EPTOn May 02 2018 01:51 Fango wrote:
The Kespa players dominated in korea especially and raised the skill level significantly. Many of the pre-kespa players couldn't keep up with them in korea and started competing elsewhere. Even the best pre-kespa players were mostly weekend warriors. With exceptions being the absolute best (Life, PartinG, Maru etc)
The Kespa players dominated in korea especially and raised the skill level significantly. Many of the pre-kespa players couldn't keep up with them in korea and started competing elsewhere. Even the best pre-kespa players were mostly weekend warriors. With exceptions being the absolute best (Life, PartinG, Maru etc)
Yeah, I've heard this one before. All throughout 2013-2014 about the "Korean runners" fleeing from the "true pros". When in actuality that was probably only true for a small percentage of them (pains me to say it, but NesTea would fall into that category ;; ). The vast majority were probably just looking for easier money and a little travel adventure in foreign lands. You have to remember these guys are also doing this as a job. I'm sure a lot care about being the best but their are of course financial considerations as well that take priority. All 3 WCS regions paid the same amount of money from what I remember, so try to see it from their perspective:
Would you rather try your luck in a group like this that isn't even code S level... or play a bo5 against Catz to make it into WCS AM Premiere for the same amount of money?
Do you remember what the dawn of 2015 was like where we had all kinds of mid - top tier Koreans scrambling to get on foreign teams because they wanted to travel to foreign events? Rain, Fantasy, Soulkey, Hydra, etc all passed up other Kespa teams for foreign opportunities instead.
The dawn of 2015 also had this little season that you conveniently danced around (21/32 of Code S are pre-Kespa players).
In fact, I don't believe Kespa players held the majority of spots in code S until the beginning of 2014 which again, was due to the pre-Kespa players having more leeway to travel to other regions. I will, however, concede that in time that the Kespa pool of players have had more ro8+ representation and many more starleague wins since their arrival. So it is fair to say that they're considerably more top-heavy.
tl;dr: Kespa players ofc raised the skill level. The injection of 7 Korean teams worth of them into the scene is bound to do that.I just don't believe there was a big disparity in skill when comparing the average Kespa player to non-Kespa player.
