TOP. 3. CONTROL. The famous self proclamation of micro mastery, Huk has now backed that up with a mountain of evidence, a mountain of slain opponents. It has been quite the week for Starcraft. I can always tell that it's been such a week when I'm perpetually tired from having stayed up, trying to accommodate 3 different time zones of Starcraft.
Over in KST, FXOpen made their GSTL debut vs StarTale. If' you've been watching their "big brother style" stream you will know they've got a good practice regimen going, learning a lot from both the Korean ladder and practice partners from some of the major Korean teams. FXO put up a pretty good showing especially considering they've only been there a short time, having to deal with still having to rank up some of their new accounts (some of which had been stuck on some of the lower leagues due to the placement system and promotions). I look forward to their next matches and hopefully some interesting "sup son?" celebrations.
Here in PST/EST Ascend and I did some casting from the TTesport Challenge, now in its championship bracket stage, as well as our weeky Top 200 Koth. There were also a lot of good games to tune in to from WCG New York, EG MC series, NASL Open, and some exciting developments related to the God Queen CombatEx (which should result in exciting future games... more info to come?).
However obviously the biggest news recently came from over in Europe from two of my favorite events to watch: DreamHack and HomeStoryCup. Both are known for their AMAZING production and exciting games, as well as their fantastic gamer atmosphere. The live elements of both really add to the viewer experience. This installation of DeamHack unfortunately didn't have as many player cam shots but the game play was out of this world. Huk vs July and Huk vs Moon were, in all honesty, some of the most enjoyable games I have ever witnessed. Huk played near perfectly vs the two Korean Zerg, powerhouses to bring us some truly high level games full of aggression, excitement, suspense, and skill. Huk's run was amazing to behold, something that is simply rare considering both the amount of balance (and imbalance? pvz?) at this current stage of the game. I am quite happy that a 'foreigner' has been able to reach this tier of skill, seemingly unattainable for all but the most gosu of Koreans. His hard work training closely with oGsMC and the rest of the players in KR has really started to pay off and become visible. After crushing Dreamhack, Huk went on to blast through the bracket of HomeStory ending in an exclamation point PvP game vs Dignitas's Naniwa. If you missed some of those games from either DH or HSC I definitely suggest checking out the VOD's. The commentary from both was great, especially from HSC where a lot of the players tried their hands at casting and brought some amazing insight and personality.
All in all a great week for being a Starcraft lover. I will leave you now with the Game 5 Vod from HSC3 Finals with MC helping cast.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
Blizzard HQ
So this Wednesday I had the great honor to go visit Blizzard HQ in Irvine, California, thanks to a great guy named John and his friend Simon. I met these two about a month ago when hanging out with Cella on the tail end of his visit to Blizzard and demo of HoTS. They had some good stories to tell (especially the ones from when Simon showed John around Korea) and oh did I mention.. they work for Blizzard. So Tricia (megumixbear), my good high school friend and 2v2 partner Raymond, and his cousin Sean, headed down to Irvine mid afternoon to have John so us how awesome Blizzard campus is.
We drove in, checked in at the guard station where they scanned our ID's and made sure we were on the visitor list and then parked in the ultra convenient visitor parking, just feet away from the iconic WoW orc statue. We snapped a few pictures of the statue and then walked into reception where a pretty receptionist had us sign in/ agree to an NDA. Right as you walk in you can tell its blizzard. There's a huge blizzard logo on the wall back lit with vibrant blue light... it felt like the first time I plopped in my Warcraft II cd and the Blizzard logo and lighting popped up on the screen to start the install. To our right was a hyper realistic, life size model of Nova, complete with real hair and a sick looking ghost rifle.
To the left was a blizzard museum essentially, a look at the history of blizzard, the various games, and the many award they've received for both excellent game design and for being one of the best places to work at (which we would soon see was completely justified). Right next to the artwork and figurines in the museum was the theater room, with 20 or so rows of some really comfortable chairs and a nice big screen for the projector. John explained that it gets completely packed when they do company Starcraft tournaments but that it is also used by many of the Campus's various clubs (yes blizzard is a campus and man they have some cool clubs).
Throughout the campus there were tons of statues/figurines of various blizzard characters. The employees were also really friendly and we saw a lot of gamer/starcraft/warcraft t-shirts on people we passed by. We were shown the blizzard campus gym and got a glimpse of their outdoor volleyball court.
One of the major highlights of my trip was actually meeting David Kim, who was nice enough to come say hi to us for a few minutes and chat. The other highlight was getting shown around the actual office space of the employees by Simon. It was amazingly spacious and fantastically decorated. Each team is in charge of having a sort of 'theme' and given a budget to design their personal area however they wish. There were multitudes of Warcraft figurines, Diablo posters, and Starcraft banners. There were also a lot of swords of various styles, hanging on the walls. John explained that if you have worked 5 years at Blizzard you get your own sword as a sort of commemoration. They also give you a shield if you are a 10 year veteran and a special ring if you've been an employee for 15 years. I didn't take pictures since I didn't want to bother the employees but if you ever get lucky enough to visit Blizzard, have someone actually take you to their work space.
This amazing day eventually came to an end but it was capped with quite the dinner at an authentic Japanese udon place that Megumi suggested. All in all a great field trip in ESPORTS. ^_^
We drove in, checked in at the guard station where they scanned our ID's and made sure we were on the visitor list and then parked in the ultra convenient visitor parking, just feet away from the iconic WoW orc statue. We snapped a few pictures of the statue and then walked into reception where a pretty receptionist had us sign in/ agree to an NDA. Right as you walk in you can tell its blizzard. There's a huge blizzard logo on the wall back lit with vibrant blue light... it felt like the first time I plopped in my Warcraft II cd and the Blizzard logo and lighting popped up on the screen to start the install. To our right was a hyper realistic, life size model of Nova, complete with real hair and a sick looking ghost rifle.
To the left was a blizzard museum essentially, a look at the history of blizzard, the various games, and the many award they've received for both excellent game design and for being one of the best places to work at (which we would soon see was completely justified). Right next to the artwork and figurines in the museum was the theater room, with 20 or so rows of some really comfortable chairs and a nice big screen for the projector. John explained that it gets completely packed when they do company Starcraft tournaments but that it is also used by many of the Campus's various clubs (yes blizzard is a campus and man they have some cool clubs). John also took us to blizzard's awesomely furnished library which had awesome books and and pretty much every console and PC game you could think of. Oh and did I mention there are break rooms all over the place with arcade games? After the library we went through the cafeteria which was Megumi's favorite attraction when she saw that apple juice was only 25 cents and that trail mix was just 50 cents.
Throughout the campus there were tons of statues/figurines of various blizzard characters. The employees were also really friendly and we saw a lot of gamer/starcraft/warcraft t-shirts on people we passed by. We were shown the blizzard campus gym and got a glimpse of their outdoor volleyball court.
One of the major highlights of my trip was actually meeting David Kim, who was nice enough to come say hi to us for a few minutes and chat. The other highlight was getting shown around the actual office space of the employees by Simon. It was amazingly spacious and fantastically decorated. Each team is in charge of having a sort of 'theme' and given a budget to design their personal area however they wish. There were multitudes of Warcraft figurines, Diablo posters, and Starcraft banners. There were also a lot of swords of various styles, hanging on the walls. John explained that if you have worked 5 years at Blizzard you get your own sword as a sort of commemoration. They also give you a shield if you are a 10 year veteran and a special ring if you've been an employee for 15 years. I didn't take pictures since I didn't want to bother the employees but if you ever get lucky enough to visit Blizzard, have someone actually take you to their work space.
This amazing day eventually came to an end but it was capped with quite the dinner at an authentic Japanese udon place that Megumi suggested. All in all a great field trip in ESPORTS. ^_^
 |
| Megumi and John |
Monday, June 13, 2011
Complexity Absorbs Root
As most of you have probably heard, Complexity has finalized a deal to acquire the majority of the players from Root Gaming. This was a strategic move for both teams although it did leave many a disgruntled fan in its wake. At the moment Complexity's current roster now includes:
Catz - Zerg
Destiny - Zerg
FireZerg - Zerg
Ryze - Zerg
Drewbie - Terran
Steak (Stalife) - Terran
Antimage - Protoss (giving up competitive play)
Cruncher - Protoss
Ddoro - Protoss
Minigun - Protoss
Rsvp - Protoss
Ryan - Protoss
This definitely adds to the strength and depth of Complexity's roster and the solid sponsorship of Col will allow former Root members devote themselves more fully to the game and improving their skills.
I was lucky enough to observe a lengthy in house practice session with Col and its newly acquired members and I liked what I saw. They seem to be getting along fairly well and it is good to see them quickly buckle down and start some solid practice.
6/10 Koth: Minigun's Amazing Run
This week's KOTH highlight was Minigun's amazing run ending on 11 wins! This is only 1 game away from the record held by FXOptikZero. This also made Chad the 2nd person to ever get into double digit wins (which did earn him a cool $40). Full write up and descriptions of a few highlight games on the way. Replay link is up on the left.
MLG Columbus
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