Starcraft 2

I assume there are people here who play or at least have a passing interest in the scene. There are definitely others who are much more qualified than myself to write about this, but the past year has seen a shockingly fast growth of Starcraft 2 as an "eSport". From just a single league a year ago (in Korea, no surprise), different groups have started recurring tournaments around the world - and the rate of new leagues has been increasing recently. They now exist in Korea (GSL), Europe (IEM, Dreamhack), North America (MLG, IPL, NASL), China, and Taiwan. If you compare this very globalized scene to the Starcraft 1 scene that was almost wholly restricted to Korea, it's clear Starcraft 2 has a bright future ahead of it.

Some major leagues (I've probably forgotten one or two important ones):
Global Starcraft II League [GSL]: $134,000 USD monthly
Intel Extreme Masters [IEM]: $635,000 distributed between events around the world
IGN Proleague [IPL]: $100,000 at their next live event in Atlantic City
North American Starleague [NASL]: $100,000 every few months
Major League Gaming Pro Circuit [MLG]: $14,000 for 5 regular season events, $120,000 for championships - in fact at the most recent MLG event, SC2 was at the main stage over Halo + CoD for the first time. Did you know they fly Tangerine to every tournament, all expense included, to translate for Korean invites? Pretty fucking baller.

Anyways I just wrote that so this post wouldn't be two lines long. The real point of this thread: who here plays? If you do, post your character name and code! I got the game 2-3 weeks ago and it's lots of fun so you should all play with me! NA server, Harmony.287. A lot of us hang out in BNet channel "smogon" while we're online (you can set autojoin channels in settings).

Have a nice day, nerds.

EDIT: Post character information!
whistle: Harmony.287 @ NA
Mithril: Mithril.683 @ NA
Foreys: brer.??? @ NA
wickdaggler: expy.345 @ NA
Manafii: PKring.853 @ SEA
Flora: Flora.752 @ NA
Nonary Game: Orpheus.126 @ NA
Unreality: Sazandork.260 @ NA
muffinhead: muffinhead.640 @ NA
Bass: tushy.218 @ NA
porygon3: Thunder.??? @ NA
VKCA: Dakota.203 @ NA
Improbability: Killjoy.991 @ NA
Lord Scalgon: ScalgonDelta.713 @ NA
Gideon: Gideon.184 @ NA
Ein: EinRH.287 @ NA
PungentFruit: PFruit.114 @ NA
Grove: Grove.140 @ NA
 

Da Letter El

Officially internet famous
is a Community Leader Alumnus
I bought the game about a week ago, but have been watching the competitive scene with stuff like Day[9] and some other casters for about a year. I'm pretty terrible at the game, though, although I now know like 1-2 builds by heart!
 
I've been playing for about...5 months now and follow the majority of the pro scene, as well as having watched Day[9] etc for 10 months or so. Very enjoyable game though, glad I got introduced to it this last year.

On the NA server as Mithril.683. Protoss player here, gladly play with anybody who is interested.
 
hey yeah. i played a lot about half a year ago. starcraft 2 is my first rts so i had to learn as i went... i made it to high gold league by the time i stopped. i play zerg. i've actually thought about picking it back up recently, so if i do i'll find and post my character code (username is brer). it'd be fun to do some casual games with other smogon users while i relearn build orders. the only problem is that the comp i'd install it on has pretty spotty internet for some reason, at least last time i used it, which is one of the reasons i stopped playing wow as well....

i do however still try to follow the competitive sc2 scene. definitely recommend watching the Day[9] Daily, even if you're an experienced player. the dude does an excellent job of breaking down important game concepts and he's quite fun to watch besides. i'm definitely a fan of him. as far as commentators, i really like tasteless and artosis and i still watch hd and husky cast games now and again, as that's where i found out about the game.

another great resource is teamliquid.net, which i want to call the smogon of starcraft. the site has pretty much everything you'd want as far as sc info goes imo.

what are your races?
 
TL.net is the source of information for the English-speaking SCBW/SC2 scene. For those who just want to follow the competitive scene but not play much, a large portion of the site's audience does that. The great thing about SC2 is that there are free streams of all the major events, sometimes even 720p/1080p quality. Viewer counts are frequently 100,000+ for the really popular tournaments.

Race:


I like Day[9] in his dailies but when he commentates it seems like he puts on this weird fake commentary voice with way too much enthusiasm, and it turns me off a bit. TBH PainUser is probably my favorite commentator because he's a good speaker but also a high level player - not just one or the other. Although HD/PU casts are usually riddled with HD miscalls, they both take it in stride and HD seems to make fun of himself occasionally - so the mistakes don't really affect me.

Also Da Letter El - you'd be surprised how quickly you can improve... my RTS experience at the beginning of August: ~20 SCBW games, basically me getting smashed by Sarenji's tanks, Fishin's carriers, or QibingZero's mouse-only (as a handicap) everything, and about 10-20 games of me messing around with SC2 on my friend's account. So my first few games I was floating 1k/1k like a boss about 8 minutes into the game, wondering where all my units are when a massive roach/ling or marine/marauder ball smashes into my natural. Now it's a lot better! Muscle memory developed a lot quicker than I expected.
 
I wanted to play this since forever but could never afford a new computer yet, so I've just been playing BW hardcore to improve my macro/micro/mechanics/multitasking/etc.

Because I actually intend to become a progamer (yeah, I'm 100% fucking serious and dedicated to this), I've watched literally many thousands of games (perhaps even over 5k games) since February 2010 between all the tournaments, livestreams, all Day[9] dailies, Crota's (aka BlizShouter's), TotalBiscuit's, PsYStarcraft's vids and during the beta even HD's and Husky's ones (although HD just made me facepalm more than anything with missing drops on the minimap all the time and mispredicting everything) and many other stuff.

I've been theorycrafting a lot and have my own crisp build orders planned, I'll actually be a Random player. I actually managed to talk quite a lot with Artosis and some of the progamers before so HUGE fucking respect++ to them. It also helps a lot to have a lot of SC2 buddies to discuss the tournament games that are being streamed live with, as well as the vods, strats, the Day9 dailies, etc.

My favourite progamers are (based on good manners [of course not referring to MC, IdrA or NaNiwa here ;/, although I actually find their BM entertaining] and/or playstyle): Sheth, Grubby, White-Ra, IdrA, qxc, Ret, MorroW, Mondragon, MVP, Tarson, MC, Socke, ThorZaIN, Nestea, Strelok, Brat_OK, NaNiwa, MMA and Dimaga.

I had been practicing on/off on iCCup and even with practice partners in BW to get ready for the transition. You guys will hear a lot from me later on. Oh and I'm seriously going to completely troll eSports in the process by even choosing RainbowDash as username (I don't care that I'll get ridiculed / flamed for it when I'll participate in tournaments; as Day9 himself said "There's nothing cooler than being proud of the things that you like", haters gonna hate; it's that much more of a troll if I actually do succeed). TL has already been started to become 'contaminated' as of late so yeah, refer to the thread there.


P.S. Blink Stalkers are imbalanced in late-game PvZ with the nerfed duration of Fungal Growth not being able to hardcounter them anymore (they are more imbalanced than Stalker/Colossus/Void Ray deathballs were); combine them with +3 attack upgraded Dark Templars sniping Spore Crawlers and even the Hatcheries even if there's an Overseer around and you cannot really move around your army fast enough to stop them when they can just warp in at different locations when you're spread out on like 5-6 bases.

And in a frontal attack the Blink Stalkers can snipe the Overseers. Zerg detection is terrible, and Infestor Fungal Growth changes should be unmade or some alternate Blink-counter has to be added. I wish I could cite MorroW on this, because mentioning IdrA's opinion makes people ignore any statements.

I feel like Protoss sort of has a ticking timer of interval after the end of which they are unstoppable vs Zerg. You either kill them while they're still on 2 bases, or you die in late-game. I'll need to actually test this myself though since no one uses proxy Nydus Worms purely for mobility in mid-late rather than just for sieging the natural/all-in/doom drops, or they use them incorrectly like Spanishiwa (they should also use Worms along to Overlord drops to be able to retreat; I facepalmed so hard when MorroW did a doomdrop with Ovies and got counterattacked and he couldn't retreat back to defend and lost).
 
What infestor changes are you talking about? I'm more pissed over the fact that HT are the only caster unit without a researchable +energy now.
 
Fungal Growth duration used to be twice as much until they patched it a long while ago to counter armored deathballs like Stalker/Void Ray/Colossus, but until then it was 'the' answer to Blink Stalkers. It hurts to see HuK and pretty much everyone now just massing Blink Stalkers against Roach/Hydra/Infestor/Broodlord compositions and winning. If they opened with Stargate, they can even sometimes squeeze in getting a Mothership and doing offensive Blink-ins to snipe Hatches then get Recalled back, see Grubby vs XlorD and Socke vs Dimaga, etc.

And HTs with Amulet upgrade used to be considered 'too good' against Medivac drops. They're still perfectly useable, and with the Archon buffs they aren't completely useless if Ghosts EMP them after you got them so early on to charge up mana due to not having the upgrade.
 
Hell, it's about time

someone made this thread (and this joke!). I used to play a lot of SC2 in the first couple of months after the game was released. Then I started playing WoW again because I rage too hard at losses on the ladder. It's a very unfortunate character trait of mine, and I wish I wasn't so competitive. When I tried to start playing again, I learned that my laptop performance quality has decreased to the point where my graphics card literally cannot handle a clash of two 200/200 armies, and I drop to 1 fps. As a Terran player, this makes it impossible to win against an army consisting of Banelings which must be maneuvered around, Tank shots which must be dodged, and Colossi which must be focused. Until I get my comp fixed or replaced, I'm stuck raiding Azeroth.

But when I was playing a lot, I was a diamond Terran player back when diamond was the highest rank. Never made it to masters, I just never reached the point where I had the game sense to know when certain structures and units needed to be completed, or what my opponent was doing based on what little information I had. I did manage to get my siege tank portrait though, which I think is the second coolest Terran portrait, right behind the ghost.
 

Tangerine

Where the Lights Are
is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Basically, MLG is going to destroy everyone next year. There'll be some sick announcements during this upcoming event (MLG Raleigh).

GL HF

(Only here cause whistle said he made a thread.... heh)
 
muffinhead and i play a lot and i am pretty awful!

this game is a lot of fun
yo what's your and muffinhead's character name + code?

Fungal Growth duration used to be twice as much until they patched it a long while ago to counter armored deathballs like Stalker/Void Ray/Colossus, but until then it was 'the' answer to Blink Stalkers. It hurts to see HuK and pretty much everyone now just massing Blink Stalkers against Roach/Hydra/Infestor/Broodlord compositions and winning. If they opened with Stargate, they can even sometimes squeeze in getting a Mothership and doing offensive Blink-ins to snipe Hatches then get Recalled back, see Grubby vs XlorD and Socke vs Dimaga, etc.
I haven't followed recent GSL/IEM too closely but my impression was blink stalkers were all the rage before the infestor patch, no? I'm pretty shit at the game so I don't want to make claims but I thought ling/roach/infestor/[ultra?] beat blink stalker compositions b/c of the increased DPS (vs armored as well) of fungal. it feels like lings are pretty essential in that composition to provide a meatshield + kill shit if adrenal is researched.

My only annoyances are blue flame hellions and (to a much lesser extent) late game ghosts. hellions, since they don't require gas and are ridiculously effective against worker lines with relatively minimal micro (fuck up micro you still kill a shitton of workers). even if most of your hellions drops/runbys don't work, the ones that do... definitely worth throwing away minerals for a chance to kill 15+ workers at once. and late game cloaked ghosts because protoss detection is very bad against late game T: obs get obliterated by scan + range 9 viking (or marine or thor), and who doesn't have a shitton of scans late game? cannons are immobile and require pylon power... very impractical to keep one over your army at all times. there are no spells that decloak, while T has emp and Z has fungal - even if using a spell to decloak isn't optimal, it sure beats having three cloaked ghosts emp your entire army. I'm not good enough to legitimately complain about these issues, since I'm not at the point where game design determines who wins - it's usually bad macro or miscontrolling my army. but still I think these two units are a bit silly at the highest levels of play.

squarewalker, do you know when you're going to get the game? it'd be pretty cool if someone I "knew" became a progamer.
 
Blink Stalkers don't always clump up that much (and the AoE of Fungal isn't that huge) and can snipe the Infestors (it doesn't help though that people aren't paying attention and are losing the Infestors before getting a Fungal off; I facepalm every time people are terrible at multitasking and microing and they keep losing their Infestors, Banshees, Void Rays, even Phoenixes ffs, etc. for nothing at even the highest levels of play ._.; I'll aim to have much better unit control than them)

Ultras are terrible against Stalkers unless you manage to get many of them. And due to reasons previously mentioned regarding how easy it is to snipe Hatches with Stalkers and/or DTs etc., good luck getting enough gas for Infestors + a lot of Ultras, and Roaches do also require quite a bit and it all adds up in the end. In theory those should counter Blink Stalkers but I've seen very few people succeeding with that or the Protoss players just messed up.

Hellions and Ghosts are actually stronger against Z. I will certainly explore variations on 1 rax expand / 1 rax fact and later expand, into mass Marine + mass blue flame Hellion production during the entire game (doesn't require much gas early on, you do need at least 1 Thor out as well though to defend against Mutas as Turrets won't be enough, as well as to secure another expo), then transition into Ghosts and Banshees off 3-4 bases (and you have tons of leftover gas from earlier).

Marine/Hellion/Ghost/Banshee compositions will be the standard later on, I'm calling it (add in 1-2 Ravens as well), just the upgrades will have to be all over the place which might be why people refrain from experimenting with that stuff. Tanks are honestly inferior and bad in general (sure, Goody might pull off some excellent mech with them but still); Ghost Snipe might actually get nerfed though.

And I won't go into Cloaked Ghosts+Vikings+scans vs Observers, that comes down to unit control. Not actually as terrible as Blink Stalkers+DTs vs Overseers, though.

And I honestly don't know when I'll be able to actually start playing. If everything goes right perhaps at the end of this month I'll finally be able to, but really not sure anymore.
 
I read a post a few months ago on TL about blink stalkers in PvZ - the thesis of his argument was that blink stalkers are the core of any late game P composition. usually in a stalker/sentry/colossus ball we think of the colossus as the core unit, and the stalkers/sentries protect the colossus as they destroy the Z army. but due to the versatility of a mass stalker ball, the argument is that the colossus is actually the supporting unit that allows P to maintain a high stalker count. same with immortals, HT, archon, void ray, etc... very interesting point.

anyways I can see that obs/ghosts is probably a unit control issue. no question that I'm biased here since I only play P and have horrible unit control - I can imagine T players bitching about obs + HT sniping four ghosts when they aren't paying 100% attention haha.

tbh I think BW mechanics will get anyone to mid-masters, adding basic timings gets you to high masters, and that point build refinement/innovation gets you to pro/top grandmaster level. high master is basically grandmaster anyways...
 

Eraddd

One Pixel
is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
Pretty sure no one gives a fuck about this league, but I was really into CSL this year, mainly because 4 Canadian universities were powerhouses this year. My school, UBC, managed to take it from Waterloo, which was pretty awesome.

Going to start watching more GSL and MLG when school starts.
 
I literally just bought this game yesterday, since my friend's been trying to get me into it for a while
I played starcraft as a kid so picking it up wasn't really difficult at all, I think I'm getting pretty decent recently with protoss!

expy.345
 
Oh Squarewalker said progamer, haha. I was confused as to why anyone would have such a serious attitude towards being a programmer. I say more luck to you, you'll be living the dream if you can make a decent living out of it.

On the subject of making a living on gaming, and also going back to Square's comment about trolling the pro-circuit, how do you all feel about eSports and streamers like Destiny? If you don't keep up with SC2 drama or watch the featured streams on TL, Destiny (formerly of ROOT before the team fell apart) is a mid-grand masters player who streams up to 10 hours a day (I think that's accurate, but even if it's not, he streams his ladder matches a hell of a lot every day). As a result of donations and advertisements, he is able to support himself, a girlfriend (possibly wife at this point), and kid without any other form of income. He's good but not great, managing to take a few wins out of the loser's bracket at MLG Anaheim before being knocked out himself.

The controversy with Destiny is his use of swear words on his stream (which usually has 20,000+ viewers on a good day), anything from asshole to fuck, as well as racial profanity (the n word). Personally I don't have any problem with the guy or what he does. I'd even say that I like him, and think he's a positive influence on the community, as well as on the growth of eSports in general. But I'm curious, do you think he's a bane or boon to the SC2 community?
 
I am bad at this game. Cannot macro or micro at all.

But I keep playing it, despite getting run over by mass stalkers every other match.
 
-.- Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get StarCraft II, and this has subsequently caused me to lose interest in the competitive scene. Hopefully one day this will change...
 
Watched some streams before. Been reading the forums a lot on TL.net and I'm addicted! Maybe someday I shall actually play the game :P
 
I've been a competitive Halo player since H2 so I've been following MLG since 2007. When they started broadcasting SC2 this year I just started watching and eventually bought it. It's totally going to take over MLG within the next year. I'm going to be at the MLG Raleigh event next week and the crowd is probably going to be nuts.

I'm not close to good at the game though. Wouldn't say I'm bad, but far from good. Generally play Protoss.
 
I've been playing this constantly since I got it last Christmas. Went from the bottom of bronze and now I'm in Platinum 1v1, and masters with teammates. I main Toss because I like colossus and Templar, and because it's the easiest race. I also play mainly on the SEA servers, and I started a little clan of my own. If you're interested in practising 1v1 or joining my clan, VM me. I also enjoy spectating and I have plans to cast some of my own games sometime in the future.

PKring 853
 

Flora

Yep, that tasted purple!
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Researcher Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
I play Starcraft 2.

Flora.752 @ NA

Had it for about a year now but haven't really been actively playing it. I was an achievement freak and collected a lot of that until it got to the competitive point then I couldn't obtain any more. I played Terran and made it to Diamond 2v2 and Platinum 1v1 at this one ladder season when the game came out though I guess that's not too impressive with this new Master league.

Anyway, it'd be pretty cool to play with others here! I'm not super pro or anything and still make lots of mistakes while playing so yeah. (DLE? :D)
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top