EPTEveryone talks about how they want the tournament to have integrity, highest level of skill, the best are the most deserving of the spots correct?
Well, the thing is, WCS NA, EU, and KR is NOT the highest level of tournament. These are regional qualifiers, the WORLDWIDE championship is supposed to determine who is the best.
Compare this to something like the olympics, people from other countries (citizens, naturalized or not) cannot compete in weaker countries for that countries spot, and then represent their home country! If Togo wants to make a soccer team to enter the olympics, they make a team, or hold in-country qualifiers. A strong country like Brazil can't send a team, and have them take Togo's spot at the olympics and have two Brazillian teams.
It's the same principle here. We have a world wide tournament that is supposed to put the best of NA, vs. the best of EU, vs. the best of KR. Not the winners of tournament A, vs. winners of tournament B, vs. winners of tournament C. That is just a regular tournament, if that's what they want, then just say you're having multiple qualifiers! Don't split it into regions.
In my opinion, you should either be living in that region, or have citizenship for that region to play in that region.
Now, the argument that a more skilled korean now has less of a chance of exposure than a similar, but less skilled american or european comes into play. However, this korean got more skilled, not because he is genetically better, or has any innate skill that makes him better at starcraft, but because he has a GOOD ENVIRONMENT to become a very skilled player! EU and NA does not have this! The top pros you see are outliers, which have high amounts of natural talent (not to say that the koreans dont), and are often getting by on that alone, as the practice quality just can't compare.
So, my argument is that you have a korean that can get more easily than a foreigner, and a foreigner that can get exposure more easily than a korean. To be sucessful, you need both, so I think that it more or less balances out. If it doesn't balance immediately, in the future, if the tournament works as designed (foster a real scene in NA, EU) then we will have a similar to Korean environment in NA and EU, and the skill level of the regions will equalize.
In our current direction, we're heading to a korean dominated future. That's NOT bad. However, that's not the problem, I could give less of a shit if all the top players are korean, but you NEED an active competitive base for the game to stay alive outside of Korea. If you want starcraft 2 to survive in the world, and not go the path of brood war (as great a game and scene it had, to say that it supported foreign viewers or had a large non-korean fanbase is definitely not true) then we can't let any chance of new blood coming in die.
No foreign player is going to work his ass of to become best in NA, only to get stomped by a korean in the first round. He gets no money, no recognition, nothing, and then he needs to pay rent, so he quits, or he doesn't practice to his potential.
Well, these are just my thoughts, I felt like ranting because I feel like WCS is true beginning of the end of foreign starcraft (if the lack of team houses and environment wasn't already it)
My starcraft rank, if it matters for me to have an opinion on the subject of the NA scene, or starcraft in general
+ Show Spoiler +
As for credentials, I used to be ok at starcraft, top 8 masters consistant (on about an hour of play a day, moved up to about 6-10 when considering going pro, held a top masters spot), and I considered putting in hours to go pro, so I researched the scene, etc. in detail.
