Personally, I don't think that a few Bo3 upsets count towards foreigners doing passibly well. If we have sunk down to that level, then it is bad prospects indeed.

Kontys

Finland659 Posts

April 20 2012 11:20 GMT

#22

As things are right now, I am still inclined to go with what Liquid`Taeja said about this while at the Assembly winter tournament couple of months ago: "Koreans understand RTS better, therefore the korean ladder is better, but amongst progamers there is no difference". Is it a startling thing to hear from someone who really knows? Not really. We have for a long time known that the foreigners are competitive.

I do agree we need more lower key tournaments to help new foreigner talent compete for attention, but limiting korean participation for the main-event tournaments like IPL would be utterly foolish.

What we need is for the foreign grass roots to grow and produce more excellent players, for the ladders to get better and, for the west to learn to play RTS in general. Let's face it, we really are new to it, and we will need time until your normal western ladder player thinks about the game as productively as korean ladder players.

Opera

France469 Posts

April 20 2012 11:27 GMT

#23

With a stacked open bracket as it was. I really wished IPL would have devoted an entire day to this part of the tournament. then moving to the group stage and the schedule as it was.

Also, why do American people claim Stephano is American ? Can't stand a French guy steam rollin' ?

testthewest

Germany274 Posts

April 20 2012 11:31 GMT

#24

Well, what I don't understand is why so many tournaments resort to "pool play". A simple k.o. system would be more interesting for me. Give some fan favorites a buy in the first 2-3 rounds and make it a 256 player bracket.
Right now, the interesting part is the open bracket.

WArped

United Kingdom4845 Posts

April 20 2012 11:31 GMT

#25

I knew of Illusions run, but only through my own research and the LR thread, the coverage of the open bracket was pretty terrible and I think IPL can learn a thing or two from MLG in that regard who have recently stepped up their game in the StarCraft coverage across multiple streams, with a number of casters covering some notable open bracket games.

Illusion is a freaking badass.

MIDO17

Kazakhstan12 Posts

April 20 2012 11:35 GMT

#26

Uranyl

Germany38 Posts

April 20 2012 11:38 GMT

#27

Maybe something like a tournament intern newsflash for open bracket games, between the "regular" games, would be a good idea. To spotlight good games, upsets or what ever could be intressting.

neurosx

Luxembourg1096 Posts

April 20 2012 11:39 GMT

#28

woah didn't know about Illusion ;o pretty surprising no one's talked about it gratz to him

Talin

Montenegro10532 Posts

April 20 2012 11:43 GMT

#29

This is such an excellent article.

We should have one of these after each tournament to at least partially "counter" swarms of people who will form an opinion based on limited information and superficial observation (often with a touch of personal bias on top).

Laryleprakon

New Zealand9496 Posts

April 20 2012 11:44 GMT

#30

Nice article!

Kiett

United States7639 Posts

April 20 2012 11:45 GMT

#31

Foreigners suck because Koreans are cuter.

SenorChang

Australia4729 Posts

April 20 2012 11:46 GMT

#32

On April 20 2012 20:09 Hiea wrote:
This event in my eyes was pretty meh, no foreigners streamed except those that we all know, can't compete with koreans, outside of Stephano.

Also the finals, I didn't really end up caring to much, as to me aLive is a very boring player, and Squirtle, who really knows anything about that guy?

I wish I could of watched some of the games from people in the group stages aswell, I don't believe Curious who was in Group B got a single one of his games streamed.

One thing I never quite understood was why MMA, MC and NesTea got direct invites? why not get some top EU guys aswell?

Squirtle is a motherfucking badass

The dude has a 70% win rate in PvZ and 75% win rate in PvP IN KOREA
He will play his ro16 matches in GSL next thursday, with 2 other protosses in his group. You should check it out

yea, who is this guy?!
Educate yourself fool

also: Top EU guys do not compare to MMA, MC and Nestea (except stephano who was there, and naniwa who probably could've been there if he wanted)

torm3ntin

Brazil2534 Posts

April 20 2012 11:47 GMT

#33

Not streaming foreigner games doesn't mean we did well. Math tells the truth there.

Lysanias

Netherlands8351 Posts

April 20 2012 11:48 GMT

#34

Nice article to read, and i do agree, IPL gave us great games and a taste of korea's deep player pool. Where foreigners like Illusion slipped under the radar a bit by all the Korean foreigner bashing going on that weekend.
I also fully agree players like White-Ra and Idra should not be seeded, IPL changed so much and how can you justify 1 year old results.

Proseat

Germany5113 Posts

April 20 2012 11:49 GMT

#35

IPL4 had two streams, of which only one was properly utilized over the course of the tournament. Having an open bracket like that would have needed four streams to at least cover a good deal of the more interesting matches. Be that as it may, if you do have two streams, then continually do show games on both. The way they did it (second stream on hour-long same-ad loops etc.) you essentially only had 1.5 streams.

Whoever picked the matches being broadcasted from the open bracket needs to touch base with the community again. There were some very questionable decisions while their own LR thread screamed the matches the audience actually wanted to see. Also, to end the tournament day and shut down streaming while even foreigners or foreign-team Koreans (SaSe, Taeja, etc.) were still fighting to win their Open Losers Bracket on Day 1, was really a bad decision and left a bitter aftertaste.

Let's hope at IPL5 in August, again in Las Vegas, and combined with the GSL finals this time, things will improve, as the open bracket will also not be swamped by two full GSTL teams from Korea.

SoniC_eu

Denmark1008 Posts

April 20 2012 11:50 GMT

#36

Illusion is a fantastic player, I follow his streams reguarily so I wasn't that surprised to see his amazing run thru IPL4. Give credit where it's due, this kid is AWESOME! Illusion fighting!

Emix_Squall

France705 Posts

April 20 2012 11:50 GMT

#37

On April 20 2012 20:47 torm3ntin wrote:
Not streaming foreigner games doesn't mean we did well. Math tells the truth there.

Did you read the article or just picked a random sentence inside it in order to make that comment.
Not gonna explain you how wrong you are since the article explains it though.

Anyway thx for this article, very interesting, Illusion's run pretty much seemed invisible during the tournament, great to see some more NA players bringing good results.
And as always, gogogo team France, Stephano is the beast and with his next trip to Korea, I hope we see him competing in the GSL to finally shut all the mouths saying his playstyle or lvl in general aren't code S quality.

kAelle_sc

287 Posts

April 20 2012 11:53 GMT

#38

i believe IGN releasing all of the replays from IPL4 is the best solution. we can watch our favorite players and their games, even though they are not casted, we get to see how well they performed.

Inverse1

United Kingdom61 Posts

April 20 2012 11:54 GMT

#39

I totally agree with this article, mad respect to TL! People get way too hyped up at foreigners losing in a tournament where there were actually so many more koreans of 'solid pro' status or better than there were foreigners. Put 16 of the top foreigners and 16 top koreans into a 32 man draw and look at the placings in that, and then decide on how well the foreign scene is doing in terms of top tier play.

Benjamin99

4176 Posts

April 20 2012 11:54 GMT

#40

Excellent post and I agree with most of it.

Its time for the scene to stop inviting popular players anymore. The only player who did well in the groups was Stephano and he actually qualified by winning IPL 4 UK qualifier over Tails/Sase/Ryung

Also Scarlet won a qualify tournament and she did very well also. Illusion are the ode one out he didnt win any qualifiers or anything but he had massive succes. But not really supricing since im considering him the best NA player atm. But he dont get much love from the community but it is hard to keep up with Idra that got a million fans an are exstremely overhyped.

Feast is another example he dint play IPL4 but he is one of the few foreigners who has done very well recently and beat several top dogs. And how did he do it? He qualified to IEM

I think the lesson we need to learn as a community are stop inviting the oldschool overhyped players and lat the players qualify. Trust me the foreign scene will do much better