Having undergone structural changes and essentially wiping the slate clean, the ASTL is coming back in full force on the 17th of January. 6 teams, 26 players, ~18.5k$ up for grabs - the ASTL is an attempt to bring back team-based pride once lost. But is it the right way to go about it? Time will tell as AfreecaTV have listened to the voice of the people and adjusted the format to make the league feel both more prestigious and less inclusive than the first season. With a reduced team count, a smaller number of players per roster (and all together, duh), as well as essentially no continuity in a team identity context between seasons, it feels to me AfreecaTV are moving away from what seemed like an attempt to one day rebuild a system akin to Proleague from days past to straight-up reinventing the wheel of team-based competition. While undoubtedly a more sensible short-term decision from a financial perspective, I feel the approach they took in season 1 of the ASTL fostered long-term growth by providing opportunities for showcasing one's keyboard and mouse expertise to a wider spectrum of player and not just the regulars. While a single paragraph's worth of rant doesn't necessarily do justice to my thoughts on the matter, I don't feel the need to subject anyone to a more detailed write-up, so I'll just end this with a TLDR (lest my intentions go misinterpreted):

ASTL GOOD, BUT ASTL1 > ASTL2 (PROBABLY).

Since I've been feeling particularly confrontational recently I decided to look at the upcoming season of the AfreecaTV StarCraft Team League and compose a Power Rank of the participating rosters to see just how many people I manage to upset with my personal and biased take on things.
While coming up with this list there were two factors that specifically made it look the way it does. Firstly, the groupstage is a round-robin; secondly, each match is a Bo5 (as opposed to the Bo7 format of season 1). We've done away with upset-conducive 2v2s and 3v3s in favour of straight up, Proleague style 1v1 Bo5s. This means every single map counts more than it would have had they stuck with the original format. And that in turn means beating Flash & co. becomes ever so difficult.

(ASL Power Level = ASL9 + ASL10 pts)


#1: eSport.fund (Flash, Soulkey, Action, free, Pusan)

ASL Power Level:

Flash: 2,850
Soulkey: 1,450
Action: 1,400
free: 500
Pusan: 0

Captain: 2,850
Team: 3,350
Total: 6,200


Sure, it might just be me shilling Rus_brain, hoping the eSport.fund team becomes a permanent fixture and picks up a bunch of foreigners. But considering the roster (and the aforementioned format changes), selling another team as the #1 rank going into this season would be a tall order. Flash, Soulkey, Action, free, and Pusan (for the oh-so-needed fan factor I guess - kudos whoever's responsible, nice one). Also I'm not 100% sure whether it's been confirmed if Flash will play as random as there have been rumours going around he might switch back to Terran full time. We'll see. Either way, scary stuff.


#2: Karariyo (Snow, Best, JyJ, Shuttle, FBH)

ASL Power Level:

Snow: 1,450
Best: 1,450
JyJ: 770
Shuttle: 500
firebathero: 270

Captain: 1,450
Team: 2,990
Total: 4,440

If I understood what Snow said about picking Best (and chances are I didn't, Korean is hard) was he knows that in order to win this league, at some point they'll have to beat Flash and he believes Best is the right man for the job. I think a lot of people are sleeping on JyJ and Shuttle, both of whom have shown real promise in recent times. In addition to that, Snow also exercised his liberty to add players to his roster post-draft by picking up firebathero, the architect of Charariyo Buffalos' success in season 1 (Charariyo? Karariyo? Hmm.) Also the consensus seems to be Protoss is kind of 사기 right now and these guys have three of them.


#3: Socrates Tteokbokki (Larva, Bisu, sSak, Killer)

ASL Power Level:

Larva: 2,400
Bisu: 1,200
Killer: 570
beast: 570
sSak: 300

Captain: 2,400
Team: 2,640
Total: 5,040

Believe it or not, tteokbokki is actually my favourite Korean dish (though arguably I've only ever had store-bought on account of me being proper skint). I was going back and forth between the #3 and #4 teams on this list and I figured picking these guys over #4 solely for being sponsored by a rice cake joint is as valid a reason as any. Also the premise of putting together a team of ex-SKT veterans seemed like a cool idea (storytelling-wise). Shame Larva didn't go through with it, Killer doesn't seem like that big of a deal anyway.


#4: LOGINmedia (ZerO, Stork, Rush, MisO)

ASL Power Level:

ZerO: 7,600
Rush: 1,270
Stork: 1,200
MIsO: 0
BrAvO : 0

Captain: 7,600
Team: 2,470
Total: 10,070

I'm glad ZerO gave Rush the respect he so rightfully deserves for being good at playing the hardest race in the game. The reason I put these guys this low, however, is that I think Stork has fallen out of favour with a lot of people, most notably for his mental breakdown during the team draft last season. On top of that, while he does arguably keep producing decent results, he's become far too predictable for my liking. That said, if they manage to get a number of favourable lineup pairs in the round-robin they could probably set themselves up for a finish far better than one would expect reading my drivel.


#5: AfreecaTV (Soma, sOrry, EffOrt, Sharp)

ASL Power Level:

Soma: 3,850
Sharp: 750
Sorry: 570
EffOrt: 0
Ruin : 0

Captain: 3,850
Team: 1,320
Total: 5,170

EffOrt might be the biggest mystery factor in the league and as such I believe we'll have to keep a close eye on him and him alone if this AfreecaTV roster want to get far in the league. While Soma deserves a lot of praise for having risen through the ranks in this chapter of the post-KeSPA era, I'm questioning his motives behind grabbing as many as two Terrans for his team. Just look at the mappool. I veto half of those maps on ladder.


#6: emTek Casters Inc. (Light, Mini, hero, PianO)

ASL Power Level:

Light: 2,750
Mini: 770
hero: 500
Shine : 300
PianO: 0

Captain: 2,750
Team: 1,370
Total: 4,320

Similar situation to #5 except they don't have EffOrt.



ASL Power Level (Captain + Team)

#1: LOGINmedia
#2: eSport.fund
#3: AfreecaTV
#4: Socrates Tteokbokki
#5: Karariyo
#6: emTek Casters Inc.

ASL Power Level (Team only)

#1: eSport.fund
#2: Karariyo
#3: LOGINmedia
#4: Socrates Tteokbokki
#5: emTek Casters Inc.
#6: AfreecaTV