July officially announces his move to Starcraft 2 - Page 5

On September 10 2010 15:06 deafhobbit wrote:


...and far from exceptional for BW pro's. My point stands.

On September 10 2010 15:06 deafhobbit wrote:


...and far from exceptional for BW pro's. My point stands.

On September 10 2010 15:06 deafhobbit wrote:


...and far from exceptional for BW pro's. My point stands.

On September 10 2010 14:46 deafhobbit wrote:
Sc2 - Where former BW pro gamer retire after they can't keep up with a more APM intensive game.

As someone who never wants pro BW to die, this seems fine. Sc2 is the senior PGA of esports - a place where we can see our former hero's now past their prime still duke it out, while the young bucks fight it out in a more skill-intense league.

In the absence of a Sc2 proleague, though, i don't see Sc2 replacing BW as the main esport event in Korea. The presence of Proleague allows for a much larger pool of players to make a living playing the game, and also creates a larger source of potential innovation. Remember, even if July was the first to truly master modern muta micro in BW, it was Shark, a player who never really rose above mediocre, who discovered it. In the absence of a guaranteed source of income, there will be a smaller pool of Sc2 "pro's" (defined as people who make a living from playing the game) and an overall lower level of play (since people who have to work for a living can't spend 14 hrs a day improving their mechanics and devising new strategies). It also creates a rather perverse "race to the top" where the better the level of play gets, the less true "progamers" there will be. Higher level play = more work required to win tournaments = lower cost/benefit ratio for trying to stay at the level of skill needed to be a contender for tournament winner. For example, if all of a sudden Flash, Jaedong, Fantasy, and all the current usual suspects for making it far into individual leagues in BW were to switch, it would become very hard for people like Idra or July to play Sc2 professionally. Once they caught up on the strategy and game specific mechanics, the generally higher level of skill found in high level BW players would make it increasingly hard for anyone else to compete, and in the absence of proleauge like salaries, even players like Effort, Stork (ie, high level players who CAN beat the best players in the world, but can't do so consistently) would be driven from the scene.

In conclusion, until Sc2 gets a proleague, be glad that only progamers too old or unskilled to keep up with high level BW have switched.

On September 10 2010 14:59 deafhobbit wrote:


Maybe, but where's he at now? Mechanics seem the big area where younger players have an advantage over older players, whether in terms of strict APM or as a more broadly defined concept. Nothing prevents older players from adapting their strategies to fit what is working currently, and we frequently see them do just that, which would seem to suggest that that the reason why most players start to fall off as they age is a difference in mechanical skill, rather than in strategy. The fact of the matter is that whatever his APM may be, July hasn't been doing well of late in BW, a quick look over his recent games shows almost no proleague games and poor starleague results, with only 15 games in 2010 listed in TLPD. He's clearly playing worse than top and even mid tier BW players, and thus switched to a game where the general level of mechanical skill is lower.