|
Welcome to the Competitive StarCraft 2 thread! Want to watch the game? The first post has you covered! Want to play the game? Hit up the second post! Want to know some Starcraft 2 history? Third post, friend!  Post still somewhat under construction, but it was time to  so bear with me, please! Thanks! Notes:
Before I get into how to watch SC2, I want to lead with this, because it’s incredibly important: StarCraft 2 competitive multiplayer is absolutely free to play!Unlike many other f2p games, you get literally nothing that will change the game in any way by purchasing anything. You have access to all units, all factions, all maps, and all game modes. The only things you can buy are skins for your units in Versus, coop commanders (different thread for that!), and the single player campaigns. Get out there and get We also have a discord <discord link>, and our ingame tag is <zeez>. More on that in the third post.  Alright, let’s talk about watching nerds slay each other for our viewing pleasure! 2018 was an incredible year, where we got to watch the dominance of Maru in Korea and Serral in… well… everywhere. Maru won every season of GSL in 2018. No one had ever swept GSL for a year before, not even Mvp or Life. While he didn’t show up as strong in shorter tournaments (i.e., the Supertournaments, invitationals, and Blizzcon), no one can question how terrifying he is. Or how much he likes to proxy.  Serral started strong, winning a tournament in January. Just to throw everyone off his scent, he had a ro4 finish at the IEM championship in March, and a 3rd place at WESG. He then proceeded to catch on fire and win virtually every tournament he was in for the rest of the entire goddamn year. Every WCS event. He lost a single series online in October for a minor tournament, but has been undefeated in sets since at least June of 2018. The man actually won Blizzcon, the first time a non-Korean has won the world title! Blizzard hasn’t yet released how the World Championship Series will be structured this year, but I’m sure details will break after the new year. 2018 was so successful with regards to viewership, that I’m sure we’ll have a vaguely similar structure this year, at least. Look for region locking in WCS to maybe go away? What tournaments are out there? First up, there are three broad categories of tournaments: Premier, Major, and Minor.
If you want to catch some Korean tournaments, you can watch the Global Starleague! In addition to being the premier tournament, GSL has been a staple of the SC2 scene since Wings of Liberty, and is currently the only tournament that runs in a true league format. Generally speaking, each season of GSL will have qualifiers, and the top 28 players will face off with the top 4 from the previous season in a field of 32 players. Players are divided up into groups of four, with each group being a miniature double elimination bracket. Top two players from each group advance to the round of 16, which follows the same format. The top two players from each ro16 group advance into a single elimination bracket, where the winner for the season is determined! Note: if you watch only GSL “because the other tournaments are trash,” I will judge you… There are two other premier professional tournament series you should keep an eye out, if you’re willing to watch SC2 outside of Korea, though! The Intel Extreme Masters series is a series of weekend tournaments, with qualifiers, and point standings which dictate who gets to go to the IEM Global Finals. For some reason the Global Finals for each year happen in the early spring of the following year? I have no idea, it’s some weird European poo poo. Speaking of weird European things, Dreamhack is the other series of tournaments to watch out for. While Dreamhack started in Europe, there have been events in the United States. Dreamhacks are always weekend affairs with a positively monsterous open bracket at the event; qualifiers are held ahead of time, and winners are seeded much further into the tournament. The Major level tournaments can be fantastic, too, though! Home Story Cup is a fan favorite. The tournament literally started in the apartment of an enthusiastic German with a love of Starcraft and a good bit of production knowledge (and I’m sure he was a broadcaster in some capacity before HSC1?). Fast forward 18 tournaments, and it’s a super informal affair where casters and players may or may not be drunk at any given time. And the censoring is, let’s say, extremely light. There are a fair amount of professional level tournaments that don’t get the same prize purse and attention. Olimoleague is a fairly small but weekly tournament; Anonymous is a tournament organized by no_regret where players are all anonymous until they lose (it owns). BaseTradeTV and Wardi both run smaller tournaments fairly frequently with skill levels ranging from the top pros in the scene to streamers and unknown GM players. There is a lot of things that can be watched. This isn’t even getting into amateur and community tournaments. That is a lot of words. What about streams if I just want to watch players? I’ll take recommendations, but I think streams fall into three big categories: Professional streams, zeez streams, and everyone else. That third category can be educational, entertaining, or just random non-zeez streams. There are a lot of streams that are linked on TeamLiquid’s main page, so keep that in mind, too. Current Pro Streams! Korean Pros (read: Generally no English on stream, but gameplay is very good, and SC2 snobs love KR streams) Zerg Dark Terran InnoVatioN Terran Top Terran TY Protoss [url=]PartinG[/url] Good bit of English, a lot of personality. NonKorean Pros (generally streaming in English, viewer engagement varies) Zerg Scarlett Zerg noregret Zerg Serral Terran SpeciaL Terran HeroMarine Protoss Liquid`Mana Protoss Harstem Protoss Puck General Streams! PiG extremely educational, Australian accent. Vibe former pro, also very educational Winter Liked by many, generally disdained by <zeez> for his older streaming strategies (e.g., viewbotting; boosting viewer/sub accounts; smurfing on bronze players for “educational purposes”) Zerg Neuro NA GM, generally entertaining; love/hate his personality, but literally cannot tilt. Zerg Catz former pro, owner and captain of <ROOT>, the OG American team. When he wants to be educational, he’s phenomenal at teaching the game--but at a diamond+ level, generally. Zerg Livibee M1/GM streamer another love/hate stream, but also popular Zerg temp0 caster, musician, generally well liked member of the SC2 community. Midlevel master gameplay, but v. cool guy. Terran Maynarde Australian commentator you likely saw during WCS tournaments. He’s pretty good! Terran Nathanias the meme-iest player in the world, holy poo poo. Another WCS commentator and screddit made flesh. Terran ZombieGrub yes it’s another WCS commentator, but she’s among the best of the commentators with regards to playing skill. Terran [url=]Deth[/url] a <zeez> favorite terran, super chill M1/GM level terran gameplay Protoss MCanning super chill NA GM gameplay. High level of viewer engagement. Terran UpATree finally a non-caster! Super chill GM level terran gameplay. Protoss PiLiPiLi dude owns, is super chill, generally well liked, though he may still be allergic to a third base. Protoss Rotterdam the Dutch SC2 caster. I was hesitant to include him here, because I think he’s taking some time away from the game--he’s done a lot in and for the scene. Protoss FloRenciois the the padawan to printf. Maybe more like a protoss Ruff?  <zeez> ztreams! Literally the reason you came was to watch us, right? Some of us are better than others at chatting with viewers, so keep that in mind! Terran Jimmeh is a former EU GM terran who only plays bio, plays without game sounds, and is a boss. He streams very occasionally. DO NOT ASK HIM TO SHARE PICTURES WITH YOU Terran Grobnik Diamond/Master bio terran. Everyone loves Grobnik, and you should too! Terran Winks Master mech terran. Coach for his CSL (I think?) Overwatch team. Pioneer of the proxy thor drop, and literal thor irl. Protoss Orzo Master, former GM, dadtoss. We used to practice with each other, then he got way better than I. Generally owns, worth watching when he streams. Protoss penny Master Canadian protoss. Allergic to building more than one Nexus, though will occasionally do so with an epipen nearby. Zerg Synastren Diamond zerg, and last <zeez> zerg remaining. Basically a tilt-a-whirl made flesh. Synastren fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Jul 2, 2023 |
#
?
Jan 1, 2019 04:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 01:07 |
|
|
Reserved
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2019 04:37
|
|
|
Post 3: A bit of history! What is StarCraft? A quick history lesson! Way back in the 90s, two companies were experimenting hard with strategy games. Westwood dropped Dune 2 way back in 1992, a real time strategy game that involved base building, resource management, and unit control. It was a very big deal. Blizzard was inspired, but wanted to accentuate more unit control than what Westwood did, and wanted a fantasy setting instead of the futuristic sci-fi of Dune 2; they pitched a Warhammer Fantasy game, but lost the license. What we got instead of WarCraft in 1994. Things intensified from there, with the first Command & Conquer and WarCraft 2 coming out in 1995. Westwood created a number of RTS titles in their own style, with the main C&C franchise, and its spin off, C&C Red Alert. Instead of sticking with the same thing, Blizzard came up with a definitely-not-at-all Warhammer 40k style futuristic sci-fi setting; they called this game StarCraft, and it released in 1998. Then something completely unexpected happened. StarCraft, and especially Brood War, its expansion, absolutely exploded in South Korea. A recession had a lot of young adults crowding in PC bangs (read: LAN cafes), playing games against one another for relatively low cost. Folks started watching the best players compete. Businesses became intrigued. Leagues formed. Then matches started to get serious, and money started being invested. Matches and tournaments started to show up on television, and Real Big Companies (e.g., Samsung, Korea Telecom (now kt), SK Telecom) started sponsoring teams of BW players in teamhouses. I poo poo you not when I say that, under the auspices of the government of South Korea, a governing body called the Korean eSports Association (KeSPA) was created, and its main focus was StarCraft Brood War. BW players were celebrities, making salaries, winning tournament money, getting endorsement deals through sponsors--fully fledged athletes, by Western standards. Professional leagues ran for seasons, and there was even a league for teams to play one another. Suffice it to say, it was a big fuckin deal. It also started around 2000. uh cool but wtf about starcraft 2 SC2 is the sequel to Brood War, and it officially launched to massive anticipation in the middle of 2010. Subtitled Wings of Liberty, the initial popularity in Korea and abroad was massive. It is in no way an understatement to say that SC2 laid the bedrock for a little website called twitch.tv, which you may be familiar with. A number of European leagues sprung up, and a couple of American leagues followed suit. ESL ran the Intel Extreme Masters. MLG ran their own tournaments. Hell, even IGN had relatively large tournaments. We had American and European players who were on sponsored teams making nearly six-figure salaries. Throughout the entirety of Wings of Liberty, though, South Korea maintained its reputation as the scene to watch, with the most excellent mechanical prowess, the cleverest players, and the most batshit insane training environment. Many of the most revered players made their name during Wings of Liberty. To be continued…….. I will add to this as I get time, this was a lot of words.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2019 04:38
|
|
|
man I keep forgetting SC2 multiplayer is free now
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2019 04:42
|
|
|
13 pool every game, people wise up to my name. Create new account called macrogame and cheese again. F2P saved ladder
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2019 05:46
|
|
|
Does anyone remember that funny little video where a dude fails to wall off against lings with a warping-in zealot, then draws on the screen "HOW IS NOT WALL??" and writes a screed to David Kim about Korean teens and adderall? I can't find it. edit: nvm found it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yojqcnB6lqw Cicero fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Jan 2, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2019 01:19
|
|
|
I want 2019 to be the year I start doing more real SC2 against people even if it hurts. I stopped playing competitively around HotS but even then I never finished a season without a bonus pool, maybe got up to Platinum once. Can we do a zeez tourney soon?
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2019 02:28
|
|
|
Quad posted:I want 2019 to be the year I start doing more real SC2 against people even if it hurts. I don't have weekends off generally, so I can't actively run it; I'd love if there were one, though! What race do you play? I keep wanting to think it's Zerg, but maybe Terran?  what the gently caress why did that smiley change its name
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2019 02:42
|
|
|
Synastren posted:] Because it's not funny anymore to call someone a fag. It never was
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2019 03:17
|
|
|
Toss is the boss.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2019 03:55
|
|
|
Star Man posted:Because it's not funny anymore to call someone a fag. Oh I don't disagree with the logic, it just means that the stupid muscle memory I've built up for using that emoticon over the last decade (oh god) screws with me now.
|
|
#
?
Jan 2, 2019 04:41
|
|
|
Add beastyqt to list of streamers https://www.twitch.tv/beastyqt Pretty sure he's the highest mmr person who streams regularly/fulltime and he does a ton of awesome weird af builds. It's fun cuz you can watch him do one base battlecruiser cheeses against 6.6kmmr players who are excited just to get matched with him. Florencio and ketroc are also both good watching albeit completely horrible people who have ridiculously non-conventional play styles. Like they're on the same level of Has for just playing nothing but weird games. Florencio invented the nexus recall rush (which he has since iterated on) and Ketroc was the guy behind planetary fortress rushing and was one of the OGs of raven cheesing. https://www.twitch.tv/flol2encio https://www.twitch.tv/ketroc E: oh yeah Artosis' stream is entertaining. It's like a 180 from his casting personality as he's just angry and scowling the whole time, but it's fun to pop in and see him get completely destroyed by basically every middling protoss player ever. His stream is like the starcraft equivalent of going to some super lovely, sleazy strip club in a 2000 person town with no jobs. I highly recommend checking it out from time to time https://www.twitch.tv/artosis Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 09:22 on Jan 3, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2019 09:19
|
|
|
I love MCannings stream, he's super chill and always streaming when i get up in the morning
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2019 12:31
|
|
|
I love Starcraft
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2019 17:52
|
|
|
I'm currently in the ladder anxiety mode where i keep playing the same vs 7 AI FFA over and over again instead of actually trying
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2019 19:03
|
|
|
printf is another great streamer. He cannon rushes literally every game, and even though his opponents expect it (he doesn't use an anonymous barcode in-game name), he wins consistently at GM level ~5.7-5.8k MMR. He's made a science out of cannon rushing and has a giant spreadsheet with details on every game he's played. It's pretty entertaining to watch.
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2019 20:09
|
|
|
/\ printf did an hour and a half long interview with Pig I think that's on youtube and the whole thing is worth a watch if you enjoy SC2 cheese. Also I think it's the 3rd part where he goes through how to super consistently shut down cannon rushes
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2019 20:21
|
|
|
JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:I love Starcraft 
|
|
#
?
Jan 3, 2019 21:09
|
|
|
Here's 11 games of ByuN v Dark if you're into that sort of thing. No English cast I know of but you get Caster Park so hard to complain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZhBwWzNX2Y
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2019 06:05
|
|
|
I love playing starcraft 2 even if i can never get out of gold league or really stay above 3000 mmr. I also love watching even more. Its great that between mcanning, rotti and probe there is almost always some high level #protoss to be watched. God i love watching sc2, last thing at night first thing in morning.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2019 12:49
|
|
|
Football is my all time favorite spectator sport, but when I got super disillusioned and burnt out after all the rape and institutional coverup scandals and stopped actively watching it, Starcraft basically filled the void.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2019 14:19
|
|
|
I suppose I'm the same, I did used to enjoy a lot of soccer (technically, football since I'm Scottish) but I've burnt out on it throughout my 20s. Starcraft is just so easy to watch and always on
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2019 15:35
|
|
|
When is GSL back? I'm too spoiled by it to really get into the other series.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2019 17:19
|
|
|
I miss BW
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2019 18:41
|
|
|
VelociBacon posted:When is GSL back? I'm too spoiled by it to really get into the other series. Answer this OP. *slams baby fists on table* I want that GSL!!!
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2019 22:31
|
|
|
GSL for 2019 hasn't been announced yet. We're a little bit behind when the tournament has usually been announced, but when Blizz announced WCS 2019, they said they were still hammering out the details for Korea.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2019 22:40
|
|
|
The GSL is pretty much the only esports event I still follow so I hope it doesn’t get the hots treatment.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2019 22:42
|
|
|
Virtue posted:The GSL is pretty much the only esports event I still follow so I hope it doesn’t get the hots treatment. Same. It’s the best content out there and the content that I crave. It’s super unlikely it gets the HotS treatment my friend.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2019 23:43
|
|
|
"Activision" blizzard would be stupid to kill off sc2 pro scene. It's the only competitive rts out there right now with a big following. It has no competition unlike HoTS with DotA and lol.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2019 06:10
|
|
|
HotS never had a huge fanbase and was almost completely reliant on the Blizzard funded league, SC2 has better numbers and is able to survive without Blizzard money.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2019 08:41
|
|
|
People joke that starcraft 2 is a dead game and its obnoxious but heroes of the storm is dead especially compared to lol and dota
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2019 12:09
|
|
|
I ended up switching to Terran because I find TvT the only mirror matchup I don't mind playing. I like zerg but zvz for me is not fun and pvp is just stalker Phoenix wars for me. Also since I'm Terran now I feel the need to say TvP is the most unbalanced matchup blizzard please fix. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2019 00:47
|
|
|
Antares posted:Here's 11 games of ByuN v Dark if you're into that sort of thing. No English cast I know of but you get Caster Park so hard to complain. I appreciated this! Thanks.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2019 04:17
|
|
|
VelociBacon posted:When is GSL back? I'm too spoiled by it to really get into the other series. I'm gonna see your "when is GSL back", and raise you a "when is any larger-scale competitive SC2 back". SC2casts has nothing since the GSL super tournament and blizzcon Are there any live tournaments, or offline tournaments with streams / VODs due soon at all?
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2019 08:28
|
|
|
There's a double-elimination bracket tournament in China next weekend with some strong Koreans in attendance. https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/Netease_Esports_X_Tournaments/2018/Winter I found this tournament on this page: https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/Major_Tournaments At the top you can click to view Premier Tournaments (nothing till March), Major Tournaments (which is how Team Liquid classified this one), or Minor Tournaments.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2019 16:53
|
|
|
Yoshi Wins posted:At the top you can click to view Premier Tournaments (nothing till March) i think you've got them sorted in reverse order, WCS EU and WCS AM starts jan 31. sure it's just go32 then, but that still tends to produce some good games through sheer quantity
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2019 17:13
|
|
|
Prav posted:i think you've got them sorted in reverse order 
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2019 02:12
|
|
|
What's a good channel for youtube casts? I never watch streams live, so the audience engagement aspect of them isn't all that relevant to me.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2019 17:58
|
|
|
Afreeca posted qualifier information for GSL S1, they're taking place on Jan 23-24, no details on the Code S dates but presumably that means Soon. TL post: https://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/540672-2019-gsl-season-1-code-a-qualifiers-announcement
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2019 00:40
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 01:07 |
|
|
Cynic Jester posted:What's a good channel for youtube casts? I never watch streams live, so the audience engagement aspect of them isn't all that relevant to me. Are you looking for player recordings, or are you looking for recordings of broadcast matches? This does remind me that I should probably include sc2casts in the OP. Use that if you're looking for tournament broadcasts that are now on youtube.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2019 01:38
|
|