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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 |
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Jan 1, 2019 04:37
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Reserved
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Jan 1, 2019 04:37
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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.
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Jan 1, 2019 04:38
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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
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Jan 2, 2019 02:42
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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.
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Jan 2, 2019 04:41
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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.
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Jan 10, 2019 22:40
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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.
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Jan 15, 2019 01:38
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https://clips.twitch.tv/UninterestedDirtyLousePeanutButterJellyTime some nostalgia for the old zeezers thanks err
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Jan 24, 2019 22:14
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Yoshi Wins posted:Byun is currently doing his last stream before beginning his two-year military service. Dude went for at least 24 hours. I dropped out then. I think he may have added another hour even?
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Jan 27, 2019 16:35
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comedyblissoption posted:Human reaction time starts getting much slower when you start adding in decision making, the necessity of different reactions depending on the stimulus, needing to click on a different area depending on the position of the stimulus, the starting frames of an animation not being immediately visible or obvious to a human like it is to a computer reading memory directly, whether or not the human is focusing on the stimulus or something else, a bunch of other noise going on at the same time, and so on. Here is a very cool article on Perception Action Cycles (PACs) in StarCraft 2. PACs are essentially how long it takes for a player to see something, take action, then move to attend to something else. It's a super good article if you want to nerd out hard. Before I dropped out of my PhD program I was going to try to springboard a dissertation off of that article. But yeah, 350 ms reaction time to something in sc2 is absurdly fast. The average human eye blink is about 200 ms, for context. Synastren fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Jan 30, 2019 |
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Jan 30, 2019 05:18
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WCS Europe and America group stages are being cast today! Europe  Americas https://www.twitch.tv/starcraft
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Jan 31, 2019 18:32
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VelociBacon posted:e2: Let's get our group picks in for RO32? I prefer doing my predictions on a group-by-group basis. My predictions for GSL Group A: Dark > Trust Keen < Dear Trust < Keen Dark > Dear Dear > Keen Dark and Dear advance! It's worth noting that if Dark somehow faces off against Keen, I expect a very close set. We get Group B for WCS EU and AM, so I'll toss those predictions out, too, I guess! WCS EU Group B: Heromarine < Mana Shadwn > Skillous Heromarine > Skillous Mana > Shadwn Heromarine > Shadwn Mana and Heromarine advance. Mana will do something gross to Heromarine in game 1, which will tilt Gabe. Gabe will lose the series, then maybe even lose the first game against the lower bracket opponent. He'll remember how to play and crush the other two nerds after that, though. WCS AM Group B: Scarlett > PiliPili ExpecT < Epic PiliPili > Expect Scarlett > Epic Pilipili > Expect Scarlett and Pilipili advance. Scarlett will maybe drop a map.
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Feb 1, 2019 02:07
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Yoshi Wins posted:Are you sure you have confidence in Mana? The other players will know how to beat him. Just pick Protoss and play like AlphaStar. Mana will tilt Heromarine into a win, and the other two players are complete unknowns. While Mana may not be the best pro, nor the most consistent, I'm fairly confident he will beat a couple of European ladder heroes. You're right in that it's a risky claim, though!
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Feb 1, 2019 07:55
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Feeling pretty good about my predictions so far. I was wrong about Pili, but that's ok. And while I didn't get the opening matches for Group B EU right, I still called events (and who advances!) correctly! GSL Group B is anyone's guess except we all know Classic will get through. He might drop a map to Trap, because PvP is volatile. And while I think Trap is favored to get out in second, I expect TRUE to pull a dark horse and barely get through. Missed WCS EU Group C, so for Group D: Lambo skates through handily. I have no idea which of the three people in his group will make it through to get eliminated in the ro16, but I'm going to randomly pick Gerald because IDs which are actual names amuse me greatly. WCS America Group D: JimRising will make it out in first, Neeb in second. Neeb's PvP is his strongest matchup, and I'm sure JimRising has his fair share of ZvZ. I'm expecting Jim to win 2-1 in the winner's match, and for Neeb to smoke the other two guys pretty easily.
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Feb 3, 2019 04:31
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Marinelord's mentality is completely shattered.
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Feb 8, 2019 18:16
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https://www.twitch.tv/gsl in 3 minutes!! I'm suggesting that sOs will get out first, followed by Solar. ed: Game 3 set 1 was very good and I highly recommend it! Synastren fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Feb 9, 2019 |
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Feb 9, 2019 04:57
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 Live now! i mean it will be serral and namshar, this group is like cheating  Live later! Probably TLO and Seither? Silky can certainly make a play to get out too, but I know nothing about this Chinese terran. https://www.twitch.tv/starcraft
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Feb 9, 2019 16:03
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https://www.twitch.tv/liquidsnute holy poo poo snute is streaming again
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Feb 12, 2019 18:17
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Zephro posted:edit: looking at this list of tourney winners perhaps it's just Serral who's personally overpowered https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/Premier_Tournaments Serral is literally the villain in this season's GSL storyline. The guy didn't lose a tournament and even won Blizzcon last year. I think he hasn't lost a tournament set since March of 2018.
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Feb 13, 2019 15:55
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Zephro posted:Thanks. Is that the one that reduced the cost of the Robo itself? Seems like it also boosted Immortal costs, which seems like kind of a wash? Or am I looking at the wrong patch? To answer this question, I think we need a little context from where you departed from SC2. What was the last thing you remember seeing? Was it in Legacy? ed: If we're only talking about the last patch, these changes matter: Robo cost reduced by 50 minerals.* Blink research cost reduced by 50/50. Warp Gate research time reduced by 14 seconds. *while immortal cost went up by 25 minerals, the overall cost of making immortals does not go up until the 3rd immortal. It takes 6 immortals before the additional cost equals that of a zealot.
Synastren fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Feb 13, 2019 |
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Feb 13, 2019 16:39
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Zephro posted:I think it was very early LoTV, yeah. Thanks though, that's really helpful (though wasn't the Blink change reversed recently?) Not to my knowledge. 4.8.2 is where they made Blink cheaper, and that came out last month. There was a longstanding bug that affected Oracles that they fixed, then immediately rolled back until after IEM because they didn't want to mess with tournaments. Fenarisk posted:As a scrub player the robo cost reduction helps get observers out faster too, and colossus as well, so the extra cost of immortals isnt that big of a "nerf". The robo buff is the reason that we're seeing more robo play. Hell, the 2 immortal prism drop strategy is exactly the same cost it was before. All the 25 mineral increase for immortals does is make them very slightly less efficient--when they were 250/100/4, they were exactly as damage efficient as stalkers against any ground target that isn't classified as "Armored," and frighteningly efficient against anything with that attribute. In other words, 1 immortal does the same dps as 2 stalkers (and was identical in cost) against unarmored targets, with the only downside being that they don't shoot up. Slightly faster robo+cheaper blink==easier colossus/stalker or stalker/disruptor play, and a faster robo empowers a lot of early prism play, as well.
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Feb 14, 2019 02:02
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It's not necessarily live yet. They're going to revert it by IEM.
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Feb 14, 2019 05:14
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Janitor Ludwich IV posted:i was promised a discord Goddamn OP what are you even doing. i will post it when i get home, sorry
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Feb 17, 2019 23:28
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Here is your Discord (yesterday sucked, so better late than never!) https://discord.gg/0VVlJeGXuyD0cEFf I'll add this to the OP too.
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Feb 18, 2019 15:38
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Prediction time! Group A: Maru > Impact Bunny > Patience Patience > Impact Maru > Bunny Bunny > Patience Maru and Bunny advance. I think will be Bunny's first (second?) ro8 in Code S? Group B: Dark < herO Dear > Cure Dear > herO Dark > Cure herO < Dark Dear and Dark advance. Group C: Classic > Trap Innovation < sOs sOs > Classic Innovation > Trap Classic < Innovation sOs and Innovation advance. It is possible that Classic gets out, but it depends on the night that Inno is having. Trap is boned, though. Group D: TY > Gumiho Rogue > soO TY < Rogue Gumiho > soO TY > Gumiho Rogue and TY advance. This is the Group of Death, though, so it could definitely split in any possible way. Definitely the group to watch!
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Feb 21, 2019 19:24
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Yeah, there is a lot of StarCraft Two to watch right now. It's a good problem to have.
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Feb 25, 2019 04:47
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 IEM Katowice is live! With humor! https://www.twitch.tv/esl_sc2
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Feb 25, 2019 15:57
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Fenarisk posted:Who is casting? I generally cant stand the casters for whatever the non GSL thing was, I want me some Rodd n' Todd. Rotti, Tod, Incontrol, Pig, Maynarde are all casting. There were also side-streams, with other community casters. I understand if you don't like Memelord Nathanias, but feardragon is a treasure.
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Feb 26, 2019 01:54
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Herstory Begins Now posted:Holy poo poo stats vs impact game one is one of the most one-sided smackdowns I have ever seen in starcraft The whole set is one of the best clinics I've ever seen on how to play a best of series, though. ed: I was a little annoyed when I heard some of the commentators say "we finally have a terran get to the ro24!" Like, most of the pre-qualified players who were seeded into ro24 were terran lmao Synastren fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Feb 26, 2019 |
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Feb 26, 2019 18:00
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Holy poo poo I was not expecting Solar to do his interview in English.
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Feb 26, 2019 19:00
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Yoshi Wins posted:Group C is insane. What the hell. Group C was insane before they put the other 3 in. They started with Serral/Inno/Rogue. 
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Feb 27, 2019 03:50
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1st_Panzer_Div. posted:There aren't really non-insane groups. Coverage could use more games and less giant breaks given how many games are going on. Group A kinda sucks unless you really like PvP. Like, really really like PvP. Not to say the players aren't great, but geez. Group C came close to the same fate, except you have Innovation and Gumi along side two or three of the best bugmen in the world (sorry RagnaroK), and also TvZ is amazing.
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Feb 28, 2019 05:14
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IEM is killing it on the humor front imo.
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Feb 28, 2019 17:41
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Herstory Begins Now posted:e /\ I bet that they've been producing graphics and little teaser vids and poo poo for Maru's semifinals+ run before the tourney even started Maru has always been bad at weekend tournaments. He excels in longer tournaments. He was a goddamn monster in proleague, and his dominance in GSL last year shows that he really uses the extra time.
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Feb 28, 2019 18:44
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Herstory Begins Now posted:Yeah I'd agree 100% he underperforms until he seems to get in the flow of things, but this many games with this few of wins is a big surprise. 
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Feb 28, 2019 19:38
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Zephro posted:Presumably the number of P is gonna fall pretty sharply in the later rounds because they're all in one group? There is only a single protoss player left to play tomorrow, and it's a good 50/50 on whether he gets out. ro12 is either 5 or 6 protoss, depending on how Group D goes. Unlikely to have more than 2 terrans in ro12, though.
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Feb 28, 2019 22:32
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Herstory Begins Now posted:Anyone know what the TvP winrate is so far? TvZ seems to be in a good spot, but speaking as a spectator, TvP might be a bit lopsided, though I guess it makes up for the last year. Liquipedia keeps a running statline. Spoilering it for anyone who wants to watch the games without knowing much. 
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Mar 1, 2019 02:24
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Zephro posted:Doesn't Maru have a history of underperforming at short tourneys? Vs GSL where he's got time to prepare and plan and stuff In his entire career, the only offline weekend tournament he's ever won was WESG last year. That's also the last tournament that Serral dropped an offline "best of" set. ed: Yo if you weren't watching Serral/Inno on the B stream, you're missing some pretty incredible bullshit.  Game is still going. As a reminder, this set does not matter for qualification purposes. 
Synastren fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Mar 1, 2019 |
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Mar 1, 2019 15:58
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VelociBacon posted:Really wish IEM/ESL would get their poo poo together with VOD organization it's really confusing on their twitch channel. It's always a couple of days behind, but https://sc2casts.com/ is always great.
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Mar 1, 2019 18:09
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gently caress i dont know how i feel about this
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Mar 2, 2019 18:55
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