder points in the NA ladder? The account they use to ladder obviously must be the same as the one used in tournament. Not only would this make the NA ladder at the top level must more competitive as we will likely see at more Koreans laddering here, but also serve as a deterrent for a lot of Koreans coming here to literally smurf the crap out of WCS NA, i.e. it takes time away from the most efficient way of practicing (in-house games).

I guess this also means I still hold on to the hope that players like Scarlett, HuK, Demu, Major, etc. has a chance to displace the possible flood of incoming Koreans coming to the ladder (which is not too impractical considering that those guys will probably ladder more on NA seeing as, again, Koreans may want to in-house train more). Who knows, maybe the new level of competitiveness would bring out some more Scarletts.

Then again this may be a naive expectation.

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