The WCS qualifiers for IEM have all completed and featured a lot of exciting games (to highlight a few, Happy vs Snute game three (ESL hasn't posted the VODs), Neeb's series against Polt (Nathanias did the VODs game by game, so check out his channel) and Hydra, Lilbow throwing his final game against Snute (a painfully bad final engagement), NoregreT missing his WCS debut by getting stranded while snowmobiling, etc. It remains a little silly that the "NA" qualifiers are mostly Korean (as my spouse said to me, "Why are Koreans winning a North American qualifier?"), but it's something we have to live with. Incidentally, the SEA qualifier (won by PiG) had extremely good viewership for the final day of this (8k), which is far above last year (3.2k). I'm not sure what made the difference; the earlier cast was also higher (4k vs 2.2k), while the day one numbers were not (205 vs 640). For those who missed it, here are the participants in IEM Katowice:
Seeded from 2015 WCS points (8): Hydra, Polt, Lilbow, Snute, Bunny, TLO, MarineLorD, MaNa
EU server qualifiers (8): Harstem, ShoWTimE, Happy, VortiX, FireCake, SortOf, Lambo, Serral
NA serverqualifiers (6): Neeb, MaSa, MajOr, viOLet, iAsonu, HuK (this is Petraeus' spot, but he can't attend)
Regional qualifiers (8): Has, puCK, PtitDrogo, Dayshi, Kelazhur, XiGua, JonSnow, PiG
Polish qualifier (2): Nerchio, Elazer
Overall 15 Zergs, 9 Protoss, and 8 Terrans. Six players did not participate in WCS Premier last year: JonSnow, SortOf, Lambo, VortiX, PtitDrogo, and Dayshi,
The brackets are now posted and I'll put down my predictions in a separate post.
I also watched a lot of the WCS Shanghai qualifier, where Zergs dominated in EU (Nerchio and Elazer), MajOr won the Latin American qualifier (over Kelazhur--a eternal final), and KingKong the SEA qualifier. In NA (after a giant clusterfuck with the brackets involving confusion over Korean participation--as a passport locked qualifier, ultimately it was truly NA-only), Scarlett qualified at long last (along with puCK). For puCK this is his best result since ROCCAT DreamHack in the fall, but more impressive to me because all players are now fully engaged in LOTV. As for Scarlett, it's her most significant result since WCS 2014 Season Three. The Taiwan and Chinese qualifiers remain, but otherwise the lineup will be filled by an open qualifier and invites (I'll be curious to see who they choose to invite).
I haven't been able to watch the Rival StarCraft League (RSL) live, but I've enjoyed the VODs on Youtube. While the tourney doesn't always feature the biggest names, I think it's a great place for players to cut their teeth in a competitive format and get some exposure (you can see the current season here). A very minor thing I'd like changed: they need to turn up the game music volume a bit.
Speaking of smaller tournaments/leagues, I wonder if they'd have more viewership if they attempted a distinctive angle. The EPS worked as a national tournament, although I think these days no single European country has the player base to make that work. Viewership will be higher if a popular community caster is used (Nathanias etc), but I do wonder if simply pursuing an angle other than the usual "whoever signs up vs whoever signs up" would have an impact. I'd like to see something regional, although the Koreans in NA make it pointless unless it's passport locked. Speaking of which, I'm not sure I need to spell it out, but here's the prize distribution in LOTV from some of the smaller tournaments:
Kings of Craft (Catz): 2k prize pool; all Koreans
CybBet Race Wars (BTTV): 1.75k; top-two (1.5k) to Koreans
SEA OSC Championship: 1.652k; top-two (1.185k) to Koreans
RSL: $700 prize pool (1st through 8th); as an invite-only tournament they've thus far excluded Koreans, so all the money will go to foreigners when it is dolled out in early March
SEA Masters Cup (biweekly): $125; every other tourney Koreans are allowed to participate; the last in which they participated Hydra finished just outside the money
ASL Bacon Infinity Cup (weekly): $100 prize pool (1st-2nd); open to anyone, Hydra has won the last three in a row
Filthy Cup (weekly): $100 prize pool (1st-2nd); open to anyone, but viOLet has only played once and finished just outside the money
1. Nathanias 1.26k/1.07k
2. Maximus Black 773/1.25k*
3. MC 763/not streaming regularly
4. Hui 710/176
5. Rotterdam 587/959
6. Dragon 564/971
7. Fenner 541/155
8. Avilo 533/671
9. ForGG 446/not streaming regularly
10. Lowko 401/206
11. Neuro 313/96
12. uThermal 296/not streaming regularly
13. Anoss 267/230
14. MCanning 257/76
15. PiG 247/not streaming regularly
16. HTOMario 225/52**
17. CranK 216/582
18. RuFF 144/172
18. JimRising 140/68
20. Kaitlyn 132/286
21. puCK 125/155
22. ViBE 122/147 (over five weeks)
* MB missed the 10hr minimum in week 5, but streamed enough overall I've kept him in
** It's generally accepted that Mario viewbotted weeks 2-5 (see here), so I excluded those numbers
It's important to remember that streaming numbers in December and the beginning of January are higher than normal because of the absence of tournaments. Nathanias does not have the highest total numbers over this period--Destiny and Polt both beat him, but neither stream as consistently. There's also some nuance to the numbers above (the list) when it comes to some of the streamers:
-MC's numbers have been falling in 2016 (if memory serves he had a showmatch or tournament during one week as well that boosted his numbers), and he hasn't been streaming consistently since
-MaNa has not been streaming enough to be included above, but he has improved numbers over last year
-Rotterdam's overall numbers aren't that far off his yearly norm, so the decline looks worse than it is (he had a very good start to 2015) and I expect him to get back to those kinds of numbers
-Dragon's numbers have around this level for the past eleven months--the difference is due to a few huge weeks right at the beginning of 2015
-Avilo's numbers are also deceptive, as he's about on par for where he was throughout 2015
-Catz is excluded because he ran his tournament on his channel (along with having a low hour week), but he's roughly in the same place as last year
-Kaitlyn's decline is also related to early 2015, with relatively steady viewership over the period covered
-Other players whose stream numbers are notably higher: HeRoMaRinE and State
-DeMuslim has excellent viewership (1k+), but over both periods barely streamed (c.7 hours a week)
-popular streamers from early 2015 who have largely fallen off: desRow (538; his numbers largely boosted by Remax), Livibee (she stopped viewbotting), Minigun (445; excluding a short week, his numbers declined, leveled off, and then he stopped streaming about a month ago), SuperNova (356; retired), elfi (196; essentially stopped streaming in October), Lillekainen (172; his viewership bottomed out in May), PiLiPiLi (122; due to school he's curtailed his streaming to the point where he's barely done any since October), and Ketroc (116; he stopped playing with the raven-change in LOTV).
We can draw a few tentative conclusions from the above: Legacy of the Void hasn't provided a noticeable boost to personal streamer numbers overall; conversely, there's little evidence of a significant decline. I've heard a number of older SC2 personalities talk about how it's impossible for new people to establish successful streams anymore, but Neuro, MCanning, Fenner, and even HTOMario show that's not completely true. Perhaps big viewing numbers are out of reach for newer personalities, but there's still space for growth at a more humble level. Destiny continues to be the streaming king of SC2, albeit he comes and goes. Among the pros Polt, Snute, and DeMuslim are the biggest draws.
In terms of WCS numbers it's hard to compare the current system to the old one because of how differently they are structured, but here's a look at the viewership so far this year (comparing the main events to the seasons):
EU/NA Qualifiers
EU 12.9k/10.7/8.8k/7.7k/7.5k/7.2k (avg 9.1k)
NA 7.5k/7.4k/6.6k/6.3k/5.5k (avg 6.6k)
EU/NA Challenger
EU 16.7k/15.9 (16.3k)
NA 8.8k/6.9k (7.8k)
There are major differences in how these are done (and by whom), but the NA qualifier numbers are higher (3.5k) and Challenger lower (10.1k) than season three last year (BTTV's inconsistent NA coverage had less impact than I would have guessed); while the EU numbers are higher (8.9/13.3k). These are fairly subtle differences and could be seen as a statistical wash, but if there's a positive to be drawn from it, it's that the new system hasn't turned away fans despite the different format (and slightly fewer Koreans). GSL has enjoyed a slight increase in numbers--Code A with a 12.9k average (there's nothing to compare that too), while the early days of Code S (Groups A-B) has a bump (16.3k vs 11.3k, 12.5k vs 9k), granted, Taeja may be the reason for the initial bump.
I'd never read The Weekly All-In before (you can thank Neuro for directing me to it), but I checked out the latest issue (#42) and it's seems to be composed of lighter TL-style opinion pieces. Like TL, when predictions are made there's no reference to Aligulac (I'm not sure why). Chad Abshire has a piece on foreigners and while he doesn't share the innate hostility to the foreign scene that you see from TL writers (or Thorin), he offers no solutions to supporting the foreign-scene despite understanding its importance. I'm not sure why a true region lock (passport-lock) is such a difficult step for people to make, but I assume it's simply from a desire to see Koreans in local events.
Chanman hasn't aired an Unfiltered episode since the Thorin debacle a few weeks ago, so into the talk show space comes NoregreT with Skype Memes, an NA-focused show (the thread). I'm not sure how it will turn out (or if he'll post it to Youtube), but it could fill the pro-focused vacancy left by Remax.
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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