StarCraft II – Sacrifices Made For eSports, HotS Info, NASL, GSL & TSL Updates, PonyCraft II & More!

1 Million Strong On Facebook

Over one million people have “liked” the English StarCraft Facebook page! Yea, that is quite a lot and that number is steadily catching up to the Warcraft Facebook page, currently sitting on around 1.2 Million. Blizzard have had the pleasure of sharing thousands of news stories, images, and movies with a thriving Facebook community, but they tell us that they’re not done yet! To celebrate this milestone, StarCraft II Senior Art Director Samwise Didier whipped up the image seen on your screens right now!

So, to thank us for making the community as great as it is, they’ve released a new desktop wallpaper image depicting the Hyperion’s daring escape as featured in the Zero Hour mission cinematic. You can capture it for yourself in Blizzard’s wallpaper gallery, where you can find other inspiring StarCraft themed wallpapers as well.

If you aren’t already following the Blizzard games on Facebook, be sure to visit the official Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, and Blizzard pages for constant updates and much more! 😀

One Million Swarm Facebook! – Official

The Sacrifices StarCraft II Made In The Name of eSports

During yet another GDC Interview, which I definitely won’t complain about, Lead StarCraft II Designer Dustin Browder said that many sacrifices were made during the design and creation of StarCraft II… In the name of eSports. Apparently, when the StarCraft II team began its work on the game, it looked at its competition, namely Relic Entertainment’s Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Gas Powered’s Games’ Supreme Commander. Dawn of War featured four playable races to StarCraft’s three. Supreme Commander drowned the player with playable units, with more than 150 at a player’s disposal. StarCraft II would stick with the three races featured in its prequel, Zerg, Protoss and Terran – and a total of 45 units. Browder said that the reason it had less ‘perceived content’ than its competitors was because StarCraft II needed to be a sport, watchable and entertaining enough that people would want to tune in and watch other people play it competitively.

Browder said that trying to design StarCraft II’s multiplayer side was “insanely hard” and “like inventing Basketball 2” and back in 2005, both he and Blizzard Entertainment believed that “maybe, if they really hoofed it, they could ship it in 2008.” Needless to say, that didn’t happen!

So to make StarCraft II watchable and easily understood by all, it needed to be visually clear. “This is why the artists hate me,” Browder Said while showing concept art of the 300 ton Ultralisk, with a tiny Protoss Zealot to illustrate scale. He then showed the in-game Ultralisk, tiny and unimposing. Browder explained that having an Ultralisk to scale would never work. Players could hide 20 Zerglings behind a beast that size, sowing visual confusion. It really is a lot to think about and I don’t envy the designers, or artists any of it.

He finished it all off by saying that a key component in keeping StarCraft’s eSport qualities intact is skill through micromanagement and macromanagement, flanking and terrain tactics, skills other real-time strategy games tried to scrub out.

Do you think Blizzard succeeded? Do you like the visual simplicity of StarCraft II and Blizzards philosophy of ‘keep it simple but make it hard to master’, or would you prefer those sun obscuring motherships, base crushing ultralisks and titanic thors filling up your screen? Do you care about the fact that some of the units aren’t even in the multiplayer, or doesn’t that matter to you at all? Personally I am more than happy with how StarCraft II came out. I enjoyed the singleplayer immensely and, well, I think you all know that I absolutely love the multiplayer and all it entails, too.

One last GDC extra is that the Reaper is currently not where Blizzard wants it and will be addressed in Heart of the Swarm. A quote from Browder: “The Reaper not in a happy place. It was a bit of a mis-step for us. The players showed us what it was capable of and we nerfed it into obscurity. This will be addressed in Heart of the Swarm.”

That sure sounds good! Read all about everything Blizzard and all their employees had to say at the GDC about StarCraft II below.

Dustin Browder Talks eSports and HotS at GDC 2011 – GosuGamers

GDC 2011: Developing StarCraft II Like Inventing ‘Basketball 2’ – Gamasutra

Heart of the Swarm – 6 Months To A Year Away

If there is one thing the StarCraft players of the world know, and know well, it’s patience. Yes, we have been patiently Blizzard to give out more information regarding StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, the first expansion planned for the game. At GDC 2011, during a panel on the future of the strategy genre, yes, the very same one I was quoting mere minutes ago, Blizzard’s Dustin Browder gave a little more info on when Heart of the Swarm might be coming out. He stated that he expects Heart of the Swarm to be released in the “next six months to a year.” That would suggest that the game could in fact be out by the end of 2011, but it is quite unlikely. Either way, any talk about Heart of the Swarm is welcomed. Funny, though, that Blizzard seem to have quite a lot planned for the next 6 months to a year, here’s hoping nothing goes wrong!

Read more about all of this below, courtesy of BigDownload.

GDC 2011: StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm due out in “next six months to a year” – BigDownload

Blizzard Playing StarCraft II At NASDAQ

In my previous posts and Pulse episodes I spoke about Blizzards 20 year anniversary and all the special stuff they released for it, including that cool Retrospective video. One thing I did not mention, however, was that the Blizzard cofounders Frank Pearce and Mike Morhaime spent some time playing a game of StarCraft II at the NASDAQ Marketsite at Times Square. Pearce and Morhaime were joined by fellow cofounder Allen Adham and Activision Blizzard COO Thomas Tipl to preside over the NASDAQ closing bell on their most special of days. So, if that is  not a big enough treat for our friends at Blizzard, they also got to play trailers for StarCraft II and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm in Times Square. Exciting stuff and definitely worth if their 20 years in the business!

Original StarCraft Reborn

A few dedicated and pretty enthusiastic StarCraft community members made a mod for StarCraft II of the original StarCraft campaign. There are, obviously, benefits in having the campaign remade in StarCraft II. Vastly improved graphics, higher resolutions and all the features of the new StarCraft II Galaxy Editor. Some changes to this campaign, which the creators see as improvements, include the addition of medics, which will definitely spice things up a little. They also added and changed a few skills, upped the difficulty a little and apparently also put a few easter eggs in there for us to find, too!

They let everyone know that they did not skip anything at all, including the original tutorial, soundtrack, voice acting, dialogue and text. Pretty crazy and, well, how can you not want to check this out?! If you are new to the StarCraft scene and want to experience the amazing story of the first game without having to endure it’s now archaic look, this one is for you. You can find a link to Starcraft: Episode I – Rebel Yell’s official page below, along with a download link!

Starcraft: Episode I – Rebel Yell – SC2Mapster

Starcraft: Episode I – Rebel Yell – Download – SC2Mapster

Korean Map Pool Changes

LSPrime and JackyPrime have apparently been working with Blizzard for about a month already to add Crevasse, Tal’Darim Altar, Terminus RE to ladder map pool on the Korean servers. And now, it seems like things got a little more official, with the map changes announced on the Korean Community Forums.  The blue post linked below includes Blizzard’s thoughts on ladder map pool, but, the poster on TeamLiquid sharing this information deemed most of it ‘not worth translating’, and only gave us what we actually want to see. Here’s the short translation:

We’re going to maintain the number of ladder maps to 9 with 3 macro-oriented, 3 aggressive and 3 intermediate maps, so that a player can thumb down based on the player’s preference. GSL maps(soon) are macro-oriented.

That all sounds quite good and I really hope they think of adding these maps to the EU and North American ladders, too. Read more below!

GSL Maps on Ladder SOON™ – TeamLiquid

Tournament & Event Smalls:

Tt eSports StarCraft 2 Cup – GosuGamers

Team Dignitas Gamer Search – Team Dignitas

oGs, GosuGamers and more invited to second FXOpen – GosuGamers

DeMusliM still not fit; dropped from EPS – ESFI World

NASL Application Videos

The North American StarLeague. Yes, it may yet be a while off but the hype and excitement continues to grow. Why, you ask? Well the most recent influx of entertainment has come in the form of all the new application videos that have been sent in from players of all shapes and sizes. Firstly, the guys from the NASL said that only ‘Teams & Players that were NOT contacted must submit a public application with all the required information.’ So yes, these are the guys that weren’t picked but want in. Some names you might know that have applied are the following:  qxc, SjoW, SelecT, Catz, PainUser, Grubby and, wait for it… Artosis and even Brother Mack, yes, they can’t possibly not accept The Brother Mack. Yeah, I don’t think anyone saw that coming. So, you can watch all the video applications these guys, and more, sent in over the past few days. Some of them are extremely entertaining and it’s great to see why some of these players feel they should be in the NASL.

I have no doubt there will be more NASL news and / or announcements soon, but, untill then, check these out and enjoy!

NASL application VODS – TeamLiquid

IEM StarCraft II World Champion Is Crowned!

The Intel Extreme Masters that took place at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany, is over and we have a champion! Twelve competitors entered the fray, fighting for the title of IEM StarCraft II World Champion and a share of $30,000 in prize money. The unforgiving early rounds eventually reduced that number to two: Jung Woo ‘Ace’ Seo and Jaeho ‘Moon’ Jang reached the Grand Final on Saturday.

Moon showed some unusual tactics during the first two matches of the final, but as the clash continued we were treated to a beautiful display of late-game prowess from both players. Ace eventually overcame his foe to win the series 3 to 2 and take home the title of IEM StarCraft II World Champion, plus, how can we forget the $13,000 first prize money?! Moon earned second place and with it $6,500, while Squirtle was able to take down mOOn-GLaDe and win $4,000 for third place.

If you want to catch up on all the action you may have missed you can find all the VODs and replays of the event over at the ESL site, check a photo gallery of the event on the official StarCraft Facebook Page or just see the full brackets and results on various other sites. As an extra you can even check an interview out with TLO from the event where he says that being a commentator isn’t all that bad and he would actually consider doing it professionally. All of that and more can be found below!

The IEM StarCraft II World Champion is crowned! – Official

VIDEO: IEM: TLO talks commentator job and the future – GosuGamers

Ace crushes through IEM World Championship – SK Gaming

GSL Updates

Here we go, GSL updates! The GSL Code-S has entered and completed its semi finals, yes, that far already. The two victors of those matches? Well, that part is obvious, too. July and MC both made it through to the finals and are set to face off against each other in the most epic of ZvP’s. If you are as keen as me to find out who our next champion will be, be ready on March the 19th and check the links below for all the other results and drama from the past few days!

The GSL Code-A has already crowned its champion. The finals happened on the 11th of March between Losira and SuperNova. This ZvT ended with the Zerg, Losira, taking the series with a score of 4 to 3.

The GSL Up/Down matches are set to happen on the 14th and 15th of March with quite a few big names competing. The likes of FruitDealer, MVP, NesTea and many others are under a lot of pressure to do well. So, if you want to read all about what’s going on with in the closing stages of the 5th season of the GSL, check it out below.

[GSL] Code S Semifinals – TeamLiquid

[GSL] Code A finals – TeamLiquid

Up/Down Match Groups GSL S5 – TeamLiquid

[GSL March] Code S Ro8 Day – TeamLiquid

[GSL March] Code S Ro8 Day 2 – TeamLiquid

GSL Extras

As a few GSL related extras, you can read about when the next seasons’ qualification is set to start, all about how Kelly Milkies is apparently heading back so Singapore after only one season at GOMtv, about the new Code-A caster DoA, an interview with John about the new Code-A casters, how you can now also find all the GSL VODs (In full HS and for free) on YouTube at the new GOMtv channel, a video of the best Tastosis quotes from the past 2 weeks, featuring an extra dose of high gives and even how mOOnglade can’t wait to get back to Korea. A lot of interesting read, watch, and enjoy!

[R&S] GOM Code S/Code A March 2011 – TeamLiquid

KellyMILKIES to return to Singapore – ESFI World

GOMtv On YouTube – YouTube

New Code-A Caster – ESFI World

GOMtv: Q&A with John in Regards to Code A Casters – GosuGamers

mOOnGLaDe can’t wait to return to Korea – ESFI World

GSL May Code A Preliminaries – GOMtv

Tastosis Highlights (ft. Kelly) – GSL March – Week 2 – YouTube

GSL World Championship

Just a day or two ago GOMtv announced the 2011 GSL World Championship, an international StarCraft II tournament that will include players from Europe, America and Korea. It is set to take place from March 28th to April 9th, the event will begin with online preliminaries featuring 4-8 players from three regions of the world (Europe, America and Asia), of which only five will make it to the tournament itself. Two Europeans, two American and one Asian representative will be selected. The prize purse is set to be a whopping $50,000.

The offline tournament will consist of a 16 player single-elimination bracket and the series will begin in best of 3 format, then move into best of five until the grand finals, which will be best of 7. In addition to the solo event the guys from GOMtv also have a GSL TeamLeague planned, too, which will be detailed in full soon.

Players currently qualified, as of March 7th, are NesTea, MVP, MarineKing, NaDa , mOOnGLaDe, Jinro and Morrow. You can also find the list of preliminary participants that GOMtv announced from each region below.

GSL World Championship details revealed – ESFI World

[GOM] 2011 GSL World Championship – TeamLiquid

Top 200 Lists

The Top 200 lists have been updated again and, as usual, you can find the North American, European, Korean and South East Asian lists below!

StarCraft II: Top 200 – EU – Official

StarCraft II: Top 200 – US – Official

StarCraft II: Top 200 – KR – Official

StarCraft II: Top 200 – SEA – Official

TSL3 Updates

The brackets for the upcoming  TSL3 have been set up, we have our pairings and, to make it all even sweeter, we have a start date for this most anticipated of StarCraft Leagues, March the 19th. The first day of the Ro32 will feature four highly enticing match-ups, which are as follows:

BoxeR vs NightEnd
 Tyler vs  Strelok
SEn vs  Fenix
Thorzain vs FruitDealer

With games like those coming up, and yes, this is only the round of 32… who wouldn’t be excited? So it begins, do not forget to tune in on March 19th at 20:00 CET to catch the first batch of TSL 3 games. Check the links below for all the TSL details you could ever want! As an extra, the maps and casters for the TSL3 have been revealed too, but I will leave that as a mystery and force you to check the links below if you want to know.

[TSL] Casters and Maps – TeamLiquid

[TSL] RO32 Day 1 – Get Ready! – TeamLiquid

[TSL] Bracket released! – TeamLiquid

StarCraft II At WCG 2011

Just a few days ago I mentioned that the Blizzard games might well be excluded from the WCG 2011 finals, but now, I have some good news!  World Cyber Games has released an official list of nine games that will be featured at the upcoming event in Korea and Blizzard’s masterpiece StarCraft II, quite fortunately, included. Other games to be played include WarCraft III, World of WarCraft Cataclysm and Counterstrike 1.6, to name a few. So, all those Blizzard fans out there that just happen to be WCG fans, rest easy tonight, all is well. Read more below!

StarCraft 2 finds its way to WCG 2011 – SK Gaming

Community Smalls:

More info on next StarCraft II hardcover novel revealed – BigDownload

PonyCraft II

I… Um…PonyCraft II? Yes, let  that sink in just a little bit before we continue. Firstly, the amount of My Little Pony that the creator of this would have had to watch to  create something as amazing and, um, accurate, as this, is just off the hook. That is some REAL dedication. Now, this is probably one of the best, and by far weirdest, strangest, oddest crossovers ever. You have to watch the entire thing, I can’t possibly hype it up enough. If this video doesn’t spread all over the internet, well, then there truly is no justice in the world. Check it out and enjoy!

PonyCraft 2 – YouTube

Art Updates

Time for a few StarCraft related art updates, the best kind of updates! The Blizzard Fan Art Section has been updated with new artwork from our community peers, four new, pretty well done, pieces from the StarCraft universe. Along with these we have also been treated with the latest batch of winning comics from Blizzard’s ongoing comic contest. There are two StarCraft related pieces and one WarCraft pieces. I have to say I did chuckle at the poor SCV’s playing with the mule!

Check all those new images out below, enjoy!

New StarCraft Fan Art – Official

Comic Contest Winners – Official

Liquid Weekly #30

The next Liquid weekly is up, number 30, is up and ready for our viewing! You can read about HuK and his progress, which has sadly halted, in the GSL Code-A, Ret moving back to Europe and some more TSL goodness. Check it out over at TeamLiquid, or the links below, and enjoy the best of the Liquid community!

The Liquid Weekly #30 – TeamLiquid

Day[9] Stand -up Routine

Day[9] doing stand-up comedy? Yes, it’s true and thoroughly entertaining. If you want to see one of the funniest videos of Day[9] ever, then you’ve come to the right place. In this routine, or maybe we should call it a rant, Sean Plott goes on about the eHarmony web dating scene and this gem was recorded back in 2008. Check it out right here on YouTube, you won’t regret it!

Sean Plott – eHarmony Rant – YouTube

As a few Day[9] extras you can also find a few VODs of him commentating with the super talented Zoe, aswell as a recorded piece of one of his pre-shows where he was overly obsessed with the word penis and lastly a video of Day[9], Khaldor and a bottle of beer. Yes, that is all you’re getting. Check them out below!

Pre-Daily#266 Penis – YouTube

Day[9] and Soe – reddit

Day[9], Khaldor and a bottle of beer… – YouTube

GG Vision

The next few GGVision Episodes are out and man, is there a lot of good stuff to be seen! Everything from GSL talk to IEM news and reviews to quite a few super interesting live-shows. All that, coupled with the ever entertaining Sebastian, what’s not to like? Check the ESFI World and PolygonreVue channels out below to see it all!

ESFI World – YouTube

PolygonreVue – YouTube

Athene Carries On

Ah Athene, it seems like you are most definitely back, and here to stay. So, troller extraordinaire, Athene, has struck again, twice. Firstly by setting up a new YouTube channel to no doubt double his already no doubt impressive income, in this channel he is going to be providing gaming and poker tips to the masses. Secondly, by offering up a thousand dollars to any StarCraft player able to take 4 insane PC’s out, 4v1. It seems like after this feat was achieved by an incredibly keen player, said player did contact Athene and is apparently set to receive the money. So, if you want to see the drama generator that is Athene in action, or just want some poker tips, you can find the links to both his channels below!

AtheneWins Channel –  YouTube

Chiren80 Channel – YouTube

Athene challenge was the real deal – reddit

Local (South African) News

On the South African StarCraft II front you can read about how Stripe took enjoy down in the PolarfluKe: MMMarch finals and watch those VODs below. The guys and girls from over at eGamer.co.za have a great ‘guide’ up covering our little StarCraft community. The article features a couple of quick interviews with a few big name local players and gives everyone reading a few pointers on where to find the most, or best action. Worth checking out!

PolarfluKe: MMMArch Finals VODs – mitarn

Gamer’s Guide To The Local StarCraft 2 Community – eGamer

Read Full Post »

StarCraft II – Patch 1.3, Speculation About New Blizzard Game, GSL, IEM & MLG News, Artosis & The Plotts At WCG 2005 & More!

StarCraft II: Wings of Libery – Patch 1.3.0

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty patch 1.3.0 is currently in development and available for testing on the PTR. Blizzard tells us that the early test-version of the patch contains notable improvements to the Join Custom Game interface, a preview of the new Grandmaster League, several balance adjustments, bug fixes, and more. Now, those are the official highlights, but us, as StarCraft II players, see different things as highlights. In what has got to be my favourite addition, Blizzard have added a customizable observer and replay UI to the game. These new ‘overlays’ as they have come to be called, do everything from show player names and colors, track supply and unit counts to even keeping an eye on both players’ resources and their collection rates. It really is something that is going to make my life as a shoutcaster a lot easier and definitely going to improve things for players opting to spectate games instead of play them.

But now, on to the dreaded balance changes. In the general changes, players can no longer hide units by setting them in a close proximity patrol. (Like that silly Viking flower!) Of the three races, most players seem to think that protoss was hit the hardest with the removal of the Khaydarin Amulet upgrade. (+25 starting energy) Others would say terran were the most damaged in this patch, with a bunker build time increase of 5 seconds and stim pack research time increase of 30 seconds, too. I would probably have to agree with them there. Lastly, the zerg changes, which are exclusively to Infestors. Their health was increased from 90 to 110 and their Fungal Growth ability now fires a missile instead of bein instant cast. The stun duration has also been decreased from 8 seconds to 4 seconds. That does mean that there was a double in damage per second.

Other than all of those changes there were just the normal bug fixes and editor improvements, which you can read all about below!

Patch 1.3 in development – StarCraft II Community Site

Patch 1.3.0 Extras

As a few extras related to Patch 1.3.0 you can also see the new observer mode in action, courtesy TheGunRun. I have to say I can’t wait to use it. I wasn’t even aware of all the cool, and useful, options that you could enable or of the fact that you can entirely hide the bottom bar of the UI, thereby increasing your viewing pleasure by multitudes. I just hope they set it up that we can hide everything except the minimap, that would be perfect. Check that video out, you won’t regret it and you won’t be able to contain your excitement! If you are interested you can also check the new and most definitely improved league icons out below, courtesy of the TeamLiquid forums. These are the same icons that were shown during BlizzCon 2010, but, it’s great to see them finally implemented. Read about, and check out, all those extras below!

New Observer Mode Features (Patch 1.3.0) – YouTube

New League Icons (Patch 1.3) – TeamLiquid

Ladder Map Pool Changes

To improve overall map balance and keep StarCraft II ladder play fresh and engaging, Blizzard recently made several changes to the ladder map pool. Below you can find a list that comprises of all the maps currently available, separated by bracket. You will be able to see the maps that were removed, the new maps that were added and the ones that stayed exactly where they were. If you are the kind of person that prefers not to read too much, you can in fact see all the aforementioned information in video form, too. There was a lot of information given with these changes, additions and removals and I suggest you watch the video for that extra bit of insight. While some may not like them, I find that the new maps are a lot of fun and definitely worth additions to the ladder map pool!

Patch 1.3 Map Changes – StarCraft II Community Site

Ladder Map Changes – StarCraft II Community Site

New Ladder Maps – YouTube

Masters League For Teams

In some more official news, Blizzard are happy to share that they’ve been working to implement an oft-requested feature in secret; laboring over small brass pins and cogs in the humid bioluminescent mines deep beneath the Blizzard campus top-soil to bring you Master League for teams! So if you didn’t realise, Blizzard have deployed a hotfix to implement Master League for arranged and random 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 teams. For a refresher on what the Master League is, how it functions, and what it takes to get into it, refer back to their previous post about the Master League, which you can find in the links below. They also just give us a quick reminder that the Grandmaster League is coming very, very soon for 1v1 and everyone had better start preparing for that!

Master League for 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 – StarCraft II Community Site

Top 200 Lists

The Top 200 lists have been updated and, as usual, you can find the links to the North American, European, South East Asian and Korean Lists below. Check those out and see if your favourite players are still at the top! 😀

EU Top 200 – StarCraft II Community Site

US Top 200 – StarCraft II Community Site

SEA Top 200 – StarCraft II Community Site

KR Top 200 – StarCraft II Community Site

Speculation About BlizzCon 2011

BlizzPlanet has a really interesting, if slightly far fetched article up concerning all the rumors and speculation about this years BlizzCon event. In past years, Blizzard has rented the Anaheim Convention Center to celebrate this massive convention, this year, though, strange things are happening and needless to say, people have noticed them! Firstly, I have to say, I don’t even know how these guys figure this stuff out, find it or manage to make sense if it all, it really is some crazy spy-movie-detective-investigating stuff.

Here we go, according to the Anaheim Convention Center, Blizzard has acquired the entire facility for this years event. Why is that strange? Well, for all their previous events, yes, every single one, they only rented Halls A, B, C, D, & The Meeting Rooms. This year, though, those are joined by Hall E and the Arena. So, BlizzPlanet asks this question: What if Blizzard are planning on announcing, or revealing a new game? I guess it really could make sense that they would need more space, especially if they wanted to dedicate an entire one of those halls to it, which, let’s face it, is the least they can do! Could it be for their Next-Gen MMO? Heart of the Swarm? Perhaps WarCraft IV? Who knows, but these conspiracy theories are always a good read and there is still a lot of time for the rumors to spread and the plot to thicken. Check the full thing out below!

New Blizzard Game At BlizzCon 2011? – BlizzPlanet

Tournament & Event Smalls:

E-stars Seoul pulls out Blizzard games – TeamLiquid

Blizzard’s IP rights war against Korean broadcast companies has claimed yet another victim. E-Stars Seoul, in a show of solidarity with KeSPA, is removing Blizzard games from its tournament in August.

[TSL] Qualifier #8 Recap – TeamLiquid

[Q&A] Official NASL Thread – TeamLiquid

[NASL] Deadlines and Process – TeamLiquid

[TSL] Bracket Show! – TeamLiquid

Blizzard Excluded From WCG 2011?

In our second last piece of big tournament news, apparently, according to Thisisgame.com, due to the legal happenings regarding Blizzard’s IP rights, BroodWar, WarCraft 3 and even StarCraft 2 might be excluded from the World Cyber Games 2011 grand finals. This is not final and there is still no official statement by the World Cyber Games but one is probably soon to be issued. I won’t go into any more detail about it here, but I just thought you guys would want to know. Read more about it below!

Blizzard Excluded From WCG 2011? – SK Gaming

 FXOpen eSports Announcements

After the success of FXOpen’s past events and the establishment of the FXOpen Invitational Series, they are proud to make the following announcements: FXOpen e-Sports has begun programming for an e-Sports TV platform, their tournament Ladder is now released, they are setting a new, weekly, KOTH series up, they are planning a new invitational titled ‘Destination Korea’, the first prize of which will be a ticket to South Korea and it seems like a talk show, team house and website are all coming soon, too. There was more than just that, yes, I know, how is that even possible? But wow, all I can say is this is some really great news. FXOpen are really trying their hardest to help eSports grow and, well, I have to say they are most definitely succeeding. if you want to read all about those FXOpen eSports Announcements you will just have to check the post linked below.

[FXO] FXOpen e-Sports Announcements – TeamLiquid

GSL Updates

Time for a few GSL updates! The Code-S and Code-A have both moved into their respective rounds of 16 and both are steadily progressing and both have their fair share of entertaining and saddening upsets.

First up, the Code-A. The first play-day of the Round of 16 has already been completed with HuK, Losira, Virus and  Leenock winning their games and moving on to the round of 8.

Players that made it to the Code-S Round of 16 include July and MC, both of which have already won their games in said round, NaDa, Lyn and Jinro also made it to the round of 16, but, sadly, Jinro was knocked out by HongUnPrime.  There are a few others that I obviously didn’t mention here, but hey, I will leave some of it for you to read.

Players that were knocked out of the Code-S, or rather down to the up/down matches thus far are the following – IdrA, by forfeit, Zenio, BoxeR, Genius, MarineKing and, even three of our former champions MVP, FruitDealer and NesTea. That is quite crazy and it is really weird to see big name players like that being knocked out this early.

As usual you can read all about the going-ons at the GSL, the results and all the drama that ensued in the links below and do remember to keep checking back here for more!

[R&S] GOM Code S/Code A March 2011 – TeamLiquid

[GSL March] Code A Ro16 Day 1 – TeamLiquid

[GSL March] Code S Ro16 Day 1 – TeamLiquid 

GSL Extras

What would GSL news be without a few extras? In todays extras we have the Code-S Nominations, dubbed in English, for all us foreigners that want to enjoy every possible bit of GSL goodness, a HuK, Ret, Jinro and Moonglade Foreigner Special, courtesy of TeamLiquid and lastly, a pretty interesting post about the map stats on the GSL March, thus far at least. Check all of that out in the links below!

GOMtv.net Releases Code S Nominations Dubbed in English – TeamLiquid

[GSL] Liquid`HuK Code A Ro16 Foreigner Special – TeamLiquid

[GSL] Jinro, Moonglade, Ret Foreigner Specials – TeamLiquid

[GSL March] The map statistics thus far – TeamLiquid

MLG – MLG Dallas

In a few small MLG related updates, the MLG Dallas event, set to take place from April the 1st to the 3rd have put their passes on sale for the event. So, if you were keen to attend the event you’d better head on over to their site and get yours booked and payed right now. (The StarCraft 2 Schedule has not yet been released, though.) Next up they have also released the maps they are using for the event, 7 maps will make up the map pool for the 2011 StarCraft II pro circuit. Four standard maps are included, but they have been slightly revised for use in the MLG competitions. Shattered Temple will replace Lost Temple, and the two other maps are ICCup Testbug and one of the GSL’s new maps, Crossfire SE. You can check the links below for the complete list of included maps, players and everything else MLG related.

MLG Dallas 2011-Passes on sale tonight at 7 PM ET – TeamLiquid

MLG announces StarCraft 2 map pool – ESFI World

MLG 2011 : North America be ready! – GosuGamers

IEM World Championship Updates

The group stage of the Intel Extreme Masters just kicked off, a day or two ago, at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany in hall 23, for those that were wondering. Twelve players started fighting tooth and nail for the title of StarCraft II World Champion and $30,000 in prize money.

Our hosts for this amazing event, Kevin ‘RotterdaM’ van der Kooi, Dario ‘TheLittleOne’ Wünsch and Sean ‘Day[9]’ Plott have been treating us exceptionally well and keeping us more than entertained during, and between, the matches. If you want to watch the rest of the action you can check the schedule in order to attend the matches or follow the live streaming on ESL TV.

 With the first couple of play-days already completed, the number of players still in contention has significantly decreased, but with that, the quality of the games has also significantly increased. First up I have to mention that there are absolutely no European or US players left in the tournament. The top 4 players, and the only ones left, are ACE, mOOnGlaDe, Moon and Squirtle. Big name such as IdrA, Socke, Fenix, qxc, SjoW and MorroW were knocked out by those top 4 and, well, that just makes the fact that they are there even more impressive.

The next few games are set to happen tomorrow and should not be missed. Check the links below for all the information you could ever need! 😀

IEM Season 5 World Championship at CeBIT kicks off! – Blizzard Entertainment

IEM Season 5 World Championship – Group stage is over! – Blizzard Entertainment

[IEM] Semifinals – TeamLiquid 

[IEM] Day 3 – TeamLiquid

[IEM] Day 2 – TeamLiquid

ESL Season 5 Schedule – ESL

IEM Extras

As a few extras from the IEM you can check a bunch of interesting interviews out with the players and casters from the event courtesy of ESFI World and MyM. There are also various sites that have a ton of the replays from the event up already, worth checking out too!

Moon discusses IEM results, WarCraft 3 vs. StarCraft 2 – ESFI World

Audio: IdrA predicts himself vs. Ace in grand final – ESFI World

Day 1’s big group A winner Ace interviewed – ESFI World

mOOnGLaDe: “not entirely confident vs. MorroW” – ESFI World

Socke: “Stamina wise, I was doing ok [in the tiebreaker]” – ESFI World

IEM: Video-Interview with Fenix – MyM

IEM: Video-Interview with qxc – MyM

IEM: Video-Interview with Tarson – MyM

IEM: Video-Interview with IdrA – MyM

IEM: Video-Interview with Socke – MyM

The Gathering Map Pool & Dreamhack Prize Pool

In two more slightly smaller tournament announcements, we see the The Gathering include the iCCup Testbug and iCCup Pawn Re maps which were made popular in the ESL Go4SC2 tournaments. These, and the five original Blizzard maps are what the players at the offline tournament will be battling on. Next up, after DreamHack’s earlier announcement of their Summer event, the organizers released detailed information regarding their StarCraft II tournament. The tournament will feature 800,000 SEK (about $125,000) and is also supported by sponsors SteelSeries and Eizo. Read more about both those smalls below, courtesy of GosuGamers and ESFI World.

DreamHack’s 2011 SC2 tour features $125,000 – ESFI World

Pawn Re, Testbug in The Gathering map pool – GosuGamers

Community Smalls:

Poll: My Other Car Is A – StarCraft II Community Site

The Academy: Meet the Underdog – StarCraft II Community Site

Poll: Who will win the IEM World Championship in Hannover? – StarCraft II Community Site

The Academy: It’s all about having fun – StarCraft II Community Site

MVP Launch Detected – StarCraft II Community Site

Custom Map Spotlight – StarCraft II Community Site

Destiny Joins ROOT Gaming – TeamLiquid

March KR roster changes – TeamLiquid 

Naama Leaves Mousesports For Virus – GosuGamers

Artosis parts ways with MeetYourMakers – GosuGamers

LucifroN Leaves Fnatic.MSI and Joins Spanish Team, APSC2 – GosuGamers

Satiini: “The GSL maps seem to be really great” – Competo

DieStar: “ToD will be legendary!” – Competo

Grubby interview from Assembly – SK Gaming

Artosis Departs From MyM – SK Gaming

Blizzard Careers At GDC 2011 San Francisco – BlizzPlanet

11 Minute mOOnGLaDe Video Interview – rakakaworld

John posts a response to Huk’s troll allegations – reddit

Zerg and Terran talking about balance in StarCraft 2 – YouTube

Tasteless, Artosis & Day[9] At WCG USA 2005

Some footage recently surfaced of some of the big names in today’s StarCraft II scene from back before they were in fact big names, while they were growing up, learning to be a better gamer, one step at a time. The footage is from the USA World Cyber Games 2005 where some names you may well know, Tasteless, Artosis and Day[9], participated. The video is full of arrogance, drama, heartache, bitter sweetness and even a few good laughs to boot. Yes, this was in fact the WCG that Day[9] won. It really is amazing seeing these guys and how they were back then, which is, strikingly similar to how they are today. But anyway, check the video out and big thanks to BNice for digging this up and finally uploading it to YouTube.

WCG 2005 Footage – Artosis, Day9 and Tasteless – TeamLiquid

Cellabrella?

I absolutely had to feature this video because it may well, quite possibly be, the most brilliant thing ever. You all know Cella, formerly of clan Werra, now in clan SlayerS. And you all probably know he loves his wine, cheese and, well, singing! So here is his latest piece of work, while on air with ROOTdestiny he performs his own version of Rihanna’s Umbrella, not to be missed!

Cella singing ‘Rihanna – Umbrella’ – Starcraft 2 – YouTube

What’s This? StarCraft II Edition

Yet another StarCraft II themed song, The Nightmare Before Christmas’ – What’s This, StarCraft Edition. This was created by the guys from over at AKAmazingness and, well, what can I say, it’s pretty funny. It was apparently requested by Day[9] during one of his dailies and, being the keen fans that they are, they decided to whip it up. You can find the music video and .mp3 of the song in the links below.

What’s This? StarCraft 2 Edition – The Nightmare Before Christmas! – YouTube

Bronze League Hero

Did I just talk about a Starcraft II theme song? Oh, well, here’s another one and this one has slightly higher production value it seems. The song is titled Bronze League Hero and is amazingly well performed. It is apparently a cover of a song I’ve personally never heard before. The artist claims that this is the next Banelings and, well, it is pretty good, that much is sure, but I don’t know if it as good as Kurts and Huskies Banelings. What do you think? Listen to it and let me know! 

Bronze League Hero – 3OH!3 Parody – YouTube

The Liquid Weekly #29

The next Liquid Weekly is out, #29. This weekly has a look at Jinro and HuK, the driver and conductor of the Liquid Pain Train, some more TSL related stuff, which includes mini-interviews with all the Liquid players and you can even pick up some TLO, HuK and Haypro ladder replay packs. Check all of that and more out below, obviously courtesy of TeamLiquid!

Liquid Weekly #29 – TeamLiquid

Artosis Tours The Prime.WE Team House

Artosis has put up the next of his seemingly endless series of pro-team-house tours. This time around we get a look, a pretty detailed look, at the Prime.WE team house and even a couple of interviews with the players residing there. So if you want to take a look at where and how a Korean Pro Team practices and lives, what they have to say about the GSL, their team house and everything else, check the series of videos in the links below or just head on over to ArtosisTV for the lot of it.

Prime.WE Team house tour and interviews! – TeamLiquid

Fan Art Updates

In some art updates, the official StarCraft II Fan art section has been updated with a few pretty impressive pieces, and quite funny pieces. If you’re interested, need a new wallpaper or just love everything StarCraft related, you’d better check these out. My personal favourite can be seen on your screen right now!

New StarCraft Fan Art – Blizzard Entertainment

Art Extas

In a few extra, if slightly smaller, art updates, we get a look at a cute StarCraft II themed birthday cake and a fan-made, zerg and IdrA themed wallpaper. Find the full size versions of both of those in the links below!

StarCraft II Birthday Cake – Imgur

IdrA / Zerg Wallpaper – Imgur

TotalBiscuit Audio Interview By Reddit

The guys over at reddit have a pretty lengthy and indeed quite informative interview up with none other than TotalBiscuit himself. TotalBiscuit talks about, well, everything. From StarCraft II eSports and his involvement in it, the current state of the game, the NASL and Jinro vs IdrA showmatch, his own gaming background and lastly, some talk about his future projects and what we can expect from the one and only CynicalBrit in the coming months. It really is a great listen well worth checking out. You can even download the whole thing in .mp3 format to make it a little easier to listen to!

TotalBiscuit Audio Interview by Reddit – TeamLiquid

Why Does Brother Mack Pray For StarCraft II?

Brother Mack is back and this time he is answering a question that is apparently often asked: Why does he pray for StarCraft? Pretty entertaining, he talks about a few of the reasons he chose to pray for the game and its community. In usual Brother Mack style it does go a little off track at one point… but I think I’ll leave that for you to discover. Check the video out above!

Why Brother Mack Prays for StarCraft – YouTube

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Starcraft II – Top 10, GSL3, Lots Of Interviews & More!

TIME Magazine Top 10 of Everything – Starcraft II

Starcraft II has snagged yet another award, or mention at least, in the TIME Magazine Top 10 of everything lists. Sadly for us Starcraft fans, the game only managed a 9th place, with Alan Wake taking the #1 spot. Still, though, it is on the list and that alone is an impressive feat! So if you’re interested in the rest of that list you’d better head on over to the TIME website to check it out. You can also read their little description of Starcraft II and reasons for picking it as a Top 10 contender below, enjoy.

The Top 10 Everything of 2010 – TIME

Good things come to those who wait, and boy, did we wait for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. Twelve years after the original game was released, we finally got to play as Terrans (humans), Zergs (alien slugs) or Protoss (alien psionic bugs) once again. The space saga follows the Terran story line as the Terrans fight off attacks from the extraterrestrials trying to take over. StarCraft II’s game play has the right mix of old and new. It’s easy to pick up — even if you haven’t played the original in a while — and remains interesting and new. More important, this game focused on the multiplayer competition, which is what players loved most about the original. Here’s to the real-time strategy game slowing down Internet connections everywhere so we can enjoy our LAN parties.
TIME Magazine, Top 10 of Everything

Save On Starcraft II – This Weekend!

In celebration of the holidays and this most festive of seasons, Blizzard Entertainment announced an offer that lasts till the end of this weekend. You can now purchase Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty for yourself or as a gift to someone close to you and save $10. Sadly, this offer only works for those in the US or Canada. I don’t know if it is possible to cheat the system, either way though, a good deal. Check the official announcement below!

Weekend Sale – Save $10 on StarCraft II – Starcraft II Official Site

Beginning now through this weekend only, you can purchase StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty for yourself or a friend directly from Blizzard and save $10. This sale ends soon and is only available in the United States and Canada. Click here to save big and ring in the holidays with the intense strategic combat of 2010’s fastest-selling real-time strategy game.
Blizzard Entertainment

I realise that it might be a little late to post this now, but whatever!

Raynor Battle.net Authenticator Design

Below you can also read about and check out the new Jim Raynor themed Authenticators. If you felt your account was lacking that extra bit of security and your authenticator lacking that extra bit of style, then I guess this one is for you.

New Raynor Battle.net Authenticator Design – Starcraft II Official Site

We’ve just unveiled a new StarCraft II design for theBattle.net Authenticator. Armed with more rebel attitude, the Raynor Edition Battle.net Authenticator is now available on the Blizzard Store. You’ll keep your account safe in style and be the talk of Mar Sara with this account-security device in your arsenal.

Want to know more? Check out the Battle.net Authenticator FAQ, or visit our account-security page for more tips on keeping your Battle.net account safe from alien forces.The Koprulu sector is depending on you!
Blizzard Entertainment

GSL3 – oGsMC Wins!

The GOMTV Global Starcraft II League’s third season has finally come to an end! The final match between TSL_Rain and oGsMC was a best of 7 with pre-determined maps. There was also an interesting little bonus for the audience. Both players were in booths that moved forward with each win, forward towards the trophy that they were battling it out for. That, if anything, must have added a little bit of extra tension and stress to these games. I won’t be going into full detail about the games here, I will simply give you the results and point you towards a ton of great sites that did amazing coverage of the finals. oGsMC played amazingly, as he seemed to be doing for the entire GSL3. He managed to best TSL_Rain with a rather impressive 4 to 1. So yes, MC from the clan Old Generations has won GSL Season 3 and we have our first non-zerg winner from our first non-zerg-containing finals! Not taking anything away from Rain at all here, he played amazingly to get to the finals, but it was just not meant to be. So as I mentioned, below you can find a bunch of links to sites that did some really in-depth coverage.

[GSL] S3 Grand Finals – TeamLiquid

GOMTV StarCraft 2 Open – Grand Final – Results – GosuGamers

GSL Season 3 Finals – MyM

As a little added extra you can also find an interview with our winning protoss player below, discovered, translated and transcribed by the wonderful guys over at the TeamLiquid forums. Enjoy!

Interview with GSL #3 Final Winner (Spoiler) – TeamLiquid

Code-S Groups Finalized

With the GSL3 now concluded and 2010 fast coming to an end, it’s time to look to the future. The Code-S groups for the GSL Season 4 have been released, as I mentioned before. There are quite a few groups that quite a few people are slightly unhappy about. Three oGs members in one group, Jinro and IdrA sharing another? That is just the way of things. If they are going to win, they are going to win. Have a look at those groups below and let me know what you think. Are we in for a treat next year? Mass upsets or more of the same? Exciting!

GSL4: Code S Groups finalized – TeamLiquid

Groups for GOMTV Global StarCraft 2 League Code S – GosuGamers

Code-A

Let’s not forget about Code-A! The qualifiers are complete and we have our list of players. For those of you that don’t know exactly how it works just yet, GosuGamers have an amazing post up detailing every little detail of the Code-A to Code-S to Code-A happenings. It is, in short, as I mentioned before. The bottom players from Code-S play against the top players from Code-A. Should those Code-S players lose out, they get dropped to Code-A and the Code-A guys move up to Code-S. Woah.

Anyway, check the post out below for the full list of players and how its gonna be working!

Players for GOMTV Global StarCraft 2 League Code A – GosuGamers

eG Masters Cup

The eG Masters Cup is currently underway and moving into its round of 4 soon. Thus far we have bLuR, SLush, and stalife making it through with the last player joining them to be decided soon. The winner of the tournament will take home $1,000 and earns the opportunity to take on Greg ‘IdrA’ Fields for a chance at winning an MSI GT660 notebook. Pretty cool and there will no doubt be a couple of extremely exciting games. I will be doing more coverage of the Cup once it is actually complete, so keep checking back here for those results.

eG Masters Cup Brackets – My eG

eG Masters Cup Coverage – My eG

EG Master’s Cup Series Final 16 – TeamLiquid

BratOK Wins Beeline

The BeeLine Russian Championship recently ended with big name terran player Brat_OK taking the win. With the win he pocketed over $10,000 and apparently two brand new PC’s. There are some brilliant photos of the event and you can find them along with the full results in the link below, enjoy!

Results of BeeLine Russian Championship – GosuGamers

1. RoX.KIS.BratOK – 10 500$ + 1 year of free Beeline Internet, 2 computers: Lenovo IdeaCentre B505 + IdeaPad s10-3t
2. exL.inNirvana – 6 month of free Beeline internet + Lenovo Y560
3. RoX.KIS.Pomi – 6 month of free Beeline internet + Lenovo Y550p

GosuGamers Holiday Special

In even more holiday celebrations GosuGamers will be hosting an open-for-all Holiday special. This tournament will have a prize pool of 500 Euros. Two qualifiers will decide who moves on to the playoffs. There’s going to be one qualifier for the North American server and one for European server. The top four players from each of the qualifiers will meet in a playoff on December 26th at 18:00 CET (09:00 AM PST). As I mentioned there are some great prizes and, its open for all. That means there is absolutely no reason for you guys to sign up for that and give it a shot. Both qualifiers are set to happen on the 23rd of December. Read more about the event below.

GosuGamers Holiday Special: €500 Prize Pool, Open-for-All – GosuGamers

NesTea & FruitDealer to play YGosu Invitational

The two former GSL winners, Fruitdealer and NesTea, have both been invited to participate in the Danawa YGosu Starcraft II Pro Invitational. Together with 14 other hand-picked players from seven professional StarCraft 2 teams, the lot of them will battle it out for a prize pool of roughly $2,600. The 16 players have been divided into four groups of four. The top two players of each group will move in to a playoff. The first few group stage games have already been played and the play-offs are set to take place on the 23rd of December and the grand finals on the 30th of December. Read more below!

NesTea, FruitDealer to play YGosu Invitational – GosuGamers

dKiller Wins Craft Cup Lite #23

Last week the zerg player dKiller won Craft Cup Lite #23. He faced off against the terran playing miou and won with a score of 2 to 1.

Craft Cup Lite #23 – CraftCup

GoOdy Wins Craft Cup #23

GoOdy won the 23rd Craft Cup last Friday by defeating the protoss player mazaYcheck in the finals with a pretty decent 3 to 1.

Craft Cup #23 – CraftCup

Homestory Cup #2

The original Homestory Cup was a great success after ESL TV’s Take hosted it in his own home earlier this year. The second HomeStoryCup is looking to build on the foundations of the first and  Take will be joined by RotterdaM and HomerJ for commentary. The prize pool is a generous 2800 Euro and the full list of invited players can be found below along with the rest of the details of the event.

The two-day tournament begins on January 15 and you will no doubt want to tune in to catch it live!

Star studded lineup for Homestory Cup II – MyM

ROOTdrewbie Wins TeamSpeak TeamLiquid Open #7

The fourth TeamSpeak TeamLiquid SC2 Open (and 7th overall) was completed this past weekend. In the finals ROOTdrewbie faced off against mouzMorroW and managed to take him down with a close score of 3 to 2. You can find the full results, replays and VODs of the event in the thread linked below, enjoy!

[VODs] TeamSpeak TL SC2 Open #7 – TeamLiquid

ASSEMBLY Winter: SteelSeries Challenge – 5000 Euro

Assembly, currently Finland’s biggest LAN event, is holding a StarCraft 2 tournament sponsored by SteelSeries, named the Assembly Winter: SteelSeries Challenge. Now, the LAN and the tournament are only happening from February 11 – 13, but I guess it is big enough to mention now! Why, you ask? Well because the prize pool is a whopping 5,000 Euros as well as hardware from SteelSeries. You can read more about the event below, enjoy!

Assembly Winter 2011 Starcraft II Tournament – Assembly

Brood War – ProLeague Week 2 & 3

TeamLiquid have, as usual, have us covered with all the results and information from the last couple of weeks of the ProLeague. As I always say I won’t even try understand or follow what’s going on in the Starcraft: Brood War scene, but, TeamLiquid do and TeamLiquid are! See the full post below containing all the information you’d ever need about week two and three of the ProLeague.

[PL] Upheaval – TeamLiquid

Player Interviews

Now for a couple of interviews. I am only going to mention these incredibly briefly in the hopes of saving a bit of time. Let’s have a look!

Firstly we have a nice nostalgic interview with one of the first ‘foreign’ players to ever enter the pro-gaming scene in South Korea, [9] Thor. Yes, this is well before Starcraft II’s time. He talks about how life was different to back then, how he doesn’t feel Starcraft II is as fun as Brood War was and much more.

[9]Thor – ‘I wasn’t meant to be a successful progamer’ – GosuGamers

Fenix Interview

The Peruvian boy wonder, the terran player Fenix, has ambitious plans for 2011 including a will to win and plans to participate in the GSL, MLG and IEM. Did I mention he plans on winning those too? In his interview he talks about all those topics, plus how he views pro-gaming as a business, one he plans to run exceedingly well.

Fenix aims for the riches of GSL: ‘It’s my dream’ – GosuGamers

Click for full size!

John The Translator Interview

John, the translator we’re used to hearing and seeing between games at the GOMTV events, has finally been interviewed. He talks about how he got to work at GOMTV, his first impressions of Tasteless and Artosis, which I will tell you about in just a second, and how being at the GSL helps his Starcraft II game too. Apparently GOMTV is going to be setting up a team house close to the GOMTV headquarters for foreign players, so they won’t have to pay for their stay in Korea. He also briefly mentions the plans that the guys from the GSL had of having qualifiers all around the world for their future GSL seasons. The interview is great and the best part was probably his first impressions of Tasteless and Artosis. The first time he met the duo he hated them, Artosis seemed cocky and arrogant, while Tasteless seemed stupid, but later he realized that they were in fact really nice guys.

Check the video interview out below, courtesy of VT Gaming, and above you can also see the speech from the GSL Season 2 finals that made him famous. Enjoy!

John The Translator – VT Gaming

ToD Interview

Another quick interview that I was recently introduced to was this nice little one with big name Warcraft II player ToD. It covers the time he spent playing poker, his choice to pick Starcraft II up seriously and his recent participation in the SK Champions Trophy. A good read about a player almost forgotten about, check that out below courtesy of Readmore.

ToD: I got many offers – ReadMore

Extensive Fruitdealer Interview

So the poster of this warned me so I will warn you, WARNING, massive 5000 word interview incoming! GSL1 winner, Fruitdealer, was recently interviewed and it popped up on Fomos Korea. As I mentioned, the interview is quite extensive. It covers it all, how he got into Starcraft II, the first, second and third seasons of the GSL, tons of great photos and much, much, much more. Check that out below, translated by a friendly member of the TeamLiquid community.

[Trans] Fomos feature – FruitDealer – TeamLiquid

JP McDaniel Interview

Sebastian from over at PolygonreVue has yet another interesting and as always informative interview up. This time it is part of his next GG Vision episode and he has a chat with one of the better known voices of Starcraft II, JP McDaniel. They talk about the highly popular State of the Game Podcast, his casting at MLG and much more. A great listen and in which he reveals all and then some. Enjoy!

GGvision Starcraft 2 Interview: JP McDaniel – Voice of MLG – YouTube

Jinro Interview

The guys from over at sn.se have a nice, also rather lengthy, interview up with none other than the terran superstar and GSL Round of 4 player Jinro. They asked about his thoughts on South Korea, the GSL and his games there. They warn, as seems to be the trend, that it is an incredibly long interview. That is most definitely not a problem, I mean really, who wouldn’t want to read a long interview with The Gorilla Terran? You can find it below in English and Swedish.

Intervju med Jonathan “Jinro” Walsh – sn.se

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Pulse 32 – Starcraft News



Pulse 32 is here! I didn’t get much sleep before this one so excuse the droopy eyes! This episode went pretty quick and I guess I was happy with the outcome. Not tooooo much news this week, it was manageable. This week I added that little summary thing at the start, hope it helps / works. I’m also working on a bit of a remake of the whole show, keep checking back for more!

‘Continue reading’ for a full list of episodes and extras!

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bvd’Shase – GRUDGE / Love King of the Hill!

Bravado player Shase is the GRUDGE / Love King of the Hill! After a few rather short games against the lady-killer himself, McNoob, Shase managed a seemingly easy 3 – 0 victory. As I mentioned the games were short, definitely not short and sweet, rather short and quite underwhelming.  I am glad to see McNoob back and playing though and I sure hope to see more from him in the future though!

Congratulations to Shase for the games well-played and the title he now holds! You can find replays of the games below and I will be uploading the VODs in the next couple of days. Keep checking back here!

GRUDGE / Love – bvd’Shase vs xTc|McNoob – Best of 5

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GRUDGE/Love Saturday – Numb vs Avokodo – VODs

After lots of uploading I present you with the GRUDGE / Love Saturday VODs! These were some really amazing games between the Zerg player P|Numb and the Terran Avokodo. (Replays here, bottom of the page)

Numb vs Avokodo – Game 5 – GRUDGE / Love Saturday

Numb vs Avokodo – Game 4 – GRUDGE / Love Saturday

Numb vs Avokodo – Game 3 – GRUDGE / Love Saturday

Numb vs Avokodo – Game 2 – Part 2 – GRUDGE / Love Saturday

Numb vs Avokodo – Game 2 – Part 1 – GRUDGE / Love Saturday

Numb vs Avokodo – Game 1 – Part 2 – GRUDGE / Love Saturday

Numb vs Avokodo – Game 1 – Part 1 – GRUDGE / Love Saturday

Better late than never! You can check out the older games from all the previous GRUDGE/Love events over at the dedicated page, too. Check back here soon for the next set of GRUDGE/Love games! Enjoy! 😀

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GRUDGE / Love Saturday – Numb vs Avokodo!

Saturdays are no longer merely Saturdays, they are now GRUDGE / Love Saturdays and that’s just the way we like it! This coming Saturday we have a very interesting set of games in store for us. The current title holder, Pantheon player Numb, is set to face off against long time friend of his, big name and old school Brood War player Avokodo. This may well be our first proper Zerg vs Terran spotlight game in Patch 1.1.2 here in South Africa! I really can’t wait, be sure to join us on Saturday for this epic clash of South African Starcraft II Titans!

Check back here soon for an update on the time!

Contestants: P|Numb vs Avokodo
Map List: To be played in order.
Format: Best of 5

1. Jungle Basin
2. Steppes of War
3. Lost Temple
4. Blistering Sands
5. Scap Station

Start Time: TBA, Saturday, 16 October
Prizes: Fame and Fortune, Booty, Spot in the Hall of Fame (Foreverever)

The idea is just to have some fun while at the same time keeping the guys playing totally serious. Yes, that makes sense. If they have a GRUDGE, so be it. If they are buddies, LOVE is where it’s at.

The stream will be live a couple of minutes before the games start. Times not set yet!

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bvd’Shase Wins PolarfluKe: 101010!

PolarfluKe: 101010 has been concluded and we have our winner! bvd’Shase walks away with the number one spot and a nice new AMD CPU. The currently Protoss playing Shase faced off against fellow Protoss player P|Dreamer in the finals and took it with a rather decent score of 3 to 1! Dreamer managed to secure the first game but Shase bounced back and won the next 3 consecutively. The games were an amazing display of skill and both players definitely gave it their all!

1. bvd’Shase (P)
2. P|Dreamer (P)
3. Bakchiadai (P)
4. Quantum (T)

I am not going to go into too much detail about the event, you can probably find in-depth coverage and replays at all the other local sites! I was pretty sad that we didn’t have more Zerg or Terran players making it to the top 32 but I guess that’s just how it goes. I gotta give a shoutout to the guys over at PolarfluKe for doing a great job with 101010 and all the admin work, well done guys! Thanks a lot to GrIdL0cK for helping me out with the shoutcasting, it was a pleasure and I hope to have him back again as soon as possible! I will be uploading the casts of the games to YouTube over the next couple of days. Keep in mind that I only have a 4 meg line so it may well take some time to get them all up. You can all keep checking up at the Tales of Lumin YouTube channel for more on that!

So that’s it, great weekend of Starcraft II and you can all keep checking back here or over at PolarfluKe’s site for more information and updates! 😀

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P|Numb is the GRUDGE/Love King of the Hill!

The Pantheon player Numb is the new GRUDGE/Love King of the Hill! As miNt-Kreeflewer’s first challenger, he managed to dethrone the Zerg player with a clean 3 to 0. Numb proved to everyone watching and listening that his Zerg mirror was not to be trifled with. He played incredibly well and fully deserves his spot at the top.

GRUDGE/Love – 09-10-10 – miNt-Kreeflewer vs P|Numb – Best of 5 Replay Pack

You can find the replay pack of the best of 5 above and more information about the next GRUDGE/Love Saturday over at the dedicated page, here on Mitarn. (I am aware that the replay pack is not linked just yet, it’s coming soon!) Who will be Numb’s next challenger? Find out more next week!

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Happy Starcrafting – Too Much Information Edition

As usual there is a ton of news going around, some good, some bad and some just plain boring. I’ve collected most of it and summarised it quite nicely for all you readers right here. Enjoy!

New Galaxy Archives Entry

I just thought I would give a quick mention here for all those actually interested in the lore behind the entire universe of Starcraft. Another new Galaxy Archives entry has been added to the official Starcraft II website and this one has a look at Starcraft: Liberty’s Crusade. So if you want to learn a little bit more about some of the characters that were pretty big in Starcraft II you should probably check it out. You can find a link to the article below!

Over the years, many stories have unfolded in the StarCraft universe. Here in the Galaxy Archives we’ll be taking a few brief glimpses at the books that depict many of these epic StarCraft adventures.

Galaxy Archives – StarCraft: Liberty’s Crusade

Naama Wins Go4SC2 Cup #43

Naama is keeping his roll going and managed to win the 43rd Go4SC2 Cup this past Sunday. He took down the Terran player SjoW in the finals with a score of 3 to 1. You can click on the link above to find the full results of the cup.

DIMAGA Wins ZOTAC Cup #25

The Zerg player DIMAGA took the 25th ZOTAC Cup that also happened this past Sunday evening. He faced off against the Terran SelecT in the finals and managed to scrape through with a score of 3 to 2.

Competo Cup #8 Cancelled

The 8th Competo Cup was not held this week due to server instability issues. Apparently there were way too many sign ups and the servers just could not handle all the traffic. It’s a pity but they do assure us they will be ready for those kind of numbers next week!

Naniwa Wins SK Champions Trophy

The Protoss playing Naniwa won the first SK Champions Trophy this past weekend. He faced off against the Terran player MorroW in the finals and managed to take it with a score of 3 to 1. Apparently we are going to be seeing replays from the event uploaded soon, stay tuned I guess!

GosuGamers KOTH – SjoW Retains His Title

The Terran player SjoW faced off against fellow Terran player Naama in the GosuGamers King of the Hill series that happend this past weekend. SjoW won with a score of 4-1, I think. GosuGamers website has the results totally wrong and it’s pretty difficult to find anything on there right now so I can’t be sure. Either way, you can find the full results in the link above.  

Gamer TV Starcraft II – Season 1

The Sweden based GamerTV has started up their pilot season over at  http://gamertv.eu/  and the first four episodes are available to watch right now! The season consists of a Starcraft II  Tournament with 8 of the best players from Sweden competing. You can find a full FAQ about the show, who the participants are and all the other info you’d ever want over at their site. Enjoy!

MSI Evil Geniuses Starcraft II Master’s Cup Series

Registration for the third installment of the Evil Geniuses Starcraft II Master’s Cup is now OPEN. The event will feature over 500 participants from North America and they will battle it out for over $1,500 in cash prizes. Additionally, the event winner will have the opportunity of facing off against Greg “IdrA” Fields for the additional opportunity of winning a brand new MSI GT660 notebook. The registrations close on the 9th of October and the finals of the event are set to happen on 30 October. You can find out more in the link above!

EPS Germany Playday 7

The EPS Germany is chugging along and currently entering its 7th play day. The games are, obviously, getting pretty intense as the stakes are raised and the series nears its half-way mark. You can read the full details and see the replays, results and upcoming matches over at ESL’s website, enjoy!

EPS German Play-day 7 – ESL

Jaedong To Starcraft II

Firstly, I hope you all know who Jaedong is. If not, you had better visit wikipedia to read up about this legend of a gamer. In a recent interview with Rakaka.se he told them that he will definitely be switching to Starcraft II once Brood War sees the end of its days in South Korea. This is really, really amazing news for all The Tyrant’s fans out there. This coupled with BoxeR’s supposed return… what can I say, it’s just too good to be true! 😀 

Q: How do you see the future of StarCraft: BroodWar and will you change to StarCraft 2?

A: I will definitely change to StarCraft II as I feel that StarCraft 2 is having a higher status then StarCraft: Broodwar. We will see more international tournaments in SC2 compared to StarCraft: Broodwar and this will make the change natural for me. I want to build my reputation abroad and reach out to the international audience but when I decide to change game I can not say, it can be today, it can be tomorrow it can be in a couple of years.

Jaedong on his future in SC2 – by rakaka.se – TeamLiquid

Liquid`HayprO to Korea

As the title says the Swedish HayprO has joined fellow Liquid players Jinro and TLO in South Korea. This means he is the first Zerg to join the Liqiud force and if you want to read more about his trip and his plans for the future you can read a full interview with HayprO over at TeamLiquid.

The Liquid Weekly #9 0 HayprO To Korea

Nazgul and Heosat Interview

Sebastian over at PolygonRevue recently uploaded a really nice, incredibly in-depth interview with the guys behind TeamLiquid, Victor “Nazgul” Goossens and Mat “Heosat” Peterson. In the interview they cover pretty much everything from their history, to management and even a long talk about training. It really was an awesome listen and you can just follow the link below to find out more!

PolygonreVue On YouTube

Liquid Weekly #9 – PolygonreVue Interview

Replays

If you’ve not noticed I only bother linking full replay packs here. There has not been much interesting happening but if you are keen for some Fruitseller replays you’d best pay Sc2win a visit as they have quite a few Fruitseller games up!

Go4SC2 Cup #43 Replay Pack
TeamLiquid Open #2 Replay Packs

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