In the lead up to SCS 7 I had the opportunity to ask Fermay some questions regarding the tournament, from the funding to the inclusion of NAL teams like OXG.
SCS has come around with a bit of a bite this time around. The announcement of the transition to non-profit and volunteering only was a bit of a shock. Is this “fuck it we ball” casual approach something that you wanted for SCS for a long time or was it caused by leaning into the lack of budget?
Since SCS inception in April 2020, we’ve never thought about making money out of the event. Our goal was to create something fun and make things better for the competitive community. Including SCS5 we have run ENTIRELY non-profit and put in the money back into the prize pool. To me personally, as a production director, SCS was a way to showcase my skills and use this work as my portfolio, so I didn’t see SCS as a waste of time and resources. Same applied for other people who invested their time into a volunteering project. Everyone knew what they are signing up for: volunteering and contributing for no financial compensation.
After NerdStreet’s Investment in our budget for SCS6 we were finally able to change our volunteering mindset into a working structure, since we were able to make decent income from running the event. Ultimately, we were not able to secure the budget for SCS7 but the clock kept ticking. My goal originally was to run SCS7 parallel to CL but we ran out of time to make that project happen. Thus the timeframe landed “after” CL is going to end. My last straw was to try to reach out for sponsors and get anything going for budget, however we are left with nothing.
On the other hand, this lack of budget opened my eyes onto another side, which has been with us all this time before SCS6. We always did it because we loved the game and wanted to create a platform for our players to succeed. Why cancel the event, when we can create a team who WANTS to create something great, with no financial compensation in mind. Now, We are going to use SCS as a platform to train new upcoming talent in a gameday setting, as well as introducing more production talent to more complicated shows and streams.
For being an unsponsored tournament, SCS is throwing around a lot of money in both prize pool as well as hints of big prizes for winning pick’ems. Where is this money coming from?
Qualifier Money + Donation from Heemsglish (750 for prize pool + 250 MVP) + Invite Spots + Whatever is left I’m covering
There’s been a switch in format going into this season of SCS, from GSL to Bulchhoz Swiss. What was the goal with the change?
Don’t get me wrong, GSL system is good. It allows for fun BO3 games with stakes at hand. Paired with Single Elimination Playoffs it creates a fast-paced 16 day event (if all games are streamed on one channel).
Ultimately my goal is introduce a variety of formats into the ecosystem, experiment with how we can run our event and see what structures benefit players the most, hence we landed on Swiss + Single Elim Playoffs. CL is Bo1-based, we have it. Games that promote or eliminate are BO3: it really helps to determine a better team in a matchup and secure advancement or survive elimination. Playoffs are BO3s, we have it. Games that “don’t matter” [seeding] are fast. A lot of amateur leagues make a mistake of making games that don’t matter longer than they should be (BO3 instead of BO1). There’s also no separation into groups this time. GSL is very divided and some teams just never end up playing one another, Swiss solves it but introducing uncertainty into the flow, since it’s really tough to predict the full bracket.
There’s been some backlash to the announcement of OXG being an invited team. What was the goal by inviting T1 teams?
Upon the conception and the reveal of the event I GENUINELY didn’t expect interest from T1 teams. It came as a shock to me that 4 PL teams were in discussion of joining the event. Overall, I never want SCS to stop growing, every season we’ve expanded further and did more things that either moved us towards the higher competitive ceiling or improved on the back-end production. My goal is to Never settle. At this point, SCS is no longer JUST an amateur league and I don’t want it to be a melting pot of amateurs fighting against one another. With CL gone, we want our event to be a bridge between all competitive levels, that allows all teams to participate in a well-organized event.
I can’t even call the social media discussions a “backlash”. It is ok to be surprised, since no one hasn’t really seen PL teams participate in AM leagues since CCS4 era and that was when G2 qualified for the event. Ultimately, I believe we are making a right decision, since the teams that are looking to prove themselves in front of a big audience (supplied by Pro teams) are going to get their chance at it. PL teams get some gameday reps ahead of future competitions and it gives them a chance to scout some talent ahead of time, since CL isn’t happening at the moment. Without feeder event(s), it’s impossible to have a stream of new talented players advance to the next level of competition, and we believe that addition of PL teams is going to improve overall competitive ceiling of the event.
Is there any concern of the invited teams from top T2/T1 trolling? Cookiez had a valid point that when top teams troll in a tournament it devalues the whole thing.
Sure, this is SURELY the biggest point of concern for participants and fans that was brought up a lot during discussions.
SCS is a very personal event to me and I treat all participants with great care. For me, this event is more than just a platform and a bracket, it’s about creating connections and trust between the organization and the players. We rely on mutual respect and trust in one another’s actions when running the tournament. Hence, we’ve asked all interested PL teams to participate at their fullest strength within their limits. Yes, they might not show strats prepared for officials. Yes, they might explore and play around with different roles in a gameday setting. Yes, they will try to play more default maps that have been shown in NAL already. But overall, if a team is trying and pushing the AM-CL teams to their limits it can give a good litmus test for the strengths and weaknesses of all participants. Scrims against pro teams are one thing, gameday is a whole other beast.
I sincerely hope that all pro teams participating in our event are going to pay mutual respect to their contestants, since everyone is excited to have a great show between their favorite teams and new amateur upcoming talent. Our event is at its peak and we’re here to make a great show with a wonderful crew of passionate siege fans.