Author: Legacy

Legacy is an eSport enthusiast with a passion for competitive gaming.

Weekly eSports Forecast April 25 – May 1

Here is the weekly eSports Forecast for the week of April 25th, 2011. Updates will be added as I find them.

North American Star League (SC2) – NASL continues this week starting Wednesday. There has been some great games the past two weeks and I am sure there are more to come as the season 1 gets into full swing.

IGN Pro League (SC2) – The IGN pro league season 1 finale is this coming weekend, starting on Thursday. I was extremely impressed by the production quality IGN had to offer last week and can’t wait for this weeks games to start. Should see some amazing and close games for the finals.

SK Gaming – Champions Trophy (SC2) – The SK Gaming – Champions Trophy SC2 tournament for this month will be starting today for Asia and Europe and later this week for North America. I do not know much about this tourney, but with all the big name players listed I am sure it will produce some amazing games.

Rakka Logitech Starcraft 2 Tournament (SC2) – Top Swedish players such as Naniwa, Morrow and Thorzain will be competing to live in Korea in the GSL house for a month. Sweden has some of the best players in Europe, should be some pretty exciting games. Event is underway and continues this Wednesday, April 25th.

UPDATE

Team Liquid Attack! (SC2) – With a break in the TSL action, Team Liquid is offering a chance to play some 3v3 with your favorite TSL commentators and players, Chill, djWHEAT, and TLO!  Event is Saturday, April 30th. Check out the link to see exactly how you can get an opportunity to get some games in with TSL crew.

WCG Online Qualifiers – The 2011 World Cyber Games online qualifiers start this week and extend well into May, June, and July. Got the skill? Check out the link for registration. Additional info at HLTV.

TF2 Season 7 Out-of-Week Matches (TF2) – This week starts a slew of Amateur and Open Team Fortress 2 matches that continue throughout May courtesy of CEVO.

Koreans in the North American Star League

So recently I watched this interview of ROOTCatZ of ROOT Gaming about homegrown esports with AskJoshy, and it really got me thinking about the future of esports as a whole and how to nurture the growing community.  I thought that CatZ had many great points and lots of insight into the current state and future of esports.

The first thing he brought up that I really believe as well is allowing Koreans into North American events.  Although the gap in skill between Koreans and foreigners in SC2 has definitely tightened, there is still a wide belief that Korean players have the edge on most foreigners. CatZ stated that he didn’t think that Koreans should be allowed in events such as the North American Star League (NASL) as it doesn’t encourage North American players to pursue a high amount of success in the event, and also doesn’t promote SC2 at a regional level.

To better explain CatZ point on why this would be, I would like to use basketball as an example.  It’s a fact that North American and the US specifically has the largest amount and highest skilled basketball players in the world. That’s not to say, that other countries don’t have highly skilled basketball players, but as compared to the US other countries have a lower overall skill level in general. This is because the US has the largest community for basketball as well as a large amount of money funneling into the sport. Because of the large community and money coming into the sport, it’s obvious that there will be a large amount of skilled based around US basketball.

When you go outside the US to other countries trying to promote basketball within there own country, relative to the US, your going to have a smaller following because of a lower skill level and of less money coming in. Despite these set backs, many countries have a blossoming basketball community and much more money beginning to come into there leagues. Just think then of how players of other countries feel when they have this soon to be booming sport there playing and players from US start to compete in their leagues when they know that, even though they are very talented, the US players have an edge on them, because they are from the US. Because of this many basketball leagues outside the US have actually implemented rules only allowing a certain number of non-citizens on there teams, such as Australia. In the National Basketball League, each team is only allowed two non-Australians. This to ensure that Australians will not be overshadowed by the US players, but also allow Australians to capitalize on the new money flowing into there sport.

Now that I have gone on forever about basketball, lets relate this to SC2 and what CatZ was saying. Basically, Korea is the US of basketball. They have a huge community and a large amount of money based around SC. Therefore in how non-US basketball players are not excited to see US players in their leagues, non-Korean SC2 players wouldn’t be happy to see Korean players in their leagues. This is not to say that there should never be tournaments with people from many countries, but when you are trying to nurture a blooming sport, you must be able to promote it regionally first, and not discourage the up and coming players.

Although NASL might not want to fulfill this role of promoting SC2 strictly within North America, and remain a global league we still have hope. As AskJoshy stated in the interview, it seems that MLG might be able to pick up that role and be almost all North American players. Also, with their open bracket format, it allows for up and coming players to compete and try to make a name for themselves.

Hopefully, the presence of Koreans within the foreigner leagues will not overshadow the great talent outside of Korea, and not pull prize money away from the foreigners and back into Korea where they already have a large amount of SC funding and a booming SC community.

Other Tags: NASL, CatZ, MLG, Pro Circuit, South Korea

Shout Out: Reddit vs. D2JSP Grudge Match

I have a series of videos for you guys this Feature Friday. Recently Reddit and D2JSP had a little grudge match a few nights ago.  Even though there aren’t any big name players in the matches, the games ended up being quite awesome. My favorite caster Psystarcraft was on the Reddit team and just stomped the entire D2JSP team, causing a little controversy in the D2JSP community. Check out the games below. GG

Psy vs Myke

Psy vs Minigun

Psy vs Fayth

Psy vs Kiom

Psy vs Rick

Other Tags: StarCraft II, SC2, PsyStarcraft

HuK to Team Liquid

HuK, qualifier for IEM Season V and winner of MLG Raleigh is now part of Team Liquid, making there already solid team even stronger. The phenomenal Canadian Starcraft 2 pro, (I wonder if he trains with Jeremy) will be  moving into the Team Liquid – oGs house in Korea with several other Team Liquid players to play Starcraft full time. Read the full interview/article here. GG.

Team Liquid

This weeks Top Team Tuesday team is Team Liquid. Team Liquid is the end all of everything Starcraft. Team Liquid is not only an amazing Starcraft 2 team, but the center of the Starcraft universe when it comes to competitive Starcraft play. There website gets millions of visitors a day which is totally understandable considering the wealth of knowledge one can find there. They have extremely active forums, many pro and amateur streams, a Liquipedia page, and extensive tournament coverage.

Along with there amazing website, Team Liquids pro team is also among the best in the world. The team consists of  Jinro, Nazgul, Tyler, HayprO,  Ret and last but not least TLO. All amazing players and household names in the Starcraft community, but the one that stands out is TLO aka TheLittleOne. TLO has been one of the top players in Starcraft 2 since beta, finishing at the top of many tournaments.  One thing that makes TLO great is his very creative play style, making most of his games very, very entertaining.

Whether your a Starcraft veteran or Starcraft noob, Team Liquid’s website is definetly something you need to check out. GG

Team Liquid Webpage

TLO vs Dimaga

Altitude Team Liquid SC2 Open #1

Today marks the start of the Altitude Team Liquid Open #1, a Starcraft 2 Tournament hosted by Team Liquid and sponsored by Altitude. The tournament was an open registration format so there are many unknown players along with household names such as HuK and MorroW competing for the generous prize pool provided by Altitude. You can find more information on the tournament over at the Team Liquid Tournament Page. This tournament has the potential for some epic games, so don’t miss it. Check out the streams going on right now here (streamer’s links on the right side, under the calendar).

Other Tags: StarCraft II, SC2

Mass Queen (Starcraft 2)

Continuing on with the Feature Friday barrage of awesome gaming videos, I have a ridiculous Starcraft 2 replay commentated by HuskyStarcraft. This game is between FruitSeller aka oGsCool and another Korean. oGsCool makes some good use of Queens, creep tumors and spine crawlers to best his opponent and makes for a very entertaining game.

Part 1

Part 2

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