Welcome to Serral-Con 2019: ASUS ROG Tournament at Assembly Summer
By: Wax
On August 1-3, thirty-two progamers will gather in Helsinki, Finland to compete for $25,000 and 3200 WCS Circuit points at ASUS ROG Summer 2019. The origins for this surprise, mid-year WCS event can be traced back to a few months ago, when ENCE founder and Assembly esports head Petri Hämälä asked Serral what he wanted for his 21st birthday. "Vengeance upon my enemies" said Serral. "Say no more." replied Hämälä.
And so, the tournament known as Assembly was restored to its full glory for the first time since 2015.
Alright, I don't have proof that's how it went down, but that's the only logical conclusion I can come to. I mean, just check out the Liquipedia participants section for the tournament. That's not a roster—that's a goddamn hit-list of SC2 pros who have upset, defeated, or otherwise made fans doubt Serral in the past. What a coincidence that Assembly was able to entice those all players into attending by holding its first major-tier SC2 event since 2015.
So, ahead of the tournament, I've decided to go through some of the more notable and interesting names on Serral's death ledger.
Reynor: A rival, like it or not
Serral may not care for out-of-game storylines, but could he really blame anyone for calling Reynor his rival now? The WCS Circuit championship has gone to the winner of Serral vs Reynor in four consecutive events: WCS Montreal (2018), WCS Winter: Europe, WCS Spring, and WCS Summer.
WCS Montreal was where we found out there was substance behind the Reynor hype, with the young Italian nearly beating Serral in his very first Circuit finals appearance. If not for a ridiculous throw/comeback on Cerulean Fall, Reynor may even have won his first title.
Reynor made up for letting the Montreal title slip away by defeating Serral 4-3 in the finals of WCS Winter: Europe, but the split-region nature of the tournament left it feeling a step short from a complete, unconditional victory. Unfortunately for Reynor, his next attempt to take down Serral in a 'full' Circuit event at WCS Spring ended in disaster, losing 0-3 to Serral in the semifinals.
However, Reynor finally achieved his no-strings-attached, completely validating triumph at WCS Summer, toppling Serral 4-2 in the finals. In a mirror move of the Montreal finals, Reynor threw in a clutch comeback game to put his stamp on the series.
Though Reynor has been shockingly good against Serral, he hasn't transcended foreigner status in the same way. His record against Korean players in offline matches shows some wildly erratic results, ranging from eliminating Classic in Code S, getting eliminated by Creator and GuMiho in the IEM open bracket, to being totally overrun by Maru in WCG. So, while Serral vs. Reynor will be one of the most anticipated matches of Serral-Con, the stacked, open-region roster could get in the way of this feud.
INnoVation: Absconding with $110,000
I can't think of two players who would care less about fan lore and narratives than Serral and INnoVation. However, I'm pretty sure they both care about cold hard cash.
INnoVation might not have as complex a history with Serral as Reynor, but he has a legit claim to be his greatest nemesis. Reynor has taken more championships away from Serral but INnoVation has taken away more money. WESG 2018 saw INnoVation win the $150,000 grand prize for defeating Serral 4-3 in the finals—an absurdly lop-sided $110,000 difference over Serral's second place winnings of $40,000 (the 1st/2nd place at WCS Circuit events pays out $20,000/$10,000).
Beating INnoVation at ASUS ROG won't get Serral any of that money back—in that regard, INnoVation gets to win this head-to-head forever (or at least until Serral returns the favor at another super-major tournament). But in the meanwhile, a crushing victory would at least shut up Serral's critics and haters in Korean-elitist circles, as well as strengthen his case to finally be #1 in the TL.net Power Rank. And that's something money can't buy (well, I'd listen to offers).
soO: The streak-breaker
Serral's run between June and November of 2018 was one of the most dominant stretches in StarCraft II history, where the Finnish Phenom went six-for-six in major tournaments (WCS Austin, WCS Valencia, GSL vs. The World, WCS Montreal, WCS Global Finals, and HomeStory Cup 18).
Thus, it felt like an act of cosmic rebalancing when soO ended up being the player to end Serral's reign. In the quarterfinals of IEM Katowice 2019, Serral was reminded about the bitter taste of being a NOT-winner by the player who had lived with that feeling for most of his professional career. That's poetry in StarCraft II form.
Ever since then, Serral has been forced to live in the world of mortals, merely winning SOME of the tournaments he chooses to participate in. While Serral got a modicum of revenge back at HomeStory Cup 19 by sweeping soO out of the playoffs, it wasn't totally satisfying. soO attained some form of StarCraft nirvana after winning his career-defining championship at IEM Katowice (he said he can finally see "in color" now), and nothing seems to be able to change his perpetual good mood. However, there's one way Serral just might wake soO from his blissful reverie: by handing him a tenth second place finish...
Stats: 'Dude, I said GG no re'
This isn't so much a revenge match as it is a 'stop bothering me' match. During the aforementioned, god-like run in 2018, Serral defeated Stats in the finals of his two biggest tournament triumphs: GSL vs. The World (4-3) and the WCS Global Finals (4-2).
While some would say there's nothing left for Serral to prove against Stats, STATSBOYS would disagree. Here's the case for Stats: he fought Serral to a near standstill at GSL vs the World, put up credible resistance at BlizzCon (arguably the peak of Serral's power), and he recently took a cheeky series off Serral during the HomeStory Cup 19 group stage (somewhat meaningless as Serral went on to win the championship, but interesting nonetheless). It's time to give this faux-rivalry one more shot before we decide to put it to rest.
ShoWTimE and Neeb: Just for good measure
I'm not quite sure what kind of scam Serral is trying to run on Neeb and ShoWTimE. He's always rushing to compliment them as his most dangerous Circuit opponents in interviews, but all of their significant tournament matches invariably end with Serral running a lawnmower over their faces.
What gives? Is this some sick ploy to get more credit for winning? As if we didn't heap enough praise on Serral already for being the greatest foreigner of all time and the savior of competitive StarCraft II? For the love of god, Serral, you made us have to tolerate Maynarde trying to get 'God-king' over as a nickname. Please, just chill, and let ShoWTimE and Neeb lose to you in peace.
MarineLorD: Settling the score
Here's a morsel of SC2 trivia: Among the players at ASUS ROG Summer, Bomber is the player with the best head-to-head record against Serral at 1-0 (an online match played way back in 2016).
The player with the second best record? It's mother-fungalling MarineLorD.
Newer fans might not know that MarineLorD was kind of a big deal back in 2015~2016, looking like he was on track to become the best foreign Terran ever. At the time, Serral was just a Finnish schoolboy with far off aspirations of becoming a full-time pro, so it's no surprise that MarineLorD whooped him to the tune of a 6-1 head-to-head match record (with a stinging 12-2 map score).
Incidentally, MarineLorD's two odd years in semi-retirement largely overlapped with Serral's rise, and he's also somehow managed to avoid meeting Serral since his return to active play. This bill is long overdue, and it could be time for Serral to finally teach the MarineLorD that bullying kids doesn't pay (I mean, unless they're Italian and you really wanna win that WCS Circuit title...).
[Besides Bomber and MarineLorD, Serral is still slightly trailing against TaeJa, soO, Neeb, and INnoVation in terms of head-to-head record (according to Aligulac.com).]
GuMiho: Because I'll use any excuse to put him in a TL article
Serral first broke out as an elite foreigner during the 2017 WCS Circuit, finishing as the #3 seed overall and earning a spot in the group stage of the Global Finals. Unfortunately, that's where Serral's WCS season ended, as GuMiho upheld his solemn duty as a Korean Terran by crushing the upstart foreigner and cruelly denying him a chance at standing on the BlizzCon stage.
How the tables have turned! Serral could repay the favor by sending GuMiho hurtling out of ASUS ROG Summer in the group stages, relegating him to the LAN area and preventing him from ever stepping upon the venerable stage of the Helsinki Exhibition and Convention Centre (previously graced by the likes of TaeJa, Jaedong, and elfi). That'll show him!
On a more serious note, these two always seem to find a way to entertain, so I'm cheering for them to meet no matter the result.
Dark: How dare you not attend
Look, I don't know what Dark's deal with Gosu Crew is, what kind of summer vacation he has planned, or whatever other circumstances he has going on in his life. I don't care—he NEEDS to be at this event.
A huge part of Dark reputation has been built on dumpstering foreigners both inside and outside the game. He doubled down on running his mouth during Serral's ascent, but was humiliated when he couldn't walk the walk on THREE different occasions. Sure, Dark might be a bit of a pro-wrestling heel, but pro-wrestling characters are often described as reflecting your true persona—just amped up to 11. There's real pride-turned-arrogance burning inside Dark, and the corresponding shame of getting so thoroughly beaten by Serral must have been intolerable.
Lately, Dark has been playing the best StarCraft II of his career, finally winning the Code S trophy he's desired all this time. He's $30,000 richer and has the money to self-finance a trip to Finland. GSL is on a month break, and he'll be playing one of the easiest Ro16 groups ever when it resumes. Serral, while still incredibly good, is no longer the invincible juggernaut from 2018. All things considered, Dark at least owed it to himself to go to Finland and try and ruin Serral's homecoming.
Well, that's Dark's loss. Who knows, maybe someone else in Finland will steal the ultimate revenge from him?
Great write-up, thanks! This looks like a super exciting tournament, can't wait. This and GSL vs the World will provide a lot of food for debates ;-)
Just a minor correction: Reynor won 4-2, not 4-3, at WCS Summer. Which is significant, because it makes Reynor the *only* player to beat Serral at a premier event final without having to go into a decider, and it's Serral's first Bo5+ offline loss since he got bopped by Maru in March 2018 that is not going to the full match length.
All the groups look really exciting which is nice to see. Most groups have 2 fairly favored players but still have 1-2 other players capable of an upset (and almost no groups have an obvious first place player)
On July 30 2019 16:41 StarcraftPeffo wrote: Great read! Just a little correction, soO didn't defeat Serral in the grand finals of IEM, but i think it was the semis? or the quarter finals?
On July 30 2019 21:57 Wombat_NI wrote: I love it when I lose track of when tournaments are on and then discover they’re 2 days away. Hypeeee
1 day and 19 hours! And the best thing is, this is heavy from the get go. Like the third match of the tournament is probably Serral vs Inno / soO vs Zest! No wind up whatsoever.
Now I just need to figure out what I'm telling my boss :/
On July 31 2019 01:29 veniss wrote: For those wondering about the shirt, it's a meme from CS:GO. Fans of ENCE's CS:GO team would spam EZ4ENCE in the chat.
I take it you've never been in twitch chat for a Serral match lol?
Why Dark wants to come this event for so less prize pool? This event does not attract players outside EU. If a player from KR does not advance to Ro4, he likely will lose money if no reimbursement from team.
OK, I'm definitely stealing this expression from now on !
It's mother-fungalling MarineLorD.
On another note: didn't realise this tournament existed until I stumbled upon this article, and now I'm actually quite hyped about it, so job well done TL ! <3
On July 31 2019 01:29 veniss wrote: For those wondering about the shirt, it's a meme from CS:GO. Fans of ENCE's CS:GO team would spam EZ4ENCE in the chat.
I take it you've never been in twitch chat for a Serral match lol?
I didn't even notice the shirt until you guys mentioned it ^^
On July 31 2019 15:25 hunterqiji wrote: Why Dark wants to come this event for so less prize pool? This event does not attract players outside EU. If a player from KR does not advance to Ro4, he likely will lose money if no reimbursement from team.
Asus Rog doesn't attract players outside EU=12 koreans players out of 32? I can't imagine how many would there be if it did.
On July 31 2019 15:25 hunterqiji wrote: Why Dark wants to come this event for so less prize pool? This event does not attract players outside EU. If a player from KR does not advance to Ro4, he likely will lose money if no reimbursement from team.
Asus Rog doesn't attract players outside EU=12 koreans players out of 32? I can't imagine how many would there be if it did.
12 Koreans but only 2 NA players with MaSa being the single solitary NA player who even signed up for the NA qualifier. If you're not European and your team (if you have one) doesn't pay your travel and hotel expenses this event is a net financial loss unless you make top 4 (and only top 8 get paid with to begin with).
Apparently that's good enough to keep NA away from Finland even though they could get WCS points there unlike Koreans.
On July 31 2019 18:28 HolydaKing wrote: If Serral doesn't win the tournament, the next guy I'm cheering for is Showtime. He's on fire lately.
Not gonna be easy milk run for Serral, as it looks like it'll be very soon a flight and fight against heavy concentrations of Koreans, and contrary to year 2018 they all have surely made their own individual Serral-studies.
How much boost (or extra pressure?) Serral may get from competing on the home grounds, we will see.
Furthermore: Group A is structured such way that Serral practically meets first two of those guys who know him best: Lambo The Royal Trainer and ZhugeLiAng The Second-in-Command, The Arch-spar at the Finnish front.
While there is considerable difference in level of competition between the God-King and his closest courtiers, these guys can possibly make some damage to Serral's run only by psychological factors involved in those match-ups.
Third one in the group is then Innovation, The GOAT of SC2. You can expect anything from him.
On July 31 2019 15:25 hunterqiji wrote: Why Dark wants to come this event for so less prize pool? This event does not attract players outside EU. If a player from KR does not advance to Ro4, he likely will lose money if no reimbursement from team.
Asus Rog doesn't attract players outside EU=12 koreans players out of 32? I can't imagine how many would there be if it did.
12 Koreans but only 2 NA players with MaSa being the single solitary NA player who even signed up for the NA qualifier. If you're not European and your team (if you have one) doesn't pay your travel and hotel expenses this event is a net financial loss unless you make top 4 (and only top 8 get paid with to begin with).
Apparently that's good enough to keep NA away from Finland even though they could get WCS points there unlike Koreans.
Well, it's not that appealing for american players, it's true; Scarlett, however, tried to qualify, Neeb was invited and Special declined. Kelazhur, Cham, Future and Astrea are maybe the ones who can think to compete against such a field but there's too few money to justify such a gamble.
Non european presence, especially korean, is instead massive; Dark definitely didn't choose not to go because koreans disregard ASUS Rog.
On July 31 2019 19:09 UnLarva wrote: Furthermore: Group A is structured such way that Serral practically meets first two of those guys who know him best: Lambo The Royal Trainer and ZhugeLiAng The Second-in-Command, The Arch-spar at the Finnish front.
While there is considerable difference in level of competition between the God-King and his closest courtiers, these guys can possibly make some damage to Serral's run only by psychological factors involved in those match-ups.
Third one in the group is then Innovation, The GOAT of SC2. You can expect anything from him.
On July 31 2019 15:25 hunterqiji wrote: Why Dark wants to come this event for so less prize pool? This event does not attract players outside EU. If a player from KR does not advance to Ro4, he likely will lose money if no reimbursement from team.
Dark's team has western based sponsors, so the exhibition on an international event is should exactly be what Dark is sponsored for. But I think he still can skip this since he is set for GSLvsWorld and Blizzcon.
On July 31 2019 14:58 BigRedDog wrote: Yeah Maru should be there. That's one match everyone want to watch.
Maru doesn't leave Korea for less than 100k tournaments. Source: TakeTV (edit> to be precise, the last HSC thread, probably written by Naruto)
Well he did just leave Korea for WCG and it's only 20k or something...
Probably because that's not in Europe? Maybe the travelling distance has something to do with that Maybe 25k for every time zone, who knows, nobody asked
WCG was nearby, likely all expenses paid (invitational), had a guaranteed $5k payout up to $25k for winning, and only required a handful of matches. It's practically more like being a guest than a competitor.
There's no comparison with ASUS ROG, which requires flying around the world on your own dime with no guarantee of getting paid against tough competition and a top prize of only $10k.
On August 01 2019 01:10 Kalera wrote: WCG was nearby, likely all expenses paid (invitational), had a guaranteed $5k payout up to $25k for winning, and only required a handful of matches. It's practically more like being a guest than a competitor.
There's no comparison with ASUS ROG, which requires flying around the world on your own dime with no guarantee of getting paid against tough competition and a top prize of only $10k.
Actually the WCG starcraft competition was only a performace match,not a formal competition, and i think its host Tencent wants to use the fame of traditional esports to introduce its own mobile games; According to some people at the spot, they bought the ticket to watch Warcraft III but they were led to the field of mobile games. In my view, the starcraft match in this WCG can't be taken for comparison because there is nothing attractive except for the prize.
On July 31 2019 14:58 BigRedDog wrote: Yeah Maru should be there. That's one match everyone want to watch.
Maru doesn't leave Korea for less than 100k tournaments. Source: TakeTV (edit> to be precise, the last HSC thread, probably written by Naruto)
Well he did just leave Korea for WCG and it's only 20k or something...
Probably because that's not in Europe? Maybe the travelling distance has something to do with that Maybe 25k for every time zone, who knows, nobody asked
It seems Maru doesn't mind to go to China while Europe is evidently too far away.
To qualify for Serral-con, you should have to have beaten Serral. We should invite DeMusliM too, and they should supplement the prize money with free beer.
On July 31 2019 19:09 UnLarva wrote: Furthermore: Group A is structured such way that Serral practically meets first two of those guys who know him best: Lambo The Royal Trainer and ZhugeLiAng The Second-in-Command, The Arch-spar at the Finnish front.
While there is considerable difference in level of competition between the God-King and his closest courtiers, these guys can possibly make some damage to Serral's run only by psychological factors involved in those match-ups.
Third one in the group is then Innovation, The GOAT of SC2. You can expect anything from him.
zhugeliang is like 0-infinity against Serral :[
lambo too (although he plays close series/games)
Yep. Poor Zhuge. I hope he takes a map against Serral as he himself hoped too (in interview during latest Artificial Overmind event).
Btw, I forgot to praise your article. Good read. Good read.
This event has been awesome. So glad Assembly invited sc2 back! I am going to buy all ASUS ROG gear as soon as my current hardware gives out (sometime this year). The promotional material looks good, the product features are nice, but more importantly, I like to support brands that support sc2.
I really liked this tournament. Great PvZ from Stats, great run from Solar. Glad to see all the races winning tournaments. I really appreciated Rotti & Hajins hosting, Reynor on the desk, Indy & mapus observing, Harstem & Lambos casting. Nice tournament!
It's sad that Solar didn't get a descriptive write-up in the beginning. He certainly paid back the lack of attention in style, making it to the finals.
Stats-Solar was so fun to watch. I'm checking out Stats-Serral later on.
On August 04 2019 07:38 Danglars wrote: It's sad that Solar didn't get a descriptive write-up in the beginning. He certainly paid back the lack of attention in style, making it to the finals.
Stats-Solar was so fun to watch. I'm checking out Stats-Serral later on.
I agree with you that Solar is probably underrated. That's a problem with GSL being so cutthroat. The write-up was meant as a humorous narrative about "rivals" of Serral at Serral-con. That is a flaw of taking such a perspective, because it is hard to include Solar and other players in such a story.
I have not been following the SC2 scene for that long. The casters that I tend to like seem to be casters from the old guard. Some of the new casters can be really bad. I won't name names here. Perhaps one remedy though is to have players do some casting, once they have been eliminated from tournaments. For example, Lambo was one of the casters for a match at Serral-con. At least by having players do some casting, then the casters actually know something about the game. Edit. It possibly also helps to supplement player income. The very top players, one does not really worry about them. However, the middle class of players, sometimes I wonder how well they do. I'd rather more of the money go to players, than to clueless casters. It was nice to hear the commentary from Lambo.
On August 04 2019 16:32 texture13 wrote: I have not been following the SC2 scene for that long. The casters that I tend to like seem to be casters from the old guard. Some of the new casters can be really bad. I won't name names here. Perhaps one remedy though is to have players do some casting, once they have been eliminated from tournaments. For example, Lambo was one of the casters for a match at Serral-con. At least by having players do some casting, then the casters actually know something about the game. Edit. It possibly also helps to supplement player income. The very top players, one does not really worry about them. However, the middle class of players, sometimes I wonder how well they do. I'd rather more of the money go to players, than to clueless casters. It was nice to hear the commentary from Lambo.
Agreed. English can be difficulty for some players that prevent proper acting in a role of commentator, but it would maybe possible get even more higher quality player-pool to participate by paying something for double-role.
Overall, I think casting of this tournament was good, and I think its not very nice to pour shit upon any caster; twitch chat was shameful in this matter. How many of these whiners could do better themselves?
On August 04 2019 16:55 UnLarva wrote: ... Overall, I think casting of this tournament was good, and I think its not very nice to pour shit upon any caster; twitch chat was shameful in this matter. How many of these whiners could do better themselves?
Regarding "How many of these whiners could do better themselves?," I do not find that a valid excuse for excusing bad casting. I also do not think that should protect bad casters from being criticized. However, I thought that the casting at Serral-con was generally fine.*
I thought the Lambo cast was pretty informative. I want to hear more stuff like that, during a cast. It was cool to hear Solar doing some of his interview in English too.
On August 04 2019 16:55 UnLarva wrote: ... Overall, I think casting of this tournament was good, and I think its not very nice to pour shit upon any caster; twitch chat was shameful in this matter. How many of these whiners could do better themselves?
Regarding "How many of these whiners could do better themselves?," I do not find that a valid excuse for excusing bad casting. I also do not think that should protect bad casters from being criticized. However, I thought that the casting at Serral-con was generally fine.
I thought the Lambo cast was pretty informative. I want to hear more stuff like that, during a cast. It was cool to hear Solar doing some of his interview in English too.
Ok. Fair. "Critizising" can be constructive.
[this would be place for some screenshots to demonstrate the point I'm trying to make, but I refrain from that now]
People have no needs to be complete arseholes to be able to critizise something, or demand better.
Lambi was great, indeed. As well as Solar. And Zhuge the caster/commentator could just start to do that for living in every tournament. He has English skills, international attire, personal charisma, knowledge of game, and natural talent for it, obviously.
On August 04 2019 16:55 UnLarva wrote: ... Overall, I think casting of this tournament was good, and I think its not very nice to pour shit upon any caster; twitch chat was shameful in this matter. How many of these whiners could do better themselves?
Regarding "How many of these whiners could do better themselves?," I do not find that a valid excuse for excusing bad casting. I also do not think that should protect bad casters from being criticized. However, I thought that the casting at Serral-con was generally fine.
I thought the Lambo cast was pretty informative. I want to hear more stuff like that, during a cast. It was cool to hear Solar doing some of his interview in English too.
Ok. Fair. "Critizising" can be constructive.
[this would be place for some screenshots to demonstrate the point I'm trying to make, but I refrain from that now]
People have no needs to be complete arseholes to be able to critizise something, or demand better.
Lambi was great, indeed. As well as Solar. And Zhuge the caster/commentator could just start to do that for living in every tournament. He has English skills, international attire, personal charisma, knowledge of game, and natural talent for it, obviously.
The caster bashing is probably my least favourite thing the wider SC2 community engages in, I find it a bit mystifying really.
I find with rare exceptions tournament casters go from perfectly acceptable to very good indeed, not from ‘unlistenable I had to mute the stream’ to gods of casting, which seems to be how some see it.
But yeah the folks you mentioned were great, I do love it when current pros who are good communicators get in the seat.
On August 04 2019 19:22 Wombat_NI wrote: ... I find with rare exceptions tournament casters go from perfectly acceptable to very good indeed, not from ‘unlistenable I had to mute the stream’ to gods of casting, which seems to be how some see it. ...
It does happen. I do find some casters "unlistenable I had to mute the stream," or I watch the stream in a foreign language I do not even understand.
On August 04 2019 19:37 DeeJae_ wrote: dude, you need to add Time to your list
I do not think we mean for the list to be exhaustive. For one, I have not had the chance to watch all of the matches. Thanks for the heads-up about Time and other player who are good casters. UnLarva also mentioned Zhuge.
Regarding "How many of these whiners could do better themselves?," I do not find that a valid excuse for excusing bad casting. I also do not think that should protect bad casters from being criticized. ...
Ok. Fair. "Critizising" can be constructive.
[this would be place for some screenshots to demonstrate the point I'm trying to make, but I refrain from that now]
People have no needs to be complete arseholes to be able to critizise something, or demand better. ...
I had another comment. I agree that it would be better if people were not jerks. But just criticizing a caster does not make them jerks. I do think that sometimes the casters are just awful. I also do not think criticism has to be constructive. These casters are (usually? almost always?) being paid to do this. It is not our jobs to improve them. If the audience wants to offer constructive criticism, that's fine. However, when criticizing a caster, it does not have to be constructive. If the caster insists that the audience train him/her, pay the audience. (Don't pay me. I don't know anything.)
I do wish they could also just run streams with no caster. Then when there is a caster that is just awful, one could just tune into that. I guess tuning into foreign language streams, where you do not understand the language, could serve that purpose. Perhaps it could also be cool to run streams with no caster, but from a player's perspective. Thus, there could be three streams with no caster. One is just a standard stream which follows the observer, two is a stream from one of the player's perspective, and three is the other stream from the other player's perspective. These would have no casters. These streams probably won't have too much of an audience, because usually the casters are fine. Also, most people seem to like hype-casting. But for those times when a caster you absolutely hate is on, you can tune into one of these no-caster streams.
Regarding "How many of these whiners could do better themselves?," I do not find that a valid excuse for excusing bad casting. I also do not think that should protect bad casters from being criticized. ...
Ok. Fair. "Critizising" can be constructive.
[this would be place for some screenshots to demonstrate the point I'm trying to make, but I refrain from that now]
People have no needs to be complete arseholes to be able to critizise something, or demand better. ...
I had another comment. I agree that it would be better if people were not jerks. But just criticizing a caster does not make them jerks. I do think that sometimes the casters are just awful. I also do not think criticism has to be constructive. These casters are (usually? almost always?) being paid to do this. It is not our jobs to improve them. If the audience wants to offer constructive criticism, that's fine. However, when criticizing a caster, it does not have to be constructive. If the caster insists that the audience train him/her, pay the audience. (Don't pay me. I don't know anything.)
I do wish they could also just run streams with no caster. Then when there is a caster that is just awful, one could just tune into that. I guess tuning into foreign language streams, where you do not understand the language, could serve that purpose. Perhaps it could also be cool to run streams with no caster, but from a player's perspective. Thus, there could be three streams with no caster. One is just a standard stream which follows the observer, two is a stream from one of the player's perspective, and three is the other stream from the other player's perspective. These would have no casters. These streams probably won't have too much of an audience, because usually the casters are fine. Also, most people seem to like hype-casting. But for those times when a caster you absolutely hate is on, you can tune into one of these no-caster streams.
Criticism can be non-constructive, yes. But what are you doing when you're sharing non-constructive criticism? Your only objective is taking your own displeasure and trying to convince others to agree with you. But since that's at the expense of somebody who is generally underpaid and is generally trying to be a better caster, that comes across as extremely selfish: you've weighed somebody else's hard work catering to thousands of viewers against your own thoughts as a single viewer and come out in favor of the latter. You disliking a caster and not willing to provide feedback is one thing, but you actively spreading that dislike with no "this is how I could be convinced otherwise" is just preaching and being an asshole. It's easy to say "that's the cost of being a public figure," but that's a pretty big leap: just because every community has toxic people doesn't mean everybody has a right to be toxic.
I do agree with the idea of a caster-free stream though, I think they're called "clean feeds" and some of them were floating around for a tournament a while back (WESG? Wasn't Maru vs Meomaika, Macsed's "throw" cast after the fact from the clean feed?). I can't say I enjoy all casters either, so I could get behind more clean feeds.
EPT
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/ZSLJ4jS.jpg)
