EPTTournaments that use NA Ladder ranking instead of qualifiers will raise the level of competition on the NA ladder, and improve the overall training environment for NA players.
Full post:
The Problem
American players aren’t good enough.
Let’s get real here. This is the problem. American players aren’t good enough to beat the best of the best. American players need to get better, and it’s not as simple as as “practice harder.” We have plenty of dedicated, talented and hardworking players. This isn’t enough.
The Challenge
American (and European) do not have access to an ideal training environment. That is what needs to change, and region-locking improves investment and performance incentives, but that only fixes part of it. Ladder access is still key, and is still not good enough.
Non-Korean players cannot have ideal access to the Korean server, even if they live in Korea.
Playing on the Korean ladder from the US/EU with lag is obviously non-ideal. You are playing with lag. A foreign player living in Korea and playing on the Korean Ladder is STILL non-ideal. S/he will deal with culture shock, and severe limitations in the ability to communicate with other players and coaches, all of which is a distraction from playing and improving. Contrast this to Korean players in Korea. There is both unfettered access to the Korean Ladder and (obviously) no culture shock.
Thus, the most important factor being overlooked is the ladder itself. Because of how much training happens on ladder, the NA ladder needs to be made more competitive.
Impossible, you say? We have reason to think otherwise.
The Solution
Let us think back to Shoutcraft America. In a long-past SoTG, Col.QXC mentioned how Shoutcraft’s ladder-based qualifications turn the NA ladder into a highly competitive place (35:19-.36:40). This serves as a model for how to make the ladder more competitive.
We need tournaments that run qualification based on ladder position, that are restricted to a specific ladder. They can be, do not need to be, residence locked.
WCS America could, instead of having “challenger league qualifiers” simply take the top 20 GM on NA at a specified date. Imagine if IEM-NYC had simply used an open-residence NA-ladder qualifier. Dreamhack and HSC’s NA qualifiers could do the same with different dates, and Red Bull could take GM top4 to seed their 4-player live qualifier.
This year had 8 non-WCS events awarding WCS points. Imagine if all 8 of these events and WCS challenger league qualifiers used ladder-based seeding. Ladder rank would be competitively important 11 times per year, dramatically improving the value of playing at your best on ladder consistently.
The Implications of no residence-lock
What happens if we do this and it isn’t residence-locked? Koreans begin playing on the NA ladder. Now the players on the NA ladder have a more competitive training environment, but it’s the Koreans playing with lag. Moreover, the tournament organizer doesn’t have to sacrifice the opportunity to have Koreans attend the tournament because Koreans can play on the NA ladder.
If tournaments regularly use ladder position to qualify players, the ladders will inherently become and stay more competitive.
How Blizzard can help.
It seems that Blizzard has already required that tournaments use some form of an “open qualification” system as a condition of awarding WCS points. They could require that such tournaments use ladder ranking to fill qualifier slots. This puts upward pressure on the skill level on the ladders..
We would see a livelier ladder now, and the NA scene would reap the rewards.
