Big news broke today as NASL is shutting down it's SC2 coverage. The move follows the departure of MrBitter and perhaps explains the odd decision to replace him with laconic former IPL caster Kibbelz, who seems clearly a stand-in with Rotterdam as Nathanias will finish off the round of 32 with him (the NASL move was not anticipated by Rotterdam at least who had no idea the change was coming). It's very strange for NASL to cut out mid-season (MLG, which abandoned coverage last year, at least toughed out a full season). I thought NASL did a good job with its coverage, but just hasn't been able to echo the success of ESL in Europe. It will be interesting to see who winds up covering the region in season two, but I wonder if MrBitter's departure is a sign of things to come.
The guys at Root did something interesting by presenting player picks for who are the best SC casters. Keeping in mind that the sample size is small (19 players were asked) and the answers were given months ago, it's still interesting insight into how casters are viewed by those players. I was happy to see ToD acknowledged for being a great caster, was surprised at how popular Idra is (was), agree that Axslav's problem was that he wasn't very entertaining, agree that Kaelaris should/would be ranked higher if the poll was conducted now, and I'm surprised Catz doesn't understand why DJWheat was near the bottom of the rankings--he's not entertaining and he let's his bias show. StarCraft is blessed with an abundance of good casters and I think the best pairings are an enthusiastic colour caster (like Total Biscuit) paired with a great analyst.
Speaking of numbers, Conti did his usual overview of SC2 streaming numbers and one thing that interested me was how the changed WCS schedule would impact player streams. One of the complaints last year was that non-stop WCS action hurt streaming numbers, so the scaled back version offered by Blizzard was supposed to help. From what I can tell, that benefit has not occurred, while WCS itself seems to be getting stronger. I suspect the issue is a matter of performance (top players don't stream much) and entertainment (not many players are entertaining). I'd rather watch competitive play than ladder sessions for the most part, but if I'm going two watch a player's stream they had better be both informative and entertaining (Husky goes into many of the specifics about this via the link).
Total Biscuit has begun Clan Wars and while I'm completely indifferent to SC2 team leagues I think it's good for the game and I like the fact that he's using a different map pool. I don't dislike the WCS pool at all, but it's nice to see different kinds of games and the exposure of these maps could lead them to being played more widely as well.
I saw a fun series between desRow and Hendralisk at LANETS (the biggest LAN party in Canada) which featured one-base swarm host/nydus play on Daedalus Point (desRow managed to defend it, but it was a fun game). Unfortunately, I can't find the VOD anywhere, but if it shows up I'll link it here.
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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