At the dawn of the third day, 8 players were ready to challenge for the throne. Yet among those 8 only one could remain. In the upper bracket, Hydra dominated his competition as he slew TLO and Showtime in quick succession. In the bottom bracket, Snute and Bunny played an exciting series that ended with Bunny proving to be the superior this time and very nearly became the first foreigner player to reach a WCS Finals since Stephano in 2013. Yet everything was overshadowed by Polt’s insane run. In the ro8, he matched against ForGG, a player that had beaten him in their last 2 series and was considered the best TvT in Europe. Polt won 3-2. Polt then played Bunny in the semi-finals and again he was faced against a player that had won their most recent series. And again Polt won 3-2.
In the finals, he faced off against Hydra, a player utterly confident in his victory. And everything was going Hydra’s way as he went up 1-3 against Polt. Yet in the critical fourth game, Polt went all the way down to 0 scvs, yet refused to GG out. This delay tactic became crucial as Polt was able to compose himself, look back at his games and find a way to make a comeback against Hydra. In the next 3 games, Polt battled Hydra for every inch on the screen as they went for massive non stop fighting macro games with both players teetering on the edge multiple times. Yet when it came to the single most important moments, Polt continually kept his calm and never let the pressure get to him as he took the game to Hydra and completed the amazing 4-3 comeback.
With that victory, Polt secured his first victory of 2015. He is now the first player to ever win three WCS titles and the first player to win a Premier Tournament in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.
I've read enough comicbooks to know now that the showdown happens in the finals and that it must be Captain America vs Red Skull Hydra. As Polt cuts down Hydra in the 7th game, Hydra will scream, "CUT ME DOWN AND 2 MORE KOREANS WILL RISE IN MY PLACE." Then in WCS Season 2 he comes back with Jaedong and Stardust. Dun dun dun.
On April 06 2015 08:17 stuchiu wrote: Incidentally:
Scenario 1: (T)Polt 4 - 3 (Z)Hydra.
I've read enough comicbooks to know now that the showdown happens in the finals and that it must be Captain America vs Red Skull Hydra. As Polt cuts down Hydra in the 7th game, Hydra will scream, "CUT ME DOWN AND 2 MORE KOREANS WILL RISE IN MY PLACE." Then in WCS Season 2 he comes back with Jaedong and Stardust. Dun dun dun.
Evil truly never dies.
Also that's amazing that Polt has won a tournament every year since SC2 came out
That will teach Hydra to dance his units again! God that made me angry :S . But it turned out good in the end at least :D Always liked Polt for being such a sport and hearty person. Glad he won
This final was insane... Hydra really went on tilt at some point, running all his banelings into thors off creep, standing on widowmines with a bunch of zerglings, getting careless with his mutas and stuff like that. I guess this is where Polt really showed how good a starcraft player he is. Mechanicaly Hydra is a beast, hard to be matched, and because he is so fast, he can do good stuff with his army even off creep. But he was overconfident after his 3-1 lead and took way too many bad engagements, ignoring widowmines and going off creep every time. In the following game Hydra again was too eager to finish it all, letting himself bait into minefields way too often and overall it just felt like he was beginning to play Polts game, instead of his own. Polt figured him out and tried to get Hydra into a game, which he couldn't win, even with his supperior mechanics and speed... and succeeded.
Polt: Well played against a player I think we will see even more rounded by Root (make all the fun you want about catz, but he understands the game) again in the next season, maybe that time winning it all.
Really good play by Polt, but I kept thinking that if Wolf and Brendan or Khaldor were casting, they'd criticize Hydra for taking so many fights off creep, and not spreading his creep that well either.
Like ninigi said, hydra definitely went full tilt at some parts in the game.
Polt's composure under pressure never ceases to amaze me. I thought he was dead in game 5 when Hydra was on 5 bases but his decision to go Ultra's cost him and Polt never lost the momentum from that point.
On April 06 2015 09:11 Feisty wrote: Polt's composure under pressure never ceases to amaze me. I thought he was dead in game 5 when Hydra was on 5 bases but his decision to go Ultra's cost him and Polt never lost the momentum from that point.
Yeah, game 5 was when Hydra went on tilt. Ultras were the right decision, Polt did nothing out of the ordinary to get Hydra into that position. Polt pressured a hatch, which Hydra should have given him for the cost of upgraded ultras and a huge army, with a lot of banes. He would have crushed Polts army right there and Polt had nothing behind that, he was desperate.
But right there HOTS is still a game of decision making. And Hydras decision was quite bad... (that's btw the reason why I don't like Blizzards approach to lotv. It shouldn't all come down to micro)
Hydra took so many engagements out of creep. And alot of em for nothing, sometimes 1-2 screens from creep away in the middle of nowhere. If he had a better decision making / engagement style, he could easily transform one of the loses into a win taking the whole series.
I knew Polt would win. I was wondering what the commentary and analysis team were smoking when they said Polt would lose to forGG, no disrespect to forGG, of course.
Congrats, Captain America, well deserved and well played. Commiserations to Hydra et al.
Hydra had a maassive throw in game 5. Engaged off of creep with ultras RIGHT WHEN ARMOR AND 3/3 WAS ABOUT TO FINISH. He waits for that engagement another 20 seconds and he wins WCS.
On April 06 2015 11:24 BretZ wrote: Will this finally give Polt consideration for one of the best sc2 terrans...ever?
Polt was one of the best before this win. Only Taeja, MVP and MMA are ahead... Polt is one of the best SC2 players period. 7 premier titles with ridiculous longevity
On April 06 2015 12:53 Defenestrator wrote: Hydra had a maassive throw in game 5. Engaged off of creep with ultras RIGHT WHEN ARMOR AND 3/3 WAS ABOUT TO FINISH. He waits for that engagement another 20 seconds and he wins WCS.
Polt threw the Overgrowth game as well by walking his army into banelings.
On April 06 2015 12:36 Shellshock wrote: I'm so bummed about Hydra not winning this
Yeah nerves got himat the end.. he was doing stupid mistakes. Polt kept his cool and came back and that completly tilted Hydra. But it was a really good run for him.
The final was really epic and I never thought Polt could come back because Hydra was so pretty damn good.
The 3 games in a row Hydra won were like : "ok I am Korean now you are no more a Korean but just a little foreigner I will eat for my dinner"
And I was very sad for Polt when he stayed like 5 minutes in a games with 0 scvs and 2 banshees... I thought he do not accept the defeat which is unavoidable because hydra is was too good...
But Polt was keeping his mind and with a lot of good decision makings, even if as a lot of guys said here, some bad engagements off creep for hydras, he succeeded to realize one the best come back of Sc2. The best one for me was Soulkey losing 0-3 against Innovation in Gsl final and finally wining 4-3.
Gg both Polt and Hydra ! Will sure we will see them often in the future
On April 06 2015 08:17 stuchiu wrote: Incidentally:
Scenario 1: (T)Polt 4 - 3 (Z)Hydra.
I've read enough comicbooks to know now that the showdown happens in the finals and that it must be Captain America vs Red Skull Hydra. As Polt cuts down Hydra in the 7th game, Hydra will scream, "CUT ME DOWN AND 2 MORE KOREANS WILL RISE IN MY PLACE." Then in WCS Season 2 he comes back with Jaedong and Stardust. Dun dun dun.
he comes back with Jaedong and Stardust and ForGG and Polt. Derp derp derp.
How come Polt is not in top10 on TLPD in tl frontpage?
While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues.
The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches.
On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote: While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues.
The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches.
On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote: While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues.
The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches.
Do you know that the willingness to move full-time from your home to a totally foreign country is actually something that not many people have? That the "visa bureaucracy" actually doesn't give working visas left and right? Hydra lives full-time in the USA afaik, he speaks decently good english already, he obtained a legit visa just like Polt. There is no reason to consider that Polt "truly lives" outside of Korea and not Hydra.
On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote: While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues.
The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches.
Do you know that the willingness to move full-time from your home to a totally foreign country is actually something that not many people have? That the "visa bureaucracy" actually doesn't give working visas left and right? Hydra lives full-time in the USA afaik, he speaks decently good english already, he obtained a legit visa just like Polt. There is no reason to consider that Polt "truly lives" outside of Korea and not Hydra.
If I understand it correctly, Hydra moved to the US a couple of months ago with the sole purpose of competing in the new WCS, didn't he? Whereas Polt at least went there to study on a University. But the point of Polt is not that important, we can condemn him as well, if you wish.
About the visa thing, this happens with almost every my post lately, people make the point that I had in mind, but try to turn in into an argument against me. What am I doing wrong? Hell yes, I know that they don't give the visas left and right and that is the problem! Getting an U.S. visa is a lottery if anything and that is exactly my point - the second place in this WCS was decided by a combination of good support in dealing with bureaucracy and probably luck. How does that have anything to do with Starcraft? (And please don't start telling me that it's just a question of working hard to get the visa, I know so many people who got denied work or student visa for absolutely random and absurd reasons while people who didn't make any effort got in easily.)
On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote: While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues.
The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches.
Do you know that the willingness to move full-time from your home to a totally foreign country is actually something that not many people have? That the "visa bureaucracy" actually doesn't give working visas left and right? Hydra lives full-time in the USA afaik, he speaks decently good english already, he obtained a legit visa just like Polt. There is no reason to consider that Polt "truly lives" outside of Korea and not Hydra.
If I understand it correctly, Hydra moved to the US a couple of months ago with the sole purpose of competing in the new WCS, didn't he? Whereas Polt at least went there to study on a University. But the point of Polt is not that important, we can condemn him as well, if you wish.
About the visa thing, this happens with almost every my post lately, people make the point that I had in mind, but try to turn in into an argument against me. What am I doing wrong? Hell yes, I know that they don't give the visas left and right and that is the problem! Getting an U.S. visa is a lottery if anything and that is exactly my point - the second place in this WCS was decided by a combination of good support in dealing with bureaucracy and probably luck. How does that have anything to do with Starcraft? (And please don't start telling me that it's just a question of working hard to get the visa, I know so many people who got denied work or student visa for absolutely random and absurd reasons while people who didn't make any effort got in easily.)
Hydra left CJ because of, according to EffOrt at least, unbearable relationships with his coach, due to matchfixing accusations. He then joined a foreign team, ROOT, before (correct me if I'm wrong, I don't remember the exact dates) Blizzard announced precise requirements for WCS 2015. Did he join ROOT for the sole purpose of playing WCS? We don't know ; other players joined foreign teams and still play in Korea, they joined foreign teams for more travel/fans/freedom/etc. I think that Hydra is more comparable to ForGG or StarDust, players who chosed to live abroad. As for the visas well yeah, I'm absolutely not qualified to talk about that, so I dunno. From what I understand though the main thing Blizzard wanted to achieve with their visa requirements was basically to allow Koreans who live full-time in a foreign country to compete. That sounds legit to me.
I'm a bit on Opiskka's side: what is the point of the new WCS rules if we end up with a kr vs kr final in WCS? No foreigner beat any single korean during the week end. Sure, Bunny had a good fight against Polt, but in the end, Polt won. If the new WCS rules are meant to give exposure to foreigners, it's a fail. Snute was 17th in WCS rankings last year. I bet that no foreigner will be top 20 this year, because foreigners are just not on same level. Maybe because they meet less koreans now? So in the end, all the WCS rules broke the travelling kr (MC, Jaedong, Stardust...) but did not help foreigners at all. Now WCS system will give 2/3 slots for foreign koreans to join Blizzcon (yay, get a VISA, get a decent level, reach top 16!), where they will get destroyed in first round by Kespaers/Parting and then it will just be another mini GSL.
This week end plays were good, but the overall impact on the scene was really disapointing for me :-(
^what? A lot of foreigners gained much more money and exposure than with the former system. I doubt someone like Psionic would have made it to the Challenger League with the old WCS and this season he gained 2K$ and exposure, for instance. A player like ShoWTimE or Kane played in front of a huge in advanced stage of a tournament like they never did before, and they probably gained more money than they would have last year too. A tournament isn't summarized by its finals.
I'm not sure what the most impressive achievement is: 7 Premier titles, 11 Premier finals appearances, or 7 Premier titles out of 11 Premier finals appearances. Either way, Polt is a goddamn legend.
Came home from work, saw an all Korean final, immediately did something else. Boring. Thanks Blizzard for making it even easier for Polt to grind his money. No one would have expected Polt vs Hydra in the finals.
When I saw Hydra's manner hatches and his lings dancing in a circle right when Polt's CC lifted and he had no more scv's, I must admit I was skeptical of him coming back in the next games and win the whole thing. Boy was I wrong!
On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote: While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues.
The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches.
i don't know; i think this final was way more exciting than a bunny/snute final would have been.
On April 06 2015 19:15 OtherWorld wrote: ^what? A lot of foreigners gained much more money and exposure than with the former system. I doubt someone like Psionic would have made it to the Challenger League with the old WCS and this season he gained 2K$ and exposure, for instance. A player like ShoWTimE or Kane played in front of a huge in advanced stage of a tournament like they never did before, and they probably gained more money than they would have last year too. A tournament isn't summarized by its finals.
You are talking about money. I'm talking about performance and what I watch during tournaments I'm happy if a few more foreigners can make a living by playing SC2, but for me, as a viewer, it doesn't mean much at all.
EDIT : OK, I talked about "exposure" in my previous post, that was unclear : I mean high level exposure, not "WCS qualifier level" exposure.
On April 06 2015 19:15 OtherWorld wrote: ^what? A lot of foreigners gained much more money and exposure than with the former system. I doubt someone like Psionic would have made it to the Challenger League with the old WCS and this season he gained 2K$ and exposure, for instance. A player like ShoWTimE or Kane played in front of a huge in advanced stage of a tournament like they never did before, and they probably gained more money than they would have last year too. A tournament isn't summarized by its finals.
You are talking about money. I'm talking about performance and what I watch during tournaments I'm happy if a few more foreigners can make a living by playing SC2, but for me, as a viewer, it doesn't mean much at all.
EDIT : OK, I talked about "exposure" in my previous post, that was unclear : I mean high level exposure, not "WCS qualifier level" exposure.
WCS exposure is the best exposure besides maybe GSL
And Polt staying in game he lost longer than Fantasy or MarineKing, and then coming back to win the series has to be in the top 10 SC moments of all time
On April 06 2015 19:29 Rob-Zero wrote: Came home from work, saw an all Korean final, immediately did something else. Boring. Thanks Blizzard for making it even easier for Polt to grind his money. No one would have expected Polt vs Hydra in the finals.
You missed a fantastic series and come off as a giant asshole. Gratz.
On April 06 2015 10:57 DSK wrote: I knew Polt would win. I was wondering what the commentary and analysis team were smoking when they said Polt would lose to forGG, no disrespect to forGG, of course.
Congrats, Captain America, well deserved and well played. Commiserations to Hydra et al.
Well, forGG had a winning record against Polt in their most recent matches and forGG is known for his great TvT to begin with. I believed in Polt to win too, but it really was a fairly logical call to favor forGG.
So glad to see Hydra lose this after his BM. Not feeling so cocky now are you? Never, ever write Polt off - let's not forget that he was the only Terran player who handled the dark days of blink with finesse.
On April 06 2015 20:36 DeadByDawn wrote: So glad to see Hydra lose this after his BM. Not feeling so cocky now are you? Never, ever write Polt off - let's not forget that he was the only Terran player who handled the dark days of blink with finesse.
- TLO made it to RO8 - ShoWTimE even to RO4 - PiG dropped out at RO16 (I don't like that fact, that he appeared in WCS for his first time and immediately acted like he has been a veteran for many years. All these tweets and posts... Gosh.. Hope, we won't see them again any soon. - Since i nevery believed in a foreigner to go to the finals, i am glad that it was no mirror, went through 7 games and had an amazing comeback-story.
On April 06 2015 19:10 EvilsPresley wrote: I'm a bit on Opiskka's side: what is the point of the new WCS rules if we end up with a kr vs kr final in WCS? No foreigner beat any single korean during the week end. Sure, Bunny had a good fight against Polt, but in the end, Polt won. If the new WCS rules are meant to give exposure to foreigners, it's a fail. Snute was 17th in WCS rankings last year. I bet that no foreigner will be top 20 this year, because foreigners are just not on same level. Maybe because they meet less koreans now? So in the end, all the WCS rules broke the travelling kr (MC, Jaedong, Stardust...) but did not help foreigners at all. Now WCS system will give 2/3 slots for foreign koreans to join Blizzcon (yay, get a VISA, get a decent level, reach top 16!), where they will get destroyed in first round by Kespaers/Parting and then it will just be another mini GSL.
This week end plays were good, but the overall impact on the scene was really disapointing for me :-(
The point was never to ban all Koreans from playing in WCS. The point is to give the non-Korean scenes more breathing room by both making it harder for commuting Koreans to hover up all the WCS prize money. They did this by both making it impossible for Koreans to participate in WCS without making a long term commitment to the area they want to compete in and by creating more opportunities in the Korean scene, giving less incentive for Koreans to leave their oversaturated home scene. It worked. The vast majority of Koreans stay at home where they now have 2 big tournaments to compete in, giving much more players exposure and prize money in Korea itself and there were 2 foreigners in the semi finals of WCS. I'd hardly consider that a fail. And both Polt and forGG have been living in the US/EU for years now, they're part of those scenes and are unlikely to leave any time soon. You might as well consider them foreigners now. There really is not a sensible reason to ban them from playing in WCS.
IMO the EU scene is stronger than it has ever been, with new talents like Serral, Marinelord and Lilbow comming into their own.
On April 06 2015 19:15 OtherWorld wrote: ^what? A lot of foreigners gained much more money and exposure than with the former system. I doubt someone like Psionic would have made it to the Challenger League with the old WCS and this season he gained 2K$ and exposure, for instance. A player like ShoWTimE or Kane played in front of a huge in advanced stage of a tournament like they never did before, and they probably gained more money than they would have last year too. A tournament isn't summarized by its finals.
Exactly lol, and also look at the prize pool. WCS 2015 has a much bigger one than WCS EU/AM. Bunny and Showtime won $10k for their ro4 which is basically a low tier premier tournament first prize.
LoL - - thank goodness this is only three pages long... Could not put up with much more from all you butt hurt cry babies...WCS fail this, foreigners that, Polt this, Hydra that...
Simply post your enormous respect for the Gweomul that is Polt and move on.
Wont lie, seeing Hydra getting to a final of a tier 1 premier league tournament that easily, and having an almost laughable ro.4 opponent was rather upsetting. I mean, I don't disrespect Hydra as a person; he decided he wanted new experiences in his progaming life, and made a difficult choice to completely move and live in the US, which whatever anyone says, isn't easy for a person who has lived in KR for his whole life and never really learnt english. But as a player, while he was in KR and playing in the GSL, he never got better then Ro.32 and was demoted several times to Code A, and now makes it to a final immediately after switching regions. Like, just....come on. A player who had no real results apart from some decent qualifier runs and tier 2 tournament performances, who was nicknamed the 20 minute zerg for losing games that he was in a dominant position before losing control and submitting losses after the 20 minute mark comes in and busts into the finals of WCS. Not great for WCS; despite shipping off most of the koreans who used to play in WCS EU/NA, I find it difficult to imagine a scenario where the round of 8 for every WCS from now will be pretty much a stomping ground for the few koreans staying, with a couple of brave foreigners trying and failing to beat them in bo.5.s
On April 06 2015 22:00 Orlok wrote: Wont lie, seeing Hydra getting to a final of a tier 1 premier league tournament that easily, and having an almost laughable ro.4 opponent was rather upsetting. I mean, I don't disrespect Hydra as a person; he decided he wanted new experiences in his progaming life, and made a difficult choice to completely move and live in the US, which whatever anyone says, isn't easy for a person who has lived in KR for his whole life and never really learnt english. But as a player, while he was in KR and playing in the GSL, he never got better then Ro.32 and was demoted several times to Code A, and now makes it to a final immediately after switching regions. Like, just....come on. A player who had no real results apart from some decent qualifier runs and tier 2 tournament performances, who was nicknamed the 20 minute zerg for losing games that he was in a dominant position before losing control and submitting losses after the 20 minute mark comes in and busts into the finals of WCS. Not great for WCS; despite shipping off most of the koreans who used to play in WCS EU/NA, I find it difficult to imagine a scenario where the round of 8 for every WCS from now will be pretty much a stomping ground for the few koreans staying, with a couple of brave foreigners trying and failing to beat them in bo.5.s
He ran into Polt, the universe has a way of working things out
Both players were awsome anyway. I'm little bit surprised that Hydra didn't win in the final. His performance was very nice but he's still need to break his '20 minutes magic'
Shame on Hydra for loosing this ...being able to stomp on everyone and then throwing the finals like this. bad hydra, bad^^ and, ofc, once again two lowrank korean on top of the foreigners. wcs was not good this season
That was an INSANE finals, I don't know if I've ever been that on the seat of my pants. Especially considering I'm normally a zerg fanboy but Polt just won my heart with how he played like a prize fighter just refusing to go down against all contestants. Amazing.
Polt really brought it back. I already envisioned Hydra grabbing the trophy, but Polt collected himself and forced Hydra to the last game where he defeated him with pure mental strength.
Guys remember when Polt was the most hated man on earth for beating MMA in the super tournament and taking the Optimus Prime title before MarineKing? My my what times has changed. Mad props to Polt.
On April 06 2015 08:17 stuchiu wrote: Incidentally:
Scenario 1: (T)Polt 4 - 3 (Z)Hydra.
I've read enough comicbooks to know now that the showdown happens in the finals and that it must be Captain America vs Red Skull Hydra. As Polt cuts down Hydra in the 7th game, Hydra will scream, "CUT ME DOWN AND 2 MORE KOREANS WILL RISE IN MY PLACE." Then in WCS Season 2 he comes back with Jaedong and Stardust. Dun dun dun.
Evil truly never dies.
Also that's amazing that Polt has won a tournament every year since SC2 came out
SC2 came out in 2010, a year of 3 GSLs, 3 MLGs, 2 IEMs, 1 BlizzCon and 1 DreamHack (for SC2). In neither of these did Polt make even a deep run.
On April 06 2015 08:17 stuchiu wrote: Incidentally:
Scenario 1: (T)Polt 4 - 3 (Z)Hydra.
I've read enough comicbooks to know now that the showdown happens in the finals and that it must be Captain America vs Red Skull Hydra. As Polt cuts down Hydra in the 7th game, Hydra will scream, "CUT ME DOWN AND 2 MORE KOREANS WILL RISE IN MY PLACE." Then in WCS Season 2 he comes back with Jaedong and Stardust. Dun dun dun.
Evil truly never dies.
Also that's amazing that Polt has won a tournament every year since SC2 came out
SC2 came out in 2010, a year of 3 GSLs, 3 MLGs, 2 IEMs, 1 BlizzCon and 1 DreamHack (for SC2). In neither of these did Polt make even a deep run.
On April 06 2015 11:25 BretZ wrote: Will this finally give Polt qualification for one of the best sc2 terrans...ever
Was this ever called into question?
Mvp > Taeja > MMA > Bogus = Polt = Maru
At his peak MMA really seemed amazing, but he fell of rather quickly and even during his peak he lost just about every head to head match-up against Polt (remember the Super Tournament finals when everyone was riding the MMA hype train?)
I tend to think Polt is tied with Taeja for #2, both of them showed they can play in Korea but did most of their winning outside of Korea. Taeja's gone on crazier hot streaks than Polt, but Polt has won more prestigious tournaments in my opinion than Taeja.
On April 06 2015 23:22 Cazimirbzh wrote: Shame on Hydra for loosing this ...being able to stomp on everyone and then throwing the finals like this. bad hydra, bad^^ and, ofc, once again two lowrank korean on top of the foreigners. wcs was not good this season
On April 06 2015 22:00 Orlok wrote: Wont lie, seeing Hydra getting to a final of a tier 1 premier league tournament that easily, and having an almost laughable ro.4 opponent was rather upsetting. I mean, I don't disrespect Hydra as a person; he decided he wanted new experiences in his progaming life, and made a difficult choice to completely move and live in the US, which whatever anyone says, isn't easy for a person who has lived in KR for his whole life and never really learnt english. But as a player, while he was in KR and playing in the GSL, he never got better then Ro.32 and was demoted several times to Code A, and now makes it to a final immediately after switching regions. Like, just....come on. A player who had no real results apart from some decent qualifier runs and tier 2 tournament performances, who was nicknamed the 20 minute zerg for losing games that he was in a dominant position before losing control and submitting losses after the 20 minute mark comes in and busts into the finals of WCS. Not great for WCS; despite shipping off most of the koreans who used to play in WCS EU/NA, I find it difficult to imagine a scenario where the round of 8 for every WCS from now will be pretty much a stomping ground for the few koreans staying, with a couple of brave foreigners trying and failing to beat them in bo.5.s
People jump to assumptions and think they know what they are saying while coming of as ignorant.
So maybe less people share these opinions here are some FACTS:
1.Hydra at Gfinity a weak ago beat Fantasy 2-0, Rogue 3-1 and lost to Parting 4-2 in the finals. Parting that just almost beat Life. (opinion: how about he is simply on a much better form now then he ever was when on a kespa team? Maybe the same can be said about Parting? Who left Kespa and is having much better results now??) 2.MMA, etc.... (I'm lazy so won't do the research, sorry).
On April 06 2015 23:22 Cazimirbzh wrote: Shame on Hydra for loosing this ...being able to stomp on everyone and then throwing the finals like this. bad hydra, bad^^ and, ofc, once again two lowrank korean on top of the foreigners. wcs was not good this season
That is some high quality bait right there.....I mean seriously that finals was better than half the GSL finals
On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote: While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues.
The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches.
Do you know that the willingness to move full-time from your home to a totally foreign country is actually something that not many people have? That the "visa bureaucracy" actually doesn't give working visas left and right? Hydra lives full-time in the USA afaik, he speaks decently good english already, he obtained a legit visa just like Polt. There is no reason to consider that Polt "truly lives" outside of Korea and not Hydra.
If I understand it correctly, Hydra moved to the US a couple of months ago with the sole purpose of competing in the new WCS, didn't he? Whereas Polt at least went there to study on a University. But the point of Polt is not that important, we can condemn him as well, if you wish.
About the visa thing, this happens with almost every my post lately, people make the point that I had in mind, but try to turn in into an argument against me. What am I doing wrong? Hell yes, I know that they don't give the visas left and right and that is the problem! Getting an U.S. visa is a lottery if anything and that is exactly my point - the second place in this WCS was decided by a combination of good support in dealing with bureaucracy and probably luck. How does that have anything to do with Starcraft? (And please don't start telling me that it's just a question of working hard to get the visa, I know so many people who got denied work or student visa for absolutely random and absurd reasons while people who didn't make any effort got in easily.)
I can't speak for Hydra and his situation, but if done right, the process to getting a P1-A visa from the United States is actually a very intricate and long one that has actually very little to do with luck. I can speak for the process that Cyber Solutions Agency went through to get theirs. It took about 3-4 months of leg work from the agency to collect and produce the documentation required for an optimal shot at getting accepted for the visa. The application viOlet and Polt submitted had an estimated total of around 500 pages that included translated interviews from notable sources, letters of recommendations from key entities of the industry, a 3 year schedule of the known professional tournaments that said player would attend, a 10 page summary of the eSports industry including sourced statistics, and much more. With that being said, US immigration is very careful on who they give these long-term visas to, and if you have a checkered past with immigration it might make it difficult to obtain the visa. viOlet stayed in the US for close to a year on the ESTA visa (not recommended), yet he was still able to obtain the visa.
More information regarding the visa viOlet and Polt have can be found here:
above post by zaxx should be plastered in your TL inbox to remind you that it's not as easy as you say.
and about tournaments, tournament structure, and especially the tournament results when it comes to starcraft 2, you are downplaying everything that's required of a player in order to actually be a champion. you are also overlooking how difficult of a road it is for the foreigners who get "stomped on". whether one thing is more difficult than another it does not matter, it's still extremely hard to the point that none of us could become professionals in an entire lifetime even if we needed to--let alone produce results that you deem satisfactory.
fucking second place, or ro4 finisher is nothing to scoff at for people on the outside. the only person who can actually feel and live the shame is the player who finished at that stage of the tournament.
what i'm saying is, have some god-damned respect, and look at what you're saying about people who are much higher up than yourself.
I don't really understand the discussion here. All the players that were competing in this WCS LIVE in Europe or America. There's absolutely no way to keep them from playing in WCS, tbh. If Polt was excluded from WCS, he'd have to give up his studies and go back to Korea. And - let's face it - that'd be completely ridiculous. Also: these Koreans don't profit from the Korean training environment anymore and Koreans aren't genetically superior, you know? :-P
It's getting ridiculous. People keep "arguing against me" by posting arguments that I agree with and which actually support my point that the current WCS global system is completely ridiculous. So once again:
Firstly: "getting the right visa is a lot of work"- yes it is. And it is ridiculous that this absurdly complicated process is what decides the results of WCS Global, not actual personal skill in SC2.
On April 07 2015 06:56 Swisslink wrote: I don't really understand the discussion here. All the players that were competing in this WCS LIVE in Europe or America. There's absolutely no way to keep them from playing in WCS, tbh. If Polt was excluded from WCS, he'd have to give up his studies and go back to Korea. And - let's face it - that'd be completely ridiculous. Also: these Koreans don't profit from the Korean training environment anymore and Koreans aren't genetically superior, you know? :-P
Please, tell that to all the Korean players who were kept from playing in the WCS. This your statement doesn't make any sense and just ignores the main problem of the WCS system, that it randomly keeps a portion of willing participants from playing.
Megafathers post really didn't hit the point that I was trying to make. I was just slightly annoyed, or upset for a better word, that a round of 4 match in a tier 1 tournament was completely not fun to watch. Ritual slaughter of a foreigner by a Korean is never good to see even in the earlier stages of WCS, but to see it happen in a playoff match was terrible. I can't imagine such a one sided serious in GSL or NSSL ro.4 matches, and I really didn't stay up till 3,4 in the morning to watch a ro.4 match that was basically a protossing all-inning a more experienced zerg and dying a horrible death afterwards. I never said Hydra was unskilled, or that non-kespa players or players that moved away from Kespa are bad. I just hate the fact that nothing really has changed in WCS; Korean players, no matter how small in number, ALWAYS dominate the ro.8 and beyond, with foreigners never quite fully edging them out.
On April 06 2015 11:24 BretZ wrote: Will this finally give Polt consideration for one of the best sc2 terrans...ever?
Why should it? Sure the tournament was enjoyable but it was hardly stacked
The tournament might not be stacked as a whole, but you have to respect the playoff run of Bunny -> ForGG -> Hydra, which was the hardest run he could have possibly hit
On April 08 2015 01:05 Orlok wrote: Megafathers post really didn't hit the point that I was trying to make. I was just slightly annoyed, or upset for a better word, that a round of 4 match in a tier 1 tournament was completely not fun to watch. Ritual slaughter of a foreigner by a Korean is never good to see even in the earlier stages of WCS, but to see it happen in a playoff match was terrible. I can't imagine such a one sided serious in GSL or NSSL ro.4 matches, and I really didn't stay up till 3,4 in the morning to watch a ro.4 match that was basically a protossing all-inning a more experienced zerg and dying a horrible death afterwards. I never said Hydra was unskilled, or that non-kespa players or players that moved away from Kespa are bad. I just hate the fact that nothing really has changed in WCS; Korean players, no matter how small in number, ALWAYS dominate the ro.8 and beyond, with foreigners never quite fully edging them out.
It was a terrible match, but let's not pretend it hasn't happened before in GSL
On April 06 2015 08:32 King David wrote: That will teach Hydra to dance his units again! God that made me angry :S . But it turned out good in the end at least :D Always liked Polt for being such a sport and hearty person. Glad he won
He danced his units when polt had obviously lost the game a long time ago. Then polt stayed another few minutes past that. I'm not a fan of dancing units either, but I'm sure it was in a "stop delaying the game" kind of way, not an arrogant, "I'm better than you" kind of way.
On April 08 2015 00:04 opisska wrote: It's getting ridiculous. People keep "arguing against me" by posting arguments that I agree with and which actually support my point that the current WCS global system is completely ridiculous. So once again:
Firstly: "getting the right visa is a lot of work"- yes it is. And it is ridiculous that this absurdly complicated process is what decides the results of WCS Global, not actual personal skill in SC2.
On April 07 2015 06:56 Swisslink wrote: I don't really understand the discussion here. All the players that were competing in this WCS LIVE in Europe or America. There's absolutely no way to keep them from playing in WCS, tbh. If Polt was excluded from WCS, he'd have to give up his studies and go back to Korea. And - let's face it - that'd be completely ridiculous. Also: these Koreans don't profit from the Korean training environment anymore and Koreans aren't genetically superior, you know? :-P
Please, tell that to all the Korean players who were kept from playing in the WCS. This your statement doesn't make any sense and just ignores the main problem of the WCS system, that it randomly keeps a portion of willing participants from playing.
So you're ignoring the sentence before the bolded part. Which is why you completely missed his point and probably why you are confused.
The entire point is there is no fair way to bar players who live in Europe or America from competing in WCS despite what you want.
On April 08 2015 01:05 Orlok wrote: Megafathers post really didn't hit the point that I was trying to make. I was just slightly annoyed, or upset for a better word, that a round of 4 match in a tier 1 tournament was completely not fun to watch. Ritual slaughter of a foreigner by a Korean is never good to see even in the earlier stages of WCS, but to see it happen in a playoff match was terrible. I can't imagine such a one sided serious in GSL or NSSL ro.4 matches, and I really didn't stay up till 3,4 in the morning to watch a ro.4 match that was basically a protossing all-inning a more experienced zerg and dying a horrible death afterwards. I never said Hydra was unskilled, or that non-kespa players or players that moved away from Kespa are bad. I just hate the fact that nothing really has changed in WCS; Korean players, no matter how small in number, ALWAYS dominate the ro.8 and beyond, with foreigners never quite fully edging them out.
That's you. Personally, I watch these tournaments to watch Koreans bop foreigners. I have no interest in watching foreigner only tournaments. If I want to watch the best of the best, there's Proleague, GSL and NSSL. I watch this for the same reason people watch Alabama vs directional Alabama in college football.
I think easily the greatest WCS America finals ever. Polt was a true hero. Although I wanted a foreigner to win for a change, Polt has always been one of my favorite players. He is hilarious, charming, and fucking deadly haha. He is the perfect example of how experience affects play level. He's awesome. Go POLTUUU
On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote: While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues.
The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches.
While I'll try to stay objective, I have a short story, which might be interesting regarding this topic. For me personally, I don't mind either way. I agree with both sides in this matter but here it is ;
So, while I was watching the finals this weekend, my girlfriend was sitting next to me on my couch. Having never ever seen Starcraft, I explained the basics a bit and she already knew I used to play alot/consider e-sports, THE sports to watch. She actually quite liked the awesomeness and the hype for every particular match, although she still has/had no clue what was happening during the games itself (The GG timings seem to really be hard to grasp for people who don't know SC).
I had explained the region differences and how it is aranged now. One of the first things she said was ; "Why are there still koreans then in an EU/AM tournament?"
I thought about it for a second and explained how it got evolved from last year, where there were tons of Koreans in all regions (explained her about WCS KR2(AM)) and explained how Koreans just generally dominate this season. For her, this was just really confusing and weird. Why not let the koreans play on their own turf? Why have such weird VISA rules? I had also told her Polt's story and she agreed, that maybe something like that would be acceptable. However she disagreed with any other "Foreigners" from entering such a tourney and had some solid arguments for it.
edit; She also mentioned that it would be really weird for Foreigners to move to Korea for the same reason. Which I then told her, that foreigners had been doing that since 2001, which she found really odd aswell. She said; "It's as if America's best basketball players, would join Russia's biggest basketball league, just to win some easy prize-money, which shouldn't be possible". (I told her, that the foreigners weren't even winning in Korea, eventhough that isn't the point)
I know, that in our (gaming) scene, we have alot of arguments for and against almost everything. But I was rather surprised that she took such a hard stance against these rules, and viewed them as really weird and offputting. She bassically said that if it would turn out to be a KR vs KR finals, that she felt less interested and was rooting for any non-korean. (My bias was heavily towards ShoWTimE, so she wanted him to win mostly).
Here's the kicker; I have never ever told/said/leaked anything about my stance towards the korean-eu-am scene to her, nor did I ever agree to her stance at that point. I was just really interested what she had to say as an outsider.
@Opisska, her stance towards this situation, was at that time, almost exactly the same as your post here. Minus the background knowledge on WCS and e-sports in general.
On April 08 2015 00:04 opisska wrote: It's getting ridiculous. People keep "arguing against me" by posting arguments that I agree with and which actually support my point that the current WCS global system is completely ridiculous. So once again:
Firstly: "getting the right visa is a lot of work"- yes it is. And it is ridiculous that this absurdly complicated process is what decides the results of WCS Global, not actual personal skill in SC2.
On April 07 2015 06:56 Swisslink wrote: I don't really understand the discussion here. All the players that were competing in this WCS LIVE in Europe or America. There's absolutely no way to keep them from playing in WCS, tbh. If Polt was excluded from WCS, he'd have to give up his studies and go back to Korea. And - let's face it - that'd be completely ridiculous. Also: these Koreans don't profit from the Korean training environment anymore and Koreans aren't genetically superior, you know? :-P
Please, tell that to all the Korean players who were kept from playing in the WCS. This your statement doesn't make any sense and just ignores the main problem of the WCS system, that it randomly keeps a portion of willing participants from playing.
So you're ignoring the sentence before the bolded part. Which is why you completely missed his point and probably why you are confused.
The entire point is there is no fair way to bar players who live in Europe or America from competing in WCS despite what you want.
And the current choice of rules seems "fair" to you? You people still somehow manage to assume that anyone who is against the current system wants a strictly protected non-Korean competition. Where have I ever said that? I just only really hate the way it is know and would like it to change, in any direction that creates a level playing field. If we can really conclude that there is no reasonable way to prevent people like Hydra from coming over and getting second in WCS by getting the right visa, then the only plausible conclusion is that WCS needs to be open to any participant.
On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote: While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues.
The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches.
While I'll try to stay objective, I have a short story, which might be interesting regarding this topic. For me personally, I don't mind either way. I agree with both sides in this matter but here it is ;
So, while I was watching the finals this weekend, my girlfriend was sitting next to me on my couch. Having never ever seen Starcraft, I explained the basics a bit and she already knew I used to play alot/consider e-sports, THE sports to watch. She actually quite liked the awesomeness and the hype for every particular match, although she still has/had no clue what was happening during the games itself (The GG timings seem to really be hard to grasp for people who don't know SC).
I had explained the region differences and how it is aranged now. One of the first things she said was ; "Why are there still koreans then in an EU/AM tournament?"
I thought about it for a second and explained how it got evolved from last year, where there were tons of Koreans in all regions (explained her about WCS KR2(AM)) and explained how Koreans just generally dominate this season. For her, this was just really confusing and weird. Why not let the koreans play on their own turf? Why have such weird VISA rules? I had also told her Polt's story and she agreed, that maybe something like that would be acceptable. However she disagreed with any other "Foreigners" from entering such a tourney and had some solid arguments for it.
edit; She also mentioned that it would be really weird for Foreigners to move to Korea for the same reason. Which I then told her, that foreigners had been doing that since 2001, which she found really odd aswell. She said; "It's as if America's best basketball players, would join Russia's biggest basketball league, just to win some easy prize-money, which shouldn't be possible". (I told her, that the foreigners weren't even winning in Korea, eventhough that isn't the point)
I know, that in our (gaming) scene, we have alot of arguments for and against almost everything. But I was rather surprised that she took such a hard stance against these rules, and viewed them as really weird and offputting. She bassically said that if it would turn out to be a KR vs KR finals, that she felt less interested and was rooting for any non-korean. (My bias was heavily towards ShoWTimE, so she wanted him to win mostly).
Here's the kicker; I have never ever told/said/leaked anything about my stance towards the korean-eu-am scene to her, nor did I ever agree to her stance at that point. I was just really interested what she had to say as an outsider.
@Opisska, her stance towards this situation, was at that time, almost exactly the same as your post here. Minus the background knowledge on WCS and e-sports in general.
There are plenty of American basketball players in "foreign" leagues. Just saying.
That's just a weird argument. The USA's sports scene might not notice this as much, because it's really focused on sports no one else in the world really cares about ( I jest. :p), like basketball, baseball and American football. So all the viewers, players and money come from and stay in the US. But in football, cycling, tennis, ... and just about any other international sport it's very common for athletes to hop across borders to compete in different leagues.
On April 08 2015 00:04 opisska wrote: It's getting ridiculous. People keep "arguing against me" by posting arguments that I agree with and which actually support my point that the current WCS global system is completely ridiculous. So once again:
Firstly: "getting the right visa is a lot of work"- yes it is. And it is ridiculous that this absurdly complicated process is what decides the results of WCS Global, not actual personal skill in SC2.
On April 07 2015 06:56 Swisslink wrote: I don't really understand the discussion here. All the players that were competing in this WCS LIVE in Europe or America. There's absolutely no way to keep them from playing in WCS, tbh. If Polt was excluded from WCS, he'd have to give up his studies and go back to Korea. And - let's face it - that'd be completely ridiculous. Also: these Koreans don't profit from the Korean training environment anymore and Koreans aren't genetically superior, you know? :-P
Please, tell that to all the Korean players who were kept from playing in the WCS. This your statement doesn't make any sense and just ignores the main problem of the WCS system, that it randomly keeps a portion of willing participants from playing.
So you're ignoring the sentence before the bolded part. Which is why you completely missed his point and probably why you are confused.
The entire point is there is no fair way to bar players who live in Europe or America from competing in WCS despite what you want.
And the current choice of rules seems "fair" to you? You people still somehow manage to assume that anyone who is against the current system wants a strictly protected non-Korean competition. Where have I ever said that? I just only really hate the way it is know and would like it to change, in any direction that creates a level playing field. If we can really conclude that there is no reasonable way to prevent people like Hydra from coming over and getting second in WCS by getting the right visa, then the only plausible conclusion is that WCS needs to be open to any participant.
So go back to how it was last year? Just, no. The current system is a lot more interesting IMO. Your conclusion follows from the flawed starting point that the current system is broken. It isn't. There is no reason to bar someone who uprooted his entire live and moved to the USA in order to be able to compete there from entering the competition.
On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote: While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues.
The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches.
While I'll try to stay objective, I have a short story, which might be interesting regarding this topic. For me personally, I don't mind either way. I agree with both sides in this matter but here it is ;
So, while I was watching the finals this weekend, my girlfriend was sitting next to me on my couch. Having never ever seen Starcraft, I explained the basics a bit and she already knew I used to play alot/consider e-sports, THE sports to watch. She actually quite liked the awesomeness and the hype for every particular match, although she still has/had no clue what was happening during the games itself (The GG timings seem to really be hard to grasp for people who don't know SC).
I had explained the region differences and how it is aranged now. One of the first things she said was ; "Why are there still koreans then in an EU/AM tournament?"
I thought about it for a second and explained how it got evolved from last year, where there were tons of Koreans in all regions (explained her about WCS KR2(AM)) and explained how Koreans just generally dominate this season. For her, this was just really confusing and weird. Why not let the koreans play on their own turf? Why have such weird VISA rules? I had also told her Polt's story and she agreed, that maybe something like that would be acceptable. However she disagreed with any other "Foreigners" from entering such a tourney and had some solid arguments for it.
edit; She also mentioned that it would be really weird for Foreigners to move to Korea for the same reason. Which I then told her, that foreigners had been doing that since 2001, which she found really odd aswell. She said; "It's as if America's best basketball players, would join Russia's biggest basketball league, just to win some easy prize-money, which shouldn't be possible". (I told her, that the foreigners weren't even winning in Korea, eventhough that isn't the point)
I know, that in our (gaming) scene, we have alot of arguments for and against almost everything. But I was rather surprised that she took such a hard stance against these rules, and viewed them as really weird and offputting. She bassically said that if it would turn out to be a KR vs KR finals, that she felt less interested and was rooting for any non-korean. (My bias was heavily towards ShoWTimE, so she wanted him to win mostly).
Here's the kicker; I have never ever told/said/leaked anything about my stance towards the korean-eu-am scene to her, nor did I ever agree to her stance at that point. I was just really interested what she had to say as an outsider.
@Opisska, her stance towards this situation, was at that time, almost exactly the same as your post here. Minus the background knowledge on WCS and e-sports in general.
There are plenty of American basketball players in "foreign" leagues. Just saying.
That's just a weird argument. The USA's sports scene might not notice this as much, because it's really focused on sports no one else in the world really cares about ( I jest. :p), like basketball, baseball and American football. So all the viewers, players and money come from and stay in the US. But in football, cycling, tennis, ... and just about any other international sport it's very common for athletes to hop across borders to compete in different leagues.
I had the same thought after reading that post.
But even in America Major League Soccer still maintains caps on international players per-team.
Plus, any college basketball fans knows the fate of the majority of your favorite players is playing oversees. So it's not like Americans are completely insulated from the fact that foreigners arrive to play in other countries all the time.
On April 08 2015 00:04 opisska wrote: It's getting ridiculous. People keep "arguing against me" by posting arguments that I agree with and which actually support my point that the current WCS global system is completely ridiculous. So once again:
Firstly: "getting the right visa is a lot of work"- yes it is. And it is ridiculous that this absurdly complicated process is what decides the results of WCS Global, not actual personal skill in SC2.
On April 07 2015 06:56 Swisslink wrote: I don't really understand the discussion here. All the players that were competing in this WCS LIVE in Europe or America. There's absolutely no way to keep them from playing in WCS, tbh. If Polt was excluded from WCS, he'd have to give up his studies and go back to Korea. And - let's face it - that'd be completely ridiculous. Also: these Koreans don't profit from the Korean training environment anymore and Koreans aren't genetically superior, you know? :-P
Please, tell that to all the Korean players who were kept from playing in the WCS. This your statement doesn't make any sense and just ignores the main problem of the WCS system, that it randomly keeps a portion of willing participants from playing.
So you're ignoring the sentence before the bolded part. Which is why you completely missed his point and probably why you are confused.
The entire point is there is no fair way to bar players who live in Europe or America from competing in WCS despite what you want.
And the current choice of rules seems "fair" to you? You people still somehow manage to assume that anyone who is against the current system wants a strictly protected non-Korean competition. Where have I ever said that? I just only really hate the way it is know and would like it to change, in any direction that creates a level playing field. If we can really conclude that there is no reasonable way to prevent people like Hydra from coming over and getting second in WCS by getting the right visa, then the only plausible conclusion is that WCS needs to be open to any participant.
So go back to how it was last year? Just, no. The current system is a lot more interesting IMO. Your conclusion follows from the flawed starting point that the current system is broken. It isn't. There is no reason to bar someone who uprooted his entire live and moved to the USA in order to be able to compete there from entering the competition.
If you enjoyed watching completely pointless stomps in the top 8 of WCS (which is the place you would normally look for the best games outside of GSL/SSL) then you probably don't feel that the current system is broken. How can you find it more interesting than last year is beyond my comprehension, but so are most of the opinions of the majority of people so it's not that surprising.
The residency rule was installed exactly to make it more "interesting", particularly to viewers who care more about the foreigner players. Back then I was saying how stupid that is and I was proven right - at least in my opinion the resulting tournament was pretty stupid. Now you (and other people) are saying that the situation at hand is the inevitable outcome of this change and thus I conclude that the only possible solution is to reverse the change.
You are a champion. What a good reference, perfect song for the occasion (Btw - Did you get the song from Perks of being a Wallflower?). I'm just going to come out and say it... "I love you". #NoHomo
On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote: While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues.
The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches.
While I'll try to stay objective, I have a short story, which might be interesting regarding this topic. For me personally, I don't mind either way. I agree with both sides in this matter but here it is ;
So, while I was watching the finals this weekend, my girlfriend was sitting next to me on my couch. Having never ever seen Starcraft, I explained the basics a bit and she already knew I used to play alot/consider e-sports, THE sports to watch. She actually quite liked the awesomeness and the hype for every particular match, although she still has/had no clue what was happening during the games itself (The GG timings seem to really be hard to grasp for people who don't know SC).
I had explained the region differences and how it is aranged now. One of the first things she said was ; "Why are there still koreans then in an EU/AM tournament?"
I thought about it for a second and explained how it got evolved from last year, where there were tons of Koreans in all regions (explained her about WCS KR2(AM)) and explained how Koreans just generally dominate this season. For her, this was just really confusing and weird. Why not let the koreans play on their own turf? Why have such weird VISA rules? I had also told her Polt's story and she agreed, that maybe something like that would be acceptable. However she disagreed with any other "Foreigners" from entering such a tourney and had some solid arguments for it.
edit; She also mentioned that it would be really weird for Foreigners to move to Korea for the same reason. Which I then told her, that foreigners had been doing that since 2001, which she found really odd aswell. She said; "It's as if America's best basketball players, would join Russia's biggest basketball league, just to win some easy prize-money, which shouldn't be possible". (I told her, that the foreigners weren't even winning in Korea, eventhough that isn't the point)
I know, that in our (gaming) scene, we have alot of arguments for and against almost everything. But I was rather surprised that she took such a hard stance against these rules, and viewed them as really weird and offputting. She bassically said that if it would turn out to be a KR vs KR finals, that she felt less interested and was rooting for any non-korean. (My bias was heavily towards ShoWTimE, so she wanted him to win mostly).
Here's the kicker; I have never ever told/said/leaked anything about my stance towards the korean-eu-am scene to her, nor did I ever agree to her stance at that point. I was just really interested what she had to say as an outsider.
@Opisska, her stance towards this situation, was at that time, almost exactly the same as your post here. Minus the background knowledge on WCS and e-sports in general.
There are plenty of American basketball players in "foreign" leagues. Just saying.
That's just a weird argument. The USA's sports scene might not notice this as much, because it's really focused on sports no one else in the world really cares about ( I jest. :p), like basketball, baseball and American football. So all the viewers, players and money come from and stay in the US. But in football, cycling, tennis, ... and just about any other international sport it's very common for athletes to hop across borders to compete in different leagues.
You're missing the point, the basketball argument was just an example. Lets just say "National team" in any sport. Someone who has been living for a long time in a country, might be eligible for the National team. However, a good player who decided to live in country X, to play for that national team, just because getting on the national team is too hard in his/her own country. That's a different story.. Now view WCS AM, WCS EU, WCS China, WCS KR as "National team" (just look at WCS2012) and read the argument again.
On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote: While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues.
The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches.
While I'll try to stay objective, I have a short story, which might be interesting regarding this topic. For me personally, I don't mind either way. I agree with both sides in this matter but here it is ;
So, while I was watching the finals this weekend, my girlfriend was sitting next to me on my couch. Having never ever seen Starcraft, I explained the basics a bit and she already knew I used to play alot/consider e-sports, THE sports to watch. She actually quite liked the awesomeness and the hype for every particular match, although she still has/had no clue what was happening during the games itself (The GG timings seem to really be hard to grasp for people who don't know SC).
I had explained the region differences and how it is aranged now. One of the first things she said was ; "Why are there still koreans then in an EU/AM tournament?"
I thought about it for a second and explained how it got evolved from last year, where there were tons of Koreans in all regions (explained her about WCS KR2(AM)) and explained how Koreans just generally dominate this season. For her, this was just really confusing and weird. Why not let the koreans play on their own turf? Why have such weird VISA rules? I had also told her Polt's story and she agreed, that maybe something like that would be acceptable. However she disagreed with any other "Foreigners" from entering such a tourney and had some solid arguments for it.
edit; She also mentioned that it would be really weird for Foreigners to move to Korea for the same reason. Which I then told her, that foreigners had been doing that since 2001, which she found really odd aswell. She said; "It's as if America's best basketball players, would join Russia's biggest basketball league, just to win some easy prize-money, which shouldn't be possible". (I told her, that the foreigners weren't even winning in Korea, eventhough that isn't the point)
I know, that in our (gaming) scene, we have alot of arguments for and against almost everything. But I was rather surprised that she took such a hard stance against these rules, and viewed them as really weird and offputting. She bassically said that if it would turn out to be a KR vs KR finals, that she felt less interested and was rooting for any non-korean. (My bias was heavily towards ShoWTimE, so she wanted him to win mostly).
Here's the kicker; I have never ever told/said/leaked anything about my stance towards the korean-eu-am scene to her, nor did I ever agree to her stance at that point. I was just really interested what she had to say as an outsider.
@Opisska, her stance towards this situation, was at that time, almost exactly the same as your post here. Minus the background knowledge on WCS and e-sports in general.
There are plenty of American basketball players in "foreign" leagues. Just saying.
That's just a weird argument. The USA's sports scene might not notice this as much, because it's really focused on sports no one else in the world really cares about ( I jest. :p), like basketball, baseball and American football. So all the viewers, players and money come from and stay in the US. But in football, cycling, tennis, ... and just about any other international sport it's very common for athletes to hop across borders to compete in different leagues.
You're missing the point, the basketball argument was just an example. Lets just say "National team" in any sport. Someone who has been living for a long time in a country, might be eligible for the National team. However, a good player who decided to live in country X, to play for that national team, just because getting on the national team is too hard in his/her own country. That's a different story.. Now view WCS AM, WCS EU, WCS China, WCS KR as "National team" (just look at WCS2012) and read the argument again.
I suggest you look a bit harder, there are examples everywhere in sport, especially football.
On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote: While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues.
The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches.
While I'll try to stay objective, I have a short story, which might be interesting regarding this topic. For me personally, I don't mind either way. I agree with both sides in this matter but here it is ;
So, while I was watching the finals this weekend, my girlfriend was sitting next to me on my couch. Having never ever seen Starcraft, I explained the basics a bit and she already knew I used to play alot/consider e-sports, THE sports to watch. She actually quite liked the awesomeness and the hype for every particular match, although she still has/had no clue what was happening during the games itself (The GG timings seem to really be hard to grasp for people who don't know SC).
I had explained the region differences and how it is aranged now. One of the first things she said was ; "Why are there still koreans then in an EU/AM tournament?"
I thought about it for a second and explained how it got evolved from last year, where there were tons of Koreans in all regions (explained her about WCS KR2(AM)) and explained how Koreans just generally dominate this season. For her, this was just really confusing and weird. Why not let the koreans play on their own turf? Why have such weird VISA rules? I had also told her Polt's story and she agreed, that maybe something like that would be acceptable. However she disagreed with any other "Foreigners" from entering such a tourney and had some solid arguments for it.
edit; She also mentioned that it would be really weird for Foreigners to move to Korea for the same reason. Which I then told her, that foreigners had been doing that since 2001, which she found really odd aswell. She said; "It's as if America's best basketball players, would join Russia's biggest basketball league, just to win some easy prize-money, which shouldn't be possible". (I told her, that the foreigners weren't even winning in Korea, eventhough that isn't the point)
I know, that in our (gaming) scene, we have alot of arguments for and against almost everything. But I was rather surprised that she took such a hard stance against these rules, and viewed them as really weird and offputting. She bassically said that if it would turn out to be a KR vs KR finals, that she felt less interested and was rooting for any non-korean. (My bias was heavily towards ShoWTimE, so she wanted him to win mostly).
Here's the kicker; I have never ever told/said/leaked anything about my stance towards the korean-eu-am scene to her, nor did I ever agree to her stance at that point. I was just really interested what she had to say as an outsider.
@Opisska, her stance towards this situation, was at that time, almost exactly the same as your post here. Minus the background knowledge on WCS and e-sports in general.
There are plenty of American basketball players in "foreign" leagues. Just saying.
That's just a weird argument. The USA's sports scene might not notice this as much, because it's really focused on sports no one else in the world really cares about ( I jest. :p), like basketball, baseball and American football. So all the viewers, players and money come from and stay in the US. But in football, cycling, tennis, ... and just about any other international sport it's very common for athletes to hop across borders to compete in different leagues.
You're missing the point, the basketball argument was just an example. Lets just say "National team" in any sport. Someone who has been living for a long time in a country, might be eligible for the National team. However, a good player who decided to live in country X, to play for that national team, just because getting on the national team is too hard in his/her own country. That's a different story.. Now view WCS AM, WCS EU, WCS China, WCS KR as "National team" (just look at WCS2012) and read the argument again.
I suggest you look a bit harder, there are examples everywhere in sport, especially football.
I'm more than aware that people who have been living in country X for a couple of years will alot of the time come out for said country. Football players like those in the Dutch, German(Boateng etc.),French national teams, are all players who have lived/live in that country for years. Even their parents might be German or French.
"Examples everywhere" - I'm not arguing this point, I'm just asking whether it is good for a sport or not? For me, I lost interest in things like football years ago, ever since my "favorite team" started consisting completely of African players. Not that I have anything against African players, but I just can't relate to the team at all anymore. The same was kind of happening in SC2. Whenever all foreigners (or read: your own country/favorites) fall, it gets less interesting for alot of people. (I loved this finals for the games, but for any/most external viewer(s) it was Korean vs Korean, which is simply not exciting. Eventhough Polt is probably the most non-korean of all).
On April 09 2015 16:57 WonnaPlay wrote: but for any/most external viewer(s) it was Korean vs Korean, which is simply not exciting.
The fact that the Blizzcon and IEM Katowice have been by far the most popular events over the past two years means that most people disagree with you there
On April 09 2015 16:57 WonnaPlay wrote: but for any/most external viewer(s) it was Korean vs Korean, which is simply not exciting.
The fact that the Blizzcon and IEM Katowice have been by far the most popular events over the past two years means that most people disagree with you there
It's very hard to discuss with you, if you keep taking 1 little point of the argument and counter it with an argument like this.
Blizzcon and IEM Katowice have been by far the most popular events over the past 2 years, because e-sports in general is getting bigger and bigger. The growth of things like Counter-Strike:GO have been huge the past year(s).
Sc2 has a huge and devoted community, however the community is not growing "as fast" as the others. Numerous factors have a role in this, and I'm stating that for newcomers, it is less interesting if they only see Koreans, who'm don't speak English at all (thats why I don't dislike either Polt,Hydra or ForGG).
When I watched CS:GO with a friend of mine a couple of weeks back (he never seen e-sports, but he heard alot from me on SC2 over the last years and he used to play a bit CS1.6 years ago).
He was immediately completely hyped. He rooted for one of the teams (NiP vs LDLC; he rooted for NiP), just because he liked the Swedish style and he hates French people. He was on the edge of his chair and ever since he's been bugging me on when the next big tournament is. If this was SC2 and I showed him an Korean vs Korean finals, he wouldn't have picked a team, he wouldn't care who won and he wouldn't know what was happening in the game. THATS the difference.
On April 09 2015 16:57 WonnaPlay wrote: but for any/most external viewer(s) it was Korean vs Korean, which is simply not exciting.
The fact that the Blizzcon and IEM Katowice have been by far the most popular events over the past two years means that most people disagree with you there
It's very hard to discuss with you, if you keep taking 1 little point of the argument and counter it with an argument like this.
Blizzcon and IEM Katowice have been by far the most popular events over the past 2 years, because e-sports in general is getting bigger and bigger. The growth of things like Counter-Strike:GO have been huge the past year(s).
Sc2 has a huge and devoted community, however the community is not growing "as fast" as the others. Numerous factors have a role in this, and I'm stating that for newcomers, it is less interesting if they only see Koreans, who'm don't speak English at all (thats why I don't dislike either Polt,Hydra or ForGG).
When I watched CS:GO with a friend of mine a couple of weeks back (he never seen e-sports, but he heard alot from me on SC2 over the last years and he used to play a bit CS1.6 years ago).
He was immediately completely hyped. He rooted for one of the teams (NiP vs LDLC; he rooted for NiP), just because he liked the Swedish style and he hates French people. He was on the edge of his chair and ever since he's been bugging me on when the next big tournament is. If this was SC2 and I showed him an Korean vs Korean finals, he wouldn't have picked a team, he wouldn't care who won and he wouldn't know what was happening in the game. THATS the difference.
But that's a different argument entirely. In CS, the fact that there are teams that your friend can identify with is due to the fact that all the best teams in the world are European. There's always going to be a large national focus to storylines because the very nature of a team-based game that hinges on communication means that the majority of the teams come from the same country. That's simply not an issue in Starcraft.
What you're arguing essentially is that NiP - LDLC/Envy was a good match as an introduction to newer players because of the nationalities involved; what I'd argue is that it was a good match because they're 2 of the 3 best teams in the world.
I think that there are more than enough people in the scene who do care about the Korean players (Proleague in particular is helping out a lot with this). It's still early to tell if this new incarnation of WCS is going to be better than the last, but I'll say for sure that the playoffs would have been a hell of a lot duller if the Koreans weren't there.
On April 09 2015 16:57 WonnaPlay wrote: but for any/most external viewer(s) it was Korean vs Korean, which is simply not exciting.
The fact that the Blizzcon and IEM Katowice have been by far the most popular events over the past two years means that most people disagree with you there
It's very hard to discuss with you, if you keep taking 1 little point of the argument and counter it with an argument like this.
Blizzcon and IEM Katowice have been by far the most popular events over the past 2 years, because e-sports in general is getting bigger and bigger. The growth of things like Counter-Strike:GO have been huge the past year(s).
Sc2 has a huge and devoted community, however the community is not growing "as fast" as the others. Numerous factors have a role in this, and I'm stating that for newcomers, it is less interesting if they only see Koreans, who'm don't speak English at all (thats why I don't dislike either Polt,Hydra or ForGG).
When I watched CS:GO with a friend of mine a couple of weeks back (he never seen e-sports, but he heard alot from me on SC2 over the last years and he used to play a bit CS1.6 years ago).
He was immediately completely hyped. He rooted for one of the teams (NiP vs LDLC; he rooted for NiP), just because he liked the Swedish style and he hates French people. He was on the edge of his chair and ever since he's been bugging me on when the next big tournament is. If this was SC2 and I showed him an Korean vs Korean finals, he wouldn't have picked a team, he wouldn't care who won and he wouldn't know what was happening in the game. THATS the difference.
But that's a different argument entirely. In CS, the fact that there are teams that your friend can identify with is due to the fact that all the best teams in the world are European. There's always going to be a large national focus to storylines because the very nature of a team-based game that hinges on communication means that the majority of the teams come from the same country. That's simply not an issue in Starcraft.
What you're arguing essentially is that NiP - LDLC/Envy was a good match as an introduction to newer players because of the nationalities involved; what I'd argue is that it was a good match because they're 2 of the 3 best teams in the world.
I think that there are more than enough people in the scene who do care about the Korean players (Proleague in particular is helping out a lot with this). It's still early to tell if this new incarnation of WCS is going to be better than the last, but I'll say for sure that the playoffs would have been a hell of a lot duller if the Koreans weren't there.
The bolded part is actually a very good point. Whenever I show people SC matches, they tend to get more excited if they can identify with someone/something. Some friends used to cheer for NaNiWa, just because he wasn't Korean. I told them that Naniwa was actually kind of a dick, but they don't care about that. They would hype the 1 non-korean that was in the tournament, just in case of rooting for the underdog. Rooting for a random korean underdog vs a korean upperdog isn't that exciting for them, because both koreans are 'koreans'.
For me as an SC2 player, I have no trouble identifying myself with Koreans, because they're just so good and all playstyles are different. So Koreans in a tournament are fun to watch for me, just because I can learn from it and i love the awesome matches. External viewers are much more likely to prefer storylines over good games.
True, the match that I showed was a very good introduction match (I showed him the DH:Winter finals). The same goes for SC. I can "turn over" more people to SC with a "HuK vs Bunny" match, than compared to a Squirtle vs MVP finals(I can't even believe I'm saying this, because that finals was the most brutal thing I ever watched).
It is indeed too early to tell, and while I agree that enough of the people in the scene care about the korean players, I can't help but feel that it is somewhat bad for the growth (look at how the AM scene just completely evaporated).
IMHO; the changes to WCS this year are really good step forward, but I still feel that it is not enough. WCS used to be "per country"(needed to be citizen from country X to participate in country X), it got changed into region, through that it changed "region" to "anywhere from the world, as long as you're here or there on that time".
On April 06 2015 18:05 opisska wrote: While I was cheering for Polt out of sheer love for him, it's kinda pity that Hydra didn't win, because that would expose the absurdity of this WCS to the maximum. Polt at least is someone who truly lives outside Korea for a reason and it would be honestly difficult for him to compete in Korean tournaments. But Hydra? This guy just shows that the only three things standing between a horde of sufficiently high-level Koreans ) and easy money and WCS points are willingness to move, visa bureaucracy and Polt. Hydra is pretty good for an "export Korean", but there are dozens of guys of comparable skill in Korea who end in Ro16s of the two leagues.
The grand finals itself was fantastic games and awesomely nail-biting - for me particularly because of my hatred towards how Hydra got there, so I should actually congratulate WCS for creating that story but overall this WCS was pretty lame at times and the concept is just wrong. Yes, there were high viewer numbers, but this was the first time, so nobody could know upfront how bad some of the games are going to be. Next time I think people will be more scpetical and tune in only for the eventual Korean-Korean or Korean/Bunny/Snute matches.
While I'll try to stay objective, I have a short story, which might be interesting regarding this topic. For me personally, I don't mind either way. I agree with both sides in this matter but here it is ;
So, while I was watching the finals this weekend, my girlfriend was sitting next to me on my couch. Having never ever seen Starcraft, I explained the basics a bit and she already knew I used to play alot/consider e-sports, THE sports to watch. She actually quite liked the awesomeness and the hype for every particular match, although she still has/had no clue what was happening during the games itself (The GG timings seem to really be hard to grasp for people who don't know SC).
I had explained the region differences and how it is aranged now. One of the first things she said was ; "Why are there still koreans then in an EU/AM tournament?"
I thought about it for a second and explained how it got evolved from last year, where there were tons of Koreans in all regions (explained her about WCS KR2(AM)) and explained how Koreans just generally dominate this season. For her, this was just really confusing and weird. Why not let the koreans play on their own turf? Why have such weird VISA rules? I had also told her Polt's story and she agreed, that maybe something like that would be acceptable. However she disagreed with any other "Foreigners" from entering such a tourney and had some solid arguments for it.
edit; She also mentioned that it would be really weird for Foreigners to move to Korea for the same reason. Which I then told her, that foreigners had been doing that since 2001, which she found really odd aswell. She said; "It's as if America's best basketball players, would join Russia's biggest basketball league, just to win some easy prize-money, which shouldn't be possible". (I told her, that the foreigners weren't even winning in Korea, eventhough that isn't the point)
I know, that in our (gaming) scene, we have alot of arguments for and against almost everything. But I was rather surprised that she took such a hard stance against these rules, and viewed them as really weird and offputting. She bassically said that if it would turn out to be a KR vs KR finals, that she felt less interested and was rooting for any non-korean. (My bias was heavily towards ShoWTimE, so she wanted him to win mostly).
Here's the kicker; I have never ever told/said/leaked anything about my stance towards the korean-eu-am scene to her, nor did I ever agree to her stance at that point. I was just really interested what she had to say as an outsider.
@Opisska, her stance towards this situation, was at that time, almost exactly the same as your post here. Minus the background knowledge on WCS and e-sports in general.
There are plenty of American basketball players in "foreign" leagues. Just saying.
That's just a weird argument. The USA's sports scene might not notice this as much, because it's really focused on sports no one else in the world really cares about ( I jest. :p), like basketball, baseball and American football. So all the viewers, players and money come from and stay in the US. But in football, cycling, tennis, ... and just about any other international sport it's very common for athletes to hop across borders to compete in different leagues.
You're missing the point, the basketball argument was just an example. Lets just say "National team" in any sport. Someone who has been living for a long time in a country, might be eligible for the National team. However, a good player who decided to live in country X, to play for that national team, just because getting on the national team is too hard in his/her own country. That's a different story.. Now view WCS AM, WCS EU, WCS China, WCS KR as "National team" (just look at WCS2012) and read the argument again.
But the WCS' *aren't* like national teams. That argument just doesn't hold up. StarCraft is more comparable to tennis where WCS/GSL/... are the Grandslams.
Game 5 and 6 has been awesome. back and forth! after that hydra seemed to struggle especially in the last game he took really bad fights but it was also kinda strange map wise for zerg... gratz to polt amazing finals!
EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5tqboCD.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/z7hRi9O.jpg)
nerves got himat the end.. he was doing stupid mistakes. Polt kept his cool and came back and that completly tilted Hydra. But it was a really good run for him.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/JIiCpcP.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/oa9Walk.jpg)
