The Australian Cyber League has recently announced a partnership with Blizzard in making some notable changes to WCS Season 3. Prior to these changes WCS America ran online Oceania/SEA qualifiers in order to give our region a direct (reflecting our population and player base), yet homogenous, opportunity to qualify for the biggest and most prestigious Starcraft II league (or tournament, whatever you want to call it) in the world. Many people have expressed their discontent with these changes and some with good reason. Before going into my dialectical, I want to preface by stating I hope I make no arrant assumptions regarding the organizational process undertaken by ACL and Blizzard ANZ. Those individuals involved are professionals with years of experience and I do not profess the hubris to presume to know all the facts that went into this decision.
With that out of the way, LET US BEGIN!
The changes.
The changes are simple. One online qualifier, one LAN qualifier, bringing us to a total of 2 players invited to play in WCS America (clearly, the numbers have not changed). ACL Online Round 3 in June will transform into the WCS online qualifier and ACL Sydney in July will become the respective LAN qualifier. 1st place in each earns a spot (In the case of the winner being the same in both, Baldie stipulated that 2nd place from ACL Sydney will get the spot, it makes sense chronologically).
If we cut it down what does this actually mean for our region? People in SEA/Oceania are unique (to my knowledge) of having two WCS qualifiers in different formats (i.e. 1 LAN, 1 online). This is not a difficult concept but the implications of this change are multifaceted
The problems…and answers?
Problem 1: The overseas hopes (Iaguz, Petraeus, MightyKiwi, and others).
The first complication of replacing an online qualifier for a LAN event are the difficulties that arise for players currently overseas long term (to my memory PiG will be in Europe during ACL Sydney as well). As logic would have it, the best players get the best opportunities. Players like Iaguz, Pet and PiG are extremely talented and as a result are privileged in living overseas in team houses, training with other pros giving them a geographical opportunity to compete in NA and EU events. Obviously these players are not morons and realized that by leaving their home region they would be relinquishing a place at local and national LANs (such as ACL).
To argue “they knew what they were doing in going overseas” is facile. Nobody knew until the 19th of May 2014 that Blizzard ANZ would cooperate with ACL to subtract an online qualifier spot for the biggest Starcraft II league and replace it with a LAN. Considering the status of WCS in the Starcraft II scene I can only assume that this event is the one most featured in the minds of professional players. However, it appears to me this LAN idea indirectly punishes players who went overseas for the very purpose of improving in order to better compete in events JUST LIKE WCS (which has now unintentionally subverted their efforts). Permit me to elaborate why it is hampering players overseas. Losing the extra spot to a LAN means overseas competitors lose a chance at making WCS America. As I understand the WCS system you cannot compete in two regional qualifiers (i.e. if you compete in WCS EU qualifiers, you cannot compete in WCS KR). If Iaguz did hypothetically play in the online qualifier he would automatically restrict himself from playing in a WCS America qualifier (which I believe he is permitted to do because he currently resides in the USA). This effectively gives him and those like him 1 shot at qualifying whereas those lucky enough to still be in Australia will receive 2 attempts. You could say “toughen up and pick a region, SEA is easier but the risk is higher” but I don’t believe this line of reasoning is conducive to improving SEA E-sports because it unwittingly degrades the legitimacy of our region. It would inevitably mean our best players would become absorbed by NA and hence leave us with 2 charity spots which would amount to absolutely nothing.
A possible solution could be to give special permission to those players stuck in this bind to play in 1 online qualifier for WCS Oceania/SEA and 1 for WCS America. This gives them the same number of attempts / spots as everybody else and eliminates the travel problem. Whether or not the logistics are possible, I don’t know, I’m just spit balling. If this was possible it would (in my eyes) completely solve the issue at hand. Feel free to tear this apart, I’m not entirely up to date with the specific rules of WCS, I may have made some grievous errors.
Problem 2: The tyranny of distance.
Moving closer to home.
Australia is big, I mean REALLY big. People here often don’t appreciate our sheer size when you compare it to countries in Europe. We have almost the same landmass as North America! What this implies is long, and often expensive, travel times. Few of the Starcraft II talent is privileged with sponsors that pay for interstate travel to attend events like ACL Sydney and this absolutely poses a problem.
Side note: If any of you dare cry that the players good enough to qualify at ACL Sydney are all sponsored please think again. A Player such as Fenner (who for the sake of respect I don’t wish to discount) is not supported by any organizations at present but is undoubtedly a player who can take games off anybody in our region. Having a lot of skill does not necessarily mean you will be financially ensured to go anywhere.
Flying from Perth to Sydney is expensive. Not everybody has the money to fly interstate, less players means less diversity and less diversity will mean different results. It would be foolish of me to suggest we only host a tournament where EVERYBODY in sc2sea can attend but to argue that this WCS spot will be given to the regions “best” (or second best…your call) is tenuous at best. This problem is very similar to the one I addressed earlier however I cannot think of a logical solution which wouldn’t be confounding. I’ll leave this one as unsolved.
Problem 3: OSC Comparison, representation of regional talent.
I feel like I am just bashing on Eddie 24/7 but I really don’t mean to. He made this comment in the thread on this topic.
“If you look at upcoming ACL Brisbane, I think there will only be 6 out of the top 32 players attending, Sydney might have a couple more, but still doesn’t represent regional talent.” (http://www.sc2sea.com/showpost.php?p=167515&postcount=15)
OSC DOES NOT give us an accurate representation of regional talent if you look purely at the numbers. In the top 32 alone we have 10 players who aren’t even from SEA (the further down the list the more boat people we have). Allow me to do the math regarding how ACL Sydney will be represented in terms of “regional talent”. Ok screw the math, if people want the math I can show them later, this post is getting long enough as it is. I estimate 10 of the top 32 (that’s top 32 WITH people like HuK and Catz) would attend… if we replace the foreign spots with people ACTUALLY FROM SEA the number only rises. On that note I think ACL Sydney will be a fairly good representation of SEA talent. Maybe not perfect, but what LAN event that doesn’t pay for competitor flights is?
Problem 4: A different perspective?
Maybe we are just all looking at this from the wrong angle. Everybody is looking at this short term.
“This is a bad idea because for this 1 specific season of WCS one of our best players MIGHT not make it through…”
If I was to argue for the absolute integrity of the tournament I suppose this could be a fair argument but in the grand scheme of things this is just ONE WCS spot in ONE WCS event. Things will change.
You know what I focus on? A GOD DAMN BLIZZARD SPONSORED LAN GUYS! HAVEN’T HAD ONE OF THESE SINCE 2012!!!!!!!!! That excites me. The Australian LAN scene excites me. I would prefer Australia (and elsewhere in SEA) develop their LAN scenes even at the expense of representation on the global scale (well…maybe not entirely). In this specific situation…I think this is a step forward for SEA.
A thought…
Does anybody remember WCS Oceania / Australia in 2012? Perhaps my memory is failing me but the concept seems awfully similar, just reduced. All the qualifiers for the event were done via LAN events around the country, the best players were invited to compete in Sydney for spots in the WCS global finals (I think that was it). MaFia and Moonglade where the two players who made it right? So that isn’t so different. The key difference of course is the fact they had LANs all over the joint which I suppose negates the problem of distance…unless you live in Alice Springs. Just something I wanted to touch on…I like to think of this as a mini return to that tournament š
Thanks for reading, also thanks to SLCN.Law for helping me think out what I was going to write about. Give him a follow on twitter @sc2Law
No Strings Here... 