Casters Civil War is a StarCraft 2 tournament designed as a follow up to the extremely popular War Chest Team League which was run in 2020. For the Casters Civil War we have eight casters who will draft teams of five players before heading into a round robin group where every team will fight every other team, culminating in a single-elimination playoff bracket. As you might expect, each caster will cast their own teams run in the event, creating a lot of opportunity for the most fun, biased, back and forth casting you will get in StarCraft 2!
Support on Kickstarter! The event is guaranteed to run with a $10,000 Prize Pool regardless of crowd funding success.
Group Stages - 8th, 9th, 10th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 22nd April
Playoffs - 24th April
We saw the demand for an event similar to the War Chest Team League and while we do not have the funding of the War Chest, we believe that as a community we can make something just as amazing. With more freedom to do our own thing in the Casters Civil War we believe we can not only replicate the fun and unique feeling of the War Chest Team League, but also build on that with additional content that we did not have the opportunity to produce previously.
The event will run throughout April 2022, concluding before the new year of the ESL Pro Tour begins in May, allowing us to run the event without too many clashes from other tournaments.
Format & Changes
The Casters Civil War will follow a similar format to the War Chest Team League in 2020, with a handful of changes. Most notably, we are running this independently, so expect a lot more fun and silly bonus content!
While the overall number of teams will reduce from 9 to 8, we will be increasing the roster size of each team from 4 to 5, meaning that a total of 40 players will be able to take part instead of 36. Each match will remain a BO5, and all 5 maps will be played in every series during the group stage.
There will be no guarantee for any players that they will be picked, unlike last time when the top 16 from WCS Standings were guaranteed to be part of the event.
We will also reduce the number of matches per day to make each broadcast more consumable and to avoid any marathon 9 hour long days.
Eight caster teams will face off against each other in a Round Robin format, with casters casting matches of their own team. Top six advance to the playoffs, which will be single elimination.
You can find all of this information in video form below :
You should do a kickstarter fundraising stream with showmatches later this month - could definitely see it bringing in some huge community support + help the tournament.
On March 07 2022 04:04 Pandain wrote: You should do a kickstarter fundraising stream with showmatches later this month - could definitely see it bringing in some huge community support + help the tournament.
If you are going to use snake format in the draft, please swap the order of the 3rd and 4th rounds
i.e. 1st round: A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H 2nd: round: H > G > F > E > D > C > B > A 3rd round: H > G > F > E > D > C > B > A 4th round: A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H 5th round: A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H
A caster free for all to determine snake draft order? That will be among the most hype of this entire thing. There are so few hyped free for alls nowadays. They are the most chaotic variant that have been here year after year.
On March 08 2022 15:12 FCHK wrote: If you are going to use snake format in the draft, please swap the order of the 3rd and 4th rounds
i.e. 1st round: A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H 2nd: round: H > G > F > E > D > C > B > A 3rd round: H > G > F > E > D > C > B > A 4th round: A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H 5th round: A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H
I got 8th pick last time, I suggested this be done then, but it wasn't, idk why.
This time there's a FFA to determine pick order so hoping not to get 8th pick again but who knows :D
On March 08 2022 15:12 FCHK wrote: If you are going to use snake format in the draft, please swap the order of the 3rd and 4th rounds
i.e. 1st round: A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H 2nd: round: H > G > F > E > D > C > B > A 3rd round: H > G > F > E > D > C > B > A 4th round: A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H 5th round: A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H
Can someone explain why this would be a good idea?
On March 08 2022 15:12 FCHK wrote: If you are going to use snake format in the draft, please swap the order of the 3rd and 4th rounds
i.e. 1st round: A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H 2nd: round: H > G > F > E > D > C > B > A 3rd round: H > G > F > E > D > C > B > A 4th round: A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H 5th round: A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H
Can someone explain why this would be a good idea?
Ideally in a world of perfect information and deterministic outcomes, the players have a univocal rank from best to worst. So each caster picks the best player available in the pool at his turn.
Even if in the end of both drafts the sum of ranking is the same, the reality is that the difference in player's ability flattens in the lower rankings.
So when you get to the fourth pick there is no actual difference between rank 25 and 32, and caster H would not get the same advantage that caster A got by picking 17 over 24. The disadvantage is even exacerbated by picking 1 over 8 (Serral vs Solar if we use aligulac)
Flipping the third draft makes it so caster H gains rank 8-9-17-32, and caster A 1-16-24-25. Now: 1 is much better than 8 9 is better than 16 17 is slightly better than 24 25 and 32 are interchangeable in skill (Time and Spirit on aligulac)
So the sum of skills in the team is more even, with the same sum of ranks
This is how I see it, and it makes more sense to me. Hope it was clear enough!
excuse my language, but WTF is this roster, man, are you guys trying to upping WTL? Serral, Maru, Reynor, Clem. No Rogue or Dark should balance out the race, hopefully.
Group Stages - 8th, 9th, 10th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 22nd April
Playoffs - 24th April
Sorry if this was mentioned before: Is the FFA on the 30th as well? And drafting right after? Live?
Yes!
Awesome! Any idea what map all of you will be playing on? Is it one of those special maps that the Korean players had some bonkers FFA in? Like this one?
Okay, time to put on the draft expert hat, my guess on the draft order of round 1 would be, Serral > Reynor > Maru > Clem > HM > Trap > Zest > Cure. The exception would be if Rotti or Feardragon land the #1 pick because that would be Reynor or a Protoss off the board.
On March 30 2022 12:28 tigera6 wrote: Okay, time to put on the draft expert hat, my guess on the draft order of round 1 would be, Serral > Reynor > Maru > Clem > HM > Trap > Zest > Cure. The exception would be if Rotti or Feardragon land the #1 pick because that would be Reynor or a Protoss off the board.
I don't think anyone is gonna pass Serral as #1 pick Curious to see when the first Protoss is gonna get picked and if it's a Korean or MaxiPaxi
On March 30 2022 12:28 tigera6 wrote: Okay, time to put on the draft expert hat, my guess on the draft order of round 1 would be, Serral > Reynor > Maru > Clem > HM > Trap > Zest > Cure. The exception would be if Rotti or Feardragon land the #1 pick because that would be Reynor or a Protoss off the board.
Given the format of the team league, having a strong Ace player isnt as important as having a solid No.2-4 that can knock off guys who above their tier. With that in mind, I believe PiG got the strongest cast below tier 1, followed by Wardi, DeMuslim, and maybe Rotti.
Feardragon, my man ... did you at least warn your team you were going to do this again? So they don't feel betrayed? It's not a bad team too, just really sucks they don't stand a chance in such formation.
I Don t get why Feardragon choose Astrea as 2nd pick Even if you only take Protoss players in consideration, there were still both Zest and MaxPax available and I doubt someone else would have picked Astrea until Feardragons next pick tbh. The aformentioned 2 are especially dangorous to his Team, because they are the 2 best PvP Players on the Planet and are favoured against any of his Players
On April 07 2022 16:44 dbRic1203 wrote: I Don t get why Feardragon choose Astrea as 2nd pick Even if you only take Protoss players in consideration, there were still both Zest and MaxPax available and I doubt someone else would have picked Astrea until Feardragons next pick tbh. The aformentioned 2 are especially dangorous to his Team, because they are the 2 best PvP Players on the Planet and are favoured against any of his Players
I don't think his decisions are made by rationality and logic but by the Khala
On April 07 2022 16:44 dbRic1203 wrote: I Don t get why Feardragon choose Astrea as 2nd pick Even if you only take Protoss players in consideration, there were still both Zest and MaxPax available and I doubt someone else would have picked Astrea until Feardragons next pick tbh. The aformentioned 2 are especially dangorous to his Team, because they are the 2 best PvP Players on the Planet and are favoured against any of his Players
Its simply regional bias, I am actually suprised Feardragon didnt pick Neeb as his first one.
On April 07 2022 04:54 feardragon wrote: Only one team is cool enough to have a hype trailer that even includes the TL comment section. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM-uJfB7dME
Yes! I'm famous now :D Nice hype trailer!
EDIT: lol completely missed that Trap was pleading there the first time watching that trailer
On April 07 2022 16:44 dbRic1203 wrote: I Don t get why Feardragon choose Astrea as 2nd pick Even if you only take Protoss players in consideration, there were still both Zest and MaxPax available and I doubt someone else would have picked Astrea until Feardragons next pick tbh. The aformentioned 2 are especially dangorous to his Team, because they are the 2 best PvP Players on the Planet and are favoured against any of his Players
I actually got confirmation talking with at least 2 other casters who would have drafted astrea before my 3rd pick if I hadn't drafted him so I feel pretty vindicated by the decision.
I don't disagree with Zest but I think Astrea does extremely well in a team league format. He was almost as much of an ace during the Warchest Team League as Trap was(beating Maru, soO, INnoVation, Dream, etc.) and that was really before he had fully broken out. I can understand why people were confused by the pick as early on as I did but in conjunction with my obvious biases, I legit think he was a great 2nd pick.
And MaxPax is a really great player but I think outside of PvP it's a little more up in the air right now. I have no doubt MaxPax can be a strong player but I was a little uncertain if he'd pull through in a bo1 setting on an all protoss team.
On April 07 2022 16:44 dbRic1203 wrote: I Don t get why Feardragon choose Astrea as 2nd pick Even if you only take Protoss players in consideration, there were still both Zest and MaxPax available and I doubt someone else would have picked Astrea until Feardragons next pick tbh. The aformentioned 2 are especially dangorous to his Team, because they are the 2 best PvP Players on the Planet and are favoured against any of his Players
I actually got confirmation talking with at least 2 other casters who would have drafted astrea before my 3rd pick if I hadn't drafted him so I feel pretty vindicated by the decision.
I don't disagree with Zest but I think Astrea does extremely well in a team league format. He was almost as much of an ace during the Warchest Team League as Trap was(beating Maru, soO, INnoVation, Dream, etc.) and that was really before he had fully broken out. I can understand why people were confused by the pick as early on as I did but in conjunction with my obvious biases, I legit think he was a great 2nd pick.
And MaxPax is a really great player but I think outside of PvP it's a little more up in the air right now. I have no doubt MaxPax can be a strong player but I was a little uncertain if he'd pull through in a bo1 setting on an all protoss team.
Thanks for the explanation Yeah, a PvP specialist makes less sense, if all the Protoss are allready on your Team:D
On April 07 2022 16:44 dbRic1203 wrote: I Don t get why Feardragon choose Astrea as 2nd pick Even if you only take Protoss players in consideration, there were still both Zest and MaxPax available and I doubt someone else would have picked Astrea until Feardragons next pick tbh. The aformentioned 2 are especially dangorous to his Team, because they are the 2 best PvP Players on the Planet and are favoured against any of his Players
I actually got confirmation talking with at least 2 other casters who would have drafted astrea before my 3rd pick if I hadn't drafted him so I feel pretty vindicated by the decision.
I don't disagree with Zest but I think Astrea does extremely well in a team league format. He was almost as much of an ace during the Warchest Team League as Trap was(beating Maru, soO, INnoVation, Dream, etc.) and that was really before he had fully broken out. I can understand why people were confused by the pick as early on as I did but in conjunction with my obvious biases, I legit think he was a great 2nd pick.
And MaxPax is a really great player but I think outside of PvP it's a little more up in the air right now. I have no doubt MaxPax can be a strong player but I was a little uncertain if he'd pull through in a bo1 setting on an all protoss team.
Thanks for the explanation Yeah, a PvP specialist makes less sense, if all the Protoss are allready on your Team:D
The irony is, Feardragon first match overall result is depending on the coming PvP, and its Astrea vs MaxPax Edit: And MaxPax won.
Thats why I think the pick #2-#4 is more important, because the deciding match always fall into that range, the #1 would win no matter what, but so is the opponent #1 unless they face each other which is a 20% chance.
On April 09 2022 01:11 sudete wrote: Just delete the entire race
Well, when you picked the entire team full of Protoss, and your team went 0-3 in PvP, that means you probably picked the wrong Protoss, not the race.
Even if my statement was exclusive to this tournament, your statement still doesn't hold
They've only ramped up the fragility of protoss in all parts of the early to mid game, and it really shows
Dude, the 5Shades team lost 8 games today, 3 to mirror matchup, 2 to top Zerg (Reynor&Rogue), then we have Astrea doing a cheese build with double proxy Gateway + taking Gold base, NONE of those has anything to do with what you said. Maybe Trap got a bad break with Keen, and Neeb has been under-performing. In general picture, I do agree with your view on PvZ, but not based on today result.
Also gotta wonder if the all toss team is low on morale. I dont know how prize money is being distributed or how much the players even care about that vs just having fun in this particular event.
But drone said something in another thread that made me think about it. Surely the players would prefer to be on a team that might/has a chance to place well and thus earn more money though right?
On April 09 2022 04:58 Moonerz wrote: Also gotta wonder if the all toss team is low on morale. I dont know how prize money is being distributed or how much the players even care about that vs just having fun in this particular event.
But drone said something in another thread that made me think about it. Surely the players would prefer to be on a team that might/has a chance to place well and thus earn more money though right?
Saw a twitter Post from Mana, he s enjoying the while thing so far:
On April 09 2022 21:20 tigera6 wrote: Byun is canon fodder apparently, but can someone explain why Terran not just switch back to make Mines when Zerg coming back to lingbane?
So Zerg just makes a new round of lurkers and Terran wastes their time after every fight switching factory add-ons?
On April 09 2022 21:20 tigera6 wrote: Byun is canon fodder apparently, but can someone explain why Terran not just switch back to make Mines when Zerg coming back to lingbane?
So Zerg just makes a new round of lurkers and Terran wastes their time after every fight switching factory add-ons?
If thats not feasible, then just make Mines from one Techlab factory, and Tanks from the other, or making more Marauder to tanks the Banes. Mines is so much more effective than Tanks that its too wasteful not to used. Its like when I think why cant Mech Terran add Ghost into the lategame vs Zerg, and people said its not feasible, then Maru started to do it and now Terran are doing it more and more.
Maru just doing shitty opening too many times, from picking Pride against Zerg to Mech against Protoss, like hes trying to say hes great enough to win with bad build or something.
On April 10 2022 22:32 Elentos wrote: Benny and his other Boys just aren't as close as Benny and the Boys. Sucks for him 3 of his boys aren't in this tournament.
Hes doing it on himself, I get the Maru and Zest pick, even Ryung, but I dont think Nightmare or Prince even know who he was. He could be better off picking a couple EU players there.
Yeah, hes so inefficient with Lurker-Viper that its mind-blowing, his style would suit more with Lingbane style unfortunately. Btw, what happen to the Broodlord Transition? Is it so bad that nobody think about it?
On April 11 2022 02:26 tigera6 wrote: Yeah, hes so inefficient with Lurker-Viper that its mind-blowing, his style would suit more with Lingbane style unfortunately. Btw, what happen to the Broodlord Transition? Is it so bad that nobody think about it?
Vipers + spores laugh at any broodlord transition there is.
On April 17 2022 00:41 Elentos wrote: Benny not even there to see his team crash and burn
Hes winning on his AoE4 match, so he should be happy no matter what. But I think the 4th pick on Nightmare was not good, he seems to be way out his league. Like the games he play in wasnt even close.
On April 17 2022 01:27 Argonauta wrote: Ay ay ay Zoun.. from playing like a god to make blunders worse than nigthmare...
He was a bit unlucky with the attack on the Bunker early game, that would have opened the floodgate. But also more credit to Bunny for picking the right build, with 3CC but slowly expand, keep building SCV on 2 bases and eventually overcome the Protoss army.
Haven't been following as much as I'd like but from what I've seen great event some great games and all the teams are really close. Catz team most clutch no idea how they win their series sometimes but props to them when I saw the lineup I thought they would not make playoffs and now they will probably be first. But really close contests thanks for doing this
On April 22 2022 23:24 tigera6 wrote: F, why couldnt Maru play like this in the GSL, the early game was still bad, but his defense set up was great and last long enough to reach lategame.
It just feels to me like he prob needs a coach to help him along, to avoid these stupid early game moves - it just feels like he wants to end the game early, and try these super gamble-y moves.
On April 22 2022 23:24 tigera6 wrote: F, why couldnt Maru play like this in the GSL, the early game was still bad, but his defense set up was great and last long enough to reach lategame.
He didn't have this map in GSL. Makes a big difference, having a map where mech is actually good.
On April 22 2022 23:24 tigera6 wrote: F, why couldnt Maru play like this in the GSL, the early game was still bad, but his defense set up was great and last long enough to reach lategame.
It just feels to me like he prob needs a coach to help him along, to avoid these stupid early game moves - it just feels like he wants to end the game early, and try these super gamble-y moves.
Yeah, Maru really need to mix up those early game, that 8 Marine-1 Medivac - 3 Helion early push into the BC has been used countless time, and Reynor read it like a book, he didnt even scout the BC tech but knew what Maru went for.
On April 23 2022 02:07 Elentos wrote: Demuslim's team probably the least clutch of all time, 5 out of 5 losses are 2-3
To be fair, most of the match score in this league has been 3-2, which show how close it is overall. But its hard to be clutch when Ben No.4 pick, Nightmare, has played ....well....nightmarish this entire tournament. Even for games where he seems to be in a good position, he just threw it away yolo-ing. Couple that with Maru and Zest threw a couple times on their matches, you got to bottom 2 easily. Had Ben went with Armani, or even Keen, his team would probably be in the playoff.
On April 23 2022 01:57 tigera6 wrote: Bunny was playing like a No.1 pick, and the rest of the teams like Armani and DnS were doing their job.
Bunny should've been a No. 1 pick but those casters know nothing
The fact that Catz got Bunny when he was the last person to get a second round pick is shocking. Bunny is arguably the second best Terran in the world right now.
Maybe between Bunny's injuries and meme picks by some casters it makes a little bit of sense but still.
On April 23 2022 01:57 tigera6 wrote: Bunny was playing like a No.1 pick, and the rest of the teams like Armani and DnS were doing their job.
Bunny should've been a No. 1 pick but those casters know nothing
The fact that Catz got Bunny when he was the last person to get a second round pick is shocking. Bunny is arguably the second best Terran in the world right now.
Maybe between Bunny's injuries and meme picks by some casters it makes a little bit of sense but still.
When a guy has a broken hand you don’t expect him to play as well as he did
On April 23 2022 01:57 tigera6 wrote: Bunny was playing like a No.1 pick, and the rest of the teams like Armani and DnS were doing their job.
Bunny should've been a No. 1 pick but those casters know nothing
The fact that Catz got Bunny when he was the last person to get a second round pick is shocking. Bunny is arguably the second best Terran in the world right now.
Maybe between Bunny's injuries and meme picks by some casters it makes a little bit of sense but still.
When a guy has a broken hand you don’t expect him to play as well as he did
I'm heavily disapointed in myself for not being able to find a good Mvp joke to make. That one will have to do: Bunny draggin his team to victory litteraly with a broken hand
On April 23 2022 04:11 Husyelt wrote: Dumbfounded that Benny’s team is going to be placed below ZGs. I thought maybe the Grubs would take one match … maybe. Congrats ZG
Ben pick of Nightmare was bad, I literraly would trust Maru off-race as Protoss more than Nightmare playing in this tournament. His team lost 5 matches of the same 2-3 scores, and Nightmare did not score a single win.
On April 23 2022 04:11 Husyelt wrote: Dumbfounded that Benny’s team is going to be placed below ZGs. I thought maybe the Grubs would take one match … maybe. Congrats ZG
Ben pick of Nightmare was bad, I literraly would trust Maru off-race as Protoss more than Nightmare playing in this tournament. His team lost 5 matches of the same 2-3 scores, and Nightmare did not score a single win.
Easy to say after he went 0-7, at the time of the draft Nightmares results were absolutely deserving of being a 4th round pick
Liquipedia says herO vs Elazer and Keen vs Clem should be played right now on Pig's stream, but I don't see a stream? Is there an updated time for when they will be played?
I think that game was a good showcase of how important vision and game sense are at this level. Nice had a timing to kill Reynor and didn't realize. And when he finally decided to make his move, he attacked the most well defended location on the entire map.
On April 24 2022 23:18 buzz_bender wrote: Wow, Kelazhur beat Lambo on Pride with mech... and ghosts... Maru certainly has started something with the Terran mech plus ghosts meta.
That stuff somehow never really catches on long term. When TY first did it in 2018, people figured out soon after that ravens were actually just better. Then after the raven nerf it still didn't come back for a long while.
On April 24 2022 23:18 buzz_bender wrote: Wow, Kelazhur beat Lambo on Pride with mech... and ghosts... Maru certainly has started something with the Terran mech plus ghosts meta.
The problem with Mech in TvZ has always been the early game imo, you need to have units to defend a near-max Zerg army of Roach/Ravager and Corruptor/Queen to deal with the air unit. 3 Factories just does not give enough production for Mech to defend agains that kind of push, and thats why the initial attack by the BC warp/ Helion runby need to do huge economy damage to delay that Zerg push. I think Special mention its better to delay the Armory and go with more Factory to get more units out early and defend.
On April 24 2022 23:47 Elentos wrote: I love how shameless herO's play is. He just takes his 4th ahead of the Zerg and gets away with it.
Granted all he does with it is spam zealots.
That reccal was something else
That's the real danger of having all your nexus on 1 control group - the game recalling to the one you're right next to because that's the nearest one with energy.
On April 24 2022 23:47 Elentos wrote: I love how shameless herO's play is. He just takes his 4th ahead of the Zerg and gets away with it.
Granted all he does with it is spam zealots.
That reccal was something else
That's the real danger of having all your nexus on 1 control group - the game recalling to the one you're right next to because that's the nearest one with energy.
On April 24 2022 23:47 Elentos wrote: I love how shameless herO's play is. He just takes his 4th ahead of the Zerg and gets away with it.
Granted all he does with it is spam zealots.
That reccal was something else
Creator's probably not gonna bring out his GSL build vs Rogue so he might not win before the 10 minutes mark
Yeah, Creator probably wont be using the build he just use EVER again, it just doesnt make a damn sense, and in the end it work (or doesnt ) the way we expected to.
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