WCS America Qualifiers: A Chance to Shine [Part One]
Late last year Blizzard officially announced the changes they would be making to the World Championship Series (WCS) in 2014. After an exciting 2013 season which ended with SoS taking home the crown at the year-end finals over JaeDong, Blizzard have made many changes to the format of WCS that they believe are for the better. As with every change everyone will have their own opinion, which is why we’ve interviewed a few players below. Part Two will feature interviews with members of the community!
Before jumping into the interview questions here is a summary of the changes Blizzard have made:
Format: From an overlapping Challenger and Premier league in which it was easy to lose track of who was playing and which league was which in the previous season, we will now see a clearly defined and separated system that's played out in sequential order for easier understanding by viewers and players alike.
Challenger League will now involve 32 players, 16 from qualifiers and 16 who dropped from the previous season’s Premier league. A Bo5 between a qualifier and a demoted player will determine the 16 player going up to premier league for that season. These series of matches will be done the beginning of the season and will be followed by the Premier league group stages.
The improved format makes it easier for those viewers who tune in every now and then to keep track of where the tournament is at and make sure they watch the important end of season matches.
No Season Finals: Blizzard’s main reason for the removal of Season Finals is because they believed that the Season Finals “created a situation where top finishers from the region who made a Global Final and performed well for a weekend were able to quickly pull ahead in rankings and prize money.”
This is so it is more rewarding for players who do well in a lengthy league style of play rather than those who play well for one weekend. Blizzard still hopes to work with partners to schedule and showcase a couple of major WCS Global events in 2014 to show off the skill of the top level players.
Points and Money: Blizzard have decided to change the amount of points rewarded to the player who comes first in each region by raising it from 1500 points to 2000 points. This is to account for the lack of Season Finals in 2014, by making sure that players are rewarded for their high placing instead of qualifying for the season finals and having the opportunity to earn more points there.
Money distribution has also been changed in the 2014 season to once again make up for the lack of Seasonal Finals. Blizzard has increased the prize pool for each region with Korea receiving an increase of roughly $50,000 US dollars where as both America and Europe are receiving an increase of $31,000 US dollars. Blizzard have stated that Korea receive a higher increase in the prize pool than the other regions due to its unarguably increased difficulty.
Schedule: For WCS in 2014 the 3 seasons will take up approximately 10 weeks each, with about a 6 week break in between Premier League seasons to leave space for global partnership events such as IEM and Dreamhack.
Between the format and schedule changes, there is a lot more free time for organisations outside WCS to plan events without worrying about overlap, giving players more chances to play.
The 10 week season consists of the regional qualifier cups, Bo5 Challenger matches, group stage 1, group stage 2 and finally the Regional Season Finals. With the season finals able to be completed over a weekend, this leaves 9 weeks for 4 stages. Presumably, the regional qualifiers will take up 3 weeks, with the next 3 stages taking 2 weeks each.
Broadcasts: The focus of broadcasting will be on the Premier League and will be broadcast by NASL for the North American region, ESL for European and GomTV for the GSL. Broadcasts of both the Challenger league as well as regional qualifiers will need to be organised directly by the NASL or ESL, and the community is allowed to broadcast these stages as well.
Region Lock: With the New Year comes a partial region lock system for the new WCS. By partial region lock, Blizzard means that there are still opportunities for players not in the region, but these players will need to get in through the ladder qualification process.
For the North American region, Blizzard has recognised that other regions play a lot on this server and have doled out positions accordingly, with 8 spots for NA/LA, 2 for China, 2 for SEA/Oceania, 2 for Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau and 2 ladder positions.
In the European side of things, 12 spots are available for Europe/Africa/Middle East and 4 positions on the ladder.
GSL’s system will return to the Code B qualifiers for a Code A feeder tournament into Code S.
With the partial region locking, more positions have been made available for local players; giving the region’s players a better chance of reaching their respective Premier leagues.
Ladder Qualification: Ladder wildcards are a new implementation made by Blizzard that they hope will promote ladder play whilst giving local players another opportunity to enter WCS.
The idea of a ladder wildcard is to help promote ladder play on each player’s region, giving other every day ladderer’s the chance to play some of the best players in the world. Ladder wildcards are only available for the America and Europe regions. The American region offers 2 players the opportunity to enter WCS whereas the European region offers 4 players the opportunity. To qualify to be chosen as a ladder wildcard a player must have at least 200 ladder wins on the home region ladder in the season leading up to the ladder wildcard deadline.
Return of GSL: GSL! The once pivotal premier event in all of Starcraft has returned with a thirst for vengeance. After previously sharing WCS Korea with OGN, GomTV will once again be taking the reins of the Korean region and reverting back to their tried and tested format of GSL.
GSL will go back to using its classic league definitions of Code S, Code A and Qualifiers. This is to show the independence that Blizzard have given GomTV for the GSL.
GSL will continue to use their former format and have 24 players fall out of Code S each season to take on 24 new qualifiers in Code A in each season. This is different from both the American and European formats as they only have 16 players fall out of Premier league down to Challenger league per season. Code A will also feature group stages which differ from the up-and-down matches that America and Europe will use in 2014.
Whilst OGN is no longer going to be coinciding with GomTV and running WCS Korea, OGN will have the “rights to run both StarCraft and StarCraft II tournaments alongside WCS and will be able to run WCS global events that offer WCS points.” So, for those who will miss OGN, there is still a chance that they will be seen throughout the 2014 season.
We asked a few professional players for their opinions on a range of issues to do with WCS. Overall the consensus seems to be positive. Given how WCS America qualifiers have gone recently, we hope there are no problems with administration or ambiguous sign up rulings that will take away from the positivity surrounding our region’s heroes’ chances at WCS glory.
The format for the SEA/Oceania WCS qualifiers has been shared with players and viewers alike. How do you feel about the 2 stage Qualifier and the deep prize pool distribution for top 8?
FlashBlysk: I feel good about the format of course since I'm seeded haha. But generally it's a pretty fair format as long as both stages are double elimination. Top 8 prize pool distribution is always fair so it's perfectly fine. After all we still have SCS points to claim for doing well and getting into RO 16.
Fray'Fenner: I think the prize pool distribution is absolutely amazing. It's rare to get that kind of prize pool in SEA and just for a qualifier... The SEA scene is finally getting to taste what it's like to have support from Blizzard once again. It's also going to push people to work harder imo, I know it definitely makes me want to get into that top 8 really, really badly!
RootPetraeus: I feel pretty confident going into stage 2. With 3 seeds into WCS I don't really see myself not getting a spot. PiG and iaguz are always troublesome and KingKong will completely dominate if he actually practices but aside from that I don't think there is a lot of competition. I don't like risks so I think I'll be more comfortable playing with the current prize pool distribution; however I value the seeds a lot more.
x5 PiG:The qualifier seems to be well planned with invites given to high performing favorites as well as an open qualifier giving the chance for anyone to make a name for themselves and break into the pro scene. I hope to win the tournament so the selfish part of me wishes that more of the pool was devoted to first place. However looking at it objectively I know that having a wider prize spread gives more incentive for more players to practice hard and compete, this the best way to support a competitive environment within the region.
In 2013, SEA/Oceania received nothing from the system. Do you think the opportunities the WCS system gives us in 2014 is fair given the size of our region? In other words, are 3 spots to Challenger League (with a strong possibility of facing a Korean in the ups and downs next) fair for our region?
Blysk: I believe it is 3 seeds first season and not sure 1 or 2 seed for 2nd season onwards? 3 seeds is amazingly great, it gives us such a huge opportunity to showcase and bring awareness to the international scene about SEA. 2 is still fair, but if it were only 1 seed than it is a little bit frustrating. But I do agree 2014 does give a fairer distribution in opportunity to regions and not totally disregarding SEA.
NXZ: I think this is a vast improvement over the old format, granted it’s still not the perfect exposure that we'd like to see. If enough interest can be drawn to the Challenger matches where we'll get the Korean (probably for the first few seasons) vs Foreigner rivalry across a single match which I think is a significantly easier task to overcome than waking up at 4am and waiting hours for matches against strong competition. I think we will 100% see at least 1 SEA player in the Premier League for each season if only to not make top 16.
Petraeus: I'd say they are more than fair. Not only is it not our region but we have a much smaller competitive scene than America so 3 spots is generous in my opinion.
PiG: Well in 2013 Glade did get an invite in Season 1 and had a great run! Petraeus also qualified in Season 3, though this year’s changes meant he was dropped from Challenger. We weren't guaranteed anything though so this year's changes are a nice move forward for us. Having 3 spots in Challenger is great for us and quite generous considering the size of our region, when compared to how many spots the Americas and China got. I would love to see a system that supports more local competition rather than being swamped with Koreans but considering the way it's organised overall, SEA has been dealt a good hand.
What do you think about having to play only 1 best-of-5 series to qualify for Premier League?
Blysk: That's really cool in my opinion. If you get lucky, of course. However it's a little unfair if you were to face a top player and fall out just because of a bad draw. Perhaps they should re-use the GSL bracket system to determine the 2 people moving on to Premier? We will see how WCS decides to change and mold their system, they do tend to like to change it throughout the seasons.
Fenner: Whoa 1 bo5? I didn't realize it was like that. That sounds a bit crazy, I just expected the same or very similar system to last season. I'm not sure if I like the idea of it, since if you just get 1 opponent that you're bad against then you could get knocked out even if you're really high skill - but you're just weak against that specific opponents play-style. Generally though, in a bo5 the better player does almost always win, so I'd like to see how it plays out.
Petraeus: Its extremely coinflippy but it could very well give me a higher chance of qualifying so I'll save my complaints until I see my opponent.
PiG: It's a bit of a harsh system where there is a lot of luck in who you're matched with. But it will reward good preparation and studying opponents.
We all know who the likely top contenders will be for the top 3 spots in SEA. Who do you think is a potential dark horse?
Blysk: Really? You know? I don't even know! If you were asking about people who aren't seeded, I really can't answer, I feel like I've been focusing on myself so much more than looking at other players that I don't know who's good and who isn't.
Fenner: Hmmm. This is a tough one actually. I think someone that people may not know too much about but is getting really good right now is DemiLove, an Indian Zerg player who is practicing an incredible amount and improving rapidly. Then the other I could think of that would also be considered a dark horse if he won I guess, would be Lobo... Pretty strong Protoss getting some nice results in smaller tournaments right now. With that said, while they would be my picks, I really do think that the people that qualify will not be unexpected people. People already in Stage 2 are so strong.
Petraeus: Lobo. He's the Singaporean Hitman.
PiG: There's a few potential dark horses but I'm not really sure how much SEA mainstays like Rossi and Ninja have been practicing. I'd like to see some completely unknown or under-rated players breaking into the top 8. Pezz, Myuu, Fenner, Megafonzie, Pokerface and Surge all could cause upsets and place highly. Oh and Blysk! Blysk did really well in the recent Masters Cup, taking down some great players. I think he'll show some very strong games.
How do you feel about the other changes to WCS 2014 overall?
Fenner: Honestly I was happy with the previous format and also happy with the way they're taking it. I can see the pros and cons for both sides of the argument... Having the best players vs having local talent. Personally I just love to see the best players so I wouldn't have minded if it was left how it was. But at the same time it will be cool to see which foreigners can rise up. Both ways work in my opinion, they're just different. I think most people do prefer the direction it's going now though.
I’m more happy that they brought SEA back on board.
NXZ: Whilst I think that Blizzard still hasn't reached the perfect balance for format but I think it has improved somewhat. As a fan I didn't like the Season Finals because it felt like it invalidated Blizzcon as the year ending event. Now, with it removed the whole America vs Europe vs Korea stories are much more interesting, it’s still not quite as hype inducing as the League of Legends' LCS but it’s an improvement nonetheless.
On the other hand I think that the changes to Challenger are a, let’s say, an interesting way of approaching the Korean domination of the so called America region. Ladder wildcard spots, even if taken by Koreans encourage those "beatable for a a good American" level Koreans to play more on the American ladder which will help raise the skill of the ladder, in my eyes at least. 200 wins may end up not being enough though, depending on the time period allowed for those wins. As a professional player, this would be very achievable in maybe 2 weeks which might not be enough.
Petraeus: I think they are heading the right direction. I don't have any major complaints or issues with the system.
PiG: I believe the 2014 WCS system is a small step up from 2013. The advantages are quite clear in having our own qualifiers for WCS in SEA on our time zone, no longer having to wake up at 4am to compete in brackets filled with rogue Koreans as well as the Chinese and American hopefuls. Just qualifying to Challenger also gives a minimum prize of $600 so at least $1200 each season (2 SEA qualifiers after season 1) combined with the money Blizzard is putting into our qualifying tournaments of $2500 = at least $3700 coming into SEA each season, even if our players drop out of Challenger immediately. I just hope the qualifiers remain a big deal like this first one with similar or hopefully even larger prize pools!
The main issue with the system is that whilst the path into Challenger is made easier, there is now even less chance to gain exposure for sponsors once there. Challenger league is now easier to follow for viewers and the games are much more important but a single best of 5 set can be incredibly brutal as qualifiers are always matched with Premier League drop-outs. The vast majority of these are Koreans and so there will be a lot of finger-crossing by players hoping to get one of the few "favourable" drop-outs. Ultimately the path in and out of Challenger has opened up, but the Koreans already dominating the league will take years to 'bleed out' and significantly change the composition of WCS America Premier league.
Starcraft is no LoL. There is no protection of regional competition and so the most elite eSport has become one of the harshest proving grounds for non-Korean gamers. My path has changed from that of the lush meadows of 2012 to a harsh desert, but I am not demoralised, I am simply forced to dig deeper within myself to reach my goals.
The map pool for WCS has just recently been released, what are your thoughts on the maps?
Blysk: Interesting maps to say the least. Blizzard has fulfilled their goal to make it diverse that's for sure. But Daedalus Point is utter bull**** for Protoss, any Protoss would agree. Other than maybe Hitman ^.~
Fenner: Aaaah man I love and hate them at the same time. I love them because I really do think that they force people to come up with new strategies, they force people to play differently, use different openers. Previous map pool I was literally just using the same build on every map and vetoing Alterzim. Now with the new map pool I really think you need to have different strategies for different maps, which is amazing for the game - more flavour, yo. So why do I hate them? Well, this just comes from wanting to win, since I do need to come up with new ways to play on certain maps it means that I need to put a lot more into strategy which wasn't previously needed. You know what after typing that sentence I feel like I shouldn't hate them, that's a good thing right? Just need to work harder!
Petraeus: I haven't had enough experience on the new maps to have any opinions but since I'll be playing mostly ZvZ in the SEA qualifiers I'm not too worried.
PiG: When I first heard this I got pretty mad that the maps just got released on ladder and are already being used for a tournament. However, after playing for a few days and enjoying the maps (especially Daedelus lol!) I don't have any qualms. I should be familiar with them by the time of the tournament. Daedelus is very zerg-friendly, Heavy-Rain demands multitasking and Habitation station is relatively straight-up. I'm completely fine with all of these factors.
Bonus question for Petraeus - Do you think your current living situation gives you an advantage over the other SEA players or will the lag and time zones be a big disadvantage?
Petraeus: The lag definitely won't be an issue as I have better ping to SEA from the US than I did from NZ to NA. US is ahead in time so there’s no way the time zones will be an issue either. No excuses for me sadly. [Editor's note: It starts at roughly 7-8PM for Pet]
Stage 1 - Online Open Qualifier Stage
Date: Saturday 11th January 2014
Time: 11.30am for 12pm start AEDT
Stage 2 - Round of 16
Date: Sunday 12th January 2014
Time: 12.30pm for 1pm start AEDT
Contributors:-
WCS 2014 Summary: x5 Daehfeurd/Potthead
Interviews: x5 Stormz
Editing: x5 Dot
All StarCraft 2 images are the property of Blizzard Entertainment
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