

I like theorycrafting about things and I am bored, hence, I am going to write a blog on possible adjustments I would like to see for WCS 2014. These ideas are not entirely thought through, I’m sure with the right argument I could be convinced other ways, these are more just random thoughts to encourage more thinking, its very difficult to make the perfect suggestion because no one on the outside really knows how much money Blizzard is investing in WCS, and how they want to change that amount in the future, some of my ideas would cost more money, some would save a lot etc.



Alright, let’s jump right in:



WCS EU/AM

WCS RO32 will be played offline (2013 WCS regular season EU/AM has 6 days of ‘top tier’ content, with RO32 offline it would be at least 14 days depending how you structure playoffs)

There would be at most 2 WCS Premiere League groups in 1 week, so the RO32 + RO16 group stages would take 6 weeks

WCS EU and AM would be reduced to two seasons, Spring and Summer (or whatever you want). Feb-May and June-Oct roughly.

WCS EU and AM will be region locked to players living within that region (with exceptions made for those living in Oceania + other regions without competition)

Challlenger League will be revamped, at very least the RO40 will be an elimination round. So per season, so 20 players will be eliminated as opposed to the current 8, which will allow more mobility, if I had more time to theorycraft I would also explore the option of having multiple instances of qualification/relegation during the longer season (ie rounds of qualifiers in Feb as well as March for Season 1), so within the 4 month season there would be multiple opportunities for players to get inside of the WCS system. I haven’t looked at it too much, but with only 2 seasons it becomes very important to have a lot of possibility for movement and ease of access for new players to premiere league

Challenger League qualification would be tied to the ladder in some form, possibly even direct seed to premiere league through the ladder

Change current RO8 format to allow players at least 1 night of prep time, WCS EU/AM semi finals/finals would take place at a more 'major’ venue (Either independent venue, or a location like Gamescom, DH Summer, etc. Possibly use challenger matches where winner goes to premiere league as 'undercard matches’ for a longer broadcast/etc)

KOREA

Korea will no longer will have a regular league running known as WCS, Korea will return to have GSL and OSL running their own formats as chosen, with as many GSLs/OSLs as OGN and GOM see fit. I would imagine 2-5 GSL and OSL each per year. (similiar to how for League there is no LCS in Korea, but it is still connected)

GSL/OSL will still give points, and seed into Grand Slams, details would depend on how many GSL/OSL

GRAND SLAMS

There will only be 2 Grand Slams, 1 in EU and 1 in NA

Top 4 would qualify per region, as well as 'wild card’ slots earned in the Grand Slam for winning events such as DH, IEM, MLG, etc, 16 players, similar format to past events (edit: DH/IEM/etc tournaments would still award WCS Points, I’d probably remove T2 events as the points don’t seem very meaningful, maybe some adjustments with more tiers, I dunno)



Wishlist

Ingame access to replays binded to your account for subscriptions

Ingame portrait, soundpack, etc available for subscriptions

More sponsorship money coming in (Title sponsorship for WCS EU/AM regular seasons Steelseries WCS EU 2014 Spring Season, etc)

I’m sure I could come out with some other random ideas given more time, but I think these ideas are pretty solid, I think WCS needs to be more spread out, Season 2 for WCS AM/EU was one week of 'premiere’ content with players offline etc, and the rest of it was 'meh’ content with games played online, I think these matches should be spread out more. I think the Grand Slam at Gamescom was the high light of WCS so far, so I think these events should be built up more, I think it doesn’t work in Korea as well, so I think its fine to straight up remove the Grand Slam from Korea. Per EU/NA then, we have 2 regional finals, and 1 global finals, so 3 major non studio events per year, which leaves plenty of room for external operators, and by giving wild card seeds for Grand Slams these become even more important. Region lock speaks for itself, its hard to know the outcome of this, but by having both GSL and OSL, and Grand Slam slots through the international IEM/DH/etc events, Koreans should be satisfied. I’m not sure how I’d adjust prize money and all given these changes. I think this reads like a garbled mess, so I will stop no