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Posts Tagged ‘Finals’

The VODs from the finals of this month’s PolarfluKe Tournament, MMMarch. Shoutcasters are shadowthief (me) and SiEGEStarcraft. Remember to watch them in HD, like them, favourite them, share them and subscribe! 😀

V|Enjoy (Z) vs miNt-Stripe (P) – Best of 5

Read more about the event in the link provided beow!

MMMarch Finals – Enjoy vs Stripe – Game 1 – Xel’Naga Caverns

MMMarch Finals – Enjoy vs Stripe – Game 2 – The Shattered Temple

MMMarch Finals – Enjoy vs Stripe – Game 3 – Delta Quadrant

MMMarch Finals – Enjoy vs Stripe – Game 4 – Typhon Peaks

‘Read More’ to see all the games embedded! 😀

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Liita - Shase Wins

PolarfluKe: Love is in the Aiur has been completed and we have once again crowned Shase as the winner. He faced off against and seemingly effortlessly dispatched fellow protoss player miNt-Stripe in the finals. I guess we can be happy that we had a new player with Shase in the finals this month and a zerg in the top 4! Overall the tournament ran really smoothly and was a great deal of fun. You can find the top 4 of the event below and below that the full and final brackets. Enjoy and be sure to join us all again next month for some more exciting Starcraft II action!

  1. bvd’Shase
  2. miNt-Stripe
  3. V|PandaTank
  4. xTc-seeM

lovedone

Lastly, thanks a lot to the guys and girls from over at PolarfluKe for, once again, delivering! Another big thanks to SiEGE for joining me on the stream and providing some great co-commentating. Also, thanks a ton to MyGaming.co.za for sticking with PolarfluKe and providing the sponsorship in the form of those amazing cash prizes, you rock! The replays should be up on PolarfluKe’s forums shortly and don’t forget about the showmatch that is set to happen tomorrow night between Shase and ActionJesuz! 😀

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World of Starcraft

The World of Starcraft Story

The World of Starcraft Mod for Starcraft II has been the talk of the town recently and has most definitely become increasingly interesting over the past week. The mod’s creator, Ryan Winzer, has since the previous drama about the mod being removed from YouTube due to copyright claims, had quite a good streak of luck. He may or may not had received a job offer, or at least mention of one, from Riot Games and the big guys themselves, Blizzard Entertainment, directly responded to the whole thing. They pretty much apologized and said they just wanted the whole thing resolved and didn’t mean it badly, in any way, it was just all about the name. So Mr. Winzer was then offered the chance of meeting with the StarCraft development team at their headquarters in California. Blizzard will apparently be paying for his travel and his stay there, they just have to work out the dates.

That truly is a lot of drama for one week of a college students life, and truly a dream come true for anyone looking to go into game development. So if you want to read all about this, and more,  you can check the post out below from Kotaku. It includes all the information of the entire thing and a pretty lengthy interview with the modder himself. Enjoy!

StarCraft Modder’s Tense Week Gets A Storybook Conclusion – Kotaku

Ladder Map Changes

Blizzard made a couple of interesting announcements recently concerning the official ladder map pool. One good piece of news is that Shakuras Plateau is back and better than ever! Well, it’s exactly the same, minus the bugs, so I guess that is actually a little better.  A few of the other maps have been re-published too, to  to address an issue with foliage that would die and become visible through fog of war when a player spawned as zerg. Lastly, it seems like Jungle Basin is set to be removed from the map pool for balance evaluation. It will apparently remain unavailable for ranked play until further notice. This announcement came after the addition of a gold mineral expansion on Jungle Basin. So, if you want to read the full announcement, you can do so below!

(Sticky) Ladder Map Updates – Official Starcraft II Forums

We recently completed the following updates to the ladder pool:

• Blistering Sands, Lost Temple, Steppes of War, and Xel’Naga Caverns have been re-published to address an issue with foliage that would die and become visible through fog of war when a player spawned as zerg.

• Shakuras Plateau has been re-published and added back into the ladder rotation. The newly published map resolves a separate issue that caused 2×2 buildings placed near some destructible rocks to become both invisible and un-selectable.

• Jungle Basin will be removed from the ladder pool in the coming weeks for balance evaluation. It will remain unavailable for ranked play until further notice.
Blizzard Entertainment

Tournament & Event News

Tournament & Event Smalls:

sLDeathAngel Wins CraftCup LITE #32 – Craft Cup

GSL News – IMMvp vs MarineKingPrime Finals!

The GSL Code-S semi-finals have been completed and we have our finalists! Just this morning MarineKingPrime faced off against Jinro and took him down with a rather impressive 3 to 1. IMMvp also faced off against former GSL Champ NesTea and defeated him with the same score of 3 to 1. That does indeed mean that we will be seeing a terran vs. terran finals between Mvp and MarineKing, be sure to tune in to that this coming Saturday.

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

oGsTOP Takes Code-A!

The Code-A finals, on the other hand, have already been played and oGsTOP has been crowned the winner! He faced off against and narrowly beat ZeNEXByun in the finals with a score of 4 to 3. You can read all about the happenings in Code-A below, if you so wish.

GSL Tour Season 1 – 1/21, Code A Finals – MyM

Extras

As a few extras there was also a little bit of drama concerning soundproofing. These issues were brought to GOMtv’s attention during the games between Jinro and IdrA. IdrA 6 pooled the terran player on Jungle Basin and Jinro caught wind of it because of the noise the commentators were making. (Not that it changed the outcome of the game in any way) There was an official  announcement about this, which you can find below, and it seems like they are sorting out any issues there may be with their setup, good to hear! Lastly, you can also read some quick interviews with all the winners from the Round of 8 below, enjoy!

GSL soundproof issue – Official comment – TeamLiquid

[Interviews] Jan. GSL Code S Ro8 Winners – TeamLiquid 

Intel Extreme Masters – European Championship

IEM is currently running and we already have our final four players. Tarson, SjoW, White-RA and DeMusliM. The finals are set to happen sometime today so keep checking back here for those results. Untill then, though, enjoy all the following extras courtesy of MyM.

IEM: White-Ra, Tarson, DeMusliM, and SjoW Advance – GosuGamers

IEM VIDEO: DeMusliM under the loop – MyM

IEM VIDEO: Mouz.Naama interview – MyM

IEM VIDEO: Interview with RotterdaM – MyM

IEM VIDEO: Interview eSuba.PredY! – MyM

IEM VIDEO: MYM.ClouD interview – MyM

CrunCher Wins TS TL Open #10

The TeamSpeak TeamLiquid Open #10 has been completed with CrunCher as the victor. He walks away with $100 and a qualification for the TSL3. In second place was Fenix and third TLO, both scoring themselves quite a few qualifier points for the TSL3 aswell. Below you can find the results, VODs and a full recap of the event, obviously courtesy of the guys over at TeamLiquid.

[VODs] TeamSpeak TL SC2 Open #10 – TeamLiquid

[TSL] Qualifier #3 Recap – TeamLiquid

Community News

Community Smalls:

iNfeRnaL Joins Team GosuGamers – GosuGamers

Naniwa Joins Dignitas – TeamLiquid

IdrA GosuTrolling Interview – GosuTrolling

Berkeley Overmind Wins The 2010 StarCraft AI Competition – ars technica

White-Ra “Chances I go to Korea are 50/50 – TeamLiquid

d.Apollo Interview – PolarfluKe

GosuGamers – Best Non-Korean Of 2010

Out of the 10 nominees, Jonathan “Jinro” Walsh was voted, by the GosuGamers readers, as the best non-Korean of 2010. It seems like winning the MLG Dallas and being the first foreigner in many years to reach the semi final in a Korean progaming league was more than enough to get him that first place. So if you want to see the Jinro Highlight Video and read more about TeamLiquids wonderboy and his achievements, with a quick interview to boot, you know where to look!

Jinro voted as ‘best non-Korean of 2010’ – GosuGamers

Fear of the Grack & More

Ah yes, another beautifully performed song by TotalBiscuit. This song is a Iron Maiden parody that was originally written by AlexanderS on the Teamliquid forums and, well, TotalBiscuit definitely does it justice. So in honor of the almighty Grackens victory over the lesser nerds in the GSL, brought to you by, as I mentioned, AlexanderS and TotalBiscuit, here’s Fear of the Grack! There’s even an .mp3 download link if you want this for keepsies.

Fear of the Grack – TeamLiquid

Below I’ve also linked a few other IdrA funnies including Grack To The Future, Captain Grack Sparrow and Grack Hawk Down.

Grack To The Future – reddit

Grack Hawk Down – reddit

Captain Grack Sparrow – reddit

IdrA Interview

In even more IdrA related news… Artosis recently cornered IdrA for a quick interview about varios topics quite a few people were keen to hear about. This wa done soon after his loss to Jinro and Artosis asks about the game that some feel IdrA quit prematurely, the rest of the GSL and even asked about his predictions for the next season. Watch the video above, enjoy!

IdrA on why he left so fast vs Jinro and more! – TeamLiquid

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Pulse Logo Small

Here we go, time for some Starcraft and Diablo news. I will be doing the World of Warcraft news at the end of the week again so stay tuned for that, too! Otherwise enjoy this weeks abundance of Diablo III news, it surely is a treat!

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

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Starcraft Pulse

I put all the news together this week as I just had sooo much to do over the past couple of days. This is a long one! I also had to use a different method of rendering. I rendered to .mp4 this time around instead of .wmv. I find it doesn’t look quite as good… but it does render a little faster and the video size is a little smaller. Because of the videos length I had to render it this way. I will experiment and see what works best for the future! (If anyone knows the best ways of rendering for YouTube at around 720p or 1080p for games and recorded footage, let me know!) Otherwise, enjoy Pulse 38 and have a great Christmas!

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

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Starcraft II Demo

If you haven’t yet experienced the intense strategic combat of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, you can get into the action today with the newly released demo edition. Yes, finally! It is now available for PC and Mac and all those that were not quite sure if they were ready to take the plunge and buy the game just yet can now try the wares before the purchase. Blizzard even says it’s perfect if you’re still debating relinquishing all of your free time to the game. The demo features full access to the first three missions of the single-player campaign, as well as unlimited access to skirmish mode as the terrans versus an A.I. opponent, the free demo gives you an introduction to the cinematic storytelling and fast-paced gameplay of StarCraft II.

You don’t need a Battle.net account or Internet connection to play once you’ve downloaded the demo, but you will need both if you are ready to upgrade to the full version of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. You can download the demo at a couple of different sites aswell as from Blizzard themselves. Read more about all of that and find the links below!

StarCraft II Demo Now Available – Starcraft II Community Site

Download: StarCraft II Demo – BigDownload

Shakuras Plateau Removed

Just a random little side-note-ish mention.  The map Shakuras Plateau seems to have been removed from the Starcraft II 1v1 Ladder Map List. There has been no official word about this yet but there are some rumors of invisible building exploits on the map that were being abused a little too much. I guess time will tell if Shakuras will be making a comeback or not. Keep checking back here for more.

Shakuras Plateau Removed from Map Pool – TeamLiquid

oGsMC

GSL Season 3 Finals Recap

The GSL3 may well be done and dusted but there is still quite a bit of information that is finding its way to our screens. Below, courtesy of TeamLiquid, you can find a nice summary article that covers everything that happened from the start to the end of the GSL Season 3 finals. Yes, for those that didn’t know it ended with oGsMC standing on stage with the trophy in hand. Upon entering Season 3 he promptly declared that this was his season and that nothing was gonna stop him, because he had it all figured out. Indeed it was and apparently he did. One last congratulations to Jang Min Chul, he definitely deserves the win and all that comes with it. Read the full recap below along with a great interview with the champ himself. You can also read all the various awards that were given to the players competing and a little bit about the up and coming fourth season of the GSL.

[GSL] “Iron Man” – Finals Recap – TeamLiquid

GSL Season 4

GSL Season 4 is coming up with hardly any break for the players involved. The first of the Code-S games are set to take place on the 2nd of January and the first of the Code-A on the 3rd of January. You can already check the full list of games happening in the first week and their times out below if you want to see when your favourite player is starting their season off.  Once again, thanks to TeamLiquid and all the crazy posters over there for the always prompt coverage!

GSL 2011 Tour First Week Schedule – TeamLiquid

GOMTV – Gisado Challenge

GOMTV once again has something interesting planned for the downtime between Season 3 and Season 4. They announced via their Facebook that from the 22nd of December till the 24th of December they will provide the Korean broadcast of the Gisado Challenge through their website. The 22nd was Zerg vs. Terran day and the rest of the matchups were to come in the following days. For more information and to watch the live stream please follow the links below!

GOMTV Gisado Challenge Livestream – GOMTV

Tournament And Event News

inNirvana Wins Craft Cup Lite #24

The protoss playing inNirvana won the 24th Craft Cup Lite this past Tuesday. In the finals he faced off against and easily dispatched the terran playing Onva with a score of 2 to 0.  

Craft Cup Lite #24 – Craft Cup

Tarson Wins Go4SC2 Cup #65

This past Sunday Tarson managed to power his way through to the Go4SC2 Cup #65 finals. He faced off against DieStar and took him down with a close score of 3 to 2.

Go4SC2 Cup #65 – MyM

Naniwa Wins ZOTAC Cup #36

ZOTAC Cup #36 happened this past weekend with Naniwa taking the win. He faced off against Scooter in the finals and took him down with a clean 3 to 0.

ZOTAC Cup #36 – MyM

ENWL Group Stages

The group stages of the GosuGamers European Nation War League are set to  finish after the final matches on January 14th, 2011.  GosuGamers reports that thus far Russia is the only nation with something close to a safe spot in the playoffs. Other than that, Poland looking good with two matches played so far, winning both 5-0, and all the individual matches 2-0. Yes indeed things are progressing swimmingly and it will be great to keep track of what happens once the playoffs start. Read more about the ENWL and all the matches that have been played thus far below, courtesy of GosuGamers.

ENWL: Russia and Poland close to advancement – GosuGamers

JustinTV Invitational

The guys over at JustinTV just can’t get enough of Starcraft II. After their successful Starcraft II Tournament for charity a little while back they are venturing into the world of Starcraft once more. This next one is set to be a one day, invite only 1v1 tournament. It is happening on the 6th of January and there will be 400$ worth of prizes sponsored by Justin.tv themselves. Obviously there will be casting and all that and you can read the full details and no doubt soon see the list of invited players in the links below.

Justin.tv Invitational – TeamLiquid

Tour of Duty Finals

After four Tour of Duty qualification events the four winners are $400 richer. QXC, WhiteRa, SjoW, and Strelok are set to meet for another $680 in the Tour of Duty finals on December 24th. If you want to catch these games live, via GosuCoaching or just want a bit more information about the event, check below.

Tour of Duty: Three Terrans, Two Ukrainians, One Protoss – GosuGamers

Player and Clan News

Grubby To Enter Assembly Winter

Just a quick, if slightly random mention. The huge Finnish LAN, Assembly Winter, is hosting a Starcraft II Tournament with an impressive 5000 Euro prize pool. This was, apparently, enough to lure the Warcraft III legend Grubby out of hiding. He is set to participate and his race is still unknown. The event is taking place in early Febuary, 2011. I thought I would just share that little titbit for all the Grubby fans out there.

Grubby to Enter Assembly Winter 2011 for a Shot at 5,000€ – GosuGamers

bvd`Shase Talks Economy

PolarfluKe has yet another interesting article up. This time local protoss legend Shase talks about economy in Starcraft II, all about it. You can read every little detail about workers, income, how they fit into different strategies and how to make sure you are doing it all right. A great read for new and experienced players, for sure. Check that out below.

Opinionated: Bvd`Shase on Economy – PolarfluKe

Day9 Video Interview

A poster on TeamLiquid made an interesting find recently. Sure, Dreamhack was a couple of weeks ago, but the guys and girls, in this case the girl, from over at the National Swedish Television got the opportunity to interview Day9 during the event. For those of you that haven’t seen it, you should definitely check it out. Day9 is his normal, energetic and quirky self and as usual he is a pleasure to watch. You can find the full interview below. They talk about the event, Day9’s busy life and much more. Enjoy!

Videointerview with Day9! – TeamLiquid

Top 200 Starcraft 2

Top 200 Player Lists

Like clockwork the top 200 player lists have once again been updated. Are you in the top 200? Do you want to see if your favourite player made the top spot this week? Check the full lists out below to find out!

EU Top 200

US Top 200

SEA Top 200

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Heart of the Swarm

Heart of the Swarm Ending Leaked?

Spoilers incoming, watch out!

A video has hit the net in a big way. This video is claiming to be the ending cinematic for the first Starcraft II Expansion – Heart of the Swarm. Just a quick warning, I am not sure how legal this is or anything like that because the videos are dropping like flies. The ones that were uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo were removed due to copyright claims. I guess that just means that it might well be real.

The clip has no lip syncing, uses different voice actors than the normal, lacks proper textures and uses images in some places to complete it, but, it is definitely Starcraft II and Heart of the Swarm. I think.

Kotaku did a bit of detective work and even asked Blizzard for a comment on the video. The reply was the standard. “Blizzard Entertainment does not comment on rumors or speculation.”Another interesting bit of information is that The Third Floor, whose watermark appears lower right, is a production company listing Blizzard as a client.

So real or not, Heart of the Swarm is pretty long off and does not even have a release date set for it yet. Sooo, if you did get a glimpse at the video, savour it, you won’t see more for a long, long time!

Ending Leaked For StarCraft II’s Next Chapter? – Kotaku

VGA

The Video Game Awards – Starcraft II

The Video Game Awards have come and gone with some big announcements and reveals being made, such as the reveal trailers for Mass Effect 3, Elder Scrolls 5 and many others. We are here to talk about Blizzard and Starcraft II, though, so let us see what our babies won!

Best PC Game

  • StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (Blizzard Entertainment / Blizzard Entertainment)

Best Performance By A Human Female

  • Tricia Helfer as Sarah Kerrigan

Pretty decent! The games that Starcraft 2 were up against in the other categories were definitely worthy of their victories, so no hard feelings there. If you want to read more about the Spike TV Video Game Awards then you can follow the links below, enjoy! 

Spike TV Video Game Awards – SpikeTV

VGA’s Round-Up – Kotaku

Video Game Awards – BigDownload

Speculation On leaked Blizzard Product

Do you remember the Leaked Blizzard Schedule that we had a look at a week or two ago? Well, it seems like it may or may not be linked to the recent resignation of Ye Weilun, Blizzard China’s general manager. Yes, it has been said that he was the one to leak it.

Aditionally it seems like several analysts have been investigating the product schedule, fully disecting it, breaking it down and monitoring the airwaves for more information. They have come to the conclusion that all the information on it is entirely plausible. That means we might well see Diablo III and Starcraft II: Phoenix, whatever that is, next year.

Yes, yes, we are still just speculating and talking about rumors here, but it’s fun, isn’t it? Read more below!

Analysts speculate on leaked Blizzard release schedule – Massively

Rumor: Blizzard HQ Blames China Office for Leak – Marbridge Consulting

GSL

GSL Round of 4

This past week the GSL moved into and fully completed its Round of 4 (Semi Finals). We saw LiquidJinro face off against oGsMC and TSL_Rain take on HongUngPrime. Sadly Jinro was absolutely destroyed by MC and Rain took HongUnPrime down with a score of 4 to 2. Yes, that does mean we are set to see a protoss vs terran final, pretty interesting!

You can find all the information you could possibly need about the GSL below and be sure to tune in next week to catch the finals live, it’s going to be good!

Ro4 Day 1 Recap – MyM

Ro4 Day 2 Recap – MyM

[Interviews] GSL S3 Semi-Final Winners – TeamLiquid

GOMTV Talks GSL 2011

In related news GOMtv has announced how the GSL will be working in 2011. It turns out the system in place for 2011 is a little different from what most people thought it would be.

In short, the post on TeamLiquid tells us that the good news is we will be seeing at least 4 spots reserved for top foreign players who won recent big tourneys or who’ve shown considerable performances in non-Korean competitions or leagues. The bad news is that Code-A is now only 32 players.

There is an extensive list of changes and additions to the rules and workings of the GSL and if you are into these technicalities then I guess you can check it all out below, as I said, courtesy of TeamLiquid.

GOMTV announces the system of GSL in 2011 – TeamLiquid

In more related news it seems like there will be qualifiers for A-Class that will be starting on the 14th of December. There are a bunch of players that are tied with points and, well, they gotta battle it out for those spots! Read the post below from GosuGamers to see who’s involved and exactly when they are set to play. Enjoy!

Tiebreaker Among 21 Players Will be Settled Through Qualification – GosuGamers

America vs Europe Challenge Delayed

The Europe vs America challenge that was set to play its games this weekend has been delayed due to the caster of the event having family issues.

America vs Europe Challenge Delayed – GosuGamers

SjoW Wins Craft Cup #22

The big name terran player SjoW has managed to win the 22nd Craft Cup. He faced off against fellow terran Kas in the finals and managed to win with a score of 3 to 1.

Craft Cup #22 – Craft Cup

SRTEAM Wins Craft Cup Lite #21

Protoss playing SRTEAM won the 21st Craft Cup Lite by taking down previous weeks winner Beastyqt in the finals with a score of 2 to 1.

Craft Cup Lite #21 – Craft Cup

Rikytan Wins Craft Cup Lite #22

Terran player Rikytan won the latest Craft Cup Lite, #22, this past week. He took down protoss playing LASKER in the finals with a score of 2 to 1.

Craft Cup Lite #22 – Craft Cup

Champions Trophy

Champions Trophy – 18 December

The next SK Champions Trophy has been lined up for this coming weekend, the 18th of December. The first two editions of the Champions Trophy were a huge hit and the two champions,Naniwa and LucifroN, were definitely worthy. This tournament is once again set to be a 32 player invite only event and more information regarding the participants, times and prizes will be revealed during the next week. Keep checking back here or at SK Gaming for more on that!

 Starcraft II Champions Trophy 18th of December – SK Gaming

TeamSpeak TL Open #6 – Insolence Wins

The TeamSpeak sponsored TeamLiquid opens are carrying on steadily! The 6th TeamLiquid open was recently concluded with protoss player Insolence taking the win. He did well to take down mouzMorroW in the finals and Strelok did well to take the third place, too. You can find the replays, results and VODs of the event below, courtesy of TeamLiquid. Enjoy!

[VODs] TeamSpeak TL SC2 Open #6 – TeamLiquid

eOSL Updates

The eOSL playoffs are about to enter their semi finals with MoMaN, SarenS, Rouaf and Tuzer taking down their opponents and progressing. You can read all the relevant information and find all the results below, courtesy of MyM.

eOSL Updates – MyM

Day 9 Cartoon Sketch – Speed Drawing

Are you a fan of speed drawings? Are you a fan of Day[9] and Starcraft II? Well, well, well, this is something right up your alley. Artist Joey Judkins says that he has never seen Sean in real life and doesn’t really know what his lower body looks like. That is not a problem, though, he will just make something up. In his sketch we see Day[9] with a rather attractive zerg lower body, drinking a bottle of terran blood.

 I absolutely can’t wait to see what Joey does next. See the video of the sketching process above and the finished product below. Enjoy!

Day 9 Cartoon

Day[9] Shares His Secrets

In some more Day[9] news, the legendary Starcraft Guru and caster has revealed his secrets, sort of. In a pretty  extensive article for Pcworld.com, Sean Plott explains the precise steps you need to follow to prepare and launch a web cast of your own. The piece offers advice about screen capturing, rendering, streaming, the hardware you need and much more! This is a must read for anyone that is in this line of work or anyone that’s just thinking that it might be for them and wants to see what it entails. Enjoy!

Screencast Live: How To Make Your Own Web TV Show – PCWorld

Top North American Player Interviewed

GosuGamers have a nice interview up with the currently top ranked US Player, InflowMini. They talk to the protoss player about his approach to rising in the ranks, how he’s repeatedly gotten away with 1-Gate Expand against high-profile Terrans, and why Colossi are overrated. Find the full thing below.

Meet the man at the top of the NA Ladder – GosuGamers 

 Elky Profile

GosuGamers also have a nice and incredibly, incredibly extensive and informative profile up of former Brood War player turned Poker Champ, Elky. It covers every little detail about his life after Brood War and a bunch of videos and interviews from his past. If you’re a fan then I guess you know where to look!

Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier Profile – GosuGamers

Artosis – IdrA Interview & More

Artosis found a little bit of time in his hectic GSL schedule to sit down with IdrA for a few questions and thoughts. He discusses all sorts of stuff, from the Liquid crew in the GSL, to the recent huge amount of all-ins, to Code S contenders and anticontenders, his stream, and more! It is always great to see what IdrA thinks about everything that’s going on. Check that out above and below!

[Video] IdrA on GSL, Code S, his stream, and more! – TeamLiquid

He also has a new cast up on his ArtosisTV YouTube channel of a game between IdrA and Zenio. Yes, with the huge grudge between those two it is set to be amazing. Be sure to check that out along with all the others he’s recently uploaded, too!

ArtosisTV – YouTube

Bischu To Dignitas

Team Dignitas has picked up the relatively big name protoss player Bischu. They comment on it saying that the one weakness of their world-class Starcraft II team was probably the absence of a Protoss ace. They also say that after looking for one for quite a while, they were more than happy to fill the spot with Bischu. Good luck to Bischu and all the Dignitas guys and you can read the full interview with Bischu and post on Team-Dignitas.net.

Team Dignitas Welcomes The Protoss – TeamDignitas

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5000 Accounts Banned

5000 Accounts Banned

The hackers are finally getting what they deserve. Blizzard recently dropped the ban hammer on 5000, probably unsuspecting, Starcraft II players. This is the first of many waves of bans that Blizzard will be throwing out and, obviously, I think it’s a good thing. You can find the full quote from Blizzard below. Enjoy!

We recently took action, including suspensions and bans, on over 5,000 StarCraft II players who were in violation of the Battle.net Terms of Use for cheating and/or using hack programs while playing. In addition to undermining the spirit of fair competition that’s essential to play on Battle.net, cheating and hacking can lead to stability and performance issues with the service. Maintaining a stable, safe, and secure online-gaming experience for legitimate players is a top priority for us, and we’ll be continuing to keep watch on Battle.net and take action as needed.
Blizzard Entertainment (Source)

StarCraft II Players Banned – Battle.net

New Real ID Settings Available

A new set of Real ID options have been unlocked by Blizzard. These were instated because of all the complaints about the dangers of having your full name and surname available for all to see on Battle.net. You can now disable the friends of friends adding feature aswell as the facebook friend adding feature on you Battle.net account. You can also totally disable the Real ID feature, if that tickles your fancy. See the official quote below.

New Battle.net Privacy Settings

We’d like to make you aware of the new Real ID-related privacy options we’ve introduced to Battle.net. These options provide Real ID users with additional tools for customizing the service based on their preferences, enabling the ability to opt in or out of the Real ID “Friends of Friends” and “Add Facebook Friends” features or to turn off Real ID altogether.

To access these settings, log in to your Battle.net account at http://www.battle.net/account. From there, click on the “Settings” tab located at the center of the Account Management menu and select “Communication Preferences” from the dropdown list. The new settings can be found in the “Privacy” section of the Communication Preferences page.
Blizzard Entertainment (Source)

Alienware

Blizzard Alienware Competition

Alienware and Blizzard have set up a StarCraft II diorama contest where they want artists to submit models of StarCraft II units and buildings. The entrants who submit the best dioramas will be given a ton of cool prizes from Alienware worth up to $3,000 USD. I am pretty keen to see what people come up with for this. Starcraft II arts and crafts are always good to see! Find the competition page and entry links below. Enjoy!

Starcraft II Diorama Contest – Blizzard

Diorama Contest Entry Page – Alienware

The Happy Ultralisk

The Happy Ultralisk

An interesting thread was posted on the TeamLiquid forums recently containing some very, um, unique artwork. The artwork in the thread is a cartoon of sorts about an Ultralisk and his adventures through the various balance changes afflicting it’s kind recently. It’s really entertaining and quite touching and definitely worth checking out. I must warn you all though, it’s pretty long. See the link to the thread below!

“Another Korean (적당새) has decided to pull at our heartstrings by drawing an incredibly cute ultralisk and putting him through unbearable trials and tribulations”

The Happy Ultralisk – TeamLiquid

Fruitseller Wins GSL

Fruitseller (Cool) Wins GSL

The long running Global Starcraft League has finally come to an end with the Korean Kim “FruitDealer” Won-Gi taking the first place. The Zerg player faced off against the Terran HopeTorture in the finals and managed to take it with an impressive 4-1. With the win, Kim takes around 85,000 US Dollars home and the second place finisher around 30,000 US Dollars. Impressive! I watched the livestream of the finals and I have to say the games were absolutely amazing. A definite must see. You can find the VOD’s from the event below along with links to the official GSL Site.

GSL Finals VOD’s – SC2Rep

GOMTV GSL Website – GOMTV

Socke Wins Craft Cup #8

The Protoss playing Socke won the 9th Craft Cup this past week by taking the Zerg Kuba down with a score of  3 to 2.

Kas Wins Go4SC2 Cup #42

The Terran player Kas managed to take fellow Terran Goody down in the finals of the Go4SC2 Cup #42 last Wednesday. He won it with a rather close score of 3-2.

Naama Wins Go4SC2 September Finals

Naama took the Go4SC2 Monthly final of September this past week by defeating HasuObs in the finals with a score of 3 to 1. That means the Finnish Terran player walks away with a nice  and neat 500 Euro.

Fury Wins Craft Cup Lite #3

The Terran player Fury won the third Craft Cup Lite last Tuesday. He took the Protoss player Seiplo out in the finals with a score of 3-2.

Champions Trophy

Champions Trophy: Ready To Roll! (Tonight!)

The very first Starcraft II Champions Trophy, organized by SK Gaming, will be kicking off this Saturday, 2nd of October 2010 (Yes, tonight!) and will be featuring some of the finest players from around the world. GameSports.de will be streaming the tournament live for our viewing pleasure and there are no doubt going to be a ton of really, really good games! You can head on over to the links I’ve listed below to see a full list of the players competing, as well as a link to the live stream. Enjoy, I know I will!

Champions Trophy: Signup closed, grid up – SK Gaming

Champions Trophy: Livestream and IRC Channel – SK Gaming

Startupcraft

Justin.tv Charity Tournament

Justin.tv has organized a special Starcraft II tournament that is set to collect money for the Child’s Play Organisation. The tournament is happening tomorrow and will be running 4v4 and 2v2’s. it seems like they have also picked up some amazing sponsors for the event including Alienware, Razer, Astro Gaming, Jinx Clothing. The teams taking part will come from companies such as Yammer, Smule, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, IGN, Justin.TV and more. I think this is really a great thing that Justin.tv is doing. It may not be the highest skilled tournament but it will probably be tons of fun and is definitely for a good cause.

Justin.tv StartupCraft

Naniwa And Goody Continue To Dominate EPS Germany

This coming Tuesday, the 5th of October, the EPS Germany will be having its 7th play day. Currently both Naniwa and Goody are looking good for the win and winning most of their games. You can follow the links below to the ESL Site and check the full standings thus far as well as the dates for the upcoming play days. The next play day will take place next Tuesday, 5th October 2010, at 19:30 CET

Results And Upcoming – ESL.eu

Current EPS Germany Standings – ESL.eu

World Cyber Games – Starcraft: Brood War

As you may have guessed, or know, the World Cyber Games are currently underway and there are a lot of amazing Brood War games being played by a lot of really amazing players. The  group stages are over and, as expected, the Korean trio, Jaedong, Flash and Kal, qualified for the playoffs. Other names you may well know that are present in the brackets are White-Ra and Brat_OK. You can find the full list of players in the playoffs below.

World Cyber Games – Starcraft: Brood War – MyM

I will no doubt have more results and news from this most interesting of events soon, stay tuned!

Player and Clan news

New Korean SC2 Team – IM

A new Korean Starcraft II team has been created. Its name is  IM, which stands for “Incredible Miracle.” It includes four ex-Starcraft 1 pro-gamers: ZergBong, MVP, TT, and Losira. Apparently these players not the biggest of names in Starcraft 1 but there are hopes of big things for them in Starcraft II. See more over at TeamLiquid, below.

New Korean SC2 Team — IM – TeamLiquid

BoxeR vs IdrA

I also didn’t believe it at first but it seems like Boxer, The Genius Terran, The Emporer himself is playing Starcraft II. Artosis recently got his hands on a replay of IdrA facing off against him on the ladder. The game is amazing and Boxer… well let’s just say I don’t think anyone has a chance when Boxer starts playing Starcraft II properly. Check it out below!

BoxeR vs IdrA – TeamLiquid

ClouD Interview

After celebrating the IFNG victory last night MyM sat down with ClouD and had a talk about the games he played, his thoughts on the event and his feelings post-event!

White-Ra Interview

Hear the recently wedded White-Ra’s thoughts on this years WCG and how he prepared for it. He was recently interviewed by Rakaka.se and you can just click the link above to watch the video.

Jaedong Interview

One of the biggest names currently in Starcraft 1, Jaedong, was recently interviewed at WCG after one of his first games. He had the following to say:

“I sent 6 lings early on, and game just ended,” says Jaedong to Fomos.kr. “The opponent played like the computer.”

After reading that, how can you not want to see the rest of the interview?

Replay Packs

Go4SC2 Monthly Finals – September Replay Pack

Go4SC2 #42 Replay Pack

Craft Cup #8 Replay Pack

VOD’s From GSL

Woah. How did this post get as long as it is? Damn Starcraft news. Oh well, if there are mistakes in the post you will just have to live with it! If there’s any news I missed you will just have to inform me by leaving a comment! Enjoy!

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Another Sunday brings another ZOTAC. Without fail the guys from over at ZOTAC have brought some of the best players together to compete for their now highly sought after Cup. The finals saw the infamous Terran player mTw.DeMusliM take on another Terran player  jimpo. mTw.DeMusliM won with a rather convincing 3 – 1. The games in the replay pack from ZOTAC #16 are definitely worth a watch as the tournament had quite a few big names participating– Besides, I am pretty sure everyone wants as many replays as they can get to keep them entertained while the beta is down..

Finals: mTw.DeMusliM (Terran) vs jimpo (Terran)

The full replay pack of the tournament can be downloaded over at SC2Win or just use the link below. 

ZOTAC SC2 Beta Cup #16 Replaypack

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