AndrewGroen

Thanks for the links, Jolly! Rob and I had a talk about whether we should be covering the pre-season, but ultimately decided against it. We have to be really careful to avoid our compulsion to just sit on the mic and talk about StarCraft for the whole 30-45 minutes. XD

Haha Yeah, we're officially in the Dry Times of the esports calendar. We didn't think there was anything to make you all aware of, but we retroactively realized the Capcom Cup is on Dec 6. So watch that!

@dturtle My apologies for missing this! We absolutely know about the "new" Secret lineup. We've discussed that more at length in the past. It's sort of bizarre that they're even still called Team Secret. Probably creates a lot of unnecessary confusion.

Absolutely! We were so stoked to be able to get him on the show, and we just loved talking with him. Just basking in the depths of his knowledge and passion for the game. We will definitely be looking to bring him back for another segment during the run up to the Shanghai major.

I don't know if he's still playing StarCraft, but "noobeater" is still my pick for best esports name. And yeah, we recorded this before the crazy NiP/Alliance game so it wasn't on our radar. We generally have enough to watch that the qualifiers for an event tend to slip by.

I was thinking that same thing. I was really jealous of those folks that got to sit in a beautiful park and watch two of the best in the world play a wonderful match of SC2. This is really interesting. I came away from the Americas Championship really excited for Blizzcon. I think we're really going to get a sense of where HotS is as a game both in terms of the meta and the international community. If we see even a little deviation from the Americas Championship meta then I'll be thrilled. All a game needs is a small amount of change and growth to stay interesting.

And here is I've ever seen in my relatively short history with the game. EnvyUs was so good this weekend.

Ugh, that's terrible (if not entirely suprising.) Glad you're finding this to be a more approachable way into SC2. I think for beginners to the StarCraft scene the foreign WCS circuit is great. Eventually you'll get sucked into the Korean leagues if you enjoy WCS. I've come to love everything about the Korean leagues. Even the Korean vibe of the broadcast is appealing. Like a comfort food.

Yeah, you're never going to have to worry about Rob and I missing an opportunity to talk about good StarCraft.

I wish forums had a fav button. I would press it.

It's highly exclusive. I hear they can really knockout your competition, and punch up your marketing copy. :-D

Hey folks, just wanted to jump in here to let you know we saw the comments about the LoL interview being tough to follow and maybe a bit too inside baseball. We'll take that under consideration and try harder in the future to make sure we're making that extra effort to be accessible. That's a huge part of our mission, but it can be tough to not get excited about a conversation and want to dive into it as deep as possible. Thanks for all the comments! If there's ever anything we can do better please do let us know. :-D Andrew

I'd argue that tends to be Riot's diplomatic way of stepping into a region. Every conqueror who ever approached a city has said "Just let us in and we'll let you live as you always have done." But I think the truth is that Riot can't stop themselves from phasing out these third party tournaments. I don't think they banned LoL tournaments in the West, either. But they make the competitive environment incredibly difficult for those tournaments who now can't get top teams (because they're tied up playing in the LCS) and because hardcore fans aren't interested in watching those tournaments because they know they don't mean as much as the LCS.

Yeah, give it ten minutes and it'll show you what it's got. It's not a game that takes very long to prove its concept. The conversation on the show may not have sounded like it, but I adore the game. Play it every day.

Rob how could you not share that Fnatic hype video with me. I HAD TO FIND OUT LIKE THIS? That thing is so amazing I'm almost wondering if it's some kind of Swedish metajoke that I don't understand. Either way...I'm going to have to do some soul searching as to whether this makes Fnatic's CSGO squad my favorite team or my bloodsworn enemies.