[crAzerk]

it would be frustrating for a GPD player to go all the way to the final only to get stomped by some masters + guy that decided it would be fun to win something

Sounds like me this week LOL.

Anyway regarding the OP, I never understood the logic of including Koreans in our local tournaments (When I say local I mean SEA/ANZ). The argument of 'higher calibre matches' and 'stimulate improvement among our players' is easily refuted by what Shortizz said, in that if players wanted to improve, they would play on KR server, etc. And they do.

I absolutely agree with what Eddie has done with the Master's Cup. In case you are too lazy to click, the new rule implemented is that non-SEA/ANZ residents are only allowed to participate in every 3rd Masters Cup.

Perhaps the CO and any regular tournament we have can be also adjusted as such - that every month, one of it will be an 'Open' category as many have mentioned here, but most of the time it is only restricted to local participants.

Quick Comments

Mayo:

<3

[Nobunaga]

What would be interesting if we actually accepted more Koreans into the SEA scene. Maybe not immediately, but gradually. They live so close to us, I feel it's an untapped advantage that the US and EU scenes won't get.

Maybe have a monthly "beat the Korean" tournament, where we invite a Korean pro-player to face off against several SEA players. Maybe have a tournament to determine who gets to fight it out?

[Tom]

Looks like the weight of opinion is against me, but I must say I don't see the issue. I mean sure, we can lock out Korean professionals (or non-Korean professionals for that matter), and allow our local guys to be big fish in a little pond.

I am going to say something that may be unpopular, but I hope those who have known me long enough will forgive my honesty. Now, I occasionally watch the odd local SEA tournament stream out of mild curiosity as to "who's who" in the local scene. But when I think "eSports", I go straight to GSL, MLG etc. Quite frankly, I don't bother with SEA tournaments because (and I say this purely as a social SC2 player and spectator) the standard is not that high.

What I love is when I can get up early and watch JazBas making it through the brackets at BlizzCon, or PiG playing the best in the world at IEM. And this brings me to my point about SEA tournaments. As a spectator, what I want to see are local players battling it out with top talent. Any local gamer who aspires to be a "professional" should be able to go head to head with real Korean pro gamers (we're not necessarily taking GSL Code S players here, just a solid pro level gamer). I don't mean "beat" (but that would be good), but put up a real fight - give me a good show.

So, I say bring on the Korean pro gamers in local tournaments. As I said, these guys aren't Code S players - in pro gaming terms, they are "competent" but not stars. Any SEA player who dreams of being a pro gamer should be able to "bring it" to a competent Code A or Code B player. If they can't, they are unfortunately, a big fish in a small pond. And watching that kind of "eSport" does not interest me.

But this doesn't mean there shouldn't be small prize money local tournaments for local players

There needs to be a place for up and coming players, or just a tournament where you know you can play without getting whaled by the big fish. Now I would have thought market forces sorts this out rather nicely. Social tournament - small prize money - not worth a professional player's time. If I am wrong in this, and pro gamers are signing up for tournaments with (lets say) $50 prize money, then perhaps a prize pool cap would be justified. If so-called pro gamers are signing up for $50 tournaments, however, that raises a lot of questions for me. Not least of of these is, if it takes say 2-3 hours to win a tournament, and the prize pool is $50, isn't it time to quit SC2 and get a job at Maccas?

[aLtMrFool]

I feel that this is the same for low masters players where they just feel discouraged from joining masters cup or even ESL for that reason.

I have experienced it first hand before and it really destroys the competitiveness and will to get better in you. This is because in ESL and masters cup low masters players are often paired with GM players and GM players obviously beat low masters..

Back some months when I'm in low masters, I would lose to high GMs on the first round of most tournaments and its really discouraging.. Each time I lose on the first round, I just felt less and less like playing to improve because there would be such low chance of me ever winning in any tourny which involves masters and GMs together..

Now I'm high masters and have a better chance against most GMs and I actually feel more confident and motivated to play in such tournaments for the chance ( which is now bigger but crushed utterly by Strafe on the first round in the recent ESL.. Yea first round high GM again but I don't care about it as much as last time when I get utterly crushed within 15 minutes of game start, at least I live longer now and in certain occasions in the game where I had a chnace to win but didn't know obly until I watch the replay).

So what I'm trying to say is that, having top korean pros topping most tournaments in SEA is very demoralising for those aspiring pros to be. If the aim was for there to be exposure to the SEA scene, an invitational tournament would be much better won't it? Let our pros get the confidence and motivation to improve and then the second step to invite koreans.

* The SEA scene is still very young and letting koreans own their tournament seems like rushing it if the reason is to promote SEA scene.

** Picture this: Admist the singapore soccer scene, add an EPL team in and every other season, we see that team at the top. Will you people lose interest in the scene? ( Not that I have any interest in the soccer scene but maybe this analogy would reach out to some people better )

In conclusion, I will agree with letting SEA people duke it out more often against each other while we're young and having korean pros once in awhile. Why rush trying to boast our scene when we still aren't close to them? SEA e sports scene is far from matured, give it time to mature before pushing it out.

TLDR: I totally agree with eddie's new rules and it should be somewhat extended to SEA tournaments. I'm not trying to shut out all korean pros from duking it out with SEA's top, it just shouldn't happen every tournament or else sponsors and viewers will start losing interest because a big dog is chewing everyone else apart! For the better of SEA esports.

MrFool.439,
Signing off!

[TADivinity]

Everything that OP / glade / frogmite / rossi etc have said - cant disagree with at all. Eddie has got it right imo too with the Masters cup.

Honestly, look at the numbers in ESL every week compared to what it used to be. Surely that shows the 'benefit' of the KRs being in SEA tourny's...