The Dreamhack Invitational

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of watching the most well run and highest quality tournament on a stream, the Dreamhack Invitational. The games (Invited players include MC, Jinro, White-Ra, Huk, Idra, TLO, Sjow and Morrow), commentators (Demuslim and D'Apollo, forever now know as the English Archon ^^), and production values were all top notch. Watch the VODs here at their Justin.TV site. Thanks you you nerds in Sweden, for showing everyone how to put on an E-sports event.

Taiwan

Taiwan the Mekkah of Starcraft 2?
Posted by Patrik "Raistlin" Hellstrand 16 minutes ago
Gosugamers.net

Asia. Five professional teams with StarCraft 2 competition on live television. Monthly salaries for players and team houses. Thinking of Korea? Think again, as Taiwan attempts to become the new mekkah of StarCraft 2.

If you thought the boom of StarCraft 2 had only reached North America and Europe, you were wrong. There are nations that truly has taken StarCraft 2 to heart. So much that they can boast with having the first league in the world that gets shown on live television.

The Taiwan eSports League is in its fourth season, and StarCraft 2 was brought in as one of the disciples as of October 2010.

It was in an NASL application video from FnaticMSI player Chia Cheng 'SEn' Yang that viewers got to see a round tour of the venue as well as a couple of minutes with the front man of the Taiwan eSports League. In the video clip, he explains the league system and its player support.
"We are also the first StarCraft 2 league where all players have a base salary," says 'SoBad', game shoutcaster. He added, "Every player of the 5 teams has a steady monthly salary."

The league consists of 5 teams that take turns playing on live TV on weekends: Xpec Ironmen, Gama Bears, Wayi Spider, Tt Apollos and Tao Yuan Jets.

According to an FAQ by 'BanelingMalt', players earn between $700 and $1,000 USD.

While the Taiwanese superstar "Sen" is not a part of any team due to alleged sponsor conflicts with his home team FnaticMSI, there are other bright shining stars such as the Terran player Jen-Yu “SoftBall” Chan (picture) who was seen playing at BlizzCon 2010.

"Our goal is to help all of our players get to the point where they are better than Sen. Of course currently we still have a long way to reach that goal, but I believe that you will be able to see Taiwanese players in the GSL and the NASL, so everyone keep an eye out for us," said SoBad.

The organization is considering allowing non-Taiwanese to join any of the five teams at the start of next season, but no details of it has been announced.

The Dealer of Fruits

Storylines must be present for any sport to succeed, and in the 1^st season of the GSL (Global Starcraft League), the producers could not ask for a better story than Fruitdealer, (aka Cool, Kim Won Gi). Being the 1^st season of a newly released game, the game was still being figured out, but one thing that was known is that Zerg was the most underrepresented race in competitive leagues. Terrans were dominating, and Protoss were decimating, but the sheer amount of Zergs being slain at the highest levels of gaming were astounding. The phrase “Zerg tears” was coined as famous players such as Dimaga were even of thinking of switching to other races due to their frustration. However in this dark time, in the biggest Starcraft 2 tournament in the world, a humble ex- Starcraft:Brood War progamer showed everyone the power of the swarm.

In the 1^st season of the GSL, no Zergs but Fruitdealer and Check Prime made it past the Round of 32, 16 Zergs qualified out 64 spots, and with the aforementioned Check being knocked out convincingly in the Round of 16. Some say the maps played a big difference, such as the Zerg graveyard Kulas Ravine, but Cool showed the true tenacity of a champion by going undefeated in that map. His gameplay was truly special at the time, mixing his styles of a macro game with early aggression, Cool had flair. Cool also had brains, often anticipating what strategy his opponent was going to use and then countering it (see Game 4 on Desert Oasis versus IntoTheRainbow, where he blindly made a baneling nest that defeated an early marine stim push, as Rainbow assumed he was going mutas on a close air position map like Desert Oasis). His 1^st game against NexLiveForever on Metalopolis is still imprinted in my mind. He dealt with constant aggression from the Terran (lost over 80 drones in the 1^st 12 minutes of the game) but persevered until he got 5 bases and every late game tech the Zerg has to offer and then rolled his human foe. His Queen usage was so spectacular that game as well. He handled early pressure so much better than any other Zerg in the world.

If you can Watch Fruitdealer’s run in the 1^st GSL , watch it. You can learn what E-SPORTS is all about, an underdog story who turned into a legend. An ex-progamer who helped his parents sell fruit during, hence his name, to a S-class progamer with a solid 80,000 dollar prize in his pockets, it’s a story all gamers can aspire for. All players, even if you do not play Zerg, can learn from his play and mental aptitude.

Highlight Video of Fruitdealer, thanks to Teamliquid.net

Legacy

With the release of Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, it carries a heavy stigma of being a sequel of the one of the most popular and most successful PC games of all time. This game literally created E-sports, or at least gave it a worldwide recognition that spawned communities in nations all across the world. Nowadays, South Korea is known as the hub of Starcraft where TV channels broadcast games and players and teams are sponsored by national banks and large food manufacturers. To this day Brood War is still a force in South Korea, but the sequel is making waves everywhere else.

As a spectator sport, the sequel pales in comparison to the original. This might be due to the fact that Brood War has had 10 years to developed and be fully fleshed out. The game is young. But when time passes, I hope games like this will be produced:

Game 5 of Bisu (P) versus Iris (T), art in pixel form.

If you have any knowledge of Starcraft or Starcraft 2, or any Real-Time Strategy prowess you will know why the game itself is epic, as you do not know who is going to win until the last 60 seconds of the 30 minute match. But the background of the game itself is worthy of discussion as well, at this time, Bisu was considered to be unstoppable and was slated to win this whole league. Iris is an aging Terran player who’s two years past him prime and for him to take it to a 5^th game was a big surprise in itself. I will not spoil the results but I hope dearly that games like this will be produced in Starcraft 2.