StarCraft News & Notes

LOTV was at E3 and dropped their promo along with an announcement of three free-to-play prologue missions (which can be accessed even earlier for those who pre-order in July).  Nothing was announced about multiplayer, which wasn't a big surprise as the focus at E3 for Blizzard is the campaign (a sentiment echoed on this week's The Late Game).  I'll be interested to see how well the campaign sells--as one gets more into the competitive scene it's easy to forget the single-player and its importance to the business.

The latest LOTV balance patch has been announced; there's still nothing specific for Protoss outside the PvP matchup, which suggests LOTV tournaments will continue to be two-race affairs.  Conversely, there were a large number of tweaks to both Terran and Zerg in the patch and it will be interesting to see how those play out (this week's Remax looked at both).

qxc posted yet another LOTV article, this time taking a look at the disruptor (including gif's of it in game action).  It's a great breakdown of what the unit is and can do in the current meta.

The WCS season three map pool was just released, with the popular Coda being retained along with the unpopular Cactus Valley and Iron Fortress.  Added were Terraform, Bridgehead, Dash and Terminal, and Moonlight Madness.  All four new maps are from the last TL map contest, with the first two listed being voted #1 and #2, while the others were simply part of the competition.  I missed the TL tournament so I don't have strong opinions on the new maps as yet.

I'd written about what I considered some inconsequential retirements (below), but now it appears as though MC has also retired.  If this is true, it really does mark the end of an era for SC2.  I think many people thought this would happen when the new region lock was imposed in WCS, however, MC made it into Code S in season one (as well as found a new sponsor), so it seemed like the Boss Toss would be around awhile longer.  I'm sure retrospectives are forthcoming, but for me MC was always more of a legend than an elite player, largely because I arrived towards the end of WOL and he really wasn't the Boss Toss in HOTS.

The other retirement announcements: Strelok, who hasn't had a significant result in two years, is gone; HasuObs, who had already semi-retired months ago, is now completely out of the scene; and finally Socke (sort-of).  These aren't particularly meaningful to the scene (except perhaps to the EPS, see below), as HasuObs had already left and neither Strelok nor Socke made an impact in HOTS.

Speaking of retirements, fans may remember DIMAGA retired back in January; he reappeared for LOTV and now is playing in HOTS tournaments (such as the latest IEM qualifier).  This must rank as one of the shortest retirements in SC2 history.  It's a good reminder of how difficult it is for an eSports pro to give up the lifestyle and return to whatever regular job they're qualified for.

Nathanias went on a rant on his stream where he suggested that if photon overcharge is removed from the game Protoss needs some sort of buff to compensate for it (his idea was buffing their early game units).  There's more to what he said if you follow the link above, but his subsequent reply to a Reddit post is worth looking at:

Protoss has very few options imo and are forced into gamble/risky strategies that can instantly lose them games because otherwise standard P play is predictable and abusable (dt drop meta, 5 months of blink all in meta, proxy oracle with binary damage/not enough damage).

I just don't like watching P play as much as T/Z unless I'm cheering for the P to win or they make truly remarkable plays like Rain in last night's GSL. I feel like I "NEED" to have certain things by certain times as P whereas when I play Terran you can salvage almost any situation with good control and decision making. Zerg's only defensive crutch is the queen which most of their strategies do not revolve around anyway.

I think he's right about the current limitations for Protoss (the fact that zealot/archon is no longer viable is a big part of the problem).  These issues are not going to be solved in the final days of HOTS, but hopefully in LOTV it will get ironed out (maybe the adept is strong enough).  That said, in general I think the endless complaints about Protoss are toxic and I wish the community would give it a rest--constructive ideas are fantastic, but the blanket hate is ridiculous.

Speaking of hate, for whatever reason (if it needs a reason), Reddit had been blowing up with anger at Blizzard.  Yesterday there was a response (TLG also discussed it).  David Kim mentioned some of the changes they've made or considered as a result of feedback and then responded to complaints about the pro player chat.  While his answers won't make everyone happy, and you can argue about whether they've made the correct response to feedback or not, it does show that Blizzard is listening, even if their ability to interact with the community hasn't been perfect.

Basetrade's first EU qualifier was yesterday and the sign-ups were are excellent (although it was unfortunate that both MarineLord and Lilbow had to bow out partway through the bracket due to their obligations to Clan Wars).  Ret won the qualifier, knocking off NaNiwa.  The Kickstarter reached its goal to add the aforementioned Nathanias to the cast; Lycan offered to pay his own way to come if they let him cast (I'm not sure if he's serious or if they'll accept, but the way he made the offer was pretty funny).  Blizzard gave Basetrade a very cool perk so that a $5 (or more) donation to the Kickstarter will get you the game portrait of Tychus shown above.  Hopefully this is a sign of things SC2 will do in the future.

HeroMarine won the latest EPS Cup (beating ShoWTimE), but I bring this up less for the result and more for the fact that in the last six Cups they have been unable to fill out their 16-player brackets.  I'm not sure if this is a sign of weakness in the German scene or if something else is going on.  Surely if you are eligible to play in the Cup there's no reason not too.

On last week's Remax TLO talked about how he overcame his wrist problems and for anyone who has suffered from them it's well worth checking out.

There was more GOM streaming quality drama as they switched from free medium back to low.  I don't think the subscription-based model they use is sustainable, but maybe irritating the foreign fans who watch will work in the short-term.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)