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Nasigil
137 Posts
2022 Dec - Homestory Cup XXII: Reynor 2023 Feb - IEM Katowice 2023: Oliveira 2023 May - ESL Masters 2023 Summer: Serral 2023 Aug - Gamers8: Reynor 2023 Sep - Master's Coliseum 6: Serral 2023 Dec - ESL Masters 2023 Winter: Clem 2024 Jan - Master's Coliseum 7: Serral 2024 Feb - IEM Katowice 2024: Serral | ||
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Nasigil
137 Posts
For those people claiming "Terran and Zerg just have better players" to Protoss' drought, I wonder what they would say here? | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1130 Posts
On February 17 2024 06:31 Nasigil wrote: Ironically, this drought is as long as the infamous Protoss struggle in premiere tournaments, since both were defined by herO's win in Atlanta. For those people claiming "Terran and Zerg just have better players" to Protoss' drought, I wonder what they would say here? I don't really see how these two things are connected? This really is an insane stat though. And while it certainly is a question how much the Serral-Factor plays a role here, in the end this is a drought you would have been banned for in 2015 even suggesting it. Koreans are still the most dominant when it comes to playoffs participation, but I wonder how long that might last, considering how unattractive it is to play SC2 in Korea financially | ||
Nakajin
Canada8989 Posts
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Ronski
Finland266 Posts
Have you ever considered there might a strong player outside of Korea who is winning tournaments by simply being good at the game? Korea is still the strongest in SC2. In all of those finals its was most likely a Korean vs Foreigner and in the top 8 more than 5 koreans represented. | ||
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Poopi
France12780 Posts
Even though China managed to kinda catch up with money and KR players initially, Korea is still the dominant force in LoL. In most esport games where KR actively participates, they usually dominate the scene. My personal theory is that while the Korean society issues (like over competitive school / work system, high suicide rate, etc.) is a bit sad for their people, but since esports is an alternative and culturally accepted, their system can also produce competitive monsters (while crushing some less successful people). To go back to the subject, there is indeed no young blood in the KR scene, it’s the same 10-15 players from 2010 (eSF) and 2012 (kespa/BW) players. On the other hand, even though Clem / Serral started sc2 early in the game’s life, they are still young and gifted so their youth / work / talent will pay its dividends. Since KR has no such things, they won’t develop young talents that might make Serral / Clem life harder in international tournaments. Maru being the only « young » enough + talented enough player isn’t sufficient to have a KR player win those tournaments. As for Oliveira, he has shown insane potential but usually struggled to maintain that level / came close but no cigars vs top players. In 2023 he was on the run of his life and rode his insane momentum from the crowd. That’s more of a fluke than anything. I would put Clem and Oliveira in a similar basket, but Clem might reach Reynor’s ability to win tournaments regularly. As for Serral, being the best in the game helps you win tournaments. But Serral is an outlier, without Serral, KR would probably win more than half of the tournaments (see DH Valencia). | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1580 Posts
On February 17 2024 07:09 Poopi wrote: I mean, there is no KR scene left. If sc2 was popular in Korea like League of Legends is, KR players would dominate overall. Even though China managed to kinda catch up with money and KR players initially, Korea is still the dominant force in LoL. In most esport games where KR actively participates, they usually dominate the scene. My personal theory is that while the Korean society issues (like over competitive school / work system, high suicide rate, etc.) is a bit sad for their people, but since esports is an alternative and culturally accepted, their system can also produce competitive monsters (while crushing some less successful people). To go back to the subject, there is indeed no young blood in the KR scene, it’s the same 10-15 players from 2010 (eSF) and 2012 (kespa/BW) players. On the other hand, even though Clem / Serral started sc2 early in the game’s life, they are still young and gifted so their youth / work / talent will pay its dividends. Since KR has no such things, they won’t develop young talents that might make Serral / Clem life harder in international tournaments. Maru being the only « young » enough + talented enough player isn’t sufficient to have a KR player win those tournaments. As for Oliveira, he has shown insane potential but usually struggled to maintain that level / came close but no cigars vs top players. In 2023 he was on the run of his life and rode his insane momentum from the crowd. That’s more of a fluke than anything. I would put Clem and Oliveira in a similar basket, but Clem might reach Reynor’s ability to win tournaments regularly. As for Serral, being the best in the game helps you win tournaments. But Serral is an outlier, without Serral, KR would probably win more than half of the tournaments (see DH Valencia). I'm sorry but this is just cope. I'm pretty sure esports as a whole has evolved to the point it is a global competition and not just kr dominating if they take a game "seriously." In fact, the games they dominate are few and far in-between. Sure they have league of legends.... But that's really it? Valorant is popular in Korea yet they don't dominate. Far from it. | ||
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Nasigil
137 Posts
On February 17 2024 06:39 Balnazza wrote: I don't really see how these two things are connected? This really is an insane stat though. And while it certainly is a question how much the Serral-Factor plays a role here, in the end this is a drought you would have been banned for in 2015 even suggesting it. Koreans are still the most dominant when it comes to playoffs participation, but I wonder how long that might last, considering how unattractive it is to play SC2 in Korea financially Those two things are not connected, of course. But strangely, I see a noticeable overlap in people that claims "Serral can't be GOAT because he doesn't play GSL" and those who think "Zerg is OP, Protoss players are just bad, only Terran players deserves everything they earned". | ||
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Balnazza
Germany1130 Posts
On February 17 2024 07:21 CicadaSC wrote: I'm sorry but this is just cope. I'm pretty sure esports as a whole has evolved to the point it is a global competition and not just kr dominating if they take a game "seriously." In fact, the games they dominate are few and far in-between. Sure they have league of legends.... But that's really it? Valorant is popular in Korea yet they don't dominate. Far from it. Koreans were also dominant in WC3 (even though they stopped getting new blood so early on), Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch. ... Apparently koreans just really like Blizzard games and LoL was an accident? (I just randomly slipped into german for that sentence for no reason...sorry ._.) | ||
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Poopi
France12780 Posts
On February 17 2024 07:21 CicadaSC wrote: I'm sorry but this is just cope. I'm pretty sure esports as a whole has evolved to the point it is a global competition and not just kr dominating if they take a game "seriously." In fact, the games they dominate are few and far in-between. Sure they have league of legends.... But that's really it? Valorant is popular in Korea yet they don't dominate. Far from it. I don’t mean that KR will dominate every game they take seriously, but that they will overall do very well in every esports game they are invested. Especially for their size / number of citizens, they will remain a strong nation in esports for quite some time. | ||
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Cricketer12
United States13972 Posts
On February 17 2024 07:21 CicadaSC wrote: I'm sorry but this is just cope. I'm pretty sure esports as a whole has evolved to the point it is a global competition and not just kr dominating if they take a game "seriously." In fact, the games they dominate are few and far in-between. Sure they have league of legends.... But that's really it? Valorant is popular in Korea yet they don't dominate. Far from it. We're not talking about any game though, we're talking about the one famous for their domination. The BW scene still exists in Korea more than 25 years after the game's release. Naturally things declined with the death of KeSPa but still... I'm curious what evolution has occurred within 5 years to negate reality and history. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24985 Posts
On February 17 2024 07:21 CicadaSC wrote: I'm sorry but this is just cope. I'm pretty sure esports as a whole has evolved to the point it is a global competition and not just kr dominating if they take a game "seriously." In fact, the games they dominate are few and far in-between. Sure they have league of legends.... But that's really it? Valorant is popular in Korea yet they don't dominate. Far from it. If there’s one game that the benefits of hardcore grinding take a long time to hit diminishing returns, it’s probably Starcraft(s). Then when you have a regime established you end up with 40+ of the top 50 players in the world all in quite a localised scene and it becomes almost unassailable for anyone outside the scene to break in. It’s a confluence of a whole bunch of factors really, but quite distinct to StarCraft IMO. Other games of course still benefit from putting the hours in, but you can still ‘work smarter not harder’ and be just as competitive versus the games with an absurd mechanical ceiling. I think Serral only doesn’t rise into contention in an alternate reality where both Proleague kept going to a similar level, and the WCS structure wasn’t changed. If you had 20/30 real top level, motivated Koreans again it’s difficult to get up to that level. It becomes almost impossible without some kind of regional locked competitions so that a player can earn a living, and gradually improve until they can make that final jump to the real top table. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24985 Posts
On February 17 2024 08:03 Cricketer12 wrote: We're not talking about any game though, we're talking about the one famous for their domination. The BW scene still exists in Korea more than 25 years after the game's release. Naturally things declined with the death of KeSPa but still... I'm curious what evolution has occurred within 5 years to negate reality and history. Less interest and prize pool dwindles. Existing folks aren’t as good as they were, but they’re still too good for new talent to break through. Then attrition sees even more of the established crew going, but GSL takes a prize pool hit again along with cutting slots. Then it’s not just changing the format, but cutting a whole tournament. And there isn’t a system in place anymore to develop as a progamer until you’re ready to put in results. You have to jump from being a gifted amateur straight to being a fully formed competitive pro. Ok there’s still the crowdfunding to come, but if my kiddo wanted to be an SC2 pro in Korea I’d do my best ‘are you fucking serious?’ face. To even qualify you have to get good enough to beat someone like sOs, a great who isn’t quite what they once were, but still fucking good. Or someone like Nightmare who is a step ahead of you on your journey, but still qualifies the odd time and has the odd result and is bloody good too. And if you pull that off you’re taking home 500 dollars, and you’ve got two shots a year to do it. In addition SC2 isn’t big enough in Korea that you can carve a niche as a streamer on Afreeca, nor cultivate much of a following in foreign land as there’s a language barrier/Twitch pulling out etc. It’s a pretty shite situation all-round. The Korean scene needed money, some other love and a long time ago. In the absence of Kespa you wouldn’t see a production line of talent like you used to, but you could create conditions where a few people consider it worth their while to try. It’s not like nobody in Korea loves the game, or aspires to emulate their gaming heroes. | ||
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CerebrateHector
53 Posts
Pretty much Europe is the strong region where the money's at right now. So thats where the majority of good players will concentrate... Its been a while like this, so its only obvious increasingly better players are arriving on Europe whereas not so much on Korea. For example Clem and Raynor are pretty much the guys that will take Terran and Zerg forward, with maybe MaxPax as well if his highness can get out of his palace someday... Whereas what korea's got ? sadly remnant players of better times, they are still good but thats about it. This year GSL are pretty much the same Players... | ||
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ejozl
Denmark3353 Posts
Also the non-existence of Protoss means that TvZ, ZvZ and TvT specialists will progress farther. If Oliveira and Clem had to fight through multiple strong Korean Protosses on fair balance, they most likely wouldn't be able to make it through. | ||
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Shinokuki
United States859 Posts
On February 17 2024 07:21 CicadaSC wrote: I'm sorry but this is just cope. I'm pretty sure esports as a whole has evolved to the point it is a global competition and not just kr dominating if they take a game "seriously." In fact, the games they dominate are few and far in-between. Sure they have league of legends.... But that's really it? Valorant is popular in Korea yet they don't dominate. Far from it. I'm sorry but valorant isn't even more popular than their RTS game sudden attack nor more popular than BW. Valorant is pretty non existent in korea, hence why there is no dominant force in Korea. Talking out of your ass i see? | ||
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dysenterymd
1197 Posts
On February 17 2024 08:58 WombaT wrote: Less interest and prize pool dwindles. Existing folks aren’t as good as they were, but they’re still too good for new talent to break through. Then attrition sees even more of the established crew going, but GSL takes a prize pool hit again along with cutting slots. Then it’s not just changing the format, but cutting a whole tournament. And there isn’t a system in place anymore to develop as a progamer until you’re ready to put in results. You have to jump from being a gifted amateur straight to being a fully formed competitive pro. Ok there’s still the crowdfunding to come, but if my kiddo wanted to be an SC2 pro in Korea I’d do my best ‘are you fucking serious?’ face. To even qualify you have to get good enough to beat someone like sOs, a great who isn’t quite what they once were, but still fucking good. Or someone like Nightmare who is a step ahead of you on your journey, but still qualifies the odd time and has the odd result and is bloody good too. And if you pull that off you’re taking home 500 dollars, and you’ve got two shots a year to do it. In addition SC2 isn’t big enough in Korea that you can carve a niche as a streamer on Afreeca, nor cultivate much of a following in foreign land as there’s a language barrier/Twitch pulling out etc. It’s a pretty shite situation all-round. The Korean scene needed money, some other love and a long time ago. In the absence of Kespa you wouldn’t see a production line of talent like you used to, but you could create conditions where a few people consider it worth their while to try. It’s not like nobody in Korea loves the game, or aspires to emulate their gaming heroes. Plus you have to play a really long time to get anywhere near the pro level in SC2 these days. Back in 2013 nobody had played the game for a few years, so it was easier to catch up. Starcraft's skill ceiling is so high that experience really matters. Trigger is notable among pros for only having played since 2019/2020, but even that's 4 years and Trigger is still far from the top. There are some super-talents who can crack the top in a short span of time like Maxpax, but an aspiring pro has no real way of knowing how talented they really are. If there were still teamhouses and Kespa teams I imagine most rookies would never catch up to the veterans, but a few talents would inject a little bit of new blood into the scene. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24985 Posts
On February 17 2024 10:28 dysenterymd wrote: Plus you have to play a really long time to get anywhere near the pro level in SC2 these days. Back in 2013 nobody had played the game for a few years, so it was easier to catch up. Starcraft's skill ceiling is so high that experience really matters. Trigger is notable among pros for only having played since 2019/2020, but even that's 4 years and Trigger is still far from the top. There are some super-talents who can crack the top in a short span of time like Maxpax, but an aspiring pro has no real way of knowing how talented they really are. If there were still teamhouses and Kespa teams I imagine most rookies would never catch up to the veterans, but a few talents would inject a little bit of new blood into the scene. Especially as a solo player, sure you can learn from many a resource but you won’t necessarily know why players are doing certain things, because you’re not benefiting from years of playing and training alongside folks and trading ideas. I found this even trying to casually learn BW, there’s both so much knowledge needed as well as a lot of active players having obtained it 15+ years ago, so trying to track down things that nobody has really needed to discuss much further gets tricky. | ||
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[Phantom]
Mexico2170 Posts
After Proleague and Kespa dissapeared, it's been downhill. Koreans have become literally worse, even if slowly, foreigers catched up over time. The big advantage koreans always had was a very structured, disciplined, training regime. That went away, the game equalizes. And in a game such as sc2 where the global scene is bigger than koreas, it's inevitable something like this would happen. Koreans can and will win again, but this happening makes perfect sense. | ||
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Nakajin
Canada8989 Posts
On February 17 2024 08:03 Cricketer12 wrote: We're not talking about any game though, we're talking about the one famous for their domination. The BW scene still exists in Korea more than 25 years after the game's release. Naturally things declined with the death of KeSPa but still... I'm curious what evolution has occurred within 5 years to negate reality and history. Thing is, the Korean SC2 scene has not just been struggling in the last 5 years, it's been shrinking for the last 12 years. I'm not talking prize money or numbers of event, but players.bNightmare is the only professional SC2 player Korea has produce since the Kespa switch. Even in 2011-2012, it's crazy seeing the number of retirement. They never really dominated SC2 as much as put the game in front of a bunch of teenagers BW player/pro and make them practice 24/7. Eventually, they time caught up to them and places where SC2 was actually popular overtook them. Edit: Nightmare and Zoun, Zoun is post Kespa switch I think | ||
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