Looking at TLPD, the active roster is at 5, with BaByJaedongJaehoonRyul2Sang (Terminator), B-teamers not included. Tyson (Bridge), by.hero and Movie have all retired and were streaming BW on Afreeca recently. Obviously Sea has joined Liquid. No word of a sponsor after the end of hybrid Proleague, either. I believe Kespa said they won't go with 7 teams for the 2012-2013 Proleague (November?) since Air Force ACE is no longer accepting new players...I can't see them going down to 6 either.
Anyone with an ear to the ground in Korea know what's up? This also extends to all of Proleague. Some have speculated LG-IM will join due to their good sponsors and star power.
with GSTL losing quite a few teams ( TL,oGs a while ago, SlayerS and Zenex they were in GSTL before becoming startale right) it would be awesome to see the Kaspa team playing against the eSF teams.
It may be hard due to Kespa and eSF relationship :/
I can definitely see IM joining and it still being an even playing field. Due to the PL style (not being a king of the hill format), Seed and Mvp won't be able to carry their team to victory every time IM is up to play. IM does have a deep roster, but we've seen that Flash and Roro can beat Seed convincingly, and while these two are among the best Kespa players, I think this hints at weaker Kespa pros being able to take down weaker IM members such as Losira, Yonghwa, and Nestea.
Starcraft 2 in Korea is struggling cause of LoL, so they don't get any sponsors. They also lost 1st place in PL in last round and ended up as 3rd (had been 2nd if Jaehoon didn't stay too long in game after gg -.- lol.) which was a really huge demotivation for them. I guess this is one of the main thing for not getting a sponsor after the PL, if they had been in final someone would had sponsored them imo.
On October 29 2012 09:09 Dakure wrote: I can definitely see IM joining and it still being an even playing field. Due to the PL style (not being a king of the hill format), Seed and Mvp won't be able to carry their team to victory every time IM is up to play. IM does have a deep roster, but we've seen that Flash and Roro can beat Seed convincingly, and while these two are among the best Kespa players, I think this hints at weaker Kespa pros being able to take down weaker IM members such as Losira, Yonghwa, and Nestea.
Even field? Any of the Top 4 GSTL teams have a very strong chance at wining the PL. LG-IM or StarTale would have an easy road to victory to be honest.
Baby, JD and Terminator are enough to carry a team through any team League without getting completely destroyed (especially JD has experience with that) to give Jaehoon and the B teamers time to catch up.
Should Kespa and ESF come to a fair agreement both sides will profit massively and team 8 might have a future and find a sponsor. A team League broadcasted Koreawide via OGN and internationally via GOM is certainly still worth a lot for a sponsor. Chances are not bad because with the Slayer's disaster on ESF side and the problems Kespa has both sides can't dick around too much anymore. Though they obviously fight behind the curtains atm because they fucking hate each other or we would have heard from them already. Like I explained here both sides would profit massively from the other.
So all we can do is wait and see if the self destruction of ESF and Kespa will continue or if they can man up and come to an agreement. Overall I think it looks bad for Team 8 but not hopeless.
Is there more solid confirmation on the B-teamers retiring other than streaming BW on Afreeca? iirc, Sang mentioned in his GSL Code A Ro48 interviews that his team was on break, so maybe the BW streaming happened during then, though I do not know how much they ended up streaming. His Ro32 interview didn't really have much juicy information, however.
I was asking myself the same question, even if i didn't knew that Tyson, hero and Movie retired. For obvious reasons i can not see them starting the proleague with only 5 players (just imagine how other teams will snipe them), so i guess they'll have to recruit some people, but do they have enought money ?
Correct me if I'm wrong but, i think they can't buy players from ESF teams, so best case scenario they'll get one or two cheap motivated B-Teamer from another KeSPA team, whom will be guaranteed to play some televised games.
I believe Kespa said they won't go with 7 teams for the 2012-2013 Proleague
By the way where did you saw that ? Any sources ?
I'd really love some new about the next proleague, i really cant see them running it with only 6 or 7 teams.. I hope ESF and KeSPA will manage to set up a proper team league together, even if i don't see GomTV giving up the GSTL.
On October 29 2012 09:30 Salazarz wrote: People saying eSF teams would have 'an easy road to victory' vs KeSPA teams need a reality check, lol.
Eh, KeSPA didn't do so hot in Code A and especially Up/Downs, which was a Bo1. I think teams with four solid players like ST, TSL, LG-IM, Prime, FXO, and MVP could do well.
Why would big team like IM and ST join KeSPA? I totally dont understand. It's just like give up your own right and position to the KeSPA and you will get ... more restriction in return? That didnt make any sense. If you were a free contractor with good and sustainable income, why would you care to join a company who have their own financial trouble and letting someone be you boss so you can work for him? Just for a decent title like I worked in Nokia? LOL.
On October 29 2012 09:30 Salazarz wrote: People saying eSF teams would have 'an easy road to victory' vs KeSPA teams need a reality check, lol.
There's probably a maximum of 1-2 KeSPA players in each KeSPA team right now who could reliably take sets from the top ESF pros, but isn't enough to win for PL format.
On October 29 2012 09:30 Salazarz wrote: People saying eSF teams would have 'an easy road to victory' vs KeSPA teams need a reality check, lol.
Are you kidding? The hype is over. Rain, Bogus and Roro/Soulkey are the only ones that lived up to the hype. Flash, JD, Stork and Bisu are all Code A level. Flash maybe improving extremely fast but eSF players aren't going to stop improving.
EPT
BaBy 
Jaedong 
Jaehoon 
