About the first part; let's examine who got to Blizzcon this year:
Source: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2014_WCS_Global_FinalsFinal Standings
# ID Region Points
1 South Korea Terran Bomber America 6550
2 South Korea Zerg HyuN America 6300
3 South Korea Protoss Zest Korea 5800
4 South Korea Terran Polt America 5625
5 South Korea Protoss MC Europe 5500
6 South Korea Protoss San Europe 5375
7 South Korea Terran TaeJa America 5100
8 South Korea Protoss StarDust Europe 4800
9 South Korea Terran MMA Europe 4775
10 South Korea Zerg soO Korea 3650
11 South Korea Terran jjakji Europe 3475
12 South Korea Protoss herO Korea 3475
13 South Korea Protoss Classic Korea 3325
14 South Korea Zerg Life Korea 3250
15 South Korea Terran INnoVation Korea 3225
16 South Korea Zerg Jaedong America 3200
Bomber, Zest, Polt, Taeja, Soo, HerO, Innovation need no explanation. They were the dominant players through the year. Most people will agree with me. There's also a good couple of WCS Regional champions (Hyun, MMA, MC, etc.), whom should obviously be there!
See here for a layout of who got points where:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2014_StarCraft_II_World_Championship_Series/StandingsNow, let's look at the people that didn't perform too well in WCS. I'll take 200 WCS points from regions as the cutoff.(1st place is 1000. 2nd is 1000, 3rd/4rth is 750, RO8 is 500). This makes me assume every WCS winner as well as people who performed very well in WCS make it through without me commenting on them.
Bomber got 3500
Hyun got 3500
Zest got 3250
Polt got 1750MC got 3000
San got 2500
Taeja got 1300Stardust got 2800
MMA got 3150
Soo got 3000
Jjakji got 950Hero got 750Classic got 2400
Life got 1100Innovation got 2350
Jaedong got 400 - LOL?!So, people I will examine:
Polt, Taeja, Jjakji, Hero, Life, Jaedong.
Polt, Taeja, Hero and Life all did very well in tournaments via qualifying or getting invited, picking up at least one victory each. None of them really got above the Jaedong threshold of 3200 WCS points by the skin of their teeth because they did "meh" at 10 tournaments.
Jjakji and Jaedong remain.
-Jjakji went to 10 tournaments and picked up 1 second place and 1 third place. He got a total of 4 times RO8, and an additional 4 times RO16. In most of these tournaments, RO16 was the lowest you could achieve. Now, it is hard to find out where he was invited, but nonetheless, Jjakji got an enormous amount of points through sheer "going to tournaments".
-Jaedong? 400 WCS points is miserable, IIRC, that is 2x RO32 and 1x RO16. That is not "top of the world" level performance. Jaedong went to 9 tournaments. He got one victory in Lone Star Clash for 400 points. He was invited there. He was invited to 5 tournaments, if I'm counting correctly. He had no noteworthy performance in these, but they netted him A TON of WCS points.
People like sOs (950 + 4 tournaments of which he won one for 1500 pts) and Pigbaby (2500 WCS points, but no team, so no travel, so no free WCS points) were clearly superior to Jaedong but couldn't travel as much due to team restirictions or a lack of a team.
On thing is sure: the system as used in 2014 was not fair. Firstly, it highly handicapped Korean talent. Proleague prevented these players from traveling, which made it so SoO BARELY made it in (Hitting 2nd 3 times on WCS is NOT enough to compensate for Jaedongs free WCS air miles).
Secondly, Korea in general is much harder to perform well in. These titans prevent each other from qualifying for Blizzcon because the competition is so fierce and the points so sparse. There needed to be more points available in Korea (this will happen next year, with double leagues, Kespa Cup running trice.
Thirdly, you get TOO many points for
going to a foreign tournament. We should change the point system to be much more top heavy in foreign tournaments, especially with invites involved. It is not fair to have the rich buying themselves points and go to blizzcon for more money and sponsor exposure and do it all over again. Another example (2013 this time), Revival got to go to WCS Global Finals together with Naniwa in a shared 16th spot. How? Revival did nothing but be a replacement for another player who couldn't attend, got WCS points for that, I don't think he even won a series, and still managed to almost kick Naniwa out. By going. Lol.
Advancing one round is still a rubbish limitation. Each and every one of the pro players, even Americans and Europeans, can advance a round over any lucky group of participants. This makes it just too easy to travel and get them points. Having to advance multiple rounds at least makes those points well fought and well deserved.
So. That was my rant. In short; more emphasis on high placements, less points for showing up.
Now, to come back to Wintex' post:
Why we shouldn't only reward players that pull audiences? Because it is unfair to the competition, maybe? Why should a player be given a massive advantage and a ton of free money just because he was awesome in Broodwar (JD) or because he behaves like a massive troll when people are watching (Hyun, MC)? That makes no sense at all.
Sure, we can include fanvotes as well, while we're at it.
We shouldn't have a
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP which is based around being the funniest guy in the scene. a WORLD CHAMPION should be (one of) THE BEST around. Not some joker.
I understand tournaments want viewership. But giving free qualification to the world championship is forgery of competition (I really hope I'm using a correct term here?). We can make players decide to agree to come to a tournament as an invite but having them know they do not qualify for WCS points if they end up below RO4. They will still get the tournament experience and the travel they love, they get the money and fans, but not the crucial points. They still have the option of qualifiers open, but this prevents people like Jaedong who would not have gotten that 1K points now and all of a sudden found himself out of Blizzcon (rightfully so, with that performance).