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"We are very likely not going to hold another WTL next year", said SCBoy.Xiaose, the organizer of this team league that has lasted for five years, during his livestream yesterday.
WTL, known as the World Team League, evolved from the China Team Championship in 2019, is currently the only remaining StarCraft II league in the world held in a team format since the korean SPL ceased operations.
However, with the introduction of EWC by Saudi organizers, which offers a prize pool of $7 million for team competetion, many top tier esports teams have begun signing one or two StarCraft II players to compete for the StarCraft II division points. This move has somewhat revived the dwindling popularity of StarCraft II but has also presented a challenge for WTL. The WTL format, adapted from SPL, requires each team to have at least three players. However, the teams participating in EWC usually sign only one or two players, as only top players are likely to earn points for them. Suddenly, WTL found it increasingly difficult to gather enough professional teams to compete.
To address this, WTL introduced a rule last season, allowing teams to partner up for joint participation, hoping to expand the tournament's scale. However, with players continue retiring and fewer non-elite players remaining, the regular season, which typically lasts 2 to 3months, became less significant, and there were growing criticisms in the Chinese community about WTL's diminishing appeal.
Additionally, after the conclusion of EWC this summer, ESL, reportedly due to issues involving authorization with Blizzard, has yet to announce its plans for the coming year. This delay has resulted in the longest gap without events in StarCraft II history, leaving organizers, including WTL's, struggling to plan for the next year without a clear annual roadmap from ESL.
Ultimately, with these factors combined, SCBoy decided to discontinue WTL. However, Xiaose assured during the livestream that the budget initially set aside for WTL would still be directed toward tornaments, with plans to organize one or two top-tier offline individual events in China next year. This decision was encouraged by the positive reception and anticipation generated by the offline StarWars 11 event in the Chinese community this year.
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China6330 Posts
Last season was already an indication of things to come. The disruption of EWC rules made the whole team scene too fractured to sustain itself.
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Wow, rare that we get an indepth breakdown of all the factors and decision making.
Also, sounds like big news (compared to the little we know) that it's reported ESL is having issues authorizing with Blizzard. So they want to continue it, but might be encountering some challenges? Interesting..
Also, sad to see a team league go, but as someone who never got to follow WTL too well, and seeing StarWars 11 seem to do quite well (considering it's the first one in a while, basically a reboot), I think it's not a bad idea at all to pursue the StarWars format. Perhaps its success will be even greater than last time, and if they can attract sponsors then it could potentially become a stable tournament series that has 1-2 events each year.
I would really like to see the Chinese scene continue, with players like Oliveira and in the recent year Firefly also showing a lot of potential to compete with the best. It is a lot of "new blood" compared to the same old GSL players we've been seeing play for the last decade.
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WTL was really cool but if the effort and money goes to one or two big banger tournaments I am very happy :D
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On November 11 2024 20:10 Nakajin wrote:Noooooooooo  I was afraid it would be happening, I hate the Saudi so much right now. Killing the best Starcraft 2 competition on top of everything... I'll write the league a proper eulogy later, but I can just say it was the best of time.
Indeed, the Chinese community has experienced the exact same feelings as you over the past day. But hey, WTL may be gone, but StarCraft II endures.
Nakajin, we all remember you, Waxangel, and the folks at TL.net for the passion you showed for WTL and everything you wrote about it in the past 5 years.
Will see you in the next chapter—with heartfelt gratitude from the Chinese community.
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What a great event that gave so many good games over the last few years.
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WTL felt like the absolute backbone in recent years of the scene. Yes, EPT brings in the money, but WTL is what fills the gaps between the tournaments. Plus teamleagues are always more fun than solo tournaments IMHO.
Kinda ironic that the "saudi team" Team Falcons even would have a legit team to play WTL right now ._.
Questionable what will happen to Team Liquid and especially BASILISK. Can imagine Liquid might downsize a bit, while Serral and Reynor might try to look for a bigger team for EWC :/
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Northern Ireland26224 Posts
On November 11 2024 20:10 Nakajin wrote:Noooooooooo I was afraid it would be happening, I hate the Saudi so much right now. Killing the best Starcraft 2 competition on top of everything... I'll write the league a proper eulogy later, but I can just say it was the best of time.
Well that fucking sucks, albeit I said it at the time as well.
EWC was never about the wider SC2 scene’s health. Never has been, never will be
People cheerleading it aren’t just ignoring certain moral quandaries, they’re ignoring that as well.
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Team competitions have always been my favorite aspect of BW/SC2. Really sad to see the WTL end.
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Sad news, WTL delivered many great games.
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Well that sucks major ass.
Cheers to the memories, it was a good run!
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Sad news. But I'm happy to hear that there will be one or two offline tournaments in place of the team league.
Thanks to the SCBoy team for the great run and continued events!
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United States33503 Posts
It's such a shame that it came to an end, but you could see the signs ever since EWC disrupted the scene.
I do hope that some level of team competition keeps going; maybe in the style of clar wars from the old War3 days.
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Northern Ireland26224 Posts
On November 11 2024 20:10 Nakajin wrote:Noooooooooo I was afraid it would be happening, I hate the Saudi so much right now. Killing the best Starcraft 2 competition on top of everything... I'll write the league a proper eulogy later, but I can just say it was the best of time.
I could barely ever follow the league live, and really relied on your sterling efforts on previews/reviews to keep on top of it. If others did a few, also props
Many thanks for that sir!
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Canada8989 Posts
On November 12 2024 09:18 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2024 20:10 Nakajin wrote:Noooooooooo I was afraid it would be happening, I hate the Saudi so much right now. Killing the best Starcraft 2 competition on top of everything... I'll write the league a proper eulogy later, but I can just say it was the best of time. I could barely ever follow the league live, and really relied on your sterling efforts on previews/reviews to keep on top of it. If others did a few, also props Many thanks for that sir!
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it 
TheOneAboveU deserves a lot of praise, he's the one who started the week-in-week-out coverage of the league, I just picked it up when he had to stop.
Also, as a side note, I was planning to do a Balance Council/conspiracy machination spoof for the next WTL qualifier. I can't believe so much silly drama will go unused now.
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United States1906 Posts
On November 12 2024 11:54 Nakajin wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2024 09:18 WombaT wrote:On November 11 2024 20:10 Nakajin wrote:Noooooooooo I was afraid it would be happening, I hate the Saudi so much right now. Killing the best Starcraft 2 competition on top of everything... I'll write the league a proper eulogy later, but I can just say it was the best of time. I could barely ever follow the league live, and really relied on your sterling efforts on previews/reviews to keep on top of it. If others did a few, also props Many thanks for that sir! Thanks, I'm glad you liked it TheOneAboveU deserves a lot of praise, he's the one who started the week-in-week-out coverage of the league, I just picked it up when he had to stop. Also, as a side note, I was planning to do a Balance Council/conspiracy machination spoof for the next WTL qualifier. I can't believe so much silly drama will go unused now.
Marco is GOATED. I'm glad you could pick it up after him and make it your own.
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So much for Microsoft being good for SC2. Problems with authorization just seems like such a bullshit excuse, when the Blizzard-China deal problems were solved years ago. The answer from Microsoft to "do you allow us to continue running this awesome team tournament with sponsors" should be an immediate and resounding yes.
The other problems are clear, of course.
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Northern Ireland26224 Posts
On November 13 2024 09:36 Acrofales wrote:
So much for Microsoft being good for SC2. Problems with authorization just seems like such a bullshit excuse, when the Blizzard-China deal problems were solved years ago. The answer from Microsoft to "do you allow us to continue running this awesome team tournament with sponsors" should be an immediate and resounding yes.
The other problems are clear, of course.
I doubt it’s a Microsoft problem
They might not be an improvement, but I doubt they would impede it either. It’s an ESL problem, unless I see evidence to the contrary I don’t see why Microsoft would block them unduly
WTL was ultimately killled by EWC, they said so, it’s obvious just looking at it that EWC disrupted a lot.
I already felt it sometimes hard to really get invested due to roster churn, it became harder still when the EWC basically forced a bunch of partnership teams with no history and that was half the field.
Maybe Microsoft don’t fix these problems, but I also don’t see them actively working on making them worse.
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On November 12 2024 11:54 Nakajin wrote:
Also, as a side note, I was planning to do a Balance Council/conspiracy machination spoof for the next WTL qualifier. I can't believe so much silly drama will go unused now.
Can you post a blog post? I'd love to see it for one, only if it's not too much work The memes were surely legendary
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EPT
