During Opening Weekend, Carmac had an insightful chat with Kim Phan regarding the WCS changes and the future of the tournament. It's something that people may have missed during the 14 hour marathon stream, so I've typed it down for everyone to read. If you'd like to watch the actual interview, it is around this part.

Talk me through a little bit about the logic behind those (WCS 2015) changes?

So yesterday we announced the changes for WCS 2015 and I think the biggest change was the unification of WCS America and WCS Europe which is now just WCS. That's the biggest change. And the thinking behind that is to just grow Starcraft 2 globally not only for players but for viewers.



We want to see five years from now who the best Starcraft players are from all over the world not just from Korea. And I think that no one will argue that the best Starcraft 2 players right now come from Korea . They are the highest skilled players. They pretty much dominate every tournament. But there are also a lot of great players out there living outside of Korea. And the opportunities for them to showcase their skill and be recognized is very limited. That's one of the biggest reasons behind our change.



I hope that with that we are able to eventually see players not only coming out from France and from Norway, but also China and all these other great regions that have talented Starcraft players.

Do you have any plans for WCS going beyond the 2015 season? In the past we've had a season, then changes, then another season and then changes again. Is there a plan that exists that is longer than just one year?

Yes we do have plans. But I think that the Starcraft scene evolves quite a bit. The E-sports scene evolves a lot. Having the ability to adapt and to change is something that I'm proud that we're able to do and we've shown that. I think that some years you see incremental changes, some years you see bigger changes. It's really just following the adaptation of the scene. And we have plans, but nothing I'd be ready to share now because they may change, but we do [have plans].

Why did you go from the soft region lock to the tough one?

I think it goes back to what I was saying earlier. And that is creating more opportunities. The intention behind the soft region lock as you mentioned was to do that. But to take it a step back further, 2 to 3 years ago the Starcraft scene looked very different. When we designed WCS I think the ideas was to try to capture what was so great about the scene. And that was people really loved to see Koreans come and play against foreigners. Those were really exciting. It was really exciting to see them come over and compete. It was also arguably maybe increasing the level of skill. And so I think that some of those changes, some of the reasons why we had that implemented in the first place was not only do we want the stronger Korean players to come in and play during prime time, but to showcase that.



I think looking back it might have hurt the scene a bit; hurt the rest of the regional scenes grow. But now with the WCS changes, if we go back maybe the soft region lock didn't achieve what we wanted it to do, simply put. We wanted to help grow and it didn't work. We are still seeing a lot of regional players struggle to come up and I think now with the harder region lock this will be a greater opportunity for them.

Let's talk about the slot distribution for the regions [into premier league]. It seems to me on first glance that it's somewhat arbitrary although right. Is it possible depending on results in the future those slots will be shifted and allocated differently as the balance between regions changes?

The slot distributions were taken from how we did it this year. So you take a look at WCS America: the slot distribution from qualifier to challenger is very close to what you're seeing and what we're doing in 2015. I think we increased china by about 2 slots and Europe is the same thing. So that's our starting point. The great thing about it is these slots now, instead of going from qualifier into challenger, they immediately go into premier. And that's a great thing. That's what we're really excited about, to see these regional players immediately going into premier, immediately playing onsite matches and competing against each other.



So can those slots change? I think it's too early to say that but we're open to that. I think that if one region is performing really well or that scene is growing, then yes there's a possibility that slots may be adjusted.

What are the biggest complaints that you got from the internet, from the community so far and what are the biggest props? What are people the most happy about that you've been able to read on twitter, on reddit, on team liquid, everywhere else?

Well first of all thank you to the community for all of your feedback. We always appreciate it very much so keep them coming, we're reading them. There seems to be some confusion regarding the prize pool so those are some things that I would love to clarify.



The prize pool for WCS is not decreasing. What you see today in WCS America and WCS Europe, that prize pool has been combined and it will continue to stay in WCS. The distribution however is still being worked on and I think that shortly after BlizzCon we'll share what that breakdown looks like. But the investment there is still the same. One of the things I can mention is I think right now in premier league the payout stops in premier and you get a little bit in challenger. Next year all of the players who actually come into challenger from their regions will get a prize pool and I think it is safe for me to say that it's somewhere around $2,000 per player who makes it into challenger.

So it's not final?

That one I'm comfortable saying. That one I can say. It'll be final once it's public and it's live but those are some of the things I want to clarify. So we are trying to help grow those different regions and the prize money is still staying there and it's going to be kind of distributed out. I look forward to sharing that more.

Heroes of Newerth, I think people are expecting it to come out sometime next year...

Heroes of Newerth? O.o

Oh my goodness! Oh wow there is no coming back from this. Heroes of the Storm! Heroes of the Storm. This is too complicated for me.

Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone. Those communities, what can they expect in terms of ecosystem approach, can they expect a WCS similar to what Starcraft has?

What I can say is that we don't think it makes sense to take the same structure in Starcraft and apply it to all of our games. I think that we want to provide a structure and system for the community and the players in those games. So we will be supporting E-sports for Hearthstone and for Heroes of the Storm. But how that looks and how that will be structured will be unique to that game.

Let's talk about WCS for Starcraft a little bit more. If you could go back in time to let's say 2011 2012 what are the things you definitely wouldn't have done knowing what you know today? And granted these were not your decisions as far as I know.

I don't know if there's anything I would say that I'd definitely not have done. I think we've learned a lot. We've definitely learned a lot from the scene and there were reasons behind the decision we made 2-3 years ago. And I think that each time we learn. I can really just focus on the changes going forward. Some of the things that, looking back, we wanna focus on regional growth. We still wanna celebrate the best players in the world and I think you're seeing that here, the World Championship Series Global Finals. We get to see that but we also also want to help grow those other regions. And that's what we're trying to do today. And I'm really really excited for what 2015 has to come.

So I'm gonna push just a little bit. Is there anything you guys regret of how it turned out in the past in WCS? Maybe regret is a strong word.

Regret is a strong word. I don't think it's really regret. What I would say is what we're hoping to get out of WCS in 2015 is we want it to be a conveyor belt of talent. We want to see who the top players are in these different regions. And we also wanna create a system that allows players to safely come in and test their skills. So that when, after time, when you see a lot of pros retiring, when they retire who are those players that are gonna come and fill in their spots. And that's what WCS and all these changes are about.



We are still supporting Korea. We have two leagues in Korea. I am very excited about that. and I'm excited about the opportunities there but I'm definitely more excited to find out outside of Korea, who is the best foreigner? I mean who would you say is the best foreigner outside of Korea?

Right now undeniably Snute.

See I don't know if I'd say that undeniably. You haven't really seen him play against all the other players.

Do you want to make a bet? Who is your favorite?

I would probably say Scarlett's my favorite. I also think HuK is great.

Snute will outdo both HuK and Scarlett in WCS premier league first season. Bet?

I think we'll have to find out. What about Polt?

Foreigner! Foreigner.

He is living in America. And he is playing here. And he is considered a player living outside of Korea.

You are shaming me. [Laughs]

Are you taking your word back now that I threw out Polt? Is Snute no longer your favorite?

Of non Koreans yes he's the best. I don't consider Polt a foreigner. Anyway let's skip to the future maybe a little bit further. My pet peeve is Starcraft 2 multiplayer free to play. Can we expect it in Legacy of the Void?

Oh Carmac. I'm definitely not the right person for you to ask that question. I don't have that answer. But I will say: BlizzCon is next week. There are people that are gonna be there that are the right people to ask.

Will there be answers during BlizzCon?

I guess you'll have to find out. I can't reveal secrets about BlizzCon before BlizzCon.

Okay fair enough. Finally, I'm assuming we haven't exhausted all there is to talk about. How do people ask you questions about WCS?

One way is you could tweet at me, or tweet @StarCraft. Our StarCraft community, we get all the feedback from there. You can post on our forums. We follow team liquid. My personal twitter is @kimaphan. I read that pretty often too. So keep the questions coming and we'll be doing more follow up after BlizzCon. We wanna share the points distribution as well as the prize pool breakdown. And then we'll be doing another follow up with the community.

Alright thank you Kim.

Thank you.

I'm gonna go kill myself now, and we're gonna go to a video. Thank you very much.

Interviewer: @mbCARMACInterviewee: @kimaphanTranscribed by: @TL_lichter