In our last article, I pointed out a few players in the Open Tournament whom I thought were interesting and could potentially qualify for Season Two. Well, a funny thing happened on the way to “press” -- an entire Korean proteam signed up for the event! So I was a little off with some of my predictions. ThorZaiN and NightEnD looked good in the tournament, both qualifying for next season, but the others didn’t do as well. Minigun ran into MajOr in the Round of 64, who then ran into a Korean (Heart). DeMusliM made it to the Round of 16 where he lost to LoWeLy. DIMAGA decided that chilling on TaKe’s couch was more important than the NASL qualifier, and YourFriend -- despite the best support I know you gave him -- lost to LzGaMeR in the first round.

Koreans have done pretty well the last few weeks. They went 33-0 by series against non-Koreans in the Open Tournament, and did phenomenally well in the Season Two Qualifier (all but three of the last sixteen players were Korean). Of the twelve players replaced by new qualifiers following last season, nine are Korean. Entire teams signed up for the tournaments and a chance to play in the NASL. The NASL is quickly becoming infused with Korean talent, and a lot of people seem to be worried, or at least seem to think that this is another opportunity to mock a foreign league. I think they’re missing a very important point.

Everyone wants to see the best players play against the best players. Everyone knows that you have to compete against the Koreans to be considered serious, and (up until now -- spoiler alert!) that Korea is the only place to do that. If you wanted to become great, you had to make the trip to Korea, the promised land, and see if you had what it takes.

That’s a great story, but TT1 here and Xeris here have noted the high costs involved in trying to get into the GSL as a non-Korean, costs that have nothing to do with Starcraft play. Even if you can play well, find success, and have a team to support you, you might begin to notice the value of having your friends and family less than thousands of miles away and decide that it’s not worth it to you (e.g., TLO, Ret). Even if you’re given a free ride to Code A (or are already safely in Code S!), it might not make sense to take it. And as explained in those posts, the economic incentives right now just don’t support a system whereby people who do well in the foreigner scene ought to try to “make it” in Korea and forsake all the potential income from other tournaments.

The core concerns in both Xeris’s and TT1's critiques of the then-status quo were the barriers to entry into the GSL from non-Korean players. NASL provides an opportunity for foreigners to play with Koreans -- the best in the world -- without imposing those barriers to entry, i.e., the costs of traveling to a foreign country, establishing yourself there, and cutting yourself off from friends, family, teammates, and (importantly) local events.

This isn’t a simple case of “to beat the best you have to play the best,” where foreigners will have an opportunity to play against Koreans. At most, players are going to play a couple of best-of-threes against Korean pros in the course of the eight week regular season, which by itself isn’t going to make anyone good. But there’s the opportunity to compete with the Koreans, to compare one’s performance to the Korean pros, and to be heartened by victories over them. Now, all the reasons to want to go to Korea to play exist in a venue where most of the costs have been mitigated or removed entirely. (And yes, some additional costs are imposed on the Koreans -- lag, inconvenient schedule, etc. But SlayerS, TSL, oGs, fOu, and StarTale don’t seem to consider them too onerous. Compare those to requiring the Koreans to move to Los Angeles to play and forsake Korean events.)

Is this good for the development of eSports in North America, or is it just the Koreans stealing our money? The NASL FAQ mentions that one of its goals is to “foster the prominence” of eSports, and I’d say that broadcasting a league with the top players in the world at North American “prime time” certainly counts -- look at that bar in Seattle that now hosts Starcraft nights. The NASL isn’t going to act as a farm system to let people get better so they can try their hand in tougher leagues, but why should it? They want to “bring [viewers] the best experience [they] can,” and including the best players in the world will certainly do that.

I’m sure some players in North America (and Europe, and Latin America) will be inspired to train hard and develop more institutional infrastructure to support Starcraft 2 because of the opportunity to play against Koreans presented by the NASL. (And don’t forget their sponsors, whose players will now be competing in a premiere league broadcast all over the world -- don’t fail to note that as more top Koreans enter the league, the critique that the NASL has a less talented player base loses its relevance.) It’s not that the NASL is becoming a “Korean” league -- it’s becoming a league with great players. For many years, that was synonymous with “Korean,” and due to the structure of the system, it involved physically being in Korea, but not anymore. Rather than work on integrating foreigners into the Korean pro-scene, the NASL addresses the issue from the opposite direction, creating an international league in which Korean pros may play. (Of course, it must be noted that the two approaches are in no way exclusive.) As the NASL develops, it’s going to provide an opportunity for the potential development of great players from all around the world. Which will lead to a larger and better developed Starcraft community; isn’t that what we all want?

The final criticism: what about its name, you say, the North American Star League? Well, it’s broadcast in North American prime time (and seemingly every other prime time, on re-run) and the offices are located in sunny Southern California -- isn’t that enough for the name? Remember that the GSL stands for “Global Starcraft II League,” and to play in it you basically have to live in one single country, if not one city in that country. If it’s disingenuous to call the NASL “North American,” maybe we could change its name to something more appropriate for what it really is . . . how about the Global Starcraft II League?