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On July 10 2014 22:00 Heartland wrote:
Not sure if you want to elaborate on it at all, but how do you view the difference between individual and team league preparation and practice? I understand the general premise of why it's different, but it is hard to understand the specifics.
CranK would explain better than I do, but it comes down to each player as a team getting together, talking about which maps they want to go out on and preparing a few builds/maps vs certain races each to try and cover all the possible outcomes. If there's a particularly tough player, you will have someone prepare a build or two to take him out and you'll try to predict when he's going to come out and on what map.
The ATC format makes that pretty hard unfortunately. You don't know the starting player until very close to match time (whereas with GSTL you had that information well in advance), you also have the fact that any of the players could be revived, so it's much harder to create snipe builds.
With Proleague format the preparation is more straight forward, since you know your map and you know your opponent. Clan Wars gives the same amount of lead time as Proleague does to teams, you know your maps 2 weeks before and you know your opponent 1 week before.
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The biggest issue for ATC is to get funding for another season. Everything else is kinda of secondary importance.
About formats. I think both All-Kill and Proleague-format are viable options with pros and cons. Even Proleague playoffs are played in All-kill format.
Proleague:
+ teamleague feeling
+ better preparation for maps
+ easier scheduling since you know which player to play on which map in advance and its not uncertain when and if you have to play
+/- advantage for teams with deep rosters and many players
+/- eventually more compact and a less time intensive experience but less ad revenue and monetizable content
- less top matches between high caliber players
- more lesser known players vs each other --> less hype, viewers?
- more preparation effort for semi and part time pros (a disadvantage for many foreigners?)
- upsets not that exciting since everyone can lose a bo1 once in a while
- no suprise foreigner all-kills like Welmu, Sjaak, Dayshi, Vortix, Bunny, Scarlett and Ignite this season
All-kill:
+ many top matches
+ many top player vs underdog matches
+ more possibilities for upsets
+ possibility for exciting, unexpected runs
+/- advantage for teams with star players
- lots of walkovers and all-kills
- feels often like 1v1 or 2v2 with some minions trying to make the top players tired for the real matches
- sniping top players twice very difficult because of ace revive
- match length vary a lot, bad for scheduling
I dont think one format is absolutely superior to the other and you can justify both decisions, so its really up to the organization that hosts the teamleague to choose the format. I think the only questionable thing would be the ace revive combined with the all-kill format because it strengthens the weaknesses of that format.
Independent from the format ATC will never be like Proleague though. The level of play is just too diverse from world class players to semi active foreigners. Proleague rosters are twice to thrice the size which makes in-depth preparation possible to begin with. Teams that can afford a team house are able to prepare much better for matches because of short lines of communication. That would make (relatively) wealthy teams more successful like Acer, Axiom and mYi and all the other ones that cant afford it, cant keep up. Also many many foreigners arent full time like almost everyone on mouz still goes to school, many attend university or do other stuff while progaming... It's nice when a teamleague incentivizes teams to increase their roster, hire players full time and build team houses but I dont think we're at the point in time where we can expect more investment into sc2, sadly.
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Interesting write up, though I don't feel like you needed to apologize for losses. Just keep on going ^^
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8751 Posts
format i like: a bo5 overall consisting of a series of 5 bo1's. each team is given a list of 5 maps well in advance. a few days before the match, each team submits a lineup for maps 1-4 and immediately afterward they're told their opponent's lineup. then they have a few days to prepare strategies. the 5th map can be any player and is decided right before the game.
i've always seen the format that allows all-kills as sort of a gimmicky joke format that you do once in a while for a minor league. individual leagues already dominate the landscape. team leagues should be as teamy as possible (except not actually have team games like 2v2 or 3v3)
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On July 11 2014 00:13 Noro wrote:
Interesting write up, though I don't feel like you needed to apologize for losses. Just keep on going ^^
Responsible people own up to their mistakes. Doesn't matter if I wasn't playing, I'm the team owner, the teams failures are my failures. I'm not going to dodge responsibility.
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Does everyone really hate allkill? I love it. Especially the way GSTL did it of course, but that requires offline tournaments. I love the unpredictability of allkill formats and it kind of shows the ''pure, unprepared skill'' of any player. (unless you're talking about snipers.) It's always made matches so much more exciting for me, and also the reason I love GSTL over Proleague. Proleague of european/american teams might be an interesting twist though. Overall I prefer all-kill by far.
I dislike revives though. They're kind of a gimmick and aren't really adding to the strategy, because you don't go into a match ''expecting'' to lose so that you can revive that player that lost. Maybe a mixup IS the best, get the best of both worlds.
Also, TB, sucks that you get another bad experience with ATC.  Hopefully all will go right next time.
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Yes I hate all-kill, I think it's one of the most anti-team things you can do to a team league :/
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Love the fact that even tho John is such a big personality and a e-sport/youtube celebrity he can be so humble. Love the apology and i think Mousesports do to.
This feels really from the heart and not some BS press release shit.
GG to Axiom and hope you guys do better next time. =)
Thank you John for this great read.
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I still think Genna needs to rip TB off the keyboard for a while... 
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On July 11 2014 00:49 TotalBiscuit wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2014 00:13 Noro wrote:
Interesting write up, though I don't feel like you needed to apologize for losses. Just keep on going ^^ Responsible people own up to their mistakes. Doesn't matter if I wasn't playing, I'm the team owner, the teams failures are my failures. I'm not going to dodge responsibility.
Football club managers always take responsibility for losses (Scolari after Brazil's 1-7, for example). It's normal to do.
Actually what I would say TB is you shouldn't feel the need to answer every asshole on here spewing a bunch of meaningless hateful crap at you. I think any reasonable person can see what you have done for the scene and be grateful. Everyone makes mistakes from time to time and you've apologized for yours.
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Bo9 all-kill, just without the ace revive rule. That maybe makes sense for a Bo11 or a Bo13, but when there can theoretically be as few as 5 players that show up in a Bo9 + ace revives, that just feels too small. It feels like it dilutes the main excitement of viewing an all-kill match. With shoutcraft and proleague around, I don't think I'd like to see yet another team league go with proleague format, but my opinion could be swayed by the addition of 2v2 matches, which see tragically little attention in SC2.
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On July 11 2014 02:33 Thalandros wrote:Does everyone really hate allkill? I love it. Especially the way GSTL did it of course, but that requires offline tournaments. I love the unpredictability of allkill formats and it kind of shows the ''pure, unprepared skill'' of any player. (unless you're talking about snipers.) It's always made matches so much more exciting for me, and also the reason I love GSTL over Proleague. Proleague of european/american teams might be an interesting twist though. Overall I prefer all-kill by far. I dislike revives though. They're kind of a gimmick and aren't really adding to the strategy, because you don't go into a match ''expecting'' to lose so that you can revive that player that lost. Maybe a mixup IS the best, get the best of both worlds. Also, TB, sucks that you get another bad experience with ATC. Hopefully all will go right next time.
Proleague had the same debate, since the all-kill format favors big name players and helps them build their reputation by going on big streaks while the Proleague format favors deep teams and gives exposure to lots of less known players. They ended up with their hybrid system, where the regular season is Proleague format but the playoffs are always all-kill.
I would agree that ATC might want to incorporate Proleague format for some rounds. But all-kill is definitely more exciting to see how far an individual player can go.
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All-Kill format needs to be killed if you'll pardon the pun. It was obvious yesterday and it was even more obvious today, no offence to the other players on Acer but even when Scarlett took a map off Starbuck it was still a case of "Wait for Innovation to be revived so we can start the series again". As an esports viewer I don't want to sit around for 3-4 games and wait for an ace player to screw up just for the team who's ace was beaten in the first game to have a chance or sit and wait for their ace to be revived and go reverse all-kill. That is boring as hell.
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On July 11 2014 09:10 showstealer1829 wrote:
All-Kill format needs to be killed if you'll pardon the pun. It was obvious yesterday and it was even more obvious today, no offence to the other players on Acer but even when Scarlett took a map off Starbuck it was still a case of "Wait for Innovation to be revived so we can start the series again". As an esports viewer I don't want to sit around for 3-4 games and wait for an ace player to screw up just for the team who's ace was beaten in the first game to have a chance or sit and wait for their ace to be revived and go reverse all-kill. That is boring as hell.
not to mention just completely absurd on paper.
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Some of the things you say in LR threads bother me, but I'm a fan of the team and pretty much everything you said here.
Good luck in the future, everybody on Axiom has the potential to be up there with the best.
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Austria24422 Posts
I don't think you'll ever be able to satisfy everyone. A lot of people enjoy the all kill format, a lot enjoy Proleague's, lots enjoy both (I count myself among the latter). The Proleague format obviously favors teams with the best depth and/or preparation, but regularly gets criticized for not developing individual storylines enough as well as sometimes favoring certain teams too much. If you have a team like SKT in there and play Bo7 Proleague format, guess who's going to win every single round? It hasn't been as bad this season because of Bo5s but you know, the longer a series is the more it favors the better team.
TLO brought up a really important point on Take's stream yesterday: while sometimes it'll be frustrating to see a single player carrying a team, it's also somewhat necessary to give more teams a chance, teams that perhaps don't have the kind of roster that could compete in a Proleague format league. No doubt that TL, Acer, Axiom, maybe YFW and iG could play that kind of format, but what about the rest? As volatile as bo1s are, if you have to play potential seven of them against a stacked team like TL for example, your chances are slim unless you're one of the above or a Korean team.
As far as individual storylines go, that point should be obvious. Taeja rocketed to the top of the SC2 scene through his all killings in IPL TAC (of course he had success elsewhere, but that's where it really took off). The whole "Summer of Taeja" and "Team Taeja" memes - I hate calling it that - started when he put the team on his back and did unimaginable things. That's cool. That's the sort of storyline the community loves, that gives us writers something to latch onto and expand on to get people excited for tournaments, etc.. And I think that especially in the foreign scene, where establishing yourself as not just another player that would easily get swept aside by any decent Korean, that sort of environment is really important for players to make a name for themselves. In a perfect world we'd obviously have leagues with both formats running simultaneously for both teams and players to shine.
But as it stands at the moment, the only two big teamleagues out there are Proleague and ATC. The most important thing Proleague have realized, in my opinion, is that variety is huge. That's why they don't play "their" format every single time, but switch between it and all kill format frequently. That keeps it all fresh and allows for teams to both present their roster strength as well as individual players'.
If we now had ATC also switch to Proleague format, that would take away a lot of that variety. A lot of people would come out saying that they want an all kill format league back because of those storylines, etc.
Right now I think we've got a good balance between both systems with Proleague running their format weekly (except during playoffs) and ATC's different one.
Something I really enjoyed as well was EGMC's Bo5 format consisting of five Bo3 series. It was time consuming, yes. But how cool was seeing HerO vs Stephano meet in a key match and knowing it was going to be a Bo3 instead of just one game? Pretty damn cool. It kinda combined the best of both worlds, as players could still put out a really impressive showing on more than one map but overall it was still team effort that won you the league.
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Good blog. And a great look into a team's strategy.
I still like the allkill format, though. While it negatively impacts the quality of many matches, it often creates an exciting story line within the series.
Of course, revives should not be possible. It is the point of allkill to "kill" a player in this series.
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On July 10 2014 20:41 ninazerg wrote:"We lost, therefore, all-kill format sux"; whatever dude, don't write an essay to try and get people to bandwagon onto the "NO ALL-KILL" train so your team can win. + Show Spoiler +Just kidding :D ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/EdJq011.png) Losing sucks, so the best of luck to you in the future.
A bold move. Can't find the thread that banned the "k" word, but I imagine they didn't ban the picture (outside of regular image macros).
Smooth...
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