The reason foreigners dominate SC2 is because the korean scene died, for the same reason the BW did back then, a match fixing scandal. Once the team house enviroment dissapeared it created a more even playing field and talented foreigners were capable of winning.
Also I don't think since SC2 launch there has been a point where it had less players than BW, even today, so not sure where you got that.
On February 03 2026 04:49 Kraekkling wrote: "What if we put someones mind at 30-years-old with all his experience in his 16-years-old-body" is a meaningless thought experiment. Obviously there are things that deteriorate as someone ages, such as reflexes, I'm not arguing against this at all. Whatever it was that deteriorated since then, it was more than compensated by improvements in efficiency. If you click 20% slower but 30% more efficient, you still play better. Are modern players more efficient with their apm? Probably by a lot.
Now, would one say that the mechanics got worse because someone clicks 20% slower? Maybe, I don't know, it just seems like meaningless arguing at that point. Whatever we can quantify as expression of skill in the game, such as micro and macro, improved compared to back then.
please watch a few games from this era - those without bisu/jd/flash - and see for yourself. there's also some fpview in those VODs.
[...] macro wise, definitely much better back in the day.
how so?
think of any conceivable supply/timing/tech benchmark and go compare old games with modern games. anything that can be measured and quantified is much more tight in modern games. macro cycles in modern games are not constrained by APM but by resource income.
except theyre not more efficient with their apm. theyre more effective with it. thats a massive difference. making better choices on what to do with their apm isnt having better mechanics, its being smarter about the game. hence my initial point. the amount of times pros complain that they fumbled keyboard inputs, made misclicks or failed to react quick enough to something is off the charts. its not even a debate that their apm is less efficient and that their mechanics are worse. youre confusing better decision making with improved physical ability, which is just false. the reality is if the pros could go back to their late teens we would have been blessed with another level of starcraft that we will never ever see now
On February 03 2026 04:49 Kraekkling wrote: "What if we put someones mind at 30-years-old with all his experience in his 16-years-old-body" is a meaningless thought experiment. Obviously there are things that deteriorate as someone ages, such as reflexes, I'm not arguing against this at all. Whatever it was that deteriorated since then, it was more than compensated by improvements in efficiency. If you click 20% slower but 30% more efficient, you still play better. Are modern players more efficient with their apm? Probably by a lot.
Now, would one say that the mechanics got worse because someone clicks 20% slower? Maybe, I don't know, it just seems like meaningless arguing at that point. Whatever we can quantify as expression of skill in the game, such as micro and macro, improved compared to back then.
please watch a few games from this era - those without bisu/jd/flash - and see for yourself. there's also some fpview in those VODs.
[...] macro wise, definitely much better back in the day.
how so?
think of any conceivable supply/timing/tech benchmark and go compare old games with modern games. anything that can be measured and quantified is much more tight in modern games. macro cycles in modern games are not constrained by APM but by resource income.
As Pauline said, late game macro was so much better back then and players consistently keeping their money under 1k/1k even deep into big macro games.
For those talking about how "skill" has gotten better since KeSPA, it really just depends on what definition of "skill" you're referring to and what you weight. I weight macro and micro (raw mechanics) over game knowledge and build order knowledge personally, so therefore I don't think that the players today are more skilled than the players of the past. Micro is a bit more interesting because obviously Snow's reaver micro is far better than it was back then. HOWEVER, he's also floating an ungodly amount of resources and idle probes when he does his reaver micro now compared to back then where this would not be happening in KeSPA A-team level Protosses. So.... eh, give or take on the micro aspect. I think evilfatshit lays it out well: Snow being more effective with his reaver micro is great, and typically his damage is worth the fact that he'll be floating 1.5k at 8 minutes and have 12 idle workers with a delayed 3rd base. But in all the jinjin videos of pros reacting to his reaver micro, they're still pointing out all the issues going on behind the reaver.
Because of these guys, including more, contributing:
BigFan, BLinD-RawR , nevake, Freakling, snipealot, Stratos, BurnedToast, Sayle, Qikz, Shamtoo, FlaShFTW, BisuDagger, v1, Simplistik, Nyoken and co-casters, 2PAC, Elegant, Kwark, ZZZero and co (BSL), TMNT, Tec27 and co (ShieldBattery), Scan, GTR, Nazgul, Airneach and co (IPSL), everyone updating LP with results.
List of true heroes right here. Forever thankful.
Just personally wanted to add nanashin to that list. If it wasn't for that person streaming the last few Pro-/Starleagues on TL, I wouldn't have gotten into BW.
On February 04 2026 02:03 evilfatsh1t wrote: the amount of times pros complain that they fumbled keyboard inputs, made misclicks or failed to react quick enough to something is off the charts. its not even a debate that their apm is less efficient and that their mechanics are worse. youre confusing better decision making with improved physical ability, which is just false. the reality is if the pros could go back to their late teens we would have been blessed with another level of starcraft that we will never ever see now
It's interesting, since I have better mechanics than I had when I was a teen
I could do around 300K on missionred reflex TE, and now I can do well over 400K, I've only been improving
The dark age was right after SC2 and the matchfixing scandal in which Savior and many many other progamers were caught in. If it wasn't for some very fine individuals on the staff team and a handful of renowned TL members still going out their way to cover BW, I don't think the BW section would have survived on TL. I'm proud of all those guys including myself that TL is still THE hub for BW nowadays. Although... Yes, Discord and Twitch chat took a lot of traffic away from TL, and LR pretty much died as a result of stream chats becoming more popular. Kinda like how battle reports died when replays became a thing.
Tastosis went full SC2 soon after its release and dropped BW like a brick. They came back only when SC2 was in hard decline and a future in casting profesionally was starting to look dire. They casted KSL, then later also picked up ASL via their infamous 10k patreon. Good job on them, but as someone who stuck with BW during their absence it was so fucking painful to listen to them cast it, especially having been a fan of them before they dropped BW. They were unbelievable bad at casting BW. They had no clue of what was going on for the longest time, and it was obvious they didn't do any of their homework to cover like a 10 year gap of BW history, both on players and meta, nor imo paid any respect to those that did provide cover and care of BW since all that time. That all doesn't really matter, because they have their complete own crazy fan base that probably made up >80% of that infamous patreon. If you're wondering what I consider a crazy fan base, just hop into Artosis' streams to find out.
While they did bring a large following back to BW, they also effectively flushed out (imo better) up-and-coming competition, simply because they're more known. I like to use the analogy of 2 big fat fish coming back to the (BW) pound and just eating and flushing out the small fish (caster competition). Yeah, I'm still a bit salty about that, and while their casts have become better, if you ask me it's still mediocre now, but luckily the official Korean streams are still as exciting as ever. You can even watch your favorite Korean pros stream live ASL if that's of your fancy, some of them are more popular than the official live stream.
Oldboy with Nal_rA was the best fucking thing ever (just before the matching fixing scandal and BW's dark age started). Eventhough Sonic (see SSL) was a crook, I don't think Korean BW would have survived the dark age at all. Both KSL and ASL (and all of us BW fans) benefitted from his efforts. Before Sonic was caught, he was airing a show in similar fashion to Oldboy, starring a team of "amateurs" training to become pros which included Sharp.
- Larva getting his nickname footstargamer. - Kim Carrier was forced to retire due to some porn-controversy, I think it was because he used his fame as a BW caster to promote his porn related work. - The coingate scandal: Basically pump and dump shenanigans involving several pros, including "clean pros" like Bisu and Flash. KCM tried his best to use his leverage to ban Flash from BW just like Savior was banned and I believe also how he tried to ban players who played with Savior in Chinese tournaments. Yeah, during the early dark ages, Savior, Sea, Movie and some others played in quite a few Chinese tournaments to make easy extra money.
Flash was supposedly one of the masterminds in a big pump and dump and took forever to apologize, unlike other players. He ultimately did after he first threw his mom in front the bus, and now it looks like he is just clear enough of controversy that he can enter ASL again for the upcoming season. Flash has mentioned he will only enter if he's confident he can win it all. Basically he's afraid it will hurt his reputation if he can't get a gold. He simply refuses to enter if he can't.
-Fantasy came back randomly to cash in big by winning a Saudi hosted BW tournament while Jaedong struggled to regain his Tyrant form ever since he came back.
-Soulkey lost all his savings by getting scammed some years ago, but that (and Flash's absence cuz of military service and the coingate scandal) motivated him to reach his best form ever and win ASL back-to-back 4 times over.
I could go on and on, but I care way too much about details to give abbreviated versions.
TL;DR: A lot of BW players, teams, casters, tournament hosters are riddled with bad omen. This is sadly also true for foreign BW... lmao Do yourself a favor and stay away from RaPiD & Rus_Brain + Show Spoiler +
and ignore mtcn77
Despite so much drama, properly hosted BW tournaments are still LOTS of fun. I can't wait for next ASL.
Because of these guys, including more, contributing:
BigFan, BLinD-RawR , nevake, Freakling, snipealot, Stratos, BurnedToast, Sayle, Qikz, Shamtoo, FlaShFTW, BisuDagger, v1, Simplistik, Nyoken and co-casters, 2PAC, Elegant, Kwark, ZZZero and co (BSL), TMNT, Tec27 and co (ShieldBattery), Scan, GTR, Nazgul, Airneach and co (IPSL), everyone updating LP with results.
Love this post.
Those days after SC2 were in a sense dark, but the silver lining was that some of us used that as fuel to keep the thing we love alive and well. The scene certainly did attract some oddballs and marmite characters (LRM Game anyone?) and some obviously unscrupulous individuals (Sonic), but we were a motley ragtag bunch. And we were all, in our own way, trying to keep something beautiful alive in the world that should never die just because of the shifting sands of commercial interests.
The dark age was right after SC2 and the matchfixing scandal in which Savior and many many other progamers were caught in. If it wasn't for some very fine individuals on the staff team and a handful of renowned TL members still going out their way to cover BW, I don't think the BW section would have survived on TL. I'm proud of all those guys including myself that TL is still THE hub for BW nowadays. Although... Yes, Discord and Twitch chat took a lot of traffic away from TL, and LR pretty much died as a result of stream chats becoming more popular. Kinda like how battle reports died when replays became a thing.
Tastosis went full SC2 soon after its release and dropped BW like a brick. They came back only when SC2 was in hard decline and a future in casting profesionally was starting to look dire. They casted KSL, then later also picked up ASL via their infamous 10k patreon. Good job on them, but as someone who stuck with BW during their absence it was so fucking painful to listen to them cast it, especially having been a fan of them before they dropped BW. They were unbelievable bad at casting BW. They had no clue of what was going on for the longest time, and it was obvious they didn't do any of their homework to cover like a 10 year gap of BW history, both on players and meta, nor imo paid any respect to those that did provide cover and care of BW since all that time. That all doesn't really matter, because they have their complete own crazy fan base that probably made up >80% of that infamous patreon. If you're wondering what I consider a crazy fan base, just hop into Artosis' streams to find out.
While they did bring a large following back to BW, they also effectively flushed out (imo better) up-and-coming competition, simply because they're more known. I like to use the analogy of 2 big fat fish coming back to the (BW) pound and just eating and flushing out the small fish (caster competition). Yeah, I'm still a bit salty about that, and while their casts have become better, if you ask me it's still mediocre now, but luckily the official Korean streams are still as exciting as ever. You can even watch your favorite Korean pros stream live ASL if that's of your fancy, some of them are more popular than the official live stream.
Oldboy with Nal_rA was the best fucking thing ever (just before the matching fixing scandal and BW's dark age started). Eventhough Sonic (see SSL) was a crook, I don't think Korean BW would have survived the dark age at all. Both KSL and ASL (and all of us BW fans) benefitted from his efforts. Before Sonic was caught, he was airing a show in similar fashion to Oldboy, starring a team of "amateurs" training to become pros which included Sharp.
- Larva getting his nickname footstargamer. - Kim Carrier was forced to retire due to some porn-controversy, I think it was because he used his fame as a BW caster to promote his porn related work. - The coingate scandal: Basically pump and dump shenanigans involving several pros, including "clean pros" like Bisu and Flash. KCM tried his best to use his leverage to ban Flash from BW just like Savior was banned and I believe also how he tried to ban players who played with Savior in Chinese tournaments. Yeah, during the early dark ages, Savior, Sea, Movie and some others played in quite a few Chinese tournaments to make easy extra money.
Flash was supposedly one of the masterminds in a big pump and dump and took forever to apologize, unlike other players. He ultimately did after he first threw his mom in front the bus, and now it looks like he is just clear enough of controversy that he can enter ASL again for the upcoming season. Flash has mentioned he will only enter if he's confident he can win it all. Basically he's afraid it will hurt his reputation if he can't get a gold. He simply refuses to enter if he can't.
-Fantasy came back randomly to cash in big by winning a Saudi hosted BW tournament while Jaedong struggled to regain his Tyrant form ever since he came back.
-Soulkey lost all his savings by getting scammed some years ago, but that (and Flash's absence cuz of military service and the coingate scandal) motivated him to reach his best form ever and win ASL back-to-back 4 times over.
I could go on and on, but I care way too much about details to give abbreviated versions.
TL;DR: A lot of BW players, teams, casters, tournament hosters are riddled with bad omen. This is sadly also true for foreign BW... lmao Do yourself a favor and stay away from RaPiD & Rus_Brain + Show Spoiler +
and ignore mtcn77
Despite so much drama, properly hosted BW tournaments are still LOTS of fun. I can't wait for next ASL.
Because of these guys, including more, contributing:
BigFan, BLinD-RawR , nevake, Freakling, snipealot, Stratos, BurnedToast, Sayle, Qikz, Shamtoo, FlaShFTW, BisuDagger, v1, Simplistik, Nyoken and co-casters, 2PAC, Elegant, Kwark, ZZZero and co (BSL), TMNT, Tec27 and co (ShieldBattery), Scan, GTR, Nazgul, Airneach and co (IPSL), everyone updating LP with results.
Love this post.
Those days after SC2 were in a sense dark, but the silver lining was that some of us used that as fuel to keep the thing we love alive and well. The scene certainly did attract some oddballs and marmite characters (LRM Game anyone?) and some obviously unscrupulous individuals (Sonic), but we were a motley ragtag bunch. And we were all, in our own way, trying to keep something beautiful alive in the world that should never die just because of the shifting sands of commercial interests.
Somewhat related.
I fully believe LRM Game never paid out those 25 Bitcoin for that tournament that gets meme'd on twitter and is now just a rich dude somewhere.
(2003-2012)BW is prime (2010) Sonic creates Streamers tournament SSL (2013)Blizzard Kills ProLeague OSL MSL (2014)Underground BW scene starts to emerge (streamers, sc2 ex bw pros retiring, expros streaming bw) SLL gets some notorierty (2015) ASL stars and scene revives a little bit (2017) remastered comes out with it a bunch of tours and players return and start streaming bw
the skill level from that point has just gotten higher, top foreigners nowadays would destroy top foreigners of the past and the theory of the game is like waaaaaaaay more devoleped... i think this part is the most interesting, the bw meta shifts is something that none has followed closely or explained in detail from early 2000's to 2020's, that would be a great article imo.
The dark age was right after SC2 and the matchfixing scandal in which Savior and many many other progamers were caught in. If it wasn't for some very fine individuals on the staff team and a handful of renowned TL members still going out their way to cover BW, I don't think the BW section would have survived on TL. I'm proud of all those guys including myself that TL is still THE hub for BW nowadays. Although... Yes, Discord and Twitch chat took a lot of traffic away from TL, and LR pretty much died as a result of stream chats becoming more popular. Kinda like how battle reports died when replays became a thing.
Tastosis went full SC2 soon after its release and dropped BW like a brick. They came back only when SC2 was in hard decline and a future in casting profesionally was starting to look dire. They casted KSL, then later also picked up ASL via their infamous 10k patreon. Good job on them, but as someone who stuck with BW during their absence it was so fucking painful to listen to them cast it, especially having been a fan of them before they dropped BW. They were unbelievable bad at casting BW. They had no clue of what was going on for the longest time, and it was obvious they didn't do any of their homework to cover like a 10 year gap of BW history, both on players and meta, nor imo paid any respect to those that did provide cover and care of BW since all that time. That all doesn't really matter, because they have their complete own crazy fan base that probably made up >80% of that infamous patreon. If you're wondering what I consider a crazy fan base, just hop into Artosis' streams to find out.
While they did bring a large following back to BW, they also effectively flushed out (imo better) up-and-coming competition, simply because they're more known. I like to use the analogy of 2 big fat fish coming back to the (BW) pound and just eating and flushing out the small fish (caster competition). Yeah, I'm still a bit salty about that, and while their casts have become better, if you ask me it's still mediocre now, but luckily the official Korean streams are still as exciting as ever. You can even watch your favorite Korean pros stream live ASL if that's of your fancy, some of them are more popular than the official live stream.
Oldboy with Nal_rA was the best fucking thing ever (just before the matching fixing scandal and BW's dark age started). Eventhough Sonic (see SSL) was a crook, I don't think Korean BW would have survived the dark age at all. Both KSL and ASL (and all of us BW fans) benefitted from his efforts. Before Sonic was caught, he was airing a show in similar fashion to Oldboy, starring a team of "amateurs" training to become pros which included Sharp.
- Larva getting his nickname footstargamer. - Kim Carrier was forced to retire due to some porn-controversy, I think it was because he used his fame as a BW caster to promote his porn related work. - The coingate scandal: Basically pump and dump shenanigans involving several pros, including "clean pros" like Bisu and Flash. KCM tried his best to use his leverage to ban Flash from BW just like Savior was banned and I believe also how he tried to ban players who played with Savior in Chinese tournaments. Yeah, during the early dark ages, Savior, Sea, Movie and some others played in quite a few Chinese tournaments to make easy extra money.
Flash was supposedly one of the masterminds in a big pump and dump and took forever to apologize, unlike other players. He ultimately did after he first threw his mom in front the bus, and now it looks like he is just clear enough of controversy that he can enter ASL again for the upcoming season. Flash has mentioned he will only enter if he's confident he can win it all. Basically he's afraid it will hurt his reputation if he can't get a gold. He simply refuses to enter if he can't.
-Fantasy came back randomly to cash in big by winning a Saudi hosted BW tournament while Jaedong struggled to regain his Tyrant form ever since he came back.
-Soulkey lost all his savings by getting scammed some years ago, but that (and Flash's absence cuz of military service and the coingate scandal) motivated him to reach his best form ever and win ASL back-to-back 4 times over.
I could go on and on, but I care way too much about details to give abbreviated versions.
TL;DR: A lot of BW players, teams, casters, tournament hosters are riddled with bad omen. This is sadly also true for foreign BW... lmao Do yourself a favor and stay away from RaPiD & Rus_Brain + Show Spoiler +
and ignore mtcn77
Despite so much drama, properly hosted BW tournaments are still LOTS of fun. I can't wait for next ASL.
Because of these guys, including more, contributing:
BigFan, BLinD-RawR , nevake, Freakling, snipealot, Stratos, BurnedToast, Sayle, Qikz, Shamtoo, FlaShFTW, BisuDagger, v1, Simplistik, Nyoken and co-casters, 2PAC, Elegant, Kwark, ZZZero and co (BSL), TMNT, Tec27 and co (ShieldBattery), Scan, GTR, Nazgul, Airneach and co (IPSL), everyone updating LP with results.
Love this post.
Those days after SC2 were in a sense dark, but the silver lining was that some of us used that as fuel to keep the thing we love alive and well. The scene certainly did attract some oddballs and marmite characters (LRM Game anyone?) and some obviously unscrupulous individuals (Sonic), but we were a motley ragtag bunch. And we were all, in our own way, trying to keep something beautiful alive in the world that should never die just because of the shifting sands of commercial interests.
Somewhat related.
I fully believe LRM Game never paid out those 25 Bitcoin for that tournament that gets meme'd on twitter and is now just a rich dude somewhere.