IPL Player's Panel

One of the best moments in the IPL this weekend was the panels, the best one no doubt was with Incontrol, MC, Select, and Stephano. Check it out!

One Sample Question:

Question: What do you guys do for fun in SC2?

Stephano: I play Terran and make only marines with stimpack

Select: I play Protoss and Cheese, 4 Gate is fun.

MC: Beat Idra

The Money of E-Sports

The Money of E-sports

If anyone is still negligent to the fact that there is no money in playing video games, show them the site Sc2earnings.com. On this site, the creators make a global database on the top earners of Starcraft II. It is important to remember that prize money for most players is just icing on the cake, as salaries, lessons, or streaming tend to be more of steady and reliable source of income for players. With such a young game, and plenty of players already making 6 digit of money solely on prize money, it really is astonishing what the future will hold.

Some interesting notes

* While the top earners are obviously Koreans who have excelled in the GSL, Ukraine's White-Ra leads the foreigner the pack in prize money, passing Huk through his IPL Season 2 Title.

* Nestea has shown that he doesn't need to travel (...MC) to international events to get the money, rather just focusing on GSL and producing amazing results. But still, MC has won (No pun intended) everywhere (Denmark, USA, China, etc.)

* Puma, who has not even qualified for a GSL, holds the 8th spot, showing his fellow countrymen that even if you struggle through the gauntlet that is the GSL qualifiers, there is still way to hone your hours of practice on the alarming amount of international events.

* Online cup warrior Kas is remarkably ranked 50th, with his biggest cash only being 3,000 dollars, those small cup victories do tend to add up

The Irony of July

ST_July staring off into space wondering if he's going to get ironically knocked out in the first round of the GSL July. For those who don't know July's wins in Brood War all came in July and so he's probably the hungriest of all players this season for a win.

In truth this image comes from Team Liquid's twitter page and is July watching Idra and MC play at Summer Dreamhack 2011.

Huk

I should be sleeping but instead I'm half doing work and half watching the Homestory Cup 3.
I just saw Naniwa defeat Huk 3-2. This is LiquidHuk after his loss while watching the replay of the match. In a final match of a PvP he went Dark Templars which failed miserably as Naniwa did a Robotics Bay build and left his observer at his ramp with his units. Don't have much sympathy for Huk as he crushed miserably my favorite player July in the Summer Dreamhack 2011 earlier this month. Although I can always admire and recognize the skill of even players I don't like or care about, part of the enjoyment of esports is the pettiness automatically hating all who are against those you want to win.

I wish I could watch the next rounds as Huk goes up against oGsMC, but I'm getting sleepy and I'm supposed to wake up early tomorrow and work out.

July and Gretorp at MLG

Startale July is at MLG Columbus crushing nerds and taking their MLG points.

Sadly, Gretorp is also at MLG Columbus, not doing very well and reminding people that his talents may lie elsewhere.

MKP Manggaganna'!

I like watching MarineKingPrime.We or as he is sometimes known Fake Boxer or Foxer play. First, because he is a great player, his micro makes my eyeballs scream sometimes. I cannot believe what I'm seeing, especially against zerg, where he defies physics, mechanics and logic against banelings.

Second, because he is the king of making ill-advised moves. My SC2 fandom is based primarily on what I see in players that I feel or that I identify with and so I like players like Nada or July because they are bihu kalang Guahu. I liked SanZenith when he first started in the GSL because his dream was to survive for 10 mins in a game and that used to be my goal too! (Mampos maolekna pa'go Si San. Kalang ha traiduit yu' yan i hinasso-ku put Guiya)

In his early rise in SC2, when MKP knew that his opponent was going Banelings, he wouldn't stutter, but still move out with pure Marines, or pure Marines and 1 Marauder. It was insane, completely ill-advised and if it were most other players, you would shriek that kaduku gui'! Baste ennao! Siempre pon matomba! The issue with ill-advised moves is that they tend not to work, because the game dynamics make them ridiculous. But MKP is such a great player because he can make obscene strategies work most of the time, when fate would rule that they end in misery and noob-stank.

His style was sorely tested last night in the Round of 4 of the GSL World Championship league, which is now solely filled with Koreans. On one side of the bracket MVP faced San and sent him packing. On the other MKP would face off against oGsMC. You could call them rivals, although everyone nowadays is MC's rival because he's at the top of the game, which is where everyone else wants to be.

MKP was booted out of a previous GSL by MC in convincing fashion and so MKP was naturally thirsty for revenge. In a best of five, MKP lost the first two games in a fashion which made me feel like I had just undergone an out of body experience and played two high level matches in the GSL. It was so bad that Tasteless on the Gom cast, could hardly speak after the second loss because it wasn't even interesting, it was just sad. It was like MKP was falling apart, and instead of it being gory and cool to watch, it just made you want to give up on life. Sometimes the tragedy of life can make you cherish living and moving ahead, but sometimes the tragedy is so naked and brutally raw that it just makes you want to crawl into a corner and drink the saltiness of your tears until you slowly waste away.

Those two first games were like that. MKP pulled a gold-base switch on Metalopolis, and gained an early league since he was not scouted by MC. But he later lost in an almost pathetic way when MC calmly countered by sneaking a pylon on the high ground on the left side of the gold, warping in zealots to take out his workers while MKP tried a soft contain. In game two, MKP tried a proxied Thor rush, which could have worked, except that MKP cut too many corners and while he was walling off and building a bunker, a zealot and a stalker broke through his defenses and the game becoming an after-school special for noobs on proper walling in defense techniques. Both of these games would make great inclusions into a highlight reel of "when cheese goes bad!"

MKP was two down, MC only had to win one more. Siempre ti sina ha ganna' este hun. It certainly did not look like it. He had cheesed his way into a massive hole playing against the best Protoss and currently best player in the world.

But in the next three games, MKP was able to actually come back and win the series. Inasa yu' ni' este. Ya esta ki pa'go ti hongge'on na manggana' gui'.

MC proxy Stargated outside of MKP's main on Crevasse. He also went 4gate, in hopes of creating a massive early game push to take out MKP who had fast expanded. The first Void Ray allowed MC to warp in on the high ground near the expansion, and zealots and the VR started to take out SCVs. A squad of Marines moved up to engage and MKP showed his incredible stutter step micro, even using his mule effectively to block the attacking zealots. It looked for certain that MC was going to crush MKP with this rush, but the micro held them at bay. MKP had to lift off his extra command center and lost it as two charged VRs took it out. But that attack allowed him to take out the ground army and also snipe the two VR. MKP quickly countered and won

In Game 4 MKP tried to rush with banshees to harass, but MC had an insanely early robo and so it was quickly stopped after two stalkers hit the sneaky banshee. But MKP had scraped together an interesting version of the "Tasteless build" where he started pushing with three siege tanks, about a dozen marines and switched the banshees from harass mode to death from above mode. A skirmsh took place outside of MC's expansion with MKP taking the day once he got siege mode.

Game 5 on Terminus Re was up in the air at the start, since we could not be sure who was going to push first, who was going to take the first risk. MKP expanded early, MC went for a three gate rush. MC's early rush failed, when he accidentally tipped off his opponent that he was breaking down the side rocks with a stalker running by the bunker to hit them from the other side. MKP built more bunkers and fought off MC. MC retreated to go Robo and colossus. MKP built several more barracks for a quick timing attack. When it came, MC had no colossus, and MKP just waltzed into his base. MC showed his skill by delaying MKP for as long as possible, leading him around his expansion, buying time so that the colossus could come out. Although it was a tactical win for MC, he lost alot of units and mining time.

A few minutes later they met again, MKP had more units with vikings and MC's army was destroyed.

Tasteless: MC is gonna be crushed!

Artosis: So is the world of reality that you live in!

MC, warps in a few zealots as his last line of defense but quickly GGs seeing it as pointless.

MKP, will now go back to the finals of the GSL. This will be his 3rd try, he has lost two before first to NesTea and later to MVP. He will be meeting MVP again this Friday in the finals, and he'll be hoping to avenge another crippling loss, when he was 4-0 by MVP in January.

GSL- Thoughts

The GSL finals were sad sight to see if you are a Zerg player or sympathizer. The anticipated finals of MC vs July, the Gods of War of their respected races, was more of the "Protoss President" outplaying and outpreparing the Starcraft:BW legend. MC showed impeccable play with superb timings and flawless micro, July never was in control. (Except for the 3^rd set in which July conducted a slick Hydra drop timing while MC was teching)

However what made MC play so frightening was that he basically won the series only using Tier 1 Gateway Units. Dark Templars made a brief appearance but really they did not shine in any way. MC’s Sentry and Stalker control was awe dropping. His pushes of “infinite forcefields” (8 or more sentries) were just cutting up July’s forces so badly that the notion of a fair fight was nonexistent.

Not one Colossus was made, which has been the buzz word for Zerg players who cry ZvP imbalance. *cough* Artosis and Idra

One Void Ray was made, but that game was the only one that MC preceded to lose.

No High Templars were produced as well.

So what is the big story? Well gateway pushes are incredibly powerful especially backed with top notch micro and such creative timings. In Game 2, MC’s 1 Gate Expand, a build catered for Crevasse, to a 6 Gate push came at such a fast time because his build allowed him to tech to warp faster by skipping a forge (Which is usually the crucial structure for fast expansions in PvZ). Were these pushes unstoppable though? The answer in my mind is no but it is not easy. In game 1 July could have held it off if he built a few more spine crawlers but the nail in the coffin was the last couple of Forcefields at the ramp, which blocked a huge amount of Reinforcements. They were mistakes made by Tushin (July), but in the bigger picture, this series lacked something that we came to expect from the Brood War Champion.

July, who in Brood War was known for being one the best BoX players in the game. His match preparation was legendary; see his series against Best in the EVER OSL where he truly played the player and not the game. It was surprising to see him getting outsmarted by MC here.

One thing that was disheartening as well is that July was not adapting at all to his opponent’s play. The one thing that MC lacked in these brute force pushes was detection, he completely ignored robo tech in 4/5 games. Rushing roach burrow would have stopped these pushes cold, with burrow being the best way to handle force fields in the mid game. Instead we saw the Zerg units get completely torn apart. This was a bad time for July to not bring his A game especially when he is playing the best player in the world. MC’s aggression is so refined; it truly is a scary sight to see.

In my mind, this GSL final is not evidence for ZvP imbalance (Its still favored for the Protoss but the matchup itself is not broken imo) but rather that MC is really good and July simply was not up to par. He lost the mental edge that earned him his nickname in BW.

July Interview

This Friday is the finals of the March GSL, as I was hoping it'll be ST_July v. oGsMC. I'll be writing more about this later (pa'go ha' tinane' yu' ni' i che'cho'-hu). But in the meantime, here is an interview with July after he defeated his old rival (who had defeated him many times in Brood War Nada), on his way to the finals. The interview comes from this link.

********************

Q: Feelings for advancing to Ro4?
A: I have never felt this anxious/nervous for such a long time. I do not even know how long have I not felt such feelings. When I win I kept on thinking, did I really just win?

Q: 1st 2 matches you won easily.
A: I thought today I could perform a 3-0 victory. It will be 3-0 as long as I take down the 1st match, even if I lost the 1st match it will be 3-1 victory. However, during the 3rd match I actually did a low level mistake, not scouting.

Selected strategy and spawning locations are good, but I did not see opponent's hellion coming out of base. After I saw my spawn location which are all in the correct location, I feel ladyluck is blessing me.

Q: Today matches strategy are similar
A: I saw many comments from friends on the internet. They say my matches contain aggressive elements, extremely entertaining. Even if I lose I will still see good comments for my play. I love these comments. Without these comments I will never be able to take down today's matches.

Q: You have a match with Nada after 2 years, feelings?
A: Both of us should be pretty excited about this. We trained very hard after all, and result in panda eyes. In SC1, I lose alot, thus in SC2 I hope I can win him.

Q: In 4th matches, do u notice not the small passage between the 2 barracks?
A: I do not know about this. If I knew, I could have won alot easier. Main thing is, after losing the 3rd round I felt a little bit at loss. In addition, 4th match bunker rush I defended poorly. Key factor in winning the 5th match is due to having adjusted my mental condition.

Q: Not using late game units on purpose?
A: Ultralisk is really not good. Even if I max out 200 food count on ultralisk, it is hard to win. Analysing Nada I have realised he love doing a Timing All-In. So I have decided to specifically counter against his unit's mobility. Against other player I may choose other strategy.

Q: MC said between July and Nada, whoever wins will enter the Finals.
A: I totally agreed with MC! Now I cannot see other opponent, only MC. Although in Ro32 I lose to MC, but at the finals I WILL LAUGH TILL THE END.

Q: MC said to win the finals, a zerg opponent will be the best bet.
A: Indeed, due to ZvP matchup. I can only sigh.

The races characteristic is wierd. A 200/200 maxed out engage basically Protoss could have won with just a net loss of 30 food count units. Then another push from Protoss Zerg would have KO. Zerg is too fragile. ZvP is indeed hard to fight.

Q: Next match could be Lyn or MarineKing
A: Lyn is famous @ War3, so I want to play a match against him. I have not fought him yet, I will win lyn to advance the semifinals, in the end everything will play out according to my script and I will win the finals.

Q: Alot of audience from SC1 wished today's victor would go to the Finals and win. Are you confident?
A: During group selection I have said that I have climbed from the lowest point. I will let everyone know how did I climbed to this place. I have the capabilities to advance from Code A to Code S Ro4, what is so difficult about going into the Finals? On the contary, I feel entering the Finals would make my mental condition even more stable.

Q: As of now, Zerg who advances to Ro8 take the finals.
A: There is alot differences between the past and now. Compared to last time, now racial balance is much better. But after hearing this I feel I must take the finals. Now I can only think being champion.

Q: Feel any 'Champion' Omen incoming?
A: Today, when I washed my hair, I think back of the past. Suddenly I thought of...should I dye my hair red again? Still, I feel now and the past there is some differences, now I am at the stage of climbing 1 step at a time.

Q: Last words?
A: Yesterday I discussed alot with my teammates, thank deeply for them. Many players accompanied me to train. Especially Clide whom I eliminated in Ro16, still he sincere helped me in training. Finally, I want to thank my coach.

Hulio

I know that, given the way that the races were designed in Starcraft 2, it is always in the best interests of zerg to focus on their economy early, so that they can come in later in the match, with the full force of the swarm. Protoss and Terran can rush early and if it fails, still find a way to recover, but for zerg, falling behind early usually means you can never come back. As they always say in Starcraft 2, zerg has to always stay one base ahead of it's opponent.

Since I began watching the GSL last year, I've started to follow ST_July or Julyzerg, who was a professional SC1 player, even winning the OSL three times, and is sometimes known as "The God of War." His story was made interesting by the fanboy mentality of Tasteless and Artosis, who adored July from his SC1 days and would speak of him in hushed and reverent tones while casting his games. He was knocked out in Round of 16 by oGsMC in GSL 3, and got to Round of 8 in the January Code A matches and was eventually able to break into Code S in the Up/Down matches that followed. He made it through and started GSL 4 in Code S.

Although he did very well, and making it into Code S was a big feat in and of itself, July wasn't showing the God of War powers that Tastosis kept bestowing him. Ironically, they called oGsMC, the Protoss who beat July in GSL 3 "the Kraitos Protoss" who is the title character from the series God of War. And in GSL he seemed to be more worthy of the title.

One thing that July has shown me so far in the GSLs is that he can be hyper aggressive in the early game. This hasn’t always worked out for him, as zerg isn’t meant to do it, and my brother hates it when I talk about wanting to see more zergs take control of the game early and not let Protoss or Terran dictate things by whether they choose to rush or not.

Last week I watched LiquidHaypro v. IMGanzi in the Code A matches and it showed me why some of the conventional wisdom on zerg needs to change, and how easily the “one base ahead” need can be used against zerg. Haypro expanded like mad on Terminus in order to try to stay ahead of the GanZi, he lost so many hatcheries that even Tasteless couldn’t keep track anymore. The new commentator Kelly had mentioned that GanZi loves to drop and can sometimes do more than two drops at once and he showed that very well in this match. Zerg would win every engagement in the middle, but GanZi just starved Haypro out, by constantly denying his ability to expand, and also using the drops to keep Haypro from engaging, and forcing him to divide his mind and decide whether to divide his forces (which he rarely did). I’ve often heard that the late game belongs to zerg, but this match showed how that can be denied. The better that Terrans become at multitasking in the late game, the worse it will be for zerg. And although the new massive GSL maps make for epic games, they make it difficult to impossible for those with a large central force to be able to stop harassment. Haypro showed that weakness in the game, by not being able to split his units or defend himself, and GanZi made better use of his race’s adaptability and the fact that with every drop he would be able to do plenty of damage before the first speedling got there to defend.

In last night’s Code A, a similar thing happened to LiquidRet, who was better than Haypro at stopping the harassing or at least minimizing it, but still fell to a similar starving out strategy against Slayers_M. On a night where many a zerg was slaughtered and the first three matchups were taken 2 -0 by Protoss or Terran, in the final round a zerg was finally able to beat a Protoss, but only by creating a massive Muta ball which could one shot pylons and canons. The zerg ended up losing though.

The GSL Code S started last week with the “Group of Death” which had two players who are considered by most to be the best players of their race, IMMvp (Terran) and oGsMC (Protoss), and someone who revolutionized zerg in SC1, but has yet to prove himself “god-like” in SC2, ST_July. I felt bad for the remaining player in the group oGsHyperDub, who stood in the shadow and would be shadow of all the others, and struggled in the matches to prove himself.

July had made this more interesting by wanting to be in this group in order to take out MC who beat him out of GSL 3. Although July lost to MC, who easily made it out of the group on top, most everyone who was watching the group of death was probably blown away by the fact that it was July and not Mvp, who moved on to the next round. MVP won the first GSL Code S tourney in January, becoming the first Terran to do so by defeating MarineKingPrime.We. His win rate was phenomenal in SC2 for the past few months, massacring zergs and being known as unbeatable against Terran as well.

But on the first day of the GSL, July beat MVP twice to move on, both times by being aggressive early, the first time failing miserably and then coming back, the second time, by being very very lucky, and attacking at exact moment he should. In the first match, July got his banelings into the main of MVP but did very little except killing a supply depot, a tech lab and no SCVs. His economy in shambles, he tried to rebuild, but MVP was clearly in the lead and Tastosis was already calling it for MVP. MVP pushed too early into the main of July, thinking him to be weaker than he actually was. The push failed, and although July lost quite a bit, MVP lost his advantage. July came back with mutas, and attacked again with speedlings and banelings and broke MVP.

The second match, on Metapolis, July once again went for early aggression, intending to baneling bust MVP. MVP walled in with two barracks, and did not notice July waiting outside his main when he lifted up his buildings to move them around. July had already attacked, not knowing that the buildings were lifted up. When July waltzed right into the main, with all of his units intact, he actually hesitated and turned around, not sure what was going on, and if there was some trap waiting for him. He only turned around for a moment and then pushed back in, easily massacring MVPs units and SCVs. Most players when they lose they stare off into space for a bit or shake their head and mutter to themselves as they unhook their keyboard or mouse, MVP put his head down on his keyboard and didn’t move.

I’m looking forward to see how July can do in the next round and to see if he can really make it to the top of SC2.

GSL Finals

I have to admit, I was let down by finals of the GSL last weekend.

I was all excited and pumped up, I even decided to write about the GSL in my column in the Marianas Variety this week just to share even a faint engram of how excited I was. My brother's friend had GSL watching party, where we had pizza and endured the incredibly long and mind-numbing interludes between matches, only to watch TSL_Rain get completely outplayed by OGSMC. There wasn't really a lot of suspense, although there were some interesting plays.

I got the feeling that most people expected Rain to act like Bitbybit and simply all in rush every single game, but I felt like he was straining against that and trying to prove himself to be a bit more than that, and as a result a sort of cautiousness crept into his play. He made the unusual move of going siege tank against protoss in his first two games, as if to prove he wasn't one of those kaduku taisensia na all in freaks, he brought some siege, some marines and medivacs and would bunker like crazy just outside of MC's base. He wasn't rushing but trying to blockade. In both instances, his timing was a bit off. Although he had no way of actually knowing it, MC had already expanded in both games, the first to his protected natural, the second to a hidden base, and so the blockade didn't work since Rain was stuck on one base. In both cases he didn't press effectively, and so MC was allowed to come back.

This is not to say that Rain is not a great SC2 player. You don't get to the finals of the GSL by being lucky or super-cheesy. You have to have alot of skill just to play at that level. But you could definitely see Rain's newness in his play. He started off in a way that seemed to doubt himself and to doubt his style of play.

In the 3rd match, Rain was able to come back by playing with the mind of MC and tricking him into thinking he was going to go two barracks when in fact he was going for the infamous partial "Tasteless Build" to rush out cloak banshees.

In the 4th match, MC almost completely mindf-cked Rain by doing the cheesiest most despicable rush possible where you build your gateway in your opponent's main, pylon on 7, gateway on 8 and then just chronoboost out zealots to tear the base to shreds. The map was Steppes of War which is one of the smaller maps ideal for quick and brutal rushes and I like most people watching was anticipating a super fast Terran Rain rush, but MC shocked everyone (ko'lo'lo'na Si Rain) by rushing his attack before Rain had even built his supply depot.

The 5th game, was the final, although it was very close. Both players got attacks into each other's bases at the same time. Rain snuck blue flame hellions into MC's base and took out all his probes. Rain tried to defend off a zealot-immortals-stalkers-sentry force which invaded his main but could not. It was somewhat close, but ultimately Rain's command center could not escape as it was surrounded by sentries and stalkers picking it off.

OGSMC is a great player. The way he picked apart LiquidJinro in the round of four was so brutal it should have come with a warning for people watching. But I was disappointed that one of the more macro players did not make it to the final to make the last games more epic. It seemed that many players had practiced techniques to try to kill your opponent in that first timing window when they expand, or get them with some sort of blitz tinigong before they are even ready for aggression. I was glad that at least one of the final games (game 2) went to an epic level, with nearly all bases taken and so many things happening at once not even the commentators could keep up. I hope that in the next tournament however there is a good mixture, because the first layer of strategy, the mind games which take place at the very start can be fun to watch, but there is nothing more satisfying than a game which pushes the limits and endurance of both players and the audience by going far beyond what you could imagine at the game's start.