ESL to change player eligibility in sub regions - Page 3

On October 15 2020 09:27 warnull wrote:
Can someone clarify - do the proposed rules assume that the regional tournaments will continue to be online in 2021?

Because the 2nd participation method "Citizenship within the region you are located at the time of matches" doesn't make sense for offline tournaments. It is trivially satisfied for all participants.

On October 14 2020 22:36 Luolis wrote:

Haha you guys couldn't beat Razerblader and Risky so you whine to blizzard to change it. Your scene is a joke.

On October 15 2020 17:53 PresenceSc2 wrote:

Haha Risky can't beat mid level EU pro's so he changes region to OCE. Risky is a joke!

On October 15 2020 07:34 Shuffleblade wrote:
Coming back to thread has made me understand a bit more whats going on but I still wonder, why the regionlock? I actually don't mind the nod towards GSL pilgrims. The foreigners playing GSL did the opposite of trying to play in a weaker region to win easier. The one thorn in my side is if koreans cant compete internationally, that is not fair and I hope Apollos mysterious tweet is a nod towards that changing.

I still don't understand the need to regionlock though, I mean I think its fine if risky plays in OCE as long as he gets the server disadvantage he deseves and as the rules seems to state clearly he would now have.

On October 15 2020 17:56 1gragequit wrote:

And the fact that he won the entire region and had to be bullied out of it just shows how pathetic the OCE region is. It is literally embarrassing watching the games. Someone like Kyj or Spatz who are completely no name would wipe the floor with the region. The fact that Risky has to retire if he can't play in OCE is the biggest indictment to the region that there can be. He is literally only a pro because OCE is that easy. That pro status could go to someone in EU or Korea that actually deserves it 5x over.

On October 15 2020 18:47 followZeRoX wrote:
I am quite shocked with level of elitism of Europeans towards ANZ players.
So, basically, you are all okay with British player, who have better conditions to practice, to force ANZ players to play on certain server, and win just because hes mother has NZ passport. Madness. Buddy, if you arent good enough ti beat all on higher ping or actually live there and compete under same conditions as others, who cares if you quit.
Now we all should drop a tear over this.

It's kind of abuse of region policy.

For example Probe put a pretty good fight against Rogue im group stage. He wasnt bad. Anz should be represented by anz player, period.

On October 15 2020 16:19 Thaniri wrote:
My hot take:

It's time to remove all region locking.

If a tournament is meant to be a $region tournament, host it in $region.

If someone in Korea wants to come and wreck all the $region tournaments, let them, but make them play on $region servers.

Region locking was initially done to protect foreign players from Korean domination, and that seems to have worked in EU. There are ~5 players from EU who are on par with top Koreans now. Back in 2012 there were really none. However in NA there were none in 2012 and are none today, excepting players like Special and Scarlett who are GSL competitors and actually spend a considerable amount of time in Korea.

I don't believe region locking is good for the overall skill level of a region. Funnily enough I think the best example is the Silicon Valley tech industry. One of the major reasons that it became the best was due to having a high concentration of technology companies in the same area, having a culture of engineers switching between companies often, and having laws which quite strongly protected employees against non-compete clauses in their contracts.

Someone should figure out the secret sauce of why Korea and EU are dominant regions in Starcraft 2, and if they want to bring up NA, SEA, or China, they need to bring that secret sauce there. But it's obviously not region locking.

On October 15 2020 18:54 WombaT wrote:

There’s no great secret in Korea, BW was a phenomenon in Korea and SC2 adopted some of those structures. Concentration of talent in a relatively small area too, as per your Silicon Valley example. Friends and practice groups amongst the best players in the world went beyond team boundaries.

EU is more tricky. I suppose it’s just got so many players of a certain level that talent can develop from ladder alone up to the WCS standard, where they can earn a living playing full time. There’s that pipeline now.

To me the mystery is not KR> the rest but why it’s generally been Kr>EU>NA forever though. Not just in SC2 but in WC3 as well, and I don’t think the player bases at peak popularity were all that different (inb4 someone proves me wrong)

Only two factors I can really think of culturally that might come into play:

1. The social safety nets of Western/Northern Europe. Maybe there are fewer such pressures on the people who make up the archetypal aspiring pro gamer profile, generally late teens/early 20 folks. Perhaps it’s seen as more viable to delay college, or alternatively you have people who are studying full time while playing a lot of SC2 at a high level, rather than studying + part time job + trying to play.

2. The cheaper cost of living in the East. I guess proportionally tournament winnings and streaming venue go a bit further here, which makes pursuing the game seriously more viable.

Points taken on those aspects of Silicon Valley, it doesn’t really mesh well into the SC scene though. Silicon Valley imports a hell of a lot of talent that was trained and developed their skills elsewhere and brings them enthusiastically into that environment, which is another key component of why the name Silicon Valley resonates with the average Joe.

In the SC2 sense, foreigners have decamped to Korea, rented an apartment in San Francisco and are looking at the products coming out and the occasional snippet of leaked code coming out, rather than helping develop products within x company and being trained in there.

On October 15 2020 18:53 deacon.frost wrote:

So having a citizenship of NZ doesn't make you enough of a representation of ANZ? Who would have thought, I hope this stuff brings over to other sports.

Edit> TBF Risky has more valid reason to play in ANZ than ANY foreigner in the Code S and ANY Korean in foreigner only events. One would thought that the citizenship is enough, but nooooo.

On October 15 2020 19:08 followZeRoX wrote:


If I understood correctly Risky can force anz players to play on equal ping servers.
Its unfair.
And about citizenship. How many times he has been in NZ? I hope we all get concept of representation here.
I can get Czech passport and citizenship via grandmother. I have never been there but potentially i can represent CZ. How that can be normal?

On October 15 2020 18:58 deacon.frost wrote:

Wasn't always this way, Neeb had a great 2016(?), HuK was great in the early stages of WoL, same applies for Idra. So NA players can get good and be the best players of the foreign scene, the question is why they cannot stay good.

Edit> IMO the issue is that the NA scene is way too small. And always was(compared to Korea and Europe). So the pressure to be the best is lessened and region locking didn't help. If you want to play the best players you have to play in Korea - ping disadvantage, or Europe - ping disadvantage. Which doesn't exactly help, does it? NA has the worst case possible, they aren't protected by ping(since better players can overcome this more easily) while their players are hindered by ping(as it hurts them more),

Edit 2> in some stream Goeff was talking about this, that it is the curse of the NA ladder, nobody good plays there, just some streamers, cheaters and pros when they need the matches for WCS. Otherwise those who can play in EU/Korea.