EPTThere are flaws to this system but let's focus on the positives for now, then go over some negatives further below.
Consistency
Above everything else is consistency. How many times have fans and players complained about a tournament format? About having too many rounds that are Best of 3's or single-elimination brackets? Well according to the statistics from the top 16 on EU (https://twitter.com/StarCraft/status/697927765463474176) It took each player an average of 162 games to qualify, and these games were against a wide range of opponents. Players of all styles races against each other over a long, but concentrated, period of time.
Not only were those games at the highest level of each player's capability, but they were on non barcode accounts means it’s far more likely the better player wins. There was no bracket luck here, just pure competition to determine who the best is.
Accessibility
Many players have complained since the release of Legacy of the Void that ladder practice has been lower quality compared to Heart of the Swarm. This WCS Challenger format alleviated a lot of those issues. During most hours, good opponents were plentiful and you were able to play far more quality games than you could have before, a huge benefit to even the pros who did not make the Top 16 cut.
Meaningful ladder rankings
The last time the ladder was used as a qualifier for a Blizzard event was for Blizzcon Regional Qualifiers back in 2011 (http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2011_North_American_Battle.net_Invitational). Knowing where you stand amongst your peers in the most competitive form of ranking is actually quite humbling. It's easy to dismiss someone’s ladder ranking as meaningless, but when everyone is giving ladder their all, then meaning of these wins can't be denied.
The benefits of this system are outstanding, and without question a net positive. However, there are some issues that can hopefully be addressed going foward.
Competitive Spirit
For this season of WCS eight players have been invited based off their WCS performances in 2015. For the WCS Spring and Summer Championships WCS points from 2016 will be used to seed players directly into the championship events. On top of the eight players seeded based on last year’s performance fourteen more players have been seeded via non-Challenger qualifiers.
A grand total of 10 out of 16 players in the EU WCS Challenger are already qualified for IEM Katowice. This means that players could qualify for IEM by finishing in 11th and 12th. For NA, 6 players already have a ticket to IEM so the slot could go to someone who is ranked as low as 7th or 8th. The WCS changes increased meaning and importance of the ladder, but they’ve made Challenger League a low stakes online event for more than half the players participating.
There are a few ways to fix this. We could prohibit Championship Invited players from participating in Challenger, but could hurt the quality of the ladder, especially for NA. Additionally this penalizes players who were previously successful in WCS and lowers the level of play in Challenger. Another solution could be to prohibit Invited players from participating in the Challenger tournament while compensating them by paying out prize money to the top 32 of the ladder.
In my opinion, what would make the most sense to create a high quality Challenger tournament would be to remove the WCS invite slots, increase the number of Challenger\Server qualifiers, and have the Challenger qualifier take place before the server qualifiers.
An example of redistribution could be: 4 qualifying slots added to EU Challenger, since Europe Server Qualifier still includes the same players. 2 slots to NA Challenger and the final 2 slots given to Americas Server qualifier which would benefit South America, Taiwan and the SEA Region.
Server selection
NA has a problem that EU doesn't. With the introduction of Legacy of the Void, we NA players were given the chance to select which server we play our games. This was added to help Australia and South America have better latency while still being part of the NA Ladder.
While it does help with foreign latency, it caused a problem where players who kept the server selection "Best match" would end up on an Australian or Brazilian server with unwanted, inflated latency. Due to this, about half the players selected the West server, the other half the East server. This created devide within the North American players on the North American ladder.
Additionally, undesired opponents can be dodged simply by playing a different prefered server, and it becomes more of a game of "who can avoid the strong players" more than a game of StarCraft. This is something that needs to be addressed so that the players are not isolated and the final ranking has unquestionable merit.
One of the ways to fix it would be to force/lock the server for the duration of the qualifier. Central should be the server enforced as it is the most neutral for all of North America. Australians and Brazilians would suffer, but it would only last two weeks and they are not part of the Challenger qualification process. The best case scenario for the longevity of the ladder would be to introduce a "NA Region" in the server list which guarantees you a game on either west, central or east.
Conclusion
I am grateful for Blizzard's initiative to revive the ladder in a meaningful way. I hope the changes I proposed are considered in a serious manner and hopefully implemented for the Spring Championship.
If you read this far, thank you.
Marc-Olivier "desRow" Proulx
