As an example, IEM Katowice was announced as the WCS Winter Championship, whose champion will be seeded directly into the WCS Global Playoffs (aka, one of the 8 Circuit players that makes Blizzcon). It has a $150k prize pool, which I think is much higher than previous years (usually $100k). And it is ****ing region locked for foreigners!!!

This comment on Reddit (on Katowice) sums it up and absolutely slayed me:

It's actually driving me insane right now reading **** like Apollo defending the new system. He's not making arguments, he's just posting platitudes:

And then this ****:

What? It's like this paragraph takes place in an alternate universe where there weren't any DreamHack/IEM/etc tournaments in between WCS seasons.

Blatant misrepresentation of the fact that there are fewer opportunities for Koreans this year compared to last (net, they removed 1 season each of GSL and SSL and added one four-player tournament between the GSL/SSL champions) - he's basically just trying to say "but they have enough SC2 already", even though it seems like Korean SC2 is going to get even more silly-top-heavy than it was before, with more money going to fewer events.

And of course the discussion about all these things happens on Reddit where people's opinions are formed entirely based on whether or not they like to slurp foreigners. I can't read this **** anymore.

you seem incredibly made about blizzard wanting to promote the game outside half of a tiny peninsula that has a disproportionate amount of prize money anyway

The #2 you quote in your last post. This was peak SC2. I went to a bar in town to watch IPL3 live then. That bar is now closed. We had so many relevant foreign tournies at that time until WCS ruined everything

You're kidding that WCS ruined it, right? As much as I love to pile on Blizzard, SC2 was in decline anyway because other games were becoming more popular, not because Blizzard saying "hey let's make a tournament series" is what murdered their game.

eta: and when you sort by talent rather than geography, it's absurd how much money is allocated outside of that small peninsula

Balance test map time! Surprise, they want to nerf Zerg.

- Disruptor: remove bonus damage to shields so that PvP doesn't hinge on 1 disruptor shot destroying your whole army
- Adrenal glands: drop attack speed bonus from 40% to 30%
- Viper parasitic bomb: reduce damage from 90 to 60
- Ravager morph time increase (12 -> 20)
- "Thor AA damage to flat 12" - I'm not clear what this is changing, I think it's changing it from, like, "6 damage +6-vs-light" to "12 vs everyone"? Basically Terrans are QQing about mech so they want to buff it. Maybe they shouldn't have designed a game where turtling on 3 bases doesn't cut it anymore if they want to see mech tho
- Pylon overcharge: double cost (25 -> 50), increase duration by 33% (15 -> 20), increase damage by 50% (30 -> 45)

nope

WCS arrives, IPL disappears, NASL disappears, MLG is cut back immensely and later disappears, Dreamhack holds on for a couple of years but has dramatically slashed the number of tourneys it held this year, WCG lasted one more year before going under. We've not had a TSL for over three years. More or less the only thing that's survived at all outside of WCS events is IEM, the only thing of note that's been added is SSL, another top heavy donkament which does nothing for the scene worldwide and next to nothing for most Korean pros either, unless you happen to bink it and take over half the entire prize pool.

Here's the best historical data I can find for Twitch, though...

December 2012: LoL #1, SC2 #2, Dota 2 #4
January 2013: LoL #1, Dota 2 #2, SC2 #3

Except for April (when SC2 was back to #2 over Dota), every other month in 2013 had the same top 3 ranking. I think the ded-game-ing of SC2 was already beginning by the end of 2012 (WCS started in April 2013) independently of anything Blizzard was doing; if anything, Blizz may have been trying to preempt it by introducing WCS.

I only got into SC2 in mid-2012, when I think the transition to LoL being the most popular was happening, and I remember people telling me that when SC2 was at its peak, it was by far #1 at all times on Twitch. If that's true, then obviously SC2 was well into decline before Blizzard started meddling.

Hell, maybe all the ZvZ finals (DH Bucharest, GSL S5, MLG Dallas, Iron Squid II, IPL5, HSC6, and 2013 GSL S1 all had ZvZ finals between Oct 2012-Mar 2013 - half of all premier tournaments in that timeframe) killed it and we can just blame David Kim.

No liberator change? Hmm..

Everything else seems fine, Z is pretty out of control right now.

I'm slightly furious that they decided to have Homestory Cup on the weekend where half the world is at their absolute busiest.

Destiny Huk cast too good.

TL with a good article about the downsides of the new system

I used to feel the same way you did Goofy back during WoL. I always wanted to watch the best matchup possible and I hated when tournaments were handicapped for foreigners.

Now I kind of see the appeal of watching foreigners play against each other. It's fun in a different way. We still get to see high level matches, but we also get to see the guys we watch stream and bm each other all the time play too.

Like MLG pre Koreans with Kiwikaki and his mothership stuff was pretty fun too. That's gone now though.

any 2p2ers on europe?
i played a bit in WOL getting back into sc2 now, but don't have any sc2 friends =(

totalbiscuit tweeted a quick audio blog earlier today on the WCS changes which seems fairly relevant and insightful

It's 25 minutes long - is there a transcript? I'm sure his insights are great but I can't possibly be arsed to listen to something that long. WTF is with him and audio blogs instead of typing **** out?

i'd write cliffs, but light has started playing brood war again, so along with free and zero that's most of stars (**** soulkey, and especially **** shy)

I like those guys

Im getting back into sc2 as well and i dont want to see foriegners play, I want to see top level koreans playing against each other. Ive been catching up on the ESL rerun stream and watching foreigners **** up left and right vs koreans really reinforces this for me. Watching foreigners play is like watching college basketball/football....and who wants to see that ****.

To the point of why starcraft died:

It became incredibly boring to watch a 30 min game over and over and over. It would be 10 mins into every game and nothing had happened. People complained about cheese being too strong, and then blizzard introduced gigantic maps and ****, thats what ruined it for me.

Code A starts Jan 8, matches are set:

soO vs Trust
ByuL vs aLive
Sorry vs Cure
Dream vs HyuN
GuMiho vs Dark
Forte vs BrAvO
Trap vs Shine
DeParture vs Stats
Bbyong vs 이원주 (unknown/teamless Zerg?)
Bomber vs Seed
TY vs Patience
TaeJa vs Blaze
Sacsri vs HerO
Dear vs sOs
KeeN vs Journey
Hurricane vs Soulkey
Reality vs SpeeD
Creator vs Armani
Life vs Bunny
Impact vs Solar
Classic vs jjakji
RagnaroK vs Super
Billowy vs Rogue
ByuN vs Curious
Leenock vs Jaedong
Maru vs Zest (!!!)
Hush vs DongRaeGu
INnoVation vs Stork
Losira vs Choya
Symbol vs TRUE

The teamless guy had a walkover against MarineKing, lost to Reality, and beat Ryung to qualify. Qualifying was pretty easy, there were like 90 players in the qualifier with 60 Code A spots available. Notable names who tried to qualify and failed:

MC (lost to Super 2-0 and Departure 2-1)
JYP (lost to Soo 2-0 and Armani 2-1)
Arthur (lost to horror 2-1 in opening elimination round, then horror lost to Ragnarok and Alive)
Ryung (lost to sOs 2-0 and new teamless Zerg 2-1)
TheStc (lost to Zest 2-1 and to DRG 2-1)
Tails (lost to Dark 2-0 and to Symbol 2-0)
Some Swiss Zerg named Elroye came very close (lost 2-1 to Life and 2-1 to Shine, winning either series would have put him in)
Daisy (lost to Apocalypse 2-1 in opening elimination round, then Apoc lost to Trap and Choya)

Also, TL had previously reported that Shine was retiring and would be the new GSL observer. Yet, he qualified for Code A. So, that's weird.

I really hate that it if I fire up twitch on any given day there are no good/entertaining streamers on. I have to watch boring people I've never heard of or Maximus Black who as at no point in his career been able to beat me. So I'm either bored or frustrated by bad play. One potential good of encouraging foreigners to play is to re-breathe some life into the domestic streaming game.

do all the sc2 koreans use twitch or do some use afreeca?

is this the same shine that in brood war went hydra all-ins vs protoss every single game and it worked precisely never, apart from against bisu?

While I know nothing firsthand of Brood War, from what I've read on TL, yes, that is him.