Blizzard have released most of the information pertaining to the upcoming season of the World Championship Series. A number of changes will be made to player rankings within the Premier League.
WCS Challenger Schedule
The 32 WCS Challenger matches between aspiring qualified players and battle-tested regional Premier League champions will occur throughout April. Below are the current dates for the various regions:
Europe - April 27, 29, 30 USA & Canada - April 27, 28 China – April 16 Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau - TBD Latin America – TBD Oceania & South East Asia – TBD
WCS Challenger – America and Europe “Premier Pick” System
We wanted to give you a sneak peak of a change to WCS Challenger that will go into effect for Europe and America in Season 2 and 3 of WCS. The system is as follows:
“Premier Pick” will rank Premier League players based on performance in this order: placement in the previous season, WCS Points (as of the previous WCS Season Finals date). If both the placement and WCS Points are equal between a group of players, the ranking will be determined by random draw. After the Premier League players are ranked, they will be allowed to pick, in the order of that ranking, their opponent for Challenger from the pool of qualified players from their respective region.
We’re still working out details of how we can make this process as transparent as possible to WCS followers. We believe this new system will lead to tense rivalry and more exciting WCS Challenger matches overall.
WCS Premier League Round of 32 Schedule
For the last item, we’re happy to be able to share the WCS Premier League Round of 32 schedule.
WCS Premier League: May 16-17, 23-24 in Burbank, California WCS Premier League: May 28-31 in Cologne, Germany Looking ahead, we’re making plans for the WCS Season 2 Finals to be held in North America near the end of June. We’ll have more information on next season’s Finals as we progress through the upcoming season, and you can ensure you’re up to date with the most recent developments by visiting StarCraft2.com/WCS.
Wouldn't it make more sense for challenger players to pick rather than premier?
It's kinda weird that they want in theory "better" players (premier league) to have an advantage over challenger league players by letting them pick their best match-up.
Well at least they have the schedule earlier this time. Not sure how I feel about the premier pick; it seems like an unneeded advantage for the players in premier which might reduce the diversity of players. I'm sure it will be fun though.
On March 12 2015 03:55 Beastyqt wrote: Wouldn't it make more sense for challenger players to pick rather than premier?
Would make sense, since the league is "Challenger" and its them aiming to prove they're skilled enough for Premier. But I think they are aiming for a very likely outcome of the best players picking the worst challenger players and it balancing out in the middle, sort of a player-interactive seeding. I don't expect the really skilled players to pick really strong Challengers.
The Premier Pick system reminds me of the GSL Up & Downs of 2011, where a player would call out their chosen opponent. I like the dramatic potential - who will Naniwa challenge? Who will try and convince someone to challenge them? Will someone be forced to pick a teammate? It has potential pitfalls, obviously, but could be brilliant if executed properly.
It is called sneak peek! How can they get this wrong? There even is a twitter account specifically for this kind of thing: https://twitter.com/stealthmountain
I like the Premier Pick System, it makes a lot of sense.
On March 12 2015 04:33 BaneRiders wrote: Maybe the premier pick can make the challenger process more exiting. I'd still prefer some kind of groups stage though. With picks.
I would prefer a system where the players are forced into a cage fight, but we can't all have our way...
Yay, awesome idea of letting Premier player chose their best matchup instead of doing a random draw that is probably the fairest thing you can do here. But hey, I guess that since the single Bo5 format is totally unfair anyway it won't be worse.
On March 12 2015 03:55 Beastyqt wrote: Wouldn't it make more sense for challenger players to pick rather than premier?
It's kinda weird that they want in theory "better" players (premier league) to have an advantage over challenger league players by letting them pick their best match-up.
That's how sports work. The team with the better record gets home field/court in playoffs. The highest ranked team usually plays against the lowest ranked team in the playoffs. Incentive to win.
On March 12 2015 03:55 Beastyqt wrote: Wouldn't it make more sense for challenger players to pick rather than premier?
It's kinda weird that they want in theory "better" players (premier league) to have an advantage over challenger league players by letting them pick their best match-up.
That's how sports work. The team with the better record gets home field/court in playoffs. The highest ranked team usually plays against the lowest ranked team in the playoffs. Incentive to win.
Yes, but this isn't the playoffs, its the regular season. Its like if the Yankees got to pick their opponents for the first month of the regular season. Gee, I wonder if the Yankees will always manage to have a great first month!? Such hype! Oh wait..
Three of the regions only have 2 players to pick from! And China only has 4, so not a ton of choice there either. It'll mainly be interesting for NA and Europe, which have 8 and 14 players coming through qualifiers. I think it'll be a good system, especially if the picks are presented to the audience well. Of course, this amendment invalidates the WCS 2015 handbook they finally released
Very helpful that they're releasing a schedule this far in advance as well. I hope this is their new minimum standard.
On March 12 2015 05:58 NonY wrote: Three of the regions only have 2 players to pick from! And China only has 4, so not a ton of choice there either. It'll mainly be interesting for NA and Europe, which have 8 and 14 players coming through qualifiers. I think it'll be a good system, especially if the picks are presented to the audience well. Of course, this amendment invalidates the WCS 2015 handbook they finally released
Very helpful that they're releasing a schedule this far in advance as well. I hope this is their new minimum standard.
USA/CAN and EU are the only regions required to use this picking system, the rest can continue to run whatever best fits their regions.
wcs points only within wcs? This sneep picking thing can be pretty boring. Possible that we see A vs B, C vs D, E vs F and G vs H two times in a row in ro8, and not A vs C or something in ro8.
Premier pick should work so long as they actually try to pick the weakest players. If they just use it as opportunity to try and snipe moderately good players, rivals, or players who are really popular then I could see it going south very quickly.
On March 12 2015 03:55 Beastyqt wrote: Wouldn't it make more sense for challenger players to pick rather than premier?
It's kinda weird that they want in theory "better" players (premier league) to have an advantage over challenger league players by letting them pick their best match-up.
That's how sports work. The team with the better record gets home field/court in playoffs. The highest ranked team usually plays against the lowest ranked team in the playoffs. Incentive to win.
Yes, but this isn't the playoffs, its the regular season. Its like if the Yankees got to pick their opponents for the first month of the regular season. Gee, I wonder if the Yankees will always manage to have a great first month!? Such hype! Oh wait..
Think about it this way: there's absolutely nothing exciting about a low Masters player miraculously advancing through multiple rounds of a top tier tournament by lucking out with an easy bracket and playing against other low Masters players, etc.
These players still deserve a shot, of course. They're still getting one. And what better way to make a name for yourself than to take a game (let alone the series) against a pro player who CHOSE to play against YOU?
The important thing to note is the best players probably won't be picking each other, meaning they won't be knocking each other out early in the tournament. Which means we're more likely to see the best players playing against each other later in the tournament. Which is generally a good thing.
(Side rant: Why does this community feel the need to coddle weaker players (like it's always done for foreigners)? Step up your fucking game and beat a good player if you want respect.)
(Side rant: Why does this community feel the need to coddle weaker players (like it's always done for foreigners)? Step up your fucking game and beat a good player if you want respect.)
Probably because without those weaker players working hard to improve the sport just wouldn't exist.
The pick system is kinda ehhh. Rather have the Challeger guys pick the Premier guys. Not to coddle them but more so of giving them a shot of making it into Premier. I'd rather see a upstart call someone out he thinks he can beat then HuK picking someone like guitarcheese or something and smashing them. Giving the smaller guys the power will create the rivalries WCS wants to happen more often then this would
The premier pick is a very good move. The reason is simple: with everyone except the champion going back to challenger, without this there would be too much churn. Fan favorites would get eliminated at random just by being matched against someone very strong coming up from challenger like StarDust or Jaedong or whoever else. This will reduce the randomness of the competition and encourage the strongest makeup of WCS players.
(Side rant: Why does this community feel the need to coddle weaker players (like it's always done for foreigners)? Step up your fucking game and beat a good player if you want respect.)
Probably because without those weaker players working hard to improve the sport just wouldn't exist.
Also, everyone likes a good underdog story.
Of course, and that's what the recent region lock is hoping to accomplish - without Koreans dominating every region, there's more opportunity for weaker players to get into a tournament.
And while you're completely right that a healthy swell of new talent is something that benefits the scene, you also have to realize that it would be a detriment to current pros to promote a volatile system. Like I said, Premier Pick would make it less likely that top notch players would face each other early in a tournament, so it's less likely that they will get knocked out early and miss out on the results/prize money that fuels their progaming careers.
It's entirely possible that they still get knocked out early, though. Which plays into your second sentence: everyone likes a good underdog story. The operative word is "good." The more pressure that is put on the underdog, the better the story, no?
Ultimately, things work a lot better if you incentivize winning vs. having less results, "being worse," etc.
Premier Pick sounds good ! I really hope this gets streamed and that they look at group pick ceremonies in GSL for how to maximize potential storylines/rivalries. I just don't know how it'll happen since in Korea, it's offline and everyone's in the same room and I'm not sure such a thing is possible with people from all over NA/EU. Still, it's a good idea, now let's just hope that they implement it in a nice way !
Also, good on ESL/Blizz to (finally ?) provide information without Aeromi needing harrass them to death.
I don't think the premier pick is unfair if you think of the fact, that RO16 Premier finishers were automatically seeded into premier last year. So, this kind of compensates for the fact, that they have to qualify for premier in 2015.
WOW finally we wont see things like the loser of MarineLorD vs ForGG not getting to Premier, that was totally unfair. People make this distinction that if its random its fair and not random unfair, which is much too simple.
On March 12 2015 09:50 Seeker wrote: What does JeSuis mean?
"Je suis" means "I am", and is (currently) a reference to the terrorist attacks on Paris mid-January which saw pop the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie in support of the target (a satyrical newspaper named Charlie).
OT: I kinda like this, the picking system seems fine. And finally, they released that a bit more in advance this time...
The premier pick seems a little unfair to the player who just busted his ass to play the top seeded player lol It's not like playoffs or anything these are people's lively hoods.
On March 12 2015 23:47 UR.Solo wrote: The premier pick seems a little unfair to the player who just busted his ass to play the top seeded player lol It's not like playoffs or anything these are people's lively hoods.
"We need to give this unknown player a chance to prove himself. But not against an actual good player. That sounds like it would be difficult. And let's give him a clear path to some prize money while we're at it. That couldn't possibly hurt anyone else!"
On March 12 2015 23:47 UR.Solo wrote: The premier pick seems a little unfair to the player who just busted his ass to play the top seeded player lol It's not like playoffs or anything these are people's lively hoods.
Its kind of a Meritocracy. The more you deserve to go further based on how well you did, or on how much your peers respect you, the more likely you are to go further. In this case random is unfair because someone who worked much harder/has more skill would have the same chance of facing a hypothetical 1 seed as the worst player in the pool. Thats unfair to the challenger and the number 1 seed.
A good example of this was in the WCS 2015 season 1 challenger Where MarineLord almost beat the favorite ForGG. The level MarineLord is on these few weeks make me think he would be on of the top foreigners in the premier but he had bad luck, where if it was less based on luck he could make a top 16, 8, 4 or whatever, and win the wcs points prestige etc he deserved.
I don't even like MarineLord, just was impressed by his play vs Serral.
On March 12 2015 04:36 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: I would prefer a system where the players are forced into a cage fight, but we can't all have our way...
If no cage fight, they should at least arm wrestle
these changes are all nice and all but can someone tell me why there is no wcs all of march and then they cram ro16 to the finals in three days, to me once your in the ro16 it becomes more like an IEM then say a gsl which i thought was what WCS is supposed to be at least IMO. I understand this might not be the right place to ask but I'm just confused that there's 0 wcs this month. To me it would make for better games to have then spaced out a bit more, i understand maybe the ro8 or ro4 to be close to each other because of plane tickets and all that other stuff but I feel it takes something away. lol I guess i answered my own question because its cheaper but if someone else has a better idea feel free to tell me.
EPT
