Clash for Char #7 - Oct 22nd 17:00UTC

I have some feelings stirring around in me that want to come out of my fingers and onto this canvas which is teamliquid forums. My post is the paintbrush, my brain the palette of colors.

First and foremost, and to preface what I'm about to say, I want to remark that your attitude is very healthy and I respect that you're willing to change and listen to feedback. At the end of the day the tournament organizer decides how their tournaments should be played, but I feel like quite a few Brood War tournament organizers have been stubborn or get offended too easily with criticism. They seem to take suggestions towards their tournaments as personal insults, and have the mindset of "why should I host tournaments or put up my money as a prize when I get disrespected?", when in reality that isn't the situation at all. I'm going to name names, and say this was the case for Filthyrake and BasetradeTV as large examples of this. Correct, you have every right to run your tournament how you want, and what you do with your money-- but players and viewers also have every right to find issue with how the tournament is run, or if it is worth watching. I am incredibly appreciative of all tournament organizers: schamtoo, filthyrake, basetradetv, psyonic_reaver, the list goes on. However, while appreciated, you aren't doing us some huge favor just because you run a tournament. The players nor viewers owe you anything just because you voluntarily put up your own time and money to host an event. Doing so is your prerogative, and if you are looking to get your dick sucked, you can always do it somewhere else. This is just a blanket statement to every TO, and something I hope people running tournaments become more enlightened about.

As someone who ran a league, put up my own money and time, and dealt with over 20 pages of criticism before, I am not naive or unaware of this situation. I am speaking from multiple points of views here, and I am writing this not in direct response to Clash For Char, but as a generalization heading forward for ALL foreign tournaments. I made changes based on feedback, and I also put my foot down and stood against criticism that I did not agree with. I learned a lot of valuable lessons through the experience. I hosted the league out of my love for the game, and my love for the community. That is the one and only true reason someone should host a tournament or event.

However, moving forward, as someone who has been around for a little over a year now and paying attention to all the foreign-run tournaments, I want to put my personal opinion down about Koreans as a viewer and player. First, no one is lacking experience in playing against Koreans. Anyone at 2k MMR+ most likely has over half of their matches against Koreans in matchmaking. I have played against Scan in Have At You! before, and although I was humbled to be able to play against him, it was not an eye opening experience or a particular privilege to do so. As a viewer, I am so tired of watching tournaments with Scan in them. I have massive respect for Scan, I have subbed to his twitch channel multiple times and love watching him play on ladder verse other Koreans. However, Scan has over a 90% winrate in finals, and they are almost never good games. Trutacz or Eonzerg vs Scan makes for some of the most anticlimactic matches ever. I have found myself more and more frequently turning off the stream to tournaments for finals when Scan is playing. I'm sure there are dozens of arguments and good reasons for Scan and Koreans to be able to enter these tournaments, but here is the reality: The vast majority of the time Scan is the only Korean to enter these tournaments, and the vast majority of the time when he is on stream, the games are not enjoyable to watch. This is my personal feeling on the matter.