DreamHack Austin

DreamHack Austin has wrapped up and despite a disappointing final (virtually a replica of WCS Winter) it was a fun event with a lot of exciting games.  For the first time in two years there was a bonafide open bracket tournament in NA and a number of semi-retired players (like Nony) came out of the woodwork to compete.  It was funny to see sWs try to play LOTV with HOTS strategies (he stopped playing regularly in late 2014).  There were a lot of games of note, but here are just a few: Zan vs Rayreign game one; final game between FoxeR/blast; RuFF/Kelazhur game one; Snute/Namshar game three; Neeb/puCK game five; MaSa/FireCake game three; and Snute/Neeb games one and three. It was interesting to see both viOLet and Polt struggle with European Zergs (losing to Snute and FireCake respectively)--something Hydra has had issues with as well (barely edging out Elazer here).  How weird was it to see avilo community casting in a suit and tie?

How was viewership?  It aired late for Europeans (especially day one; the final day was shown at the most European friendly time), and featured a European-light roster of players, but despite that it was a decent showing for the first major NA tournament like it since MLG Anaheim in 2014 (for which, unfortunately, we have no viewership numbers):

It beats out the 2015 DH's with the exception of the Tours finale.  The last NA event of similar scale was IEM San Jose (also in 2014--no open bracket however), which posted similar numbers (18/19/30)--the seven game battle between herO and Rain drawing slightly better than six games of Hydra vs Neeb (the dramatic tension understandably different, as in the latter case the American fell behind 1-3).  If I were Blizzard I'd be happy with this--it wasn't a homerun, but for a scene that's been ignored for such a long time it's a solid result.  Another thing we can take away from the event is that TB's involvement has no impact on viewership--he did not draw in any additional casual viewers (his disapproval of the current WCS system hasn't been forgotten, incidentally).

As for individual performances, this was Neeb's best ever result (in terms of money and placement); it was MaSa's best placement at an event of this scale as well (granted he had the easiest bracket of all the semi-finalists); it was also the biggest payday in Namshar and RuFF's careers, and the most money NightEnD has made in two years (since coming 3rd at IeSF).  On a personal level I enjoyed seeing NA players test their mettle in a tournament where they had a chance not just at making money, but going on a run--players like JonSnow, JimRising, PandaBearMe, etc were all in the R32 with a chance to make some noise.

Speaking of TotalBiscuit, I'm not sure how he (or those around him) failed to notice the obvious: G2A is a DreamHack sponsor.  It wasn't until May 5th that he realised it and complained on social media, but not only had the information been posted on DreamHack Austin's website the entire time, but the arrangement goes back to at least to last summer (2015; there's even a Reddit debate about it at the time).  I know TB only watches Korean SC2 (when he watches at all), but the information wasn't exactly hard to find.  Regardless, much ado about nothing.

Fuzic fixed part of their site since my last post (you can actually view their rankings for the week-of), although there are key things that still don't work (the search function has problems and they didn't re-enable the calendar to see previous weeks viewership numbers).

Redfish made an amusing post about the never ending whining about Protoss.  The post goes through all the standard complaints that are made and deconstructs them.  I doubt it will have the desired impact, as the sentiment is so ingrained in the community, but hopefully it jars the more thoughtful complainers into less toxic positions (it's amusing that some of the people who complain the most about negativity in SC2 are the ones who are most negative about Protoss--consistency gentlemen!).

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)