StarCraft News & Notes

The announcement of when the closed beta for LOTV has come out, with March 31st marked on your calendars.  I'm not sure how one gets into the beta, but at the least we'll get to see videos on Twitch and Youtube (Lycan has announced his weekly league will be LOTV only, for example).   Undoubtedly there will be some broken units to start, but that's fine so long as they get tweaked before release.

The season two map pool has been announced:
Expedition Lost
Vaani Research Station
Inferno Pools
Coda (TL map)
Echo (TL map)
Cactus Valley (TL map)
Iron Fortress (Kespa map)

Removed were Overgrowth (at last), Catallena (hoi hoi hoi), Deadwing, and Secret Spring.  The latter map is one of the very few to appear for only one season.  I expect Vaani to be the new Overgrowth of the season (ie, chosen all the time, just like Bel'Shir Vestige before it).  I've seen speculation that Inferno Pools may still be removed, but for now that's all it is.

NaNiwa has found a team for himself at last as Team Property signed him.  However many bridges he's burned in the past, it seems like there's always room for him somewhere on an SC2 team.  I'm not sure how much (if at all) this will impact his streaming.

Day9 took to Reddit in the wake of the recent controversy about the possibility of departed SC2 celebrities returning to the scene in the wake of LOTV.  He explained why he stopped doing SC2 dailies, something he's apparently done on his show already, but never specifically delineated as a post or video.  In essence he stopped due to lack of time to do his show in the way he wanted.  I'm glad Day9 made the effort, as his post should put a lid on the criticism of him that's been floating around since the summer.  The other bit of news is that he won't immediately jump into LOTV coverage due to current time constraints, but perhaps towards the end of the beta or upon release we can expect him to return.

Along the same lines, Lycan talked to DJ Wheat about his departure from the SC2 community and for those interested I suggest watching the entire interview.  Wheat apparently still watches more StarCraft than any other eSport, but has abandoned casting events (feeling pushed out by the WCS system--Wheat generally did MLGs for those who weren't in the scene at the time).  His disappearance from the community is largely due to the negativity within it; he also downplayed the fact that he was ever involved in SC2 for the money.  Beyond that they talked about the state of the game (including Blizzard's reluctance to patch the game), and he was ultimately very positive.

With Day9 and DJ Wheat having spoken out, is JP McDaniel next?

There has been another accusation of cheating as it appeared as though MarineKing threw his match against Byul in the SPL.  It seems pretty obvious to me, but there's room for debate which you can see via The Late Game and Remax (links below).

The conversation about Winter is still simmering and you can see a lengthy debate about it on The Late Game where Lycan spends an inordinate amount of time trying to illustrate why there may be some question over whether Evan viewbotted or not (with Axeltoss appearing in support of Winter--which is not surprising given that he just cast with the guy).  Remax also briefly discussed Totalbiscuit wanting Winter out of the scene entirely (something that's pretty impractical--his call to get ride of Avilo back in July fell on deaf ears, for example).  At this stage I think there's more than enough evidence for fans to draw their own conclusions.  Personally I think the fact that he's been exposed and isn't featured on TL is enough at this point.

I wonder if anyone will explore the role of the swarm host in HOTS prior to the nerf--from Stephano's early corrupter/viper style in 2013 to the more current way of using them ala Snute.  It's going to be interesting to see how the change impacts Zerg strategies, particularly against Protoss or meching Terrans.  At a guess I think we'll see a return to the heavy muta play that was so prevalent in HOTS in the beginning.

This is a bit tangential, but Thorin has a great little vlog explaining the difference between a serious prediction and simply saying X will beat Y without providing reasoning.  I find sports is plagued by vague, meaningless predictions hinged on irrelevant or unprovable factors (eg who is trying harder).  It's why I appreciate Aligulac and its methodology--it's not perfect, but the reasons for its predictions are based on good data and reasoning.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

StarCraft News & Notes

It has been a long time since I did a blog about SC2 news, but there's been so much of late I thought it was worth doing.

The Swarm Host change that has been needed since Beta is on its way.  It's incredible that Blizzard has managed to drag its heels nerfing a broken Zerg unit in each of its SC2 releases (the infestor in WOL, the swarm host in HOTS).  It's apparent that until something heavily impacts the Korean scene, there's little to no interest in tackling major balance problems.  Will LOTV be different?  We can hope.

TotalBiscuit is bringing SC2 back to MLG tv.  This will be Clan Wars, which he ran last year.  I wish TB would also play SC2 again, but given how stressful he finds it, I'm not surprised he's avoided it while battling cancer.

Around the same time came word/rumour that many of the old school SC2 personalities are poised to return to the game once Legacy of the Void hits.  The shit hit the fan when Destiny talked about it on The Late Game, which made its way to Reddit.  You can listen to Destiny's own words via the link, but in essence he was upset that some of the personalities would reappear for a cash grab without having done anything to prevent the game from sliding in the interim (there's a hilarious mock article taking this argument to its logical extreme).  I couldn't say what said personalities did or didn't do in WOL (I came in at the end of it), but on the whole I don't really care if peripheral people return so long as it doesn't come at the expense of those who have soldiered on.  Of the personalities Husky deserves the least amount of criticism, as his absence was largely due to personal issues he discussed last November.  I've always been puzzled by Day9's silence on why he was no longer producing regular SC2 content (something he stopped last May); I would have understood if he'd said it simply wasn't cost-effective or if his interests had moved on, but I'll be happy to have him back in LOTV (I think he's good for the game and community).

On the heels of this storm the scene exploded as proof of Winter's viewbotting came to light.  I don't think anyone was surprised by it, although the fallout is more than I expected (being delisted from Team Liquid and then losing his Nvidia sponsorship).  There are strong feelings on the fallout itself, with some members of the community seeing it as an unnecessary witchhunt, while others think it's completely justified.  It does make him talking about how he achieved his success hilarious in retrospect.  Will Winter soldier on?  I think it depends on if his subscriber base sticks with him, but it's certainly going to limit his career in SC2 in the short term.  If he vanishes from the scene it will be interesting to see if his subscribers migrate to other streamers or not, but I would hope so.

I'm curious to see what will happen to the casting community once LOTV comes out.  There's been a huge overhaul on that score since HOTS came out.  Former MLG caster Axslav seems to be completely out of the scene (ala IPL casters Kevin Knocke and Kibbelz), but Axeltoss re-emerged at the Lone Star Clash about a year ago and may seek to reinsert himself.  Both Frodan and Gretorp (NASL alumni) have returned in some fashion--Frodan back from the collapse of ESGN and Hearthstone coaching, while Gretorp returns from poker.  I'm not sure if Khaldor is permanently attaching himself to the Heroes of the Storm scene, but it looks like Mr Bitter (NASL) is remaining off-camera in his work with Red Bull.  Of the names above, Bitter is the only one I'd like to see back.  Day9, despite the lack of content on his channel, still casts Redbull and BlizzConn, so has never been completely absent.  How much will these folks impact community people like Rifkin and ZombieGrub (BaseTradetv) remains to be seen.

It was a little weird seeing Paul Chaloner hosting IEM just after announcing his move from ESL to Gfinity.  IEM Katowice was a great tournament, even if we were stuck with a mirror match-up in the finals (which wasn't too bad as far as PvP goes).  The best series were in the R16 and R8, but that's not much of a surprise since players in the R4 and final have had time to see what strategies their opponents are going to use.  You can watch the replays here.

Finally, both Lycan and desRow have been running weekly cups recently and, assuming the former wants to keep paying for them, I think his is the most likely to last.  As much as I like desRow, he's not a caster and unless he wants to improve on that he's a drag on viewing his event.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

WCS: Looking Back at the Round of 32

Before digging into the R16 match-ups I thought it was worth looking back and seeing how the eight groups in the R32 turned out versus predictions.  Overall Team Liquid had the strongest round (9-7), with Aligulac trailing behind slightly (7-9)--I split the difference at 8-8.  None of these numbers are particularly impressive (TL's 56% is only just better than a coin flip), but I think some of that randomness boils down to the nature of group play, best-of-threes, and other things that can't be known beforehand (like viOLet being sick or HuK having personal issues).  For those who missed the TL threads, here they are: Group A, Group B, Group C, Group D, Group E, Group F, Group G, and Group H.

Group A
All predictions correctly picked Snute and incorrectly picked uThermal; the Dutch player was not feeling well in LA, which may have played a part in him losing to XiGua; I also think the fact that the Chinese and Taiwanese players rarely compete outside their region makes them much harder to judge.  Astrea (as expected) struggled in falling out of the group, but at least won one game (only two players were 0-4 in the R32).

Group B
Everyone predicted Polt making it through while erroneously picking Jim second (instead of TLO).  This group featured the first decent upset (Kelazhur over TLO), but as happened throughout the round the losing player of a BO3 won the rematch (5-1 actually, as FireCake beat puCK twice).  The failed predictions here (I think) were due to the limited exposure for Jim along with TLO's patchy play in the WCS qualifiers.  Kelazhur is one of only two players (the other being Happy in Group D) who won 4 games without moving forward.

Group C
Bunny was successfully picked by TL (and me), while MajOr was the failed pick for everyone (Aligulac missed with viOLet).  This was a strange group, as MajOr won the first game of each of the sets he lost, while an ill viOLet struggled against both MaNa and Bunny--interestingly, Aligulac correctly picked MaNa to beat his TL teammate, but not where that would happen in the group.

Group D
TL was the only predictor to get a player right (PiG), as Aligulac missed out with both TargA and Happy (TL also picked the Russian Terran).  Happy should have made it through, but his predictability and passivity were something both Kane and PiG took advantage of; as for TargA, it looked like the pressure got to him, as it was a shock to see him lose both ZvZ series.

Group E
The no-brainer pick of ForGG paid off here, but Aligulac's Sen pick failed miserable as did TL's selection of puCK.  This featured some of the worst matches in the R32, with Sen completely off his game and a clueless puCK somehow missing over a year's worth of PvZ metagame vs swarm hosts (he reminded me of TitaN vs Snute back in Nation Wars last January).  This isn't to say I like FireCake's style and I'll be glad when swarm hosts are (at last) changed, but I would have thought there would be better preparation by his Protoss opponent.

Group F
The picks were the same across the board, with everyone correctly picking Serral and incorrectly choosing NaNiwa.  Suppy bombed out (as expected), while NaNiwa showed both signs of rust and being on-tilt towards the end.  I enjoy Has' brand of cheese, although I would have preferred NaNiwa moving forward as he's a better player overall.

Group G
Everything went according to plan as both Hydra and ShoWTimE moved on.  This group had the one true upset, as MorroW beat Hydra in straight up macro games; while the Swede lost the rematch, this surely has to give some hope to his Terran opponents at least.  As for ShoWTimE, he was solid, but didn't face much opposition.

Group H
Aligulac correctly picked Welmu, while both it and TL missed with HuK and TL with iaguz.  HuK was off form and increasingly on-tilt as the night went on; iaguz died attempting to do the exact same thing to MacSed on Vaani in their final game, which was a bit sad as it would have been fun to have the Gimli Terran in the next round.

So how did the various regional qualifiers perform?
Europe: 9-5 (Korean 1-0)
America: 3-5 (Koreans 2-1)
China: 2-2
Taiwan etc: 1-1
Australia: 1-1
Latin America: 0-2

As much as some fans talk about how weak some regions are, each offered strong play (including Latin America, despite both players falling out).  Europe, as expected, performed the best.

In terms of racial performance (with 8 Zergs, 5 Protoss, and 3 Terrans moving forward):
ZvT 7-6
ZvP 5-4
PvT 4-3

Map Scores (excluding mirrors):
Vaani (19): TvZ 5-3 ZvP 4-2 PvT 3-2
Overgrowth (16): TvZ 4-3 ZvP 4-2 PvT 2-1
Expedition Lost (13): ZvT 6-0 ZvP 4-2 TvP 1-0
Deadwing (12): TvZ 4-0 TvP 2-2 PvZ 2-2
Catallena (11): TvZ 4-3 TvP 1-1 ZvP 1-1
Inferno Pools (2): ZvT 1-0 TvP 1-0
Secret Spring (1): PvT 1-0
Overall (74): TvZ 17-16 ZvP 15-9 PvT 9-8

It appears as though no one should play on Expedition Lost against Zerg, while Zergs should veto Deadwing vs Terran; there's no clearly favoured map for Protoss as yet.

At any rate, predictions for the R16 will be forthcoming.  If you spot any errors or omissions, please let me know!

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)