On January 27 2015 06:00 movac wrote: I'm not saying to exclude them based on nationality. I'm just saying they're at a drastically higher skill compared to the others, there's zero suspense in terms of who will make the playoff brackets. notice that I didn't include violet in that comment since he seems more beatable at this point compared to Polt, forGG and Hydra.
forgg has been in Europe for YEARS, there is no more Korean ladder reason for his better play than others. Maybe those three just practice more and thus are better than foreigners?
What I totally disliked were things Taeja/JD did last year, only staying in the USA for WCS matches, but polt, forgg and hydra spend weeks and months here. Let them play, they sacrificed a safe home in Korea and actually took the courage to come here alone. I have a high respect for them. Moving home on your own is no small feat.
Damn, some of the opinions in this thread... People should be banned from competition because they're too good? I'd like to see someone try that on the world cup. "Well Germany and Brazil can't play, that's unfair for the rest of the world." The competition should be scheduled around the demands of semi-pros? They're still pro's. The format was known up front. If the schedule is going to be a problem for someone, then he shouldn't have committed to the tournament. That's the "pro" part of being a pro-gamer. Professional athletes that still need to hold jobs to be able to make due or are still studying travel to compete all the time.
Anyway, I'm SO looking forward to this. Much more exciting and interesting than the separate tournaments for EU and US.
Wait, how was it actually splitted, I just watched the VOD of the group drawing, but if I heard right, the 4 boxes all represented different region, so why is Sereal in Sea/SouthAmerica box? Are the some of the EU players randomly divided into the other boxes since they have more players?
My Groups wouldve looked like this if i was God of Starcraft, based on my personal seeding + making sure every race plays in every group 1 vs 4 | 2 vs 3
On January 27 2015 06:36 Thax wrote: Damn, some of the opinions in this thread... People should be banned from competition because they're too good? I'd like to see someone try that on the world cup. "Well Germany and Brazil can't play, that's unfair for the rest of the world." The competition should be scheduled around the demands of semi-pros? They're still pro's. The format was known up front. If the schedule is going to be a problem for someone, then he shouldn't have committed to the tournament. That's the "pro" part of being a pro-gamer. Professional athletes that still need to hold jobs to be able to make due or are still studying travel to compete all the time.
Anyway, I'm SO looking forward to this. Much more exciting and interesting than the separate tournaments for EU and US.
This idea that "pros must deliver X, because they are pros" is incredibly ignorant of the real state of the scene. Please stop pretending that we are drowning in money and that the foreign SC2 easily supports dozens of people as full-time pros, because that just does not happen. These people have to something else in their lives besides SC2, if they want to eat and live somewhere or have any future. Who do you think you are to demand that people give up everything for you to watch it?
If you really wish to see only those who are 100% commited to SC2 and close the competition for anyone else, there is a very easy answer how to hold Ro32: not at all, because there won't be 32 players to compete.
On January 27 2015 06:36 Thax wrote: Damn, some of the opinions in this thread... People should be banned from competition because they're too good? I'd like to see someone try that on the world cup. "Well Germany and Brazil can't play, that's unfair for the rest of the world." The competition should be scheduled around the demands of semi-pros? They're still pro's. The format was known up front. If the schedule is going to be a problem for someone, then he shouldn't have committed to the tournament. That's the "pro" part of being a pro-gamer. Professional athletes that still need to hold jobs to be able to make due or are still studying travel to compete all the time.
Anyway, I'm SO looking forward to this. Much more exciting and interesting than the separate tournaments for EU and US.
~80% of all best eu players are full time student. It is much better for semi-pros if they dont have 8h+ per flight-time. If you look closer in the past 4 yrs, you will notice that EU players dont travel outside EU a lot. Many did forfeit though free travel+accomodation. I remember MLG 2012. MLG payed all travel + accommodation costs. Only EU "Nonames" showed interest.
The Problem is, the younger players get zero support (here in Germany). For example Heromarine. If he could go full time, I am shure he could pull of very strong games and gaining high in tournaments. The Best the system for him does is that he gets 2 free school days when he traveled to a tournament. On the other hand, my school cooperated with borussia Moenchengladbach, one of the bigger teams in the german Bundesliga (atm ranked 4th ). We had arround 2-4 people from their U17, U19 and later U21 and ProTeam in our class. These guys had got weeks freed from school where they traveled with the DFB to U17 or U19 Worldcups/Eurocups and other Cups, they gained extreme support, never had to go to school in the afternoon, the school send some teachers to their Training Area so they teach the school stuff when they have time and so on. One of these guys has now the highest tier of graduation you can have in Germany while playing for Borussia Mönchengladbach in the starting formation in the Europa League and the Bundesliga and another of these guys for the Bundesligateam Mainz 05.
And now you say, wooow Football is so much bigger then Esport, how can you compare dat? In Germany athlets of all kind of sports get these kinds of support? You are good at running? (never good enough to compete with Bolt and Co ) but good to competete in Europe? Here you get sportsstipendia, money, free time from stupid life things and we fly you where you have to compete! You are good in swimming? The same. Alot of sport athlets nobody knows in Germany get support by the gouvernment from a time they are 14-16 years old. They can go full pro from early time, Esport-Athlets cant do it. Or Sebastia Vettel: He could skipp and dipp school for time to time to race through europes open wheel series and the world cup of cart sport and he could gain is driver licence one year earlier then anybody else in Germany.
Europeen Pros and Talents get zero support for outside. And you cant say "skip school, go full pro". Either you lose the chance to do something after your Protime, because you miss out importatend graduation our/and you do not earn enough. Most Proteams pay arround 500$ per month or less. Yeah you got free sleeping and free food and some Tournamentmoney (from which a team likes to take a piece) but still you dont earn enough to have time after your pro time to do a smooth transition back to non pro life. The once who can life from StarCraft here in the West are either full developed pros like Snute or Bunny with a very strong team behind em or Streames like ProTech, Winter and so on. But Streming is bad training and doesnt help you alot to improve, only to gain a income for your life So you stream to earn enough for your life but waste time in not improving. Players like Life are unthinkable here, he won his first stuff with 17 or 16. In this age, you just CANT go full Pro here in Germany. And then you are 20 or older, you try to be full pro and just lost 4 years of competitve time being Semipro not increasing your skill like you should.
People (and a League like WCS) cant just up and say "do the Pro in SemiPro" and get here for a week and another week in 1 month again for the Round of 16 when the players are forced to life as a SemiPro because pure Pros and upcoming once get zero support from outside of the Esport world.
On January 27 2015 07:25 RHoudini wrote: Tough draw for Happy, hitting 2 of the 4 Koreans... sucks for him.
Both ForGG and Polt have very good TvT too.
Sucks to see one of the best foreign Terrans out in the first round like that.
Honestly I really like Happy and he has had good performances in WCS in the past but recently his games were disappointing to watch. I think he has the skill to make it out of this group it's just a question if he can unlock it. I want to see the happy that makes it out of a group like this rather than the happy that gets through an easier group and falls short later.
On January 27 2015 04:02 ZeRoX_TV wrote: They are used to travel often + this is, for me at least, the funniest WCS ever since you do not have chance often to see how are NA pros doing vs certain EU pros. Every tournament is pretty much same, but for me, matchups like Targa vs MajOr, uThermal or Bunny vs Astrea or Snute vs Kane are not something you can see everyday, especially on big stage like this. So, this WCS is something I am most looking forward to for last couple of years, so excited. Personally, I am sick of watching same people dominating NA and EU WCS like San, MC, MMA, always same people. This way is so much better and if you like Koreans you can go and watch GSL/SSL. I would prefer more if this Koreans were not able to participate so we could have full NA/EU WCS but that's other subject.
I like to see the best plays possible. Without the koreans the skillrate of the training condition of all non teamhouse members in EU dropped due to the ladderskill drop. I really hyped the strongest plays of the koreans and korean vs foreigner was allways about "can it happen" (and when it happend, it was like has style and all remembered it for quite some time). And also this time with the challanger: Can Marinelord do it? Can Masa bring it on point?
Well best plays are definately in Korean WCS so you can watch it there. I was talking about people who would rather see NA and EU players in action, something you couldnt really see much last few months. I would rather see MarineLord vs Masa, duking it out for glory, then watching Stardust vs MC 20th time in a row in European WCS, it became boring and I believe there is more people like me. I have nothing against Korean players, there are far the best in the world, but sometimes I have feeling that there is only 30ish players on this planet winning everything. This is kinda fresh and I was really demotivated watching TaeJa or MMA crushing through EU or NA WCS for a while. Also, this way many new players can poput, some established can win something and get motivated to play better in other tournaments vs Koreans. If we stayed on same boat, answer on your question "can it happen?" would ne "No, it can't". I hope this will motivate old and new forces to make NA and EU server at least comparable to KR and show better fight on major tournaments, no one likes to get crushed in pretty much only big tournament and "appear offline" for a year when doesent qualify for WCS because there are some guys picking up their spots.
On January 27 2015 08:51 KingofdaHipHop wrote: Astrea just said that they're redrawing the groups tomorrow on Arium's stream. Damn.
Yeah I heard that too on twitter already and I thought they had to do it anyway, the miniute Naniwa appeared out of the AM bowl . Glad that they are doing it right and don't just roll with it, when they fucked up.