Speaking of HomeStory, it was a great iteration and for anyone who missed it catching up on the VODs is well worth while. Among the great games there were some silly ones (Stephano/MaSa and Welmu/Serral (both game ones) in particular). In the end Harstem defeated Scarlett for his second tournament win of the year and perhaps we've truly reached The Year of Harstem.
In terms of viewership days one-two were each were around 11k, with day three hitting 17k and the final breaching 20k. This is well below December's Cup (24k-37k), but as that had the LOTV boost it's not really a fair comparison. Looking back to June the decline isn't much less precipitous (17k-31k), and it's actually worse if you go back to 2014. Whether it's a StarCraft issue or it's an HSC issue, there's simply no denying the popularity of the broadcast is roughly half of what it was. Personally I found it as entertaining as usual, so I'd guess the fall is in part the aforementioned broader issues, along with perhaps the player pool (I doubt it), or the tournaments disconnect from the WCS system.
The rumours that TRUE will be joining the WCS circuit are...well, true, as it turns out. While this should be immensely beneficial to the Korean financially I can't see what help it's going to be to the foreign scene.
Lilbow has retired and switched to playing Overwatch. This would have been a big deal 9 months ago, but the Frenchman hasn't had significant results since November and I have to wonder just how long he's been planing this change. The move has resulted in the end of LeTwilightCouncil's streaming, which at this point was largely PtitDrogo anyway, so the change isn't going to have much impact.
At long last the promised ladder changes are about to be implemented. In retrospect I think the SC2 team should have rolled these out at the beginning or LOTV, but better late than never. Lowko talks about the old system (ends around 5:20) and what's changing. The new transparency of the system (displayed MMR), in-season promotions/demotions, as well as adding tiers to the various leagues are all excellent changes--I think particularly for lower levels--having a meaningful target to shoot for that isn't a completely new level should encourage competition and offer a sense of achievement that didn't exist in the old system. Of the things Lowko mentioned that he didn't like the one I agreed with is that new accounts should start their placement matches against low tier players.
Fuzic posted their monthly top streamer (link is for May, keeping in mind the caveats I mentioned last time). Here are the top streamers following the criteria I've used all year (the period below covers weeks 22-25, those in red significantly declined, those in green significantly increased, those in blue weren't on my last list--I exclude known viewbotters; streamers need a minimum of 10 hours a week to appear (including a few judgement calls, particularly over this period as a lot of streamers missed a week):
1. Polt 1.3 (missed week 24)
2. Hui 929
3. Stephano 589 (missed week 25)
4. Rotterdam 442
5. MaximusBlack 400 (missed week 25)
6. Avilo 370 (missed week 22)
7. ViBE 329
8. McCanning 256
9. PiG 229
10. Beastyqt 221
11. Brat_OK 190
11. RuFF 190
13. puCK 177
14. Dragon 161
15. Deth 160
16. ProTech 150
17. Indy 131
18. Kerri 123 (missed week 25)
19. Iscander 122
20. Neuro 109
There's no Nathanias on this list for the first time in a long time--he simply didn't stream enough, although when he did his numbers continued a slow decline. NaNiwa is also absent (for the same reason). Ketroc, who has had very good numbers since returning to the scene, has been streaming irregularly on Youtube due to unknown issues with Twitch. MaximusBlack has returned to streaming SC2 on a semi to regular basis--I'm not entirely sure the reason, but regardless it's nice to have him back. I can't explain Stephano's spike in numbers (which have continued this week)--perhaps appearing at HomeStory Cup reminded fans he was around? ViBE's consistent streaming efforts have paid off considerably, as he's tripled his audience since the start of the year. In general all the truisms for LOTV streaming continue: pros need to stay relevant, non-pros need to be entertaining and stream consistently.
Four months ago Chanman aired the last Unfiltered episode with Richard Lewis, promising a search for a new co-host and resumption of the show to follow. Since then he's produced nothing but Hearthstone and Overwatch content and at this stage I think we can consider the show dead. I'm not sure if this is a loss for the SC2 community, since the coverage was minimal and Chanman himself didn't see its second iteration as being about StarCraft. This does mean the only remaining SC2 talk show is Lycan's erratic The Late Game (which last aired in May despite a plethora of SC2 news since).
Jakatak is diversifying into Overwatch. He's always been something of an acquired taste in the StarCraft scene, but his voice occasionally reached Blizzard and there are few that could delve into the mechanics of the game with the same zest. Fortunately for the scene he isn't gone, he'll simply produce less content (oddly enough he hasn't put out a video on the ladder changes mentioned above, his last comments are from a couple of months ago).
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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