EPTFirst my little preamble, but if you want to just skip to the results check the spoiler. Firstly, these power rankings are still a work in progress. For now, I'm sticking with a top 5 format based on forum enthusaism, but I've received a lot of great feedback about making the rankings a little more solid. In the future I'm working with Kaizen7 and anybody else who wants to PM to create a list of guiding principles on how to "judge" casters. Of course any criteria we come up with is still ultimately subjective so feel free to just ignore it. I'm also going to be working on a more stable formula to generate the list. This week I just looked through the thread and counted how much love each caster was receiving. If a caster was somebody's favorite that counts for more but mostly I just counted mentions. When I have a bit more time I'll organize my spreadsheet and update this post. The other thing besides forum love that counts in these rankings is who was casting this week's major tournaments. I don't watch everything so lemme know if there was a caster with a big week who I don't shout out. IEM was the bigger (or at least had the better field) of the two weekend tournaments and Apollo/Kaelaris acted as the A-team, with Rotti and Nathanias doing remote coverage from the States. QXC made a welcome appearance at IEM as well. The 4 man team of Tastless, Artosis, Tod, and InControl meanwhile had casting duties at Dreamhack, but the biggest SC2 event of the week had to be the SPL Semifinals where Wolf and Brendan (what happened to Moonglade?) got the call. That's what was up this week in casting, on to the rankings:
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1. Tastosis
A lot of love for these guys on the forum. They weren't always mentioned as among fan's favorites but when they did get a shout out it was ussually because they were the poster's favorite duo. That happened 13 times. With the highest profile regular gig, Tastosis takes the top spot on these rankings with ease.
2. Apollo
I'm sorry Kaelaris, fans just like Apollo better and it doesn't really seem to matter who's he's casting with for that opinion to come through. Kaelaris got some love on this forum but to such a smaller degree than the phenomenally popular Apollo, I thought it only fair to put Apollo here without his not-so-better half.
3. Rotterdam(Nathanias)
Again, one half of this team got way more love than the other half as Rotti's easy going Dutch charm has SC2's fanbase infatuated. Still, people like Nathanias well enough and the duo got more 1st place mentions than any other duo save for Tastosis. I suppose we can't be surprised that the regular casters for the three WCS regions got the top 3 spots, but I think that speaks well of the scene.
4. Day9
His Daily's often draw as many viewers as major tournaments so his popularity in these forums comes as no surprise. The brothers Plott come as close to Starcraft royalty as we get.
5. Tod
Rounding out the top 5 that lovable French Protoss GM, Tod. I get it, though. The guy is consistently funny and when it comes to Protoss does anybody know their stuff better?
Honorable Mention: InControl. He would've been 6th on this list with his Dreamhack appearance and a whole lot of forum love. Tod edges him out this week, but I'll stress that it was close.
A lot of love for these guys on the forum. They weren't always mentioned as among fan's favorites but when they did get a shout out it was ussually because they were the poster's favorite duo. That happened 13 times. With the highest profile regular gig, Tastosis takes the top spot on these rankings with ease.
2. Apollo
I'm sorry Kaelaris, fans just like Apollo better and it doesn't really seem to matter who's he's casting with for that opinion to come through. Kaelaris got some love on this forum but to such a smaller degree than the phenomenally popular Apollo, I thought it only fair to put Apollo here without his not-so-better half.
3. Rotterdam(Nathanias)
Again, one half of this team got way more love than the other half as Rotti's easy going Dutch charm has SC2's fanbase infatuated. Still, people like Nathanias well enough and the duo got more 1st place mentions than any other duo save for Tastosis. I suppose we can't be surprised that the regular casters for the three WCS regions got the top 3 spots, but I think that speaks well of the scene.
4. Day9
His Daily's often draw as many viewers as major tournaments so his popularity in these forums comes as no surprise. The brothers Plott come as close to Starcraft royalty as we get.
5. Tod
Rounding out the top 5 that lovable French Protoss GM, Tod. I get it, though. The guy is consistently funny and when it comes to Protoss does anybody know their stuff better?
Honorable Mention: InControl. He would've been 6th on this list with his Dreamhack appearance and a whole lot of forum love. Tod edges him out this week, but I'll stress that it was close.
