Three years ago I started up a weekly podcast/webcast called Sc2 Up & Coming. Our official description of the show was
SC2 Up & Coming is a weekly podcast, dedicated to the up and coming Starcraft II scene. Each week we will focus on the players, teams, and leagues. Our plan is to shed some light on some of the lesser known players and teams. We will also keep you up to date on qualifying events, LAN events, as well as major tournaments.
I started up this show in July of 2012, during the period of the NASL, MLG, IPL, and North American based team leagues. WCS started up this year as well but not the WCS you might know of today.
TL did a First Look at WCS 2012 so look below for some flash backs of what WCS was when it first started.
+ Show Spoiler +
Originally the show had two co-hosts with me, SamSc2 and ALT Starcraft's Windyy. SamSc2 and I were doing a lot of casting and coverage at the time so it made sense. Sadly he left the show in October of 2012. Windyy was on the media side of ALT Starcraft but when they disbanded his involvement in Sc2 faded. Windyy left the show in December of 2012.
2013 starts up with a new co-host and the man that is taking over eSports, MasterDalk. Things were rocking at start but Salil easily became a staple part of what the show was trying to do. He took on the role of being the other half of Sc2 Up & Coming. Which allowed us to work on some small projects like having Sc2 Up & Coming do coverage for Breaking Out NA qualifiers. Salil remained on the show until the very end.
Our last host to join us was KurenTV. Kuren was one of the best North American observers and joined the show in June of 2014. Kuren helped balance out the banter between Salil and myself. Sean also provided us with an interesting look at map designs and discussions during Map making contests. Real life caught up with Sean as well in 2015 but he still remained on the show until the very end.
So what was my main goal of the show? Get famous and earn all those eSports $$ obviously~! In all seriousness though the show had two main goals.
- The first was to highlight the players and teams that are consistently rising up in skill. Players like Illusion State ViBE most people know who these guys are now but at the time they were playing on teams like Vile or It's GoSu. These teams and many others were competing every week in events like The URTL or The ESEA
- Our second goal was to be a resource for players and teams. We wanted to highlight up coming qualifiers, LAN events, and online tournaments. That way perhaps a team manager or player could see that and spread the word about an up coming qualifier or event in their area that they didn't know about.
It was very easy to accomplish these goals in the early days with so many events taking place. As the scene slowly shrank, teams disbanded, players retired, and leagues closed it became harder. As the scene changed there were so many different things I wanted to do with the show. I wanted to add mini show matches to continue to highlight the players. I wanted to continue having on more regular guests/co-hosts. Sadly real life doesn't always let you continue your passion and hobbies forever.
For those who are interested in seeing our Finale Episode that aired on 9/14.
The only way to end this blog would be to say Thank You!
Thank you to everyone who every tuned in over the last 135 episodes/3 years. Thank you to everyone who came on the show as a guest or co-host. Thank you to TL for posting it up on the Calendar for so long. Thank you to Sc2Links, Esportpodcastify, and anywhere else that someone hosted up our vods and MP3 files. This show was as much a creative and starcraft outlet for me as it was something for you guys. I hope you guys miss watching the show as much as I'm going to miss making it.