Starcraft: Brood War

[matty]

I dunno if people follow professional Starcraft as much as I do (Tanger is the only one I know of and hes been on leave for awhile). Recently the Starleagues have been pretty wild. Especially the OSL. A lot of underdogs seem to keep pulling upsets out that usually don't happen. I'm gonna run down a few of the pros who have been lacking lately.

-Bisu[Shield] is on the verge of elimination. He dropped games to go.go (fucking stupid) and a game to Zero yesterday where he got dominated by Queens. His fate is out of his hands at this point as he needs go.go to drop a game against HwaSin in order to force a Round robin for the second spot in the group
-Jaedong, effOrt and YellOw (the fake one) all have a good chance of going to a Round robin as well as long as effOrt beats FlaSh in their next game. Its kinda hard to believe because Jaedong dominated both effort and Flash however lost in a build order ZvZ to YellOw yesterday.
-My boy FantaSy really stepped up in his group by cruising through the competition so far. I have a good feeling about him mangeling Stork coming up.
-Canata has been the real surprise for me this entire tournament. B-Caliber Terran from SKT1 who never really accomplished anything for his career now has a good chance at hitting the quarters and semis if he gets Terran opponents coming up. I can't say I like him, but he has impressed me thus far.

As for the MSL, I will save that for another time when I feel like writing about that shit storm (aka Bisu and Jaedong both coming out of the Round of 32 by the skin of their teeth)

 

[Outlaw]

Matty whatever happened to boxer and that one guy who was successful in actually mass producing wave after wave of zerg against someone?

 

[matty]

Boxer recently got out of the Airforce and has since come back to SKT1. He actually is about to play his first televised game since leaving the Airforce team. He is still out of practice but still has a huge fanbase (myself included). I'll try and post a live steam when the BoxeR match goes up

The Zerg player your talking about sounds like sAviOr who is in a major slump right now, but seems to still hang around and gets play time mostly in the team league. I'm fairly sure he is running out of gas though. Maybe he'll re-immerge with Starcraft 2's release in a couple of months.

Oh and I forgot to mention, Beta keys for Starcraft 2 were just handed out about a week ago. I think play testing begins in about 2-3 weeks is what the buzz is...

 

[Outlaw]

Ah the zerg player was JulyZerg.

I watch them from time to time whenever youtube recommends them.

 

[Eraddd]

My bro is nuts about SC. Active in TL and everything. He has played a couple of semi pros and has almost matched up to them.

Myself, AHAHAHA. Me and my firends play some LAN games usually. It's always me winning because I just go slow zealot rush while my friend turtles with sunkens ineffectively.

 

[Hot Nikkels]

matty have you heard about this Legends League that's supposed to be going on soon, or has it started maybe? I'm just typing this at work so can't take time to link or anything...I'll edit later

though if I recall Boxer vs Nada is somewhere on there :)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

first a quick edit-POST BNET NAMES LET'S GAME

 

[Luduan]

Boxer recently got out of the Airforce and has since come back to SKT1. He actually is about to play his first televised game since leaving the Airforce team. He is still out of practice but still has a huge fanbase (myself included). I'll try and post a live steam when the BoxeR match goes up

The Zerg player your talking about sounds like sAviOr who is in a major slump right now, but seems to still hang around and gets play time mostly in the team league. I'm fairly sure he is running out of gas though. Maybe he'll re-immerge with Starcraft 2's release in a couple of months.

Oh and I forgot to mention, Beta keys for Starcraft 2 were just handed out about a week ago. I think play testing begins in about 2-3 weeks is what the buzz is...

I think Outlaw was referring to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gcBqcstXV8

 

[Outlaw]

matty have you heard about this Legends League that's supposed to be going on soon, or has it started maybe? I'm just typing this at work so can't take time to link or anything...I'll edit later

though if I recall Boxer vs Nada is somewhere on there :)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

first a quick edit-POST BNET NAMES LET'S GAME

The Starcraft Heritage League? Yeh, the first 2 days have already ended. It's pretty interesting to see all these SC legends (except tossgirl ugh) in fantasy matchups. You can find them on youtube now.

Also, yes that was the player and video I was talking about Bane.

 

[matty]

lol I can't believe that they threw TossGirl in. She is playing awfully.

But, I am surprised at how well players like Kingdom (who hasn't had a televised match in ages) is playing fairly well. So far BoxeR is 2-0 :D and the Mantoss, Reach and Anytime are both playing well too. I think so far its out shadowed the OSL play.

Another thing I'd like to add, Proleague playoffs just started yesterday. I haven't watched any of the games yet (gonna save them when I get to work tonight). But man I'm excited. Hite Sparkyz vs CJ Entus (should be a great series) and STX Soul and Samsung KHAN (not as exciting but it might surprise me). I'm a SKT1 fanboy though and they already have a instant Grand Finals ticket punched so I am really really excited to see who they play.

MSL, OSL, GOM TV Intel Classic are cruising around. I'm just gonna touch on some of my favorite players really quick
-Bisu face stomped FantaSy in the MSL but didn't make the OSL (fucking go.go). Honestly, I'm not that concerned about him not making the OSL since he is now forced to focus solely on another MSL title which would be cool to see him get.
-As mentioned above, Fantasy lost in the MSL, but cruised through his OSL group going 3-0. I am really rooting for the guy. 2 straight OSL silvers must leave a bitter taste in that guy's mouth.
-Jaedong is on auto-pilot as usual. He scraped by his OSL group with a lucky win from FlaSh and soundly kicked the shit out of KaL in MSL R16. I think he is on track to be the first player to maybe win both an MSL and an OSL. We'll see though. He might get overworked
-effOrt has been.... well good, but not Jaedong great. He missed the OSL semis because of a build order advantage against FlaSh in their game. He is cruising through the MSL and he just defeated Jaedong in a Bo3 in the GOM Invite. This kid is hot, but has some bad luck. I'd like to see him really come out and make it to the MSL finals. I think he is easily capable of taking a Bo-X series from any of the top players right now.
-Leta another favorite Terran of mine is doing "alright" I guess. He made it out of his group of death in the OSL and now is about to lead his team in the Proleague playoffs. I think the kid has skills, but he just isn't S-Caliber yet. We'll see though, if he makes a good playoff run or maybe steals a title, I might change my tune.
-InteR.Calm a mediocre Zerg on STX Soul for the last 2 years really hasn't been doing much, but man he is on a roll recently. He's like 12-2 in ZvT and is just basically rolling everyone. I'd really like his play style and he is a personal favorite player of mine despite never really getting any results. Maybe with some lucky match ups we could see a late MSL run for him.

Anyway, those are my musings recently of the Starcraft scene.

 

[Outlaw]

lol I can't believe that they threw TossGirl in. She is playing awfully.

She's playing worse than myself. They should've gave her spot to July honestly.

 

[starcrusher]

i'm a big bisu fan, from his younger days to his first giant slump till his meteoric rise and now to this one he's sort of in .. either way he's still my favorite. you have to be something special to have a build order named after you :D

 

[matty]

Recommended Games from the Proleague Playoffs

STX SouL vs Samsung Khan


Cool Hite Sparkyz vs CJ Entus

[Game 1] go.go vs IriS
Haven't watched, seemed like a snooze fest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fJeYVId1pM&feature=channel_page
[Game 2] Horang2 vs mOvie
Not the best PvP I've seen, but very entertaining. Interesting tactics on the map Destination which keeps turning out interesting strats


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaPoRveXaSM&feature=channel_page
[Game 3] YellOw[ArnC] vs effOrt
Wow, great great ZvZ. I was on the edge of my seat until the GG and this game had tons of twists and turns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkoAB_xm-Gw&feature=channel_page
[Game 4] Justin vs Kwanro[saM]
If you guys watch the Starcraft scene at all, you will probably guess who wins this. Not a very clean game. I won't watch this one tbh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5qDYTfQ4I8&feature=channel_page
[Game 5] Leta vs sKyHigH
OMGWTFBBQ crazy ass game. My hype lived up. This game was awesome. AND there was bad mannered play at the end. SO EPIC ><

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMaBq2Bxk6U&feature=channel_page
[Game 6] TypE-B vs sAviOr
Type-B, the recent stand out in the OSL up agains the Maestro, sAviOr. It is a fairly standard ZvZ. The better player won

[Ace Match] ??? vs ???
Did Hite pull out a some daring victories to force an Ace? Did CJ Entus drop a few games to end up at an Ace? Find out on YouTube 'cause I'm not going to spoil it for you guys :3

 

[starcrusher]

slight spoiler but :

tossgirl beating reach? wtfbbq? i know reach is old now but come on MANTOSS. it looked like he wasn't even trying >_> ...

 

[Outlaw]

Wait, tossgirl beat Mantoss?

 

[Dexterity]

Reach made some poor decisions and had bad shuttle control. Tossgirl also didn't play that badly.

 

[Squarewalker]

posting this for those who missed it:

Chill from teamliquid vs Combat-Ex, with Day[9] doing the commentary:
the full thing (55 mins long): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dqYxpxegrk

or just the commentary highlights (9 mins long) because the commentary alone is worth it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKbckGc9KAw&feature=related

"I mean someone came up to me today and he was like oh last night Jaedong and Flash played, who won? and I was like who gives a fuck, fucking Chill versus Combat-Ex is coming up"

 

[Hot Nikkels]

Can't believe it actually happened....

edit-also WTF Tossgirl? Proleagues should just get cheerleaders and let Tossgirl coach instead of sacrificing talent to ratings

 

[Tangerine]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rem9ObtI00w&feature=player_profilepage#

This is the best PvZ ever.

 

[matty]

Game was epic

Hide

God damnit Bisu, can't believe that JUST happened

 

[Tangerine]

Hide

I'm not really blaming Bisu since no other Zerg actually plays like that guy lol... the commentators were yelling about how he captured the essence of zerg continually with the relentless attack in the first and third games. I love how he was just continually pumping hydras so fast that HT didnt have enough time to charge, and the muta sniping the 3rd game was pretty well done too.

 

[gggooodddyyy]

my starcraft broodwar disk doesnt play properly anymore and that makes me sad. i really enjoyed the game.

 

[Firestorm]

my starcraft broodwar disk doesnt play properly anymore and that makes me sad. i really enjoyed the game.

You can go to Blizzard's site and put in your CD Key and get a downloadable version I believe.
http://us.blizzard.com/store/?rhtml=y

 

[Outlaw]

Battle Report 4 is out for sc2

http://www.starcraft2.com/features/battlereports/4.xml

 

[Tangerine]

lol Violet has been an absolute beast recently

recommending any game played by him (whether he loses or not) I think he's really onto something (he's using dark archons to deal with the muta harass + muta sniping High Templars) that's going to affect PvZ significantly

Also, that recent boxer game is absolutely amazing. It's nice to see the terran emperor back in form (shame Savior sucks now though)

 

[matty]

The entire SKT vs Oz matches were very interesting


Big Wall of Text for Tang

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Tangerine still has his Violet crush lol. I'm not trying to bash the guy, but he still hasn't gotten results. RT will probably choke in PL again. He failed to qualify for either Starleague. He got absolutely trampled by Light and had a good set versus Shine which was highly entertaining yet he still lost. Oh and hes 4-6 in his last 10 games. His Achilles heel seems to be PvT.

I do agree that I think that Dark Archons are going to be key in the new age of PvZ since Zergs have been absolutely dominating Protosses this seasons and you can't entirely blame that on maps. People are starting to catch up to Jaedong's skill level in PvZ. Aka see Shine's recent games.