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Hello,
last week while watching ASL I stumbled across the ScForAll Spirit Tournament article in the Brood War liquipedia. I generally like the idea to give foreigners an opportunity to play in Korean offline events. In fact, it would be so cool to see a foreigner playing in ASL.
I wonder if it would be worthwhile for ASL to have a qualifier for foreigners next to their qualifiers in Seoul, Busan and so on.
In the current situation, it must be extremely difficult for a foreigner to play in ASL. I think the main reasons are:
1. Expenses for flight, accommodation, living in Korea, Visa
2. The lack of a social network upon arrival
3. No access to the best practice partners in the world
4. The language barrier
5. Facing the worlds best Brood War players
6. Restrictions due to Corona Virus
Would it be possible for ASL to finance a single spot (like a scholarship) for a foreigner? Would it be worthwhile for ASL? What do you think?
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South Korea2105 Posts
Given how difficult it is to actually qualify either way and how well-pronounced the skill disparity between top foreigners and the usual ASL crowd is, Afreeca would be shooting themselves in the foot if they ever chose to do that. People would be upset. They already have a system in place that is supposed to make qualifying somewhat easier - the ACS (the winner gets a free pass to an ASL qualifying round of their choice).
Holding an open qualifier for the ASTL, however, might have a different effect. And by open I don't just mean aimed at foreigners - one spot, no restrictions. The tour already gives exposure to a wider range of players than the ASL and if a foreign team were to qualify (which might not lie outside the realm of possibility), it will have been done fair and square, no favoritism.
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I agree that it would be awesome to see a non-korean compete in an offline broodwar tournament again. But there are so many obstacles to overcome...
1. The skill-gap is way too large. Even if they would invite the best of them all it would be an epic upset if they even got through RO32 or RO24 if seeded. eOnzerg (and Dewalt?) both tried to stay and practice in Korea for 1 month before going to the qualifiers. None made it very far if I remember correct... I think eOn was eliminated by FlaSh and Light (as Protoss). Look, even Bisu need 3 tries to get into RO24(!).
Maybe Bonyth could get through ACS… but it would be a shoe in and lucky bracket… (no disrespect).
2. Korea is the heartbeat of StarCraft. And the audience there will of course cheer on their own. I am not too familiar with SC2, but I feel like the whole scene went into a huge decline after Serral won GSL vs. World twice and BlizzCon. Once the aura of GSL being the best, highest skilled tournament in the world was gone (true or not) the whole scene declined. The success of a non-korean in ASL would only have a positive impact on 1% of the brood war audience.
However, if we would have a guy or girl that the Korean audience could embrace (like Grrr… or Elky) which would live in in Korea and even speak Korean. Then just maybe… but I unfortunately I don’t think anyone has the capacity to do so… if not eOn, Bonyth, Trutacz would win life changing money in a lottery and take that leap of faith. There is no company that would sponsor it. That is for sure.
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Scarlett has been playing in the ASL qualifiers, I hope she is able to qualify soon. She may be the answer to your prayers.
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Lets run through some history…
At the beginning of time we had [GG99]Slayer who qualified in an online tournament, went to Korea to collect the gold. Then we had Grrr… with a similar story being the first OSL champion. But let’s be honest, that will never ever happen again.
Next, we had KenKa, Elky, Maynard etc. and although Elky had some good runs he never won gold.
After that we had the likes of Assem, Legionnare, Nazgul etc. but once KeSPA , PRO-licenses etc. was established none of them succeeded the route through Courage to obtain their licenses, right? I think they were all handed to them via Hexatron.
And years later we had SunCow*, Draco, NonY, Ret, PJ, Legend and IdrA all taking the route through either SKT1, Sparkyz or Hexatron/eStro to obtain their licenses. I think Ret came closest with a ZvZ finals.
However, to sum it up. No non-Korean has ever obtained a PRO-license without a team backing. That is how hard that was. And I am pretty sure that ACS or ASL qualifiers are ever harder.
Maybe if Bonyth, eOn, TrutaCz. Dewalt could claw their way through ACS with a bit of luck? Scan, who I am pretty sure has a winning record vs. all non-Koreans came close but no cigar.
…or if Mondragon, Testie, Androide, sEn would have tried Courage back in the day?
ASL is another beast indeed. I do not think it is possible for any non-Korean to make it… unfortunately 
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There's only one reason why there is no foreigner playing in ASL.
5. Facing the worlds best Brood War players
No foreigner is good enough. Not even close. Why this is the case is another matter, but the other 5 reasons pale in comparison or is a contributer to that one reason.
A spot reserved for a foreigner is a spot taken away from far more deserving bw players, on the basis that they happen to not be Korean. What is missing is why you view it worthwhile to reserve a foreigner only spot. "Cool" is not a coherent reason.
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On September 19 2020 02:01 ...onmYwaY wrote:
And years later we had MadCow(?), Draco, NonY, Ret, PJ, Legend and IdrA all taking the route through either SKT1, Sparkyz or Hexatron/eStro to obtain their licenses. I think Ret came closest with a ZvZ finals.
Nony made it to courage finals
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51480 Posts
assem is the only foreigner to obtain his progaming license through the courage system. legionnaire got his via participating in a 512 man semi-pro tournament ran by MBCgame and getting top 8 in it. nazgul left korea before the system was implemented. idra and draco were given theirs via team recommendation. madcow got kicked out of korea before even having a chance (he wasn't that good to begin with). pj/lx i have no idea, but i'm guessing skt gave them team recommendation licenses.
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We might have had both NonY and Ret in a major leauge if it was not for SC2 release.
I had totally forgot about the NonY run to the finals... that was the PvT on Colosseum, right? Good times...
Assems run must have been impresseive as well... Then lest not forget Androides' win over Silent_Control, White-Ra over Stork, Mondragon over Reach and Savior... we had some good offline tournament wins.
PS. Blackman over Essay WCG2002... and a classic LT game vs. Boxer.. Hard to accept that we might never have another DS.
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On September 19 2020 08:45 GTR wrote:
assem is the only foreigner to obtain his progaming license through the courage system. legionnaire got his via participating in a 512 man semi-pro tournament ran by MBCgame and getting top 8 in it. nazgul left korea before the system was implemented. idra and draco were given theirs via team recommendation. madcow got kicked out of korea before even having a chance (he wasn't that good to begin with). pj/lx i have no idea, but i'm guessing skt gave them team recommendation licenses.
Awesome historical moments. Madcow got kicked out for starting fights in the team houses or what? lol
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On September 19 2020 02:01 ...onmYwaY wrote:Lets run through some history… At the beginning of time we had [GG99]Slayer who qualified in an online tournament, went to Korea to collect the gold. Then we had Grrr… with a similar story being the first OSL champion. But let’s be honest, that will never ever happen again. Next, we had KenKa, Elky, Maynard etc. and although Elky had some good runs he never won gold. After that we had the likes of Assem, Legionnare, Nazgul etc. but once KeSPA , PRO-licenses etc. was established none of them succeeded the route through Courage to obtain their licenses, right? I think they were all handed to them via Hexatron. And years later we had MadCow(?), Draco, NonY, Ret, PJ, Legend and IdrA all taking the route through either SKT1, Sparkyz or Hexatron/eStro to obtain their licenses. I think Ret came closest with a ZvZ finals. However, to sum it up. No non-Korean has ever obtained a PRO-license without a team backing. That is how hard that was. And I am pretty sure that ACS or ASL qualifiers are ever harder. Maybe if Bonyth, eOn, TrutaCz. Dewalt could claw their way through ACS with a bit of luck? Scan, who I am pretty sure has a winning record vs. all non-Koreans came close but no cigar. …or if Mondragon, Testie, Androide, sEn would have tried Courage back in the day? ASL is another beast indeed. I do not think it is possible for any non-Korean to make it… unfortunately
Making into ASL Group Stage(Ro24) with first try(season, not qualifier) is very hard.
Also, playing on TR24 is a different atmosphere compare to other slow TR(high latency ping) and two different region players playing each other on ladder or custom games with lower tr still feel like 0.9x speed. The game is not lagging, it's not a distance problem idk what it's causing but it just does not feel like 1.0x speed game.
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I don't see the point in having a short cut to the the RO24 only to get stomped.
No one (other than the korean pros who stayed,) really cares about Serral winning Blizzcon and GSL vs the World. Post Kespa Korean SC2 and BW are more of a reality show than a real competition.
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On September 19 2020 14:04 Morbidius wrote:
I don't see the point in having a short cut to the the RO24 only to get stomped.
No one (other than the korean pros who stayed,) really cares about Serral winning Blizzcon and GSL vs the World. Post Kespa Korean SC2 and BW are more of a reality show than a real competition.
What do you mean no one cares?
Serral's triumph over korean opposition at a world championship is probably the most noteworthy thing to happen in all of starcraft outside of korea in... since starcraft was released 22 years ago? If your opinion is that Korean SC2 degraded, and it's not serral (and reynor) bein a miraculous talent, then you are wrong. Serral would have dominated in any era with his current skillset.
Regional tournaments and championships foster growth. If Starcraft 1 had enough players, then tournaments should be held for Europe and North America exclusively, similar as has been done with Starcraft 2. That protects the competitive environment, guarantees TR24 low gameplay, and motivates players to train and compete to win fame and prizes (less so in sc1 than in sc2).
The foreign scene in brood war is a joke. Most of the tournaments that are run, Koreans can enter (HAY, jeez weekly, STPL), and if it's not Koreans, it's competition between guys in the balkan, russia, the west of the united states, and countries like peru and chile (BSL, the biggest foreign league). Games are never ran at tr24 low latency, sometimes you even have to play on TR8 or TR10. Not only does losing to koreans over and over in the very scarse oppurtunities must feel very demotivating to what little talent there is outside of korea, the high ping games literally changes the way the games are played, has impact on strategies, foreigners can't train muscle memory for control and micro because they play on a different turn rate every game, etc.
This leads to a situation where foreign players just can't get good enough playing outside of korea, even if they were fully comitted to the cause. And moving to korea to train for a a year or two before getting the necessary skills is just not realistic at this point.
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On September 19 2020 15:22 Comedy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2020 14:04 Morbidius wrote:
I don't see the point in having a short cut to the the RO24 only to get stomped.
No one (other than the korean pros who stayed,) really cares about Serral winning Blizzcon and GSL vs the World. Post Kespa Korean SC2 and BW are more of a reality show than a real competition. What do you mean no one cares? Serral's triumph over korean opposition at a world championship is probably the most noteworthy thing to happen in all of starcraft outside of korea in... since starcraft was released 22 years ago? If your opinion is that Korean SC2 degraded, and it's not serral (and reynor) bein a miraculous talent, then you are wrong. Serral would have dominated in any era with his current skillset. Regional tournaments and championships foster growth. If Starcraft 1 had enough players, then tournaments should be held for Europe and North America exclusively, similar as has been done with Starcraft 2. That protects the competitive environment, guarantees TR24 low gameplay, and motivates players to train and compete to win fame and prizes (less so in sc1 than in sc2). The foreign scene in brood war is a joke. Most of the tournaments that are run, Koreans can enter (HAY, jeez weekly, STPL), and if it's not Koreans, it's competition between guys in the balkan, russia, the west of the united states, and countries like peru and chile (BSL, the biggest foreign league). Games are never ran at tr24 low latency, sometimes you even have to play on TR8 or TR10. Not only does losing to koreans over and over in the very scarse oppurtunities must feel very demotivating to what little talent there is outside of korea, the high ping games literally changes the way the games are played, has impact on strategies, foreigners can't train muscle memory for control and micro because they play on a different turn rate every game, etc. This leads to a situation where foreign players just can't get good enough playing outside of korea, even if they were fully comitted to the cause. And moving to korea to train for a a year or two before getting the necessary skills is just not realistic at this point.
What i mean by no one cares is that no one cares. And you don't know anything about Starcraft if you think Serral would have dominated SC2 if kespa didn't collapse..Hint: He did play, but he was trash for all those years, took a huge balance shift and Korean skills hitting a plateau before he could put in any remarkable result. Watch his games in early 2018 against Classic and Maru to see how Serral fared against top competition in a non Zerg favored meta.
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On September 19 2020 16:40 Morbidius wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2020 15:22 Comedy wrote:On September 19 2020 14:04 Morbidius wrote:
I don't see the point in having a short cut to the the RO24 only to get stomped.
No one (other than the korean pros who stayed,) really cares about Serral winning Blizzcon and GSL vs the World. Post Kespa Korean SC2 and BW are more of a reality show than a real competition. What do you mean no one cares? Serral's triumph over korean opposition at a world championship is probably the most noteworthy thing to happen in all of starcraft outside of korea in... since starcraft was released 22 years ago? If your opinion is that Korean SC2 degraded, and it's not serral (and reynor) bein a miraculous talent, then you are wrong. Serral would have dominated in any era with his current skillset. Regional tournaments and championships foster growth. If Starcraft 1 had enough players, then tournaments should be held for Europe and North America exclusively, similar as has been done with Starcraft 2. That protects the competitive environment, guarantees TR24 low gameplay, and motivates players to train and compete to win fame and prizes (less so in sc1 than in sc2). The foreign scene in brood war is a joke. Most of the tournaments that are run, Koreans can enter (HAY, jeez weekly, STPL), and if it's not Koreans, it's competition between guys in the balkan, russia, the west of the united states, and countries like peru and chile (BSL, the biggest foreign league). Games are never ran at tr24 low latency, sometimes you even have to play on TR8 or TR10. Not only does losing to koreans over and over in the very scarse oppurtunities must feel very demotivating to what little talent there is outside of korea, the high ping games literally changes the way the games are played, has impact on strategies, foreigners can't train muscle memory for control and micro because they play on a different turn rate every game, etc. This leads to a situation where foreign players just can't get good enough playing outside of korea, even if they were fully comitted to the cause. And moving to korea to train for a a year or two before getting the necessary skills is just not realistic at this point. What i mean by no one cares is that no one cares. And you don't know anything about Starcraft if you think Serral would have dominated SC2 if kespa didn't collapse..Hint: He did play, but he was trash for all those years, took a huge balance shift and Korean skills hitting a plateau before he could put in any remarkable result. Watch his games in early 2018 against Classic and Maru to see how Serral fared against top competition in a non Zerg favored meta.
I'm kind of sad you replied and I feel obliged to respond in a thread that's about foreign brood war. Serral was in high school untill he went full-time in september of 2017. He was also a teenager in all those years he competed leading up to him becoming 'the finnish phenom'. His skills didn't fully develop until I would say - 2018.
Let's look at serral's 2018
 IEM Season XII - World Championship
February 2018, 5 months after becoming a fulltime SC2 pro:
5-0's his group, dominates rogue, impact, zest, trap, before falling to classic in the semi final.
He then wins GSL vs the world in August :
2018 GSL vs. the World
Later that year (2018), he wins blizzcon for the first time, defeating all the koreans in his path.
The only balance change between the earlier games and blizzcon was the seeker missile nerf, as well as zerg dropperlords being moved to lair tech(Zerg nerf). (+ Viking hp increase, marauder 1 shot instead of 2 (making them better vs ultras). This happend before he won his tournaments vs korean competition.
2018 in general was not a Zerg favored meta, Maru won 3 GSL's that year and no zerg made it to the final in Korea GSL's, or Super tournament. Serral won 3 WCS Events, GSL vs the World and the blizzcon 2018 finals.
Now you argueing that Kespa's falling made the skill level worse... that is the least stupid thing you have said so far. While in absolute skill, players from 2018, 2019, and 2020, are definitely better players than kespa players were in the earlier years of 2012-2015..
You could argue that with proleague, team houses, and active coaching staff, Korean's starcraft 2 level would have increased more than it did without those things, but I don't think that really matters. All the korean pros that stayed active had been training in team house environments for more than 10 years, and had seen succes in both sc, and sc2, both during the kespa era and after that. These players know very well how to train, know how to prepare for events, and they still have the advantadge of training on the most competitive ladder that exists in SC2 (Korea.) Serral never went to Korea to train on the ladder, and still kept up and outskilled all of these other players that already were very dominant even during the kespa times (Innovation, soO) etc.
So yeah, people do care. And you are the one that knows nothing about SC2. (And I would bet broodwar, too.)
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On September 19 2020 09:24 TelecoM wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2020 08:45 GTR wrote:
assem is the only foreigner to obtain his progaming license through the courage system. legionnaire got his via participating in a 512 man semi-pro tournament ran by MBCgame and getting top 8 in it. nazgul left korea before the system was implemented. idra and draco were given theirs via team recommendation. madcow got kicked out of korea before even having a chance (he wasn't that good to begin with). pj/lx i have no idea, but i'm guessing skt gave them team recommendation licenses. Awesome historical moments. Madcow got kicked out for starting fights in the team houses or what? lol
I completely forgot about this but I believe you're right. It's hilarious how unhinged he was :D
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On the height of his powers, Mondragon looked like he could actually compete with the Koreans. At least in ZvP.
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It was Suncow, and he stayed at the Siz house where he started several fights, I also recall there being some kind of hygiene problems.. (all of the Koreans thought he smelled awful).
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On September 19 2020 19:00 Avi-Love wrote:
It was Suncow, and he stayed at the Siz house where he started several fights, I also recall there being some kind of hygiene problems.. (all of the Koreans thought he smelled awful).
Suncow sounds like an Odyssey reference lol.
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EPT
