|
Northern Ireland26223 Posts
On March 06 2024 05:07 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2024 18:37 Waxangel wrote:On March 05 2024 12:13 Balnazza wrote:
It mostly comes down to the infrastructure. Even before the Kespa-invasion, korean teams offered teamhouses, probably somewhat using the experiences from BroodWar. When Proleague switched over, the korean teams offered the best teamhouses you could get in SC2 or even in Esports at the time.
In the rest of the world however teams usually just tried to copy what they knew from Warcraft 3 - and in terms of professionalism, that wasn't much. I don't think any of the great WC3 clans (4K, MYM, SK...) ever had something like "coaches". Sure, they had managers, but actual coaches? No, not really. And they definetly didn't have teamhouses.
The next big thing that held foreigners back was that a good chunk of koreans, who profited from their teamhouse-experiences but couldn't quite make it in the tough field that was GSL, went out of their way and played in Europe and America instead, basically blocking these WCS events. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame the likes of TaeJa, Polt, Bomber etc. for their decision and they clearly were better than the europeans and americans at the time. But with these juggernauts in place, it basically killed any chance for young players to get into the scene and make a living from SC2, since these "foreign-koreans" farmed big chunks of the prizepool, with only very few foreigners being able to stand up to them.
How big the teamhouses effected the gap is btw especially easy to see with these koreans: The "foreign-koreans" usually would get slaughtered at Katowice or BlizzCon by the "GSL-koreans".
So what closed the gap? Of course the shutdown of Proleague, basically taking away not only the financial stability but also the training regiment that kept koreans ahead of the world. And while that advantage wasn't undone immediately, the next big step was the implementation of region-lock, forcing most "foreign-korean" out of Europe and America, opening up prizemoney for foreigners and making it more attractive to go fulltime.
The combination of these two changes balanced the scale, opening up the field for most foreigners to close the gap, with Serral just taking it to the extreme I have to disagree on your view of region-lock. To me, it's very much a "we don't really know" issue, similar to the match-fixing and its affect on the industry. First, you have to consider the fact that all of the best foreigners of the post-KeSPA era like Neeb, Serral, Clem, and Reynor were active during the peak of Korean domination, and it didn't drive any of them to give up or seek out other games. Then, you have to think about other video games like League of Legends, which has a long-standing region lock that has utterly failed to achieve parity. It's hilarious to me how discussions around "why does North American LoL suck" read almost exactly the same as they did in SC2, blaming laziness, ping, culture, etc. without any definitive conclusion. My personal view is that region-lock at an organizer level is entirely pointless, because online ladders have made progaming an almost purely meritocratic endeavor—especially in 1v1 games where there are no team/group politics to navigate. A player who is talented/skilled enough, and is in a position to pursue their pro-gaming full-time, WILL succeed (barring geopolitical/visa problems). Branching off of that, my pet theory is that most of the reasons behind geographical disparity are rooted in the broader culture and infrastructure of the region. Is progaming a lucrative job? Is progaming a culturally accepted job? What is the purchasing power of $200 for 1st place in a weekly cup in your country? That last point is key. The money dried up in SC2. There's not anywhere near enough of it to go around in Korea, so new (or even existing) Korean talent are picking other games to go pro in if they want a career in esports. The foreign scene only managed to catch up with the Korean scene when the Korean scene itself started stagnating. The Korean scene stagnated because the money dried up and all of the Korean sponsors left. Jin Air was the last BIG Korean sponsor still in the SC2 scene and it's not a surprise that they had BY FAR the best SC2 team in the world for years after the KeSPA teams disbanded and no one else could even touch them. Once Jin Air disbanded that's when the flood gates REALLY opened up for foreigners to start competing. It's all about the money. It always is with most questions about how modern society works. The second the Korean money dried up, the second the Korean scene started dying, that's when the foreign scene started catching up.
Little bit from column A little bit from column B.
I think denying the combination of funds and structure as being a factor for the Koreans dropping off from their customary dominance is rather silly, absolutely.
Equally at the same time the foreign scene arrived at a situation where one could make a living as a competitor by ‘merely’ being the best European, or American or non-Korean, or one of a handful of them.
If we envisage two hypothetical alternate timelines, the first where Kespa stay longer and those big blue chip sponsors continue to fund teams, and the region-locked WCS remained as it was in our timeline. You probably, almost certainly see a more Korean dominated scene with more depth, but players of a Serral or Reynor calibre still hit a level where they’re in contention in any tournament they enter.
In the second, where we just remove region lock from WCS, I think the overall quality in the scene would have dropped even further. You probably see enough B tier Koreans playing outside of Korea who at the time would still be too good for foreigners to compete with and perhaps stifles the emergence of new talent there, or existing programers departing for other careers sooner. And, over time and with military/retirement churn, plus a fragmented scene of top Korean based players, and not quite top ones playing abroad that are too good for new blood to break through in those respective areas just would lead to a similar decline. Except in both Korea and foreign land, rather than primarily the former.
It feels very much that in SC2’s history we’ve had the constituent parts for a close to ideal, somewhat integrated scene with regional competition so players can develop. But rarely all at the same time alas
|
Yeah I have to agree with OP, it has to do with teams and how they provide quality practice. The pro-league format incentivizes teams, and for those teams to practice with each other.
|
On March 06 2024 06:30 Mutaller wrote:
Yeah I have to agree with OP, it has to do with teams and how they provide quality practice. The pro-league format incentivizes teams, and for those teams to practice with each other.
How do you explain Serral? The undisputed SCII GOAT, who has been beating the Maru's, Rogues, Darks, Stats, Traps etc from 2018 like no one ever has.... Never practiced in a team system.
People tend to forget that 2010-2015 was still dominated by players who had been playing RTS professionally in the most developed.
From 1998 - 2010, who trained RTS in Korea, had the best practice. It was a lan based practice system. Team houses thrived in a lan system.
After 2010, in SCII, the practice changes. People start to study the game from anywhere in the world. You can download a Mvp game and analyze it in detail. It takes a while to mature, but the youngsters who began playing it in 2010, in any part of the world, by 2017-2018 matured. Serrals and Reynors rose up.
The way out the curve ones rose.
|
Serral happened, he was just considerably better than everyone else (korean or not), remove Serral and Korea still dominates, as there's less incentive for other foreigners to try as well.
Had the Korea infrastructure not collapsed he'd still beat all of the Koreans anyways just slightly lower tournament conversion rate, but the margins between serral and the rest are just too great, there was no Korean talent pre-2018 that dominated like he did.
|
Sit down for a minute, let me tell you the secret of what really happened...
The secret is, the foreigners didn't get better. Korea lost it's pro teams and pro houses that allowed players to develop into monsters. Once it lost those, the play field began to level.
The only foreigner who was good enough to reliably compete versus the pro houses was Stephano. That's it.
He ran through a gauntlet of Code S champions to unexpectedly win IGN ProLeague Season 3 and then ESWC 2011. And when I say unexpected, it was completely shocking. To win one, maybe it was lucky, but both?
He went back and forth with Polt, a Code S champion in ASUS ROG Winter 2012 and the LoneStar Clash, winning the latter. He walked into Proleague and instantly had success, defeating herO and Bbyong. No one foreigner that I can remember did that or even walked away with a winning record in Proleague.
Serral is amazing. But his accomplishments happen after Korea's peak. Stephano's beat them when no one thought a foreigner had a chance.
|
Most koreans stopped sc2 and young newcomer playing LOL.
|
On March 06 2024 09:31 BronzeKnee wrote:
Sit down for a minute, let me tell you the secret of what really happened...
The secret is, the foreigners didn't get better. Korea lost it's pro teams and pro houses that allowed players to develop into monsters. Once it lost those, the play field began to level.
The only foreigner who was good enough to reliably compete versus the pro houses was Stephano. That's it.
He ran through a gauntlet of Code S champions to unexpectedly win IGN ProLeague Season 3 and then ESWC 2011. And when I say unexpected, it was completely shocking. To win one, maybe it was lucky, but both?
He went back and forth with Polt, a Code S champion in ASUS ROG Winter 2012 and the LoneStar Clash, winning the latter. He walked into Proleague and instantly had success, defeating herO and Bbyong. No one foreigner that I can remember did that or even walked away with a winning record in Proleague.
Serral is amazing. But his accomplishments happen after Korea's peak. Stephano's beat them when no one thought a foreigner had a chance.
And then Stephano proceeded to get completely overshadowed by Snute, Scarlett, Elazer, and Neeb. "Korea's peak" happened when players were still learning to master their craft.
The secret is, there are no secrets. When the teamhouses disbanded, the Koreans were still winning almost everything, same as when teamhouses were still around. One player changed that. Neeb gave him a small hand.
The difference is, Stephano merely went toe-to-toe with top Koreans, and at no point was he remotely close to being considered contender for "the best" title. Serral was considered a strong contender after late 2018, but hindsight says he was the best, and not just a contender. Didn't have a teamhouse. Didn't practice 12 hours a day. All the mythos surrounding the "teamhouses and brutal practice schedules = peak SC" narratives are just that.
I do concede that teamhouses would benefit a lot of players, but some of the ones at the farthest right end of the bell curve are different. They require fewer, but finer ingredients to cook. There are line cooks, and there are chefs. Grinding yourself to the bones practicing 14 hrs a day won't necessarily improve your game, even if you're able to manage it. Let the brain have some quality time to stew, instead of flash frying every thing, every time.
|
Northern Ireland26223 Posts
On March 06 2024 09:31 BronzeKnee wrote:
Sit down for a minute, let me tell you the secret of what really happened...
[b]The secret is, the foreigners didn't get better. Korea lost it's pro teams and pro houses that allowed players to develop into monsters. Once it lost those, the play field began to level.
The only foreigner who was good enough to reliably compete versus the pro houses was Stephano. That's it.
He ran through a gauntlet of Code S champions to unexpectedly win IGN ProLeague Season 3 and then ESWC 2011. And when I say unexpected, it was completely shocking. To win one, maybe it was lucky, but both?
He went back and forth with Polt, a Code S champion in ASUS ROG Winter 2012 and the LoneStar Clash, winning the latter. He walked into Proleague and instantly had success, defeating herO and Bbyong. No one foreigner that I can remember did that or even walked away with a winning record in Proleague.
Serral is amazing. But his accomplishments happen after Korea's peak. Stephano's beat them when no one thought a foreigner had a chance.
[/s]
Respectfully disagree, Serral is just on another planet although Stephano was a great talent. Reynor is ridiculous, and it took about a decade but Clem finally gave the foreign scene that player who was mechanically as good as his Korean equivalents.
Going back to my previous pontifications, structure is huge. In Stephano’s era you had to beat pretty stacked fields of top Korean players of the day to make any decent money off prize pools. You saw a lot of foreign pros stream a lot more than they do now, or appear on various shows as the entertainment aspect of the industry was leaned on a lot heavier as they couldn’t outdo Koreans in the competitive side of the ledger.
So foreign players were kind of left weighing up trying to close a pretty large gap, a process that may take years while they’re earning pretty bad money, or hedge their bets. Stephano earned his money, went back to school and his talent still saw him play at a pretty high level the odd time. Or Nerchio who was studying at times, or a Lucifron. Or the rather large amount of decent foreign pros who really were only focused competitive players for a few years before moving into something adjacent in eSports or into entirely different spheres. A Grubby who certainly had some talent but went more into being a content creator, or TLO doing his thing with Shopify (iirc). Someone like Scarlett who kind of straddles eras has at times been a pure progamer and at times dabbled in other things.
For much of Legacy you can have a decent career, and decent earnings especially in your teens/early 20s by ‘merely’ being one of the best in Europe, or NA. Gives you a platform to build and be comfortable, focus on being an actual competitive progamer and get as good as you can be.
This takes a lot of time, and you need the structure around you, and the risk-reward to be right. Just scanning Liquipedia dates and I’d estimate that even monster talents like Reynor and Clem took longer to transition from being gifted amateurs to being top, top pros thru the steps of being nascent progamers, solid Euro pros etc than the entire top-level career of the previous generation, names like Idra or indeed Stephano.
Unfortunately as the foreign scene got that structure, and I feel is clearly just way stronger these days, Korea started to lose it and Korean pros, never mind gifted amateurs are having the same dilemmas foreign pros used to have. Namely there’s just not the structure to make it worth their while giving up the literal years they could be pursuing other careers to try and break through an effective glass ceiling of incredibly talented veteran StarCraft players.
|
It's definitely the combination of monetary environment, esports culture, teamhouse infrastructure and high quality practice partners. Because of these factors, a young kid that's talented in playing video games is more likely to choose becoming an SC2 pro, and more likely to receive all the training and coaching he needs to become the best possible SC2 player he could be, much more so in Korean than in the rest of the world. The talented foreigners are less likely to play SC2, likely practice less and has little to no instructions to guide them. That's why most of the best foreigner players are usually all around macro oriented players, like Idra, Huk, Stephano, Nerchio, Snute, Serral, Reynor, Clem, etc. Usually only these kind of players could excel out of foreign scene, while Korea will allow for more specialized kind of players.
One could argue that the destruction of Korean pro scene actually in some way leveled the playing field between Koreans and foreign players, making the competition actually more fair. Now you can see how everyone really fairs when they are all on their own.
Also I agree with the idea that Serral is the singular outlier. Reynor and Clem are great players, but at best you could only say they are just on the same league as the best of Koreans, but not better, and their h2h record against Koreans confirms it (Reynor 56%, Clem 53% against Koreans since they raised to scene), Meanwhile Serral has an insane 68% match record against Koreans since 2018.
Some people also mentioned that a lot of EU players don't go full time on gaming, therefore having much less practice time than Koreans. For what I know Serral only finished school decided to go full time pro in 2017, and it took him one year to become best in the world.
|
I would compare Stephano more to Reynor than Serral.
Stephano and Reynor would beat top Korean players regularly, even winning some tournaments where Koreans participates, but they are never in any point considered the clear "best player in the world" or "dominant", they are one of the best, that's it. While Serral is clearly towering over all his peers, winning more than anyone and have positive and often one-sided H2H records against everyone in the same era.
Match record against Koreans during their best years:
Stephano 2011 - 2012: 57%
Reynor 2018 - today: 56%
Serral 2018 - today: 68%
Would Stephano has better records if he rose to scene after 2018? Entirely possible, but I don't want to compare hypothesis with reality. It's worth noting that Stephano's best year was 2012, when Zerg's BL/Infestor was absolutely broken, and he had 60% against Korean Terran and Protoss, but only 43% against Korean Zergs. You could argue that Zerg has been OP during Serral's prime years too, but here's his number: 71% against Korean non-Zerg, 62% against Korean Zerg. Not comparable, I would say.
|
On March 06 2024 05:53 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2024 05:07 Vindicare605 wrote:On March 05 2024 18:37 Waxangel wrote:On March 05 2024 12:13 Balnazza wrote:
It mostly comes down to the infrastructure. Even before the Kespa-invasion, korean teams offered teamhouses, probably somewhat using the experiences from BroodWar. When Proleague switched over, the korean teams offered the best teamhouses you could get in SC2 or even in Esports at the time.
In the rest of the world however teams usually just tried to copy what they knew from Warcraft 3 - and in terms of professionalism, that wasn't much. I don't think any of the great WC3 clans (4K, MYM, SK...) ever had something like "coaches". Sure, they had managers, but actual coaches? No, not really. And they definetly didn't have teamhouses.
The next big thing that held foreigners back was that a good chunk of koreans, who profited from their teamhouse-experiences but couldn't quite make it in the tough field that was GSL, went out of their way and played in Europe and America instead, basically blocking these WCS events. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame the likes of TaeJa, Polt, Bomber etc. for their decision and they clearly were better than the europeans and americans at the time. But with these juggernauts in place, it basically killed any chance for young players to get into the scene and make a living from SC2, since these "foreign-koreans" farmed big chunks of the prizepool, with only very few foreigners being able to stand up to them.
How big the teamhouses effected the gap is btw especially easy to see with these koreans: The "foreign-koreans" usually would get slaughtered at Katowice or BlizzCon by the "GSL-koreans".
So what closed the gap? Of course the shutdown of Proleague, basically taking away not only the financial stability but also the training regiment that kept koreans ahead of the world. And while that advantage wasn't undone immediately, the next big step was the implementation of region-lock, forcing most "foreign-korean" out of Europe and America, opening up prizemoney for foreigners and making it more attractive to go fulltime.
The combination of these two changes balanced the scale, opening up the field for most foreigners to close the gap, with Serral just taking it to the extreme I have to disagree on your view of region-lock. To me, it's very much a "we don't really know" issue, similar to the match-fixing and its affect on the industry. First, you have to consider the fact that all of the best foreigners of the post-KeSPA era like Neeb, Serral, Clem, and Reynor were active during the peak of Korean domination, and it didn't drive any of them to give up or seek out other games. Then, you have to think about other video games like League of Legends, which has a long-standing region lock that has utterly failed to achieve parity. It's hilarious to me how discussions around "why does North American LoL suck" read almost exactly the same as they did in SC2, blaming laziness, ping, culture, etc. without any definitive conclusion. My personal view is that region-lock at an organizer level is entirely pointless, because online ladders have made progaming an almost purely meritocratic endeavor—especially in 1v1 games where there are no team/group politics to navigate. A player who is talented/skilled enough, and is in a position to pursue their pro-gaming full-time, WILL succeed (barring geopolitical/visa problems). Branching off of that, my pet theory is that most of the reasons behind geographical disparity are rooted in the broader culture and infrastructure of the region. Is progaming a lucrative job? Is progaming a culturally accepted job? What is the purchasing power of $200 for 1st place in a weekly cup in your country? That last point is key. The money dried up in SC2. There's not anywhere near enough of it to go around in Korea, so new (or even existing) Korean talent are picking other games to go pro in if they want a career in esports. The foreign scene only managed to catch up with the Korean scene when the Korean scene itself started stagnating. The Korean scene stagnated because the money dried up and all of the Korean sponsors left. Jin Air was the last BIG Korean sponsor still in the SC2 scene and it's not a surprise that they had BY FAR the best SC2 team in the world for years after the KeSPA teams disbanded and no one else could even touch them. Once Jin Air disbanded that's when the flood gates REALLY opened up for foreigners to start competing. It's all about the money. It always is with most questions about how modern society works. The second the Korean money dried up, the second the Korean scene started dying, that's when the foreign scene started catching up. Little bit from column A little bit from column B. I think denying the combination of funds and structure as being a factor for the Koreans dropping off from their customary dominance is rather silly, absolutely. Equally at the same time the foreign scene arrived at a situation where one could make a living as a competitor by ‘merely’ being the best European, or American or non-Korean, or one of a handful of them. If we envisage two hypothetical alternate timelines, the first where Kespa stay longer and those big blue chip sponsors continue to fund teams, and the region-locked WCS remained as it was in our timeline. You probably, almost certainly see a more Korean dominated scene with more depth, but players of a Serral or Reynor calibre still hit a level where they’re in contention in any tournament they enter. In the second, where we just remove region lock from WCS, I think the overall quality in the scene would have dropped even further. You probably see enough B tier Koreans playing outside of Korea who at the time would still be too good for foreigners to compete with and perhaps stifles the emergence of new talent there, or existing programers departing for other careers sooner. And, over time and with military/retirement churn, plus a fragmented scene of top Korean based players, and not quite top ones playing abroad that are too good for new blood to break through in those respective areas just would lead to a similar decline. Except in both Korea and foreign land, rather than primarily the former. It feels very much that in SC2’s history we’ve had the constituent parts for a close to ideal, somewhat integrated scene with regional competition so players can develop. But rarely all at the same time alas
Oh I'm not denying that structure had a lot to do with it. Funds and Structure go hand in hand. You can't have the kind of gaming structure that Korea is known for without the steady and consistent income that gamers in team houses were used to under sponsorship contracts.
When those went away and everyone basically became an independent commodity, now you have Koreans and Foreigners basically playing on an even field in terms of structure and income only, there's MUCH less money in Korea both in streaming and sponsorships available for Starcraft 2 players.
But this isn't a chicken or the egg question. Structure NEEDS money to survive. The money is what dried up first. The structure dying was a symptom of the underlying problem. The actual result as far as the OP's question is concerned is the same.
What did foreigners lack until 2016? They don't have anything now they didn't have back then, it's just before 2016 the Korean scene was still thriving and not in a state of stagnation or decline.
|
What did foreigners lack until 2016? They don't have anything now they didn't have back then, it's just before 2016 the Korean scene was still thriving and not in a state of stagnation or decline.
That's false.
Foreigners now have people with years of Starcraft professional level practice and study on their backs, which they didnt in the earlys 2010's. Koreans had. Growing up in Broodwar pro scene certainly gave them an edge.
Team houses helped building a bulk of top players.
But the champions of today are just the prodigys who grew up playing the game from an early age. Koreans had their 10+ year of top level RTS practice. And the lan based system guaranteed that they kept that edge up until 2010. Then that knowledge started dripping to the world.
Prodigy kids in US, Italy, Finland and France started studying how the very best played (which was very hard before that). When those kids grew up (2016-2017)... bye bye korean edge at the very top.
You take the prodigys out, Korean RTS culture still has its impact though.
|
There is a huge difference between guys who grew up playing & learning the game in their early teens vs guys who learned the game in their early 20's. The earlier you learn the game, with the right mechanics, it becomes almost second nature to you. That's why guys like Serral, clem, Reynor are so good. When Reynor and Clem started playing they were under 10 years old. Serral was probably 12 or 13.
You can't compare this to foreigners who came from different games like BW, WC3 etc and then swapped and had to adopt to a new game being already over 20 years old. That's why the current cream of the crop foreigners are a level above the foreigners from before.
Korea produced Starcraft talent from a ultra competitive BW-Kespa environment with 10+ team houses that recruited people like TY when they were 12 years old. So even though these talents were produced for a different game, they were so good at fundamental RTS skills that it translated and carried them to a level well beyond any foreigner could reach for a long period of time, untill this new generation of foreigners popped up that had also developed their sc2 skills in their early teens or pre-teens and were able to reach new heights that the old foreigners couldn't reach.
Sadly since SC2 was never popular in Korea, a generation of new talent from Korea eluded us.
|
Everyone retiring in 2016 is something foreigners didn't have the advantage of in earlier days
|
Foreigners now have people with years of Starcraft professional level practice and study on their backs, which they didnt in the earlys 2010's. Koreans had. Growing up in Broodwar pro scene certainly gave them an edge.
Hear that boys, TeamLiquid might as well have never existed before 2010 because there was NOBODY in the foreign scene with Brood War experience helping people practice to learn SC2 back in the day. Nope, there's NEVER been a foreign Brood War scene before SC2 came out. It's all a lie.
|
Infrastructure and practice.
|
After LOTV launched, foreigners were lucky that the Korean scene died to the evaporation of investment, match fixing killing more opportunities, and the player pool dying after KeSPA folded and Proleague was no more. Draconic region locking helped speed up the death of that region, while the NA EU playground where bullies were banned and investment continued survived.
Basically anything Balnazza said in the first post.
Apologists will say other things. That's all cope.
|
infrastructure
once those are gone, players age and aging-decline comes inevitably while newer, fresher players can reach higher levels than declined players. Infra that gave koreans advantage in first place is gone, and there isn't much financial incentive to get into sc2 for koreans
|
Northern Ireland26223 Posts
On March 07 2024 00:18 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +Foreigners now have people with years of Starcraft professional level practice and study on their backs, which they didnt in the earlys 2010's. Koreans had. Growing up in Broodwar pro scene certainly gave them an edge. Here that boys, TeamLiquid might as well have never existed before 2010 because there was NOBODY in the foreign scene with Brood War experience helping people practice to learn SC2 back in the day. Nope, there's NEVER been a foreign Brood War scene before SC2 came out. It's all a lie.
Sure there was but it’s not really quite the same as having a production line of pro gamers and practice standards already set up. And as he said a lot of that was kept very in-house in the BW Kespa era and people outside that were feeding off scraps. Something the pros have consistently said is the post-Kespa era is still vibrant because the opening up and knowledge sharing of people streaming and collaborating more, to at least somewhat offset the lack of structured practice environments.
@Comedy also makes a good point, an obvious one I definitely agree with but hadn’t really considered before. That age profile is pretty huge. A decent chunk of Western pros were already in their 20s initially and moved from other games. The economics of being a progamer become more pressing and it’s outright harder to learn new skills as you get older.
From personal experience trying other instruments, itself made smooth by me already having musical experience, both with time limitations and just being older and one’s brain less malleable, I make less progress with my excursions into piano now than I made learning guitar which I started at about 10/11.
Someone like Grubby is clearly a very talented RTS legend but is he going to be able to develop those top, top levels of mechanical speed in a different game? Whereas someone like Clam whose dad is really into the games iirc, and was playing in at least some capacity from before he was even a teenager has years to build up his skill set without having to worry about various adult responsibilities.
Ofc not every Korean pro was some young whippersnapper, it is possible for an old dog to learn new tricks, but it’s a more doable process if you’re already versed with years playing at a level beyond most mortals in a game as mechanically difficult as BW, and have a continuation of that practice structure around you.
|
On March 07 2024 03:59 Wintex wrote:
After LOTV launched, foreigners were lucky that the Korean scene died to the evaporation of investment, match fixing killing more opportunities, and the player pool dying after KeSPA folded and Proleague was no more. Draconic region locking helped speed up the death of that region, while the NA EU playground where bullies were banned and investment continued survived.
Basically anything Balnazza said in the first post.
Apologists will say other things. That's all cope.
Someone seems so desperately trying to devalue all the foreign achievement since 2016, while forgetting that Maru and Rogue also got main bulk of their achievement after 2016.
If anything, the destruction of foreign scene actually put Koreans and rest of the world on an even playing field, and what we see in the last 6-8 years are decently accurate reflection of true skills levels of each player.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
