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)
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