Hero v Stephano on OneMoreGame, coming up soon
But there is far more money outside of Korea than inside, just from an economic scale perspective. NA and EU provide quite a lucrative opportunity for Korean teams. Will Flash be going to every MLG, Dreamhack, etc? Of course not, I'd imagine his team will prefer to control access and ensure they cultivate the Korean scene - which is fine and makes sense. Viewers will watch whatever tournament he attends
Haz makes a good point too. SC2's current financial model is not sustainable. That will hurt growth, and could be a boon for the smaller Korean scene.
And that's a really big part of it for me. If the scene dries up because money is gone in NA, then it's basically dead. You're not going to see it ever reach that skill level outside of Korea, just like BW because there's no support for it. If SC II doesn't bring in numbers, then basically Starcraft 1 and 2 are dead in the water and need to be revived in some fashion. That's the worse scenario and very unlikely.
I think MLG is doing well with it's funding and with a MOBA + SC II it'll be around for a good long while. Whether it stays competitive with foreigners vs Koreans is different matter entirely.
*And as much as I love Stephano, everytime I hear a caster say 'That's so uncharacteristic of Stephano' I lose it. Stephano always makes like 6 overlords at a time after being supply blocked + 40 roaches.
**Smart play from Stephano after seeing so many Phoenix, just grab another 2 free bases after his gasless fast 3 already. Lets see how Hero handles early 5 base econ Zerg. I don't think Phoenix are going to do anything, but maybe Stephano will fail at fungles.
***No resources to make Infestors on being 90 drones + 10 gas? Who's casting this fucking game?
****And now Stephano with a beautiful positional play, separates the phoenix from the main army (which had no splash) with infested terrans, then wrecks then entire protoss army with ling/muta and suffer minimal losses. This is a great strat from Stephano. Too bad casters have no idea what is going on.