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I understand what they were trying to do with the regions stuff, but now that we have players like Serral, is it fair to have regions?
Foreigners are starting to compete on the same level as Koreans, and looking at who made it to blizzon this year, I just don't think it's fair that some players like TY didn't make it over some of the foreign players who did.
It just doesn't feel like the absolute top players in the world are competing in the WCS finals. In what other sport is there a restriction like this and someone explain how this is beneficial to starcraft?
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It was never fair in terms of letting only the most talented players go.
Blizzard wanted foreigners to have a chance so they implemented region lock. The protection nurtured the foreign scene and now we end up with today’s scenario.
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In what other sport is there a restriction like this and someone explain how this is beneficial to starcraft? The olympics? You win a spot for your nation and nations are represented equally.
The region system was supposed to be a compromise about retaining internal region competition, while also building an interesting 'worldwide' tournament at Blizzcon. Does it make for the best tournaments? Not necessarily. Does it provide for a good 'worldwide' competition? I'd say so, yes.
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here's a newsflash
playoff systems aren't fair. they aren't designed to "determine the best player/team," they're designed to have a dramatic showdown for a trophy where nerves and luck can be significant factors and competitors are sourced from various leagues/circuits in order to entertain a diverse audience
"worse" koreans have knocked out "better" koreans in GSL too. does that make GSL wrong and unfair? it's just a playoff. show up, win games, advance. if you don't advance try harder next time
no idea why this is so complicated for some fans. if TY wants to win blizzcon he can get better and show better results
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On October 18 2019 12:02 droppanda wrote: I understand what they were trying to do with the regions stuff, but now that we have players like Serral, is it fair to have regions?
Foreigners are starting to compete on the same level as Koreans, and looking at who made it to blizzon this year, I just don't think it's fair that some players like TY didn't make it over some of the foreign players who did.
It just doesn't feel like the absolute top players in the world are competing in the WCS finals. In what other sport is there a restriction like this and someone explain how this is beneficial to starcraft?
The FIFA world cup? I do not like the rule too but will have to make do with it in order to grow talent in the foreign scene. Serral is an exception. The average Korean is still better than the average foreigner. You will know this by comparing the KR ladder and the EU ladder.
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On October 18 2019 12:02 droppanda wrote: ...but now that we have players like Serral...
If you're gonna pluralize "players" you're gonna have to name more than just Serral. And you can't, because he's the only one that's shown consistent success against Korea's best.
It's beneficial to the Starcraft scene because (as someone else mentioned) a more regionally-diverse player base attracts a bigger audience. Like it or not, if only a couple foreigners make it in, viewership drops. TY would have made it if he had played better throughout the year.
All that being said, I hope the region lock is lifted for entirely different reasons. The Korean scene is growing super stale and GSL is becoming the same tournament over and over again. I think there has to be more international opportunity for Koreans, either so some of the consistent GSL players can compete elsewhere and free up some Code S spots for fresh blood, or so up-and-coming Korean talent can find some place other than GSL to have a breakthrough.
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People gave some nice examples, but to use an eSports example, LoL Worlds isn't just picking the top X best teams worldwide, they are letting each region's scene select representatives that then compete on the world stage. I think it's nice that way.
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In every Championship in every Sport, there are some kind of those rules applied. And if they wanted to determine the best Player in a given time Periode, they would just do a giant Round Robin group.
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Czech Republic12116 Posts
On October 18 2019 13:14 Archile wrote:Show nested quote + In what other sport is there a restriction like this and someone explain how this is beneficial to starcraft? The olympics? You win a spot for your nation and nations are represented equally. The region system was supposed to be a compromise about retaining internal region competition, while also building an interesting 'worldwide' tournament at Blizzcon. Does it make for the best tournaments? Not necessarily. Does it provide for a good 'worldwide' competition? I'd say so, yes. Olympics is not a good example. Olympic games still respect how good nations are and are giving as many spots as possible to the top countries(check the table tennis results as an example)
Under all the usual competition Koreans would get more than 50 % of the spots because, well, there's more than 50 % of top players. (considering there are only 2 groups, WCS and Korea)
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On October 18 2019 12:02 droppanda wrote: I understand what they were trying to do with the regions stuff, but now that we have players like Serral, is it fair to have regions?
Foreigners are starting to compete on the same level as Koreans, and looking at who made it to blizzon this year, I just don't think it's fair that some players like TY didn't make it over some of the foreign players who did.
It just doesn't feel like the absolute top players in the world are competing in the WCS finals. In what other sport is there a restriction like this and someone explain how this is beneficial to starcraft?
Like a good 90% of all sports I'd say. I can't at the top of my head think of any non-esports sport which doesn't have regions.
edit: I guess most motorsports doesn't do the whole region thing. But there's plenty of other factors in play there which doesn't let the best drivers compete on an equal level.
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On October 18 2019 16:04 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2019 13:14 Archile wrote: In what other sport is there a restriction like this and someone explain how this is beneficial to starcraft? The olympics? You win a spot for your nation and nations are represented equally. The region system was supposed to be a compromise about retaining internal region competition, while also building an interesting 'worldwide' tournament at Blizzcon. Does it make for the best tournaments? Not necessarily. Does it provide for a good 'worldwide' competition? I'd say so, yes. Olympics is not a good example. Olympic games still respect how good nations are and are giving as many spots as possible to the top countries(check the table tennis results as an example) Under all the usual competition Koreans would get more than 50 % of the spots because, well, there's more than 50 % of top players. (considering there are only 2 groups, WCS and Korea)
The olympics is a very good example and your table tennis analogy is false. Two chinese men and two chinese women were allowed to compete in the 2016 olympics and they made 1st and 2nd place in both competitions. This is out of ~64 spots for men and women respectively.
Looking at the world ranking, 5 chinese men and 6 chinese women are in the top ten right now (and this has basically been true for the last two decades).
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Northern Ireland20731 Posts
Region locking has actually worked pretty damn well, just unfortunately it’s coincided with a decline in the Korean scene due to other factors.
No sport is overly sustainable if it’s an all or nothing between being one of the best in the world or not making any money.
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I've been on both sides of the debate, and honestly I don't know/care anymore. Both sides have very strong arguments. Ultimately, life isn't fair, and people need to stop forcing 'fairness' onto society. I do have a preference (no lock), but I do think it's important for fans to get to see their favorite players have more opportunities to shine. Since Serral is my favorite, I get to have it both ways. haha
Personally, I want to see many, many more Serral v Korean matches, but this region lock really puts a damper on that.
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On October 18 2019 17:40 Wombat_NI wrote: Region locking has actually worked pretty damn well, just unfortunately it’s coincided with a decline in the Korean scene due to other factors.
No sport is overly sustainable if it’s an all or nothing between being one of the best in the world or not making any money.
.. which is now the Korean situation. It's about time to relax the region lock, because :
- The Gap is narrower
- It still exist (top koreans + Serral > others), but only with a select few players.
- So, there are not a ton of Code-A/low code S players able to pay the trip to foreign tourneys and consistently making money doing so by placing top 8 each time etc.
- This was the situation that triggered the region lock.
- Last but NOT LEAST, we, the fans, need way way more Top Korean Terran vs Serral. One or three matchs per year with jet-lagged players is a joke.
This was the issue with the "best player of the world" discussion. Maru and Serral are godlikes since years, arguably each are the best player ever in their region/races. But hey how they compete against each other ? Well, going to aligulac Maru vs Seral has only 6 games (result 3 vs 3)... played more than a year ago...
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"players like Serral", you mean Serral? :D
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Czech Republic12116 Posts
On October 18 2019 17:03 Malinor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2019 16:04 deacon.frost wrote:On October 18 2019 13:14 Archile wrote: In what other sport is there a restriction like this and someone explain how this is beneficial to starcraft? The olympics? You win a spot for your nation and nations are represented equally. The region system was supposed to be a compromise about retaining internal region competition, while also building an interesting 'worldwide' tournament at Blizzcon. Does it make for the best tournaments? Not necessarily. Does it provide for a good 'worldwide' competition? I'd say so, yes. Olympics is not a good example. Olympic games still respect how good nations are and are giving as many spots as possible to the top countries(check the table tennis results as an example) Under all the usual competition Koreans would get more than 50 % of the spots because, well, there's more than 50 % of top players. (considering there are only 2 groups, WCS and Korea) The olympics is a very good example and your table tennis analogy is false. Two chinese men and two chinese women were allowed to compete in the 2016 olympics and they made 1st and 2nd place in both competitions. This is out of ~64 spots for men and women respectively. Looking at the world ranking, 5 chinese men and 6 chinese women are in the top ten right now (and this has basically been true for the last two decades). It's not, there are over 180 countries in the world. (190 and something IIRC) There are 2 SC2 "countries"(well, regions is the right word), WCS and Korea. That's the point you've missed. If we're about to use the country approach then we will be more in the WESG ratio, but we're not using that, we're using the region approach instead.
On October 18 2019 19:11 osliang wrote: "players like Serral", you mean Serral? :D Actually if you check the WCS results, the top players are still the same, which is an issue as "rich get richer" isn't exactly what you want to see. While it's easier to get into the foreign SC2, it's not easy to get to the top8. Compare with Korean top8
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On October 18 2019 19:40 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2019 17:03 Malinor wrote:On October 18 2019 16:04 deacon.frost wrote:On October 18 2019 13:14 Archile wrote: In what other sport is there a restriction like this and someone explain how this is beneficial to starcraft? The olympics? You win a spot for your nation and nations are represented equally. The region system was supposed to be a compromise about retaining internal region competition, while also building an interesting 'worldwide' tournament at Blizzcon. Does it make for the best tournaments? Not necessarily. Does it provide for a good 'worldwide' competition? I'd say so, yes. Olympics is not a good example. Olympic games still respect how good nations are and are giving as many spots as possible to the top countries(check the table tennis results as an example) Under all the usual competition Koreans would get more than 50 % of the spots because, well, there's more than 50 % of top players. (considering there are only 2 groups, WCS and Korea) The olympics is a very good example and your table tennis analogy is false. Two chinese men and two chinese women were allowed to compete in the 2016 olympics and they made 1st and 2nd place in both competitions. This is out of ~64 spots for men and women respectively. Looking at the world ranking, 5 chinese men and 6 chinese women are in the top ten right now (and this has basically been true for the last two decades). It's not, there are over 180 countries in the world. (190 and something IIRC) There are 2 SC2 "countries"(well, regions is the right word), WCS and Korea. That's the point you've missed. If we're about to use the country approach then we will be more in the WESG ratio, but we're not using that, we're using the region approach instead. Show nested quote +On October 18 2019 19:11 osliang wrote: "players like Serral", you mean Serral? :D Actually if you check the WCS results, the top players are still the same, which is an issue as "rich get richer" isn't exactly what you want to see. While it's easier to get into the foreign SC2, it's not easy to get to the top8. Compare with Korean top8
Wow. Your mental gymnastics never fail to deliver.
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Czech Republic12116 Posts
On October 18 2019 21:01 Malinor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2019 19:40 deacon.frost wrote:On October 18 2019 17:03 Malinor wrote:On October 18 2019 16:04 deacon.frost wrote:On October 18 2019 13:14 Archile wrote: In what other sport is there a restriction like this and someone explain how this is beneficial to starcraft? The olympics? You win a spot for your nation and nations are represented equally. The region system was supposed to be a compromise about retaining internal region competition, while also building an interesting 'worldwide' tournament at Blizzcon. Does it make for the best tournaments? Not necessarily. Does it provide for a good 'worldwide' competition? I'd say so, yes. Olympics is not a good example. Olympic games still respect how good nations are and are giving as many spots as possible to the top countries(check the table tennis results as an example) Under all the usual competition Koreans would get more than 50 % of the spots because, well, there's more than 50 % of top players. (considering there are only 2 groups, WCS and Korea) The olympics is a very good example and your table tennis analogy is false. Two chinese men and two chinese women were allowed to compete in the 2016 olympics and they made 1st and 2nd place in both competitions. This is out of ~64 spots for men and women respectively. Looking at the world ranking, 5 chinese men and 6 chinese women are in the top ten right now (and this has basically been true for the last two decades). It's not, there are over 180 countries in the world. (190 and something IIRC) There are 2 SC2 "countries"(well, regions is the right word), WCS and Korea. That's the point you've missed. If we're about to use the country approach then we will be more in the WESG ratio, but we're not using that, we're using the region approach instead. On October 18 2019 19:11 osliang wrote: "players like Serral", you mean Serral? :D Actually if you check the WCS results, the top players are still the same, which is an issue as "rich get richer" isn't exactly what you want to see. While it's easier to get into the foreign SC2, it's not easy to get to the top8. Compare with Korean top8 Wow. Your mental gymnastics never fail to deliver. And any counter point will be or just offences?
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On October 18 2019 17:40 Wombat_NI wrote:
No sport is overly sustainable if it’s an all or nothing between being one of the best in the world or not making any money.
Well there are many sports, where you don t even make money, if you are actually the best in the world.
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Northern Ireland20731 Posts
On October 18 2019 21:25 dbRic1203 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2019 17:40 Wombat_NI wrote:
No sport is overly sustainable if it’s an all or nothing between being one of the best in the world or not making any money. Well there are many sports, where you don t even make money, if you are actually the best in the world. That is also true, although few sports have the dual downside of the huge amount of time needed and lack of physical activity that it takes to be an SC pro.
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On October 18 2019 19:40 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2019 17:03 Malinor wrote:On October 18 2019 16:04 deacon.frost wrote:On October 18 2019 13:14 Archile wrote: In what other sport is there a restriction like this and someone explain how this is beneficial to starcraft? The olympics? You win a spot for your nation and nations are represented equally. The region system was supposed to be a compromise about retaining internal region competition, while also building an interesting 'worldwide' tournament at Blizzcon. Does it make for the best tournaments? Not necessarily. Does it provide for a good 'worldwide' competition? I'd say so, yes. Olympics is not a good example. Olympic games still respect how good nations are and are giving as many spots as possible to the top countries(check the table tennis results as an example) Under all the usual competition Koreans would get more than 50 % of the spots because, well, there's more than 50 % of top players. (considering there are only 2 groups, WCS and Korea) The olympics is a very good example and your table tennis analogy is false. Two chinese men and two chinese women were allowed to compete in the 2016 olympics and they made 1st and 2nd place in both competitions. This is out of ~64 spots for men and women respectively. Looking at the world ranking, 5 chinese men and 6 chinese women are in the top ten right now (and this has basically been true for the last two decades). It's not, there are over 180 countries in the world. (190 and something IIRC) There are 2 SC2 "countries"(well, regions is the right word), WCS and Korea. That's the point you've missed. If we're about to use the country approach then we will be more in the WESG ratio, but we're not using that, we're using the region approach instead. )
And this is already an incredible amount of leeway no other sport has, you will never see a, say, athletism world champion ship where 50% of the spots go to USA and Jamaica and the 50% remaining to the rest of the world.
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Handball does. EuroCup (16 attendees) is way way harder than WorldCup (24 attendees, 16 from EU). If you do a list of 30 strongest handball-countries, ~25 are from EU). Plenty Players said that.
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Canada8772 Posts
It's cleary "more fair" than it's ever been to be honest, I mean who in Korea really got "robbed" of their spot? TY is probably the only one, since he got a final both in ST and HSC and kinda decent results in GSL, but the problem here is more than HSC doesn't give out WCS points.
Outside of him no player got more than one semi-final appearance, Gumiho and Solar both got a final but they didn't even make a single GSL round of 8 and every other top 16 players has at most a single semi-final (Zest-Huricane-Parting) or none (Dear-Ragnarok). Are some of these better than some of the WCS round of 8 players? Probably. Is there a solid argument to be made for any of them that they are the best player in the world? Nope, not even close
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Hello darkness my old friend...
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On October 19 2019 01:28 Nakajin wrote: It's cleary "more fair" than it's ever been to be honest, I mean who in Korea really got "robbed" of their spot? TY is probably the only one, since he got a final both in ST and HSC and kinda decent results in GSL, but the problem here is more than HSC doesn't give out WCS points.
Outside of him no player got more than one semi-final appearance, Gumiho and Solar both got a final but they didn't even make a single GSL round of 8 and every other top 16 players has at most a single semi-final (Zest-Huricane-Parting) or none (Dear-Ragnarok). Are some of these better than some of the WCS round of 8 players? Probably. Is there a solid argument to be made for any of them that they are the best player in the world? Nope, not even close
Plenty of Korean players got robbed if the idea is to get the most capable players to blizzcon.
You really gonna tell me that a lineup like time, heromarine, showtime, elazer is better than TY, innovation, dear, and solar? that is a joke.
Special is 4th seed in WCS circuit. he is not even top 20 GSL rank. Put reynor, elazer and even Neeb, who's won a kespa cupt, into the GSL and you bet the farm that they don't make blizzcon. The GSL is a complete and utter dogfight where even monsters like TY and Solar arent guaranteed to make it in. Stats, the only protoss player to topple serral and arguably the best protoss player on the planet, barely made it in.
Thanks to region lock we are missing 3 of the top 4 terran players in the world and a top 4 (arguably top 3) zerg in the world.
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Elazer beat Dark and Neeb beat Stats just as recently as the last GSL vs the World; I think you're underselling the WCS players just a hair.
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Canada8772 Posts
On October 19 2019 14:59 BerserkSword wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2019 01:28 Nakajin wrote: It's cleary "more fair" than it's ever been to be honest, I mean who in Korea really got "robbed" of their spot? TY is probably the only one, since he got a final both in ST and HSC and kinda decent results in GSL, but the problem here is more than HSC doesn't give out WCS points.
Outside of him no player got more than one semi-final appearance, Gumiho and Solar both got a final but they didn't even make a single GSL round of 8 and every other top 16 players has at most a single semi-final (Zest-Huricane-Parting) or none (Dear-Ragnarok). Are some of these better than some of the WCS round of 8 players? Probably. Is there a solid argument to be made for any of them that they are the best player in the world? Nope, not even close Plenty of Korean players got robbed if the idea is to get the most capable players to blizzcon. You really gonna tell me that a lineup like time, heromarine, showtime, elazer is better than TY, innovation, dear, and solar? that is a joke. Special is 4th seed in WCS circuit. he is not even top 20 GSL rank. Put reynor, elazer and even Neeb, who's won a kespa cupt, into the GSL and you bet the farm that they don't make blizzcon. The GSL is a complete and utter dogfight where even monsters like TY and Solar arent guaranteed to make it in. Stats, the only protoss player to topple serral and arguably the best protoss player on the planet, barely made it in. Thanks to region lock we are missing 3 of the top 4 terran players in the world and a top 4 (arguably top 3) zerg in the world.
That's not exactly what I was saying, I'm not saying they aren't better (I clearly said it in my post) I'm saying that they all had an average to mediocre year, TY and Solar are the only one who had a decent shot at winning a tournament, all the other ones just cruised on beeing a bit better than average in GSL. No one ever thought Huricane or Ragnarok were the best in the world, not even on a certain day, so I don't particularly think it's a big loss if they don't get to go, at that point better of with multiple national champ ranking up the views.
It used to be that you could reach multiple finals/win tournaments and still not make it into Blizzcon, but nowaday you just need a bunch of round of 8. I was more pissed at like Lilbow getting into Blizzcon in front of like a 2 times champ Solar that I am at Time getting a spot of Dear. (Also INno ain't making it if you give 16 spot to Korea)
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I am for region lock (mainly for pragmatic reasons though as I don't pretend to think that it is the most fair system) but I've sometimes lamented the fact that Classic didn't make Blizzcon in 2016 and sOs didn't make it in 2017. Especially sOs because 2017 was the only year in LotV where he was like his former self.
That said, what Nakajin said I think is mostly true. It was definitely harder to make Blizzcon in 2013 and 2014 (only 6 from KR made it). Even though more than 8 Koreans could theoretically qualify, this didn't happen because many people qualified from America and Europe. I think it is not really true for 2015 though. After they merged WCS America and Europe though, most of the Blizzcon participants were from KR region (there were fewer points to go around in WCS). Rogue and Fantasy mostly got ro8s or lower that year, from my memory.
So it's a shame that sOs didn't make Blizzcon during his peak in 2017 but I definitely don't think he would've made it in early HotS either. All in all, I'd have to say that the changes in 2016 worsened Blizzcon odds if you compare it to 2015 but arguably improved the odds of making Blizzcon compared to 2013-14.
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I'm fine with region lock, though I do think the prize pool has become way too top heavy in starcraft. The foreign scene is strong, and the Korean scene is fine right now, but will suffer a lot once more and more people retire for military. Imagine a world where instead of bloating already high top prizes in tournaments like Blizzcon, warchest funds go to actually helping esports by funding amateur only tournaments in Korea.
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Northern Ireland20731 Posts
On October 19 2019 20:22 dysenterymd wrote: I'm fine with region lock, though I do think the prize pool has become way too top heavy in starcraft. The foreign scene is strong, and the Korean scene is fine right now, but will suffer a lot once more and more people retire for military. Imagine a world where instead of bloating already high top prizes in tournaments like Blizzcon, warchest funds go to actually helping esports by funding amateur only tournaments in Korea. Indeed, I’d personally love the opportunity to fund more tournaments for where the cash is really needed.
There’s just fewer tournaments all round. No Proleague, no SSL, no more MLGs, regular Dreamhacks and fewer IEM stops.
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