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I'm quite upset about the way lilbow played and, perhaps, the way he prepared for the match...He said in the interview he's looking forward to Legacy of the Void and that he wants to be the best in it. I feel that is exactly the attitude foreigners always have...."I'm focusing on the future and I want to become the best some day", but if you want to become the best you have to be the best now and as soon as possible. I know it's hard to practice [HotS] because everyone is switching to Legacy of the Void, but he could have put in more effort. - Dario "TLO" Wunsch after Lilbow's defeat in the 2015 WCS Finals.
Let's start with that last statement. I bet it was hard for Lilbow to practice on the ladder as players have started to migrate to Legacy of the Void. There are always custom games, though. I'll play devil's advocate for a second and assume Lilbow asked every foreign pro in the scene to help him. We should be livid that the top tier players in the community would leave him out to dry and not offer their hand to help him in his Round of 16 match against Life. Now let's strap on our logic pants for a minute - I find it hard to believe there were many pros who would have done such a thing, if any at all.
I 100% believe Lilbow played hard against Life, but I do not believe he tried. Trying involves your performance during AND leading up to the match at hand.
If Lilbow takes a victory or high placement at DreamHack, people are going to say "See! See! It paid off!" Unless Lilbow also cleans house in all of 2016 - not just WCS, but DH, IEM, and Gfinity, but in particular WCS Season 1 for 2016 - he didn't gain anything from shrugging off yesterday's match.
It's his choice.
It sure is. If he believed, 100%, this is what was right then so be it. That doesn't make him immune to criticism. He made a decision, he chose to share that decision publicly - he will be judged for good or bad.
But..but, the head start!
Every race, especially Protoss, has underwent heavy changes the last month and a half. The asymmetrical balance of StarCraft dictates that, in MOST cases these critical changes will require builds and unit compositions for ALL races to be changed every time a unit is changed for ONE race (assuming the unit changed is part of the XvX match up). There is the valid point of learning the economy and becoming familiar with how units work (i.e. controlling disruptors, especially the new one), but I see nothing that Lilbow could have gained from playing LotV full time pre-Blizzcon that he couldn't have acquired from maybe 1-2 hours of LotV a day while practicing for Life and then going HAM after Blizzcon. If he does well in season 1 and falls off in season 2, is everyone going to say #worth when thinking back to this moment?
Disrespect
The one thing Lilbow supporters and dissenters seem to all agree on is he shouldn't have openly stated how he approached Blizzcon. But let's make something clear for this section. This is about personal accountability in his actions and what they say of him and how he feels about WCS and his fans.
WCS
Blizzard and ESL employees - from the community managers to Carmac; from people editing videos of Lilbow to those making sure he's taken care of during the event. Every one of them was told "none of this mattered enough for me to prepare." This wasn't just Lilbow deciding to not respect his match, he was showing a lack of respect for the most prestigious event of the year. His chances of winning should have played no role in that.
Fans
I'll give Lilbow the benefit of the doubt and assume when he said people who didn't agree with him were cockroaches, he was just a tad angry. But in case he wasn't, perhaps we're dealing with something a little more than bad judgement. News flash, if a football player fucks up, their fans don't suddenly become any less "true fans" if they call them on it.
You, as a fan of Lilbow, have every right to be upset. People put their heart into supporting their favorite players, especially at an event like this. Does he owe you anything? Yes. He owes you enough decency to not go down 3:0 and then try to assuage his ego by blaming it (stupidly) on his lack of practice.
Final Thoughts
This is a big deal for many folks because Lilbow was our Foreign Hope. He left WCS S3 a Champion with a Champion's mentality. I talked to Dayshi a lot about Lilbow at Gfinity, and he said that Lilbow believed he could win Blizzcon and that he was gunning for a very high finish. What the fuck happened? That was on September 24th/25th. The WCS brackets were released October 6th. Did Lilbow see his opponent and think "Well, shit, never mind. I'll just go play Legacy." That's not how a champion approaches competition and that's not how a professional shows respect for his fans or his sport.
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100% agree. This is why the foreign scene will always be a club of entitles players who in the face of defeat will cry for opportunities but in the face of victory or opportunity squander it. He spend a precious month of prep time to play Legacy when Legacy will be around for the forsee able future after release. Is his potential forseen profit in the initial stages of Legacy worth the complete smearing of the best opportunity a foreign player has had on the biggest stage in the world? No. The damage to his and his teams brand is far worse than the potential top 4 at a DH, inevitably losing to a Korean who has played maybe 3 weeks of Legacy.
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Is there really a need to dig deeper than the facts and Lilbow's official response is my question.
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On November 03 2015 00:52 Lycangrope wrote:
Disrespect
The one thing Lilbow supporters and dissenters seem to all agree on is he shouldn't have openly stated how he approached Blizzcon. But let's make something clear for this section. This is about personal accountability in his actions and what they say of him and how he feels about WCS and his fans.
WCS
Blizzard and ESL employees - from the community managers to Carmac; from people editing videos of Lilbow to those making sure he's taken care of during the event. Every one of them was told "none of this mattered enough for me to prepare." This wasn't just Lilbow deciding to not respect his match, he was showing a lack of respect for the most prestigious event of the year. His chances of winning should have played no role in that.
This, so much. I mean, everyone probably _understands_ Lilbow, but I feel sorry for everyone working around him and his fans. I feel sorry for Blizzard for even flying him to California if he didn't even mean to do everything he could to win.
About the part where he has asked every pro to practice with him, TLO stated on twitter that people had offered help to Lilbow but Lilbow declined.
Here's the tweet;
If you ask me, Lilbow deserves the same criticism NaNiwa recieved that one IEM where he messed up. The only difference between those two situations was that Lilbow didn't forfeit after the first game.
I sincerely hope Lilbow's LOTV practice pays off.
Also, this tweet makes me sick;
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Well at this point Lilbow is just fed up with all of it so he's just trolling, thats the usual behaviour really if you aren't famillar with them twitters
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I also want to add that this may very well be the single biggest stage Lilbow will ever play in.
Think about that for a minute and then tell me he did the right thing in playing 2 hots games the last 3 months.
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Czech Republic10560 Posts
So, Lycan, what do you think now about more foreigners at Blizzcon when this happened? :-) You were very vocal in your show about that (your last thought was 4 places for foreigners even though they are not the best).
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Also this shows how bad the SC2 is handled by teams. Where Life/Innovation/Dream has full roster of people who train with them Lilbow is all alone with no help - according to him. Either is Lilbow lying or the team is really bad when they cannot get him someone to practice with. If the only training ground is the ladder then foreign scene is FUBAR.
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8370 Posts
I was surprised because Lilbow struck me as a player who entered tournaments with some plans and specific builds in mind. The mechanics between LotV and HotS are not that different. As long as he's playing a lot of one or the other and has some good builds to bring to the match, builds which he already knows or can tweak a little bit without needing a live opponent, he should do pretty well. He wouldn't have to put in that much effort to pick the builds and he'd only have to go through each one a few times vs AI the day before to freshen up on them. It wouldn't be ideal because it'd be unlikely that he innovates and without many hours of practice against a worthy opponent he couldn't hammer out all the details, but still I think he'd get 90% of the way with minimal effort and have a better showing than what he did. Maybe I'm misjudging the whole situation and misjudging him but I think he has the talent and already attained enough skill to do as I've said and the best explanation for when the results prove otherwise is that he gave up before he started.
edit: I'm guessing that it didn't occur to him that a little bit of effort could have carried him 90% of the way and preserved his dignity and given him a shot at actually advancing a round. But to comment on the gist of the OP: It is a bit disappointing that our best players don't see something like this Blizzcon finals, which is the most important tournament in SC2 and is the last HotS tournament ever and the last chance to show all the knowledge and skill you have in HotS, that they don't see it as a challenge and the very reason they got into progaming in the first place. There are several players that have a decent shot at beating top Koreans, and they do it in tournaments here and there, but it's only at a tournament like at Blizzcon where foreigners can make history by advancing a few rounds. Pretty hard to imagine passing that opportunity up out of fear that the off-season won't be enough time to prep for LotV. And if his performance declines in LotV anyway, he's gonna get eaten up by the community.
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On November 03 2015 01:13 deacon.frost wrote:
So, Lycan, what do you think now about more foreigners at Blizzcon when this happened? :-) You were very vocal in your show about that (your last thought was 4 places for foreigners even though they are not the best).
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Also this shows how bad the SC2 is handled by teams. Where Life/Innovation/Dream has full roster of people who train with them Lilbow is all alone with no help - according to him. Either is Lilbow lying or the team is really bad when they cannot get him someone to practice with. If the only training ground is the ladder then foreign scene is FUBAR.
Koreans do not practice only with their teams. More often than not they practice cross-teams with their friends, which is why in the "thank you"-section of GSL winner interviews they always thank people from other teams, and then usually their coach for coming to the studio with them.
As TLO stated, people offered to help Lilbow but Lilbow declined. It wasn't a matter of if he COULD practice or not, he simply chose not to.
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On November 03 2015 01:10 Jade wrote:
Well at this point Lilbow is just fed up with all of it so he's just trolling, thats the usual behaviour really if you aren't famillar with them twitters
He's fed up at the pushback that he's receiving because he didn't practice and was extremely dismissive with any level of accountability. So he can troll all he wants, but I doubt it'll make him look any better.
I didn't really have an opinion of "Lilbow the person" before this fiasco (just that "Lilbow the player" is clearly skilled at the game for a foreigner), but now I do have a negative opinion of his personality.
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I think that if Lilbow's intention was to not prepare for the match, the honorable thing to do would have been to forfeit ahead of time so someone else could have taken his spot. Would it have still sucked? Yes. Would it have sucked as much as this? No.
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On November 03 2015 01:18 CakeSauc3 wrote:
I think that if Lilbow's intention was to not prepare for the match, the honorable thing to do would have been to forfeit ahead of time so someone else could have taken his spot. Would it have still sucked? Yes. Would it have sucked as much as this? No.
Well, he couldn't really have done that since they get paid for just showing up. He was already in the money.
But at least he could have put some effort into actually playing the tournament, and not just showing up to recieve his money.
People actually believed in him, and believed that he had done everything in his power to perform to his best ability at Blizzcon, the most prestigeous tournament in StarCraft. However, he disrespected the game, his fans, Blizzard and the tournament as a whole by not caring whatsoever.
He let everyone down.
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If he didn't mention anything about not practising, and just played out the games like he did I don't think people would have cared anywhere near as much regardless of how entertaining disappointing the games were. I think it's just a stupid thing to say.
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On November 03 2015 01:22 Ansibled wrote:
If he didn't mention anything about not practising, and just played out the games like he did I don't think people would have cared regardless of how entertaining disappointing the games were. I think it's just a stupid thing to say.
I agree. Even something like "I don't really have an excuse for losing this badly... Life just played solidly and tricky, and I just wasn't able to play up to my full potential." Period, end of discussion, everyone shrugs and says #LifeWillAlwaysFindAWay instead of #ScumbagLilbow. But to basically flip off the scene and the WCS stage was a dumb move.
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He had to make a choice. Practice for le last HOTS tournament, where almost nobody play except the 16 players in it or rush the new game. Is that is fault if LOTV will be released 2 days after Blizzcon ? Is that is fault is DH qualifier are before Blizzcon? May be he disrepect this Blizzcon. But he respect SC2 wanted to start being a LOTV pro player asap. Either way it would have been cheesy in the end. It was just sad that this "freelose" tournament was the biggest one in SC2.
I was sad like everyone seeing him being destroyed and doing such tweet afterward. It was not perfect from him. But I can understand his choice. He was ready to go 3weeks in Korea to practice HOTS. But he canceled at last moment because it couldn't really give him the practice we wanted/needed because of LOTV again.
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I think that lilbow doesn't owe anyone anything. If there are players out there who felt that they deserved lilbow's spot, they should have beat lilbow.
This is life we're talking about.Life specifically said that he saw that lilbow's wall-ins were weak. this is life we're talking about. of course he's going to go for the jugular, using his signature lings to do it.
all in all, sucks but i don't think it's a problem
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Czech Republic10560 Posts
On November 03 2015 01:15 sd_andeh wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2015 01:13 deacon.frost wrote:
So, Lycan, what do you think now about more foreigners at Blizzcon when this happened? :-) You were very vocal in your show about that (your last thought was 4 places for foreigners even though they are not the best).
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Also this shows how bad the SC2 is handled by teams. Where Life/Innovation/Dream has full roster of people who train with them Lilbow is all alone with no help - according to him. Either is Lilbow lying or the team is really bad when they cannot get him someone to practice with. If the only training ground is the ladder then foreign scene is FUBAR. Koreans do not practice only with their teams. More often than not they practice cross-teams with their friends, which is why in the "thank you"-section of GSL winner interviews they always thank people from other teams, and then usually their coach for coming to the studio with them. As TLO stated, people offered to help Lilbow but Lilbow declined. It wasn't a matter of if he COULD practice or not, he simply chose not to.
yes, they don't train only with their teammates. But he stated there was no one to train with. He won thousands of charity $ from foreigner WCS and he couldn't even pay some money so the opponents have a reason to train with him? Or the team couldn't pay anything? I agree that HotS was dead game at that time that's why I am stating he could offer a salary to these guys.
And as TLO stated there were offers... I am disgusted by this approach of the best foreigner. Even when Stephano was saying "I don't train, just party hard" he looked unshakable and it looked that he has a lot of training behind him(maybe months ago). It didn't look like he just arrived to get free hotel room and trip to US... Grrrrrrrrrrr 
On November 03 2015 01:22 Ansibled wrote:
If he didn't mention anything about not practising, and just played out the games like he did I don't think people would have cared anywhere near as much regardless of how entertaining disappointing the games were. I think it's just a stupid thing to say.
Game #2 was really weird until folks from LotV section stated that he was looking for a proxy hatch from LotV where in HotS this doesn't make sense.
But even with game #2 I fully agree. It would look weird(MVP.MK level weird) but it would be better than this.
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Lilbow is a WCS Champion, no twitter BM can take that away. He is a young man who in the end made a poor choice of words. That's just it, words...
Look at Life's pre and post game interview. Pre game he says he knows nothing of Lilbow and will simply crush him because he's a foreigner, yet post game he admitted to studying him and planning the all in strategies for each game. Players are full of shit and always looking for the #mindgames.
Twisting his words and pitchforking him as a disrespectful player is utter bullshit. He gave his all this year and deserved his spot. The timing wasn't great with DH winter qualifiers just happening, etc. Let's not crucify this young man for a poor choice of words for attention. He's clearly one of, if not THE best foreigner we have. Let's calm down and wish him well in the future.
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On November 03 2015 01:28 deacon.frost wrote:
But he stated there was no one to train with.
This was a lie, as stated, since obviously people offered to help and practice with Lilbow, but Lilbow refused. This one is all on Lilbow unfortunately.
I do agree with above statements though that if he just kept his mouth shut, this would look like just another destroying of a foreigner by a Korean. Nothing special about it since we see foreigners get destroyed on a daily basis by Koreans, but Lilbow decided to go public with this information which probably was a stupid move.
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On November 03 2015 01:32 Ctone23 wrote:
Lilbow is a WCS Champion, no twitter BM can take that away. He is a young man who in the end made a poor choice of words. That's just it, words...
Look at Life's pre and post game interview. Pre game he says he knows nothing of Lilbow and will simply crush him because he's a foreigner, yet post game he admitted to studying him and planning the all in strategies for each game. Players are full of shit and always looking for the #mindgames.
Twisting his words and pitchforking him as a disrespectful player is utter bullshit. He gave his all this year and deserved his spot. The timing wasn't great with DH winter qualifiers just happening, etc. Let's not crucify this young man for a poor choice of words for attention. He's clearly one of, if not THE best foreigner we have. Let's calm down and wish him well in the future.
A poor choice of words? He insulted people who disagree with his decision on twitter. Instead of not saying anything about it, he brags about it. That's not a poor choice of words, that's a bad attitude.
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