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On November 03 2025 20:43 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2025 17:44 doktordingerdonger wrote:On November 03 2025 09:05 WombaT wrote:On November 03 2025 08:50 doktordingerdonger wrote:
Serral would not be top 100 in 2014 with that level of competition, or if the level of competition be the same in 2025 as in 2014.
Serral would not make it into a KESPA team not even as a dishwasher.
If Serral was Korean, his achievements would be completely dismissed given the complete collapse of the scene post-2015. Because he is white, the complete collapse of the scene post-2015 is instead dismissed entirely by 90% of white dudes here. SC2 avg viewership is 1k. That is not a scene, that is a niche.
The whole glaze of Serral just reeks of ethnonationalism. Well that’s… a take. Here is the thing: during Kespa, 12 hour a day 7 days a week was the absolute norm for both a and b-teamers. No white dude was willing to do that. So how many people active now actually play more than 8 hours a day? There have been koreans not even playing for months or laddering at all going into EWC. Now with the uncertainty of EWC and that without saudi money, the prize pool would barely be able to finance 2 dudes full time, how many people are actually willing to put in the numbers for the magic of lifting a trophy of a, maybe, tournament in the 'highly prestigious' saudi tournament? At least BW streamers make money with streaming more than ever. You cannot seriously dismiss a sc2 scene on life support and yet believe that serral would thrive during kespa days. He would go down like any other foreigner before him. Serral, Reynor and Clem are nothing special. They just are playing sc2 during an era where nobody cares about it anymore. While regimented KeSPA practice was definitely an advantage, I think you're somewhat overrating it compared to the general talent-scouting advantage that the institution of Korean esports has. Korea's edge in global esports (at least games it's popular in) is that it has a big player base combined with the best and most realistic path-to-pro ecosystem in the entire world (relatively speaking; it's still obviously very hard to become a successful pro). This leads to Korea being the best at discovering great talents, and then pushing them along a semi-pro/pro path. When you consider Serral's crazy level of natural ability, I feel like a TaeJa-esque career is a realistic low-end outcome if you dropped him into 2014, with the potential for a lot more upside (I don't know if he would dominate, but he could be a championship level player).
This is essentially why some people don't understand the impact of regionlock. The take "regionlock killed the korean scene and therefore everyone else did get better" is just false, there isn't even a reason why regionlock should have killed a scene.
What happened was it created a relatively speaking stable path into pro for foreigners aswell, without the pressure exerted by players that trained in the best teamhouses in the world and already had a stable monetary and experience base to compete on a very high level.
Without regionlock, Serral might just not happen. Not because he couldn't hack it, but because the risk of going fulltime pro and investing the time that he did might just not have been worth it otherwise or maybe just for a year.
The lack of new korean talents is certainly a popularity problem of the game in korea, but it is also linked to the fact that by now there is no money to be made in Korea if you start fresh. How many GSLs would you have to try starting "from 0" before you qualify for the international events, where the actual money lies? Imagine you start 'getting gud' in SC2 and the first hurdle you have to overtake to become a financially stable pro is...to take out Maru. Well good luck with that!
In reverse, that is why no one of these magical "Top 100 Gigachad Ultragamers" from before just jump into the game, qualify for EWC and take the big money from the scrub Serral. Because they can't. The time-investment they would need to put in to compete with Serral, Clem, Maru, herO and so on is just way too huge and the path is barred of much money.
Like...take Rain for example. Probably one of the most gifted players in Starcraft. Do you seriously think if he could he wouldn't just jump into the EWC qualifier, qualify and take the 200K home? He would probably not even miss an ASL for that. So why doesn't he do it? Altruism?
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On November 04 2025 03:28 ejozl wrote:
I actually don't know how much natural ability serral has, but I think he might be the most professional player we've had.
What makes serral, clem, reynor, time and maru special is that they've grown up with the game. Much like TY, they're just bound to blast off at some point. But age is honestly such a huge factor.
So somehow it was 100% koreans dominating and top 100 was all korean, now its just 3 foreigners. And it has absolutely nothing to do with kespa teamhouses disbanding, soop sc2 viewership median literally 0 for years, proleague having to hire cheer girls to cheer because nobody showed up.
But of course in 2016, suddenly foreigners were able to compete. Absolutely had nothing to do with anything above and its all talent and hard work of course.
So riddle me this, if suddenly 99 percent of people worldwide would stop playing professional basketball, nba viewership going to below 1k and china basketball going down as well, but not as hard where nobody except 3 people have a living wage through extremely volatile prize money sponsored by saudis, who may or may not sponsor the next season depending on a gut feeling. Then somehow some chinese player putting 50point a game and 20 rebounds in china for years against basically some amateurs, also because he is one of few training professionally, would you call this dude the GOAT above michael jordan?
I mean this is what the numbers show, and his winrate right? Because that is all you guys care about.
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Northern Ireland27265 Posts
On November 04 2025 08:31 doktordingerdonger wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2025 03:28 ejozl wrote:
I actually don't know how much natural ability serral has, but I think he might be the most professional player we've had.
What makes serral, clem, reynor, time and maru special is that they've grown up with the game. Much like TY, they're just bound to blast off at some point. But age is honestly such a huge factor. So somehow it was 100% koreans dominating and top 100 was all korean, now its just 3 foreigners. And it has absolutely nothing to do with kespa teamhouses disbanding, soop sc2 viewership median literally 0 for years, proleague having to hire cheer girls to cheer because nobody showed up. But of course in 2016, suddenly foreigners were able to compete. Absolutely had nothing to do with anything above and its all talent and hard work of course. So riddle me this, if suddenly 99 percent of people worldwide would stop playing professional basketball, nba viewership going to below 1k and china basketball going down as well, but not as hard where nobody except 3 people have a living wage through extremely volatile prize money sponsored by saudis, who may or may not sponsor the next season depending on a gut feeling. Then somehow some chinese player putting 50point a game and 20 rebounds in china for years against basically some amateurs, also because he is one of few training professionally, would you call this dude the GOAT above michael jordan? I mean this is what the numbers show, and his winrate right? Because that is all you guys care about.
We can just watch the game?
Or trust the perspectives of many a hall of famer who will tell you that Serral is a complete monster.
I don’t think your analogy fully tracks. It would be more akin to the current NBA elite remaining, cutting off avenues for the next generation of talent in the US, but having a pathway for the best European based players.
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On November 04 2025 04:22 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On November 03 2025 20:43 Waxangel wrote:On November 03 2025 17:44 doktordingerdonger wrote:On November 03 2025 09:05 WombaT wrote:On November 03 2025 08:50 doktordingerdonger wrote:
Serral would not be top 100 in 2014 with that level of competition, or if the level of competition be the same in 2025 as in 2014.
Serral would not make it into a KESPA team not even as a dishwasher.
If Serral was Korean, his achievements would be completely dismissed given the complete collapse of the scene post-2015. Because he is white, the complete collapse of the scene post-2015 is instead dismissed entirely by 90% of white dudes here. SC2 avg viewership is 1k. That is not a scene, that is a niche.
The whole glaze of Serral just reeks of ethnonationalism. Well that’s… a take. Here is the thing: during Kespa, 12 hour a day 7 days a week was the absolute norm for both a and b-teamers. No white dude was willing to do that. So how many people active now actually play more than 8 hours a day? There have been koreans not even playing for months or laddering at all going into EWC. Now with the uncertainty of EWC and that without saudi money, the prize pool would barely be able to finance 2 dudes full time, how many people are actually willing to put in the numbers for the magic of lifting a trophy of a, maybe, tournament in the 'highly prestigious' saudi tournament? At least BW streamers make money with streaming more than ever. You cannot seriously dismiss a sc2 scene on life support and yet believe that serral would thrive during kespa days. He would go down like any other foreigner before him. Serral, Reynor and Clem are nothing special. They just are playing sc2 during an era where nobody cares about it anymore. While regimented KeSPA practice was definitely an advantage, I think you're somewhat overrating it compared to the general talent-scouting advantage that the institution of Korean esports has. Korea's edge in global esports (at least games it's popular in) is that it has a big player base combined with the best and most realistic path-to-pro ecosystem in the entire world (relatively speaking; it's still obviously very hard to become a successful pro). This leads to Korea being the best at discovering great talents, and then pushing them along a semi-pro/pro path. When you consider Serral's crazy level of natural ability, I feel like a TaeJa-esque career is a realistic low-end outcome if you dropped him into 2014, with the potential for a lot more upside (I don't know if he would dominate, but he could be a championship level player). This is essentially why some people don't understand the impact of regionlock. The take "regionlock killed the korean scene and therefore everyone else did get better" is just false, there isn't even a reason why regionlock should have killed a scene. What happened was it created a relatively speaking stable path into pro for foreigners aswell, without the pressure exerted by players that trained in the best teamhouses in the world and already had a stable monetary and experience base to compete on a very high level. Without regionlock, Serral might just not happen. Not because he couldn't hack it, but because the risk of going fulltime pro and investing the time that he did might just not have been worth it otherwise or maybe just for a year. The lack of new korean talents is certainly a popularity problem of the game in korea, but it is also linked to the fact that by now there is no money to be made in Korea if you start fresh. How many GSLs would you have to try starting "from 0" before you qualify for the international events, where the actual money lies? Imagine you start 'getting gud' in SC2 and the first hurdle you have to overtake to become a financially stable pro is...to take out Maru. Well good luck with that! In reverse, that is why no one of these magical "Top 100 Gigachad Ultragamers" from before just jump into the game, qualify for EWC and take the big money from the scrub Serral. Because they can't. The time-investment they would need to put in to compete with Serral, Clem, Maru, herO and so on is just way too huge and the path is barred of much money. Like...take Rain for example. Probably one of the most gifted players in Starcraft. Do you seriously think if he could he wouldn't just jump into the EWC qualifier, qualify and take the 200K home? He would probably not even miss an ASL for that. So why doesn't he do it? Altruism?
Regionlock didn't single-handely kill the scene but it definitely exacerbated the downfall of korean sc2. When region-lock was introduced it forced 50+ fulltime players into an ecosystem that could only support about 30 players, forcing many of them to retire. And it removed the path to become pro for them as like you said, there's no way to beat Maru if you aren't an established top pro already.
Before region-lock there was a chance a lower tier korean pro gets picked up by a foreign team to start competing in the easier foreign tournaments. After region-lock it was you can't compete in GSL you can't become a pro.
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Koreans lost everything they had to foster new talent and non-koreans gained a new way to foster new talent that specifically excluded koreans.
That's why byun could break the mold (korean collapse), neeb could win on korean soil, a guy who was willing to go there and live like them. Zerg became superpowered and europeans were the first to find the unbeatable way (a style first prophetized by artosis&idra)
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On November 04 2025 23:00 ejozl wrote:
Koreans lost everything they had to foster new talent and non-koreans gained a new way to foster new talent that specifically excluded koreans.
That's why byun could break the mold (korean collapse), neeb could win on korean soil, a guy who was willing to go there and live like them. Zerg became superpowered and europeans were the first to find the unbeatable way (a style first prophetized by artosis&idra)
Help me out here: What does the pull out of KeSPA in October 2016 have to do with ByuN's WC title in November, not even a month later?
Where the qualifying process took place over the entire year and the majority of Koreans that took part in it were KeSPA affiliated? And of which many played on until the early 2020s.
Same for Neeb.. he won in October and most of the attendees were KeSPA Koreans. The tournament was even finished before the announcement that Proleague was discontinued and KeSPA pulled out.
I disagree with several other framings of your post but on that take I am utterly lost.
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United States1951 Posts
On November 05 2025 02:13 PremoBeats wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2025 23:00 ejozl wrote:
Koreans lost everything they had to foster new talent and non-koreans gained a new way to foster new talent that specifically excluded koreans.
That's why byun could break the mold (korean collapse), neeb could win on korean soil, a guy who was willing to go there and live like them. Zerg became superpowered and europeans were the first to find the unbeatable way (a style first prophetized by artosis&idra) Help me out here: What does the pull out of KeSPA in October 2016 have to do with ByuN's WC title in November, not even a month later? Where the qualifying process took place over the entire year and the majority of Koreans that took part in it were KeSPA affiliated? And of which many played on until the early 2020s. Same for Neeb.. he won in October and most of the attendees were KeSPA Koreans. The tournament was even finished before the announcement that Proleague was discontinued and KeSPA pulled out. I disagree with several other framings of your post but on that take I am utterly lost.
You are aware the players knew months ahead of time, right? I wrote an entire article about how KT completely punted the Proleague finals, with Zest's game being the most disappointing of the bunch. But back to practical things, there's no way something as big as Proleague just disappears overnight with no warning?
ByuN won because he was the best player at abusing 2/1/1 and reapers. It didn't matter what team anyone was on, he wasn't losing that tournament (and now he serves his penance).
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Of course they knew ahead of time. My point is that they nevertheless all qualified and most of them played for years to come. ByuN's victory was due to his reaper abuse and not some supposed Korean collapse in 2016. The erosion spaned several years and didn't happen from one year to another.
And JAGW, the Proleague winners, were KeSPA too.
We had disappointing failures througout SC2, so to draw a connection - like ejozl did - from a lack of new Korean talent to ByuN's WC, when the effects of the Proleague discontinuation could not have possibly materialized yet, seems like a stretch to me.
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On November 05 2025 06:40 PremoBeats wrote:
Of course they knew ahead of time. My point is that they nevertheless all qualified and most of them played for years to come. ByuN's victory was due to his reaper abuse and not some supposed Korean collapse in 2016. The erosion spaned several years and didn't happen from one year to another.
And JAGW, the Proleague winners, were KeSPA too.
We had disappointing failures througout SC2, so to draw a connection - like ejozl did - from a lack of new Korean talent to ByuN's WC, when the effects of the Proleague discontinuation could not have possibly materialized yet, seems like a stretch to me.
The fact they still all qualified despite not training for months and the collapse of it rather says the opposite about what you want to support lol...
Even now, some random pro who has not played in years can just come back, qualify for EWC and then fuck off simply because the saudi money is too good.
There is a reason why all korean pros except very very few went all back to BW, where 100k is easy to achieve even for the top 200 player streaming and playing some daily proleague.
Neeb, an absolutely unknown foreigner suddenly is the first person to win a tournament against koreans in 6 yeaers of sc2, and this forum wants to pretend this has absolutely nothing to do with the entire sc2 scene in korea collapsing after being 4 years on life support.
Again, proleague had to HIRE people to cheer for the teams every day when proleague happened. During BW times, it was always about 100 people or so and they had 2-3 TV channels broadcasting broodwar nonstop, as well as variety shows etc.
They had to HIRE people to pretend its not dead. Imagine how the players must have felt: SC2 is an absolute dead end and there is no point spending energy into it. And yet despite all that, no foreigner could have taken a tournament against koreans until the very end and even beyond that.
And then we have this echo chamber that spouted for almost 10 years on how the rise of foreigners has absolutely nothing to do with the collapse of Korean SC2, which was on life support the entire time anyway... I am sorry, but if you had the choice between playing broodwar with its university system (making 60 million usd in donations last year) + streaming revenue from donation (about 15 million usd a year) + about 3 million usd from daily proleague each year, which by the way is quite evenly distributed, vs playing SC2 where the prize money is top heavy and it all depends whether some saudi dude we do not know decides whether to have sc2 or not, each year... it makes all achievements post Kespa in SC2 an absolute farce.
And despite this whole echo chamber, there are still threads spanning dozens of pages that basically say the above here and there.
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They also fell a lot in skill because before they simply didn't have the chance to take it more easy, so suddenly many were at least mentally on hiatus.
Of course when a hole opens other players who had enjoyed less success took that as an opportunity to get ahead, namely, byun, solar, dark, stats, trap, cure and probably a bunch of others.
But just because they were still on jin air, sos and Maru that does not mean they practiced the hardest.
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Northern Ireland27265 Posts
On November 05 2025 15:41 doktordingerdonger wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2025 06:40 PremoBeats wrote:
Of course they knew ahead of time. My point is that they nevertheless all qualified and most of them played for years to come. ByuN's victory was due to his reaper abuse and not some supposed Korean collapse in 2016. The erosion spaned several years and didn't happen from one year to another.
And JAGW, the Proleague winners, were KeSPA too.
We had disappointing failures througout SC2, so to draw a connection - like ejozl did - from a lack of new Korean talent to ByuN's WC, when the effects of the Proleague discontinuation could not have possibly materialized yet, seems like a stretch to me. The fact they still all qualified despite not training for months and the collapse of it rather says the opposite about what you want to support lol... Even now, some random pro who has not played in years can just come back, qualify for EWC and then fuck off simply because the saudi money is too good. There is a reason why all korean pros except very very few went all back to BW, where 100k is easy to achieve even for the top 200 player streaming and playing some daily proleague. Neeb, an absolutely unknown foreigner suddenly is the first person to win a tournament against koreans in 6 yeaers of sc2, and this forum wants to pretend this has absolutely nothing to do with the entire sc2 scene in korea collapsing after being 4 years on life support. Again, proleague had to HIRE people to cheer for the teams every day when proleague happened. During BW times, it was always about 100 people or so and they had 2-3 TV channels broadcasting broodwar nonstop, as well as variety shows etc. They had to HIRE people to pretend its not dead. Imagine how the players must have felt: SC2 is an absolute dead end and there is no point spending energy into it. And yet despite all that, no foreigner could have taken a tournament against koreans until the very end and even beyond that. And then we have this echo chamber that spouted for almost 10 years on how the rise of foreigners has absolutely nothing to do with the collapse of Korean SC2, which was on life support the entire time anyway... I am sorry, but if you had the choice between playing broodwar with its university system (making 60 million usd in donations last year) + streaming revenue from donation (about 15 million usd a year) + about 3 million usd from daily proleague each year, which by the way is quite evenly distributed, vs playing SC2 where the prize money is top heavy and it all depends whether some saudi dude we do not know decides whether to have sc2 or not, each year... it makes all achievements post Kespa in SC2 an absolute farce. And despite this whole echo chamber, there are still threads spanning dozens of pages that basically say the above here and there.
Holy strawmen Batman!
Most would concede it had some effect, just that it’s not as precipitous as you’re framing it.
Prize money remained pretty good for one. If we accept that things dropped off hugely in level and discipline, there’s all the incentive in money and tournament prestige for an existing elite player to stay motivated and clean house.
As that didn’t really happen, either the scene was still reasonably competitive, or no Korean players could be bothered doing it, and I know which I’d consider more likely.
You’re contracting almost 10 years into your timeline. Some points ring true for 2025 but perhaps don’t for 2016.
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Even now, some random pro who has not played in years can just come back, qualify for EWC and then fuck off simply because the saudi money is too good.
Who is this 'random pro', three-time world champion Rogue?
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On November 05 2025 15:41 doktordingerdonger wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2025 06:40 PremoBeats wrote:
Of course they knew ahead of time. My point is that they nevertheless all qualified and most of them played for years to come. ByuN's victory was due to his reaper abuse and not some supposed Korean collapse in 2016. The erosion spaned several years and didn't happen from one year to another.
And JAGW, the Proleague winners, were KeSPA too.
We had disappointing failures througout SC2, so to draw a connection - like ejozl did - from a lack of new Korean talent to ByuN's WC, when the effects of the Proleague discontinuation could not have possibly materialized yet, seems like a stretch to me. The fact they still all qualified despite not training for months and the collapse of it rather says the opposite about what you want to support lol... Even now, some random pro who has not played in years can just come back, qualify for EWC and then fuck off simply because the saudi money is too good. There is a reason why all korean pros except very very few went all back to BW, where 100k is easy to achieve even for the top 200 player streaming and playing some daily proleague. Neeb, an absolutely unknown foreigner suddenly is the first person to win a tournament against koreans in 6 yeaers of sc2, and this forum wants to pretend this has absolutely nothing to do with the entire sc2 scene in korea collapsing after being 4 years on life support. Again, proleague had to HIRE people to cheer for the teams every day when proleague happened. During BW times, it was always about 100 people or so and they had 2-3 TV channels broadcasting broodwar nonstop, as well as variety shows etc. They had to HIRE people to pretend its not dead. Imagine how the players must have felt: SC2 is an absolute dead end and there is no point spending energy into it. And yet despite all that, no foreigner could have taken a tournament against koreans until the very end and even beyond that. And then we have this echo chamber that spouted for almost 10 years on how the rise of foreigners has absolutely nothing to do with the collapse of Korean SC2, which was on life support the entire time anyway... I am sorry, but if you had the choice between playing broodwar with its university system (making 60 million usd in donations last year) + streaming revenue from donation (about 15 million usd a year) + about 3 million usd from daily proleague each year, which by the way is quite evenly distributed, vs playing SC2 where the prize money is top heavy and it all depends whether some saudi dude we do not know decides whether to have sc2 or not, each year... it makes all achievements post Kespa in SC2 an absolute farce. And despite this whole echo chamber, there are still threads spanning dozens of pages that basically say the above here and there.
With this post I'm convinced - welcome back "Expensive-Law9830"  Liking BroodWar is still not a personality buddy.
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Northern Ireland27265 Posts
On November 06 2025 06:21 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2025 15:41 doktordingerdonger wrote:On November 05 2025 06:40 PremoBeats wrote:
Of course they knew ahead of time. My point is that they nevertheless all qualified and most of them played for years to come. ByuN's victory was due to his reaper abuse and not some supposed Korean collapse in 2016. The erosion spaned several years and didn't happen from one year to another.
And JAGW, the Proleague winners, were KeSPA too.
We had disappointing failures througout SC2, so to draw a connection - like ejozl did - from a lack of new Korean talent to ByuN's WC, when the effects of the Proleague discontinuation could not have possibly materialized yet, seems like a stretch to me. The fact they still all qualified despite not training for months and the collapse of it rather says the opposite about what you want to support lol... Even now, some random pro who has not played in years can just come back, qualify for EWC and then fuck off simply because the saudi money is too good. There is a reason why all korean pros except very very few went all back to BW, where 100k is easy to achieve even for the top 200 player streaming and playing some daily proleague. Neeb, an absolutely unknown foreigner suddenly is the first person to win a tournament against koreans in 6 yeaers of sc2, and this forum wants to pretend this has absolutely nothing to do with the entire sc2 scene in korea collapsing after being 4 years on life support. Again, proleague had to HIRE people to cheer for the teams every day when proleague happened. During BW times, it was always about 100 people or so and they had 2-3 TV channels broadcasting broodwar nonstop, as well as variety shows etc. They had to HIRE people to pretend its not dead. Imagine how the players must have felt: SC2 is an absolute dead end and there is no point spending energy into it. And yet despite all that, no foreigner could have taken a tournament against koreans until the very end and even beyond that. And then we have this echo chamber that spouted for almost 10 years on how the rise of foreigners has absolutely nothing to do with the collapse of Korean SC2, which was on life support the entire time anyway... I am sorry, but if you had the choice between playing broodwar with its university system (making 60 million usd in donations last year) + streaming revenue from donation (about 15 million usd a year) + about 3 million usd from daily proleague each year, which by the way is quite evenly distributed, vs playing SC2 where the prize money is top heavy and it all depends whether some saudi dude we do not know decides whether to have sc2 or not, each year... it makes all achievements post Kespa in SC2 an absolute farce. And despite this whole echo chamber, there are still threads spanning dozens of pages that basically say the above here and there. With this post I'm convinced - welcome back "Expensive-Law9830" Liking BroodWar is still not a personality buddy.
Now you mentioned it, that does somewhat track. Wouldn’t be something I’d be sure about, but wouldn’t surprise me either.
It’s just weird and largely nonsensical bollocks. Even the points with some validity are exaggerated to such a degree they they cease to have it.
SC2’s never been all that big in Korea, including the Proleague era. If it didn’t have the StarCraft name, I highly doubt we’d have even had Proleague, and the entities involved probably didn’t break even on investment. Which really isn’t that different functionally to EWC in that respect. Although I despise the sportswashing element and have been critical of that many times.
It’s all utter hogwash really, I couldn’t be arsed to pick it apart point by point.
Say what you like about current SC2 and its depleted level, the top players show up for Premiers, and especially for EWC. It’s still a scene driven financially by tournament results. That’s the bread and butter. It ain’t in modern BW, where players dip out of ASL reasonably frequently.
There’s certainly demand for other content, and that’s cool, absolutely, and I love both games. I think for my tastes that’s a strength SC2 has over BW right now as a viewer.
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On November 06 2025 07:26 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2025 06:21 Balnazza wrote:On November 05 2025 15:41 doktordingerdonger wrote:On November 05 2025 06:40 PremoBeats wrote:
Of course they knew ahead of time. My point is that they nevertheless all qualified and most of them played for years to come. ByuN's victory was due to his reaper abuse and not some supposed Korean collapse in 2016. The erosion spaned several years and didn't happen from one year to another.
And JAGW, the Proleague winners, were KeSPA too.
We had disappointing failures througout SC2, so to draw a connection - like ejozl did - from a lack of new Korean talent to ByuN's WC, when the effects of the Proleague discontinuation could not have possibly materialized yet, seems like a stretch to me. The fact they still all qualified despite not training for months and the collapse of it rather says the opposite about what you want to support lol... Even now, some random pro who has not played in years can just come back, qualify for EWC and then fuck off simply because the saudi money is too good. There is a reason why all korean pros except very very few went all back to BW, where 100k is easy to achieve even for the top 200 player streaming and playing some daily proleague. Neeb, an absolutely unknown foreigner suddenly is the first person to win a tournament against koreans in 6 yeaers of sc2, and this forum wants to pretend this has absolutely nothing to do with the entire sc2 scene in korea collapsing after being 4 years on life support. Again, proleague had to HIRE people to cheer for the teams every day when proleague happened. During BW times, it was always about 100 people or so and they had 2-3 TV channels broadcasting broodwar nonstop, as well as variety shows etc. They had to HIRE people to pretend its not dead. Imagine how the players must have felt: SC2 is an absolute dead end and there is no point spending energy into it. And yet despite all that, no foreigner could have taken a tournament against koreans until the very end and even beyond that. And then we have this echo chamber that spouted for almost 10 years on how the rise of foreigners has absolutely nothing to do with the collapse of Korean SC2, which was on life support the entire time anyway... I am sorry, but if you had the choice between playing broodwar with its university system (making 60 million usd in donations last year) + streaming revenue from donation (about 15 million usd a year) + about 3 million usd from daily proleague each year, which by the way is quite evenly distributed, vs playing SC2 where the prize money is top heavy and it all depends whether some saudi dude we do not know decides whether to have sc2 or not, each year... it makes all achievements post Kespa in SC2 an absolute farce. And despite this whole echo chamber, there are still threads spanning dozens of pages that basically say the above here and there. With this post I'm convinced - welcome back "Expensive-Law9830" Liking BroodWar is still not a personality buddy. Now you mentioned it, that does somewhat track. Wouldn’t be something I’d be sure about, but wouldn’t surprise me either. It’s just weird and largely nonsensical bollocks. Even the points with some validity are exaggerated to such a degree they they cease to have it. SC2’s never been all that big in Korea, including the Proleague era. If it didn’t have the StarCraft name, I highly doubt we’d have even had Proleague, and the entities involved probably didn’t break even on investment. Which really isn’t that different functionally to EWC in that respect. Although I despise the sportswashing element and have been critical of that many times. It’s all utter hogwash really, I couldn’t be arsed to pick it apart point by point. Say what you like about current SC2 and its depleted level, the top players show up for Premiers, and especially for EWC. It’s still a scene driven financially by tournament results. That’s the bread and butter. It ain’t in modern BW, where players dip out of ASL reasonably frequently. There’s certainly demand for other content, and that’s cool, absolutely, and I love both games. I think for my tastes that’s a strength SC2 has over BW right now as a viewer.
It's the exact same arguments, same overhyped numbers, the condescending tone towards SC2 and its fans, the jerking off about Daily Proleague and so on. Would go for 90% on this one.
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On November 06 2025 07:26 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2025 06:21 Balnazza wrote:On November 05 2025 15:41 doktordingerdonger wrote:On November 05 2025 06:40 PremoBeats wrote:
Of course they knew ahead of time. My point is that they nevertheless all qualified and most of them played for years to come. ByuN's victory was due to his reaper abuse and not some supposed Korean collapse in 2016. The erosion spaned several years and didn't happen from one year to another.
And JAGW, the Proleague winners, were KeSPA too.
We had disappointing failures througout SC2, so to draw a connection - like ejozl did - from a lack of new Korean talent to ByuN's WC, when the effects of the Proleague discontinuation could not have possibly materialized yet, seems like a stretch to me. The fact they still all qualified despite not training for months and the collapse of it rather says the opposite about what you want to support lol... Even now, some random pro who has not played in years can just come back, qualify for EWC and then fuck off simply because the saudi money is too good. There is a reason why all korean pros except very very few went all back to BW, where 100k is easy to achieve even for the top 200 player streaming and playing some daily proleague. Neeb, an absolutely unknown foreigner suddenly is the first person to win a tournament against koreans in 6 yeaers of sc2, and this forum wants to pretend this has absolutely nothing to do with the entire sc2 scene in korea collapsing after being 4 years on life support. Again, proleague had to HIRE people to cheer for the teams every day when proleague happened. During BW times, it was always about 100 people or so and they had 2-3 TV channels broadcasting broodwar nonstop, as well as variety shows etc. They had to HIRE people to pretend its not dead. Imagine how the players must have felt: SC2 is an absolute dead end and there is no point spending energy into it. And yet despite all that, no foreigner could have taken a tournament against koreans until the very end and even beyond that. And then we have this echo chamber that spouted for almost 10 years on how the rise of foreigners has absolutely nothing to do with the collapse of Korean SC2, which was on life support the entire time anyway... I am sorry, but if you had the choice between playing broodwar with its university system (making 60 million usd in donations last year) + streaming revenue from donation (about 15 million usd a year) + about 3 million usd from daily proleague each year, which by the way is quite evenly distributed, vs playing SC2 where the prize money is top heavy and it all depends whether some saudi dude we do not know decides whether to have sc2 or not, each year... it makes all achievements post Kespa in SC2 an absolute farce. And despite this whole echo chamber, there are still threads spanning dozens of pages that basically say the above here and there. With this post I'm convinced - welcome back "Expensive-Law9830" Liking BroodWar is still not a personality buddy. Now you mentioned it, that does somewhat track. Wouldn’t be something I’d be sure about, but wouldn’t surprise me either. It’s just weird and largely nonsensical bollocks. Even the points with some validity are exaggerated to such a degree they they cease to have it. SC2’s never been all that big in Korea, including the Proleague era. If it didn’t have the StarCraft name, I highly doubt we’d have even had Proleague, and the entities involved probably didn’t break even on investment. Which really isn’t that different functionally to EWC in that respect. Although I despise the sportswashing element and have been critical of that many times. It’s all utter hogwash really, I couldn’t be arsed to pick it apart point by point. Say what you like about current SC2 and its depleted level, the top players show up for Premiers, and especially for EWC. It’s still a scene driven financially by tournament results. That’s the bread and butter. It ain’t in modern BW, where players dip out of ASL reasonably frequently. There’s certainly demand for other content, and that’s cool, absolutely, and I love both games. I think for my tastes that’s a strength SC2 has over BW right now as a viewer.
If sc2 wasnt all that big in korea, which is true, its size doesnt correlate at all with basically all tournaments being won by koreans pre 2016.
So somehow it wasnt big so its decline didnt matter, while everything being won when kespa teams were alive.
Riddle me this
If you make up strawmans at least be internally consistent
On November 06 2025 10:14 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2025 07:26 WombaT wrote:On November 06 2025 06:21 Balnazza wrote:On November 05 2025 15:41 doktordingerdonger wrote:On November 05 2025 06:40 PremoBeats wrote:
Of course they knew ahead of time. My point is that they nevertheless all qualified and most of them played for years to come. ByuN's victory was due to his reaper abuse and not some supposed Korean collapse in 2016. The erosion spaned several years and didn't happen from one year to another.
And JAGW, the Proleague winners, were KeSPA too.
We had disappointing failures througout SC2, so to draw a connection - like ejozl did - from a lack of new Korean talent to ByuN's WC, when the effects of the Proleague discontinuation could not have possibly materialized yet, seems like a stretch to me. The fact they still all qualified despite not training for months and the collapse of it rather says the opposite about what you want to support lol... Even now, some random pro who has not played in years can just come back, qualify for EWC and then fuck off simply because the saudi money is too good. There is a reason why all korean pros except very very few went all back to BW, where 100k is easy to achieve even for the top 200 player streaming and playing some daily proleague. Neeb, an absolutely unknown foreigner suddenly is the first person to win a tournament against koreans in 6 yeaers of sc2, and this forum wants to pretend this has absolutely nothing to do with the entire sc2 scene in korea collapsing after being 4 years on life support. Again, proleague had to HIRE people to cheer for the teams every day when proleague happened. During BW times, it was always about 100 people or so and they had 2-3 TV channels broadcasting broodwar nonstop, as well as variety shows etc. They had to HIRE people to pretend its not dead. Imagine how the players must have felt: SC2 is an absolute dead end and there is no point spending energy into it. And yet despite all that, no foreigner could have taken a tournament against koreans until the very end and even beyond that. And then we have this echo chamber that spouted for almost 10 years on how the rise of foreigners has absolutely nothing to do with the collapse of Korean SC2, which was on life support the entire time anyway... I am sorry, but if you had the choice between playing broodwar with its university system (making 60 million usd in donations last year) + streaming revenue from donation (about 15 million usd a year) + about 3 million usd from daily proleague each year, which by the way is quite evenly distributed, vs playing SC2 where the prize money is top heavy and it all depends whether some saudi dude we do not know decides whether to have sc2 or not, each year... it makes all achievements post Kespa in SC2 an absolute farce. And despite this whole echo chamber, there are still threads spanning dozens of pages that basically say the above here and there. With this post I'm convinced - welcome back "Expensive-Law9830" Liking BroodWar is still not a personality buddy. Now you mentioned it, that does somewhat track. Wouldn’t be something I’d be sure about, but wouldn’t surprise me either. It’s just weird and largely nonsensical bollocks. Even the points with some validity are exaggerated to such a degree they they cease to have it. SC2’s never been all that big in Korea, including the Proleague era. If it didn’t have the StarCraft name, I highly doubt we’d have even had Proleague, and the entities involved probably didn’t break even on investment. Which really isn’t that different functionally to EWC in that respect. Although I despise the sportswashing element and have been critical of that many times. It’s all utter hogwash really, I couldn’t be arsed to pick it apart point by point. Say what you like about current SC2 and its depleted level, the top players show up for Premiers, and especially for EWC. It’s still a scene driven financially by tournament results. That’s the bread and butter. It ain’t in modern BW, where players dip out of ASL reasonably frequently. There’s certainly demand for other content, and that’s cool, absolutely, and I love both games. I think for my tastes that’s a strength SC2 has over BW right now as a viewer. It's the exact same arguments, same overhyped numbers, the condescending tone towards SC2 and its fans, the jerking off about Daily Proleague and so on. Would go for 90% on this one.
So numbers dont matter anymore and we go by vibe, which judging by this forum, SC2 has not at all declined post Kespa and viewership isnt at all averaging 1k, with all the prize money coming from saudis that may or may not come back next year. Clearly I underhype these numbers too. Go on streamcharts and see it for yourself.
I wonder if everytime you or all sc2 pros see the live stream section, and see that the biggest SC2 streamer is Nathanias
with 82 viewers during NA primetime, yall think: Hey, its totally reasonable to spend all my time training sc2 instead of looking for a job since these numbers will certainly go up and we are about to enter a new prime of SC2 progaming.
Do this for the past 10 years of decline. Please, you don't wanna invest your time and prime of your life to become a sailor on the Titanic right now if the Titanic hit the ice berg 10 years ago. This makes the entire scene miniscule as well as the level of competition.
The fact that people like Innovation or Rain that dominated when the scene gave a fuck because for kespa players, it was their job and they got paid salaries for it, are totally ignored for people who dominate when there is no scene left is absolutely disrespectful.
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On November 06 2025 10:14 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On November 06 2025 07:26 WombaT wrote:On November 06 2025 06:21 Balnazza wrote:On November 05 2025 15:41 doktordingerdonger wrote:On November 05 2025 06:40 PremoBeats wrote:
Of course they knew ahead of time. My point is that they nevertheless all qualified and most of them played for years to come. ByuN's victory was due to his reaper abuse and not some supposed Korean collapse in 2016. The erosion spaned several years and didn't happen from one year to another.
And JAGW, the Proleague winners, were KeSPA too.
We had disappointing failures througout SC2, so to draw a connection - like ejozl did - from a lack of new Korean talent to ByuN's WC, when the effects of the Proleague discontinuation could not have possibly materialized yet, seems like a stretch to me. The fact they still all qualified despite not training for months and the collapse of it rather says the opposite about what you want to support lol... Even now, some random pro who has not played in years can just come back, qualify for EWC and then fuck off simply because the saudi money is too good. There is a reason why all korean pros except very very few went all back to BW, where 100k is easy to achieve even for the top 200 player streaming and playing some daily proleague. Neeb, an absolutely unknown foreigner suddenly is the first person to win a tournament against koreans in 6 yeaers of sc2, and this forum wants to pretend this has absolutely nothing to do with the entire sc2 scene in korea collapsing after being 4 years on life support. Again, proleague had to HIRE people to cheer for the teams every day when proleague happened. During BW times, it was always about 100 people or so and they had 2-3 TV channels broadcasting broodwar nonstop, as well as variety shows etc. They had to HIRE people to pretend its not dead. Imagine how the players must have felt: SC2 is an absolute dead end and there is no point spending energy into it. And yet despite all that, no foreigner could have taken a tournament against koreans until the very end and even beyond that. And then we have this echo chamber that spouted for almost 10 years on how the rise of foreigners has absolutely nothing to do with the collapse of Korean SC2, which was on life support the entire time anyway... I am sorry, but if you had the choice between playing broodwar with its university system (making 60 million usd in donations last year) + streaming revenue from donation (about 15 million usd a year) + about 3 million usd from daily proleague each year, which by the way is quite evenly distributed, vs playing SC2 where the prize money is top heavy and it all depends whether some saudi dude we do not know decides whether to have sc2 or not, each year... it makes all achievements post Kespa in SC2 an absolute farce. And despite this whole echo chamber, there are still threads spanning dozens of pages that basically say the above here and there. With this post I'm convinced - welcome back "Expensive-Law9830" Liking BroodWar is still not a personality buddy. Now you mentioned it, that does somewhat track. Wouldn’t be something I’d be sure about, but wouldn’t surprise me either. It’s just weird and largely nonsensical bollocks. Even the points with some validity are exaggerated to such a degree they they cease to have it. SC2’s never been all that big in Korea, including the Proleague era. If it didn’t have the StarCraft name, I highly doubt we’d have even had Proleague, and the entities involved probably didn’t break even on investment. Which really isn’t that different functionally to EWC in that respect. Although I despise the sportswashing element and have been critical of that many times. It’s all utter hogwash really, I couldn’t be arsed to pick it apart point by point. Say what you like about current SC2 and its depleted level, the top players show up for Premiers, and especially for EWC. It’s still a scene driven financially by tournament results. That’s the bread and butter. It ain’t in modern BW, where players dip out of ASL reasonably frequently. There’s certainly demand for other content, and that’s cool, absolutely, and I love both games. I think for my tastes that’s a strength SC2 has over BW right now as a viewer. It's the exact same arguments, same overhyped numbers, the condescending tone towards SC2 and its fans, the jerking off about Daily Proleague and so on. Would go for 90% on this one.
Good catch, I think it's 100%, don't think there are 2 people with exactly the same arguments and writing style.
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If you look at prize money won for sc2 players, serral and maru are absolutely leading the pack, and almost all that money was made since 2018 and on. So to say koreans stopped trying is a retarded take. Since if they were so good, they couldve made millions of dollars in prize money alone from 2018 and onwards.
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EPT
