ESL and DreamHack have officially announced the ESL Pro Tour for StarCraft II. The tour will replace the WCS Circuit and has been confirmed as a three-year deal between ESL, DreamHack, and Blizzard. Blizzard are funding the tour with a guaranteed prize-pool of USD 1.8 million across the 2020/21 season. The tour will contain six Masters events per season and one concluding event in Katowice.
The first season of the ESL Pro Tour will feature these seven events:
IEM Katowice 2020 — February 24 - March 1, 2020
DreamHack SC2 Masters Dallas — May 22-24, 2020
DreamHack SC2 Masters Valencia — July 2-4, 2020
DreamHack SC2 Masters Montreal — September 11-13, 2020
TBA — December 2020
DreamHack SC2 Masters TBA — January 2021
IEM Katowice 2021
There will be separate Korean competitions, which confirms that the region-lock system of the WCS Circuit is kept in place, at least for the 2020/21 season. ESL did not confirm whether they would still operate under the GSL brand. Two of the six Masters tournaments will be held as global tournaments, similar to how IEM Katowice operated in the WCS Circuit.
IEM Katowice, starting in 2021, will serve as the “replacement” for the WCS Global Finals, crowning the StarCraft II world champion. IEM Katowice 2020 will also be included in the first season but function as a regular Masters event in the tour as ESL were committed to including it into the 2020/21 season so as not to "devalue" the tournament.
IEM Katowice 2021, the crowning event of the ESL Pro Tour season, will be a 36 player tournament with spots allocated as follows:
The biggest change from the WCS Circuit is the newly introduced Play-In Stage, made up of the 8 highest ranked, not yet qualified players of each region at the end of the season. Asked about the thought process behind its introduction, Shaun “Apollo” Clark told us that ESL had felt “[BlizzCon] slots were sometimes decided too early” and the Play-In Stage was supposed to prevent scenarios in which only a single (or no) spot was still there to play for in tournaments later in the season. If a Masters champion, already qualified for IEM Katowice 2021, wins a global Masters tournament, an additional spot will be added to the Play-In Stage to avoid complications over allocation.
ESL have confirmed that third party events like HomeStory Cup or ASUS ROG are welcome to join the tour, in which case there is a possibility for their tournaments to award Pro Tour points.
With Blizzard no longer in full control of the brand, Apollo confirmed that ESL and DreamHack would have greater creative freedom, citing IEM Katowice as an example of how talent at Pro Tour events might be given greater license to "mess around and have fun".
Prize Pool Distribution overhauled
Big changes from the WCS Circuit also include a re-distribution of prize money and tour points, a re-allocation of Major qualifier spots in favor of the European region, the integration of online Weekly tournaments into the system. The latter was described by Apollo as a "re-branding of Go4SC2", awarding both prize money and a small amount of Pro Tour points.
Qualifiers will take over from WCS Challenger, with the EU region now allocated seven spots instead of four. This decision, Apollo says, was made after evaluating previous results of players from all regions in WCS tournaments: "Usually in group Stage 3 it was mainly Europeans. So we felt the re-balanced distribution fits a reality of what the skill level is within these regions." North America (4) and Latin America (2) will retain their spots, but Oceania (1), China (1), and Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau & Japan (1) each have one spot re-allocated to EU. All spots are fully funded, including travel and accommodation.
On the re-distribution of prize money, Apollo commented:
"We thought it was super top-heavy with points and prize money distribution. So someone like Serral would go through Challenger, get the most amount of money from it, win a fully funded trip to an event, additional money from already seeding highly in the tournament, and it was just 'the rich getting richer'. What we have looked to do is re-balance the entire system according to the distribution we have for Katowice. If you look at Katowice, the prize money distribution usually runs very deep.
In the 2019 WCS Fall Challenger, Serral was first with $1600 — in the new system this is $1000 and the rest is pushed all the way down. So we get much flatter distribution.
In the main event at 2019 WCS Fall, the Top 32 were getting paid — in our new system Top 64 get paid. Top 32 at WCS Fall got $1250, below that you got 0. Now Top 32 get paid $1000 still, but Top 64 still gets you 200."
We will publish a more detailed post breaking down the distribution of prize pool and points on TL.net soon.
On Region-Lock...
The region-lock system may also be subject to an overhaul in the future. Asked about future plans for the region-locking system, Apollo said on behalf of ESL:
“We think that StarCraft II is definitely in a position where a conversation about region-lock should be held. Our agreement and partnership with Blizzard was only completed recently, so it would have been a lot to ask for us to readjust and make any drastic changes to the existing system in such a short time. That means for the first season it will stay the same, but we are going to have an honest discussion about it for later seasons.”
Asked for his personal opinion on the region-lock debate, Apollo added:
“It feels to me, when looking at the amount of fresh blood and players coming into the system, there doesn’t seem to be a swarm of new players coming in in Korea. But we would hope StarCraft II keeps running well in Korea and, at this point, it might be starting to get suffocated. I don’t think the same fears of Koreans flooding tournaments and winning everything are still as relevant. So it’s something I would want to have a real look into.”
Not sure if this will be as good as WCS, but at least we have 3 years of stability for the pro scene. 3 years more of pro SC2 is all we can ask for. So good job to Blizzard, ESL, and Dreamhack.
I do hope GSL can continue. I wonder what will happen to GSL.
On January 07 2020 23:24 xelnaga_empire wrote: So does this mean Afreeca TV backed out of broadcasting SC2? If Afreeca TV doesn't want to pick up GSL, then that's not a good sign in Korea ...
Maybe ESL will do a deal with them? They have the studio and the crew
I think we’re going to save StarCraft because it’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It’s by the nature of his deep inner soul. We’re required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.
Deep stuff, glad to see another Apollo mission succeeding.
On January 07 2020 23:24 xelnaga_empire wrote: So does this mean Afreeca TV backed out of broadcasting SC2? If Afreeca TV doesn't want to pick up GSL, then that's not a good sign in Korea ...
I don't know how you got that from this announcement to be honest.
On January 07 2020 23:24 xelnaga_empire wrote: So does this mean Afreeca TV backed out of broadcasting SC2? If Afreeca TV doesn't want to pick up GSL, then that's not a good sign in Korea ...
I don't know how you got that from this announcement to be honest.
"ESL did not confirm whether they would still operate under the GSL brand"
Depend if the they stand for "ESL" or for "the Korean events" We'll know soon enough
On January 07 2020 23:24 xelnaga_empire wrote: So does this mean Afreeca TV backed out of broadcasting SC2? If Afreeca TV doesn't want to pick up GSL, then that's not a good sign in Korea ...
I don't know how you got that from this announcement to be honest.
"ESL did not confirm whether they would still operate under the GSL brand"
Depend if the they stand for "ESL" or for "the Korean events" We'll know soon enough
They clearly said that there's going to be Korean tournaments
On January 07 2020 23:24 xelnaga_empire wrote: So does this mean Afreeca TV backed out of broadcasting SC2? If Afreeca TV doesn't want to pick up GSL, then that's not a good sign in Korea ...
I don't know how you got that from this announcement to be honest.
"ESL did not confirm whether they would still operate under the GSL brand"
Depend if the they stand for "ESL" or for "the Korean events" We'll know soon enough
They clearly said that there's going to be Korean tournaments
3 leagues and related online cups. As if they'd voluntarily rebrand GSL in its 10th year.
On January 07 2020 23:24 xelnaga_empire wrote: So does this mean Afreeca TV backed out of broadcasting SC2? If Afreeca TV doesn't want to pick up GSL, then that's not a good sign in Korea ...
I don't know how you got that from this announcement to be honest.
"ESL did not confirm whether they would still operate under the GSL brand"
Depend if the they stand for "ESL" or for "the Korean events" We'll know soon enough
They clearly said that there's going to be Korean tournaments
Nah I get it, the guy was saying Afreeca back out of SC2, it might still be them doing it, or ESL directly.
Also Maynard just said on stream that he's expecting there will still be a GSLVSTW style event at Blizzcon!
On January 07 2020 23:24 xelnaga_empire wrote: So does this mean Afreeca TV backed out of broadcasting SC2? If Afreeca TV doesn't want to pick up GSL, then that's not a good sign in Korea ...
I don't know how you got that from this announcement to be honest.
"ESL did not confirm whether they would still operate under the GSL brand"
Depend if the they stand for "ESL" or for "the Korean events" We'll know soon enough
They clearly said that there's going to be Korean tournaments
Nah I get it, the guy was saying Afreeca back out of SC2, it might still be them doing it, or ESL directly.
Also Maynard just said on stream that he's expecting there will still be a GSLVSTW style event at Blizzcon!
That probably depends on negotiations but partnering with Afreeca would be the easiest way to make it happen.
On January 07 2020 23:24 xelnaga_empire wrote: So does this mean Afreeca TV backed out of broadcasting SC2? If Afreeca TV doesn't want to pick up GSL, then that's not a good sign in Korea ...
I don't know how you got that from this announcement to be honest.
It's right there in the announcement:
ESL did not confirm whether they would still operate under the GSL brand.
On January 07 2020 23:24 xelnaga_empire wrote: So does this mean Afreeca TV backed out of broadcasting SC2? If Afreeca TV doesn't want to pick up GSL, then that's not a good sign in Korea ...
I don't know how you got that from this announcement to be honest.
"ESL did not confirm whether they would still operate under the GSL brand"
Depend if the they stand for "ESL" or for "the Korean events" We'll know soon enough
They clearly said that there's going to be Korean tournaments
Nah I get it, the guy was saying Afreeca back out of SC2, it might still be them doing it, or ESL directly.
Also Maynard just said on stream that he's expecting there will still be a GSLVSTW style event at Blizzcon!
That probably depends on negotiations but partnering with Afreeca would be the easiest way to make it happen.
Seems very unlikely that Afreeca would back out after they just signed soO, Stats and Armani to their sc2 team.
It's no exaggeration to say that 3 years is much more than any of us were expecting. Props to all groups that worked hard behind the scenes to make this possible. Starcraft Forever!
this is good that blizzard is releasing its grip on sc2 and letting the community organisers have more control. Good to hear Apollo's opinions, looks like sc2 will be in good hands, hopefully they will get rid of the region lock once and for all.
I would have loved to keep Blizzcon tho, but what can you do
Go4SC2 are back too with point attached to it! Bly to the world championship!
I think it's a good decision to take SC2 off of Blizzcon. The last few ones it felt somewhat halfhearted in the conditions the SC2-competition was given there. IEM proved to hype the shit out of their tournaments and their competitors, so I think, we won't have weird unworthy celebration scenarios like it was the case with Dark.
On January 07 2020 23:24 xelnaga_empire wrote: So does this mean Afreeca TV backed out of broadcasting SC2? If Afreeca TV doesn't want to pick up GSL, then that's not a good sign in Korea ...
We probably have to wait for further information. It would be kind of dumb to make SC2-tournaments in South Korea without using the expertise and infrastructure of Afreeca/GSL. As I understood GSL was already almost entirely funded by Blizzard and now that IEM seems to be fully responsible of Blizzard's esport money it's their choice under what conditions the Korean competition will carry on. I think it's highly probable that they'll keep working with afreeca but perhaps they will end the GSL format? It wasn't very favorable for newcomers, so an system overhaul perhaps wouldn't be a bad thing. On the other hand it would be good to keep the system for on more year and then celebrate it's farewell.
On January 07 2020 23:35 vik7 wrote: ESL Hype, although ima be sad for 2021. Blizzcon was only a 30-minute drive for me ;(
it is sad to see old traditions go, but to be honest 2019 blizzcon was pretty shit for sc2, it really looked like they just wanted to rush it out of the way. I know Apollo still loves sc2 and will treat it right. Besides what made sc2 great was never blizzard, but rather the community all the way from Husky starcraft to homestory cup
I'll only support this if, in his good time, and if he can, Apollo helps host/cast in some of these ESL events. I wanna hear Apollo and Kaelaris cast again.
OT: Three more years of stability for the foreign scene. Hope something equally good happens for Korea.
Awesome to see three additional years of SC2! That makes me very happy and is more than expected, awesome job, finally I'm getting a good feeling about this year =D
On January 07 2020 23:24 xelnaga_empire wrote: So does this mean Afreeca TV backed out of broadcasting SC2? If Afreeca TV doesn't want to pick up GSL, then that's not a good sign in Korea ...
I don't know how you got that from this announcement to be honest.
ESL did not confirm whether they would still operate under the GSL brand.
Maybe I'm just daft but I really don't understand what that phrase even means. Pretty much all the information they are releaseing are in regards to WCS. "Did not confirm" pretty much translates to: "Said nothing about". Which means they might operate under GSL brand or nor, you do realise that Appolo (or anyone else) would "not confirm" wether ESL with have any thing to do with SC2 in 2020 if you asked Before today.
Until deals are finalized nothing is made public, why does that suprise people and why in the World does some of you turn the lack of news into proof of there being news (no GSL/Afreec not interested in GSL).
Also Apollo confirmed region lock still in Place, same rules for 2020, that means no koreans in the global wcs because they have their own tournaments in korea. Either way the korean tournaments should stay otherwise they would have changed the rules.
Katowice did always have kind of a strange world championship vibe to it from when they made it winner take all for a while. Think it’ll be a better show for SC2 than BlizzCon. Really cool to see
The Katowice stage is better for SC2, and now with the Major Championships, I reckon a lot more fans will travel there, so the audience should be great too.
On January 08 2020 00:19 MockHamill wrote: That sounds great but will the total prize pool per year be the same, higher or lower compared to now?
700K higher, altough personnally I could have lived with a similar prize pool and 500-600k more invested in tournament organizer, but still, good news!
SC2 tournaments will be in a good hand of IEM. I really like that. More tournaments regardless the size will help creating a consistent competitive atmosphere in the scene which is a great news. The only sad news that will be no more BlizzCon starting 2021. Honestly, not a total bad news given BlizzCon has been underwhelming to say at least in the past couple years. Katowice is always a better tournament so it deserves its world championship title.
Given how things have been going lately, I'm glad everything works out well. Just hope for 2021, they will get rid of region-lock altogether then maybe SC2 will flourish again.
- ESL taking over, Apollo in charge of top SC2! (I already saw this as the best case scenario months ago, stoked to see it happen) - IEM Katowice has for years been widely recognized as the best Starcraft (weekend) tournament. These people are running the show now. - Less top heavy prize distribution - Much better qualification system for the World Championship. Looks like it will finally like up to its name. - An online tournament to fill in the gaps, fantastic idea. - THREE YEARS!!
The bad
- Still region lock. But Apollo recognizes the problem and says that they didn't have time for an overhaul now. In 2021 it will probably have resolved itself. - Only three tournaments in Korea. No more Super Tournament 1 and 2, no more GSL vs the world. - Overall, there will be less top Starcraft than the last three years. - No Master in China (yet)? And reducing China's player spots? This seems like a massive mistake considering the development there, and the fact that 20% of all SC2 players are from China.
North America maintaining 4 challenger seeds while EU pillages 3 more spots away from OCE, Asia, and China is the drama-fodder I've been waiting for all year
Very sudden but cool. It is really weird that blizzcon is being replaced by Katowice though. Like is there just gonna be no Starcraft at blizzcon then? That seems... weird
I feel so relieved now !! and so hype for the next seasons ! I think the missing of a blizzcon tournament will definetly leave a gap, but fuck off, IEM Katowice is 100% hype and cool !
On January 08 2020 00:41 Waxangel wrote: North America maintaining 4 challenger seeds while EU pillages 3 more spots away from OCE, Asia, and China is the drama-fodder I've been waiting for all year
I hope we get an exile to Australia, so that the OCE top 4 is ButAlways, Risky, Firefly and Rex
This is so great, love almost everything about it. Especially the weekly cups being tied in to the greater yearly competition process and the changed prize distribution. Should make it much more exciting and rewarding for upcoming players and more sustainable for a greater number for middling pros. Only thing I'm not too happy with is that we only get one Chinese spot. Seems to me like the Chinese scene has been developing recently and it would be a shame to stifle more talent like Time coming up and playing internationally.
Oh and also Katowice will probably be a much cooler season finale/world championship than Blizzcon. More players means there is almost no chance of missing one of the truly great players with the potential of winning it all (like Innovation in 2019, who won WESG after all and can always have a sick weekend.)
I'm happy with the 3 more years of pro starcraft, but taking spots from China, Oceania, and Hongkong, Taiwan, Macau and Japan doesn't feel like a good decision to me, that basiclly means Asian players will have a harder time to show themselves, and have to fight for NA, EU spots with that huge and insane lag.
I'm not too sure how the korean side works from a host/broadcast sense, is it just going to cut off afreeca/GSL in favor of a WCS Korea at the arena they did KSL1-3?
On January 08 2020 01:11 BLinD-RawR wrote: I'm not too sure how the korean side works from a host/broadcast sense, is it just going to cut off afreeca/GSL in favor of a WCS Korea at the arena they did KSL1-3?
On January 08 2020 01:11 BLinD-RawR wrote: I'm not too sure how the korean side works from a host/broadcast sense, is it just going to cut off afreeca/GSL in favor of a WCS Korea at the arena they did KSL1-3?
Details not finalized yet it seems.
interesting, wonder how a potential cutoff of afreeca affects the scene, if at all.
it's pretty crazy then, that the 2020 season of SC2 (10th anniversary) has a chance to be the most monied in history (pending GSL news)
It's pretty confusing too honestly, I don't really get why esport (and especially SC2) prize pool get inflated every years, I mean this is almost a 70% augmentation, where does all that new money come from?
On January 08 2020 01:11 BLinD-RawR wrote: I'm not too sure how the korean side works from a host/broadcast sense, is it just going to cut off afreeca/GSL in favor of a WCS Korea at the arena they did KSL1-3?
Details not finalized yet it seems.
interesting, wonder how a potential cutoff of afreeca affects the scene, if at all.
purely speculating here.
I should hope they wouldn't cut off the organization that produced the better half of the 2019 Global Finals. But if they do I wouldn't be that surprised if Afreeca was to slowly shut down SC2 content creation and also their player sponsorships. It's probably not viable for them to put on GSL without it being part of the Circuit.
I just wanna say. I'm just extremely happy for the continued support of our game. In my wildest dreams did I think we'd get 3 years of confirmed events. So amazing <3
Also I hope we can get an OSC integration into this new system, the point system is already all made, it would be so cool to have every tournament feeding into the world championship!
On January 08 2020 01:24 Nakajin wrote: Also I hope we can get an OSC integration into this new system, the point system is already all made, it would be so cool to have every tournament feeding into the world championship!
Apollo said they're open towards working with any tournament organizers and integrating anything from online cups to big LANs. So there's a chance.
For almost 10 years, StarCraft II esports has stood as the epitome of competition and community in the esports world. We are excited to share with you the next era of StarCraft II esports: ESL and DreamHack, together with Blizzard, will establish a brand-new competitive circuit for the next three years of StarCraft II esports.
WHAT IS HAPPENING TO STARCRAFT II ESPORTS? After seven amazing years, and following Park “Dark” Ryung Woo’s incredible global finals victory at BlizzCon, the World Championship Series (WCS) is being retired. The WCS mobile app will be shut down on December 31, 2019, and the WCS site will be taken down in early 2020.
WCS has been a huge part of the StarCraft II community, and we know just how much it has meant to you all, as it has to us.
But rest assured—StarCraft II esports is evolving, respawning in a new form with ESL and DreamHack.
To replace WCS, we are excited to announce the new ESL Pro Tour StarCraft II and DreamHack SC2 Masters. The two will combine to create the new SC2 esports circuit moving forward. ESL and DreamHack have been trusted vendor for Blizzard esports, particularly StarCraft II, for many years. We know that this amazing community is in incredibly good hands.
This new ecosystem will feature six international tournaments a year—four with DreamHack, two with ESL—as well as weekly competitions that will feed into the ESL events. We know that the StarCraft community enjoys meeting up at our esports competitions in person, and this deal will give more opportunities to more of you to enjoy the excitement of StarCraft II in person.
The global finals will shift to the new IEM Katowice World Championship in 2021. This means SC2 esports at BlizzCon will look different in the future, but it will still be there, and we will share more details about how that will look later.
We are actively working to finalize our Korea plans for 2020 and beyond. We are committed to StarCraft II esports in Korea and will have more details for the community shortly.
The StarCraft II competitive community is one of a kind. It is passionate, creative, and loyal, and you have always been and will always remain important to Blizzard. We want to ensure that your home is secure for as long as possible, and relationships like this one with DreamHack and ESL is what we need to do to make that happen.
WHAT IS BLIZZARD’S ROLE IN THE NEW SYSTEM? As DreamHack and ESL take over the operational management of StarCraft II esports, we will serve as an overall support network for the new system. For instance, Blizzard will be providing the prizing for all three years of this new ecosystem, more than US $1.2 million each year. To celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the release of StarCraft II, the 2020-2021 ESL/DreamHack circuit will have a larger combined prize pool of more than US $1.9 million.
Back in October we announced the return of StarCraft II to IEM Katowice with an initial prize pool of $250,000, and we are thrilled to share that we are increasing that prize pool to $400,000, on top of our 2020-2021 commitment.
BROADCASTS AND SOCIAL For more information on the new ESL Pro Tour StarCraft II visit ESL Pro Tour, and be sure to follow both @ESLSC2 and @DreamHack on Twitter to stay up to date with tournament information, standings, and more. You’ll be able to catch all the StarCraft II action on twitch.tv/esl_sc2.
The only thing I don't love is the branding. Modern dark mode era or not, neon yellow and green on white is so bad.
It's nice to see War3 there, I hope it gets to grow throughout the year and not just from money being pumped into tournaments for it (r.i.p. Heroes). I'm really curious about BW and GSL though...
On January 08 2020 01:11 BLinD-RawR wrote: I'm not too sure how the korean side works from a host/broadcast sense, is it just going to cut off afreeca/GSL in favor of a WCS Korea at the arena they did KSL1-3?
Details not finalized yet it seems.
interesting, wonder how a potential cutoff of afreeca affects the scene, if at all.
purely speculating here.
I should hope they wouldn't cut off the organization that produced the better half of the 2019 Global Finals. But if they do I wouldn't be that surprised if Afreeca was to slowly shut down SC2 content creation and also their player sponsorships. It's probably not viable for them to put on GSL without it being part of the Circuit.
Afreeca just hired 3 new players...I think they are pretty safe on the deal
On January 08 2020 01:11 BLinD-RawR wrote: I'm not too sure how the korean side works from a host/broadcast sense, is it just going to cut off afreeca/GSL in favor of a WCS Korea at the arena they did KSL1-3?
Details not finalized yet it seems.
interesting, wonder how a potential cutoff of afreeca affects the scene, if at all.
purely speculating here.
I should hope they wouldn't cut off the organization that produced the better half of the 2019 Global Finals. But if they do I wouldn't be that surprised if Afreeca was to slowly shut down SC2 content creation and also their player sponsorships. It's probably not viable for them to put on GSL without it being part of the Circuit.
Afreeca just hired 3 new players...I think they are pretty safe on the deal
It was just a hypothetical, I imagine GSL announcement is a matter of weeks at worst.
Two most interesting things from Blizzard's announcement:
The global finals will shift to the new IEM Katowice World Championship in 2021. This means SC2 esports at BlizzCon will look different in the future, but it will still be there, and we will share more details about how that will look later.
Still SC2 at Blizzcon.
We are actively working to finalize our Korea plans for 2020 and beyond. We are committed to StarCraft II esports in Korea and will have more details for the community shortly.
So ESL will not be directly involved in Korea at all? I am very curious about what this means.
The global finals will shift to the new IEM Katowice World Championship in 2021. This means SC2 esports at BlizzCon will look different in the future, but it will still be there, and we will share more details about how that will look later.
We are actively working to finalize our Korea plans for 2020 and beyond. We are committed to StarCraft II esports in Korea and will have more details for the community shortly.
On January 08 2020 01:27 blunderfulguy wrote: The only thing I don't love is the branding. Modern dark mode era or not, neon yellow and green on white is so bad.
That's just the general ESL color scheme they rolled out last summer.
The global finals will shift to the new IEM Katowice World Championship in 2021. This means SC2 esports at BlizzCon will look different in the future, but it will still be there, and we will share more details about how that will look later.
We are actively working to finalize our Korea plans for 2020 and beyond. We are committed to StarCraft II esports in Korea and will have more details for the community shortly.
So ESL will not be directly involved in Korea at all? I am very curious about what this means.
It sounds to me like Blizzard is choosing the organizers they give the money too and then ESL is in charge of making it all come together for Global Events and such.
On January 08 2020 01:29 sneakyfox wrote: Two most interesting things from Blizzard's announcement:
The global finals will shift to the new IEM Katowice World Championship in 2021. This means SC2 esports at BlizzCon will look different in the future, but it will still be there, and we will share more details about how that will look later.
We are actively working to finalize our Korea plans for 2020 and beyond. We are committed to StarCraft II esports in Korea and will have more details for the community shortly.
Today is better than Christmas
Today is oficial Orthodox Christmas, so personally for me its the best Christmas present imaginable :D
In all this excitement we shouldn't forget to thank the one person who really made all this happen. Faced with the prospect of the end of pro Starcraft 2 (i.e. all that is Good in this world) he did the only reasonable thing he could have fathomed. He put Mike Morhaime and Apollo on a tropical island and told them they wouldn't be allowed to leave until they had saved the game.
it's pretty crazy then, that the 2020 season of SC2 (10th anniversary) has a chance to be the most monied in history (pending GSL news)
It's pretty confusing too honestly, I don't really get why esport (and especially SC2) prize pool get inflated every years, I mean this is almost a 70% augmentation, where does all that new money come from?
If we sum up WCS Winter, IEM Katowice, the three Circuit stops, GSL vs The World and BlizzCon in 2019 we have $1.6 M; The increase is only due to the 10 year anniversary.
Also, 2019 with $3.1M of prizes overall was very far from the $3.8 we had in 2012. GSL and independent organizers will have to fund very relevant tournaments for 2020 to be the year with the highest prizes in the history of Sc2! In 2021 and 2022 we will see a decrease of funds judging from what we can see now, maybe to the level of 2015-2016; prize pool is not inflating over time, at all. Honestly, a less top heavy money distribution is just as important.
I like this new system but I wouldn't have taken out one challenger spot from the chinese region; maybe they will adjust it again in 2021, when they will redesign the system to abolish or modify region lock as Apollo seem to suggest.
This is so awesome, god damn. Even without knowing all the details I feel sure that this will be for the better.
Gotta agree with some of the others - strange that China didn't get more out of this, but the opposite. I assume as well that it would be strategically a good choice to hand China a bit more.
IEM and Dreamhack in CS:GO is amazing. I expect the same quality with SC2. Only thing I'm worried about is the online betting and obvious 322 that is so rampant in CS:GO online tournaments.
I feel like the 11 Foreigners to 9 Koreans is strange and that China is getting screwed with only 1 slot exactly when the Chinese community is reviving Team Leagues by itself. I mean, two for LatAm but one for China? Cham and Khelazur will be happy...
I jokingly called that there's not gonna be a WCS in 2020 during the blizzcon. Gonna make another call here. ESL is gonna assess SC2 during those 3 years and then gonna make a decision whether to kill off competitive SC2 or not. Lets face it. When the old guardsare finally all gone in GSL, there won't be a meaningful pro scene in Korea any more when it comes to SC2. Blizzard is probably thanking their lucky stars that they won't have to bare all the blame when pro scene dies off. If we're lucky ESL will extend the agony by 2 more years after the initial 3.
On January 08 2020 02:59 Noonius wrote: I jokingly called that there's not gonna be a WCS in 2020 during the blizzcon. Gonna make another call here. ESL is gonna assess SC2 during those 3 years and then gonna make a decision whether to kill off competitive SC2 or not. Lets face it. When the old guardsare finally all gone in GSL, there won't be a meaningful pro scene in Korea any more when it comes to SC2. Blizzard is probably thanking their lucky stars that they won't have to bare all the blame when pro scene dies off. If we're lucky ESL will extend the agony by 2 more years after the initial 3.
But being blessed by almost 14 to 16 years of SC2 pro scene is already wonderful in itself. All things dies.
On January 08 2020 02:59 Noonius wrote: I jokingly called that there's not gonna be a WCS in 2020 during the blizzcon. Gonna make another call here. ESL is gonna assess SC2 during those 3 years and then gonna make a decision whether to kill off competitive SC2 or not. Lets face it. When the old guardsare finally all gone in GSL, there won't be a meaningful pro scene in Korea any more when it comes to SC2. Blizzard is probably thanking their lucky stars that they won't have to bare all the blame when pro scene dies off. If we're lucky ESL will extend the agony by 2 more years after the initial 3.
Oh come on, can't we get like a single day of happiness
On January 08 2020 02:57 Serimek wrote: This is awesome news.
I feel like the 11 Foreigners to 9 Koreans is strange and that China is getting screwed with only 1 slot exactly when the Chinese community is reviving Team Leagues by itself. I mean, two for LatAm but one for China? Cham and Khelazur will be happy...
It's actually 9 Foreigners, 9 Koreans and 2 Global Master winners.
On January 08 2020 02:57 Serimek wrote: This is awesome news.
I feel like the 11 Foreigners to 9 Koreans is strange and that China is getting screwed with only 1 slot exactly when the Chinese community is reviving Team Leagues by itself. I mean, two for LatAm but one for China? Cham and Khelazur will be happy...
It's actually 9 Foreigners, 9 Koreans and 2 Global Master winners.
Yep...which means unless Serral or Reynor win...it will probably be 2 more Koreans
On January 07 2020 23:17 Response wrote: Apollo is such a boss
On January 07 2020 23:19 Elentos wrote: The irony of Apollo saving Starcraft is not lost on me.
On January 07 2020 23:11 Nakajin wrote: 3 years! Apolo saving us
i remember him from GameReplays.org he was a god. i was a nobody. he was a first class guy who did everything he could to help the smallest of $100 prize winning C&C tourneys. the guy helped out my miniscule C&C tourney so much.
On January 08 2020 02:57 Serimek wrote: This is awesome news.
I feel like the 11 Foreigners to 9 Koreans is strange and that China is getting screwed with only 1 slot exactly when the Chinese community is reviving Team Leagues by itself. I mean, two for LatAm but one for China? Cham and Khelazur will be happy...
You're confusing something here. The "1 slot for China" refers to the qualifiers for the EPT Master stops. The 11/9 foreigner-Korean split refers to the World Championship at Katowice only. And that is actually a 9-9 split, with the remaining two spots going to the champions of the two global masters tournaments during the year, regardless of the player's region.
On January 08 2020 02:59 Noonius wrote: I jokingly called that there's not gonna be a WCS in 2020 during the blizzcon. Gonna make another call here. ESL is gonna assess SC2 during those 3 years and then gonna make a decision whether to kill off competitive SC2 or not. Lets face it. When the old guardsare finally all gone in GSL, there won't be a meaningful pro scene in Korea any more when it comes to SC2. Blizzard is probably thanking their lucky stars that they won't have to bare all the blame when pro scene dies off. If we're lucky ESL will extend the agony by 2 more years after the initial 3.
We just got three more years and you're already crying doom? That is just stupid. Why be so obsessed with The End?
Seems to me that Blizzard are focusing on making games and cutting away their esports division, in order to have someone else (who is better) run it. Blizzard just pays the prize money, making it much easier for them to foresee their expenses. I think we are better off this way. And if SC2 is still doing fine in three years, why wouldn't blizzard want to keep paying prize pools?
That said, this probably is an overall cost-cutting move from them, beginning in 2021, but let's see how it works out in practice.
The big question now is what's going to happen to Korean Starcraft 2. Looks like this is still up to Blizzard and how much they will pay, i.e. ESL are not part of that.
this is much better than WCS... this is much better than anything I could think for SC2 at this point. this is one last big push on the RTS scene. something not to get for granted, and probably something coming mainly from the heart. let's hope the game can keep his audience and enjoy the ride.
Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
Good news. Need Blizzard to stop being in charge of anything related to SC2. They can provide money, but after all the layoffs, they dont have the expertise or talent.
Next, i wish they give ESL the responsability of finding an adequate balance person or small team. Those last few patches have just proved how disconnected they are from what makes a good meta game for an RTS.
was not expecting them to fund the scene for 3 more years tbh so this is good news for me. I do hope they can continue the GSL but if not, I can live with that..
On January 08 2020 03:53 Snakestyle11 wrote: Mass queens is now standard in ZvT because if you dont youre dead versus BCs. Instead of discouraging mass queen play, they force it.
Mass queens was powerful long before BC openings and will be after those are gone. There's no way to discourage Zerg players from doing it in macro games without changing the race fundamentally, because queens are the answer to absolutely everything for the first few minutes of the game. Not just the correct answer, but also in many ways the only answer. There's nothing from the Terran side that could as reliably harass a Zerg massing queens as a BC can either. Zerg early game needs a rework.
On January 08 2020 03:58 Anc13nt wrote: was not expecting them to fund the scene for 3 more years tbh so this is good news for me. I do hope they can continue the GSL but if not, I can live with that..
if we want to hang off of every word Blizzard has ever said... in 2015 Sigaty used the "10 more years of competitive Starcraft2 eSports". I heard various important Blizzard/Starcraft management types utter the "10 years" phrase several times from 2010 to 2015.
So it looks like they are making good on their promises.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
A few Koreans under lifted region lock will hardly kill the foreign scene (you could always limit participation since the other regions have limited qualifier spots too), especially since the Korean scene shrinks year by year. 2020 is probably the last year there are enough Korean pros to fill a Ro32 Code S. We should give them as many chances to show themselves as they can, because their scene has much worse chances in the long term than the other regions, especially EU.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
Ah yes, censoring out the people you disagree with. Always a great plan.
On January 08 2020 04:05 GTR wrote: i'll be honest, i'm more excited for the warcraft 3 portion of the pro tour.
lots of hyperbolic doom and gloom about RTS the last 12 months or so around here.
Seeing that Creative Assembly game in the top 10 money makers on Steam for 2019 ... its nice to see that RTS as a genre is still alive and kicking. It NOT might be the glamour esport it was in 2003 ... but its still a fun genre.
Multiple studios are still alive and offering new and different ways to evolve the genre.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
A few Koreans under lifted region lock will hardly kill the foreign scene (you could always limit participation since the other regions have limited qualifier spots too), especially since the Korean scene shrinks year by year. 2020 is probably the last year there are enough Korean pros to fill a Ro32 Code S. We should give them as many chances to show themselves as they can, because their scene has much worse chances in the long term than the other regions, especially EU.
This isn't much of an argument. Starcraft 2 isn't popular in Korea and it won't grow if Korean players come over the sea to take amateur player's slots in tournaments. We already know this for a fact.
The Korean scene did not and does not continue to shrink because of the region lock.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
A few Koreans under lifted region lock will hardly kill the foreign scene (you could always limit participation since the other regions have limited qualifier spots too), especially since the Korean scene shrinks year by year. 2020 is probably the last year there are enough Korean pros to fill a Ro32 Code S. We should give them as many chances to show themselves as they can, because their scene has much worse chances in the long term than the other regions, especially EU.
This isn't much of an argument. Starcraft 2 isn't popular in Korea and it won't grow if Korean players come over the sea to take amateur player's slots in tournaments. We already know this for a fact.
The Korean scene did not and does not continue to shrink because of the region lock.
Well we are near the end point of any SC2 thread, we already have balance whine and region lock, someone want to talk about GOAT?
On January 08 2020 04:05 GTR wrote: i'll be honest, i'm more excited for the warcraft 3 portion of the pro tour.
it's a very interesting spot for War3 to be in, because if Netease increases their 2020 War3 prize pool at the same rate as before, ESL Pro Tour might not even be the biggest War3 League of 2020.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
A few Koreans under lifted region lock will hardly kill the foreign scene (you could always limit participation since the other regions have limited qualifier spots too), especially since the Korean scene shrinks year by year. 2020 is probably the last year there are enough Korean pros to fill a Ro32 Code S. We should give them as many chances to show themselves as they can, because their scene has much worse chances in the long term than the other regions, especially EU.
This isn't much of an argument. Starcraft 2 isn't popular in Korea and it won't grow if Korean players come over the sea to take amateur player's slots in tournaments. We already know this for a fact.
The Korean scene did not and does not continue to shrink because of the region lock.
Well we are near the end point of any SC2 thread, we already have balance whine and region lock, someone want to talk about GOAT?
Serral is a GOAT yes, but the region lock is pretty relevant to the format in this 3 year announcement.
I don't get that guy writing a wall of balance whine in this thread, haha.
So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
A few Koreans under lifted region lock will hardly kill the foreign scene (you could always limit participation since the other regions have limited qualifier spots too), especially since the Korean scene shrinks year by year. 2020 is probably the last year there are enough Korean pros to fill a Ro32 Code S. We should give them as many chances to show themselves as they can, because their scene has much worse chances in the long term than the other regions, especially EU.
This isn't much of an argument. Starcraft 2 isn't popular in Korea and it won't grow if Korean players come over the sea to take amateur player's slots in tournaments. We already know this for a fact.
The Korean scene did not and does not continue to shrink because of the region lock.
Oh really I said nothing about growing in Korea or shrinking because of region lock. I said since it's dying anyway you might as well let the last few players compete against the rest of the world as often as you can until it's over. It's not a discussion for this year anyway, but for the next. And if the system works as intended, the non-Koreans will make more process forward. And then they will no longer need to be protected by the system, because with another 6 or however many retired Korean pros, the gap will not be Korean vs foreigner anymore but top pro vs regular pro.
On January 08 2020 05:04 Solar424 wrote: So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
It's a 3 year deal and Blizzard is paying for it. If they wanted nothing to do with SC2 they wouldn't have already committed funds (significant funds at that, 2020 will have more money than 2019) for that time frame. There will still be SC2 at Blizzcon. And the World Championship will only improve from being held at Katowice.
And GSL news should come soon enough, Blizzard statement is that they're finalizing details atm.
reading this and seeing how Apollo is basically mastermind behind all this I'm thinking about TB and how he helped Apollo in his beginnings. This is very far fetched and meant as a joke but basically, through Apollo, TB is keeping his promise to this day + Show Spoiler +
"SC2 will live even if I have to support the entire scene with my erect penis." and before anyone points it out - No, Apollo is not erect penis in this case but he definitely has huge cojones
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
A few Koreans under lifted region lock will hardly kill the foreign scene (you could always limit participation since the other regions have limited qualifier spots too), especially since the Korean scene shrinks year by year. 2020 is probably the last year there are enough Korean pros to fill a Ro32 Code S. We should give them as many chances to show themselves as they can, because their scene has much worse chances in the long term than the other regions, especially EU.
This isn't much of an argument. Starcraft 2 isn't popular in Korea and it won't grow if Korean players come over the sea to take amateur player's slots in tournaments. We already know this for a fact.
The Korean scene did not and does not continue to shrink because of the region lock.
Years down the road, and even in the face of testimony from the people who will be running SC2 for the next 3 years, jingoistic foreigners still scared of Koreans coming from an unequivocably dying competitive scene and knocking out RandomEuropePlayer2678 from a tournament, still valuing nationality over skill.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
A few Koreans under lifted region lock will hardly kill the foreign scene (you could always limit participation since the other regions have limited qualifier spots too), especially since the Korean scene shrinks year by year. 2020 is probably the last year there are enough Korean pros to fill a Ro32 Code S. We should give them as many chances to show themselves as they can, because their scene has much worse chances in the long term than the other regions, especially EU.
This isn't much of an argument. Starcraft 2 isn't popular in Korea and it won't grow if Korean players come over the sea to take amateur player's slots in tournaments. We already know this for a fact.
The Korean scene did not and does not continue to shrink because of the region lock.
Years down the road, and even in the face of testimony from the people who will be running SC2 for the next 3 years, jingoistic foreigners still scared of Koreans coming from an unequivocably dying competitive scene and knocking out RandomEuropePlayer2678 from a tournament, still valuing nationality over skill.
Don't ever change, SC2 community.
It’s never really been about nations for me anyway, more having a sustainable flow that talent can progress through.
One of eSports main advantages over other activities is a low cost and a low barrier to entry, you don’t need much equipment bar a rig, the internet and some peripherals and you’re good to go. You don’t need to find a local club, pay memberships, etc etc.
The Korean pro scene at its peak did stifle things elsewhere by having certain advantages, now the Korean scene is in need of some love and Id like to see that happen too.
On January 08 2020 05:04 Solar424 wrote: So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
Idk how hard you had to try to have a perspective like this..
This is great news for everyone, and while GSL isn't announced yet, it's heavily implied that there will be 3 Korean league champions so there is at least gonna be 3 GSL-esque style tournaments, at the very least.
Better prize pool distribution, better point distribution, more offline events, weekly online cups, most likely better production..
Really loving the long term commitment. I imagine some players will now decide it's worth them fully committing (or not as the case may be) with some firm expectations for the years to come. I'll admit I skimmed on the details but overall this is definitely not the worst news in the world to read I'll admit I was a little worried about there being any Blizzard involvement/funding whatsoever.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
A few Koreans under lifted region lock will hardly kill the foreign scene (you could always limit participation since the other regions have limited qualifier spots too), especially since the Korean scene shrinks year by year. 2020 is probably the last year there are enough Korean pros to fill a Ro32 Code S. We should give them as many chances to show themselves as they can, because their scene has much worse chances in the long term than the other regions, especially EU.
This isn't much of an argument. Starcraft 2 isn't popular in Korea and it won't grow if Korean players come over the sea to take amateur player's slots in tournaments. We already know this for a fact.
The Korean scene did not and does not continue to shrink because of the region lock.
Years down the road, and even in the face of testimony from the people who will be running SC2 for the next 3 years, jingoistic foreigners still scared of Koreans coming from an unequivocably dying competitive scene and knocking out RandomEuropePlayer2678 from a tournament, still valuing nationality over skill.
Don't ever change, SC2 community.
It’s never really been about nations for me anyway, more having a sustainable flow that talent can progress through.
One of eSports main advantages over other activities is a low cost and a low barrier to entry, you don’t need much equipment bar a rig, the internet and some peripherals and you’re good to go. You don’t need to find a local club, pay memberships, etc etc.
The Korean pro scene at its peak did stifle things elsewhere by having certain advantages, now the Korean scene is in need of some love and Id like to see that happen too.
I can respect the desire for development of a local scene, but I do think that doing so in favor of propping up inferior players onto a global stage over other more deserving competitors was a ridiculous idea from the start - particularly, as you said, for a largely online-based competition.
I also respect that you specified that for you it has never been about nations (or races, I presume), and I can say the same for myself - if the top 32 players are Korean or residents of some northern Icelandic province, I don't care - I just want to see the best vs. the best to determine who is the best of the best. However, there were many many people who complained about "faceless Koreans" in the lead-up to region locking. So while many people may have felt as you do, quite a few had other, more troubling and jingoistic concerns.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
A few Koreans under lifted region lock will hardly kill the foreign scene (you could always limit participation since the other regions have limited qualifier spots too), especially since the Korean scene shrinks year by year. 2020 is probably the last year there are enough Korean pros to fill a Ro32 Code S. We should give them as many chances to show themselves as they can, because their scene has much worse chances in the long term than the other regions, especially EU.
This isn't much of an argument. Starcraft 2 isn't popular in Korea and it won't grow if Korean players come over the sea to take amateur player's slots in tournaments. We already know this for a fact.
The Korean scene did not and does not continue to shrink because of the region lock.
Years down the road, and even in the face of testimony from the people who will be running SC2 for the next 3 years, jingoistic foreigners still scared of Koreans coming from an unequivocably dying competitive scene and knocking out RandomEuropePlayer2678 from a tournament, still valuing nationality over skill.
Don't ever change, SC2 community.
It’s never really been about nations for me anyway, more having a sustainable flow that talent can progress through.
One of eSports main advantages over other activities is a low cost and a low barrier to entry, you don’t need much equipment bar a rig, the internet and some peripherals and you’re good to go. You don’t need to find a local club, pay memberships, etc etc.
The Korean pro scene at its peak did stifle things elsewhere by having certain advantages, now the Korean scene is in need of some love and Id like to see that happen too.
I can respect the desire for development of a local scene, but I do think that doing so in favor of propping up inferior players onto a global stage over other more deserving competitors was a ridiculous idea from the start - particularly, as you said, for a largely online-based competition.
I also respect that you specified that for you it has never been about nations (or races, I presume), and I can say the same for myself - if the top 32 players are Korean or residents of some northern Icelandic province, I don't care - I just want to see the best vs. the best to determine who is the best of the best. However, there were many many people who complained about "faceless Koreans" in the lead-up to region locking. So while many people may have felt as you do, quite a few had other, more troubling and jingoistic concerns.
"propping up inferior players onto a global stage over other more deserving competitors was a ridiculous idea from the start "
Region locking is the farthest thing from being ridiculous. Every other esport saw Starcraft's mistake avoided it from the start. Examples include League of Legends, Rocket League, even freaking Fortnite. And you know who else does regional based competition? Real sports do.
Wanting to see the best of the best fight is best served for the big international events, 2 or 3 a year. It generates a lot of hype.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
A few Koreans under lifted region lock will hardly kill the foreign scene (you could always limit participation since the other regions have limited qualifier spots too), especially since the Korean scene shrinks year by year. 2020 is probably the last year there are enough Korean pros to fill a Ro32 Code S. We should give them as many chances to show themselves as they can, because their scene has much worse chances in the long term than the other regions, especially EU.
This isn't much of an argument. Starcraft 2 isn't popular in Korea and it won't grow if Korean players come over the sea to take amateur player's slots in tournaments. We already know this for a fact.
The Korean scene did not and does not continue to shrink because of the region lock.
Years down the road, and even in the face of testimony from the people who will be running SC2 for the next 3 years, jingoistic foreigners still scared of Koreans coming from an unequivocably dying competitive scene and knocking out RandomEuropePlayer2678 from a tournament, still valuing nationality over skill.
Don't ever change, SC2 community.
It’s never really been about nations for me anyway, more having a sustainable flow that talent can progress through.
One of eSports main advantages over other activities is a low cost and a low barrier to entry, you don’t need much equipment bar a rig, the internet and some peripherals and you’re good to go. You don’t need to find a local club, pay memberships, etc etc.
The Korean pro scene at its peak did stifle things elsewhere by having certain advantages, now the Korean scene is in need of some love and Id like to see that happen too.
I can respect the desire for development of a local scene, but I do think that doing so in favor of propping up inferior players onto a global stage over other more deserving competitors was a ridiculous idea from the start - particularly, as you said, for a largely online-based competition.
I also respect that you specified that for you it has never been about nations (or races, I presume), and I can say the same for myself - if the top 32 players are Korean or residents of some northern Icelandic province, I don't care - I just want to see the best vs. the best to determine who is the best of the best. However, there were many many people who complained about "faceless Koreans" in the lead-up to region locking. So while many people may have felt as you do, quite a few had other, more troubling and jingoistic concerns.
"propping up inferior players onto a global stage over other more deserving competitors was a ridiculous idea from the start "
Region locking is the farthest thing from being ridiculous. Every other esport saw Starcraft's mistake avoided it from the start. Examples include League of Legends, Rocket League, even freaking Fortnite. And you know who else does regional based competition? Real sports do.
Wanting to see the best of the best fight is best served for the big international events, 2 or 3 a year. It generates a lot of hype.
We don't have regional based competion though. Unless you consider "all nations except korea" a region which maybe made sense when the korean scene was still somewhat healthy but is getting more and more ridicolous with every passing year.
On January 08 2020 05:04 Solar424 wrote: So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
Idk how hard you had to try to have a perspective like this..
This is great news for everyone, and while GSL isn't announced yet, it's heavily implied that there will be 3 Korean league champions so there is at least gonna be 3 GSL-esque style tournaments, at the very least.
Better prize pool distribution, better point distribution, more offline events, weekly online cups, most likely better production..
I think people don't realize how significant of a downgrade this year is. Last year had 3 $100k WCS events, 3 $150k GSL's, 2 $25k Super Tournaments, 2 $60k WCS Winter events, 18 ~$10k WCS Challenger events, $25k Assembly Summer, $80k GS vs The World, $400k IEM Katowice, and $700k Blizzcon, for a total of $2,305,000 in prize money. This year where, even assuming GSL funding stays the same, we'll have 156 $100 online cups, 4 $125k ESL Masters tournaments, and $400k IEM Katowice in addition to the $480k from the Korean scene, for a total of just $1,495,600 in prize money. That's a drop of over a third. Blizzcon was nearly a third of the WCS prize pool last year, and with that gone and nothing to replace it, the scene is overall worse off. Also, no one has mentioned the $325,000 boost that will only apply to this year, so the prize pool will go down even further in 2021.
On January 08 2020 05:04 Solar424 wrote: So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
Idk how hard you had to try to have a perspective like this..
This is great news for everyone, and while GSL isn't announced yet, it's heavily implied that there will be 3 Korean league champions so there is at least gonna be 3 GSL-esque style tournaments, at the very least.
Better prize pool distribution, better point distribution, more offline events, weekly online cups, most likely better production..
I think people don't realize how significant of a downgrade this year is. Last year had 3 $100k WCS events, 3 $150k GSL's, 2 $25k Super Tournaments, 2 $60k WCS Winter events, 18 ~$10k WCS Challenger events, $25k Assembly Summer, $80k GS vs The World, $400k IEM Katowice, and $700k Blizzcon, for a total of $2,305,000 in prize money. This year where, even assuming GSL funding stays the same, we'll have 156 $100 online cups, 4 $125k ESL Masters tournaments, and $400k IEM Katowice in addition to the $480k from the Korean scene, for a total of just $1,495,600 in prize money. That's a drop of over a third. Blizzcon was nearly a third of the WCS prize pool last year, and with that gone and nothing to replace it, the scene is overall worse off. Also, no one has mentioned the $325,000 boost that will only apply to this year, so the prize pool will go down even further in 2021.
I didn't expect Blizzard to fund the esports scene for 3 more years so this is good news for me.
On January 08 2020 05:04 Solar424 wrote: So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
Idk how hard you had to try to have a perspective like this..
This is great news for everyone, and while GSL isn't announced yet, it's heavily implied that there will be 3 Korean league champions so there is at least gonna be 3 GSL-esque style tournaments, at the very least.
Better prize pool distribution, better point distribution, more offline events, weekly online cups, most likely better production..
I think people don't realize how significant of a downgrade this year is. Last year had 3 $100k WCS events, 3 $150k GSL's, 2 $25k Super Tournaments, 2 $60k WCS Winter events, 18 ~$10k WCS Challenger events, $25k Assembly Summer, $80k GS vs The World, $400k IEM Katowice, and $700k Blizzcon, for a total of $2,305,000 in prize money. This year where, even assuming GSL funding stays the same, we'll have 156 $100 online cups, 4 $125k ESL Masters tournaments, and $400k IEM Katowice in addition to the $480k from the Korean scene, for a total of just $1,495,600 in prize money. That's a drop of over a third. Blizzcon was nearly a third of the WCS prize pool last year, and with that gone and nothing to replace it, the scene is overall worse off. Also, no one has mentioned the $325,000 boost that will only apply to this year, so the prize pool will go down even further in 2021.
Didn't Apolo just said there was 1.9 million in prize pool not counting Korea? I'm assuming you're missing something?
On January 08 2020 05:04 Solar424 wrote: So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
Idk how hard you had to try to have a perspective like this..
This is great news for everyone, and while GSL isn't announced yet, it's heavily implied that there will be 3 Korean league champions so there is at least gonna be 3 GSL-esque style tournaments, at the very least.
Better prize pool distribution, better point distribution, more offline events, weekly online cups, most likely better production..
I think people don't realize how significant of a downgrade this year is. Last year had 3 $100k WCS events, 3 $150k GSL's, 2 $25k Super Tournaments, 2 $60k WCS Winter events, 18 ~$10k WCS Challenger events, $25k Assembly Summer, $80k GS vs The World, $400k IEM Katowice, and $700k Blizzcon, for a total of $2,305,000 in prize money. This year where, even assuming GSL funding stays the same, we'll have 156 $100 online cups, 4 $125k ESL Masters tournaments, and $400k IEM Katowice in addition to the $480k from the Korean scene, for a total of just $1,495,600 in prize money. That's a drop of over a third. Blizzcon was nearly a third of the WCS prize pool last year, and with that gone and nothing to replace it, the scene is overall worse off. Also, no one has mentioned the $325,000 boost that will only apply to this year, so the prize pool will go down even further in 2021.
User was warned for this post
The announced prize pool doesn't count korean tournaments because we don't know the full details yet. If GSL keeps the same prize pools we would have one of the biggest prize pool years.
On January 08 2020 05:04 Solar424 wrote: So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
Idk how hard you had to try to have a perspective like this..
This is great news for everyone, and while GSL isn't announced yet, it's heavily implied that there will be 3 Korean league champions so there is at least gonna be 3 GSL-esque style tournaments, at the very least.
Better prize pool distribution, better point distribution, more offline events, weekly online cups, most likely better production..
I think people don't realize how significant of a downgrade this year is. Last year had 3 $100k WCS events, 3 $150k GSL's, 2 $25k Super Tournaments, 2 $60k WCS Winter events, 18 ~$10k WCS Challenger events, $25k Assembly Summer, $80k GS vs The World, $400k IEM Katowice, and $700k Blizzcon, for a total of $2,305,000 in prize money. This year where, even assuming GSL funding stays the same, we'll have 156 $100 online cups, 4 $125k ESL Masters tournaments, and $400k IEM Katowice in addition to the $480k from the Korean scene, for a total of just $1,495,600 in prize money. That's a drop of over a third. Blizzcon was nearly a third of the WCS prize pool last year, and with that gone and nothing to replace it, the scene is overall worse off. Also, no one has mentioned the $325,000 boost that will only apply to this year, so the prize pool will go down even further in 2021.
Didn't Apolo just said there was 1.9 million in prize pool not counting Korea? I'm assuming you're missing something?
Whiny people are pretty good at missing somethings.
On January 08 2020 05:04 Solar424 wrote: So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
Idk how hard you had to try to have a perspective like this..
This is great news for everyone, and while GSL isn't announced yet, it's heavily implied that there will be 3 Korean league champions so there is at least gonna be 3 GSL-esque style tournaments, at the very least.
Better prize pool distribution, better point distribution, more offline events, weekly online cups, most likely better production..
I think people don't realize how significant of a downgrade this year is. Last year had 3 $100k WCS events, 3 $150k GSL's, 2 $25k Super Tournaments, 2 $60k WCS Winter events, 18 ~$10k WCS Challenger events, $25k Assembly Summer, $80k GS vs The World, $400k IEM Katowice, and $700k Blizzcon, for a total of $2,305,000 in prize money. This year where, even assuming GSL funding stays the same, we'll have 156 $100 online cups, 4 $125k ESL Masters tournaments, and $400k IEM Katowice in addition to the $480k from the Korean scene, for a total of just $1,495,600 in prize money. That's a drop of over a third. Blizzcon was nearly a third of the WCS prize pool last year, and with that gone and nothing to replace it, the scene is overall worse off. Also, no one has mentioned the $325,000 boost that will only apply to this year, so the prize pool will go down even further in 2021.
User was warned for this post
It's an arbitrary judgment, but I'm warning against posting misinformation without checking the original posting which clearly states the actual total for the year, which is ~$1.8m (supplemental info via Apollo's twitter says there's a separate Korean budget on top of this, but I'm not holding that part against you).
ESL stepping in for 3 years helps to build some stability for the scene I'm most interested to see how other tournaments fit into this mix like Cheeseadelphia
On January 08 2020 05:04 Solar424 wrote: So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
Idk how hard you had to try to have a perspective like this..
This is great news for everyone, and while GSL isn't announced yet, it's heavily implied that there will be 3 Korean league champions so there is at least gonna be 3 GSL-esque style tournaments, at the very least.
Better prize pool distribution, better point distribution, more offline events, weekly online cups, most likely better production..
I think people don't realize how significant of a downgrade this year is. Last year had 3 $100k WCS events, 3 $150k GSL's, 2 $25k Super Tournaments, 2 $60k WCS Winter events, 18 ~$10k WCS Challenger events, $25k Assembly Summer, $80k GS vs The World, $400k IEM Katowice, and $700k Blizzcon, for a total of $2,305,000 in prize money. This year where, even assuming GSL funding stays the same, we'll have 156 $100 online cups, 4 $125k ESL Masters tournaments, and $400k IEM Katowice in addition to the $480k from the Korean scene, for a total of just $1,495,600 in prize money. That's a drop of over a third. Blizzcon was nearly a third of the WCS prize pool last year, and with that gone and nothing to replace it, the scene is overall worse off. Also, no one has mentioned the $325,000 boost that will only apply to this year, so the prize pool will go down even further in 2021.
User was warned for this post
It's an arbitrary judgment, but I'm warning against posting misinformation without checking the original posting which clearly states the actual total for the year, which is ~$1.8m (supplemental info via Apollo's twitter says there's a separate Korean budget on top of this, but I'm not holding that part against you).
The OP very clearly states that the $1.8 million is for the entire 2020/21 season, not 2020. The total for 2020 is $1.5 million, which is not misinformation.
On January 08 2020 05:04 Solar424 wrote: So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
Idk how hard you had to try to have a perspective like this..
This is great news for everyone, and while GSL isn't announced yet, it's heavily implied that there will be 3 Korean league champions so there is at least gonna be 3 GSL-esque style tournaments, at the very least.
Better prize pool distribution, better point distribution, more offline events, weekly online cups, most likely better production..
I think people don't realize how significant of a downgrade this year is. Last year had 3 $100k WCS events, 3 $150k GSL's, 2 $25k Super Tournaments, 2 $60k WCS Winter events, 18 ~$10k WCS Challenger events, $25k Assembly Summer, $80k GS vs The World, $400k IEM Katowice, and $700k Blizzcon, for a total of $2,305,000 in prize money. This year where, even assuming GSL funding stays the same, we'll have 156 $100 online cups, 4 $125k ESL Masters tournaments, and $400k IEM Katowice in addition to the $480k from the Korean scene, for a total of just $1,495,600 in prize money. That's a drop of over a third. Blizzcon was nearly a third of the WCS prize pool last year, and with that gone and nothing to replace it, the scene is overall worse off. Also, no one has mentioned the $325,000 boost that will only apply to this year, so the prize pool will go down even further in 2021.
User was warned for this post
It's an arbitrary judgment, but I'm warning against posting misinformation without checking the original posting which clearly states the actual total for the year, which is ~$1.8m (supplemental info via Apollo's twitter says there's a separate Korean budget on top of this, but I'm not holding that part against you).
The OP very clearly states that the $1.8 million is for the entire 2020/21 season, not 2020. The total for 2020 is $1.5 million, which is not misinformation.
Which is basically for 2020 because this "gaming year" doesn't end till early 2021. It's like how some companies are already in Q3 2020 for financial reporting even though it's only January 2020.
On January 08 2020 05:04 Solar424 wrote: So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
Idk how hard you had to try to have a perspective like this..
This is great news for everyone, and while GSL isn't announced yet, it's heavily implied that there will be 3 Korean league champions so there is at least gonna be 3 GSL-esque style tournaments, at the very least.
Better prize pool distribution, better point distribution, more offline events, weekly online cups, most likely better production..
I think people don't realize how significant of a downgrade this year is. Last year had 3 $100k WCS events, 3 $150k GSL's, 2 $25k Super Tournaments, 2 $60k WCS Winter events, 18 ~$10k WCS Challenger events, $25k Assembly Summer, $80k GS vs The World, $400k IEM Katowice, and $700k Blizzcon, for a total of $2,305,000 in prize money. This year where, even assuming GSL funding stays the same, we'll have 156 $100 online cups, 4 $125k ESL Masters tournaments, and $400k IEM Katowice in addition to the $480k from the Korean scene, for a total of just $1,495,600 in prize money. That's a drop of over a third. Blizzcon was nearly a third of the WCS prize pool last year, and with that gone and nothing to replace it, the scene is overall worse off. Also, no one has mentioned the $325,000 boost that will only apply to this year, so the prize pool will go down even further in 2021.
User was warned for this post
It's an arbitrary judgment, but I'm warning against posting misinformation without checking the original posting which clearly states the actual total for the year, which is ~$1.8m (supplemental info via Apollo's twitter says there's a separate Korean budget on top of this, but I'm not holding that part against you).
The OP very clearly states that the $1.8 million is for the entire 2020/21 season, not 2020. The total for 2020 is $1.5 million, which is not misinformation.
I'm not convinced it's the guy's intent to point out some 'accounting' errors regarding the enddates of the rescheduled season. But I've considering the general amount of confusion regarding budgets (pre-post warchest sums, which region's bucket GSL vs World and IEM Katowice fall into, etc), I'll rescind the warn in retrospect.
On January 08 2020 05:04 Solar424 wrote: So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
Idk how hard you had to try to have a perspective like this..
This is great news for everyone, and while GSL isn't announced yet, it's heavily implied that there will be 3 Korean league champions so there is at least gonna be 3 GSL-esque style tournaments, at the very least.
Better prize pool distribution, better point distribution, more offline events, weekly online cups, most likely better production..
I think people don't realize how significant of a downgrade this year is. Last year had 3 $100k WCS events, 3 $150k GSL's, 2 $25k Super Tournaments, 2 $60k WCS Winter events, 18 ~$10k WCS Challenger events, $25k Assembly Summer, $80k GS vs The World, $400k IEM Katowice, and $700k Blizzcon, for a total of $2,305,000 in prize money. This year where, even assuming GSL funding stays the same, we'll have 156 $100 online cups, 4 $125k ESL Masters tournaments, and $400k IEM Katowice in addition to the $480k from the Korean scene, for a total of just $1,495,600 in prize money. That's a drop of over a third. Blizzcon was nearly a third of the WCS prize pool last year, and with that gone and nothing to replace it, the scene is overall worse off. Also, no one has mentioned the $325,000 boost that will only apply to this year, so the prize pool will go down even further in 2021.
User was warned for this post
It's an arbitrary judgment, but I'm warning against posting misinformation without checking the original posting which clearly states the actual total for the year, which is ~$1.8m (supplemental info via Apollo's twitter says there's a separate Korean budget on top of this, but I'm not holding that part against you).
The OP very clearly states that the $1.8 million is for the entire 2020/21 season, not 2020. The total for 2020 is $1.5 million, which is not misinformation.
Therefore, today's announcement is not enough information to pronounce that we will see a 33% drop in the total SC2 prize pool for 2020 as compared to 2019.
I think we'll see a drop in over all total prize money for SC2. I don't think the drop will be as high as 33%. My track record of projections on these matters has been pretty good because I make really boring middle of the road projections. Here is what i projected in early November. https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/552468-wcs-2020-discussion?page=3#50
I say the total prize money drops and its by a # lower than 33%. Let's see what happens and revisit this in one year.
On January 08 2020 16:15 ThunderJunk wrote: "With Blizzard no longer in full control of the brand..."
Can someone tell me what this means? Where can I learn more about the state of ownership over the Sc2 franchise?
I don't know where you found that quote but SC franchise is totally owned by Blizzard. However blizzard in itself is nowadays owned/merged with Activision which means Blizzard cannot just decide themselves what to do because they have owners. From what I've seen Activision seems to exert a lot of Control compared to how it used to be.
Looking at how cutthroat Activision has been about cutting costs I really didn't Believe they would invest this heavily into SC2 for 3 more years. Makes me Think that they either have high flying plans for wc3rf or that they have some other plans ahead that would benefit from continous support of SC2 esport.
Overall this seems very promising to me, I doubt Blizz would pay out this much for SC2 for 3 more years without a plan ro recoup some of the costs.
On January 08 2020 16:15 ThunderJunk wrote: "With Blizzard no longer in full control of the brand..."
Can someone tell me what this means? Where can I learn more about the state of ownership over the Sc2 franchise?
I don't know where you found that quote but SC franchise is totally owned by Blizzard. However blizzard in itself is nowadays owned/merged with Activision which means Blizzard cannot just decide themselves what to do because they have owners. From what I've seen Activision seems to exert a lot of Control compared to how it used to be.
Looking at how cutthroat Activision has been about cutting costs I really didn't Believe they would invest this heavily into SC2 for 3 more years. Makes me Think that they either have high flying plans for wc3rf or that they have some other plans ahead that would benefit from continous support of SC2 esport.
Overall this seems very promising to me, I doubt Blizz would pay out this much for SC2 for 3 more years without a plan ro recoup some of the costs.
The full quote from OP is
With Blizzard no longer in full control of the brand, Apollo confirmed that ESL and DreamHack would have greater creative freedom, citing IEM Katowice as an example of how talent at Pro Tour events might be given greater license to "mess around and have fun".
It is not referring to the game or the brand per se, but of the planning of the events. Blizzard doesn't have the hands on approach anymore, they aren't in full control.
On January 08 2020 16:15 ThunderJunk wrote: "With Blizzard no longer in full control of the brand..."
Can someone tell me what this means? Where can I learn more about the state of ownership over the Sc2 franchise?
I don't know where you found that quote but SC franchise is totally owned by Blizzard. However blizzard in itself is nowadays owned/merged with Activision which means Blizzard cannot just decide themselves what to do because they have owners. From what I've seen Activision seems to exert a lot of Control compared to how it used to be.
Looking at how cutthroat Activision has been about cutting costs I really didn't Believe they would invest this heavily into SC2 for 3 more years. Makes me Think that they either have high flying plans for wc3rf or that they have some other plans ahead that would benefit from continous support of SC2 esport.
Overall this seems very promising to me, I doubt Blizz would pay out this much for SC2 for 3 more years without a plan ro recoup some of the costs.
With Blizzard no longer in full control of the brand, Apollo confirmed that ESL and DreamHack would have greater creative freedom, citing IEM Katowice as an example of how talent at Pro Tour events might be given greater license to "mess around and have fun".
It is not referring to the game or the brand per se, but of the planning of the events. Blizzard doesn't have the hands on approach anymore, they aren't in full control.
Yes, it's not about StarCraft II as a franchise but about the circuit. WCS was a Blizzard product, managed by Blizzard even though third party companies like ESL produced their events. For example, when I worked WCS Montreal production I would get instructions from Mark Olbertz who managed production and talent, ran the show if you will. There was a Blizzard team supervising production, making sure people aligned with their vision and rules, because it was their product. That's why WCS events were very different from something like a HSC or IEM Katowice, because Blizzard wanted WCS to be a more "professional", non-offensive brand.
But the Pro Tour is an ESL & Dreamhack product and only funded by Blizzard. There may be specific requirements to fulfill in the contract, but overall the decision on how to run the show and brand the product is now up to ESL and DH.
Part of that may be that Blizzard simply don't have the people to do this job anymore now that Marc and Adrian are gone.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
What has been built in the foreigner lands exactly? China has a team league savior status. They just lost a spot. What new faces were seen in the top8 of WCS in the past? I was under the impression it's mostly the same people getting the monies, where's the development?
I am not following the foreign scene so this is an honest question, can you elaborate and give me some good examples? The rest was said by Elentos
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
What has been built in the foreigner lands exactly? China has a team league savior status. They just lost a spot. What new faces were seen in the top8 of WCS in the past? I was under the impression it's mostly the same people getting the monies, where's the development?
I am not following the foreign scene so this is an honest question, can you elaborate and give me some good examples? The rest was said by Elentos
TIME had a breakout year, Reynor stepped up a level and Elazer had his big GSLvstW run, yeah top 8 was pretty consistent even though Scarlett had a bad year. Clem is shaping up pretty nicely, it’s a tossup between him and Harstem over whose destined to define 2020.
Other stuff we’ll never know without access to parallel dimensions. Do Serral and Reynor get to their current level regardless of system, or would they have pursued other avenues if they had to compete with S class Koreans from the start of their careers?
What does the Chinese team league act as a saviour for?
Many of us pine for a prestige team league but it’s not Proleague or even GSTL in the sense that the teams aren’t developing and training the players. It just seems to be a bunch of rich guys throwing money at the top (mostly Korean) talent of the day and organic growth is something of an afterthought, if it even is a thought at all.
Perhaps this year some of the Korean chops will rub off and it’ll raise the level over in China, but it certainly didn’t happen last year.
I want to make sure I understand before saying anything. So basically Blizzcon is gone and replaced by IEM Katowice? Isn't this a very sad news? Blizzcon has always been the 'world cup' of SC2 and now its gone just like that?
What about GSL? Someone here mentioned that the super tournament and GSL vs the world will be removed, leaving only the normal 3x GSL?
On January 08 2020 19:40 5ecured wrote: I want to make sure I understand before saying anything. So basically Blizzcon is gone and replaced by IEM Katowice? Isn't this a very sad news? Blizzcon has always been the 'world cup' of SC2 and now its gone just like that?
What about GSL? Someone here mentioned that the super tournament and GSL vs the world will be removed, leaving only the normal 3x GSL?
Is my understanding correct?
As for BlizzCon, yes. That's gone as the Global Finals. There is likely to be some kind of SCII event there still according to Blizzard's announcement, but Katowice takes over as the big final tournament of the season.
Personally I think it's a step up. SCII was never the main event at BlizzCon after OW launched, it always included that horrible opening weekend in a soulless studio because they couldn't fit 16 players into one weekend at BlizzCon, and if you remember it often had technical issues. I was there in 2015 and there were more delays than actual games. SCII was also moved to a smaller arena for some years. In Katowice we get a proven event with an awesome format, an amazing arena for bracket stages, there's no need to have an opening weekend filter out half the players so to me I think it will feel like an even bigger event.
As for GSL vs the World or events like that, there's no comment yet on whether something like that will happen or not. Apollo said other organizers are free to hold events that contribute points to the tour, so if GSL (assuming it's still GSL) have the budget to hold additional events like ST or GSL vs The World they would be welcome to. So let's wait for the Korean announcement first before drawing conclusions.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
What has been built in the foreigner lands exactly? China has a team league savior status. They just lost a spot. What new faces were seen in the top8 of WCS in the past? I was under the impression it's mostly the same people getting the monies, where's the development?
I am not following the foreign scene so this is an honest question, can you elaborate and give me some good examples? The rest was said by Elentos
TIME had a breakout year, Reynor stepped up a level and Elazer had his big GSLvstW run, yeah top 8 was pretty consistent even though Scarlett had a bad year. Clem is shaping up pretty nicely, it’s a tossup between him and Harstem over whose destined to define 2020.
Other stuff we’ll never know without access to parallel dimensions. Do Serral and Reynor get to their current level regardless of system, or would they have pursued other avenues if they had to compete with S class Koreans from the start of their careers?
What does the Chinese team league act as a saviour for?
Many of us pine for a prestige team league but it’s not Proleague or even GSTL in the sense that the teams aren’t developing and training the players. It just seems to be a bunch of rich guys throwing money at the top (mostly Korean) talent of the day and organic growth is something of an afterthought, if it even is a thought at all.
Perhaps this year some of the Korean chops will rub off and it’ll raise the level over in China, but it certainly didn’t happen last year.
It was one of the points on the Pylon show that region lock is not that much helping bringing new talents when most of the money is going into the same hands all the time. It's just not Korean hands, that's all. But new talents? Nah.
So is Serral good or nah? Because if he's good, Koreans don't matter... so why should especially he care? This is rather bad person to point out of all the foreigners
Read CTC threads Not my words. But they lost a spot.
Removing the spot from China is a huge step backwards imo. China is a huge market and there's potential in there for the much needed growth in the SC2 competitive scene.
On January 08 2020 05:04 Solar424 wrote: So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
Idk how hard you had to try to have a perspective like this..
This is great news for everyone, and while GSL isn't announced yet, it's heavily implied that there will be 3 Korean league champions so there is at least gonna be 3 GSL-esque style tournaments, at the very least.
Better prize pool distribution, better point distribution, more offline events, weekly online cups, most likely better production..
I think people don't realize how significant of a downgrade this year is. Last year had 3 $100k WCS events, 3 $150k GSL's, 2 $25k Super Tournaments, 2 $60k WCS Winter events, 18 ~$10k WCS Challenger events, $25k Assembly Summer, $80k GS vs The World, $400k IEM Katowice, and $700k Blizzcon, for a total of $2,305,000 in prize money. This year where, even assuming GSL funding stays the same, we'll have 156 $100 online cups, 4 $125k ESL Masters tournaments, and $400k IEM Katowice in addition to the $480k from the Korean scene, for a total of just $1,495,600 in prize money. That's a drop of over a third. Blizzcon was nearly a third of the WCS prize pool last year, and with that gone and nothing to replace it, the scene is overall worse off. Also, no one has mentioned the $325,000 boost that will only apply to this year, so the prize pool will go down even further in 2021.
This seems like cherry-picking at its finest
1. Pretty sure Assembly was funded without Blizz money 2. It is stated there will be SEVEN tournaments, yet you count FIVE? 3. You caculate 450k for Korea. Why? What makes you assume no Super Tournaments and no GSLvWorld? 4. There was a lot of Warchesting in 2019.(~350k) What makes you think this is gone? Or maybe we get an ESL alternative? Stream tickets or sth. 20 bucks a year. I'd be down for that
I did not calculate everything through since I'm at work right now, but this seems a minor downgrade if any
On January 08 2020 05:04 Solar424 wrote: So this is the same as what we've had in the past, except Blizzard doesn't want it at Blizzcon? Not sure why people are treating this as the greatest thing ever, all I see is that Blizzard doesn't want anything to do with SC2, which is a very bad sign. Also, there's still been no word on GSL for this year.
Idk how hard you had to try to have a perspective like this..
This is great news for everyone, and while GSL isn't announced yet, it's heavily implied that there will be 3 Korean league champions so there is at least gonna be 3 GSL-esque style tournaments, at the very least.
Better prize pool distribution, better point distribution, more offline events, weekly online cups, most likely better production..
I think people don't realize how significant of a downgrade this year is. Last year had 3 $100k WCS events, 3 $150k GSL's, 2 $25k Super Tournaments, 2 $60k WCS Winter events, 18 ~$10k WCS Challenger events, $25k Assembly Summer, $80k GS vs The World, $400k IEM Katowice, and $700k Blizzcon, for a total of $2,305,000 in prize money. This year where, even assuming GSL funding stays the same, we'll have 156 $100 online cups, 4 $125k ESL Masters tournaments, and $400k IEM Katowice in addition to the $480k from the Korean scene, for a total of just $1,495,600 in prize money. That's a drop of over a third. Blizzcon was nearly a third of the WCS prize pool last year, and with that gone and nothing to replace it, the scene is overall worse off. Also, no one has mentioned the $325,000 boost that will only apply to this year, so the prize pool will go down even further in 2021.
This seems like cherry-picking at its finest
1. Pretty sure Assembly was funded without Blizz money 2. It is stated there will be SEVEN tournaments, yet you count FIVE? 3. You caculate 450k for Korea. Why? What makes you assume no Super Tournaments and no GSLvWorld? 4. There was a lot of Warchesting in 2019.(~350k) What makes you think this is gone? Or maybe we get an ESL alternative? Stream tickets or sth. 20 bucks a year. I'd be down for that
I did not calculate everything through since I'm at work right now, but this seems a minor downgrade if any
on top of that the Qualifiers will also still be paid, they just didn t finalise the distribution yet. It is also becoming flatter, wich is realy important for the depth of the scene
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
What has been built in the foreigner lands exactly? China has a team league savior status. They just lost a spot. What new faces were seen in the top8 of WCS in the past? I was under the impression it's mostly the same people getting the monies, where's the development?
I am not following the foreign scene so this is an honest question, can you elaborate and give me some good examples? The rest was said by Elentos
TIME had a breakout year, Reynor stepped up a level and Elazer had his big GSLvstW run, yeah top 8 was pretty consistent even though Scarlett had a bad year. Clem is shaping up pretty nicely, it’s a tossup between him and Harstem over whose destined to define 2020.
Other stuff we’ll never know without access to parallel dimensions. Do Serral and Reynor get to their current level regardless of system, or would they have pursued other avenues if they had to compete with S class Koreans from the start of their careers?
What does the Chinese team league act as a saviour for?
Many of us pine for a prestige team league but it’s not Proleague or even GSTL in the sense that the teams aren’t developing and training the players. It just seems to be a bunch of rich guys throwing money at the top (mostly Korean) talent of the day and organic growth is something of an afterthought, if it even is a thought at all.
Perhaps this year some of the Korean chops will rub off and it’ll raise the level over in China, but it certainly didn’t happen last year.
It was one of the points on the Pylon show that region lock is not that much helping bringing new talents when most of the money is going into the same hands all the time. It's just not Korean hands, that's all. But new talents? Nah.
So is Serral good or nah? Because if he's good, Koreans don't matter... so why should especially he care? This is rather bad person to point out of all the foreigners
Read CTC threads Not my words. But they lost a spot.
How do you get good in the first place? You don’t go out and fight the final boss right away, you progress more gradually.
Serral and Reynor are pretty pertinent examples as they improved over quite a period of time until they were capable of regularly beating S class Koreans. Contrasted with the last Korean player to really break through to that tier which is, nobody last I checked.
ESL are making prize pools less top-heavy, presumably for that exact reason.
I don’t think the current system is at all close to perfect mind and something needs built to serve Korea in the post eSF/Kespa era for sure.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
What has been built in the foreigner lands exactly? China has a team league savior status. They just lost a spot. What new faces were seen in the top8 of WCS in the past? I was under the impression it's mostly the same people getting the monies, where's the development?
I am not following the foreign scene so this is an honest question, can you elaborate and give me some good examples? The rest was said by Elentos
TIME had a breakout year, Reynor stepped up a level and Elazer had his big GSLvstW run, yeah top 8 was pretty consistent even though Scarlett had a bad year. Clem is shaping up pretty nicely, it’s a tossup between him and Harstem over whose destined to define 2020.
Other stuff we’ll never know without access to parallel dimensions. Do Serral and Reynor get to their current level regardless of system, or would they have pursued other avenues if they had to compete with S class Koreans from the start of their careers?
What does the Chinese team league act as a saviour for?
Many of us pine for a prestige team league but it’s not Proleague or even GSTL in the sense that the teams aren’t developing and training the players. It just seems to be a bunch of rich guys throwing money at the top (mostly Korean) talent of the day and organic growth is something of an afterthought, if it even is a thought at all.
Perhaps this year some of the Korean chops will rub off and it’ll raise the level over in China, but it certainly didn’t happen last year.
It was one of the points on the Pylon show that region lock is not that much helping bringing new talents when most of the money is going into the same hands all the time. It's just not Korean hands, that's all. But new talents? Nah.
So is Serral good or nah? Because if he's good, Koreans don't matter... so why should especially he care? This is rather bad person to point out of all the foreigners
Read CTC threads Not my words. But they lost a spot.
How do you get good in the first place? You don’t go out and fight the final boss right away, you progress more gradually.
Serral and Reynor are pretty pertinent examples as they improved over quite a period of time until they were capable of regularly beating S class Koreans. Contrasted with the last Korean player to really break through to that tier which is, nobody last I checked.
ESL are making prize pools less top-heavy, presumably for that exact reason.
I don’t think the current system is at all close to perfect mind and something needs built to serve Korea in the post eSF/Kespa era for sure.
What are you even trying to say? Now that Serral (the last boss) is in EU and upcoming players meet him in tournaments europé is going to stop growing? Is the reaseon korean sc2 is dying because there are too many players that are too good so they cant improve?
Sure tournament experience is important but you don't improve at SC2 through playing in tournaments, you improve through grinding the ladder (and practise partners obviously). In terms of helping players improve it was better without regionlock because players in EU got to ladder against S class koreans (sometimes, more than now). You have everything backwards, just like the Deacon writes. It doesn't matter if the Money is all going into korean or european pros hands, as long as the lower level players are excluded it is hard to grow the scene. The only reason it would be harder to grow the scene Before would be if you would argue that the skill disparity between the koreans farming EU back in the day and the up and comers was more daunting than the current EU professional players farming the tournaments.
1. This is great news and all but why increase the prize pool each time we hear the 'good' news? That amount of prize pool you could MAKE 2-4 MORE 'major' events with 30k to first place or a bit less??? Win win for the more chances for the pros to share the pot (rather have dark and maru winning 2 tournaments than dark winning 1 big@$$ prizepool).
2. This is not a troll question, but what if WW3 happens before 2021?
On January 09 2020 00:21 ProBell wrote: 2. This is not a troll question, but what if WW3 happens before 2021?
Well considering the toll of the economy Blizzard would probably need to implement a 20% reduction in prize pool as well as cutting cross-continental offline event. I have heard they are currently in negotiation with world leaders to make a "Starcraft nuke initiative" where any attack on a SC2 tournament or an area where someone is playing SC2 must be precede by plane blasting out "nuclear launch detected" and a big red laser pointer. Of course all Starcraft player would be exempt from military and TL would become the new hub for cross-alliance resistance to war.
So don't worry if WW3 happen I'm sure this new pro Starcraft circuit will be fine.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
What has been built in the foreigner lands exactly? China has a team league savior status. They just lost a spot. What new faces were seen in the top8 of WCS in the past? I was under the impression it's mostly the same people getting the monies, where's the development?
I am not following the foreign scene so this is an honest question, can you elaborate and give me some good examples? The rest was said by Elentos
TIME had a breakout year, Reynor stepped up a level and Elazer had his big GSLvstW run, yeah top 8 was pretty consistent even though Scarlett had a bad year. Clem is shaping up pretty nicely, it’s a tossup between him and Harstem over whose destined to define 2020.
Other stuff we’ll never know without access to parallel dimensions. Do Serral and Reynor get to their current level regardless of system, or would they have pursued other avenues if they had to compete with S class Koreans from the start of their careers?
What does the Chinese team league act as a saviour for?
Many of us pine for a prestige team league but it’s not Proleague or even GSTL in the sense that the teams aren’t developing and training the players. It just seems to be a bunch of rich guys throwing money at the top (mostly Korean) talent of the day and organic growth is something of an afterthought, if it even is a thought at all.
Perhaps this year some of the Korean chops will rub off and it’ll raise the level over in China, but it certainly didn’t happen last year.
It was one of the points on the Pylon show that region lock is not that much helping bringing new talents when most of the money is going into the same hands all the time. It's just not Korean hands, that's all. But new talents? Nah.
So is Serral good or nah? Because if he's good, Koreans don't matter... so why should especially he care? This is rather bad person to point out of all the foreigners
Read CTC threads Not my words. But they lost a spot.
How do you get good in the first place? You don’t go out and fight the final boss right away, you progress more gradually.
Serral and Reynor are pretty pertinent examples as they improved over quite a period of time until they were capable of regularly beating S class Koreans. Contrasted with the last Korean player to really break through to that tier which is, nobody last I checked.
ESL are making prize pools less top-heavy, presumably for that exact reason.
I don’t think the current system is at all close to perfect mind and something needs built to serve Korea in the post eSF/Kespa era for sure.
What are you even trying to say? Now that Serral (the last boss) is in EU and upcoming players meet him in tournaments europé is going to stop growing? Is the reaseon korean sc2 is dying because there are too many players that are too good so they cant improve?
Sure tournament experience is important but you don't improve at SC2 through playing in tournaments, you improve through grinding the ladder (and practise partners obviously). In terms of helping players improve it was better without regionlock because players in EU got to ladder against S class koreans (sometimes, more than now). You have everything backwards, just like the Deacon writes. It doesn't matter if the Money is all going into korean or european pros hands, as long as the lower level players are excluded it is hard to grow the scene. The only reason it would be harder to grow the scene Before would be if you would argue that the skill disparity between the koreans farming EU back in the day and the up and comers was more daunting than the current EU professional players farming the tournaments.
Having a financial return from tournaments or the mere hope of being capable of is more important than offline experience by itself when it comes to the survival of the scene. Your point does not explain why the various Chance, Spear or Rookie haven't gone as far as Reynor, Goblin or even Krystianer, despite Korea having arguably a more competitive ladder(except when we are speaking of Zerg or vZ matchups).
The problem with koreans back in the days weren't mainly the MMA or MC stopping Vortix from getting a WCS title, but the lower tier ones suppressing the growth of the foreign scenes; KeSpa trained players, capable of competing with top foreigners and nomatch young/weaker ones, escaping from Korea where they wouldn't have been good(or weren't anymore) to win, and grabbing ro8/ro16 money from promising foreign players: your average Apocalypse, Crank or TheEstc(no hate for those players intended).
Region lock occurred in 2016 and in the span of one foreign prospects who were(mostly) WCS Challenger/ro32 material stepped up: uThermal, Harstem, Elazer, not to mention Neeb. We would never know if Serral's ascent would have happened regardless of region lock, but his(and Reynor's) tyrannical grip over WCS made everyone forget it only started in 2018(and 2019): they are monopolizing the top spots in WCS but they are actually "new" players, having replaced older top Zerg like Nerchio and Snute(bringing their dominance to a whole new level). There is a promising rising tide of players born after 2000 starting to make deeper and deeper runs in WCS: time will tell if they will be strong enough to replace the current top players, but they are almost there and are growing at a promising rate. This wouldn't have happened without region lock, which was highly successful if we speak of the growth and the competitiveness of the foreign scene.
In any of case, what was happening in 2013-2014 would not happen again if we were to remove region lock in 2021: returning and upcoming(the closest to which are semi unkwnown SKT b teamers Zoun and Dynamite) korean players do not have the strenght and, more importantly, the numbers to hinder any further growth of the foreign scene. At worst, we might have Serral and Reynor tier players winning half or 1/3 of the overall Masters and the top8 of the WCS pushed towards the ro16, but with a more even prize distribution I don't think Goblin or Hellraiser would see them doomed and abandon Starcraft entirely knowing they have to face Super for a ro32 spot.
On January 07 2020 23:23 Ziggy wrote: ESL running an RTS monopoly from 2020 onwards :oo
im starting a petition to have Brood War added to the circuit in 2021
That would almost be too good to be true. Don't give me false hopes
If they figure out how to cash in on the Korean audience and how to incorporate Korean players with everyone ending up relatively chuffed then I don't see why not. Granted, it's a big 'if'.
I don't know enough of the history or politics to know if this is feasible, but could IEM Katowice be rebranded or renamed so that it's clear this is now indisputably the Big Kahuna?
Perhaps "IEM Katowice SC2 World Championship?"
Too cumbersome?
I think it's helpful for it to be clear what the crowning achievement is, especially for more casual fans.
(Also, if there's going to be a new trophy, can it have Flux Vanes? Or at least cloak?)
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
What has been built in the foreigner lands exactly? China has a team league savior status. They just lost a spot. What new faces were seen in the top8 of WCS in the past? I was under the impression it's mostly the same people getting the monies, where's the development?
I am not following the foreign scene so this is an honest question, can you elaborate and give me some good examples? The rest was said by Elentos
TIME had a breakout year, Reynor stepped up a level and Elazer had his big GSLvstW run, yeah top 8 was pretty consistent even though Scarlett had a bad year. Clem is shaping up pretty nicely, it’s a tossup between him and Harstem over whose destined to define 2020.
Other stuff we’ll never know without access to parallel dimensions. Do Serral and Reynor get to their current level regardless of system, or would they have pursued other avenues if they had to compete with S class Koreans from the start of their careers?
What does the Chinese team league act as a saviour for?
Many of us pine for a prestige team league but it’s not Proleague or even GSTL in the sense that the teams aren’t developing and training the players. It just seems to be a bunch of rich guys throwing money at the top (mostly Korean) talent of the day and organic growth is something of an afterthought, if it even is a thought at all.
Perhaps this year some of the Korean chops will rub off and it’ll raise the level over in China, but it certainly didn’t happen last year.
It was one of the points on the Pylon show that region lock is not that much helping bringing new talents when most of the money is going into the same hands all the time. It's just not Korean hands, that's all. But new talents? Nah.
So is Serral good or nah? Because if he's good, Koreans don't matter... so why should especially he care? This is rather bad person to point out of all the foreigners
Read CTC threads Not my words. But they lost a spot.
How do you get good in the first place? You don’t go out and fight the final boss right away, you progress more gradually.
Serral and Reynor are pretty pertinent examples as they improved over quite a period of time until they were capable of regularly beating S class Koreans. Contrasted with the last Korean player to really break through to that tier which is, nobody last I checked.
ESL are making prize pools less top-heavy, presumably for that exact reason.
I don’t think the current system is at all close to perfect mind and something needs built to serve Korea in the post eSF/Kespa era for sure.
What are you even trying to say? Now that Serral (the last boss) is in EU and upcoming players meet him in tournaments europé is going to stop growing? Is the reaseon korean sc2 is dying because there are too many players that are too good so they cant improve?
Sure tournament experience is important but you don't improve at SC2 through playing in tournaments, you improve through grinding the ladder (and practise partners obviously). In terms of helping players improve it was better without regionlock because players in EU got to ladder against S class koreans (sometimes, more than now). You have everything backwards, just like the Deacon writes. It doesn't matter if the Money is all going into korean or european pros hands, as long as the lower level players are excluded it is hard to grow the scene. The only reason it would be harder to grow the scene Before would be if you would argue that the skill disparity between the koreans farming EU back in the day and the up and comers was more daunting than the current EU professional players farming the tournaments.
Having a financial return from tournaments or the mere hope of being capable of is more important than offline experience by itself when it comes to the survival of the scene. Your point does not explain why the various Chance, Spear or Rookie haven't gone as far as Reynor, Goblin or even Krystianer, despite Korea having arguably a more competitive ladder(except when we are speaking of Zerg or vZ matchups).
The problem with koreans back in the days weren't mainly the MMA or MC stopping Vortix from getting a WCS title, but the lower tier ones suppressing the growth of the foreign scenes; KeSpa trained players, capable of competing with top foreigners and nomatch young/weaker ones, escaping from Korea where they wouldn't have been good(or weren't anymore) to win, and grabbing ro8/ro16 money from promising foreign players: your average Apocalypse, Crank or TheEstc(no hate for those players intended).
Region lock occurred in 2016 and in the span of one foreign prospects who were(mostly) WCS Challenger/ro32 material stepped up: uThermal, Harstem, Elazer, not to mention Neeb. We would never know if Serral's ascent would have happened regardless of region lock, but his(and Reynor's) tyrannical grip over WCS made everyone forget it only started in 2018(and 2019): they are monopolizing the top spots in WCS but they are actually "new" players, having replaced older top Zerg like Nerchio and Snute(bringing their dominance to a whole new level). There is a promising rising tide of players born after 2000 starting to make deeper and deeper runs in WCS: time will tell if they will be strong enough to replace the current top players, but they are almost there and are growing at a promising rate. This wouldn't have happened without region lock, which was highly successful if we speak of the growth and the competitiveness of the foreign scene.
In any of case, what was happening in 2013-2014 would not happen again if we were to remove region lock in 2021: returning and upcoming(the closest to which are semi unkwnown SKT b teamers Zoun and Dynamite) korean players do not have the strenght and, more importantly, the numbers to hinder any further growth of the foreign scene. At worst, we might have Serral and Reynor tier players winning half or 1/3 of the overall Masters and the top8 of the WCS pushed towards the ro16, but with a more even prize distribution I don't think Goblin or Hellraiser would see them doomed and abandon Starcraft entirely knowing they have to face Super for a ro32 spot.
Yes basically a better and more articulately argued version of what I was saying.
Excluding passion, if I’m a parent and my kid wants to delay school and go full-time in the current structure of the scene (especially with more ESL online tournies), I’d be way more likely to fully support that than in previous iterations.
Some do still have to supplement their income of course, but good foreigners aren’t all regular streamers as much as before. Even top foreigners of various times were juggling playing at that level with studying, your Lucifrons and Nerchios of the world.
Now that it’s more viable to at least earn a crust as a top foreigner purely from playing tournaments the level has really improved quite a bit, which was to be expected.
In any of case, what was happening in 2013-2014 would not happen again if we were to remove region lock in 2021: returning and upcoming(the closest to which are semi unkwnown SKT b teamers Zoun and Dynamite) korean players do not have the strenght and, more importantly, the numbers to hinder any further growth of the foreign scene. At worst, we might have Serral and Reynor tier players winning half or 1/3 of the overall Masters and the top8 of the WCS pushed towards the ro16, but with a more even prize distribution I don't think Goblin or Hellraiser would see them doomed and abandon Starcraft entirely knowing they have to face Super for a ro32 spot.
I understand people may have some concerns but being hyper-focused on what is lost or the "bad news" is a fool's errand, beggars can't be choosers. The game and competitive scene lives on, contribute to it!
IEM Katowice, starting in 2021, will serve as the “replacement” for BlizzCon, crowning the StarCraft II world champion.
No more SC2 at Blizzcon (if I'm understanding that correctly) is a real bummer.
That being said, that video was hype as fuck, I loved that.
I've edited that bit now for a bit more clarity. Blizzard's announcement does suggest there will be some kind of SCII event at BlizzCon, but it won't be like the Global Finals of WCS. That season finale will be IEM Katowice.
On January 09 2020 04:33 TheDougler wrote: I have mixed feelings about this. This part in particular:
IEM Katowice, starting in 2021, will serve as the “replacement” for BlizzCon, crowning the StarCraft II world champion.
No more SC2 at Blizzcon (if I'm understanding that correctly) is a real bummer.
That being said, that video was hype as fuck, I loved that.
I've edited that bit now for a bit more clarity. Blizzard's announcement does suggest there will be some kind of SCII event at BlizzCon, but it won't be like the Global Finals of WCS. That season finale will be IEM Katowice.
Really it's less of a suggestion and more of an outright confirmation. They're just not coming out with what exactly they're planning yet, but they will have something.
On January 09 2020 12:42 BisuDagger wrote: This is great, but ESL has failed to explain what their acronym is or who/what the heck they are. Can someone fill me in please?
English Second Language, it is all a cover-up to bring Koreans back into foreign tournaments and teach them better English.
On January 09 2020 12:42 BisuDagger wrote: This is great, but ESL has failed to explain what their acronym is or who/what the heck they are. Can someone fill me in please?
Electronic Sports League is the one you are looking for!
Well this is interesting. A bit bummed about Blizzcon no longer going to be hosting the Grand Finals, but if the scene moves on, that's great.
I do wonder about who or what will be hosting the korean side of things though. I hope Afreeca and ESL work out a reasonable agreement and keep as many GSL events as possible.
On January 09 2020 12:42 BisuDagger wrote: This is great, but ESL has failed to explain what their acronym is or who/what the heck they are. Can someone fill me in please?
English Second Language, it is all a cover-up to bring Koreans back into foreign tournaments and teach them better English.
On January 09 2020 12:42 BisuDagger wrote: This is great, but ESL has failed to explain what their acronym is or who/what the heck they are. Can someone fill me in please?
English Second Language, it is all a cover-up to bring Koreans back into foreign tournaments and teach them better English.
Solar would be the main beneficiary of replacing region-lock with an English proficiency test.
It makes way more sense to have blizzcon as just another weekender and katowice as the global finals. It terms of structure/competition it's been better suited that way around since 2017.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
What has been built in the foreigner lands exactly? China has a team league savior status. They just lost a spot. What new faces were seen in the top8 of WCS in the past? I was under the impression it's mostly the same people getting the monies, where's the development?
I am not following the foreign scene so this is an honest question, can you elaborate and give me some good examples? The rest was said by Elentos
TIME had a breakout year, Reynor stepped up a level and Elazer had his big GSLvstW run, yeah top 8 was pretty consistent even though Scarlett had a bad year. Clem is shaping up pretty nicely, it’s a tossup between him and Harstem over whose destined to define 2020.
Other stuff we’ll never know without access to parallel dimensions. Do Serral and Reynor get to their current level regardless of system, or would they have pursued other avenues if they had to compete with S class Koreans from the start of their careers?
What does the Chinese team league act as a saviour for?
Many of us pine for a prestige team league but it’s not Proleague or even GSTL in the sense that the teams aren’t developing and training the players. It just seems to be a bunch of rich guys throwing money at the top (mostly Korean) talent of the day and organic growth is something of an afterthought, if it even is a thought at all.
Perhaps this year some of the Korean chops will rub off and it’ll raise the level over in China, but it certainly didn’t happen last year.
It was one of the points on the Pylon show that region lock is not that much helping bringing new talents when most of the money is going into the same hands all the time. It's just not Korean hands, that's all. But new talents? Nah.
So is Serral good or nah? Because if he's good, Koreans don't matter... so why should especially he care? This is rather bad person to point out of all the foreigners
Read CTC threads Not my words. But they lost a spot.
How do you get good in the first place? You don’t go out and fight the final boss right away, you progress more gradually.
Serral and Reynor are pretty pertinent examples as they improved over quite a period of time until they were capable of regularly beating S class Koreans. Contrasted with the last Korean player to really break through to that tier which is, nobody last I checked.
ESL are making prize pools less top-heavy, presumably for that exact reason.
I don’t think the current system is at all close to perfect mind and something needs built to serve Korea in the post eSF/Kespa era for sure.
What are you even trying to say? Now that Serral (the last boss) is in EU and upcoming players meet him in tournaments europé is going to stop growing? Is the reaseon korean sc2 is dying because there are too many players that are too good so they cant improve?
Sure tournament experience is important but you don't improve at SC2 through playing in tournaments, you improve through grinding the ladder (and practise partners obviously). In terms of helping players improve it was better without regionlock because players in EU got to ladder against S class koreans (sometimes, more than now). You have everything backwards, just like the Deacon writes. It doesn't matter if the Money is all going into korean or european pros hands, as long as the lower level players are excluded it is hard to grow the scene. The only reason it would be harder to grow the scene Before would be if you would argue that the skill disparity between the koreans farming EU back in the day and the up and comers was more daunting than the current EU professional players farming the tournaments.
Having a financial return from tournaments or the mere hope of being capable of is more important than offline experience by itself when it comes to the survival of the scene. Your point does not explain why the various Chance, Spear or Rookie haven't gone as far as Reynor, Goblin or even Krystianer, despite Korea having arguably a more competitive ladder(except when we are speaking of Zerg or vZ matchups).
The problem with koreans back in the days weren't mainly the MMA or MC stopping Vortix from getting a WCS title, but the lower tier ones suppressing the growth of the foreign scenes; KeSpa trained players, capable of competing with top foreigners and nomatch young/weaker ones, escaping from Korea where they wouldn't have been good(or weren't anymore) to win, and grabbing ro8/ro16 money from promising foreign players: your average Apocalypse, Crank or TheEstc(no hate for those players intended).
Region lock occurred in 2016 and in the span of one foreign prospects who were(mostly) WCS Challenger/ro32 material stepped up: uThermal, Harstem, Elazer, not to mention Neeb. We would never know if Serral's ascent would have happened regardless of region lock, but his(and Reynor's) tyrannical grip over WCS made everyone forget it only started in 2018(and 2019): they are monopolizing the top spots in WCS but they are actually "new" players, having replaced older top Zerg like Nerchio and Snute(bringing their dominance to a whole new level). There is a promising rising tide of players born after 2000 starting to make deeper and deeper runs in WCS: time will tell if they will be strong enough to replace the current top players, but they are almost there and are growing at a promising rate. This wouldn't have happened without region lock, which was highly successful if we speak of the growth and the competitiveness of the foreign scene.
In any of case, what was happening in 2013-2014 would not happen again if we were to remove region lock in 2021: returning and upcoming(the closest to which are semi unkwnown SKT b teamers Zoun and Dynamite) korean players do not have the strenght and, more importantly, the numbers to hinder any further growth of the foreign scene. At worst, we might have Serral and Reynor tier players winning half or 1/3 of the overall Masters and the top8 of the WCS pushed towards the ro16, but with a more even prize distribution I don't think Goblin or Hellraiser would see them doomed and abandon Starcraft entirely knowing they have to face Super for a ro32 spot.
Generally well written and explained points but I don't agree with you entirely.
For one thing thing just because the foreign scene in general had explosive improvement after regionlock that does not automatically mean that it was eniterely due to regionlock. Blizzard har tried a lot of things throughout the years, when a change coincides with a positive result you cannot simply use that fact to prove that the change caused the result.
You argue I can't explain who the korean lower tier players haven't become as successful players as Reynor or Serral, no I can't and just because you can make up an explanation that you believe in that in itself is not an argument as to if you are right or not.
I would argue EU is and have been for quite a while the region in the world were SC2 is the most popular (at least double the amount of players as korea) and even if SC2 is almost as popular in America and China those regions have significantly less pro players. Sure korea has historically due to proleague, teamhouses and BW progamings in general had an edge at the top level isn't it expected that if korea has close to one third the amount of players as EU would overtime improve up to or past the korean level? One very important question as to the health of a pro scene in my opinion is how many full time players there are, EU has a lot, perhaps not as many as korea but still.
I am not saying regionlock did not serve a purpose or didn't contribute but maybe it wasn't the only reason, maybe you are wrong and if regionlock didn't happen EU would still catch up to korea. We actually don't know.
Edit: In regards to Blizzcon and what kind of SC2 content will be there I really hope it will be some kind of tournament, weekender or so but I doubt it. It feels to me like Blizzard doesn't want to bother putting so much energy into SC2 in blizzcon and a weekender isn't really that much easier than a RO8. They will probably take the easy way out here even though I hope they won't.
On January 08 2020 03:49 franzji wrote: Apollo is hinting at removing the region lock in future years.
Please don't do this. We know from experience that it will only hurt the regions we have worked so hard to build. Don't even give the anti-region lock people a voice.
We also know from other esports that we should he region based esports if was want continued success.
Just create more international events if you want more Koreans vs. others.
What has been built in the foreigner lands exactly? China has a team league savior status. They just lost a spot. What new faces were seen in the top8 of WCS in the past? I was under the impression it's mostly the same people getting the monies, where's the development?
I am not following the foreign scene so this is an honest question, can you elaborate and give me some good examples? The rest was said by Elentos
TIME had a breakout year, Reynor stepped up a level and Elazer had his big GSLvstW run, yeah top 8 was pretty consistent even though Scarlett had a bad year. Clem is shaping up pretty nicely, it’s a tossup between him and Harstem over whose destined to define 2020.
Other stuff we’ll never know without access to parallel dimensions. Do Serral and Reynor get to their current level regardless of system, or would they have pursued other avenues if they had to compete with S class Koreans from the start of their careers?
What does the Chinese team league act as a saviour for?
Many of us pine for a prestige team league but it’s not Proleague or even GSTL in the sense that the teams aren’t developing and training the players. It just seems to be a bunch of rich guys throwing money at the top (mostly Korean) talent of the day and organic growth is something of an afterthought, if it even is a thought at all.
Perhaps this year some of the Korean chops will rub off and it’ll raise the level over in China, but it certainly didn’t happen last year.
It was one of the points on the Pylon show that region lock is not that much helping bringing new talents when most of the money is going into the same hands all the time. It's just not Korean hands, that's all. But new talents? Nah.
So is Serral good or nah? Because if he's good, Koreans don't matter... so why should especially he care? This is rather bad person to point out of all the foreigners
Read CTC threads Not my words. But they lost a spot.
How do you get good in the first place? You don’t go out and fight the final boss right away, you progress more gradually.
Serral and Reynor are pretty pertinent examples as they improved over quite a period of time until they were capable of regularly beating S class Koreans. Contrasted with the last Korean player to really break through to that tier which is, nobody last I checked.
ESL are making prize pools less top-heavy, presumably for that exact reason.
I don’t think the current system is at all close to perfect mind and something needs built to serve Korea in the post eSF/Kespa era for sure.
My point was that the experience is useless, you need monies to git gut. IF you don't get monies because most of the monies gets into top8 which is stale for years now(it's not about Reynor and Serral, it's about top7 players being all the time the same people). Flattening the prize pools helps a little but this is the issue. Region lock doesn't change this(mostly because players needs them monies to travel, the biggest excuse about foreigners vs GSL while foreigner house exists but at the same time the same people don't include this when they support the lock )
Edit: In regards to Blizzcon and what kind of SC2 content will be there I really hope it will be some kind of tournament, weekender or so but I doubt it. It feels to me like Blizzard doesn't want to bother putting so much energy into SC2 in blizzcon and a weekender isn't really that much easier than a RO8. They will probably take the easy way out here even though I hope they won't.
I'm guessing some sort of exhibitions matches or maybe some invited top 8 players (1-2 from each region) flavored with some new skins and coop commanders and stuff
With Blizzard no longer in full control of the brand, Apollo confirmed that ESL and DreamHack would have greater creative freedom, citing IEM Katowice as an example of how talent at Pro Tour events might be given greater license to "mess around and have fun".
Does this mean we get more tournaments like ROG 2012??
RIP Geoff.
That tournament is my number 1 SC2 memory. The community will be less stale when everyone is allowed to have fun and let go. I couldn't be more excited for this.
"Yeah, I'm scared of Taeja, he's the best terran right now and I'm only top 100 protoss. I'm so troubled, no skill only luck."
MC
More player interviews like this from now on please.
On January 09 2020 22:55 Wombat_NI wrote: Hm, GomTV’s YouTube has sprung into activity after years of nothing, rather intriguing given the proximity to this announcement
Something I just kinda clued into is that if IEM Katowice is the final event of the year, then it's probably gonna maintain the excellent IEM Katowice finals format, which I honestly prefer to both WESG and Blizzcon by a pretty large margin.
glad that sc2 is finally getting more continuous pro scene action! will be so much easier to follow specific players and also be introduced to new players. THIS GAME WILL NEVER DIE! POGCHAMP
On January 09 2020 12:42 BisuDagger wrote: This is great, but ESL has failed to explain what their acronym is or who/what the heck they are. Can someone fill me in please?
Electronic Sports League is the one you are looking for!
That's not longer true, ESL is not an acronym anymore
It's kinda hard to be excited for something that I already expected to happen—well, except for the increase in prize monies. Blizzard has every incentive to keep SC2 going. To throw away the legacy of the thing that helped to create the Blizzard brand and is still the epitome of esport would be a massive miscalculation.
ESL has now made a deal with Dreamhack and the Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association (CSPPA) to govern the CSGO Pro Tour in the future. This is a very interesting move and seems to be very good for CSGO. I think that anything that's good for ESL is also good for SC2 now, and while there is currently no corresponding player's association in SC, this could still be a model for something in the future.
The partnership is an extension of ESL and DreamHack’s ongoing dialogue and cooperation with the CSPPA, and covers all competitions within the ESL Pro Tour, which links every ESL and DreamHack competition globally through a series of over 20 events, culminating in Intel® Extreme Masters Katowice and ESL One Cologne.
CSPPA will work with ESL and DreamHack on the governance of the tournament circuit, participation in business revenues, defining player rights and obligations at live events as well as making the current ESL tournament conditions the standard across tournaments. Further, CSPPA parties will cooperate on the ESL Pro Tour events calendar and the summer and winter player breaks.
The agreement also provides a basis for future cooperation regarding standard player contracts, player intellectual property rights, and potential joint projects in the future.
PS. Fun fact: The CSPPA CEO is also the CEO of the Danish football player's union.
Sorry to be a downer, but while the ESL tour might look optimistic on the surface, in many ways it's just cover for Blizzard disassociating from SC2. The SC2 casters have tried to put on a bright face, but quite frankly, they know that if they say anything negative about Blizzard, the company can affect their employment. Blizzard certainly has had no ethical qualms taking actions against players who threatened their Chinese interests in the past. What is Blizzard really doing?
1. Blizzard is removing SC2 from Blizzcon in 2020. The WCS Global Finals were by far the biggest prize pool last year, about 28% of the total prize pool for Premier events in 2019. That's almost a third less money, assuming the Korea events continue to pay out at the same rate as last year. Note that if the schedule had remained the same, IEM Katowice 2021, which Blizzard says is replacing the Global Finals, would have happened, anyway.
2. Blizzard fired its internal SC2 e-sports managers in order to farm out that work to ESL.
3. Blizzard is no longer televising the qualifications rounds for WCS. That means less caster work, and less production quality for broadcasts as casters like Wardi pick up the slack (no offense to Wardi -- he does a fine job with the resources he has).
Finally, by turning SC2 competitions over to ESL, if ESL decides that SC2 isn't profitable and drops their support, Blizzard can blame them for the game's demise. It's not even clear what "real" commitment ESL has made without seeing the terms of the agreement. Blizzard claims the deal is for three years, but ESL may have an easy opt-out clause. Personally, I see no reason to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt on this.
On January 22 2020 10:46 Macarone wrote: Sorry to be a downer, but while the ESL tour might look optimistic on the surface, in many ways it's just cover for Blizzard disassociating from SC2. The SC2 casters have tried to put on a bright face, but quite frankly, they know that if they say anything negative about Blizzard, the company can affect their employment. Blizzard certainly has had no ethical qualms taking actions against players who threatened their Chinese interests in the past. What is Blizzard really doing?
1. Blizzard is removing SC2 from Blizzcon in 2020. The WCS Global Finals were by far the biggest prize pool last year, about 28% of the total prize pool for Premier events in 2019. That's almost a third less money, assuming the Korea events continue to pay out at the same rate as last year. Note that if the schedule had remained the same, IEM Katowice 2021, which Blizzard says is replacing the Global Finals, would have happened, anyway.
2. Blizzard fired its internal SC2 e-sports managers in order to farm out that work to ESL.
3. Blizzard is no longer televising the qualifications rounds for WCS. That means less caster work, and less production quality for broadcasts as casters like Wardi pick up the slack (no offense to Wardi -- he does a fine job with the resources he has).
Finally, by turning SC2 competitions over to ESL, if ESL decides that SC2 isn't profitable and drops their support, Blizzard can blame them for the game's demise. It's not even clear what "real" commitment ESL has made without seeing the terms of the agreement. Blizzard claims the deal is for three years, but ESL may have an easy opt-out clause. Personally, I see no reason to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt on this.
It's really hard for me to understand your point of view.
I think many of us expected some major contraction. Instead, we get three guaranteed years of events put on by passionate organizers who do a much better job than Blizzard with events. Is it perfect? Of course not. But relative to what most of us expected, it is awesome.
I'm incredibly excited. Now Blizzard has to make sure the game stays fresh and interesting via game design and balance changes and that will be the biggest obstacle. They really need to remove the garbage that doesn't allow for counterplay.
On January 22 2020 10:46 Macarone wrote: Sorry to be a downer, but while the ESL tour might look optimistic on the surface, in many ways it's just cover for Blizzard disassociating from SC2. The SC2 casters have tried to put on a bright face, but quite frankly, they know that if they say anything negative about Blizzard, the company can affect their employment. Blizzard certainly has had no ethical qualms taking actions against players who threatened their Chinese interests in the past. What is Blizzard really doing?
1. Blizzard is removing SC2 from Blizzcon in 2020. The WCS Global Finals were by far the biggest prize pool last year, about 28% of the total prize pool for Premier events in 2019. That's almost a third less money, assuming the Korea events continue to pay out at the same rate as last year. Note that if the schedule had remained the same, IEM Katowice 2021, which Blizzard says is replacing the Global Finals, would have happened, anyway.
2. Blizzard fired its internal SC2 e-sports managers in order to farm out that work to ESL.
3. Blizzard is no longer televising the qualifications rounds for WCS. That means less caster work, and less production quality for broadcasts as casters like Wardi pick up the slack (no offense to Wardi -- he does a fine job with the resources he has).
Finally, by turning SC2 competitions over to ESL, if ESL decides that SC2 isn't profitable and drops their support, Blizzard can blame them for the game's demise. It's not even clear what "real" commitment ESL has made without seeing the terms of the agreement. Blizzard claims the deal is for three years, but ESL may have an easy opt-out clause. Personally, I see no reason to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt on this.
It's really hard for me to understand your point of view.
I think many of us expected some major contraction. Instead, we get three guaranteed years of events put on by passionate organizers who do a much better job than Blizzard with events. Is it perfect? Of course not. But relative to what most of us expected, it is awesome.
I'm incredibly excited. Now Blizzard has to make sure the game stays fresh and interesting via game design and balance changes and that will be the biggest obstacle. They really need to remove the garbage that doesn't allow for counterplay.
If only they would outsource their balance team as well to ESL!
On January 22 2020 10:46 Macarone wrote: Sorry to be a downer, but while the ESL tour might look optimistic on the surface, in many ways it's just cover for Blizzard disassociating from SC2. The SC2 casters have tried to put on a bright face, but quite frankly, they know that if they say anything negative about Blizzard, the company can affect their employment. Blizzard certainly has had no ethical qualms taking actions against players who threatened their Chinese interests in the past. What is Blizzard really doing?
1. Blizzard is removing SC2 from Blizzcon in 2020. The WCS Global Finals were by far the biggest prize pool last year, about 28% of the total prize pool for Premier events in 2019. That's almost a third less money, assuming the Korea events continue to pay out at the same rate as last year. Note that if the schedule had remained the same, IEM Katowice 2021, which Blizzard says is replacing the Global Finals, would have happened, anyway.
2. Blizzard fired its internal SC2 e-sports managers in order to farm out that work to ESL.
3. Blizzard is no longer televising the qualifications rounds for WCS. That means less caster work, and less production quality for broadcasts as casters like Wardi pick up the slack (no offense to Wardi -- he does a fine job with the resources he has).
Finally, by turning SC2 competitions over to ESL, if ESL decides that SC2 isn't profitable and drops their support, Blizzard can blame them for the game's demise. It's not even clear what "real" commitment ESL has made without seeing the terms of the agreement. Blizzard claims the deal is for three years, but ESL may have an easy opt-out clause. Personally, I see no reason to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt on this.
Well sure, you can be negative about it but when it comes down to it we get Three more years of astable starcraft 2 pro scene.
Even if Blizzard is outsorucing much of the work to Another organization, what does that matter to us as fans. If ESL does a better job than Blizzard then isn't this change a good thing? Lets be real Blizzard can never disassociate itself from Starcraft, its like if Blizzard contracted out the work of patching WoW to Another Company. Would people all of a sudden Think WoW has nothing to do with Blizzard? Nope, Wwarcraft as well as Starcraft is huge franschises, Blizzard can't away from it being part of their brand and and if they could they wouldn't. Having a brand as big as Starcraft associated to your Company is something many companies would pay big dollars for.
Even if qualifiers for WCS isn't casted officially anymore and the price pools would be smaller overall that is indeed a downgrade to last year but what did you expect? Are you living in a bubble were you expect Starcraft 2 to get more expensive support from Blizzadr as the years go by and the playerbase and viewerbase remain roughly the same? I Think that isn't realistic, this deal was more than most were expecting after what they've previously done to many of their sc2 staff and how they handled heroes of the storm.
Even if it is a downgrade lets celebrate the shit out of it because it sure as hell is a minor one.
In my opinion it was never the job of blizzard to also run the esports of their games anyway, that was just something that started to happen everywhere at the turn of the last decade.
On January 23 2020 09:47 BLinD-RawR wrote: In my opinion it was never the job of blizzard to also run the esports of their games anyway, that was just something that started to happen everywhere at the turn of the last decade.
Well it is not their job but if the company want the chance for their game to become a League/fortnite level smash success they need to make sure the esport side goes big.
Imagine there were no leagues for soccer, no professional athletes, no tv coverage and so on. Do you Think soccer would still be as popular? A professional scene drives engagement, I don't remember exactly and I can't find the information now but I remember Reading that League of legends mictrotransactions per user increased a lot in conjunction with how their professional leagues popularity went up.
No its not Blizzards job but even if they are losing money at it now if they would just toss it to the wayside tf would seriously hurt their reputation. Considering what Blizzard did with hots if they also dropped sc2 early many would hesitate to going pro in a theoretical SC3 or similar. If a game Company is known for supporting their games for a long time it also drives engagement and makes it more likely people will invest their time and Money.
Look at League of legends, how many would buy skins if they belived the game might get cancelled at any time. A stable pro scene and live server for a long time is important for a mictrotransaction Heavy multiplayer game, support sc2 for a long time is huge for their upcoming games.
On January 23 2020 09:47 BLinD-RawR wrote: In my opinion it was never the job of blizzard to also run the esports of their games anyway, that was just something that started to happen everywhere at the turn of the last decade.
if they hadnt pushed sc2 onto kespa / ogn and then started charging for tournament licences then i guess id concur
On January 07 2020 23:24 xelnaga_empire wrote: So does this mean Afreeca TV backed out of broadcasting SC2? If Afreeca TV doesn't want to pick up GSL, then that's not a good sign in Korea ...
I don't know how you got that from this announcement to be honest.
im just going to say this now, it makes people mad but this is the sc2 esports scene send off i think.
As a life long player of the game, sc will never die, there will always be too many fan set up tournies and fundraisers with a spot at some of the esport venues on a much smaller scale (day tournie, invite only sort of thing)
This has to happen with a game like this, the casual player cant relate. The meta shifts, people cant be bothered. New versions come out and noone wants to use the old one. imagine a sc3 announcement. . . Hell, its about time.
ESL pro league cut in half from ~48 teams to 24 which removed teams that had earned spots in the league from previous seasons or were contracted to play in relegation matches very soon to compete for a spot
Having limited or no communication with said teams which mostly found out that they are cut from the league/relegated to MDL via Dekay's reporting - Reference HAVU: and Dekay's reporting:
Using the public space to announce "invited" teams which aren't necessarily signed to the league to gain leverage to sign others and/or use teams which might not even be involved in the end as advertisement
Those are the keys point I've gathered and there is plenty I don't remember right now and are in the fine print of their league contracts etc.
Not to mention as another comment said, Thorin in general has sympathised with ESL in a lot of respects and continually called them the best TO in CSGO up until now shows he is being honest in his actions.
I've just finished reading news. I have a question to ya all. According to numbers published by ESL there is no money for KR region. Does it mean they (KR) have direct sponsorship from Blizzard? And... it seems like in 2021 SC2 will be cut heavily. You can check the numbers but prizepool for one event is 60k-80k only.
On January 27 2020 12:31 dalecooper wrote: I've just finished reading news. I have a question to ya all. According to numbers published by ESL there is no money for KR region. Does it mean they (KR) have direct sponsorship from Blizzard? And... it seems like in 2021 SC2 will be cut heavily. You can check the numbers but prizepool for one event is 60k-80k only.
Yes, KR region is separate. Blizzard has said that their involvement in KR will continue but we still don't know the details. All we know is that Super Tournament #1 qualifiers will take place this week.
And yes, it does seem like prize pools are being reduced in general. On the plus side, I suppose Warchest could still add to those numbers.
Man, I really try to be optimistic, but it does really worry me that we haven't heard anything at all about GSL yet. This time last year, 3 groups of the ro32 had already been played. I know KR isn't gone entirely, but it being this far into the year with no news worries me for the health of the scene.
On February 09 2020 10:00 Psychonian wrote: Man, I really try to be optimistic, but it does really worry me that we haven't heard anything at all about GSL yet. This time last year, 3 groups of the ro32 had already been played. I know KR isn't gone entirely, but it being this far into the year with no news worries me for the health of the scene.
Well there's a Super Tournament they had to postpone for a bit with Corona and all. And keep in mind on this deal, the SC2 season goes from March to March, not from January to November as it was with WCS. They have more than enough time still.
On January 23 2020 09:47 BLinD-RawR wrote: In my opinion it was never the job of blizzard to also run the esports of their games anyway, that was just something that started to happen everywhere at the turn of the last decade.
if they hadnt pushed sc2 onto kespa / ogn and then started charging for tournament licences then i guess id concur
At the expenses of Brood War... doesn't seems like a good Job neither a good trade and a good role for Blizzard.
EPT![[image loading]](https://tl.net/staff/Olli/Tour_system.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://tl.net/staff/Olli/Qualifiers_and_Cups.jpg)
Not my words. But they lost a spot.![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/0W1dnWK.jpg)
