It's 2019. People get paid for playing Starcraft. As someone who does not, I'm trying to get into watching the games by following the currently held World Championship Series 2019 in Starcraft 2. Even after 20 years I think Starcraft has lost nothing of its fascination. I'm enjoying watching the game now as much as I enjoyed playing it when it was first released.
For those of you who are not yet that much into eSports (or any sports for that matter!), I'm summarizing the rules on how the Championship is played out: Like most Championships, WCS starts with a group ground, the RO.16 (="round of 16") unveiled by Blizzard earlier this year. That means that 16 players are divided into 4 groups labeled A, B, C, D of 4 players each. Within each group, 5 matches of type 1on1 are being played out according to the "Best of Five" logic: The four players, say P1, P2, P3, P4, are first paired into groups of two, say P1 vs. P2 and P3 vs. P4. Then, in "Match 1", P1 and P2 play up to 5 1on1 SC2 matches and a win is recorded like a goal. The moment one of the two players has 3 wins, this player wins the match (as the other one then has no chance of getting more than 3 wins anymore). The same is then carried out in "Match 2" for P3 vs. P4. In the next round, the winners of Match 1 and Match 2 play the "Winner" match. The winner of the "Winner" match automatically qualifies. Then, the losers of Match 1 and Match 2 play the "Elimination" Match and the loser is out. Thus, at this point 1/4 players is qualified, 1/4 players is eliminated and 2/4 are undecided. Those two play the "Decider" Match to decide, who is qualified and who is eliminated. At the end 2/4 are qualified and 2/4 are eliminated. After the matches of all four groups have been played, in total 8/16 players have qualified for the RO.8, i.e. the "round of 8". Those get invited to the BlizzCon in Anaheim, CA.
In each group, the winner of the "Winner" match has played only 2 matches and won both consecutively. The loser of the "Elimination" Match has also only played 2 matches and lost both consecutively. The two players of the "Decider" match have played 3 Matches in total resulting either in win-loss-win or loss-win-loss.
From a viewer perspective, a single match comprises of up to 5 games, which takes about a good hour, i.e. like a short movie. There are in total 4 x 5 = 20 matches to be played, which then takes about 20h. Thus, watching an RO.16 is about as much of a commitment as a small Netflix show containing up to 100 1on1 games of Starcraft.
It seems to be tricky to get the commented replays of the games in the right order on Youtube and in a way such that the title doesn't spoil the outcome (if the name of the player is in the title of the match and you know who is in the "Winner" match, you know who wins "Match 1" and "Match 2" etc.).
Please find below my best shot at Youtube videos trying to avoid that problem (just click on Winner/Elimination/Decider only after having watched Match 1 and 2!):
Day 1 - October 24 - 12:00 PM KST / 5:00 AM CEST / 8:00 PM PDT-1
* Group A - Match 1 (soO vs SpeCial)
* Group A - Match 2 (Dark vs ShoWTimE)
* Group A - Winner
* Group A - Elimination
* Group A - Decider
Day 2 - October 25 - 12:00 PM KST / 5:00 AM CEST / 8:00 PM PDT-1
* Group B - Match 1 (Maru vs TIME)
* Group B - Match 2 (Stats vs Serral)
* Group B - Winner
* Group B - Elimination
* Group B - Decider
Day 3 - October 26 - 12:00 PM KST / 5:00 AM CEST / 8:00 PM PDT-1
* Group C - Match 1 (Classic vs HeRoMaRinE)
* Group C - Match 2 (herO vs Reynor)
* Group C - Winner
* Group C - Elimination
* Group C - Decider
Day 4 - October 27 - 12:00 PM KST / 4:00 AM CET / 8:00 PM PDT-1
* Group D - Match 1 (Trap vs Elazer)
* Group D - Match 2 (Rogue vs Neeb)
* Group D - Winner
* Group D - Elimination
* Group D - Decider
## Quarterfinals (RO.8)
* Match 1
* Match 2
* Match 3
* Match 4
## Semifinals (RO.4)
* Match 1
* Match 2
## Grandfinal
Grand Final