SC2: Global Starcraft League
puzl
The Old Firm Join Date: 2003-02-26 Member: 14029Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
The Old Firm Join Date: 2003-02-26 Member: 14029Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Discussion</div>Anyone else watching this? I paid for the premium subscription and have been loving it. The coverage starts at 10am so I can watch it in the morning at work. It's down to the round of eight now, with some stellar players qualifying. All 4 games are on tomorrow.
My money is on either Tester(P) (playing as sSKS), or IntoTheRainbow(T) playing as HopeTorture.
Some of the games show up on youtube a day or two later. You can usually find them, and a lot more, on <a href="http://sc2casts.com/" target="_blank">http://sc2casts.com/</a>
My money is on either Tester(P) (playing as sSKS), or IntoTheRainbow(T) playing as HopeTorture.
Some of the games show up on youtube a day or two later. You can usually find them, and a lot more, on <a href="http://sc2casts.com/" target="_blank">http://sc2casts.com/</a>
Comments
I'm still a bit indecided whether I'll pay for the prerium. Starcraft 2 still hasn't got me hooked all the way. Still, I really like Tastless' commentary and Tester seems to be pulling off some magic, so the resistance seems a bit futile.
I guess I'm cheering for Tester (P) for being awesome all around and Check (Z) for defending the honour of Warcraft 3 players in the tournament. I haven't got too much love for terrans yet, partitially because the one base terrans in ladder are pretty annoying until I learn to deal with them completely.
The top NA player HuK (P) should be participating in the next GSL, so I think it will get even more interesting.
Pretty sure HuK said he will not be in GSL Season 2. I believe he isn't going to be there in time for the qualifiers.
I've been watching Season 1 with the Premium Ticket but I'm not sure if I'll be buying Season 2 or not. The quality is a slap in the face, especially if could see what the Korean's get streamed for free, and $20 a month is pricey. That's more than what it costs to <i>play</i> WoW and they're asking that just to <i>watch</i> starcraft. I always hear Tasteless mention how for $20 you get so much content, and that is true, but I still don't care. If they're pumping out a GSL season every month $20, or $240 a year, is too much to ask for. Also, in addition to charging a premium price and delivering horrible quality, their website has errors frequently. Like now, for example, I cannot access any VODs.
I love tasteless's commentary as well but his skills as an observer are really bad. He didn't even notice <span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>a proxy stargate in the recent Anypro vs Ensnare match until a void ray was almost finished in the production tab</span>. There's no excuse for that and a former pro gamer like him should naturally be looking at the minimap. I feel like so much of his effort is concentrated on trying to provide a good picture that we actually are worse off on the commentary and entertainment factor.
The wow comparison makes sense only to people who have to choose between them. I feel like sticking pins in my eyes when friends start talking wow.. I got so fkn sick of that game. I think, for me anyway, I see friends paying $20 a month for premium sports channels and I know I'd much rather watch ( and pay for ) pro SC2.
<span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>Fisher streams the hq stream on his ustream account which you can find on teamliquid</span>
I dont think most casual players would ever want to see more than the stream but some of the games were good enough to rewatch however out of those quite a few of them were in game1 anyway (so anyone with an account can watch em) :P
I reckon the games will improve drastically over the year of planned gsl s2open and then maybe the entertainment value will be high enough to justify the prices, they were clever enough to use their $50 season ticket strategy to rope in extra sales at $20 though i think :P
Maybe for season 2 I'll buy one day passes for the round and 8 of up. That's assuming day passes actually provide access to VODs.
Although you delay your expo a bit by getting gas, I still find it pretty fast. Sure, 1 rax fe is faster, but since you have 100 gas by the time your rax finishes, I dont feel it's that slower. Unless you're Zerg. 14 hatch anyone?
since it coms on 20 food you can call it a fe, yes. the whole point of the double hellion fe is you can squeeze the cc out BEFORE THE FACTORY FINISHES D:
I 2gate proxy rush your arse.
Agreed. That was insane. On the second match I think I cam a little...
Fruit Dealer dealing some mean fruit. :)
Although I'm pretty sure map 3 is kulas... a map no zerg should win on against a terran of that caliber. </span>
Teamliquid has interesting <a href="http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=157464" target="_blank">number crunching</a> on the pre-final statistics (see GSL: The Numbers-section). Interesting to see which patterns get repeated in the 2nd GSL.
<span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>It's also interesting to see whether Cool's dominance helps zergs overcome their trouble. He really plays on the edge, I can't see too many people being able to replicate that anytime soon.</span>
<span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>I think we will see successful imitators. Obviously, not your normal diamond rank US / EU player but other professional / semi professional players in Korea should be able to replicate his build. As artosis said, he basically makes zerglings off one base (roach if necessary), does this quasi pressure, expands and gets mutas, then double expands and drops the structures to allow for almost all zerg units and upgrades. The structures/upgrades themselves aren't too expensive and this method allows you to tech switch whenever. He also spreads creep like a mother, something almost all zergs are neglecting. Obviously he has sick battle control, but he isn't the first to do baneling drops and after he shows how successful they can be I doubt he'll be the last. Imitators must be really good with their muta's as FruitDealer was somehow able to stop/destroy most of the drops from HopeTorture and that is definitely something hard to do.</span>
<span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>It should be noted that's only against Terran though. He has nothing unique against Protoss. In the semi finals he basically abused the recent patch and 6 pooled his Protoss opponent which is almost an instant win at this point unless the protoss blind counters and completely walls in. In the next round he did baneling-bust after baneling-bust and eventually won with a tech switch to roaches. In his round of 64 match, also against a Protoss, he almost lost the first game but then dominated the second with standard play.</span>
So yeah, he's definitely the best Zerg in the world but I think his ZvP is nowhere near his ZvT.
Yeah, good point there. Also, ZvZ is extremely fragile, I could see most matches going either way. So, more zerg success in general probably means a lot more trouble for the top zergs.
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I haven't followed GSL very closely through VODs, but I've heard a few say that LiveForever was always few tiers below the top terrans and Rainbow really played into Cool's hands by sticking to one base for too long and failing to adapt. TOP on the other hand pushed Cool out from the comfort zone and was in a decisive lead in game 3 until he for some reason stopped the pressure and let cool back into the game. He had probably a five minute timing window for decisive finishing blow which he never used. Also, Cool would've been in a lot more trouble without the huuuuge ultralisk cleave that is now removed. It was the only thing that allowed him to deal with the mass thors.
Also, Starcraft 1 leagues never published actual replays. Only commentator VODs were avaible. I think having quite a few GSL reps avaible is going to help further in analysing and countering Cool's play.
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The problem is scouting it. I think the difference between Cool and other zergs is he has amazing intel + game sense. Take the game Idra lost where he didn't scout that expansion. There is *no way* cool would have missed that.
Qualified: <ul>*Boxer (<b>The</b> Starcraft Legend)
*Lyn (Extremely succesful WC3 player)
*Cool
*TLO (German Terran)
*Check (Succesful WC3 player, probably the 2nd best zerg in the world)</li></ul>
Failed to Qualify: <ul>*Tester (Still widely considered as the best SC2 protoss)
*Moon (<b>The</b> WC3 legend)
*TOP (A very high level terran, lost to cool on round of 8 on 1st GSL)
*Artosis (US Zerg)
*Julyzerg (Oldschool zerg legend from original SC)</li></ul>
Boxer getting to the GSL is huge for the organisers. He's the embodiment of Starcraft in Korea. It's a shame Tester failed to qualify, he's one of the players that make the magic happen in SC2.
Actually mr Z, I'm quite fond of the NS offtopic forum and its random topic news aggregation ways.
Woohoo, so many Zerg players!
About them ZvZ matches, I've been trying a Hatchery-Spawning Pool-Extractor build lately, works rather well.
*Moon (<b>The</b> WC3 legend)
*TOP (A very high level terran, lost to cool on round of 8 on 1st GSL)
*Artosis (US Zerg)
*Julyzerg (Oldschool zerg legend from original SC)</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I can't believe the GSL is setup in a way that RO8 people can be eliminated from prelims. That's ridiculous. Top and Tester should have been automatically placed.
I can't believe July didn't advance but I heard he just switched over to SC2 recently. Artosis I'm not surprised at all by and it looks like Team Liquid (the most prominent foreigner team in South Korea) was dealt some pretty harsh hands with Jinro and Haypro both failing to qualify. Nazgul didn't even try, which is strange.
I don't even know if I'll be getting GSL 2. If they reduce the price to $10 I probably will. If it's $20, I'll probably skip it.