I want to write up a few words on why I believe in the new WCS system and why I think its something very positive and important for the future of StarCraft 2.

Opening

Right now, Legacy of the Void is now 1 month old, our new beautiful game, is by far the best version of StarCraft 2 that we have seen over the years (Dreamhack and Nationwars have been completely epic). I feel Legacy is the perfect platform for such a change to our ecosystem. This game is what we will stay on as StarCraft fans for many years to come and is the perfect time to shape our future. We have reshaped our game, now lets reshape how the eSports world around it works.

Over the last few years, WCS has taken steps in the right direction to try to be what it was intended to be when first released. It was meant to have been an ecosystem that can operate successfully outside of the well established Korean scene, an emulation of GSL.

Lets be honest, it didn’t pan out as intended, it initially hurt our scene, as many people thought the 2012 WCS style was great which allowed Koreans to continue to operate alone in Korea, while the rest of the world took each other on (2012 WCS EU Finals, so epic).

When 2013 WCS was released, we hurt the Korean scene in multiple ways, one was by taking star players to play in WCS (MMA/MC/Nestea/Mvp), we then also took opportunity away from players outside of Korea, (look at what we did to the NA scene….). On top of that, we indirectly hurt a lot of streamers/community run tournaments (conflicts/viewers prioritising regular WCS streams) even premier tournaments suffered in viewership because of how important WCS Premier League had begun. It was the only thing that mattered.

The new WCS system takes the best things from the last 5years of StarCraft 2, combining them together to create the ideal system.

A few things which the new WCS gives us back again:

1. Multiple opportunities for players, 11 events with travel support to players from all around the world.

2. StarCraft is going back to having multiple hyped up large events like we had in 2011/2012.

3. Opportunities to create magic moments (WCS 2012 EU Finals, WCS 2015 Krakow Finals - two of the closely memories to my heart.

4. Blizzard will support multiple organisations now, they can join WCS events, gaining $$$ and player support to their events.

5. A real reason for lesser skilled/known players to play. A reason for good players to keep playing. Ladder incentive, regional reasons, regional qualifiers for all events.



Think Golf/Tennis, when you think about the new WCS. (google their systems if you don’t know them)

My biggest and most favourite change is the opportunity that the new system provides. Over the last few years, there has only ever been 3 Seasons of WCS and if you did not qualify, why continue to play StarCraft, might as well stop playing and then start up again before the next season. With the new changes, there is almost 4x the opportunity, with events looking to rise up to 11 before Blizzcon. Last year, we saw Showtime rise up to the top of the scene in Season 1 only to lose to Elazer (Season 3 star of WCS) and that terribly hurt his career because he had to wait for so long for another chance. Same happened with Bunny in Season 3, we lost him early. Happened to a lot of players, these are just two examples. The new changes will keep everybody playing actively throughout the year and will push the competition and growth of the scene harder than ever before.



I think these changes are huge for the StarCraft scene outside of Korea and pushes it in the right direction, for growth. This will give it a long lasting life for many years to come because Blizzard are supporting the players, its scene, organizations. Also, without regular WCS studio shows, (that joined the regular Korean shows), this gives and allows room for regular content again, streamers, community tournaments.

Korea, however is not neglected in this system which makes this so perfect. They still hold Blizzards full support with increased prize pool all over, there will still be daily Proleague/GSL/Starleague/Kespa Cups/Hotsix cups and whatever else is run out there, so there will be no drought of high level SC2 action for us all, pretty much on demand. As well as the newly created GSL vs SSL champion battle.

Already in LotV, I personally, have had a fucking blast watching Dreamhack Winter and Nationwars. Working/commentating the awesome runs of Bly/Nerchio/Showtime at Dreamhack, watching Serral play at such a good level carrying Finland, was so amazing. Laughing at everything Huk did lol. It was a lot of fun.



I believe the new system, gives us the best of both Worlds, where we can still enjoy the highest level of StarCraft and reference our play/games to it on the planet through regular daily/weekly shows in Korea and the opportunity to find the new Serrals/Lilbows of the our World, that have been given very little chance to shine in the last few years.

I believe that the new system is going to be a great success and we need to trust and support Blizzard and their partners with this change. We were all very sceptical with how LotV would turn out undergoing so many drastic changes and look where we are now! I believe these changes to WCS will have a similar effect, I wish I could time travel to mid 2016 and see how well this system will be running and to read all your comments, thanking Blizzard undergoing big changes to change the look of WCS.

I am looking forward to 2016, see you on the other side and lets have a great year, cheers!