StarCraft 2

Team league was the cornerstone of SC pro scene for the past decade or so, since it guaranteed exposure for sponsors and space for new faces. It's easier to cheer for a team than for an individual, especially with how volatile the scene is. Individual leagues are nice and all, but they end up getting old fairly quickly, even GomTV understood that and their team league was a weak immitation.

So, yeah, this means the scene is going to experience some major shrinkage, Blizzard may try to delay it, but the writing's on the wall. As far as teams go - I think it will be like BW, the best stream to supplement their income, since the tournaments and sponsorships won't sustain you alone.

I'm impressed, they rolled out Nova pretty quick, and didn't nerf Alarak.

They did nerf Artanis, but it seems like he'll roll with it just fine.

What the fuck are you all talking about? New game mode?

Zaphid said:

Team league was the cornerstone of SC pro scene for the past decade or so, since it guaranteed exposure for sponsors and space for new faces. It's easier to cheer for a team than for an individual, especially with how volatile the scene is. Individual leagues are nice and all, but they end up getting old fairly quickly, even GomTV understood that and their team league was a weak immitation.

So, yeah, this means the scene is going to experience some major shrinkage, Blizzard may try to delay it, but the writing's on the wall. As far as teams go - I think it will be like BW, the best stream to supplement their income, since the tournaments and sponsorships won't sustain you alone.

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I don't think SC2 was ever popular enough to have an Afreeca driven resurgence like BW. I think Korean SC2 is simply dead. I'll be interested to see what KeSPA does with presumably Overwatch.

Chris said:

What the fuck are you all talking about? New game mode?

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frysrs.jpg Co-op has been in the game for almost a year, since December.

Anyway, after getting a better look at Nova's abilities and upgrades, I'd be impressed if they actually balanced her well. I'm guessing she'll either be awful or crazy OP.

Tenks said:

I don't think SC2 was ever popular enough to have an Afreeca driven resurgence like BW. I think Korean SC2 is simply dead. I'll be interested to see what KeSPA does with presumably Overwatch.

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This time the streaming will be on Twitch, not Afreeca, so yeah, the survivors will be the ones who speak at least some english and take part in western tournaments like the ones TB runs.

Nova is interesting (only lvl 10 so far). Infantry seems vastly superior to mech considering how amazing ghosts are and how much unimpressive siege tanks are. Nova herself is SUPER fragile, but assault mode devastates early waves, and then stealth mode is good for picking off priority units as the game develops. Her economy develops pretty quickly once you get automated refineries since you don't have to worry about supply, and those 1k mineral airstrikes are insanely good.

Triple tap ghosts are seriously insane though. If you're playing protoss with a nova partner, be sure to have a chrono boost going on her barracks.

Zaphid said:

This time the streaming will be on Twitch, not Afreeca, so yeah, the survivors will be the ones who speak at least some english and take part in western tournaments like the ones TB runs.

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Innovation confirmed he's streaming on Afreeca

Nova + Karax seems to synergize way too well. I found the 50% upgrade cost/time to be deceptive in that it only works on tech lab stuff and not unit ups.

Yeah chrono field + chrono wave is ridiculous. With a Karax partner using wave on CD I was able to just a-move through terran ground and instantly replace any losses I took, and a-moving through terran ground is terrible as nova because marines absorb all your ghost fire.

Granted if I actually paid attention and blinked nova in ahead to shotgun all the marines down, I wouldn't care about Karax. But still, he's much better with her than I figured he would be.

My main problem with Nova now that I've run her to 15 and played some more brutal matches is that her factory units are fucking terrible. Hellbats just get themselves killed and when the hell are you going to be sitting still long enough for the increasing range on siege tanks to matter? Also, I'm pretty sure Nova's siege tanks don't have shaped blast. Liberators and Banshees are powerful but too much additional micro, and I don't like splitting between bio and mech because you can't upgrade them both without slowing down your troop production early on.

Her infantry ball really is amazing though.

So basically she suffers from the same problems like Alarak ? You can build Wrathwalkers or you can build Wrathwalkers. The rest is just synergy and Alarak fodder.

Well, at least Alarak can go Ascendents, which are his "true" overpowered setup. Although that requires more micro so sometimes it's not as fun compared to 1a wrath deathball while you just micro Alarak.

Said F it and rolled Brutal mutation after merely glancing over the 3 descriptions. Won as a 68 Nova + 90 Vorazun against zerg enemy, DTs and Ghosts wrecked so much plus Nova helped spot burrowed roaches while Black Hole + Time Stop helped delay until we could move defense around as needed. There was only one spawn wave before the last 3 bots that attacked the northern partner's base which was the only time i had to use the ship for instant movement. Aside from that I only turreted up the east side as a delaying tactic and ignored the rest since waves from the west and north will curl around and head for the bots instead of the base.

Judging by my partner's "thank god" at the end I'll assume that was not their first try and were grateful I was useful.

I definitely had a derp moment when I did the mutation today, didn't focus down a behemoth first so it gets a full rack of avenger buffs from the entire goddamn wave. Thankfully I only queued up on hard with an artanis partner, on brutal that mistake might have been game over.

Ez mutation this week. Vulture spider mines and/or Baneling heavy Zagara's make it pretty trivial.

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/sc2/topic/20752095497

Another two maps of mine possibly going onto ladder. Oh yeah!

I'm also curious to see how Habitation Station plays out during their little pre-season month or whatever.

They're putting Habitation in LotV? I see that being a bit of a clusterfuck but I guess it isn't the first close-by-air map.

I believe they said it was going to be included in the "pre-season" pool that only lasts like 1 month or whatever. I'm guessing from ~end November til whenever season 1 2017 starts.

As for balance, yeah I don't think it'll be that great in LoTV with closer by air, short rush distance and an overall low number of bases. Plus taking the gold seems like it'll be very difficult due to so many more harass options. But hey, I'm still excited to see how it plays out.

I suppose maybe without tankivacs it may not be abysmal. Still you can get speed banshees out pretty easily now so yeah I don't see how that gold is easily defensible. You'll probably have to take up the outer edges of the map and the gold bases would be the hot point of contention in the end game instead of how it played out in HotS where they were an early-mid game point of contest.

This week's mutation is rather interesting with the turkeys. Some heroes are definitely better than others with potentially higher supply but if your partner isn't a compatible commander or competent it will suck. Beat as a Karax that lined the high ground with monoliths and energizers, then solar beamed infested turkeys before they could run around to the ramp and annihilate your turrets.