SC2 Pro Tournament Discussion

I guess Life just doesn't like waiting to win things. Gotta do it the first time. Screw that waiting for experience stuff.

Oh wow. This is Life's reward for being the first GSL Royal Roader:

IMAGE(http://distilleryimage8.instagram.com/462a5890298511e2b17a22000a1fa432_7.jpg)

So, the Blizzard World Championship Series final is on from Shanghai.

And... the production team they used there for the WCS Asia finals still sucks at their job. Game audio is constantly scratchy and sounds terrible, mics have been live when they aren't supposed to be, the stream picture is washed out and ugly, and it's generally just a bad experience. You fail blizzard. Dreamhack and even MLG are way better than this.

Ugh.

Reminds me:
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*Now, away from the presentation side of things, some interesting games so far.

*So last night Idea beat both Roro and Stephano and took first in his group, Babyknight took out Rain in PvP, and it was all around just a bunch of crazy upsets.

Notable stat of the moment, EG players are currently 3-0 in the opening round with Stephano taking out LiquidHero 2-0, Idra taking out Roro 2-0, and Suppy taking out Comm 2-1.

Could be 4-0 if Huk manages a win in his match against Grubby. They're tied 1-1 right now.

Major almost managed an upset against cJHero, but ended up losing 1-2. Still, so far a good tournament for the foreigner scene.

Finals Bracket for tonight:
IMAGE(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v282/Thin_J/BWCSFinalsBracket.jpg)

Starts at 8:30 EST!

Yeah, the in-game UIs look terrible (everything about it just seems so unprofessional, like something I could have done in 3-4 hours), and the lag/freezes in some of the more higher profile matches (Grubby/Stephano's last match in the Groups) were inexcuusable... especially as they all seemed to freeze during the most critical moments of the game or when viewer counts spiked up high.

Go here for a detailed page of results and upcoming games that are updated live on Liquidpedia.

So... Suppy, Vortix, Killer, and Sen all just fell. That leaves... Parting, Rain, Creator, and Hero in the semifinals.

I guess I can go to bed now. Not watching three PvP's.

*Or not? I watched Sen lose a game when the score at the top of the screen said 2-2. It was a Best of Five.

What the heck is going on? Seeing on twitter that Sen won somehow?

*Scoreboard error I guess? I'm so confused.

*Sen did indeed win. But he's about to be out. Parting wins two in a row on the strength of Immortal/Sentry all-ins and their follow ups. Third game is on Cloud Kingdom, which is a great map for... Immortal/Sentry all-ins.

*Aaaand there it is. lol.

yeah. guess what, after this tourney, i wouldn't be shocked see the geniuses at Blizz put out a knee-jerk patch to nerf immortal/sentry all-in.

Toss wouldn't be doing this if late game wasn't so hilariously broken in PvZ.

Pikey26 wrote:

Toss wouldn't be doing this if late game wasn't so hilariously broken in PvZ.

Somebody hasn't been following Parting so well. He does it to everybody. Including Terrans.

Thin_J wrote:
Pikey26 wrote:

Toss wouldn't be doing this if late game wasn't so hilariously broken in PvZ.

Somebody hasn't been following Parting so well. He does it to everybody. Including Terrans.

Oh yeah, Parting is a 'cheesy bastard,' who's been exploiting the crap out of Immortals. No question about that. But that's a slightly different matter entirely.

3 Immortal builds in a row, and his particular 'cheap' style aside, and I really couldn't blame him for doing that in a high-stakes PvZ.

Spoiler:

all that said, Parting still played very well in the PvP final. kudos to him.

Oh yeah,

Grubby beating MC 3-2 in the quarter final at IEM Singapore just now was so fun to watch. Watch that 5th game when you can, it was not your standard PvP.

Pike, thanks for linking that video, it was awesome. So many great moments I've seen, and some stuff I missed. That Huk/Naniwa micro when Naniwa only had one stalker left was so much fun.

And ending with John the Translator wasn't fair, I was already excited enough about the highlights. A great way to end the collection, though.

That match between Nestea and sCfou is still one of my all time favorites. Play was still rough around the edges at the time, in general, but it was still super even and just really exciting.

*And Hero wins Dreamhack Winter again, with a completely one sided 4-0 over Taeja. Super boring final

And the most awkward, cringeworthy ceremony. I had to close the tab.

Man, I could watch that clip of Squirtle and MVP every day.

Also, Hero rolled Taeja like he was a noob in Dreamhack. Awesome play, drama-less finals.

liquid wrote:

And the most awkward, cringeworthy ceremony. I had to close the tab.

Yeah... Hero's always been a kind of shy awkward dude. Whoever's idea it was to force him to try and do the champagne spray really wasn't thinking things through very well.

Thin_J wrote:
liquid wrote:

And the most awkward, cringeworthy ceremony. I had to close the tab.

Yeah... Hero's always been a kind of shy awkward dude. Whoever's idea it was to force him to try and do the champagne spray really wasn't thinking things through very well.

I remember Taeja's champagne spray at Valencia being equally as awkward. A few minutes of instruction before the finals would probably work wonders if they keep doing this sort of thing.

Thin_J wrote:

That match between Nestea and sCfou is still one of my all time favorites. Play was still rough around the edges at the time, in general, but it was still super even and just really exciting.

*And Hero wins Dreamhack Winter again, with a completely one sided 4-0 over Taeja. Super boring final :|

Don't mind the spoiler this time. You just saved me time to find the games online and watch them.

Couple of things. One, the last GSTL match between FXO and Startale was great. If you have any love for the team leagues at all it's a must watch.

Second, the bracket for IPL5 is up and it's absolutely stacked. Possibly the most impressive american tournament this year.

*Watching the NASL Playoffs. Demuslim is playing really, really great against Sen so far.

Ryung/Hyun is coming up next which should be great too. First time in a while I've felt really driven to watch an NASL cast.

It's also kind of crazy seeing how many people dropped out/were replaced for ipl5.

Great production from IPL so far and the flash player is great, light and responsive and quick. The worst part this IPL is no Lanibot and Beastcrew roaming cam/stream. NOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooo!

liquid wrote:

Great production from IPL so far and the flash player is great, light and responsive and quick. The worst part this IPL is no Lanibot and Beastcrew roaming cam/stream. NOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooo!

Lani is there. She's already posted at least one picture from the venue.

Yeah, she is but she will be doing interviews and other serious stuff, unlike last time where it was total hilarity. Also the main stream player is awesome.

If anybody watching wants an easier way to watch this on a bigger screen, there's apparently an app on Xbox Live that will let you watch it on the 360. I haven't found it yet (currently downloading a general IGN app to see if that's it) but I'm hoping it simplifies things and lets me avoid fiddling with my laptop when I want to watch a big tournament on my TV.

*It is indeed the general IGN app. There's an option for "IGN Live" on the mainscreen of that app. Takes you to a screen with two boxes, one for LoL at IPL and the other for SC2.

Downside appears to be no access to either of the two secondary SC2 streams, you only get the main stage.

This is why I love Lani at IPL

If you missed it last year http://www.twitch.tv/iplliveu/b/3143...

Man, IPL5 has been great. Great tournament and top end production quality. Right up there with the better Dreamhack events. So good.

Liquid and EG join forces to form a Korean "house" and a team to play in Proleague. Good times.

I'm intrigued. I wonder how the combined team will fare against the greater swathe of Kespa pros.

*And Jaedong joins EG for a year. Whaaaa?

Kerplunk wrote:

*And Jaedong joins EG for a year. Whaaaa?

Just saw this myself. This whole TL/EG Proleague thing is getting more interesting by the day.

*Hot on the heels of the TL/EG partnership and their entrance into Proleague comes... the announcement that KESPA has jerked the rug out from under OGN and decided they will run the broadcast themselves. Currently, there will be no english stream for Proleague.

KESPA. Same as ever.

Thin_J wrote:

*Hot on the heels of the TL/EG partnership and their entrance into Proleague comes... the announcement that KESPA has jerked the rug out from under OGN and decided they will run the broadcast themselves. Currently, there will be no english stream for Proleague.

KESPA. Same as ever.

Not to mention the speculation that KESPA might hand off the english broadcast to MLG. If true, I'm not sure what to think about that.

So... TL/EG's first outing was harsh. KT crushed them 4-0. They opened with Flash and just carried momentum from there.

And a reminder, NASL season 4 finals start this afternoon. 3pm EST I think.

*First NASL match is live @ http://www.twitch.tv/nasls4/popout

It's Polt vs Golden to start off. So far NASL is massively improved over their first three efforts at a grand finals event. Looks like they actually have a production team this time.

*SortOf takes down Hyun... 3-0. Has another ZvZ next with Violet. If he can pull out another ZvZ win he ends up in the finals.

*Well, PvZ final incoming for NASL. A matchup I just can't be bothered to watch anymore in its current form. Now comes the wait for HOTS tournaments.