It was a lot of fun watching the ladder given the raised stakes the WCS system has imposed--virtually no barcodes and no hackers (at least, not in the top-100); I've seen a lot of comments from pros talking about how much better the ladder was because of it and as a fan it was fun watching players move up and down the ladder. It was also interesting to see how favourite streamers measured up when the ladder mattered to pros (some acquitted themselves quite well). I really hope Blizzard does this again, even if it does mean 3 of the 4 top-NA spots will default to the Koreans. A few points from it:
-viOLet's public account in NA is Protoss, even though he's theoretically better at both Zerg and Terran (at least in HOTS for the latter)
-qxc, who retired in October, is back grinding the ladder and actually cracked the top-16; he's an entertaining and intelligent part of the scene that I'd be glad to have back in whatever limited capacity (he's said he's back just for this, but you have to wonder if that will prove to be the case)
-Zeal, who made it to WCS Challenger in season two last year is back grinding (he ultimately didn't crack the top-25)
-Suppy participated having not appeared in competitive play for six months (he also wasn't in the top-25)
-Xenocider, gone for the same period, was grinding (finishing 25th)
-Cowman reappeared (gone from the competitive scene back in 2014); not in the top-25
-Socke is back ladder grinding after departing for Heroes of the Storm a year or so ago (he failed to make it)
Here's the NA list:
1. Hydra
2. Polt
3. Neeb
4. viOLet (as Protoss)
5. PandaBearMe
6. PiLiPiLi
7. JonSnow
8. NoRegreT
9. HuK
10. MaSa
11. State
12. puCK
13. Bails
14. Intense
15. KoMA
16. qxc
Scarlett was left on the outside looking in (17th) and I wonder if she regrets laddering so late in the process. Here's the rest of the top-25:
18. Drunkenboi
19. RayReign
20. RuFF
21. Semper
22. noname
23. Jig
24. PiG
25. Xenocider
The only tweak I'd like to see to this is for them to force players to play the race they'll play in WCS. In terms of surprises I think the final three qualifiers stand out, as they beat out bigger names, and PandaBearMe seems to have hit another level. The top-four are, without question, the best players currently in NA.
As for EU, here are the results:
1. Nerchio
2. Happy
3. ShoWTimE
4. Lilbow
5. Mencemeat (MajOr)
6. PtitDrogo
7. Bly
8. MaNa
9. Elazer
10. Dayshi
11. Harstem
12. Snute
13. MarineLorD
14. Lambo
15. Serral
16. SortOf
The rest of the top-25:
17. Zanster
18. Tefel
19. souL
20. Welmu
21. Guru
22. (barcode Protoss)
23. uThermal
24. TLO
25. GunGFuBanDa
MajOr is already qualified through Copa America so his impressive performance means nothing in terms of the qualifier (Zanster is in at #17).
We continued to get goofy seeding for WCS Circuit events, although it has improved slightly for the Winter Championship. I thought the qualifiers were thoroughly entertaining and the Everything-Except-EU qualifiers were especially blessed with a multitude of community casters (viewership suffered a little from Basetrade not covering them, but was solid nonetheless). There were a ton of very entertaining games, including some early matches (such as EonBlu vs PriNce in EU or Probe vs Drukenboi, to name only two).
IEM Taipai has come and gone and featured a fantastic semis and finals paired with a very underwhelming round of eight (with the exception of Polt's series). sOs beat ByuN 4-2 to win the tourney.
Rifkin remarked the other day (February 4th during the EU qualifier) that he was surprised there wasn't much hype for his TING tournament or ROOT's Kings of the Craft despite decent prize-pools/players. If he's right and there wasn't much chatter in the SC2 world about either, it doesn't seem to have impacted the usual viewership for BTTV (and Catz's event did well); my guess is the lack of hype has to do with both tourney's using the same tired old formula of foreigner vs middling Korean (with apologies to sOs)--all the money went to Koreans in ROOT's event and that's likely to be the case for BTTV's as well--it's something fans have seen a million times before and it's not that interesting. If either event had a truly "best-on-best" contest (either all-Korean or all-foreigner) there would be more excitement about it.
The cries of those complaining about how the new WCS system impacts Koreans continue unabated and even in a supposedly "balanced " article was unable to represent the other side or truly address the issues at hand. I've gone through all this before but for the sake of thoroughness I'll go through it again (a somewhat related discussion about negativity and elitism can be seen on Jakatak's Tea Time, which isn't to say either Jakatak or Neuro would agree with my opinions):
-there's been no attempted breakdown explaining how the current system is going to destitute players; no examples are provided, no comparisons are made, we're simply meant to take it on faith that it's the case
-it's not mentioned that the 2 SSL and GSL events this year represent one more event than Korea had in either 2013 or 2014
-the fact that there's more prize money available in Korea forces those complaining about WCS to make awkward arguments about how that money is being distributed, despite the fact that the distribution in Korea has always been top-heavy and is therefore nothing new
-there's no actual argument made for how to improve the foreign scene (or even an acceptance that it needs help)--the attitude is very much sink or swim (and occasionally the unsubstantiated statement that no one wants to watch foreigners)
-the "people want to see best-on-best" argument doesn't address the fact that foreign tournaments never featured best-on-best anyway (except for one IEM in 2014), nor does it make any sense when the Koreans who most benefited from the previous system were those who failed at "best-on-best" in the first place (something a chagrined Paul Chaloner admitted to on The Late Game)
-Korean pros are paid much better than foreign players and while fans will point out that the B-teamers don't get as much there's no similar consolation for a foreign player in the same position; we could go down the rabbit hole of what Koreans get versus foreigners, but this is something that never gets discussed by those making the complaints
-I could go on and on but I realise the reason we can't have a rational discussion about this is because fans who are upset are having an emotional response to how they perceive the changes--it's not about what's rationally or logically true, simply about how they feel. This is unfortunate because while I have my own view of what's best for SC2, I'm hardly infallible and I'd love to see something tangible that might suggest flaws in my own perception
MaximusBlack put out a long video about the community which, despite its length, basically boils down too: be nice to content creators. No one is going to argue with this point, although Maximus' rambling, passionate speech isn't going to persuade trolls to change. Like ReDeYe on TLG he emphasized the diminished state of SC2 and in both cases I found this bizarre--is anyone making the counter argument? This seems like a debate you'd have in 2013 (indeed, the whole point of the structural changes to WCS is an attempt to prevent a further slide). Similarly, he states the obvious that content producers and players will follow the money (if they can), which I think is the case whether the community is toxic or not (people need to pay bills). What I found particularly interesting is that the toxicity he mentioned are things I barely see--although he may read more Reddit threads than I do--most of what I see are complaints about the WCS in terms of Koreans (see above) and balance complaints, about which content creators and players are often the leaders in pushing. (It's worth noting, anecdotally, that most eSports scenes are seen as far more toxic than SC2.) The impetus for his video seems to have been a silly thread about BaseTradetv, but at this stage I can't imagine Rifkin cares about random trolling on Reddit. The strangest thing that came up in the video was him talking about how badly he feels that MC burned through half a million (plus salary) in earnings and now needs to beg for money--the Boss Toss needs to take responsibility for himself, that's not on the community. Ultimately I'm not sure what Maximus is trying to accomplish here--as Sakkyoku-Sha points out in the thread, the video is vague and I find the tone basically scolding "behave or else SC2 will die!" I don't think that works, but we can always hope something positive comes of it.
A final little tidbit on Korea, the Washington Post had an interesting article discussing how many young Koreans are struggling financially (something the younger generations in America, Canada, and elsewhere can relate too--there aren't many haves and a lot of have nots).
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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