***Warning this blog/post contains spoilers from MLG Columbus.***
Nowhere to go but UP
MLG Columbus was billed as the first definitive test of the strength of the SC2 foreigner scene. With huge names from Korea such as MC, July, and MMA going up against such Foreign Titans as Idra, Naniwa and Thorzain it’s hard to argue that either side was lacking in talent. With astronomical expectations, foreign players entered the halls of the Greater Columbus Convention Center goaded on by the cheers of the raucous crowd expecting nothing less than complete and total victory. It was, therefore, a huge disappointment when the first rounds of the foreign-Korean rivalry went off with a seemingly resounding *thud*. However, the apparent misfire masks a less apparent (but more exciting) truth: MLG Columbus put a spotlight on the “green shoots” long growing beneath the surface in competitive Starcraft in North America.
Several North American "Starcraftistas" have lamented about the failure of the foreign Starcraft players “on their own turf.” The following results have reinforced their belief that the foreign scene’s competitiveness is behind and quickly fading:
The highest placing foreign player (IdrA) finished in fourth place.
Every single Korean eliminated from MLG was eliminated by a fellow Korean. Even “weaker” players such as Moon could only be eliminated by MC.
July made the open bracket look like bronze league. Winning as many as four games in the course of 25 minutes.
Rising European stars ThorZaIN and Naniwa, widely regarded as the best foreign players outside of Korea, fell disappointingly to Korean powerhouses.
While the above results have caused despair among many of the excitable fans of foreign players, there are several factors that mitigate the above disappointments:
Many of the foreign – Korean matches were close. Ridiculously close. IdrA was one anxiety attack away from besting MMA in the winners bracket. Sjow had MMA on the ropes during a well thought out base trade which went wrong because of banshee cloak tech. Despite claims of a non-working keyboard INcontroL took a game off Losira and could have easily taken the series with a little bit better timing. Naniwa was three dancing zealots away from detecting MC’s dark shrine and effortlessly defending his main with a single cannon.
Over 250 starry-eyed gamers participated in the open bracket – the first time MLG competitor’s passes have sold out. The sheer number of players registered exposes the interest in competitive Starcraft in North America. Its entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that the next Maynard, IdrA, etc just got his first taste of competitive gaming
The reason Koreans are better at Starcraft is because they have put the “pro” into progamer – practicing typically 10 hours a day. MMA said it best himself -
“The reason Koreans did better than foreigners is because they work harder, doing what they love with professionalism, putting in long hours with perseverance and passion.”
In order to develop similar institutions in North America a sustainable tournament circuit needs to be developed. This circuit must be free of game developer money and influence or else it slowly will die on the vine from the vampiric attacks of money-sucking gaming mercenaries (like many other promotional tournaments have).
Many factors emerged at MLG Columbus which show that MLG could be the sustainable tournament we have all been hoping for:
The crowd was amazing. The apparent surprise on face of the usually steady duo of Artosis and Tasteless during the final between MMA and Losira shows how far North American LAN events have come. Artosis has gone on record saying that he does not believe E-Sports will ever be as big in NA as it is in Korea. Perhaps this event was the beginning of a change in heart? Even MMA was taken aback:
“It's my first time in the USA, and the crowds, passion, cheers were reminiscent of the 2002 World Cup in Korea. It was so great, and it would be awesome if GSL could be as popular.”
Perhaps even they were taken by surprise?
The personalities that support MLG Columbus’s success are very strong. One does not need to look deep into MLG’s forums to find glowing reports of Starcraft’s excellent production quality and casting teams:
“I'm not a Starcraft 2 player, and I hardly know what is going on in the game at all, really, but jesus does Day9 really make watching the SC:2 stream extremely enjoyable. I wish this was the kind of caster each game for MLG had, no disrespect to the other commentators. Day 9 is a boss, the end.
Thanks for casting an amazing show!”
Finally, the attendance (in stream and in person) MLG Columbus shows that the reports of the death of the PC used in competitive gaming have been greatly exaggerated. The general thesis among the gaming elite over the past 10 years has been to emphasize the importance of the console, and to largely ignore gaming on the PC. This has increased the focus of game makers, marketers, tournament organizers, and competitive gamers on the console as the obvious “weapon of choice.” However, disruptive technologies such as Facebook, cloud computing, YouTube, and streaming video have caused consoles to become more like PCs – with downloadable apps, flexible control devices and internet connectivity. It is entirely feasible to imagine a future where PCs and consoles are essentially the same. This leaves a huge market for potential gamers that is untapped.
In closing: The despair that grips the Starcraft competitive foreign scene over losses at MLG Columbus has very deep roots. Experiences in Broodwar have propagated the mistaken belief that Koreans utterly dominate at RTS games simply because they have better genes. This fallacious argument often leads to calls for a form of “Starcraft protectionism” – protecting foreign tournaments from Korean involvement. But, just as trade protectionism leads to stagnation in sovereign nations, so to does Starcraft protectionism lead to stagnation in its gaming community. Therefore, it is incumbent upon our community to continue to invite skilled Korean to our tournaments – allowing it to build on the successes of MLG Columbus so that one day we may match the Koreans in skill and professionalism.
Lets face it, as it stands now, if all the Koreans from the GSL came over they would dominate the NA scene, and only a few foreigners like IdrA and Naniwa would stand a chance (I am just naming a few). But I see no reason at all to be "afraid" or worry about the fierce competition the Koreans bring.
And, do you know why?
Because, the only thing that is separating the Koreans from the rest of the world is their work ethic and intense motivation in what they do. MMA said it best, he says that the Koreans simply work harder and that is why there is a gap.
So I ask you, is having work ethic something only a Korean can do? Are they genetically blessed with work ethic? No and no! ANYONE can have a strong work ethic just like the Koreans do. Anyone can choose to practice like the Koreans do. We are just waiting for that person to come along. On the other hand we have NA players who do not take the game as seriously or are too busy doing other things to have enough practice time. Take for example Idra (I love IdrA but I have to say this), he pretty much flat out said that he doesn't need to practice as much to stay good and currently he trains 3 hours a day.....against other NA players that might work but he is falling behind the 8+ hour Koreans.
Thus, it is in my humble opinion that the NA scene should constantly invite and play against the Koreans and compete against them because they are the standard in which SC2 must be looked upon for it to grow. 1st, 2nd, 3rd Korean place finishes look bad but like any loss, there is so much to learn from this defeat. It shows us that the NA scene has much to learn and has to grow, it keeps us on our toes and makes us hungry to get better and improve.
IdrA and Inc said that they do not want MLG to be overrun by Koreans......IMO the Koreans SHOULD overrun the tournament so people realize that changes must be made if we want to compete.
Very interesting write up. I'm very pleased to see that the Koreans enjoyed MLG, hopefully this will bring them back for future events. Only time will tell if "foreigners" can match the Koreans but like MMA said they put in more hours.
Nice write up. Just seems to be 1-2 small things separating a lot of foreigners from beating the koreans. Something a bunch of people need to remember is that these koreans are very highly regarded in terms of the korean scene (with the exception of moon). I would hope that they would be able to place highly at an MLG, especially if MLG is going to invite them out here and autoplace them into pool play.
I'm not exactly sure about the 10 hour thing, I know its somewhere around there for team slayers/BW progamers, so it was the same for MMA there and in SC2-Slayers
But they typically practice about 8 hours a day(+ or - some) (other korean sc2pro teams) I forgot where they posted it and also that when team slayers beat other teams in gstl they said that they practiced longer than the other clan. (think someone was asking cella this while on his stream since cella is also friends with other sc2 progamers outside of slayers)
Yea I do believe in hard working.Foreigners need to work harder. They're physically and mentality equal with Korean. Then why can't they practice as hard as Koreans.
On June 08 2011 12:46 monitor wrote: Go foreign sc2 scene! I was impressed how close everyone of the matches were-- IdrA could have beat MMA if he had just stayed in the game...
I don't like this comment because no one actually knows that Idra would of beaten MMA there were still 2 more games afterwards....
I would like to add that a lot of foreigner pros are involved in so many other things expanding the scene. Like all things it comes down to time, and I think that at least in Korea the players, just practice and play. Outside of Korea players are casting, running leagues, podcasts, fundraisers and generally trying trying to be an active part of the community.
This is amazing for creating an inclusive and passionate following but I wonder how much that takes from the focus on practice. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Good write-up, I heard people who went to MLG to mainly watch Halo/Black Ops ended up watching more SC2 because of the curiosity and big excited crowd. Live events like these are the fastest way to convert someone into a SC2 fan. I got into the scene at Blizzcon. I came only for WoW purposes, but the Starcraft tournament caught my eye. It truly is the greatest spectator e-sport ever made.
On June 08 2011 12:28 deadjawa wrote: [*]Over 250 starry-eyed gamers participated in the open bracket – the first time MLG competitor’s passes have sold out. The sheer number of players registered exposes the interest in competitive Starcraft in North America. Its entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that the next Maynard, IdrA, etc just got his first taste of competitive gaming
I absolutely love this point and want to echo it. A lot of the talent is from BW and WC3, but I doubt it will be too long before we see pure "SC2-raised" gamers more and more. Really nice write-up, great positive look on things that most people decide to take a negative look on. Kudos to you, sir :D
I don't agree 100% (I do agree with the general sentiment) but solid content and very nice presentation.
Two things,
1.
The reason Koreans are better at Starcraft is because they have put the “pro” into programmer – practicing typically 10 hours a day. MMA said it best himself -
Small typo, they're not writing code :p
2.
In order to develop similar institutions in North America a sustainable tournament circuit needs to be developed. This circuit must be free of game developer money and influence or else it slowly will die on the vine from the vampiric attacks of money-sucking gaming mercenaries (like many other promotional tournaments have).
Can you elaborate on this point a bit? I'm not quite clear on the relationship between developers and 'gaming mercenaries', or why developer influence is implicity bad, or even aware of examples where this has happened in the past.
Has anyone verified that Losira really didn't use his keyboard in the game he lost. Sounds like he wanted an excuse for getting frustrated. However, I wouldn't want to get on his case if he was telling the truth.
On June 08 2011 13:22 -_- wrote: Has anyone verified that Losira really didn't use his keyboard in the game he lost. Sounds like he wanted an excuse for getting frustrated. However, I wouldn't want to get on his case if he was telling the truth.
I believe his h key wasn't working at all until he borrowed Major's and his keyboard did stop working completely at times.
On June 08 2011 13:19 Random Select wrote: Good write-up, I heard people who went to MLG to mainly watch Halo/Black Ops ended up watching more SC2 because of the curiosity and big excited crowd. Live events like these are the fastest way to convert someone into a SC2 fan. I got into the scene at Blizzcon. I came only for WoW purposes, but the Starcraft tournament caught my eye. It truly is the greatest spectator e-sport ever made.
Yes. Some stuck around after the finals of their game ended. The finals start/finish were in this order Black Ops -> Halo: Reach -> Starcraft 2.
On June 08 2011 13:22 -_- wrote: Has anyone verified that Losira really didn't use his keyboard in the game he lost. Sounds like he wanted an excuse for getting frustrated. However, I wouldn't want to get on his case if he was telling the truth.
This is from the Korean Translator at the event. First post scroll down to "The Losira Keyboard problem."
Experiences in Broodwar have propagated the mistaken belief that Koreans utterly dominate at RTS games simply because they have better genes.
If this belief exists, I'm not aware of it on this forum. Pretty much everyone, from foreigners to Korean players, and even to the fans who have all talked about the work ethic and culture leading to their success.
I do believe that the foreign scene is ripe to explode in terms of more talent. I believe there's going to be a bigger group of younger fans, who will turn into players which will make NA and European scenes much more competitive.
Great post, I agree with nearly everything you have written. With that said I have a few thoughts I had while watching MLG last weekend.
MLG Columbus was the most amazing tournament in I have ever watched. From the production, casting, games and excitement generated from the crowd and from the casters it truly was a tournament to remember and emulate in the future. I hope this caliber of tournament is adapted and continuously improved upon going forward.
Starcraft 2 has the ability to become and is becoming the forefront of global esports. As such we need all parties at the table, Korean and non-Korean to be competing against each other - with each other. It is from this collective competition that we will find the true nature of this game, and have huge success going forward. Additionally, with two expansions to go the longevity to grow and to have developer support further increases the opportunities to truly create this as a global game.
Excellent write-up with great organization, accompanying graphics, and thoughts.
I do agree that foreign gamers just need to work much harder and efficiently to close the gap between Koreans and non-Koreans. The Koreans practice harder and longer in a much more competitive, efficient environment, infrastructure, and culture on a much more competitive ladder and with a much more competitive, long-term league.
However, the non-Korean scene is starting to form its own competitive leagues and ESPORTS infrastructure with more big tournaments being held and progaming houses being formed. The foundation for a viable long-term ESPORTS environment is being formed, but only through the hard work of pros and fans can it grow.
I've heard today on Inside the Game and sometimes on State of the Game that Idra is oftentimes comfortable with practicing only a few hours a day simply because he feels that his mechanics are worlds ahead of his contemporary competition. Tyler had been slacking off some months ago with WoW, and some other pros have had to juggle family and school. I think the non-Korean scene has become too complacent with having a practice regimen that is lighter than that of the Koreans, and as long as the Koreans are practicing harder and more efficiently, their lead is only going to grow.
Talent can only go so far, and I think it's time for the non-Korean scene's players to start multiplying their inherent talent with Korean-esque practice. As progaming and ESPORTS becomes more viable (as it is), perhaps this kind of practice will also become viable and possibly completely necessary.
On June 08 2011 12:28 deadjawa wrote: [list][*]Many of the foreign – Korean matches were close. Ridiculously close. IdrA was one anxiety attack away from besting MMA in the winners bracket. Sjow had MMA on the ropes during a well thought out base trade which went wrong because of banshee cloak tech. Despite claims of a non-working keyboard INcontroL took a game off Losira and could have easily taken the series with a little bit better timing. Naniwa was three dancing zealots away from detecting MC’s dark shrine and effortlessly defending his main with a single cannon.
I don't want to take Lorsira's side because he blantly said his keyboard wasn't working after a victory which seemed mean but if you see the replay, he missed his first drone, tones of overlords and so on... I am pretty sure it's not just a 'claim'. Sjow played quite well, kind of suprised me. Oh Naniwa... oh Naniwa...
If the foreigner scene is to rise up, it has to do so collectively. Hard work (and talent) are indeed important, but so is having strong consistent competition in the form of adversaries and practice partners. This strikes me as one of the big advantages Korea has at the moment.
It's not just practicing, though. It's the infrastructure. The Korean infrastructure for Starcraft progaming is so far ahead of North America and Europe that it will take some time before the skill gap gets closer. I'm sure we'll have a few foreigners that will be able to compete and take games off the best Koreans, and maybe even win BoX series, but for the scenes themselves to get closer then NA/Europe will need a similar infrastructure to Korea. Which, in my mind, is unlikely to happen in the near future.
I compare it to soccer (or football) in Brazil. Those kids grow up only seeing and watching soccer. They grow up watching these heroes on their television playing this one sport. These kids then grow up, playing and training to be amazing at said sport. The infrastructure is already set there and the most gifted athletes in that country will all be produced as soccer stars. It's the same in Korea. Kids over there are all immersed in Starcraft. It's by far the biggest video game in Korea. They have two gaming channels that is dominated by Starcraft. The progamers over there have sponsorship deals with athletic bags. It's all around them. When a kid grows up in Korea, they'll all play Starcraft.
The infrastructure is already there. The gigantic offline tournaments are already there. The progaming teams in close proximity of each other is also there. Also, it's a lot less likely to be frowned upon with someone trying to become a progamer in SC in Korea than being a kid in the USA who wants to become one. Progaming teams recruit kids early (Creator is 14, Keen and Leenock are both 16) and build them up through the system to be great. All the most gifted gamers in Korea will become Starcraft pros.
In America, just like soccer, there are lots of different options. A lot of kids do play soccer, but when they get older, they venture off into basketball, football, baseball and a lot of different athletics. That makes it so that not all the most athletic people get into that singular sport. It's the same with video games. Starcraft is popular in America, but the television is hammered with Halo, Modern Warefare and FPS. There is also the fighting game scene. That makes it so the big dense group of kids who could be great progamers in SC2 will go off and play different games.
I do think that a few like Thorzain and Naniwa could become truly great if they went over to Korea for a while and practiced in a team house. Idra was in Korea for three years and picked up a lot of great mechanics through the system they had.
"MLG Columbus was billed as the first definitive test of the strength of the SC2 foreigner scene."
Who came up with this sentence? Day9? Artosis? or You? or the SC2 community's thought?
So, Blizzcon didn't count? DreamHack didn't count? IEM didn't count? GSL World Tournament didn't count? Yes, Columbus had a ton of spectators, but all these LAN's each had larger prize pool than MLG Columbus.
Lets see....the latest LAN is more competitive or the biggest prize pool is more competitive....hmm....let me think. The latest LAN's result is what's count, or the biggest prize pool is what's count, or all LAN's combine is what's count to determine the skill levels...hmmm....
Artosis once tried to changed history by saying: "In Broodwar, Foreigners didn't have a chance to compete against Koreans to determine the skill difference, so Koreans weren't ahead of us".
I think you're the next in line to try to change history with the first sentence of this thread.
On June 08 2011 14:16 TDN wrote: "MLG Columbus was billed as the first definitive test of the strength of the SC2 foreigner scene."
Who came up with this sentence? Day9? Artosis? or You? or the SC2 community's thought?
So, Blizzcon didn't count? DreamHack didn't count? IEM didn't count? GSL World Tournament didn't count? Yes, Columbus had a ton of spectators, but all these LAN's each had larger prize pool than MLG Columbus.
Lets see....the latest LAN is more competitive or the biggest prize pool is more competitive....hmm....let me think. The latest LAN's result is what's count, or the biggest prize pool is what's count, or all LAN's combine is what's count to determine the skill levels...hmmm....
Artosis once tried to changed history by saying: "In Broodwar, Foreigners didn't have a chance to compete against Koreans to determine the skill difference, so Koreans weren't ahead of us".
I think you're the next in line to try to change history with the first sentence of this thread.
It's a rhetoric to make the introduction of the article more interesting... Just don't put to many thoughts on it...
MLG Columbus might not be the "first" test but it is a a second event that pitted 4+1 Korean with 16+200ish foreigners (after DreamHack).
Great writeup! I do believe that MLG Columbus was something akin to a wakeup call for foreign professionals. Even tough some people laughed at Incontrol's statement that EG won't allow Koreans to overrun the foreign scene I literally got shivers down my spine when I read it. It sure is a bold statement but imagine what some of the foreign players could become with a fierce passion/determination and a training regime that rivals the Koreans?
The little fanboy in me gets excited just thinking about it. I guess as a player who just got started with SC2 and did not play SC1 my dream is to witness the ascension of a total foreigner beast. Someone who dominates everyone in his path to greatness ^_^ We got great players like Naniwa, T-zain, IdrA and many others but even when they win their games I still don't get the feeling that they played at the highest possible skill level in SC2. The game is young and it is for that reason that I was so excited to read this
"Over 250 starry-eyed gamers participated in the open bracket – the first time MLG competitor’s passes have sold out. The sheer number of players registered exposes the interest in competitive Starcraft in North America. Its entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that the next Maynard, IdrA, etc just got his first taste of competitive gaming"
It would be a great story if someone completely unknown suddenly appears and wrecks face everywhere he goes but thats probably the SC2 fan in me speaking. I'm a real sucker for such stories.
On June 08 2011 14:11 Fionn wrote: It's not just practicing, though. It's the infrastructure. The Korean infrastructure for Starcraft progaming is so far ahead of North America and Europe that it will take some time before the skill gap gets closer. I'm sure we'll have a few foreigners that will be able to compete and take games off the best Koreans, and maybe even win BoX series, but for the scenes themselves to get closer then NA/Europe will need a similar infrastructure to Korea. Which, in my mind, is unlikely to happen in the near future.
I compare it to soccer (or football) in Brazil. Those kids grow up only seeing and watching soccer. They grow up watching these heroes on their television playing this one sport. These kids then grow up, playing and training to be amazing at said sport. The infrastructure is already set there and the most gifted athletes in that country will all be produced as soccer stars. It's the same in Korea. Kids over there are all immersed in Starcraft. It's by far the biggest video game in Korea. They have two gaming channels that is dominated by Starcraft. The progamers over there have sponsorship deals with athletic bags. It's all around them. When a kid grows up in Korea, they'll all play Starcraft.
The infrastructure is already there. The gigantic offline tournaments are already there. The progaming teams in close proximity of each other is also there. Also, it's a lot less likely to be frowned upon with someone trying to become a progamer in SC in Korea than being a kid in the USA who wants to become one. Progaming teams recruit kids early (Creator is 14, Keen and Leenock are both 16) and build them up through the system to be great. All the most gifted gamers in Korea will become Starcraft pros.
In America, just like soccer, there are lots of different options. A lot of kids do play soccer, but when they get older, they venture off into basketball, football, baseball and a lot of different athletics. That makes it so that not all the most athletic people get into that singular sport. It's the same with video games. Starcraft is popular in America, but the television is hammered with Halo, Modern Warefare and FPS. There is also the fighting game scene. That makes it so the big dense group of kids who could be great progamers in SC2 will go off and play different games.
I do think that a few like Thorzain and Naniwa could become truly great if they went over to Korea for a while and practiced in a team house. Idra was in Korea for three years and picked up a lot of great mechanics through the system they had.
This is a very interesting post.
There are certain aspecst of the Korean setup that are unique to Korea however unlike soccer (football to be correct ) SC2 can be played onlined. I would argue that this gives the foreigner scene the opportunity to make the most of the small playing pool. That is why you can have teams like TL in three different continents. Yes there are limitations in terms of lag and so forth but the fact that you can play and practice with people in different regions makes SC2 very different to traditional sport.
It would be interesting to see how many people in Korea vs Outside Korea are trying to make it pro. I hope that the global nature of SC2 in its infancy will help the foreigner pool grow to a point where sheer brute force of numbers changes the tide.
The tournaments with Koreans travelling also helps give foreigners opportunities to test themselves. Nothing can more motivating than knowing you are playing against the best in the world.
In short, yes there are structural differences that give Koreans the advantage but that doesn't always have to be the case.
Hey guys I think I got the solution to keep par with koreans.. Instead of training like the koreans 10 hours a day.. I reckon you add another 1 hour to the training (ie: total 11 hours of training a day) then you will topple the Koreans.. The solution is so simple, BUT will any foreigner pro gamer do it? it makes the difference between skill with 1 hour a day advantage.. Thats like getting an extra days worth of training ever 10 days OMGOSH..
On June 08 2011 14:34 ilmman wrote: Hey guys I think I got the solution to keep par with koreans.. Instead of training like the koreans 10 hours a day.. I reckon you add another 1 hour to the training (ie: total 11 hours of training a day) then you will topple the Koreans.. The solution is so simple, BUT will any foreigner pro gamer do it? it makes the difference between skill with 1 hour a day advantage.. Thats like getting an extra days worth of training ever 10 days OMGOSH..
I feel like you are trying to make a point but your sluggish brain is getting in the way.
Please try again.
It is clear from what both foreigner and Korean pros have said, that the practice scheme in Korea is harsher than elsewhere. If you wish to debate that fine, otherwise find somewhere else to spout your nonsense.
Enough said, it's not going downwards but as a huge IdrA fan I am one of the first to say that even though he is great the asshole always loses games for himself rather than opponents besting him. I don't care what excuses people give him; Koreans win, he doesn't, the major blame is on him and nothing else: Just as it is on every other westerner. Stop whining, train more. I don't care if MLG turns 90% koreans in the end, aslong as I the spectator get better games for it I am all for it.
I was really hoping that the Koreans would dominate MLG. For 2 real reasons.
1. I love the korean players 2. A wake up call for Foreigners (primarily NA players)
Through the TSL and the birth of the NASL foreigners started to relax and kick back, thinking "Hey, its fine, sure these are online, but we took games on em". While on the other side of the world the korean pro-teams kick it into high gear and we even see people whom we long thought dead in the scene come back with a vengeane (jukto, Makaprime, Leenock, etc). This shows the true difference. These people treat it how they should. Their job, a way of life. Read Maka's cadred interview, you'll see.
I'm glad foreigners are finally seeing the result of not truly dedicating the time and energy into being what they say they are, progamers. If they don't want MLG's prize pool to be monopolized by Korea, better kick it into high gear.
Whats scary is that sure most of those players were high tier, but that was 4 (moon i consider lower tier). Where was MKP, MVP, Bomber, Alicia, Nestea, DRG, Gumiho, Ganzi, Zenio, Nada, Leenock, etc etc.
Also the foreigners have another ticking time bomb, and thats China. Those chinese players look SICK, and when they start getting invites / going out, thats a whole nother level of competition.
I found the analogy to trade protectionism especially interesting, assuming it is valid (didn't see a contest on the first page anyway) I think I just got a better idea of why it's not a good idea to insulate yourself from foreign markets.
Anyways... I really enjoyed the optimism in the post and I agree that having Korean competition in our tournaments in the West can only be a good thing for the growth of all players worldwide. Regardless of the outcome, I was thoroughly entertained by MLG Columbus. Really looking forward to the day when foreigners earn the right to call themselves equals to the Korean greats.
On June 08 2011 14:28 Davidxcom wrote: Even tough some people laughed at Incontrol's statement that EG won't allow Koreans to overrun the foreign scene I literally got shivers down my spine when I read it. It sure is a bold statement but imagine what some of the foreign players could become with a fierce passion/determination and a training regime that rivals the Koreans?
Take team EG for example. Aren't they one of the first non-Korean team to set up a team house? And where are they now? I'm not saying they're bad or anything. I like iNcontroL, but whenever he says stuff like "we're gonna start taking this seriously now" or "we're never gonna let that happen again", I have my doubts, because quite frankly, he's been saying things of that nature for about a year, but results really haven't been backing him up. I mean right now, I'm getting this feeling that EG, or even Liquid, is not that strong of a team that I thought it was a year ago.
I got halfway through the article and went back up to the top to see what mod wrote it! O_o awesome write-up, I agree with almost every point you made.
On June 08 2011 14:28 Davidxcom wrote: Even tough some people laughed at Incontrol's statement that EG won't allow Koreans to overrun the foreign scene I literally got shivers down my spine when I read it. It sure is a bold statement but imagine what some of the foreign players could become with a fierce passion/determination and a training regime that rivals the Koreans?
Take team EG for example. Aren't they one of the first non-Korean team to set up a team house? And where are they now? I'm not saying they're bad or anything. I like iNcontroL, but whenever he says stuff like "we're gonna start taking this seriously now" or "we're never gonna let that happen again", I have my doubts, because quite frankly, he's been saying things of that nature for about a year, but results really haven't been backing him up. I mean right now, I'm getting this feeling that EG, or even Liquid, is not that strong of a team that I thought it was a year ago.
I reallly think that the distraction of being members of the community can be partly to blame. Inc said it himself that he didn't have time to practice. Tyler seems distracted and how many of the liquid guys have moved to Korea and back again? I don't think it is a talent thing as we have seen these players put up amazing games. I think it is the structure of the training and the desire to be involved with the growth SC2. As the game becomes bigger and bigger and more figured out, practice becomes more and more important.
It would be a sad day when the pros stopped being involved because they had to focus on training but I think that day is coming fast.
On June 08 2011 14:28 Davidxcom wrote: Even tough some people laughed at Incontrol's statement that EG won't allow Koreans to overrun the foreign scene I literally got shivers down my spine when I read it. It sure is a bold statement but imagine what some of the foreign players could become with a fierce passion/determination and a training regime that rivals the Koreans?
Take team EG for example. Aren't they one of the first non-Korean team to set up a team house? And where are they now? I'm not saying they're bad or anything. I like iNcontroL, but whenever he says stuff like "we're gonna start taking this seriously now" or "we're never gonna let that happen again", I have my doubts, because quite frankly, he's been saying things of that nature for about a year, but results really haven't been backing him up. I mean right now, I'm getting this feeling that EG, or even Liquid, is not that strong of a team that I thought it was a year ago.
Actually, I don't think EG's team house plans really solidified. Idra and Machine are living together, but that's pretty much it (unless others are living with them).
Root set up a team house a while ago that housed quite a few of their stronger members, many of which are doing quite well. Kiwikaki has been a beast recently. Catz is gradually making bigger splashes in the competitive scene. Drewbie has also improved somewhat. Plus, their team house had been bolstered by the temporary residencies of Fenix and TT1. As a result, Root has been doing quite decently against stronger teams during team leagues, even taking out EG a recent EG Masters Cup series.
I have a feeling that TLO's Swedish pro house will produce similar results, as will FXO's trip to Korea.
Great writeup! One thing to have optimism, but the real test is to actually do it. And I'm glad that there's none of the "protect foreigners from the koreans" that some ppl have suggested. EG's battlecry is the right attitude and I wish them the best!
Wonder what would happen if the Korean Brood War players transition. Seems to be an issue rarely mentioned whenever a shiny article comparing the progress of foreigners to Koreans is published.
On June 08 2011 15:57 Xpace wrote: Wonder what would happen if the Korean Brood War players transition. Seems to be an issue rarely mentioned whenever a shiny article comparing the progress of foreigners to Koreans is published.
since bw got liscneced for 2 more years i dont see it being a issue for a while
On June 08 2011 15:57 Xpace wrote: Wonder what would happen if the Korean Brood War players transition. Seems to be an issue rarely mentioned whenever a shiny article comparing the progress of foreigners to Koreans is published.
since bw got liscneced for 2 more years i dont see it being a issue for a while
On June 08 2011 15:57 Xpace wrote: Wonder what would happen if the Korean Brood War players transition. Seems to be an issue rarely mentioned whenever a shiny article comparing the progress of foreigners to Koreans is published.
You must have missed this article (and the ensuing 'discussion' that followed)
I want to know what other people have to think about this, because its been completely ignored in the foreign Starcraft scene.
Recently, we've seen western gamers organize themselves into teams, and sometimes team houses (a la TLO in Sweden, Root in Florida, EG in Arizona), attempting to duplicate the Korean scene's pro houses that seem to produce such talent and success. However, the one factor that is always missing in our western houses is the coach. We always talk about how great Coach Lee is, or how awesome Cella is, but we simply haven't put in any thought to replicating that niche over here. Anyone who has ever played a competitive sport seriously (even an individual one like tennis) knows how important it is to have a good coach. I realize that its probably not currently feasible for sponsors to pay a dedicated coach, but I feel like it could be beneficial for teams, especially those organizing themselves into houses, to have a player who is also a good leader step up and maybe play a little less, but help the team as a coach.
It's a well written article, but it completely strays from the initial point. We're talking about competitiveness of foreign players against the Korean players - the ambient, crowd, personalities and everything else that was good about MLG Columbus doesn't really have anything to do with how competitive foreign players are.
So the only relevant point brought up was that the "games were close". Yeah, some of them were (deceptively) close - many of them on Day 1 when the Korean players were in no physical condition to play nearly their best to the point that they were passing out in between games. And even then most of them managed to edge out and win their series. The "claims" that Losira's keyboard wasn't working at all were confirmed by Milkis as well.
I don't want to pile it on, but IMO false optimism is the worst kind of optimism.
Very interesting article! I have to admit that at first, I was very sad for the foreign scene after this MLG (even though the event in itself was pure awesomeness) because of the obvious points you mentionned but thanks to you, I have faith again!
Well written post, but I can't help but feel the exact opposite. I feel that say, 2 months ago, there were a lot of foreigners that could potentially compete in GSL with the koreans, and that the scenes weren't too far apart. Now it just seems like the complete opposite. It's only a matter of time, imo, until we don't have anyone in Code S (maybe even Code A) from the foreign scene that can compete.
A while ago I would say there was at least 10 - 15 foreigners that could compete in the GSL. Now I say that number has gone down to a handful, being only the select best players from their race in the foreign scene. Soon it will probably be 0.
As Koreans continues to live in progamer houses and practice like madmans for the hardest tournament in the world and westeners are satisfied with minimal practice time and easy money on small tournaments, the scene has honestly nowhere to go but down. MLG's korean domination did nothing to make me feel any differently.
Excellent article. Highlights what's important without being biased in the slightest.
I agree with what "ffadicted" said above though. The "skill gap" seem to be growing. From being almost non-existent during the beta, to pretty significant. Statistically speaking only a few foreigners are close to the higher level Koreans (a handful of those I'd consider the best did not participate in MLG). Last winter I felt the gap was much smaller. But..so what? There's an amazing foreign scene with tons and tons of highly entertaining and talented players, and at this rate the scene will only continue to grow. The fact that the highest level of play is found in Korea doesn't change that. Let's just enjoy it for what it is and support it to our fullest, and eventually the conditions (practice environment, earnings, common acceptance..etc.) for foreign pro players will end up being up to par with those in Korea.
July in the open brackets was the best thing in MLG.
That dude slaughtered and i couldn't help feel happy seeing God of War just tearing through the field like an unstoppable force. Specially reading forums from people not heard of him going all crazy "he only cheeses. Someone stop the cheesy zerg. He only goes all in".
I couldn't help laughing and then reading about another win in 5 minutes for July
Anyways, exchange program between GSL and MLG was the best thing that could happen SC2. Finnally the tournaments become global and here is hoping that this will only increase the quality of games of the western scene as well.
On June 08 2011 17:08 susySquark wrote: I want to know what other people have to think about this, because its been completely ignored in the foreign Starcraft scene.
Recently, we've seen western gamers organize themselves into teams, and sometimes team houses (a la TLO in Sweden, Root in Florida, EG in Arizona), attempting to duplicate the Korean scene's pro houses that seem to produce such talent and success. However, the one factor that is always missing in our western houses is the coach. We always talk about how great Coach Lee is, or how awesome Cella is, but we simply haven't put in any thought to replicating that niche over here. Anyone who has ever played a competitive sport seriously (even an individual one like tennis) knows how important it is to have a good coach. I realize that its probably not currently feasible for sponsors to pay a dedicated coach, but I feel like it could be beneficial for teams, especially those organizing themselves into houses, to have a player who is also a good leader step up and maybe play a little less, but help the team as a coach.
Coaches can probably help a lot and a lot of things around players could be delegated like with other sports. In an ideal professional sc2 environment you likely have people that for example: Analyze opponents. People that keep up with the latest strategy development outside the team. People that analyze mathematics and probabilities. People that analyze micro, positioning, maps and unit compositions. People that focus on keyboard layouts and mechanics. And so on.
The level of "elitness" in the professional sc2 training environment mostly rely on money(not completely since you for example need to know what a good elite training environment would be like to be able to spend money on it), as with other sports. The money in sc2 should mostly depend on sc2s popularity, especially from the viewers perspective and the interest appear to be growing looking at for example this MLG. Where it will stabilize or will be in for example 2 years seems impossible to predict but it is probably safe to assume it wont be anywhere close to any of the currently more popular "normal" sports.
And as with the financial aspect, the talent pool should mostly rely on popularity as well.
So in short, how good the foreign scene will be compared to the Korean scene will probably be decided by the popularity of sc2 outside Korea.
They have managers who manage the teams and that is pretty much it. The players have to coordinate and coach themselves.
It's not just the hours they put in and I already have beef with that because players have to find other means of income at the same time like live streaming on ladder (which is bad practice), coaching and in some cases casting or doing podcast shows. This only puts them more behind. I used to manage several BW teams and I know how hard it is when everyone is on their own schedule, but there is a lot more to it than just putting in time to practice as I said many times before.
The Koreans have their own model for how they practice and what they practice. Some like to practice the same safe cookie-cutter build over and over until they don't even have to think twice about what they are doing. Doesn't matter what the opponent is doing. They keep going through it for months on end until the idea is pregnant in their head. Only then, do they start responding to what they see their opponents doing.
There are very few foreigners that structure their practice around this notion. Instead, they like to play around with all sorts of builds and improvise on the fly. This leads to less polished builds and as a result, they come in with a disadvantage against an opponent with a polished build. You cannot second guess yourself. There is no time, you have to be able to make a decision on the spot. Mentality.
Sponsored teams in our community only have managers. Not 'coaches' per say. Sure, Naz will put on that coach cap from time to time. He understands the game very well and will take the time to go over his team's replays and give suggestions here or there, but by no means does he fit the criteria of a coach. He manages the team. That is his duty; that is his obligation. A coach is a full-time job.
With that said, just because you are good player doesn't necessarily mean you will be a good coach. Coaching a diamond player is very different from coaching a professional athlete. Understanding the game is only part of the battle.
On June 08 2011 15:57 Xpace wrote: Wonder what would happen if the Korean Brood War players transition. Seems to be an issue rarely mentioned whenever a shiny article comparing the progress of foreigners to Koreans is published.
You must have missed this article (and the ensuing 'discussion' that followed)
Gonna sound selfish/defeatist here, but I hope they stick with brood war for as long as possible, the skill gap is already bad now, but should BW A-teamers switch the foreign scene is as good as done I would think.
On June 08 2011 22:17 StarStruck wrote: In reply to Akta,
They have managers who manage the teams and that is pretty much it. The players have to coordinate and coach themselves.
It's not just the hours they put in and I already have beef with that because players have to find other means of income at the same time like live streaming on ladder (which is bad practice), coaching and in some cases casting or doing podcast shows. This only puts them more behind. I used to manage several BW teams and I know how hard it is when everyone is on their own schedule, but there is a lot more to it than just putting in time to practice as I said many times before.
The Koreans have their own model for how they practice and what they practice. Some like to practice the same safe cookie-cutter build over and over until they don't even have to think twice about what they are doing. Doesn't matter what the opponent is doing. They keep going through it for months on end until the idea is pregnant in their head. Only then, do they start responding to what they see their opponents doing.
There are very few foreigners that structure their practice around this notion. Instead, they like to play around with all sorts of builds and improvise on the fly. This leads to less polished builds and as a result, they come in with a disadvantage against an opponent with a polished build. You cannot second guess yourself. There is no time, you have to be able to make a decision on the spot. Mentality.
Sponsored teams in our community only have managers. Not 'coaches' per say. Sure, Naz will put on that coach cap from time to time. He understands the game very well and will take the time to go over his team's replays and give suggestions here or there, but by no means does he fit the criteria of a coach. He manages the team. That is his duty; that is his obligation. A coach is a full-time job.
With that said, just because you are good player doesn't necessarily mean you will be a good coach. Coaching a diamond player is very different from coaching a professional athlete. Understanding the game is only part of the battle.
I wasn't trying to write about how people currently practice sc2. Was just trying to illustrate the difference between less limited elite training environments and the current situation and that the skill levels of the different scenes should mostly boil down to sc2's popularity.
Awesome write up man, a lot of valid points that have to be taken in to consideration,etc.
As awesome an event this is and how the Koreans have been reacting to it and saying it is truly a global event I am hoping maybe next time we will see the Ukranian powerhouses of Dimaga/White-Ra maybe playing also.
Since I want to see White-Ra playing against more koreans and stuff but i guess we will see in DreamHack how things turn out.
On June 08 2011 18:13 Talin wrote: It's a well written article, but it completely strays from the initial point. We're talking about competitiveness of foreign players against the Korean players - the ambient, crowd, personalities and everything else that was good about MLG Columbus doesn't really have anything to do with how competitive foreign players are.
So the only relevant point brought up was that the "games were close". Yeah, some of them were (deceptively) close - many of them on Day 1 when the Korean players were in no physical condition to play nearly their best to the point that they were passing out in between games. And even then most of them managed to edge out and win their series. The "claims" that Losira's keyboard wasn't working at all were confirmed by Milkis as well.
I don't want to pile it on, but IMO false optimism is the worst kind of optimism.
The better the scene the better the players that are produced. The greater the popularity the greater attractiveness to players. I'm not saying we'll match korea but a dead scene means we have no chance. A vibrant scene means we have a greater chance.
Something everyone failed to mention is that July, MC, Losira, And MMA could all be considered top 16 Code S players.
They are significantly better than every other korean besides the obvious ones like Bomber/MKP/Ace/Alicia/NesTea
The top foreigners have already shown that they can make the Ro16 and Ro8, but that is when they hit the absolute top players where the win rate starts to drop, which is to be expected.
So no, not all of korea > all of the foreign scene, but the absolute best maybe.
Just wanted to say it was a great opening post. I've never cared for or watched any MLG competition before Colombus, and now I'm hyped for the next one.
Regarding Koreans owning white dudes: you do realise they sent - 1 x 2-time GSL champion 1 x GSTL Ace Killer son of Boxer 1 x Code A champion son of Nestea 1 x SC:BW god of war 1 x IEM Runner Up / Warcraft 3 pro
Sure, they didn't send the 4 GSL champions, but the Koreans gave an exceptionally strong showing. If NA had lost to TheBest + LegalMind + BitbyBit + Rain...well that wouldn't actually happen tbh. Anyway, point is that all 5 Korean players were scary strong, I do think foreigners have catching up to do, but I don't think it's a downer when you realise that it was really the best of the best Koreans they were up against.
On June 08 2011 12:48 Golgotha wrote: Lets face it, as it stands now, if all the Koreans from the GSL came over they would dominate the NA scene, and only a few foreigners like IdrA and Naniwa would stand a chance (I am just naming a few). But I see no reason at all to be "afraid" or worry about the fierce competition the Koreans bring.
And, do you know why?
Because, the only thing that is separating the Koreans from the rest of the world is their work ethic and intense motivation in what they do. MMA said it best, he says that the Koreans simply work harder and that is why there is a gap.
So I ask you, is having work ethic something only a Korean can do? Are they genetically blessed with work ethic? No and no! ANYONE can have a strong work ethic just like the Koreans do. Anyone can choose to practice like the Koreans do. We are just waiting for that person to come along. On the other hand we have NA players who do not take the game as seriously or are too busy doing other things to have enough practice time. Take for example Idra (I love IdrA but I have to say this), he pretty much flat out said that he doesn't need to practice as much to stay good and currently he trains 3 hours a day.....against other NA players that might work but he is falling behind the 8+ hour Koreans.
Thus, it is in my humble opinion that the NA scene should constantly invite and play against the Koreans and compete against them because they are the standard in which SC2 must be looked upon for it to grow. 1st, 2nd, 3rd Korean place finishes look bad but like any loss, there is so much to learn from this defeat. It shows us that the NA scene has much to learn and has to grow, it keeps us on our toes and makes us hungry to get better and improve.
IdrA and Inc said that they do not want MLG to be overrun by Koreans......IMO the Koreans SHOULD overrun the tournament so people realize that changes must be made if we want to compete.
great article. i really hope the sponsorship for non korean teams can increase to the point where theres no such things as good teams without a team house as i think thats by far the #1 stepping stone to foreigners being able to be contenders for best players on earth.
the problem with practising 10 hours a day in america is that its incredibly unlikely you can get 10 hrs of low latency games vs top10 grandmaster level people. idra was saying after coming back from from korea hes down to 3 hours/day of practise, to be honest thats probably how much TOP quality, low lag practise he can get per day. the rest is just playing for fun, which he can do or not do on each individual day as he sees fit. in a team house with atleast 2 of each race, ideally 3 there should be a solid 8 hours of good practise available to you per day. this sort of training could absolutely elevate mediocre na grandmasters to international pros in a way i dont see ANYTHING else making possible.
also i thought the part about console taking over pc in pro gaming was pretty funny, games played with a controller cant be as skillful as mouse+keyboard. i cant imagine a world where esports was played entirely on controllers (fighting games seem like the only reasonable type to play on a console).
On June 08 2011 15:57 Xpace wrote: Wonder what would happen if the Korean Brood War players transition. Seems to be an issue rarely mentioned whenever a shiny article comparing the progress of foreigners to Koreans is published.
You must have missed this article (and the ensuing 'discussion' that followed)
I actually remember reading that article, but I missed the 'discussion'. I totally agree with Hot_Bid's quote.
On June 08 2011 23:00 Alver wrote: also i thought the part about console taking over pc in pro gaming was pretty funny, games played with a controller cant be as skillful as mouse+keyboard. i cant imagine a world where esports was played entirely on controllers (fighting games seem like the only reasonable type to play on a console).
...and nobody plays a fighting game with a controller I totally agree, having played Quake for years, I can't take a controller FPS seriously. Thank god Starcraft II has saved us!
And a small comment to the OP: Naniwa and Thorzain are only "widely regarded" as the best foreigners because the community has the collective memory of a gold fish. Don't get me wrong, these two are amazing players, but nobody even knew who Thorzain was before TSL, and the guy has never shown anything of importance at a live event, expecting him to crush MLG at the drop of a hat is just silly. Otherwise, nice read, good job!
Good article, thanks for spolighting it. Hopefully foreigners will improve and show us some impressive games However please bear in mind that except for MC, these koreans are not exactly "the best". Koreans still have monsters like Nestea, MVP etc.
Don't mind optimism or points in the article, but every showing of Korea vs. Foreign Scene has just reinforced the idea that Koreans own white dudes. If the Koreans aren't losing in the early stages of SC2, where mechanics and practice theoretically matter less, the skill gap will only be increasing (without a change in the foreign scene). Sure, you can say that foreigners played close games with the Koreans, and could've won... but that's pretty meaningless compared to the results. In an RTS where you minimize mistakes, narrow win margins are to be expected.
Funny thing is, the SC2 Korean's training schedule isn't even as harsh as most of the top BW player's, but yet, the foreigners can't even keep up with that.
On June 08 2011 14:28 Davidxcom wrote: Even tough some people laughed at Incontrol's statement that EG won't allow Koreans to overrun the foreign scene I literally got shivers down my spine when I read it. It sure is a bold statement but imagine what some of the foreign players could become with a fierce passion/determination and a training regime that rivals the Koreans?
Take team EG for example. Aren't they one of the first non-Korean team to set up a team house? And where are they now? I'm not saying they're bad or anything. I like iNcontroL, but whenever he says stuff like "we're gonna start taking this seriously now" or "we're never gonna let that happen again", I have my doubts, because quite frankly, he's been saying things of that nature for about a year, but results really haven't been backing him up. I mean right now, I'm getting this feeling that EG, or even Liquid, is not that strong of a team that I thought it was a year ago.
What do you want him to say?
"We're going to try keep up with the Koreans but we'll fall short and probably end up crashing and burning". No that's not like Incontrol he devotes himself 100% to his task and I'm sure he's spreading that mentality around the EG team. If you want to beat the Koreans you need to believe you have it in you to beat them you can't constantly doubt yourself or you get an Idra - MC / MMA situation. Bad decision making comes into play because you end up contradicting yourself.
the thing is every foreign house you make, in europe or USA it will always be away from all tourneys. You build a house in SK and they are some subway stations away from GSL stadiums.. it's not really the same.
For instance the TLO&friends house in sweden only has dreamhack events there, all other they will have to travel! USA & europe are simply to huge.
The only thing comparable to the GSL is the EPS in germany, if all euro countrys had a ESL national championship with a valid prize pool it would in fact spawn training houses everywhere, But we don't have that, it's all online competitons or local events where you have to travel from far away countrys wich is always a big investment and time consuming. EPS gives away 3k to the winner every 1 or 2 months i believe.
In GSL you lose and a few hours later you are back in the training house grinding some more games. In MLG you are out and you will get back home a few days later.
But i hope the best players work a bit extra and together so that they improve overall. The thing is that all GSL players have all their games posted online and i still think people might not study them too much, people have to prepare more and train harder.
A guy that practices 6h against worse oposition should not win against someone that plays more then 10h a day against better players. Not to mention they have coaches..
But i hope "we" can keep up or atleast keep on winning some. I think also people should try and pickup korean players, in war3 we could do it. Fnatic, MYM, SK, 4K etc.. had korean players and the western scene could benefit from that.
I think it's beneficial to have some tournaments without koreans so that the western players win consistantly and get more motivation to improve and go professionaly!
On June 08 2011 14:28 Davidxcom wrote: Even tough some people laughed at Incontrol's statement that EG won't allow Koreans to overrun the foreign scene I literally got shivers down my spine when I read it. It sure is a bold statement but imagine what some of the foreign players could become with a fierce passion/determination and a training regime that rivals the Koreans?
Take team EG for example. Aren't they one of the first non-Korean team to set up a team house? And where are they now? I'm not saying they're bad or anything. I like iNcontroL, but whenever he says stuff like "we're gonna start taking this seriously now" or "we're never gonna let that happen again", I have my doubts, because quite frankly, he's been saying things of that nature for about a year, but results really haven't been backing him up. I mean right now, I'm getting this feeling that EG, or even Liquid, is not that strong of a team that I thought it was a year ago.
What do you want him to say?
"We're going to try keep up with the Koreans but we'll fall short and probably end up crashing and burning". No that's not like Incontrol he devotes himself 100% to his task and I'm sure he's spreading that mentality around the EG team. If you want to beat the Koreans you need to believe you have it in you to beat them you can't constantly doubt yourself or you get an Idra - MC / MMA situation. Bad decision making comes into play because you end up contradicting yourself.
Of course given his personality, iNcontroL will say whatever is in his mind, and thats perfectly fine. I'm just saying, if I were in that position, I would rather say nothing than saying something like that and not backing it up come MLG Anaheim.
On June 08 2011 12:28 deadjawa wrote: The reason Koreans are better at Starcraft is because they have put the “pro” into programmer – practicing typically 10 hours a day. MMA said it best himself -
Awesome article but it isn't "programmer" (that's something completely different ) but instead, it's progamer.
On June 08 2011 22:47 bittman wrote: Just wanted to say it was a great opening post. I've never cared for or watched any MLG competition before Colombus, and now I'm hyped for the next one.
Regarding Koreans owning white dudes: you do realise they sent - 1 x 2-time GSL champion 1 x GSTL Ace Killer son of Boxer 1 x Code A champion son of Nestea 1 x SC:BW god of war 1 x IEM Runner Up / Warcraft 3 pro
Sure, they didn't send the 4 GSL champions, but the Koreans gave an exceptionally strong showing. If NA had lost to TheBest + LegalMind + BitbyBit + Rain...well that wouldn't actually happen tbh. Anyway, point is that all 5 Korean players were scary strong, I do think foreigners have catching up to do, but I don't think it's a downer when you realise that it was really the best of the best Koreans they were up against.
And now think who they could've sent as well? - mvp 2x gsl winner - nestea 2x gsl winner - bomber code a winner - nada SC:BW Genius Terran - mkp 3x runner up GSL
And I'd say that lineup would have a similiar strength.
But what backup do the foreigners have? WhiteRa & Sen are really the only ones I can think of. Maybe I'm missing someone? I dont say that players like Idra are not on equal footing with the top tier Koreans. But there are way more top tier Koreans then top tier foreigners. And people need to remember "<foreigner> took a game of MC!" - well so did multiple lower tier Koreans (Alicia, Polt, ...). Taking a game of a top tier Korean doesnt make anyone top tier as well.
On June 09 2011 00:38 shell wrote: the thing is every foreign house you make, in europe or USA it will always be away from all tourneys. You build a house in SK and they are some subway stations away from GSL stadiums.. it's not really the same.
For instance the TLO&friends house in sweden only has dreamhack events there, all other they will have to travel! USA & europe are simply to huge.
The only thing comparable to the GSL is the EPS in germany, if all euro countrys had a ESL national championship with a valid prize pool it would in fact spawn training houses everywhere, But we don't have that, it's all online competitons or local events where you have to travel from far away countrys wich is always a big investment and time consuming. EPS gives away 3k to the winner every 1 or 2 months i believe.
In GSL you lose and a few hours later you are back in the training house grinding some more games. In MLG you are out and you will get back home a few days later.
But i hope the best players work a bit extra and together so that they improve overall. The thing is that all GSL players have all their games posted online and i still think people might not study them too much, people have to prepare more and train harder.
A guy that practices 6h against worse oposition should not win against someone that plays more then 10h a day against better players. Not to mention they have coaches..
But i hope "we" can keep up or atleast keep on winning some. I think also people should try and pickup korean players, in war3 we could do it. Fnatic, MYM, SK, 4K etc.. had korean players and the western scene could benefit from that.
I think it's beneficial to have some tournaments without koreans so that the western players win consistantly and get more motivation to improve and go professionaly!
it really doesnt matter where the team houses are as long as you get all your players to fill it, sponsors are allready paying alot for travel and i highly doubt travel costs are half as much of a concern is making sure their players can actually win tournaments. if anything right now id say travel costs are only prohibitive when it involves korea.
I hope koreans keep dominating and also have the chinese to come 2nd best after them.. I want them to establish the fact that no white people should be allowed to win a tournament without hardcore practicing.
On June 09 2011 00:38 shell wrote: the thing is every foreign house you make, in europe or USA it will always be away from all tourneys. You build a house in SK and they are some subway stations away from GSL stadiums.. it's not really the same.
For instance the TLO&friends house in sweden only has dreamhack events there, all other they will have to travel! USA & europe are simply to huge.
The only thing comparable to the GSL is the EPS in germany, if all euro countrys had a ESL national championship with a valid prize pool it would in fact spawn training houses everywhere, But we don't have that, it's all online competitons or local events where you have to travel from far away countrys wich is always a big investment and time consuming. EPS gives away 3k to the winner every 1 or 2 months i believe.
In GSL you lose and a few hours later you are back in the training house grinding some more games. In MLG you are out and you will get back home a few days later.
But i hope the best players work a bit extra and together so that they improve overall. The thing is that all GSL players have all their games posted online and i still think people might not study them too much, people have to prepare more and train harder.
A guy that practices 6h against worse oposition should not win against someone that plays more then 10h a day against better players. Not to mention they have coaches..
But i hope "we" can keep up or atleast keep on winning some. I think also people should try and pickup korean players, in war3 we could do it. Fnatic, MYM, SK, 4K etc.. had korean players and the western scene could benefit from that.
I think it's beneficial to have some tournaments without koreans so that the western players win consistantly and get more motivation to improve and go professionaly!
it really doesnt matter where the team houses are as long as you get all your players to fill it, sponsors are allready paying alot for travel and i highly doubt travel costs are half as much of a concern is making sure their players can actually win tournaments. if anything right now id say travel costs are only prohibitive when it involves korea.
Traveling to collumbus from europe will cost you the same then to travel to SK and i bet the living costs in the USA are much higher then in SK and it's almost the same amount of hours, so jetlag will also happen!
My point is teamhouses will never be so productive in europe/states then in SK because they have a concentration of everything starcraft related in a city and in europe we have 40 countrys and in USA 50 states.. not the same and it will never be!
But team houses are clearly the way to go and improve by a ton, but 5/6 SC2 buddys living together is no the same has 12 progamers with a coach, manager, rules, maid etc.. They have strick shedules and training plans and we have friends living together!
Even if it's not the same kind of practice it's still much better then practice alone in your house and it's a step in the right direction
On June 08 2011 22:47 bittman wrote: Just wanted to say it was a great opening post. I've never cared for or watched any MLG competition before Colombus, and now I'm hyped for the next one.
Regarding Koreans owning white dudes: you do realise they sent - 1 x 2-time GSL champion 1 x GSTL Ace Killer son of Boxer 1 x Code A champion son of Nestea 1 x SC:BW god of war 1 x IEM Runner Up / Warcraft 3 pro
Sure, they didn't send the 4 GSL champions, but the Koreans gave an exceptionally strong showing. If NA had lost to TheBest + LegalMind + BitbyBit + Rain...well that wouldn't actually happen tbh. Anyway, point is that all 5 Korean players were scary strong, I do think foreigners have catching up to do, but I don't think it's a downer when you realise that it was really the best of the best Koreans they were up against.
I don't get this argument. What did you expect? lets send the "bad" koreans just so can foreigners proof they can actually win against A korean? Of course they send the good players (arguable not even the best) but wasn't it the same with the foreigners?
Another issue consider is the separate servers. With foreigners only laddering vs foreigners, and koreans laddering vs koreans, how can foreigners realistically catch up when they always play against "inferior" competition, except in tournaments? It's hard to improve that much when your practice games in whatever team house (stockholme, root's house, whatever) aren't as challenging in the first place; laddering on the korean servers is the first thing that comes to mind but then you have to take lag into account...
Just a comment about your facts. Naniwa "not detecting" the DT shrine was not why he lost. If you watch the replay, you'll actually notice that Naniwa's stalkers were standing right next to the DT shrine while his zealots were dancing. There was some kind of glitch from the observer view. Naniwa proceeded to throw down a forge immediately after he saw the shrine.
Still feel many foreigners seem unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to really make it as a progamer.
As much respect as I have for BW progamers for example I would never want to live that lifestyle myself, regardless of how much money and fame it gave me.
Its that easy: The koreans just practice a lot more, more efficient and harder. For Foreigners SC2 is a hobby and for koreans its their fulltime job. Look at the SlayerS Team, there must be a reason why they're winning everything. Looks like they just have a really great practice-environment.
On June 08 2011 22:47 bittman wrote: Just wanted to say it was a great opening post. I've never cared for or watched any MLG competition before Colombus, and now I'm hyped for the next one.
Regarding Koreans owning white dudes: you do realise they sent - 1 x 2-time GSL champion 1 x GSTL Ace Killer son of Boxer 1 x Code A champion son of Nestea 1 x SC:BW god of war 1 x IEM Runner Up / Warcraft 3 pro
Sure, they didn't send the 4 GSL champions, but the Koreans gave an exceptionally strong showing. If NA had lost to TheBest + LegalMind + BitbyBit + Rain...well that wouldn't actually happen tbh. Anyway, point is that all 5 Korean players were scary strong, I do think foreigners have catching up to do, but I don't think it's a downer when you realise that it was really the best of the best Koreans they were up against.
I don't get this argument. What did you expect? lets send the "bad" koreans just so can foreigners proof they can actually win against A korean? Of course they send the good players (arguable not even the best) but wasn't it the same with the foreigners?
His point was that it's not the entire Korean scene that's ahead of NA/EU scene, but just their top 8/16. The other thing to consider is that the Koreans who went played exceptionally well by their standards as well and had good luck with the brackets. MMA played better than he ever has in GSL, Losira managed to dodge ZvT except for Major and MMA, MC is a 2-time GSL champ, looked mortal the whole event, and would have lost in loser's bracket to Thorzain if extended series didn't exist.
There were quite a few notable players that were missing like Socke, White Ra, Dimaga, Sen. Also, a few top-tier NA players had uncharacteristic play like Idra on day 3, Select, and Kiwikaki.
I'm not taking anything away from the Koreans here. They brought their A-games to Columbus and did extremely well. But to point to these results and say "NA/EU players can't keep up with the Koreans" is silly. I watched a lot of games this weekend and I never thought "the level of play is behind Code S and A."
I'm curious, do the top western teams (Dignitas, Mouz, Liquid, ect) have coaches or is it just the players helping each other out? If not, I think they should really look into hiring one. Every player could use a different perspective on their gameplay/strategies and a coach can provide that. They can also help players formulate new strategies or they could be that rock that keeps the players grounded. Think about it, can you imagine the Lakers winning those championships without Phil Jackson? Why do we expect our guys to play at the highest level possible when they lack the same tools as the korean players?
If mlg didn't have the stupid rule that map wins carry from group to brackets thorzain would have won MC.
Of the first 3 maps played on sunday 2 were won by thorzain and 1 by MC.
So in my eyes thorzain >>> MC
on the group match MC had jetlag , thorzain had jetlag and was burned out from openbracket, so 1 vs 2, it was obvious mc would win before the match even started.
On sunday both were fresh and on their game, so i think guys coming from open bracket shouldn't have that rule applied to them, in fact remove that rule entirely, its an incredibly stupid rule no other league uses for obvious reasons.
Point 2.
Idra after that early gg against mma, just lost confidence in himself and when he loses in his head he can lose to the worst players, so if that he battled to the end... he would have been one map ahead and then god knows how things might have ended differently.
So imo rules, unfair seedings and some lack of confidence made koreans look better then they should.
I mean what have koreans done in the TSL ? Where they weren't given privileged seedings, imo all koreans should have went through the open bracket and proven themselves like thorzain, july and morrow did.
As far as i know there still isn't a good fair tournament where the best koreans and foreigners have been put to the test towards each other.
TSL had unfair pings toward koreans only legit match between korean and foreigner was mc vs thorzain , both were at europe playing in a european server.
MLG had bad rules and koreans were treated like kings giving them privileged seedings instead of working to earn them like everyone else did, through the open brackets, the best placing a korean had that went through the open bracket was july, go look up how well he did.
In the GSL WC the best foreigners weren't there period and still in the team league they(koreans) ONLY won by 1 map.
etc etc
So there still isn't a way to know how far the gap is, if there is even a gap.
If mlg didn't have the stupid rule that map wins carry from group to brackets thorzain would have won MC.
Of the first 3 maps played on sunday 2 were won by thorzain and 1 by MC.
So in my eyes thorzain >>> MC
on the group match MC had jetlag , thorzain had jetlag and was burned out from openbracket, so 1 vs 2, it was obvious mc would win before the match even started.
On sunday both were fresh and on their game, so i think guys coming from open bracket shouldn't have that rule applied to them, in fact remove that rule entirely, its an incredibly stupid rule no other league uses for obvious reasons.
Point 2.
Idra after that early gg against mma, just lost confidence in himself and when he loses in his head he can lose to the worst players, so if that he battled to the end... he would have been one map ahead and then god knows how things might have ended differently.
So imo rules, unfair seedings and some lack of confidence made koreans look better then they should.
I mean what have koreans done in the TSL ? Where they weren't given privileged seedings, imo all koreans should have went through the open bracket and proven themselves like thorzain, july and morrow did.
As far as i know there still isn't a good fair tournament where the best koreans and foreigners have been put to the test towards each other.
TSL had unfair pings toward koreans only legit match between korean and foreigner was mc vs thorzain , both were at europe playing in a european server.
MLG had bad rules and koreans were treated like kings giving them privileged seedings instead of working to earn them like everyone else did, through the open brackets, the best placing a korean had that went through the open bracket was july, go look up how well he did.
In the GSL WC the best foreigners weren't there period and still in the team league they(koreans) ONLY won by 1 map.
etc etc
So there still isn't a way to know how far the gap is, if there is even a gap.
So I think you forgot to mention the other 16 foreigners that were seeded. What about them? Weren't they treated like kings? Where were they in the top 3? And your Thorzain argument is total BS. Why was July still able to go 4-1 in his group after jetlag and going through the open bracket. Way to downplay someone's achievements
If anything I think "foreigners" had a good showing at MLG even if I had hoped that there would only be 1 korean player in the finals. I'm not surprised though, its obvious that while the Korean scene has fewer players overall they do have the opportunity to give it their all - and they take it.
Look at most of the up and coming players in the western scene. They still have normal jobs on the side because there is no other way to put food on the table. If we had established pro houses in the west I feel like things would be different. The Stockholm house with HayprO, Sjow, TLO, Bischu and MorroW is a good start but thats still just a bunch of players banding together and largely paying the rent out of their own pocket. For things to change we need organizations that take the next step: Provide players with free housing, food and pocket change so that they can focus on what they do best, play and improve at the game. In some way I think the west lacks coaches more than it lacks players.
In short, if anything I think that the matches we saw during MLG showed that the difference between Korea and the rest of the world is smaller than what we might have expected. If Idra had not quit early and Naniwa had scouted the Dark Templars earlier or if MLG had finally removed the extended series - would we even be having a discussion framed in this way? Would it have been turned on its head with people proclaiming that White dudes own Koreans?
No matter what happens I am definately looking forward to the next MLG and Dreamhack in particular.
Great read. Interesting point with the PC and consoles being connected. Is the PC really dying? People have been saying it for some time but I don't think PC will ever die. It simply has more options in terms of versatility and power capabilities. I guess most people just want something simple and more affordable.
On another note, I'm very excited to see e-sports grow. The crowd at MLG made the event so much more exciting. I sincerely hope the Americans step up their game (Idra's early quitting), or that some miracle player emerges.
On June 09 2011 03:32 Wihl wrote: If anything I think "foreigners" had a good showing at MLG even if I had hoped that there would only be 1 korean player in the finals. I'm not surprised though, its obvious that while the Korean scene has fewer players overall they do have the opportunity to give it their all - and they take it.
Look at most of the up and coming players in the western scene. They still have normal jobs on the side because there is no other way to put food on the table. If we had established pro houses in the west I feel like things would be different. The Stockholm house with HayprO, Sjow, TLO, Bischu and MorroW is a good start but thats still just a bunch of players banding together and largely paying the rent out of their own pocket. For things to change we need organizations that take the next step: Provide players with free housing, food and pocket change so that they can focus on what they do best, play and improve at the game. In some way I think the west lacks coaches more than it lacks players.
In short, if anything I think that the matches we saw during MLG showed that the difference between Korea and the rest of the world is smaller than what we might have expected. If Idra had not quit early and Naniwa had scouted the Dark Templars earlier or if MLG had finally removed the extended series - would we even be having a discussion framed in this way? Would it have been turned on its head with people proclaiming that White dudes own Koreans?
No matter what happens I am definately looking forward to the next MLG and Dreamhack in particular.
Read my post on this page about Naniwa, he scouted the DT shrine like one second after his zealots started dancing.
Unless you're talking about him actually scouting it like way earlier which is like saying "if only that player scouted banshees he would've won." But I don't think that's what you were trying to say
Up and coming players have side jobs because they're not willing to take the risk that Koreans took and made progaming their career.
It seems unfair to broadly compare Koreans to Foreigners based on this tournament.
Anybody notice that MC, MMA and Losira are all REALLY freaking good? It's not just 3 random Korean players.
To me, it isn't a matter of "Koreans practice 10 hours/day and foreigners don't and that is why they are better". It is a matter of "there are a far higher total number of Koreans practicing in team houses than the total number of foreigners practicing in team houses". To me, that is what it is all about. You just can't get to that top top level without lots of interaction between other very very good players on a very regular basis.
In my mind, the primary reasons Koreans generally have done better at these international events overall, is that there is a much larger "pool" of players who are currently practicing in a team house, or who have lots of experience being in a BW pro house.
I don't see any other differences besides there just being far more Korean players who get the opportunity to be in an environment surrounded by teammates that fosters the best learning and skill improvement.
I have a hard time believing many of these posts that say so many foreigners practice so sparingly. I'd love to know the actual, accurate numbers. I don't think it is about total practice time. I think it is about how many Koreans have the opportunity to play and practice with teammates, in person, on a constant basis. There is a huge amount of Koreans who get that opportunity compared to foreigners and this is why they are able to improve faster than we can.
When you look at the amount of foreigners who have had a good amount of time in a team house, a good percentage of them(compared to how many Koreans are in team houses) have had solid GSL success.
great post! its true too! we can do it and we are starting to show it!
I hope to see FXO representing in the gstl, as weak as some of their players may be comparatively, there is no doubt that the environment will be beneficial to them. This is going to be a big season in in gsl/gstl with the three placements in code A all the people trying out in the open brackets and huk and jinro still fighting. not to mention a foreign team in the gstl.
The more we merge the more we will be able to keep up. Hopefully we can learn their habits and training methods and improve ourselves accordingly.
On June 08 2011 12:48 Golgotha wrote: But I see no reason at all to be "afraid" or worry about the fierce competition the Koreans bring.
I would have some hesitations and I think a lot the people involved should too.
If Koreans start to dominate NA tournaments, and EU ones for that matter, I suspect you will see a drop in the viewers from those regions. As much as people enjoy seeing a really good player, they relate a lot more to the western players. And if those players start consistently getting stuck outside the top 10, a lot of the casual vievers will be lost. And when viewers leave, so does sponsors.
There is only a small overlap between determining who is the best in the world and getting as good as them - and developing the scene. Of that I am afraid and worried. Not of the Koreans.
Thats not to say that there should be a complete regional separation. But if I were involved in the decisions on how to coorporate with the Korean scene, I would hold back a little on the "WE NEED MOAR KOREANS!!".
People would tire of football AND Barcelona if they participated and dominated in every tournament there is.
On June 09 2011 03:09 rareh wrote: If mlg didn't have the stupid rule that map wins carry from group to brackets thorzain would have won MC.
As much as I think the extended series is the brainfart of a simple mind, thats not a completely valid conclusion.
Because MCs play would, perhaps, be influenced by the fact that he COULD afford to lose those games. Its not logically sound to conclude that given a 0-0 start to that series that it would have gone 2-1 for ThorZaIN. The mindset for both players would have been different. But I think he _could_ have done it. Winning 4-1 or better - not so much.
wow, i don't know what to say but that was a very analytical article and what you said at teh end was very true- unless you compete with the best- you will be left behind.
Please google the words, OP (How do you typo in separate places in one word anyway?). This has been pointed out for several pages already yet it's still not fixed.
"Artosis has gone on record saying that he does not believe E-Sports will ever be as big in NA as it is in Korea."
I think what Artosis said was that esports will never become as socially accepted in NA as it is in Korea. There are other ways to compare how "big" esports are, such as revenue and viewership numbers which he was not referring to.
I also have yet to see all these reports about the death of competitive gaming on the PC. The vast majority of all esports tournaments are for PC games.
On June 09 2011 02:28 Popss wrote: Still feel many foreigners seem unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to really make it as a progamer.
As much respect as I have for BW progamers for example I would never want to live that lifestyle myself, regardless of how much money and fame it gave me.
Yep. It's not an issue of skill. It's an issue of attitude. Too many people don't think of their gaming career as a job it seems (to me at least). I would never want to do that, because I have an education, want a respectable salary and honestly I don't enjoy gaming enough to play it non-stop.
But if you want to be a progamer, they are a few things people need to learn that too many of them don't seem to understand : It's still a job. I know being a pro gamer doesn't usually attract the greatest minds in the world, but I would think they are still intelligent enough to understand what they are getting into. If you want to be successful, you need to put effort into it, like anything else. Even McDonalds will fire you if you are a useless fuck that only shows up half the time. Think of practice the same way.
I know a lot of gamers make their money from things other than tournaments, and a few are semi-successful (I'm not sure how much say IdrA or incontrol make but maybe 40-50k a year sounds realistic; could be way off but the point is that there aren't many succesful people involved in the foreign scene, and most of them aren't players) but a lot of them aren't even making minimum wage. Yet they still seemingly don't take anything seriously. I feel a lot of people are attracted to the idea of becoming a pro gamer because they have little to no ambitions and feel it's an easy way to make some cash while playing a game without needing a huge effort (not everyone, but too many of them in my eyes). We can see the result clearly in this difference in attitude vs the korean scene.
I can respect someone that truly wants to be a pro gamer and gives it his all, even if he doesn't succeed. However, I can't respect someone that does nothing with their life, plays the game they call their job 20-25 hours a week half-seriously and then go to tournaments to party, yet bitch when serious players are invited and take the winnings. Did you see any of the Koreans fucking around at MLG? I'm not saying "no fun and games allowed", but they all seemed to have a great time despite taking the tournament very seriously.
To me, it feels like a lot of players take tournaments as a party instead of a tournament because they get to meet up with their online friends. People may not agree, but tournaments are THE time to cut everything else and focus 100% on the game. You'll have time when you're eliminated or after you've won to socialize. It is not the time to get drunk after day1 or day2 when you still have matches the next day or stealing some dude's slutty girlfriend (lol), then showing up late or at the last second to your match.
They have the rest of the year to do whatever they want. Practicing 8-10 hours a day still allows for a social life with no problems. It's actually less time dedication than a 9-5 job in theory because of no travel time and no 1 hour lunch break, plus you can break up your day however you want... and not everyone practices that much. There is no set amount of practice time needed to be successful, but I think it's safe to say more than 8-10 hours a day is not going to help much because you will start to become mentally exhausted if you do it on a daily basis.
An after party is one thing and fine, but during the event, focus. Overall, MLG Columbus was very fun to watch but it is not because of the foreign scene unfortunately. And I DO want the foreigners to win (well, most of them), but I also want entertaining matches and people that don't take their job seriously, unfortunately, don't bring a good product to the table.
Sorry for that little rant but it's been bugging me for a while. The foreign scene will only grow when the players become more mature. As it is, you can't expect any massive improvements. The people that do show ambition in what they do (Incontrol, IdrA, koreans in general, etc etc) are the only ones that will be successful
Some players have taken steps to improve recently (team sixjax for example has improved a lot recently with Artosis' advice IMO and I expect a lot from them; the team house in sweden, the EG house, etc). On the other hand, they are the minority. The majority of pro gamers outside of korea don't have the ambition needed, from what I've seen. That is not to say all korean pros are amazing people. They have their fair share of people that just don't want to do anything with their lives so they chose pro gamer as an "easy" route because it sounded fun as well.
If we want a scene comparable to korea, we need the majority to take it seriously.
(TLDR : I know this is generalizing but overall I don't feel I've said anything too far out there; Players need to approach pro gaming as a job if they want to be successful. Too many people don't, and they would probably be fired from McDonalds if they showed the same work ethic there).
Nice article, very pleasent to read. I agree with all of it, just a little remark on the following:
On June 08 2011 12:28 deadjawa wrote:In order to develop similar institutions in North America a sustainable tournament circuit needs to be developed.
I just wanted to remind people, that, in the very beginnings of starcraft 2, during the beta before the game was even officially released, great people, whose dedication for the game as a sport far surpasses even my imagination, took on a debt just to persue their dreams of forming a successful starcraft 2 team and helping starcraft 2 to break through as a competitive sport.
Now, I am not that long into starcraft that I know how the beginnings of Broodwar were, but I can vaguely recall somebody saying that players banded together and, without any financial support, decided to jump and trained hard to become good at this game (which was not known as a full-fledged sport back then).
On the non-Korean side, I hear things like:
- not going to Code A, too hard a competition, too little money, passing on easier money in western tournaments
- excluding or at least heavily limiting Korean numbers in non-Korean tournaments (IGN Proleague, Taiwanese League being the most prominent examples)
- switching teams because you think that, because you put time into the game, you should be rewarded financially despite having no results yet (sixjaxMajor)
- quitting games in leagues just because you have no chance, worse, even making your opponent on the other side of the world wait all night (Painuser)
Now, not all players are thinking like that, and I have been selfish more than enough times, that I won't judge players who think like that. But what I want to say is: Do not think it is unfair that Korea has the better practice enviroment for gamers, they earned it!
I find interesting that Idra is considered a "foreigner". He spend a large part of his professional career in Korea. I would expect that this will have shaped his play and especially his training habits quite a bit. I don't mean this negative in any way. It just further shows in my opinion that the problem is not "genetic" but mainly related to training.
I love this writeup, excellent points made all the way through.
MLG Columbus was a fantastic event, BECAUSE there were top talent from all across the world present. The koreans are still very strong, that is exactly why their participation is so important for foreign competitions.
I just wanted to add that while I do believe Koreans are above the rest, it also just happened that MC had the chance to go against Thorzain, Naniwa and Idra to knock them out, and of course MC is considered by many to be the best player in the world.
Of course we got to see matches like IdrA vs MMA and Naniwa vs Moon in the brackets, but the point I am getting at is the brackets seemed to have quite a big impact on the results. Thorzain didn't get to go against any other Koreans other than MC (correct me if I'm wrong) and Moon, July and MC were all in a row.
So yes, the Koreans were each knocked out by other Koreans, but I think we didn't get the opportunity to see how a player like Naniwa would stack up against Losira or how Thorzain would do against MMA. Once again, I do feel Koreans are clearly the stronger competitors, but I am simply bringing up that the brackets played a large role in the results, such as many strong foreigners getting knocked out, and Koreans knocking each other out.
nice article with some good points. Maybe esports will get as big in NA as in korea, though it still has some ways to go. Indeed the future is looking bright though.
On June 09 2011 03:16 awu25 wrote: So I think you forgot to mention the other 16 foreigners that were seeded. What about them? Weren't they treated like kings? Where were they in the top 3? And your Thorzain argument is total BS. Why was July still able to go 4-1 in his group after jetlag and going through the open bracket. Way to downplay someone's achievements
The foreigners earned their place by playing in the openbracket in previous mlgs. July was eliminated in the same place in the bracket as thorzain . Remember koreans prac 24/7 so they cope with being burned out better.
On sunday thorzain won more sets, yet on previous days july did, in fact july didn't win a single map on sunday, that alone says everything, besides thorzain got eliminated in a extended series in which he had a disadvantage(if this were a normal best of 3 like all the non-extended games, thorzain would have passed, because he won 2 of the first 3 maps played), july got eliminated in a normal bo3 where both were playing in equal grounds, so the situations were different.
I take nothing from july he was a great bw and is a great sc2 player and i respect him, he did it the right way, went through openbracket and got where he got.
MC, mma, losira and moon, got a place in pools they didn't work for, who knows how it would go if thorzain, morrow or other players went directly into the pools.
Fact is the only korean that played fair(went through openbracket) didn't reach that far, imagine if all koreans went through the openbracket like everyone has to at some point, to get a good seeding instead of having a unfair advantage.
I have nothing against the koreans, but i think everyone should work to deserve something. People have to work to qualify for the gsl and same should be for mlg pools.
On June 09 2011 06:18 Chicane wrote: I just wanted to add that while I do believe Koreans are above the rest, it also just happened that MC had the chance to go against Thorzain, Naniwa and Idra to knock them out, and of course MC is considered by many to be the best player in the world.
Of course we got to see matches like IdrA vs MMA and Naniwa vs Moon in the brackets, but the point I am getting at is the brackets seemed to have quite a big impact on the results. Thorzain didn't get to go against any other Koreans other than MC (correct me if I'm wrong) and Moon, July and MC were all in a row.
So yes, the Koreans were each knocked out by other Koreans, but I think we didn't get the opportunity to see how a player like Naniwa would stack up against Losira or how Thorzain would do against MMA. Once again, I do feel Koreans are clearly the stronger competitors, but I am simply bringing up that the brackets played a large role in the results, such as many strong foreigners getting knocked out, and Koreans knocking each other out.
On June 09 2011 06:18 Chicane wrote: I just wanted to add that while I do believe Koreans are above the rest, it also just happened that MC had the chance to go against Thorzain, Naniwa and Idra to knock them out, and of course MC is considered by many to be the best player in the world.
Of course we got to see matches like IdrA vs MMA and Naniwa vs Moon in the brackets, but the point I am getting at is the brackets seemed to have quite a big impact on the results. Thorzain didn't get to go against any other Koreans other than MC (correct me if I'm wrong) and Moon, July and MC were all in a row.
So yes, the Koreans were each knocked out by other Koreans, but I think we didn't get the opportunity to see how a player like Naniwa would stack up against Losira or how Thorzain would do against MMA. Once again, I do feel Koreans are clearly the stronger competitors, but I am simply bringing up that the brackets played a large role in the results, such as many strong foreigners getting knocked out, and Koreans knocking each other out.
Naniwa lost 2-0 to Losira. It was commentated.
And it wasn't much of a fight. Naniwa got beat pretty decisively.
On June 09 2011 03:16 awu25 wrote: So I think you forgot to mention the other 16 foreigners that were seeded. What about them? Weren't they treated like kings? Where were they in the top 3? And your Thorzain argument is total BS. Why was July still able to go 4-1 in his group after jetlag and going through the open bracket. Way to downplay someone's achievements
The foreigners earned their place by playing in the openbracket in previous mlgs. July was eliminated in the same place in the bracket as thorzain . Remember koreans prac 24/7 so they cope with being burned out better.
On sunday thorzain won more sets, yet on previous days july did, in fact july didn't win a single map on sunday, that alone says everything, besides thorzain got eliminated in a extended series in which he had a disadvantage(if this were a normal best of 3 like all the non-extended games, thorzain would have passed, because he won 2 of the first 3 maps played), july got eliminated in a normal bo3 where both were playing in equal grounds, so the situations were different.
I take nothing from july he was a great bw and is a great sc2 player and i respect him, he did it the right way, went through openbracket and got where he got.
MC, mma, losira and moon, got a place in pools they didn't work for, who knows how it would go if thorzain, morrow or other players went directly into the pools.
Fact is the only korean that played fair(went through openbracket) didn't reach that far, imagine if all koreans went through the openbracket like everyone has to at some point, to get a good seeding instead of having a unfair advantage.
I have nothing against the koreans, but i think everyone should work to deserve something. People have to work to qualify for the gsl and same should be for mlg pools.
That was the deal between MLG, good performing GSL players go to MLG and get a high seed and good performing MLG players go to the GSL and get a high seed, so there's nothing unfair about it. Besides, I think that the Koreans who went to the MLG worked hard enough (not just around 3 hours a day like Idra, gosh I hope he can catch himself, good thing that he is so ridiculously talented), don't you think so too?
On June 09 2011 03:16 awu25 wrote: So I think you forgot to mention the other 16 foreigners that were seeded. What about them? Weren't they treated like kings? Where were they in the top 3? And your Thorzain argument is total BS. Why was July still able to go 4-1 in his group after jetlag and going through the open bracket. Way to downplay someone's achievements
The foreigners earned their place by playing in the openbracket in previous mlgs. July was eliminated in the same place in the bracket as thorzain . Remember koreans prac 24/7 so they cope with being burned out better.
On sunday thorzain won more sets, yet on previous days july did, in fact july didn't win a single map on sunday, that alone says everything, besides thorzain got eliminated in a extended series in which he had a disadvantage(if this were a normal best of 3 like all the non-extended games, thorzain would have passed, because he won 2 of the first 3 maps played), july got eliminated in a normal bo3 where both were playing in equal grounds, so the situations were different.
I take nothing from july he was a great bw and is a great sc2 player and i respect him, he did it the right way, went through openbracket and got where he got.
MC, mma, losira and moon, got a place in pools they didn't work for, who knows how it would go if thorzain, morrow or other players went directly into the pools.
Fact is the only korean that played fair(went through openbracket) didn't reach that far, imagine if all koreans went through the openbracket like everyone has to at some point, to get a good seeding instead of having a unfair advantage.
I have nothing against the koreans, but i think everyone should work to deserve something. People have to work to qualify for the gsl and same should be for mlg pools.
Not to take anything away from Thorz who I love, and I can't say this for sure, but I'm positive that the series extension changed how both players approached the MU. Not mentally necessarily, but at least strategically.
First, MLG deserves so much credit for putting on the most impressive SC2 spectacle that we've had to date. It was electric! This single event has stoked if not resurrected the optimism about just how just how huge SC2 could get in NA and EU.
Secondly, a huge thanks to the South Korean pros. They were a prerequisite to the drama and energy at Columbus.
Third, I think the foreign scene has proven that they have the players who can compete right at the top and have the potential to win it all.
Columbus was so impressive that support for the pro-scene is bound to get a big boost. Foreign pro-players will get the funding they need to train as hard as they want. Then everything is just going to explode!
The key is whether they can sustain the growth of SC2 and turn the e-sports into a revenue generating business. In order to accomplish this, one can not only look at the SC2, but also have to encompass other popular online games.
On June 09 2011 03:16 awu25 wrote: So I think you forgot to mention the other 16 foreigners that were seeded. What about them? Weren't they treated like kings? Where were they in the top 3? And your Thorzain argument is total BS. Why was July still able to go 4-1 in his group after jetlag and going through the open bracket. Way to downplay someone's achievements
The foreigners earned their place by playing in the openbracket in previous mlgs. July was eliminated in the same place in the bracket as thorzain . Remember koreans prac 24/7 so they cope with being burned out better.
On sunday thorzain won more sets, yet on previous days july did, in fact july didn't win a single map on sunday, that alone says everything, besides thorzain got eliminated in a extended series in which he had a disadvantage(if this were a normal best of 3 like all the non-extended games, thorzain would have passed, because he won 2 of the first 3 maps played), july got eliminated in a normal bo3 where both were playing in equal grounds, so the situations were different.
I take nothing from july he was a great bw and is a great sc2 player and i respect him, he did it the right way, went through openbracket and got where he got.
MC, mma, losira and moon, got a place in pools they didn't work for, who knows how it would go if thorzain, morrow or other players went directly into the pools.
Fact is the only korean that played fair(went through openbracket) didn't reach that far, imagine if all koreans went through the openbracket like everyone has to at some point, to get a good seeding instead of having a unfair advantage.
I have nothing against the koreans, but i think everyone should work to deserve something. People have to work to qualify for the gsl and same should be for mlg pools.
Clearly you've put zero thought into this. If you want to turn to Championship Bracket into a boring preliminary until the Koreans turn up, then put the Koreans in the open bracket.
If you don't want a single non-Korean to ever make it out of the open bracket again (and thus kill it for everyone) then yeah, put the Koreans in the open bracket.
IMO the first really good test of what effect the training environment has on foreigners will be when FXO goes to korea for the GSTL. We know that individual players results have been less than stellar recently, and we also know that some players such as QXC have had minimal practice alongside that.
So I will be very interested to see the improvement that comes out of this team from living in korea and training together with a united purpose. As someone with coaching experience in real life sport, I know that just practice for the sake of practice is both hard from a motivational perspective, and yields inferior results than practicing with particular goals in mind.
I don't think anyone out there is really expecting to see FXO light it up straight away on the GSTL stage, but I think we may see some great relative improvement over a short time.
On June 09 2011 08:31 emjaytron wrote: IMO the first really good test of what effect the training environment has on foreigners will be when FXO goes to korea for the GSTL. We know that individual players results have been less than stellar recently, and we also know that some players such as QXC have had minimal practice alongside that.
So I will be very interested to see the improvement that comes out of this team from living in korea and training together with a united purpose. As someone with coaching experience in real life sport, I know that just practice for the sake of practice is both hard from a motivational perspective, and yields inferior results than practicing with particular goals in mind.
I don't think anyone out there is really expecting to see FXO light it up straight away on the GSTL stage, but I think we may see some great relative improvement over a short time.
Does FOX have a coach? I think that is a role much missed by the western scene.
Excellent writeup and the positivity is well needed
A lot o it comes down to discipline in training and gameplay; dancing zealots and early gg's come to mind. MMA's quote is really telling and once foreigners decide that they want to take things seriously and start practicing over 10 hours a day and putting in the efort then we will have a real show on our hands.
Off topic:
The reason Koreans are better at Starcraft is because they have put the “pro” into programmer
I usually always read "proGAMER" as "proGRAMMER" but i think this time it actually says the latter lol mind tricks galore!
If mlg didn't have the stupid rule that map wins carry from group to brackets thorzain would have won MC.
Of the first 3 maps played on sunday 2 were won by thorzain and 1 by MC.
So in my eyes thorzain >>> MC
on the group match MC had jetlag , thorzain had jetlag and was burned out from openbracket, so 1 vs 2, it was obvious mc would win before the match even started.
On sunday both were fresh and on their game, so i think guys coming from open bracket shouldn't have that rule applied to them, in fact remove that rule entirely, its an incredibly stupid rule no other league uses for obvious reasons.
Point 2.
Idra after that early gg against mma, just lost confidence in himself and when he loses in his head he can lose to the worst players, so if that he battled to the end... he would have been one map ahead and then god knows how things might have ended differently.
So imo rules, unfair seedings and some lack of confidence made koreans look better then they should.
I mean what have koreans done in the TSL ? Where they weren't given privileged seedings, imo all koreans should have went through the open bracket and proven themselves like thorzain, july and morrow did.
As far as i know there still isn't a good fair tournament where the best koreans and foreigners have been put to the test towards each other.
TSL had unfair pings toward koreans only legit match between korean and foreigner was mc vs thorzain , both were at europe playing in a european server.
MLG had bad rules and koreans were treated like kings giving them privileged seedings instead of working to earn them like everyone else did, through the open brackets, the best placing a korean had that went through the open bracket was july, go look up how well he did.
In the GSL WC the best foreigners weren't there period and still in the team league they(koreans) ONLY won by 1 map.
etc etc
So there still isn't a way to know how far the gap is, if there is even a gap.
If there even is a gap?
hahaha you're in such denial.
What you fail to realize about your stupid excuse thorzain losing only because of the rule is, in a real money game where you know your opponent and it's not 1 game, there are mind games being played.
MC would have played differently I'm sure if he wasn't already up. You make those excuses for Thorzain (who btw I think is an excellent player) yet you won't give MC any credit for coming back to beat Idra 4-0. Ridiculous
You make so many excuses for the foreigners it's unbelievable. Idra losing had alot to do with his mental strength and that says alot about him as a player. And you're last point, Sen said he felt the Koreans could have won anytime they wanted and he felt they weren't even taking it that seriously.
And you say how July did? Yea really what about it, he dominated the open brackets and only lost to another Korean.
If mlg didn't have the stupid rule that map wins carry from group to brackets thorzain would have won MC.
Of the first 3 maps played on sunday 2 were won by thorzain and 1 by MC.
So in my eyes thorzain >>> MC
on the group match MC had jetlag , thorzain had jetlag and was burned out from openbracket, so 1 vs 2, it was obvious mc would win before the match even started.
On sunday both were fresh and on their game, so i think guys coming from open bracket shouldn't have that rule applied to them, in fact remove that rule entirely, its an incredibly stupid rule no other league uses for obvious reasons.
Point 2.
Idra after that early gg against mma, just lost confidence in himself and when he loses in his head he can lose to the worst players, so if that he battled to the end... he would have been one map ahead and then god knows how things might have ended differently.
So imo rules, unfair seedings and some lack of confidence made koreans look better then they should.
I mean what have koreans done in the TSL ? Where they weren't given privileged seedings, imo all koreans should have went through the open bracket and proven themselves like thorzain, july and morrow did.
As far as i know there still isn't a good fair tournament where the best koreans and foreigners have been put to the test towards each other.
TSL had unfair pings toward koreans only legit match between korean and foreigner was mc vs thorzain , both were at europe playing in a european server.
MLG had bad rules and koreans were treated like kings giving them privileged seedings instead of working to earn them like everyone else did, through the open brackets, the best placing a korean had that went through the open bracket was july, go look up how well he did.
In the GSL WC the best foreigners weren't there period and still in the team league they(koreans) ONLY won by 1 map.
etc etc
So there still isn't a way to know how far the gap is, if there is even a gap.
If there even is a gap?
hahaha you're in such denial.
What you fail to realize about your stupid excuse thorzain losing only because of the rule is, in a real money game where you know your opponent and it's not 1 game, there are mind games being played.
MC would have played differently I'm sure if he wasn't already up. You make those excuses for Thorzain (who btw I think is an excellent player) yet you won't give MC any credit for coming back to beat Idra 4-0. Ridiculous
You make so many excuses for the foreigners it's unbelievable. Idra losing had alot to do with his mental strength and that says alot about him as a player. And you're last point, Sen said he felt the Koreans could have won anytime they wanted and he felt they weren't even taking it that seriously.
And you say how July did? Yea really what about it, he dominated the open brackets and only lost to another Korean.
Yes , there is a gap...and there will continue to be if the Western Scene doesnt start matching up to Korea"s Work Ethics... I heard Incontrol say once that on his toughest of practice days he practices around 8-10 hours...Compare that to a Korean House where 10 Hours is a regular Routine. So yeah they"ll always have a gap in skill as long as they practice more.
I still think that talking about 'hours of practice' means nothing. I mean if you are just laddering for 10 hours a day, what to you learn? I doubt anyone really improves much, except in being exposed to a lot of builds and keeping up with mechanics.
In a sense you could say that 'practice' is just however much time you spend playing starcraft. 'Training' could be defined as playing with a purpose, to improve a targeted area or weakness. For example playing 10 or 20 of a matchup in a row, with someone observing and giving feedback, and watching the replays.
On June 09 2011 06:18 Chicane wrote: I just wanted to add that while I do believe Koreans are above the rest, it also just happened that MC had the chance to go against Thorzain, Naniwa and Idra to knock them out, and of course MC is considered by many to be the best player in the world.
Of course we got to see matches like IdrA vs MMA and Naniwa vs Moon in the brackets, but the point I am getting at is the brackets seemed to have quite a big impact on the results. Thorzain didn't get to go against any other Koreans other than MC (correct me if I'm wrong) and Moon, July and MC were all in a row.
So yes, the Koreans were each knocked out by other Koreans, but I think we didn't get the opportunity to see how a player like Naniwa would stack up against Losira or how Thorzain would do against MMA. Once again, I do feel Koreans are clearly the stronger competitors, but I am simply bringing up that the brackets played a large role in the results, such as many strong foreigners getting knocked out, and Koreans knocking each other out.
Naniwa lost 2-0 to Losira. It was commentated.
Hah whoops. A bit of a late response, but yes thanks for that comment, it slipped my mind even though I watched it... :-/ Regardless, that being the one exception, I think we still didn't get to see how close the foreigners really are.
I think it has been said already but just in case it hasn't... Some of the people here talking about what iNcontroL said about the Koreans taking over... He was talking from a purely spectator viewpoint that it would drastically reduce the amount of "fun" and interaction with the pro (in actual MLG pro status) players. The current SC2 pros in the foreign scene have never been "scared" of the Koreans. Competitive players love the competition, I thought that was common knowledge.
On June 09 2011 14:32 TheOne85 wrote: I think it has been said already but just in case it hasn't... Some of the people here talking about what iNcontroL said about the Koreans taking over... He was talking from a purely spectator viewpoint that it would drastically reduce the amount of "fun" and interaction with the pro (in actual MLG pro status) players. The current SC2 pros in the foreign scene have never been "scared" of the Koreans. Competitive players love the competition, I thought that was common knowledge.
Wasn't Incontrol the one who said in SotG that he doesn't like the move of seeding Koreans into the championship pool partially because it reduces the chances of the local players? Or Pokebunny trying to persuade everybody that Koreans should be completely excluded out of the NASL.
Awesome article, really good read and you had some great points in there. I don't know the full facts, but it seems like not many foreigners take it seriously even though they are sponsored and belong to big teams. I'm not going to name any names, but it is quite obvious when a pro just plays and doesn't have the dedication to play a lot and improve himself.
That's a sophisticated and elaborate view on the whole matter and I like it. I have nothing more to add. Great read and hopefully you will write some more articles like these in the near future.
I wonder how much benefit you get out of hour 9 and 10 when playing 10 hours of SC2 a day. Even if it is broken up into 2 or 3 sessions, it seems that at some point it becomes overkill.
Another thing I've been thinking about: With so many online tournaments, do players spend too much time competing and not enough training?
Thirdly, with streaming taking up a decent amount of a players time, do they actually get any skill benefit from playing while streaming? Do they actually get to practice "real" builds or is it just vanilla build after vanilla build.
This is so well written and presented. Thank you for taking the time and thought to put this together. Edit: Very surprised not to see the staff writer icon O.o <3 again for putting the effort into this write-up. Very enjoyable.
I myself am very far from a pro gamer (however, I am a programmer but that is probably besides the point) but I do watch a lot of streamed Starcraft and I do enjoy watching EU/NA pro players ripping noobs new ones on ladder. However, watching games from Columbus did give some perspective (in my mind at least). The fact that the top three was Korean and that Koreans where only eliminated by other Koreans I see as a clear reminder that the pro-scene is quite different over there compared to the foreign scene. I too have been somewhat concerned over that most foreigners are not doing so well in Code S/A. Even though it is interesting to see good games from foreign players beating other foreigners I think it is somewhat unfortunate for the foreign scene if there is a gap between Koreans and the rest of the world, for the viewers. All international tournaments should have both foreign and Korean players and in the long run it will be important that those games are close and that we can believe that our “local heroes” can meet with any other players and win. I’m not sure we can judge whether this is the case from so few tournaments, but it will be important in order to win more fans to the scene.
Those are just my 2 cents worth of thoughts and they do not bring any solutions. I just want to believe that there will come some “new” blood into the scene (such as ThorZain and others) that have the dedication and mindset required to practice and keep the foreign flags high. This is the only way to continue to make Starcraft something large in terms of getting people to watch and invest their time and interest in the game.
On June 09 2011 21:49 Pudge_172 wrote: I wonder how much benefit you get out of hour 9 and 10 when playing 10 hours of SC2 a day. Even if it is broken up into 2 or 3 sessions, it seems that at some point it becomes overkill.
Another thing I've been thinking about: With so many online tournaments, do players spend too much time competing and not enough training?
Thirdly, with streaming taking up a decent amount of a players time, do they actually get any skill benefit from playing while streaming? Do they actually get to practice "real" builds or is it just vanilla build after vanilla build.
This.
Except that I think 10 hours of practice is not overkill if you think about the word "pro". Any professional (people having a profession) works about 8 to 10 hours a day. Should be no different for gamers who do it as a profession.
you just gotta think about what MMA said. These koreans just practice all day.Get up and play. eat and then play. sleep. Get up and play. eat. and then play and sleep. over and over again
i cant think of any top non-korean player that does that. They practice alot, but its not that religious. Im not one for this korea vs rest of world, but i think we should all be proud of what these players did, much respect :D ♥
It's funny how people take it as a given that the gap between foreigners and Koreans is astronomical in BW but it's somehow close or nonexistent in SC2 because of a few 2-1 wins by Koreans. You guys might want to check WCG results again. Hint: Koreans weren't always 1-2-3 and winning every set 2-0.
On June 10 2011 01:14 ThatGuy89 wrote: you just gotta think about what MMA said. These koreans just practice all day.Get up and play. eat and then play. sleep. Get up and play. eat. and then play and sleep. over and over again
i cant think of any top non-korean player that does that. They practice alot, but its not that religious. Im not one for this korea vs rest of world, but i think we should all be proud of what these players did, much respect :D ♥
The practice like its a job.. They get money and get paid for it...
Now unless the average person don't work 8 hours a day then its no different to a korean playing starcraft 8 hours a day. Because if anyone is working then they get up each day.. goto work.. eat and then go home and sleep. over and over again..
So whats the difference? your getting paid to play a game... same shiett..
Now I heard that idra practice on average 3 hours a day from the game state stream.. so what does he do for the rest of the day instead? Top foreigners like ret still have to get money from his dad so he can fly over his "friend" to his home country.
On June 10 2011 01:14 ThatGuy89 wrote: you just gotta think about what MMA said. These koreans just practice all day.Get up and play. eat and then play. sleep. Get up and play. eat. and then play and sleep. over and over again
i cant think of any top non-korean player that does that. They practice alot, but its not that religious. Im not one for this korea vs rest of world, but i think we should all be proud of what these players did, much respect :D ♥
The practice like its a job.. They get money and get paid for it...
Now unless the average person don't work 8 hours a day then its no different to a korean playing starcraft 8 hours a day. Because if anyone is working then they get up each day.. goto work.. eat and then go home and sleep. over and over again..
So whats the difference? your getting paid to play a game... same shiett..
Now I heard that idra practice on average 3 hours a day from the game state stream.. so what does he do for the rest of the day instead? Top foreigners like ret still have to get money from his dad so he can fly over his "friend" to his home country.
I think its important that most non-korean players don't follow a training schedule, unlike the koreans. (2 four hour sessions for oGs i believe) Also regarding ret, that was because he didn't have a credit card, he repaid his dad later on with a wired transfer, though i still question his judgement.
On June 10 2011 01:25 andrewlt wrote: It's funny how people take it as a given that the gap between foreigners and Koreans is astronomical in BW but it's somehow close or nonexistent in SC2 because of a few 2-1 wins by Koreans. You guys might want to check WCG results again. Hint: Koreans weren't always 1-2-3 and winning every set 2-0.
I've only heard DjWheat and day[9] bragging about how non koreans are so much closer in skill now always using TSL as an example and always trying to negate the fact that lag is nnot the cause of the loss. Now we all know that the only reason skill is closer because Blizzard took out all the small things that Koreans were good at that had a huge advantage in games.. Multi Select buildings mass units selection etc... By adding those nub friendly stuff in non koreans are able to keep par with korean players for some time.. Now doing those extra hours of practice gives korean those small advantages.. man MMA's 3 way multi prong atk with them all microed..... so beatiful... it would be sad if Blizzard released the next starcraft where they make multi prong atks easier for non koreans..
On June 10 2011 01:14 ThatGuy89 wrote: you just gotta think about what MMA said. These koreans just practice all day.Get up and play. eat and then play. sleep. Get up and play. eat. and then play and sleep. over and over again
i cant think of any top non-korean player that does that. They practice alot, but its not that religious. Im not one for this korea vs rest of world, but i think we should all be proud of what these players did, much respect :D ♥
The practice like its a job.. They get money and get paid for it...
Now unless the average person don't work 8 hours a day then its no different to a korean playing starcraft 8 hours a day. Because if anyone is working then they get up each day.. goto work.. eat and then go home and sleep. over and over again..
So whats the difference? your getting paid to play a game... same shiett..
Now I heard that idra practice on average 3 hours a day from the game state stream.. so what does he do for the rest of the day instead? Top foreigners like ret still have to get money from his dad so he can fly over his "friend" to his home country.
I think its important that most non-korean players don't follow a training schedule, unlike the koreans. (2 four hour sessions for oGs i believe) Also regarding ret, that was because he didn't have a credit card, he repaid his dad later on with a wired transfer, though i still question his judgement.
well where i work I have to wake up early goto work at the same time everyday.. break is on at the same time and i finish at the same time (unless i do overtime).. If a pro gamer wants to make a career out of this then they should have a training schedule. I think foreigners are not committing to the standard of Koreans (or perhaps simulate it to same as they would be working in a job)
Pro houses are making most of the difference. Korean SC2 has a leg up because the idea of a perpetual LAN party used for training is already well understood in Korea.
North America and Europe are only now starting to toss their best players together in practice houses. Once this becomes more prevalent, we'll see the NA/Euro scene become more equal with Korea. Until then, I think the competition will be fierce, but that little bit of consistency will edge results toward the Koreans.
On June 10 2011 01:14 ThatGuy89 wrote: you just gotta think about what MMA said. These koreans just practice all day.Get up and play. eat and then play. sleep. Get up and play. eat. and then play and sleep. over and over again
i cant think of any top non-korean player that does that. They practice alot, but its not that religious. Im not one for this korea vs rest of world, but i think we should all be proud of what these players did, much respect :D ♥
The practice like its a job.. They get money and get paid for it...
Now unless the average person don't work 8 hours a day then its no different to a korean playing starcraft 8 hours a day. Because if anyone is working then they get up each day.. goto work.. eat and then go home and sleep. over and over again..
So whats the difference? your getting paid to play a game... same shiett..
Now I heard that idra practice on average 3 hours a day from the game state stream.. so what does he do for the rest of the day instead? Top foreigners like ret still have to get money from his dad so he can fly over his "friend" to his home country.
I think its important that most non-korean players don't follow a training schedule, unlike the koreans. (2 four hour sessions for oGs i believe) Also regarding ret, that was because he didn't have a credit card, he repaid his dad later on with a wired transfer, though i still question his judgement.
well where i work I have to wake up early goto work at the same time everyday.. break is on at the same time and i finish at the same time (unless i do overtime).. If a pro gamer wants to make a career out of this then they should have a training schedule. I think foreigners are not committing to the standard of Koreans (or perhaps simulate it to same as they would be working in a job)
In addition to training house and schedule, the non-korean scene also misses a coach to coordinate these things in a pro house.
On June 09 2011 21:49 Pudge_172 wrote: I wonder how much benefit you get out of hour 9 and 10 when playing 10 hours of SC2 a day. Even if it is broken up into 2 or 3 sessions, it seems that at some point it becomes overkill.
Another thing I've been thinking about: With so many online tournaments, do players spend too much time competing and not enough training?
Thirdly, with streaming taking up a decent amount of a players time, do they actually get any skill benefit from playing while streaming? Do they actually get to practice "real" builds or is it just vanilla build after vanilla build.
This.
Except that I think 10 hours of practice is not overkill if you think about the word "pro". Any professional (people having a profession) works about 8 to 10 hours a day. Should be no different for gamers who do it as a profession.
I agree, at least when we are discussing "elite gaming". On the other hand it's completely possible that 10 hours or more produce worse result than for example 8. It's probably individual thought and wild guess that not practicing enough is a bigger issue for most players than practicing too much
Idra had one game won vs MMA that he tossed away. He did not have the series won, and considering MMA easily dispatched Losira (who is better than Idra), its hard to discount MMA.
MC slaughtered Idra. There is no other way to put it. On Sunday Idra was outplayed, outthought, outmicroed, just plain beaten.
Foreigners are never going to be able to train like the Koreans because of the distance separating them and the logistics of getting players together in a house like that. EG has a practice house, and really, Idra is the only player there that would be able to get to up/downs.
The Korean houses, except for Slayers, aren't even training all that hard compared to the BW houses, according to Guemchi. Imagine when the other teams adopt the Slayers model. The gap is large right now; Idra and Naniwa are the top 2 foreigners and they looked completely outclassed vs Losira and MC. Thorzain held strong against MC but the better player won that series too (though Thorzain, as a very good preparation player, could be good in GSL). I can only see the gap growing, just like the gap in BW started and grew insurmontable.
It's true, the Korean scene is more professional, competitive, and fierce. All their hours of practice and dedication is shown from their results in big tournaments like these. I agree, they should continue to invite Koreans to MLG and possibly other events. It brings attention and excitement. It will also give foreigners a sense of what they need to improve to be as good as the Koreans. You have to play against the very best to BE the best. Always challenging oneself is the best way to improve.
Foreigners can look back and improve on this tournament. One good example is Naniwa with his dancing zealots. The ceremony was too early and it cost him the game. Despite adding excitement and laughter, it would have given him one more game against MC and a chance to win. "Unprofessional" is probably the best word to use after reading your article. The Koreans, as you said, are "professional", they put the pro in pro-gaming. But this only makes a player better. Naniwa will never let something like that happen again. He's learned from it. And that makes him one step better than what he was before.
Likewise, let the games go on! Continue to invite these power house professionals and see what the future holds for us. Otherwise, we'll never have a definite answer if Koreans are truly born for RTS games. Let's find out
On June 10 2011 01:39 ilmman wrote: Now we all know that the only reason skill is closer because Blizzard took out all the small things that Koreans were good at that had a huge advantage in games.. Multi Select buildings mass units selection etc...
I'm sorry, but these are not the main delimiters of skill at the high end. Multi-select buildings made macro easier than Brood War, largely by lowering the APM requirement, NOT the demand for good decision-making. Mass unit selection helps move blobs around the map, but pro gamers actually go contrary to that and control finer groups within their army during combat (and for good reason) even though the mass selection is available.
SC2 cut out a lot of the overhead required to make units and get them together to the fight.
On June 10 2011 02:31 mangina wrote: Great post indeed, as many have agreed!
It's true, the Korean scene is more professional, competitive, and fierce. All their hours of practice and dedication is shown from their results in big tournaments like these. I agree, they should continue to invite Koreans to MLG and possibly other events. It brings attention and excitement. It will also give foreigners a sense of what they need to improve to be as good as the Koreans. You have to play against the very best to BE the best. Always challenging oneself is the best way to improve.
Foreigners can look back and improve on this tournament. One good example is Naniwa with his dancing zealots. The ceremony was too early and it cost him the game. Despite adding excitement and laughter, it would have given him one more game against MC and a chance to win. "Unprofessional" is probably the best word to use after reading your article. The Koreans, as you said, are "professional", they put the pro in pro-gaming. But this only makes a player better. Naniwa will never let something like that happen again. He's learned from it. And that makes him one step better than what he was before.
Likewise, let the games go on! Continue to invite these power house professionals and see what the future holds for us. Otherwise, we'll never have a definite answer if Koreans are truly born for RTS games. Let's find out
Meh Naniwa still would have lost he just wouldn't have lost as badly. I'm not sure why people keep bring this point up, he was only dancing for ~3 seconds. Sure he would have killed some probes but ultimately he had no answer to the dts which was why he gg'd.
I appreciate your optimism, but as a realist this article feels like a giant pair of rose-tinted glasses.
The only things in foreigners' favor right now is that the majority of the talent is still in Brood War, and if this changes there is "nowhere to go but down", unfortunately. We'll see if anything changes in August, when contracts expire.
They only thing we can do, in my opinion, is to form team houses in the exact same model and with the same regimen as they have. Living together is not the same.
On June 08 2011 13:16 sPaM916 wrote: Ya i agree completely, the foreigners gave the very best koreans a challenge.
Honestly besides MMA i would definitely not say the very best koreans, especially in bold letters lol.
Aside from MC i would hardly call any of those players the very best (july is up there too i guess but their are still better zergs then him in korea such as nestea) MMA still has a long way to go hes in code a still and has never won a code a either. Then losira who has done reasonably well since he got into code s but by no means has he been spectacular, and then there is moon who isnt even in code A. MKP MVP Nestea , Alicia, bomber, Nada there are other but i dont want to ramble off a huge list, werent there to show their stuff, and i would argue aside from MC (and maybe july) they are better players then those that were invited.
They are great players , but i wouldnt call them the "very best" aside from MC who hasnt even been performing well in korea since his win 2 season ago (if you include the current super tournament)
The reason Koreans are better at Starcraft is because they have put the “pro” into programmer – practicing typically 10 hours a day. MMA said it best himself -
nice article and I agree that the only way is up the problem is its a very high up judging by recent tournament
and I wont count the gsl world championship team league as a sign that the gap have lessen because on the individual tournament when money are in stake, all the foreigner except tt1 which face another foreigner got eliminated in the first round.
Apologies for all the mistakes in the article. It took me a lot longer than I originally imagined so I didn't spend much time proofreading. I have a ton of respect for the people on TL who write even longer articles than this one.
On June 08 2011 12:28 deadjawa wrote: Despite claims of a non-working keyboard INcontroL took a game off Losira and could have easily taken the series with a little bit better timing.
It's not just a "claim".. If you watch that game's replay, and compare it to other games of Losira, the difference is night and day.. His APM is normally something close to 300 on average, climbs into the 400s frequently.. In that game it was under 100 for the most part... Just watch the replay, it becomes very obvious that the guy was telling the truth. Even then he barely lost to DT shenanigans...
On June 10 2011 01:14 ThatGuy89 wrote: you just gotta think about what MMA said. These koreans just practice all day.Get up and play. eat and then play. sleep. Get up and play. eat. and then play and sleep. over and over again
i cant think of any top non-korean player that does that. They practice alot, but its not that religious. Im not one for this korea vs rest of world, but i think we should all be proud of what these players did, much respect :D ♥
I can't quite understand how you would even KNOW what the typical practice schedules are for a top non-korean. I've never read anything about their exact practice schedules, so where did you find all of the information about how non-koreans practice?
Honestly, I see people throwing around the idea that non-koreans practice less, and I can't help but ask, "How do you know?".
It just seems like so many here want to point out that non-koreans aren't even practicing for 8 hours/day and that just blows my mind. I just can't believe it.
Lol this is such bullshit. It has nothing to do with having "superior genes," the koreans are just willing to work harder than the majority of foreign players and their way of practice is superior as well. If anything, the gap will keep increasing as coin flip play by inferior players gets increasingly figured out. Koreans are the best because practice pays off.
Really? Nowhere to go but up? That could easily plummet with FXO's horrible choice of going to the GSTL and getting absolutely dominated by players which are clearly superior.
On June 10 2011 01:14 ThatGuy89 wrote: you just gotta think about what MMA said. These koreans just practice all day.Get up and play. eat and then play. sleep. Get up and play. eat. and then play and sleep. over and over again
i cant think of any top non-korean player that does that. They practice alot, but its not that religious. Im not one for this korea vs rest of world, but i think we should all be proud of what these players did, much respect :D ♥
I can't quite understand how you would even KNOW what the typical practice schedules are for a top non-korean. I've never read anything about their exact practice schedules, so where did you find all of the information about how non-koreans practice?
Honestly, I see people throwing around the idea that non-koreans practice less, and I can't help but ask, "How do you know?".
It just seems like so many here want to point out that non-koreans aren't even practicing for 8 hours/day and that just blows my mind. I just can't believe it.
Well, we don't really know exactly how much everyone is practicing on a per-hour basis. But we do know some things:
Idra has said that he practices about 4 hours a day.
Multiple Korean players (MMA, MC, etc) have said that they practice about 10 hours a day
We know that Korean players join tightly knit teams of 8-12 that focus on practice while living together in a small apartment.
There is nothing like a Korean team practice house in the western world. (admittedly there are a few loosely organized pro houses now, but not as large or as focused as a Korean house)
It could very well be that some foreign players practice as much as the Koreans but even if they did, the quality of their practice would be much less without the benefit of living together with other progamers.
I think a good comparison is to the Olympics - wealthy countries tend to do much better than poor countries. This is because the wealthy countries spend money on practice facilities, coaches, etc. This type of infrastructure needs to be developed in the non-Korean scene for non-Koreans to be successful.
Personally, I believe that the skill gap isnt as large as the the community may think it is. The foreigners competed with fierce skill throughout the entire tournament, I think the Koreans we're very surprised.
I dont mean to say that the foreigners are on par with the Koreans, but they are close. Its just a matter of time.
Great write up. Matches my own thoughts pretty well.
Only part I have issues with is the console gaming thing. Who in their right mind thinks consoles are competitive with a pc? Take a CS 1.6/Quake progamer and his computer, match him against the entire opposing team on consoles. Let them pick the game (he might need to practice a while depending on the difference from CS/Quake). I am not entirely sure they would be able to touch him. At all.
Loving the optimism in the article. Great write-up. We don't see very many of these posts but it pretty much says all I am thinking when I see someone whining about the foreigner scene and that they have no chance.
Good article, only thing is: "Despite claims of a non-working keyboard INcontroL took a game off Losira and could have easily taken the series with a little bit better timing." I thought it was Losira with the keyboard issue and not INcontrol??? Did I miss something?
The optimism here is unfounded. The gap between Koreans and foreigners has been widening non stop since the release of SC2. Plus "nowhere to go but up" is a pretty ambiguous title. It's not necessarily encouraging.
On June 08 2011 13:16 sPaM916 wrote: Ya i agree completely, the foreigners gave the very best koreans a challenge.
The very best koreans are on brood war. not sc2 and foreigners in no way in hell gave them a challenge.
All signs so far point to it working as expected. A lower skill ceiling will make it so koreans can't completely dominate SC2, but can still be the overall best.
On June 08 2011 13:16 sPaM916 wrote: Ya i agree completely, the foreigners gave the very best koreans a challenge.
The very best koreans are on brood war. not sc2 and foreigners in no way in hell gave them a challenge.
All signs so far point to it working as expected. A lower skill ceiling will make it so koreans can't completely dominate SC2, but can still be the overall best.
I don't know if you read the article, but the Koreans absolutely manhandled Columbus where every top foreigner excluding HuK and Jinro were present. How exactly is this not "completely dominating" when the 4 koreans in pool play took the 4 top spots of the whole event?
For me, I feel like the atmosphere helps improve the Korean scene alot more.
Pretty much every, if not all, korean teams have the pro-gaming house and when you are in a house of hardcore players, you will have the urgency to want to practice as much as they do or risk being ridiculed and fallen behind.
Then there are the LANs that Korea has. Being able to travel a short distance and compete with the best of the best in-person is just a great feeling and keeps you motivated.
NA and EU don't have the close distance KR has. MLG is probably the closest thing we have, and even then, not everyone has the ability to fly to every single LAN and play. Sweden is getting closer and closer to the fighting ability of the Koreans imo but unless we can motivate ourselves to practice harder, I see KR taking a greater lead as the years go by.
On June 11 2011 09:35 hifriend wrote: Lol this is such bullshit. It has nothing to do with having "superior genes," the koreans are just willing to work harder than the majority of foreign players and their way of practice is superior as well. If anything, the gap will keep increasing as coin flip play by inferior players gets increasingly figured out. Koreans are the best because practice pays off.
This a thousand times.
"Many of the foreign – Korean matches were close. Ridiculously close. IdrA was one anxiety attack away from besting MMA in the winners bracket. Sjow had MMA on the ropes during a well thought out base trade which went wrong because of banshee cloak tech."
MMA is in code A and can't seem to win there anyways lol. Such a moot point. Bring Nestea, Polt or scFOU over and it would be no contest.
On June 08 2011 13:16 sPaM916 wrote: Ya i agree completely, the foreigners gave the very best koreans a challenge.
The very best koreans are on brood war. not sc2 and foreigners in no way in hell gave them a challenge.
All signs so far point to it working as expected. A lower skill ceiling will make it so koreans can't completely dominate SC2, but can still be the overall best.
I don't know if you read the article, but the Koreans absolutely manhandled Columbus where every top foreigner excluding HuK and Jinro were present. How exactly is this not "completely dominating" when the 4 koreans in pool play took the 4 top spots of the whole event?
Because they can lose still?
In SC2, when you see koreans vs top foreign players, at most you will say the koreans will probably win 60-75%.
What would you say if the top 8 BW players played against the top foreigners in 2008 or 2009?
Most BW fans would say 100% chance koreans would all not drop a series, probably not even a game.
IdrA was only close to beating MMA because MMA destroyed his own command center, why do people think he outplayed him for some reason? If MMA hadn't destroyed his own command center he would have won, hence IdrA lost either way. Claiming that he would have won if he stayed in the game is irrelevant because that has nothing to do with skill.
The keyboard issues with Losira are pretty well-known, there is no arguing that. He beat MC and Naniwa, I think he could handle Incontrol.
IdrA did beat MC but they are overall 8-2, MC was jetlagged but we can ignore that. Either way MC was in position to win both games convincingly and he didn't press the advantage. He could have easily sniped the hatch in game 2 and won. In game 1 after defending the drop he could have pushed out and at least killed IdrA's fourth and potentially his third. Also if he had his colossus out literally 10 seconds earlier he would have killed the entire drop without losing a single unit due to the forcefield donut. IdrA won them because his opponent made worse mistakes, that's how most games are lost, but it was hardly the roflstomp people claim for some reason.
Almost all TvTs are close until someone just straight up loses. It's a mirror matchup, the difference between players is based on small little things they do, and MMA did it better.
In the MC v Thorzain MC won 4 straight up macro games fairly convincingly. Thorzain won 1 macro game and the other one was a one base tank/marine/banshee push against MC going 1 gate expand into phoenix. That game was not exactly indicative of skill and if there wasnt an extended series with MC already ahead I doubt he would do something like one gate expand phoenix against someone who does one base tank/marine/banshee all the time. He even tried literally the exact same thing again next game but didnt go through with it because he didnt scout an expansion from MC when MC had actually expanded to the gold. MC then proceeded to literally roll over him despite half of his army engaging a planetary fortress while half of his chargelots engaged the army.
MarineKingPrime, Nestea, Bomber, MVP, Alicia, DongRaeGu, Polt, scfou, Genius, etc. all did not come. If they did you can pretty much claim if the top koreans came they would have literally taken every spot one to whatever number of them there was with maybe IdrA and Naniwa being in there somewhere.
There are ways to make uplifting posts to inspire the foreign scene to train hard but this isn't it. The basic premise of "there is no where to go but up" doesn't make sense because the Korean scene is only becoming stronger and stronger and the foreign scene is staying the same, with the zerg hero IdrA getting worse because he was training less and less. Yes, SC2 is a game where anyone can beat anyone and the Koreans aren't undefeatable. Cruncher could beat Nestea with a DT rush. But your examples are pretty silly in this case.
The only foreigners I can think of that have a winning record against Koreans are Naniwa 2-0 against Moon, Huk 3-2 against Moon, and Huk 3-1 against MC. Moon not even being a particularly amazing Korean zerg, the whole Huk being a oGs/korean server player argument, and his win against MC being a PvP series when both of them PvP each other all the time in their team ouse. The list of winning records of Koreans against foreigners is quite a bit higher.
On June 08 2011 13:16 sPaM916 wrote: Ya i agree completely, the foreigners gave the very best koreans a challenge.
The very best koreans are on brood war. not sc2 and foreigners in no way in hell gave them a challenge.
All signs so far point to it working as expected. A lower skill ceiling will make it so koreans can't completely dominate SC2, but can still be the overall best.
I don't know if you read the article, but the Koreans absolutely manhandled Columbus where every top foreigner excluding HuK and Jinro were present. How exactly is this not "completely dominating" when the 4 koreans in pool play took the 4 top spots of the whole event?
Because they can lose still?
In SC2, when you see koreans vs top foreign players, at most you will say the koreans will probably win 60-75%.
What would you say if the top 8 BW players played against the top foreigners in 2008 or 2009?
Most BW fans would say 100% chance koreans would all not drop a series, probably not even a game.
This is true. however I believe that is only because the game is still new and being refined but as more time passes, the gap will only get wider as it did with BW . (given that the current practice regiment stays in place of course. which isn't the case of course as we know foreigners are getting their own houses and etc.)
On July 04 2011 11:03 Blasphemi wrote: Koreans are outnumbered 10 to 1 in foreign tournaments and still dominate.
It's pretty obvious that quantity has nothing to do with quality, Koreans have been sending over some of their better players (MC, Bomber, Losira), so obviously they're going to beat the random signups from 3rd tier North American teams.
On July 04 2011 11:03 Blasphemi wrote: Koreans are outnumbered 10 to 1 in foreign tournaments and still dominate.
It's pretty obvious that quantity has nothing to do with quality, Koreans have been sending over some of their better players (MC, Bomber, Losira), so obviously they're going to beat the random signups from 3rd tier North American teams.
um what? lol so let's reverse the situation here. if the foreigners sent over their "best" players to compete in the GSL, do you expect the same to happen? (and let's be real here. what do you even mean by "random signups from 3rd tier North American teams?" with the exception of july, all other koreans were seeded directly into the groups. unless you want to call them random..)
Many of the foreign – Korean matches were close. Ridiculously close. IdrA was one anxiety attack away from besting MMA in the winners bracket. Sjow had MMA on the ropes during a well thought out base trade which went wrong because of banshee cloak tech. Despite claims of a non-working keyboard INcontroL took a game off Losira and could have easily taken the series with a little bit better timing. Naniwa was three dancing zealots away from detecting MC’s dark shrine and effortlessly defending his main with a single cannon.
@Idra-MMA: Yeah, totally ignore the command center target because it was a new map to Koreans @Losira-Incontrol: What "claims?" Everyone knows Losira was playing game two with his mouse. @Naniwa: He would've lost the game anyways, EVEN if he had seen the dark shrine.
On July 04 2011 10:56 Heavenly wrote: IdrA was only close to beating MMA because MMA destroyed his own command center, why do people think he outplayed him for some reason? If MMA hadn't destroyed his own command center he would have won, hence IdrA lost either way. Claiming that he would have won if he stayed in the game is irrelevant because that has nothing to do with skill.
The keyboard issues with Losira are pretty well-known, there is no arguing that. He beat MC and Naniwa, I think he could handle Incontrol.
IdrA did beat MC but they are overall 8-2, MC was jetlagged but we can ignore that. Either way MC was in position to win both games convincingly and he didn't press the advantage. He could have easily sniped the hatch in game 2 and won. In game 1 after defending the drop he could have pushed out and at least killed IdrA's fourth and potentially his third. Also if he had his colossus out literally 10 seconds earlier he would have killed the entire drop without losing a single unit due to the forcefield donut. IdrA won them because his opponent made worse mistakes, that's how most games are lost, but it was hardly the roflstomp people claim for some reason.
Almost all TvTs are close until someone just straight up loses. It's a mirror matchup, the difference between players is based on small little things they do, and MMA did it better.
In the MC v Thorzain MC won 4 straight up macro games fairly convincingly. Thorzain won 1 macro game and the other one was a one base tank/marine/banshee push against MC going 1 gate expand into phoenix. That game was not exactly indicative of skill and if there wasnt an extended series with MC already ahead I doubt he would do something like one gate expand phoenix against someone who does one base tank/marine/banshee all the time. He even tried literally the exact same thing again next game but didnt go through with it because he didnt scout an expansion from MC when MC had actually expanded to the gold. MC then proceeded to literally roll over him despite half of his army engaging a planetary fortress while half of his chargelots engaged the army.
MarineKingPrime, Nestea, Bomber, MVP, Alicia, DongRaeGu, Polt, scfou, Genius, etc. all did not come. If they did you can pretty much claim if the top koreans came they would have literally taken every spot one to whatever number of them there was with maybe IdrA and Naniwa being in there somewhere.
There are ways to make uplifting posts to inspire the foreign scene to train hard but this isn't it. The basic premise of "there is no where to go but up" doesn't make sense because the Korean scene is only becoming stronger and stronger and the foreign scene is staying the same, with the zerg hero IdrA getting worse because he was training less and less. Yes, SC2 is a game where anyone can beat anyone and the Koreans aren't undefeatable. Cruncher could beat Nestea with a DT rush. But your examples are pretty silly in this case.
The only foreigners I can think of that have a winning record against Koreans are Naniwa 2-0 against Moon, Huk 3-2 against Moon, and Huk 3-1 against MC. Moon not even being a particularly amazing Korean zerg, the whole Huk being a oGs/korean server player argument, and his win against MC being a PvP series when both of them PvP each other all the time in their team ouse. The list of winning records of Koreans against foreigners is quite a bit higher.
completely agree, I have been trying to articulate these points for months, but I just get /ignored every time i make a well constructed post like this
On July 04 2011 11:03 Blasphemi wrote: Koreans are outnumbered 10 to 1 in foreign tournaments and still dominate.
It's pretty obvious that quantity has nothing to do with quality, Koreans have been sending over some of their better players (MC, Bomber, Losira), so obviously they're going to beat the random signups from 3rd tier North American teams.
It has everything to do with it. If a tournament has 50 white guys and 5 Koreans then the Koreans has a far less likely chance to do well than if it were 25 Koreans and 25 white guys.
The fact that despite being hugely outnumbered the Koreans still consistantly dominate just shows how much better they are.
The Koreans could field 30-40 players who could beat the very best foreigners, that's a very significant point that most people overlook with their bias towards foreigners.
Yes, Huk won Dreamhack/Homestory but Homestory has one Korean guy there, Dreamhack had four and two of them were eliminated by other Koreans. If Dreamhack had had 10 Koreans it would probably be a different story and a much fairer measure of foreigners versus Koreans.
No one ever says at the end of a GSL that Koreans dominated because no white guys came close to winning it, because that's dumb, the foreigners are so vastly outnumbered. But people do apply that principle to foreign events.
On July 04 2011 10:56 Heavenly wrote: IdrA was only close to beating MMA because MMA destroyed his own command center, why do people think he outplayed him for some reason? If MMA hadn't destroyed his own command center he would have won, hence IdrA lost either way. Claiming that he would have won if he stayed in the game is irrelevant because that has nothing to do with skill.
The keyboard issues with Losira are pretty well-known, there is no arguing that. He beat MC and Naniwa, I think he could handle Incontrol.
IdrA did beat MC but they are overall 8-2, MC was jetlagged but we can ignore that. Either way MC was in position to win both games convincingly and he didn't press the advantage. He could have easily sniped the hatch in game 2 and won. In game 1 after defending the drop he could have pushed out and at least killed IdrA's fourth and potentially his third. Also if he had his colossus out literally 10 seconds earlier he would have killed the entire drop without losing a single unit due to the forcefield donut. IdrA won them because his opponent made worse mistakes, that's how most games are lost, but it was hardly the roflstomp people claim for some reason.
Almost all TvTs are close until someone just straight up loses. It's a mirror matchup, the difference between players is based on small little things they do, and MMA did it better.
In the MC v Thorzain MC won 4 straight up macro games fairly convincingly. Thorzain won 1 macro game and the other one was a one base tank/marine/banshee push against MC going 1 gate expand into phoenix. That game was not exactly indicative of skill and if there wasnt an extended series with MC already ahead I doubt he would do something like one gate expand phoenix against someone who does one base tank/marine/banshee all the time. He even tried literally the exact same thing again next game but didnt go through with it because he didnt scout an expansion from MC when MC had actually expanded to the gold. MC then proceeded to literally roll over him despite half of his army engaging a planetary fortress while half of his chargelots engaged the army.
MarineKingPrime, Nestea, Bomber, MVP, Alicia, DongRaeGu, Polt, scfou, Genius, etc. all did not come. If they did you can pretty much claim if the top koreans came they would have literally taken every spot one to whatever number of them there was with maybe IdrA and Naniwa being in there somewhere.
There are ways to make uplifting posts to inspire the foreign scene to train hard but this isn't it. The basic premise of "there is no where to go but up" doesn't make sense because the Korean scene is only becoming stronger and stronger and the foreign scene is staying the same, with the zerg hero IdrA getting worse because he was training less and less. Yes, SC2 is a game where anyone can beat anyone and the Koreans aren't undefeatable. Cruncher could beat Nestea with a DT rush. But your examples are pretty silly in this case.
The only foreigners I can think of that have a winning record against Koreans are Naniwa 2-0 against Moon, Huk 3-2 against Moon, and Huk 3-1 against MC. Moon not even being a particularly amazing Korean zerg, the whole Huk being a oGs/korean server player argument, and his win against MC being a PvP series when both of them PvP each other all the time in their team ouse. The list of winning records of Koreans against foreigners is quite a bit higher.
Huk is 5-2 against moon..... 2-2 with july Places ok in GSL with ~50% and oh yeah, 3-1 against mc like you said... Don't try to down play and undermine everything in this thread..... The mere fact that foreigners are talking A game of someone who in many cases might practice 2x more..... The whole point is being optimistic about the foreign scene unifying and practicing harder and longer with pro gaming houses... I mean damn idra has said that he practices for 3 hours a day (while i don't remember when that was it is still amazing that he does so well)... So simply taking a negative tone on this is not really a kind or wise thing to do. Oh and no, Cruncher wouldn't beat Nestea with a DT rush because nestea can sense these things..... Didn't you see Nestea vs inca in the finals LOL
given how not too long ago, the foreign scene was a world away from the korean in starcraft, now into sc2, while still dominant, the korean scene is not the far cry of skill for the foreigners. Im proud of my foreign heroes. I know its only a matter of time before the koreans fear the foreigners.
On July 09 2011 09:57 Destro wrote: given how not too long ago, the foreign scene was a world away from the korean in starcraft, now into sc2, while still dominant, the korean scene is not the far cry of skill for the foreigners. Im proud of my foreign heroes. I know its only a matter of time before the koreans fear the foreigners.
On July 09 2011 09:57 Destro wrote: given how not too long ago, the foreign scene was a world away from the korean in starcraft, now into sc2, while still dominant, the korean scene is not the far cry of skill for the foreigners. Im proud of my foreign heroes. I know its only a matter of time before the koreans fear the foreigners.
The BW dominance doesn't automatically transfer to SC2 though.
You make it sound as if 1-2 years ago Koreans were completely dominant at a game, and now the foreigners caught up.
Whereas what really happened was that 2 years ago Koreans are completely dominant in Brood War, and are still just as dominant in it today. In the meantime, a new game got released, and everyone started on equal footing and equal opportunity, yet Koreans are already steadily pulling ahead.
I LOVE the optimism that I am seeing in this thread! Most everybody is like, "Yeah! If foreigners just buckle down a bit more we'll be on par with them." It's so great to hear, and the OP brings up some really good points.
I fear that if foreigners don't start to put in a bit more time that we will start to see the gap widen. But if we start to put in the time that is required (by the people who have already made it their life) I think the gap will start to narrow. I think the closer we get to the skill of Koreans the more Starcraft2, and eSports in general, will start to get more recognition in NA.
*Foreigners lose*-> koreans are coming thread is bumped *Foreigners win*-> Bump this thread
Whether koreans will dominate again or not will be up to the foreigner scene, right now koreans may seem dominating but we can't really know if it will be the same way. I'd hope that foreigners come to an even level, but I have no sympathies for people who work less for something so yeah, foreigners need to step it up.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zDCcM.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YEGdt.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/CmMFS.pngn)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Zcu5Y.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vjUPO.png)
) SC2 can be played onlined. I would argue that this gives the foreigner scene the opportunity to make the most of the small playing pool. That is why you can have teams like TL in three different continents. Yes there are limitations in terms of lag and so forth but the fact that you can play and practice with people in different regions makes SC2 very different to traditional sport. 
