WCS Toronto: Looking Back

As predicted ROOT Hydra won season two of WCS, where his most significant challenge throughout the season was Lilbow.  There's really nothing surprising about the ROOT player's win--as nice as it is for him, he's the best Korean playing in the WCS system and should have won last season as well.  That said, there were plenty of interesting stories in Toronto, but before delving into them here's how predictions went:
Myself: 14-1
Aligulac:12-3
TL: 7-2 (they made no specific R8 or R4 predictions; for the finals I'm using the majority opinion--they had the right winner, although none had the right match-up)
Overall for the season Aligulac was a remarkable 24-7, I was 23-8, and TL was 18-7 (a substantial increase for all three over season one).

In terms of balance:
PvT: 4-3
TvZ: 4-3
ZvP: 3-3
Map scores:
Coda (14): PvT 2-3 ZvP 2-2 ZvT 2-3
Echo (11): PvT 3-3 ZvT 1-2 ZvP 2-0
Iron Fortress (8): PvT 3-2 ZvP 1-1 ZvT 1-0
Expedition Lost (7): ZvT 2-1 ZvP 1-1 PvT 2-0
Vaani (6): ZvT 2-2 ZvP 0-2
Cactus Valley (5): PvT 0-1 ZvP 1-2 ZvT 0-1
Inferno Pools (2): PvT 1-0 ZvP 1-0

No obvious balance problems in these results, but it's interesting that Vaani has completely lost its popularity and the now-departed Echo was the second most popular followed by Iron Fortress, the Kespa map.  Here's the overall balance for the season (excluding, as usual, Hydra's stomp of Zeal; I've put the maps that are disappearing for season three in italics):
Coda (49): ZvT 12-8 PvT 4-9 ZvP 8-8
Echo (35): ZvT 6-10 ZvP 5-3 PvT 5-6
Vaani (35): ZvP 8-6 ZvT 10-5 PvT 2-7
Iron Fortress (23): ZvP 6-4 ZvT 4-1 PvT 6-3
Expedition Lost (19): ZvP 5-5 ZvT 5-2 PvT 2-0
Cactus Valley (14): PvT 4-2 ZvP 2-3 ZvT 1-2
Inferno Pools (5): ZvT 0-1 ZvP 2-0 PvT 2-0

As popular as Vaani was, you can see the reason for its decline given the edges in TvP and ZvT; Coda's retention makes a lot of sense; Iron Fortress seems to be a bad map for Terrans and a good map for Zergs, although more games on it will help make that clear; Inferno Pools remains one of the worst additions to the WCS map pool and pros will be happy to see it go.

The major surprise of the weekend was ForGG falling out in the R16--not even winning a series.  It's hard to say if he was overconfident, too predictable, or if there was something else at play, but it's a major failure for a player many expected to get to the finals (if not win it all).  Less of a surprise, but also of note, was Jaedong dropping out in the R8.  The Tyrant lost to both Koreans he played and did not look good in either series.  Speaking of Koreans, StarDust's struggle against Terrans continued as Bunny dismantled him in the R8.  As for the foreigners (can they be foreigners at their own tournament?), TLO was unable to repeat his success against Polt, Ret was sadly unable to repeat his magic from the R32, and "The Year of Harstem" must wait at least one more season (again).  That said, it was a remarkable weekend for Lilbow, who benefitted from an easier bracket (one earned by beating Hydra in the R32); he was 10-1 in maps prior to the final and gave the Korean a run for his money (I think if he was calmer we could have seen game seven or even an upset).  It's the most remarkable run by a foreigner in a very long time and here's to hoping the Frenchman can keep it up in the future.

A little more generally, the venue was good and the crowd was loud, but there was plenty of space for a bigger audience and I think confusion over whether the event was sold out or not prevented some people from coming (rain all weekend and a varied schedule on Sunday didn't help either).  I don't think SC2 fans need to get too concerned about the attendance, regardless.  Quite a few streamers, pros, etc were there making for ample opportunity for those who wanted autographs or simply to meet SC2 personalities (streamers attending that I saw: DesRow, Lycan, Rifkin, ZombieGrub, Temp0, CombatEx, Kaitlyn, Tiger Lilly, Poizon, Koshkiisc, The Dark Lorax, and SC_Tris; I imagine there were many more).

I only saw the final of the Redbull Archon-mode tournament (where Scarlett and HuK kept doing the same failed strategy over and over again--congrats to MaSa and viOLet), but it seemed to go over well.

As for the casting, it was good and I enjoyed iNcontroL's conversations with people on the street (ESL has posted all three of them).  I thought instead of what seemed like a random rotation of casters they could have lined them up with their preferred race--Nathanias for Terran, ToD or HuK for Protoss, etc.  Not the biggest of deals, but it may have added just a touch more insight.

Finally, because this picture cracks me up, here's GunGFuBanDa:

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

WCS Toronto: the Round of 8 and beyond

It's been a great tournament thus far and with the R16 in the books I can quickly reflect on how predictions went and look forward to the R8.  My predictions stand at 7-1, while Aligulac and TL were 6-2.  No one predicted ForGG falling out (losing to both GunGFuBanDa and Bunny and looking unimpressive), but otherwise things were largely as expected (Aligulac erroneously took iaguz over TLO while TL had FireCake instead of MarineLorD).  The most exciting matches were StarDust vs Jaedong and both series of FireCake vs MarineLorD.  I hadn't realised there was a draw for the R8, so my subsequent predictions make no sense.  Here are the matchups:

StarDust vs Bunny - interestingly, the Dane is favoured (65%), with a winning record against the Korean who notably struggled against Terrans to qualify for WCS; I think this is more dicey than the recent match history or odds would make it, but I'll take the Terran
Lilbow vs MarineLorD - the Protoss is slightly favoured (53%) and has been very good in the match-up of late (uThermal seems to be his kryptonite); on the flip side the Terran is also excellent in TvP, but the one player he loses too is Lilbow (3 of the last 4 series), so I'll take the odds here
Hydra vs Jaedong - what an epic match this is and as confident as the ROOT player was yesterday I can't think he's happy to get the Tyrant this early; Aligulac gives Hydra the slightest of edges (50%) and he holds a winning record against the Dong (6-4, including two series wins recently); neither player is particularly remarkable against other Korean Zergs, but I think the recent history gives weight to the odds so I'll stick with ROOT
Polt vs TLO - a re-match from the R32 where the German pulled off the upset; Aligulac still has the Korean as an overwhelming favourite (80%) and I can't see TLO's fast muta-style alone getting him through this series; the only reason to doubt Captain America is his recent loss to the German, but I don't see that being repeated here

Aligulac and I see things the same way and if we're correct this would be the R4:

Bunny vs Lilbow - the Dane is slightly favoured (52%), despite a losing record against the Frenchman (7-11, including losing back-to-back BO3's less than two weeks ago to him); if this were a few months ago I'd stick with the Terran (when he was virtually unbeatable in TvP), but I like the "upset" here
Hydra vs Polt - a match I predicted in my previous post and I'll echo here: despite the ROOT player's incredible failure in the season one final, he's still favoured here (68%); Captain America's record against Korean Zergs is not great, but Hydra has been slightly less dominant in the match-up of late--still, all the peripherals support him winning, so I'll stick with him.

Aligulac has Bunny and Hydra moving forward, while I have the ROOT player and Lilbow.  The finals:

Hydra vs Lilbow - oddly enough the Korean is only slightly favoured (51%), and the French player is literally the only foreign Protoss to ever beat him in HOTS; that said, the Zerg has a 2-1 series edge over the Protoss and I have a difficult time seeing Lilbow besting him in a BO7, so I'll stick with the odds; if Aligulac is correct about Bunny he is a huge underdog (25%).

Both Aligulac and I have Hydra winning (this prediction matches mine from before).

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

WCS Predictions: R16 through to the finals

With the WCS finals just days away it's time to look into the Aligulac crystal ball and predict who will win.  I'll be at the event and if it's anything like the 2013 visit to Toronto it will be fantastic.  Without further ado, the predictions [TL have subsequently posted their predictions and I've noted them in square brackets below]:

Group A
ForGG vs GunGFuBanDa - not surprisingly, the Korean is a huge favourite (76%); holding a 3-0 record against the German, who has been struggling in PvT lately, I see no reason to argue against the odds
Hydra vs Bunny - again the Korean is favoured (64%); he has a good record against the Dane; that said, there's certainly a chance for an upset, as Bunny has beaten Hydra and other Korean Zergs from time-to-time--I just don't see it happening here
Losers
Bunny vs GunGFuBanDa - the Terran is heavily favoured (71%); the Dane is 8-4 in the match-up of late, while the German is just 6-5, so I'll stick with the odds
Winners
ForGG vs Hydra - a clash of the titans, the ROOT player is slightly favoured (54%) and he certainly has a better record in the recent past against Korean Terrans; however, it's worth pointing out ForGG has faced exactly one Korean Zerg in this calendar year (losing to Soulkey in March), and that's the last TvZ series he's had period, making his recent track record completely useless for predictive purposes; in the absence of information I'll have to stick with Aligulac
Finals
ForGG vs Bunny - the Korean is a heavy favourite (75%), with a dominating record against his opponent (8-2); the only foreigner he's lost too in TvT in HOTS is Happy, so there's no reason to fight the odds

Not surprisingly, Aligulac and I [and TL] see the two Koreans moving forward.  This is a truly unfortunate group for both foreigners, who would have a better chance in any of the other groups (or any other Korean).

Group B
Harstem vs Polt - the Dutch player is given almost no chance (19%), and the Protoss player has an awful PvT record vs Koreans; Captain America hasn't faced a foreign Protoss since February, although back then he showed some vulnerability to European players (losing to Verdi and Lilbow); unfortunately, the sample size from Polt is essentially useless so we're left to follow the Aligulac
MarineLord vs FireCake - the French Terran is favoured (61%) and the unpopular Zerg player doesn't have swarmhosts to counter his compatriot's mech-play; since the balance change MarineLord has only lost to Zergs from Norway (14-0 otherwise), so I like the odds here
Losers
Harstem vs FireCake - the odds are almost even, with the Frenchman getting the smallest of edges (52%), but here I lean towards the Dutch player--he's 18-2 in the match-up lately while FireCake is 3-4 since the patch--take the "upset"
Winners
Polt vs MarineLord - the Korean is favoured (67%), and while he does occasionally lose to foreigners, MarineLord's TvT is a mixed bag and I don't see him pulling off the upset here
Finals
Harstem vs MarineLord - the Dutchman was trash-talking his opponent on Rotterdam's last showmatch broadcast, but the Frenchman is favoured (69%) and there's nothing in Harstem's match-history to suggest any other result (his win over MarineLord in April doesn't seem relevant; the Terran is 22-3 in TvP against foreigners, only losing to Lilbow over that time); if Aligulac is right and this is FireCake, then see above

Both Aligulac and I see Polt and MarineLord moving forward [TL takes the Korean and FireCake].  This group is, incidentally, a good draw for Polt, who would be more vulnerable to other European players.

Group C
Lilbow vs iAsonu - the French player is a huge favourite (83%) over the remaining Chinese player; despite losing a few games of late, Lilbow is 18-3 in the match-up, while his opponent has an unimpressive ZvP record (5-4, losing to every player outside his region), so I take the odds
TLO vs iaguz - oddly enough, the Aussie Terran is favoured (59%), but it's important to remember his TvZ numbers are heavily inflated from the SEA region and he has middling results against European Zergs; TLO hasn't played a ZvT series in quite awhile, but I see him winning here
Losers
iAsonu vs iaguz - once again the Gimli-Terran is favoured (55%); the Chinese player has a very good ZvT record, albeit almost all of it is from his region; I feel like iaguz's SEA record is more meaningful here and he really only loses to the best foreign Zergs, so I'll stick with him here; if Aligulac is right and TLO plays, he's just slightly favoured against iAsonu (51%)
Winners
Lilbow vs TLO - once again the Protoss player is a huge favourite (81%) and his German opponent has shown recent struggles in ZvP (2-3), so it's reasonable to follow the odds; if Aligulac is right and this is iaguz then the Frenchman is still favoured (72%)
Finals
TLO vs iaguz - I've mentioned that re-matches typically go to the loser, but given iaguz's robotic style (the reason he lost to MacSed in WCS season one), I'll stick with TLO

Aligulac has Lilbow and iaguz moving forward while I have the French Protoss player and TLO [TL agrees].

Group D
Ret vs StarDust - the Korean is a slight favourite (51%); there are hardly any recent PvZ results from the former MYI player to look at, while we haven't seen this version of Ret play a Korean Protoss; historically he's awful against them, but his trends meant nothing in the R32; the Dutch player has been good in the match-up against foreigners (14-1 recently, including games against strong players); that said, StarDust did just beat Jaedong, so as fun as it would be to have the upset I'll stick with the odds
Jaedong vs Petraeus - not surprisingly the Tyrant is favoured (69%), and other than an inexplicable lose to Suppy back in April the Korean hasn't lost to a foreign Zerg this year; Petraeus on the other hand somehow beat Hydra in April, but otherwise he's struggled in the match-up and I see no hope for him here
Losers
Ret vs Petraeus - the Dutch player is a slight underdog (46%) and lost to his opponent in April; he's 8-2 in the match-up of late however, while his opponent is 7-5, so I like the upset here
Winners
Jaedong vs StarDust - the Tyrant is once again favoured (54%), despite losing to his opponent on Sunday (3-1) and having a losing record against him (11-13); Jaedong doesn't beat top Korean Protoss players, but that's not what he's facing here--I can see the upset happening, but I'll stick with the odds
Finals
Ret vs StarDust - I keep bringing up re-matches and it would be amazing to see Ret pull off the upset, but it's difficult to see him doing it looking at the numbers so I'll bow to Aligulac; if this is Petraeus instead, the Korean has an even slighter edge (50%), but I think that's being generous

Both Aligulac and I [and TL] see Jaedong and StarDust moving forward; it's worth noting neither Korean is unbeatable and I think with different foreign opposition an upset would be more likely.

Overall in the round of 16 I see all five Koreans advancing (as does Aligulac), along with Lilbow, MarineLord, and TLO (Aligulac has iaguz instead of TLO).  Assuming all of this, let's move on to the R8 (which includes yet more unfortunate pairings for foreigners).

Lilbow vs ForGG - not surprisingly the Korean is favoured (62%), although his record against the French Protoss player isn't dominating (6-4); ForGG's last lost to as foreign Protoss was to his opponent back in February, but he's beat him three times since so I'll stick with the odds
Jaedong vs MarineLord - interestingly, the French player is favoured (51%), despite an 0-4 record against the Tyrant and Jaedong owning a 21-1 record vs foreign Terrans of late (only losing to Bunny), so I see no reason why the Korean won't take this
Polt vs StarDust - the Terran is an overwhelming favourite (78%) and seeing StarDust lose to qxc in the Hell it's Aboot Time qualifier doesn't inspire confidence; his record against Korean Terrans since the days of blink all-in's is awful so I'll take the odds
Hydra vs TLO - the Korean is an overwhelming favourite (85%) and TLO has a terrible record against Korean Zergs--while I see no hope for the German, it's worth noting he beat Nerchio against all the odds so maybe this is the year of TLO; if Aligulac is correct and this is iaguz then the Korean is still heavily favoured (82%)

Aligulac has ForGG, Polt, Hydra, and MarineLord moving on to the semis, while I have the first three plus Jaedong (the best four players in the tournament, IMO).  Onto the next round:

ForGG vs Jaedong - the Terran is favoured (66%) and has a winning record against the Dong (6-4, albeit those matches were a long time ago); there's no silver bullet looking through Jaedong's history to give him the win here so I'll stick with the odds; if Aligulac is right and this is MarineLord, he is a severe underdog (13%), although it would be fantastic to see a foreigner make it this far
Polt vs Hydra - despite the ROOT player's incredible failure in the season one final, he's still favoured here (68%); Captain America's record against Korean Zergs is not great, but Hydra has been slightly less dominant in the match-up of late--still, all the peripherals support him winning, so I'll stick with him

Aligulac and I have ForGG and Hydra in the final.  Aligulac favours the Zerg slightly (56%), although ForGG won their only meeting 2-0 (back in 2013); the Terran is 6-4 vs Korean Zergs of late, while Hydra is 8-2 vs Korean Terrans.  Statistically speaking this should be a triumph for the ROOT player, although it's worth keeping in mind what happened last season.  [TL offers multiple choices, but 3 out of 5 also picked Hydra.]

A final note, a bit off-topic but related to predictions.  Of late I've been keeping tabs on Team Liquid predictions for the Korean leagues (curious how that compares to their WCS thoughts).  Their odd struggles in the R16 (2-6) and R8 (1-3) from season one continued this time around (3-9), although they were perfect in the semis; they also continued to struggle in the SSL (1-6 where predictions were made; the staff included multiple predictions for the final, but the majority (4-2) were wrong).  This is strange because of how good TL has been in the R32 and the final stages of the GSL.  I don't know what conclusion (if any) one should draw from this, but it's very odd.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

StarCraft News & Notes

LOTV was at E3 and dropped their promo along with an announcement of three free-to-play prologue missions (which can be accessed even earlier for those who pre-order in July).  Nothing was announced about multiplayer, which wasn't a big surprise as the focus at E3 for Blizzard is the campaign (a sentiment echoed on this week's The Late Game).  I'll be interested to see how well the campaign sells--as one gets more into the competitive scene it's easy to forget the single-player and its importance to the business.

The latest LOTV balance patch has been announced; there's still nothing specific for Protoss outside the PvP matchup, which suggests LOTV tournaments will continue to be two-race affairs.  Conversely, there were a large number of tweaks to both Terran and Zerg in the patch and it will be interesting to see how those play out (this week's Remax looked at both).

qxc posted yet another LOTV article, this time taking a look at the disruptor (including gif's of it in game action).  It's a great breakdown of what the unit is and can do in the current meta.

The WCS season three map pool was just released, with the popular Coda being retained along with the unpopular Cactus Valley and Iron Fortress.  Added were Terraform, Bridgehead, Dash and Terminal, and Moonlight Madness.  All four new maps are from the last TL map contest, with the first two listed being voted #1 and #2, while the others were simply part of the competition.  I missed the TL tournament so I don't have strong opinions on the new maps as yet.

I'd written about what I considered some inconsequential retirements (below), but now it appears as though MC has also retired.  If this is true, it really does mark the end of an era for SC2.  I think many people thought this would happen when the new region lock was imposed in WCS, however, MC made it into Code S in season one (as well as found a new sponsor), so it seemed like the Boss Toss would be around awhile longer.  I'm sure retrospectives are forthcoming, but for me MC was always more of a legend than an elite player, largely because I arrived towards the end of WOL and he really wasn't the Boss Toss in HOTS.

The other retirement announcements: Strelok, who hasn't had a significant result in two years, is gone; HasuObs, who had already semi-retired months ago, is now completely out of the scene; and finally Socke (sort-of).  These aren't particularly meaningful to the scene (except perhaps to the EPS, see below), as HasuObs had already left and neither Strelok nor Socke made an impact in HOTS.

Speaking of retirements, fans may remember DIMAGA retired back in January; he reappeared for LOTV and now is playing in HOTS tournaments (such as the latest IEM qualifier).  This must rank as one of the shortest retirements in SC2 history.  It's a good reminder of how difficult it is for an eSports pro to give up the lifestyle and return to whatever regular job they're qualified for.

Nathanias went on a rant on his stream where he suggested that if photon overcharge is removed from the game Protoss needs some sort of buff to compensate for it (his idea was buffing their early game units).  There's more to what he said if you follow the link above, but his subsequent reply to a Reddit post is worth looking at:

Protoss has very few options imo and are forced into gamble/risky strategies that can instantly lose them games because otherwise standard P play is predictable and abusable (dt drop meta, 5 months of blink all in meta, proxy oracle with binary damage/not enough damage).

I just don't like watching P play as much as T/Z unless I'm cheering for the P to win or they make truly remarkable plays like Rain in last night's GSL. I feel like I "NEED" to have certain things by certain times as P whereas when I play Terran you can salvage almost any situation with good control and decision making. Zerg's only defensive crutch is the queen which most of their strategies do not revolve around anyway.

I think he's right about the current limitations for Protoss (the fact that zealot/archon is no longer viable is a big part of the problem).  These issues are not going to be solved in the final days of HOTS, but hopefully in LOTV it will get ironed out (maybe the adept is strong enough).  That said, in general I think the endless complaints about Protoss are toxic and I wish the community would give it a rest--constructive ideas are fantastic, but the blanket hate is ridiculous.

Speaking of hate, for whatever reason (if it needs a reason), Reddit had been blowing up with anger at Blizzard.  Yesterday there was a response (TLG also discussed it).  David Kim mentioned some of the changes they've made or considered as a result of feedback and then responded to complaints about the pro player chat.  While his answers won't make everyone happy, and you can argue about whether they've made the correct response to feedback or not, it does show that Blizzard is listening, even if their ability to interact with the community hasn't been perfect.

Basetrade's first EU qualifier was yesterday and the sign-ups were are excellent (although it was unfortunate that both MarineLord and Lilbow had to bow out partway through the bracket due to their obligations to Clan Wars).  Ret won the qualifier, knocking off NaNiwa.  The Kickstarter reached its goal to add the aforementioned Nathanias to the cast; Lycan offered to pay his own way to come if they let him cast (I'm not sure if he's serious or if they'll accept, but the way he made the offer was pretty funny).  Blizzard gave Basetrade a very cool perk so that a $5 (or more) donation to the Kickstarter will get you the game portrait of Tychus shown above.  Hopefully this is a sign of things SC2 will do in the future.

HeroMarine won the latest EPS Cup (beating ShoWTimE), but I bring this up less for the result and more for the fact that in the last six Cups they have been unable to fill out their 16-player brackets.  I'm not sure if this is a sign of weakness in the German scene or if something else is going on.  Surely if you are eligible to play in the Cup there's no reason not too.

On last week's Remax TLO talked about how he overcame his wrist problems and for anyone who has suffered from them it's well worth checking out.

There was more GOM streaming quality drama as they switched from free medium back to low.  I don't think the subscription-based model they use is sustainable, but maybe irritating the foreign fans who watch will work in the short-term.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)

StarCraft News & Notes

The always thoughtful qxc posted a blog addressing the ladder.  The key thought for me is this:

Having only 6 (7 with gm) leagues to break up the entire skill base of a highly competitive game like Starcraft is insufficient. League of Legends built on Starcraft's league system by building divisions within each league. This would be the equivalent of every league except gm being split into 5 smaller leagues, bronze I-V, silver I-V and so forth. This creates more incremental goals and helps the 'carrot' effect. If you string out a goal ahead of a player just far enough that they have to make some effort to achieve it, but still close enough that they feel it's within reach they will be more likely to stretch for it. The issue right now is that there are not enough incremental goals and the jump from one league to another is too large. It's not hard to imagine the player that grinds for some number of seasons and finally gives up out of frustration because they feel like they've made little to no progress.

I like the idea of dividing up the ladder further--it's added transparency and as he argues it creates additional goals for players to strive for.

Feardragon has posted the specifics for his NA Ladder Heroes venture, which will begin in July.  I hope the effort pays off (Basetradetv tried something in conjunction with Harstem a couple of months ago, but it didn't have legs).  There are potential issues that could arise here--from win-trading to cheating--and I wasn't clear on how he was going to handle it, but here's what he said on Reddit:

I'll be using my contacts with people who are much more knowledgeable about this kind of stuff to help me identify and ban them from the event. I'll mostly be going on a report basis but will generally be doing basic checks on any of the winners. There will be a very low tolerance for hacking/win trading and if caught and confirmed.

Also as Troy mentioned in his comment, public reputation will be at stake with this since I'll be keeping and maintaining a public list of banned players and their offense. If I can, I'll also make a video for each player documenting the reason for the ban and linking to it on the ban list.

It will be interesting to see who signs up--will the best NA players participate, or will it be made up of ladder monsters who don't make an impact in tournaments?  I'll enjoy it either way, but it will be interesting to see.
 

Speaking of adjudicating, Spectrum was disqualified from Copa America (Tonho won the qualifier that was run to replace him), and Patchtoss was exposed as a hacker (Remax wasn't sure if he'd participated in WCS qualifiers, but he has).  There seems to be some disagreement on the former's DQ, but I don't know enough about the specifics to comment.

On Remax, Kane talked about his future in SC2 given his return to school in the fall--essentially if LOTV is successful and he's good at it, he'll return as a full-time player once he's finished.

Speaking of players, the cliche that no one ever quits SC2 permanently gets another boost as CombatEX announced he's returning for LOTV (after failing to make it as a pro in LOL).  He's been gone for almost as long as KiWiKaKi and it will be interesting to see how he does.  Given his plans to stream I wonder if his presence will help breath some life into the moribund LOTV viewership (which seems to boil down to Fenner and Lowko these days).   He told The Late Game the amount of SC2 he does will depend on how much money he can make from it.  Incidentally, KiWiKaKi has inexplicably forfeited his spot in Taketv's Legacy of the Ultras tournament [update: according to desRow it's because the time commitment was more than he could handle]--he's been replaced by another long-retired ROOT player, TT1.  I had no idea the latter had returned to SC2 and I'm curious why the former stepped away (DeMuslim also recently quit--if Reddit is to be believed it's because he didn't know it was an LOTV tournament, but I find that difficult to believe).

Conti's viewership numbers for May are out and they show almost no interest in LOTV at the moment.  For those who weren't around for the transition from WOL to HOTS, part of the appeal of the latter was it served as an escape from the wretched broodlord/infestor play that plagued WOL--whatever balance issues HOTS has, they are now more subtle than that.  Back to the numbers: as always, Conti includes them for WCS, so let's compare season one with season two (with a bit of rounding for simplicity):

Premier R32 (season one/season two)
NA broadcasts
Group A 18k/20k
Group B 20k/25k
Group G/C 17k/24k
Group H /D17k/23k
EU broadcasts
Group C/E 22k/20k
Group D/F 25k/24k
Group E/G 32k/24k
Group F/H 36k/31k
Overall: avg 23k/24k; NA broadcast 18k/23k, EU broadcast 29k/25k

Statistically the seasons are on par; the improvement in the NA numbers has to do (I think) with the change in when they were broadcast.  Fans can find good and bad in the numbers (fewer peaks, fewer valleys), but to my mind WCS remains fairly static.  While the tournament isn't a litmus test for the scene (whose casual side remains in slow decline), it does show that Blizzard's flagship for the game continues to limp along on roughly the same viewership core it had when HOTS came out.

On the random side of things: I'd completely forgotten that Artosis had a show about SC2 once upon a time (Meta); it's a bit sad that he gave up on it--while it was never as good as State of the Game, it had a focus we don't really get with Remax or The Late Game.  For pedants and the curious, here's a brief timeline of all the SC2 shows I'm aware of:
State of the Game (JP McDaniel): Apr/10-Aug/13 (100 episodes; WOL into early HOTS)
Inside the Game (DJ Wheat): May/11-June/14 (97 episodes, WOL-HOTS)
Unfiltered (Chanman): Mar/13-Aug/14 (66 episodes; HOTS)
Meta (Artosis): Apr/13-Sept/14 (27 episodes; HOTS)
Remax (desRow): Aug/14+ (42 episodes)
The Late Game (Lycan): Sept/14+ (30 episodes)

The shows I'm most familiar with are from the HOTS-era, although I saw the tail end of SotG and on rare occasion ItG.  I'm still sad that Chanman gave up on Unfiltered as I thought the show had been gradually improving.  Incidentally, Lycan requested feedback on Reddit and it will be interesting to see what (if anything) he changes because of it.  My main quibble with him was having too many guests, but he's already curbed that tendency.

Finally, there was a Day9 sighting as he did an episode to promote the release of the moribund Starbow.  I bring it up only to illustrate that the popularity of a game isn't want keeps him from doing shows about it, since Starbow has been essentially dead for months.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)