E-Sports @ OnRPG: January 28th Report

By Umar Farooq (Kluey), OnRPG Journalist

 

 

Last week I was busy and unable to put out a weekly column. Rest assured; I am back! I’ve gotten caught up with E-Sports and am ready to report. Fortunately, there will not be many spoilers if any so feel free to read as you please.

 

State of the Game is back in action… sort of

Last week we had a lousy show and so it didn’t attract the thousands of people it use to. Hell, they even named it SotG 60.5 as it wasn’t recognized as a full show. This week the Team Liquid calendar displayed the infamous “SotG EP 61” and I was pumped. Little did I know, this show would be the same or even worse than 60.5. I really hope we step it up and get some good production on these shows in the next few months as I am really starting to doubt the decision to leave MLG’s supervision.

 

The loss of foreign players:

With 2012 coming up and the end of Korean contracts, we’re seeing fewer and fewer foreign players in foreign teams. While it may seem exciting and new right now, in a few years there will be no more foreign players. We’ll start seeing more of a Starcraft 1 type of scene where our foreign players are much worse than the Korean players and so obviously for sponsors, you want your companies name on the shirt of a player holding a first place trophy rather than a 15th place medal.

 

To combat this, foreign players must travel to Korea. Players have said time and time again that all the tournaments are here in the West and while that may be true; you’re not getting better skill-wise in the West. Koreans will prepare twice as well for a tournament in Korea, travel to an MLG and steal first place. There’s no way around it unless you adjust your training regiment to prepare for the onslaught of Korean competition ahead of time.

 

In addition, we may see more teams start to mimic what FXO has done. Simply go and buy out an amateur or upcoming Korean team and fund it. The raw talent in Korea is unparallel in the world when it comes to Starcraft. There may be another MVP or NesTea that has financial problems and is forced to quit because of it. It could even be to a lesser extent of this like what Liquid and EG have done. Evil Geniuses have two former TSL players on their team now and Liquid has two former oGs players on their team. A perfect investment for Liquid is their protoss player HerO. He plays some of the best Starcraft 2 on his Stream but chokes at tournaments. If Liquid sends him to enough tournaments and he starts to become less nervous, he will be a top player in the world.

Team FXO split into former FXO and former fOu.

 

 

Why StartaleQ will win the GSTL:

Everyone has made this post and it’s about time I have too. I think StartaleQ will win the GSTL in a convincing fashion. There is no other team in the entire scene with two MLG champions; Naniwa and Bomber. I feel that Naniwa can take out any Terran and most Zergs while Bomber can take out any Protoss and most Zergs. You also have snipers like SaSe who plays a very unique harass oriented style that will counter greedy players. You also have Parting, Curious and Squirtle who are extremely strong players.

 

League of Legends at IEM Kiev:

Okay, I knew that this game had potential and I knew that this game had a large fan base but the E-Sports scene is absolutely huge! There were over 150,000 viewers watching during the finals. In comparison the Superbowl only fits around 100,000 viewers into a stadium to watch. I think IEM Kiev’s results weren’t the most important thing for League of Legends. The games were okay, M5 was nice but you get to see the potential that this game has in E-Sports. If an MLG or IPL were to abuse the extremely high viewer count, you could see a huge E-Sport in the making.

Team aAa playing at IEM Kiev