The busiest week of StarCraft II! Part 3!

So I didn't realize that Dreamhack started very early this morning. So all of the group stage games have been played out, so I guess we'll just talk about the results and how the bracket stages will be played out from there.

Group A: NaNiwa managed to take 2nd place in the group over Hyun, which I did not expect, otherwise pretty much exactly how I thought it would go down. RIP on Lucifron Hype.

Group B: The two notable things that happened here was Polt's very lackluster performance and JYP performing very very well. JYP hasn't had a noticeable result in a long time and has been very quiet. I didn't think he could stand up to the powerhouses of this group, but he came to play. Polt didn't. For whatever reason Polt only seems capable of playing his best in WCS America and MLG. Events in Europe or Korea seem to give him a lot of trouble. That is a weird mental block to have for a native Korean.

Group C: This group went pretty much as I expected it to. Taeja is an absolute beast. I thought sOs would give him more trouble, like that he would beat him, but I can't be surprised at this result either. INoVation's stellar TvT is probably the biggest surprise of the group.
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Group D: This group literally played out exactly like I thought it would. Jaedong is an unstoppable monster outside of finals and Hero acquires magical powers at DreamHack Winter so their stellar performances are 100% expected. Would've been nice to see Welmu there, he could've maybe shaken things up a bit, or at least actually made Goswser actually work to advance.

Moving right along to the bracket stage games, I'll only highlight the ones I'm interested in. Starting with the Team Liquid team kill of Taeja and Hero. Why do these tournaments insist on pitting these two against each other constantly? just a shame. I expect Taeja to win here and then have Hero make a huge run in the Loser's bracket. Next Jaedong and INoVation. It should be a total clash of the titans sort of thing, but I really think Jaedong has this won, INoVation's TvZ just isn't as dominant as it once was.

Taking a trip down to the Loser's bracket we have Polt and Hyun. One of these two is going straight out of the tournament. Wow. That is just how stacked this tourney is. Clash of the WCS America  titans, if Polt can somehow convince himself that he's actually playing in the NASL Santa Monica studio and not Stockholm I think he'll win convincingly. Lastly we have TLO and JYP. I want both of these guys to make deep runs in this tournament, but one must end their journey now. Based on how the group stage games went... Well both of them sucked lost a all their PvZ games, but JYP was against Life so I'll give him the edge. Sorry TLO, maybe NaNiwa will lose fast as well so you won't feel bad.

If you aren't watching DreamHack this weekend, something is wrong with you, or your an IdrA fanboy. So something is wrong with you. hehehehehe. Seriously though, watch DreamHack, cause it's the best tournament of the year. GOGO Jaekongdong.

Let's face it, these are your eventual finalists, no one else here matters. 

The busiest weekend in StarCraft! Part two!

As I mentioned yesterday, this weekend features three separate major StarCraft II tournaments. Yesterday I talked a bit about the old relic of a tourney in WCG, and today we'll go a bit more in depth with IEM Singapore which will in fact be in Singapore! The highlight reel will be the best chance for someone NOT from Korea to win a major tournament out of the three, and then there will be ToD and IdrA casting. I guess there's also the story line of whether or not Grubby can repeat the deep run he had here last year. 

So let's talk Scarlett. Her performance at the Red Bull Battle Grounds in New York last week probably cemented her as the one of if not the strongest foreigner in the scene. Her Zerg versus Terran is without a doubt world class level, and her ZvP and ZvZ aren't that far behind. What makes her so strong right now though? The focus of the Mutalisk in each of these match up, at least that's what I think. Mutalisks play a key role in each Zerg match-up and Scarlett is one of the best users of this unit. With the slightly less potent line up of terrifying Korean stars, 15 of them in total and only 5 I think can actually beat her, (Bomber, EffOrt, DRG, Hydra, and San) This is the best oppurtunity for Scarlett to claim her first tournament victory of the year, and the best chance for a foreigner to actually take a tournament this year. 

In all seriousness though, as far as the games go, the only thing that has me excited at all is that Bomber and Scarlett are in the same group, so they will more than likely play each other. The last two times these two have met each other we've gotten absolutely fantastic series with each one of them going to the final game.
Scarlett bested Bomber in a Bo3 at the Red Bull Battle Grounds last weekend, and a few months ago Bomber took a narrow 3-2 victory at the quarterfinals of the WCS Season 2 global finals where he would go on to take the tournament. Beyond that, there really isn't a whole lot that I'm intrested in seeing from the players. IdrA and ToD hopefully will cast at least one series together and if they do it'll be hilarious. Protoss player who thinks Zerg is broken, and a Zerg who thinks Protoss is also broken, what could go wrong?

I suppose it wouldn't be fair to talk about this tournament without at least mentioning Grubby, who last year nearly claimed his first StarCraft II major in Singapore. However, the Grubby that was here in 2012 was the Grubby that was constantly improving, coming closer and closer to being the best, and seeming destined to eventually become the best foreigner in scene. Then 2013 happened and Grubby seemed to falter. He didn't all of the sudden become bad, but the constant improvement in both skills and results seemed to fade. What was left was a strong, but certainly not overwhelming European Protoss. Don't get me wrong, I want Grubby to do well here, he's one of the nicest, hard-working and more professional people in the scene. It just doesn't seem realistic to say that he will make a deep run. I still think he will eventually become very good, I'm unsure if he'll reach the same heights that he did during his run in WarCraft III though. Whatever he does it will be entertaining though. 

He'll also still have that sick jacket. 

If you are thinking of watching a StarCraft II tournament this weekend I would definately recomend you check out IEM Singapore at twitch.tv/esltv_sc2.   ESL always puts on a good show, and I'm sure there will be some great games played. Tune in! I promise it'll be worth it. 

Source of picture BenQ gaming. 

The biggest weekend of Starcraft in 2013! (Part 1 of 3)

I've legitimately thought a lot today about writing a post where I do something beyond just talking about E-sports and in particular talk about things happening in my own life. I know it'd be a crazy stretch to do that, especially on my own personal blog, but hear me out! The thought crossed my mind. Thats all it really did though, no talk about me today, on to video games!

Some of you know this weekend as American thanksgiving. While that is certainly true, this year its actually the busiest weekend for StarCraft II. We have 3 separate major tournaments running with the World Cyber Games trying to remain relevant, the Intel Extreme Master's stop in Singapore where Acer.Scarlett will attempt to win her first premier title, and finally we have one of my personal favorites, the Annual awarding Liduid Hero with a check festival Dreamhack Winter. I'll be giving my own brief thoughts on who I think each of these tournaments are going to play out. We'll start with WCG and then talk about real tournaments tomorrow and Thursday. #ShotsFired

First up the World Cyber Games in Kunshan, China. This is going to be a weird tournament, because we have 4 groups of 7-8 players that are all going to play each person in their group in a Bo3 with only the top two of each group advancing. That means over two days, nearly 100 Bo3 series are going to be played. Thats at least 200 games! That is an ungodly number of games, I feel so sorry for both the casters and the players here, it's going to be grueling to say the least. Especially if you lose the first few and are essentially eliminated half way through the day. There are going to be pointless games being played and that just shows that the tournament format is bad. Never the less, out of each group I feel there are 2 favourites to come out of each of them. Group A will have PartinG and Sen completely out classing the rest of their group. Group B might be the closest, but I feel that France's Dayshi and China's Jim will be advancing, (That doesn't mean I won't be cheering for my fellow Canadian Desrow!) Group C will be dominated by Sora with MacSed following behind, with maybe the American Xenocider making an upset. Group D will be Korea's Soulkey wrecking everyone and the German protoss HasuObs picking up the pieces of the wreckage to advance in 2nd.

Into the playoff stage it will become like every other tournament in that the Koreans will likely dominate. I think PartinG looks to be the most likely to take the whole tournament, Soulkey could also take it, don't be shocked if its those two in the finals.

If I can throw some real talk down about now, WCG is a relic and not really that rel event of a tournament anymore. The only part that seems to matter is the Korean Qualifiers, since none of the foreigners (Non-Koreans) that would have had a even play this anymore. It's just like a charity to for the 3 Koreans that make it to the global finals. If your thinking of watching your first StarCraft Tournament this weekend, don't have it be WCG, not while there are two other very high quality tournaments going on at the same time.

RIP on WCG. Plz. 

Source of picture World Cyper Games. Plz don't sue me.

Some Review of WCS 2013, and my Thoughts on WCS 2014 Plans

In case you did not know, Blizzard released their plans for their World Championship Series (WCS) for two thousand and fourteen. Fans, players and hecklers alike were in anticipation of this news, particularly if any nationality or residency requirements would be introduced to help prevent the mess that was the WCS America region where they top eight throughout three separate seasons had only one person native to North America, (a Canadian) tying it with Australia and Norway for the year. 

Blizzards first step to fixing this problem is allocate the number of spots available for challenger league qualifiers (The tournament that funnels into premier, the highest league.) shall be limited to certain numbers based on nationality. fifty percent of qualifier spots are guaranteed to those who call North America their home, (whether by birth or legal residency) while only two will be available to their main competition, South Koreans, and even those sports are actually wildcards open to anyone. If you are wondering, while 1 Canadian made the top eight over three seasons, eighteen Koreans made their way to the top eight, possessing 75% of the top spots, and always claiming the title and runner up spots. This will probably prevent many Koreans from making their way up to premier league spots, while giving many more North Americans opportunity to attempt to make the jump. 

However, these changes do not affect the seven Korean players already seeded into Premier via their previous seasons performance, nor does it affect the Twelve Koreans who will be looking to make the jump to premier in the challenger league best of five matches that will take place early next year. It is highly likely unless several Koreans are matched against their countrymen that we will still be seeing as many as 16 Koreans in premier league, and with the new format, it will be difficult to remove them. WCS America looks to remain GSL* lite for the time being. 

You will notice I have not mentioned how this change will affect Europe`s own WCS competition. This is because Europe does not have the problem of being totally overrun by Korea. While it is true that the top 4 spots are still very Korean, there has been at least one European in the top 4 each season. There was even a French player who made the finals in season one! (RIP in peace Stephano) 

What has kept Europe safe from the invasion though? Are Europeans just better players and therefore more capable of repelling the coming invaders? while I do think Europe is ahead of North America overall, that's not really what kept them safe. The almighty wall that is Europe to Korea lag has kept them much safer than their own level of play. Harsh lag has made it very difficult for Korean players to surge forth in the 2013 year, and its simply not cost effective for the Korean teams to send their players over to Europe just to attempt to qualify for a tournament now is it? Most of the Koreans that made deep runs in WCS Europe were part of European teams where it made sense to bring them to Europe to play. Only IM.MVP (who won a season) and MVP.duckdeok (also won a season) were members of Korean based teams and also made deep runs into WCS Europe. 

To close my thoughts somewhat randomly. I think Europe looks to be in a good spot for WCS. North America might need some more time before they are able to showcase North American talent. At least there's some hope so the NA players will continue to try. Also did not mention the changes to the Korean region. Going to be good to have GSL back, looking forward to staying up way to late many nights to watch it again. Peace out!

Hopefully this guy and win a tourney soon. Couple of 1st places would solidify him as the best in the world.