Feels like just yesterday the TSL2 ladder stage was beginning. But it was really a full year ago already. A time when thousands upon thousands could be found playing on iccup at any given time. A time of really high competitive broodwar and probably some of the highest level play ever for foreigners in the history of the game.
For those who may have joined the site this year, maybe you caught the finals of TSL2 between Nony and Mondragon, or the epic series' between Nony and Idra. Or maybe you don't know what the TSL2 is at all... the Team Liquid Starleague (TSL) was a HUGE tournament held twice by teamliquid, the first one ran in early 2008 and was sponsored by Razer. The second was sponsored by Pokerstrategy.com and happened in late 2009-early 2010. It featured a ladder stage on iccup open to anyone and everyone. At the conclusion of the ladder period, qualifying and preliminary rounds began culminating in an overall championship series.
At the beginning of the ladder stage of the tournament hundreds of hopeful foreigners took their crack at the biggest foreign broodwar event hosted to date (and probably ever?) by teamliquid. In the first 48 hours I personally played nearly 60 games on ladder. Which was quite a heavy pace for me, as I was in my last year at univ I actually remember skipping my Thursday classes for a longer weekend and then had the following week off for thanksgiving so I just MASS gamed on my TSL account. I played easily 200 games in the first week... And I was only able to stay in the top 32 for a really short time, then I hit some big roadblocks and really bad TvZ doomed me. But I did stay near the top for a few days at least, obligatory proof screenshot: + Show Spoiler +
31st out of 1,000+ HELL YEAH
I also remember Kwark jumping out to the early lead on the ladder, he played for 36 hours straight or something absurd. By day 3 or 4 he had already begun to fall off, and I was pretty much gone. We were riff raff compared to the real big guns who were playing, and ALL of the big guns were playing. If you were anybody in the foreign broodwar scene you played in the TSL. The level of competition was ridiculous. I improved so much during that time. There were SO many helpful people around. You'd hop into a channel and some B+ players would be talking strategy, you'd have a full friends list of pure TSL accounts, everyone busy laddering away, always there for you to ask strategy questions, always there to game.
It's always fun looking back, seeing all the old broodwar names.
Mana aka the bulldog user. GosiTerran, Morrow's ridiculous proxy rax cheese on HBR... Idra easily shooting to the top, holding A+ like it was nothing. Yan getting A- in 1v1 with nothing but proxy gates every matchup every map. (or so the rumors went ) The German wonder kid kolll who had recently defeated Idra at WCG grand finals... Yosh going like 56-0 or something insane before losing and then later getting bagged for ladder abuse... So many interesting and dramatic developments and such a well run and overall fun event. So many intense broodwar streams on TL, stories of dodging and matchup picking... so many good times during that ladder stage. So fun. You didn't have to be a top level player to appreciate or enjoy the experience. You simply had to play and share a common love for the game.
And then the actual tournament stage began, Idra vs Nony in the tournament stage in early January (TWICE)... The insane psi storms on Andromeda in the first series, the infamous canceled command center in the second series... leaving tasteless and artosis at a total loss for words. Mondragons revival and trip the finals, TT1 vs Whitera going down to an extremely close nail biting game 5...all kinds of other storylines that I'm forgetting. So many good memories, such a great tournament, it's hard to believe all of this was getting started a full year ago already. I believe the ladder stage started November 20th 2009 so that would be tomorrow technically in the USA. Broodwar is such a great game, no matter how hard SC2 pushed BW aside, no matter where the broodwar pro scene goes in korea or elsewhere, remembering these times will always be important, at least for me. No matter what games go on to replace the games we play today, nothing can replace the memories, the people you meet and events that were played in the past.
And looking forward, the future holds some amazing promise, TL Opens are awesome and still getting better. The level of competition is only improving in SC2 as a whole... Things look good. REALLY good. So cheers to anyone and everyone who's hosted, participated, supported, helped make events like TSL's and TL Opens, LAN tournaments, online tournaments, community gatherings or done anything to help build such an amazing community that I am a proud part to be of. It's important to remember things like the TSL, the ups and downs, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat... -LF
I've been thinking about a TSL3 for quite a while. I'm sure others have been too. I'm interested to see if/when we adapt the ladder stage to BNet 2.0
TSL2 was so much fun. IMO the most epic series was NonY IdrA. Also, Mondragons plagues were sick. I'll also remember Fenix's upset of Kolll and the disqualification controversy.
TSL 2 was what took me from D/D+ to C ^.^ the memories made last year are some that i will never, ever forget those were some great games...then i defected to SC2 for a while, got bored of it and came back to BW where my first game back was against you hahaha...sadly i havent had time to play in a while but BW will always stay in my heart and memories no matter what happens
You know, I just downloaded about 6 matches from TSL2 to watch from the TL tracker: the finals, IdrA vs NonY, JF vs Sen, Draco, WhiteRa, BratOK, etc. I unfortunately didn't follow it as closely as you did, as I was just coming back to Brood War that year; but I will relish watching/rewatching the best of the ro16 to finals games this weekend, in the most skilled foreigner tournament ever, all made possible by this great site.
They're always up at youtube.com/nevake as well, for anyone who wants to watch.
One of the most failed tournaments in history if you ask me - not having the finals live was a big mistake - showing the updated brackets revealing the results and the winner on stream before the actual finals- speaks for itself. If it had been a serious entity behind this (say MLG) sponsors (razer) would threaten breach of contract and make a pretty big deal out of it.
But on the other hand it was one of the last times we saw the foreigner with the most potential in the history of the game, Draco, play in a big tournament, so.
Oh man, I LOVED that tournament. I still have the vods, and they're amazing. ^_^ I absolutely loved TSL, and I watched TSL2 and that too, was crazy. God, I want a TSL3 because I know that even if I find less joy in SC2, TL delivers. TL ALWAYS delivers, and I'll be able to enjoy TSL no matter what game is played.
TSL 2 remains my favorite tournament to date. The casting, the players, the drama, everything was heightened because it was in the foreign community. It was our community, not some distant Korean league. Everything was much more intimate. Hopefully TSLs in the future will be as amazing as the Brood War ones.
TSL2 was incredible. Super good organization from TL (stream, cast, rules, admin, forum, everything was perfect), huge cash prize, revival of old school players (seriously, that was probably the best thing, literally EVERYONE was there playing TSL except Pj / Lx). The tournament part was at perfect european time for me, I remember coming back from university, putting a pizza in the oven, getting a couple of beers and watching incredible games !
Thanks LuckyFool for bringing back these memories ! 5/5
edit : emperorchampion (post below) reminded me of Abuseful Day, the debuts of baller hahahaha !
The announcement hype, and TL.net Bot's first post! Checking the ladder rankings every hour or so! Abuseful Day! JF tearing shit up!
The memories are so good, but I don't think that the level of epicness can ever be re-captured. I guess we literally are so spoiled (in a good way) by all the tourneys these days, I mean can you imagine a LAN tournament with Ret, NonY, IdrA, Sen, ect. casted by Day[9] two years ago?! It would have been the sickest thing ever, now we have that like once a month it seems- such an exciting time in e-sports!
Teamliquid can never be matched in terms of professionalism, hype, or production though. One day the TSL 3 ladder is going to open, I can't wait!
haha i remember artosis hyping up gositerran SO MUCH that he convinced most the foreign scene that he was a pretty heavy favorite vs JF, then JF, who was largely inactive for most of the time before TSL and not even super active during TSL just rolled him ezpz.
Good times.... good times. Following BRAT_OK in TSL1 was so exciting. And TSL2 were just a big load of EPIC games... I feel sick thinking that it's all over... That we will never see anything more like it(in BW)...
Just trying to live on, on iCCup with 600 other people. Man, I miss the 2000+ on iccup... feels bad man.
TSL2 was one of the best things ive ever seen that was made by TL. The level of professionalism and organization was quite good despite what some said, to me the production was at a very high level. Thanks to TSL2 I figured about the Foreign players and discovered much more about those I knew very little of. What i remember the most is that it was done in a window of time which there was no PL and TSL didnt conflict with anything huge starcraft wise so literally the whole of TL was watching the tournament, the HYPE was UP!. I thank once again all the ManTLpower that was behind all of the organization. The timing was essential and something that made it extra epic! and the time schedule was great, i watched the games in the middle of the afternoon.
Thank you TL and be PROUD of what you have done for BW! and its last big foreign tournament.
edit: it would be crazy awesome if someone who has all of these on a torrent client to seed. Once I'm done I'll seed for sure, then we can spread the TSL love! :D
On November 20 2010 11:15 emperorchampion wrote: Favourite memories:
The announcement hype, and TL.net Bot's first post! Checking the ladder rankings every hour or so! Abuseful Day! JF tearing shit up!
The memories are so good, but I don't think that the level of epicness can ever be re-captured. I guess we literally are so spoiled (in a good way) by all the tourneys these days, I mean can you imagine a LAN tournament with Ret, NonY, IdrA, Sen, ect. casted by Day[9] two years ago?! It would have been the sickest thing ever, now we have that like once a month it seems- such an exciting time in e-sports!
Teamliquid can never be matched in terms of professionalism, hype, or production though. One day the TSL 3 ladder is going to open, I can't wait!
That's a really good point about Day9 and in general where we are right now with SC2 compared to even just a couple years ago with broodwar. We really are spoiled now with MLG and all kinds of other lan events every month or so now it's amazing.
As lame as it is, sometimes I go to my livestream and watch when I played games for TSL2. It really was a magical time, having a full friends list and everyone just mass gaming. You had your chance to play anyone you wanted and everyone got their shot to see how they compared to the top foreigners.
It's sad to think that this time can never be relived, although I hate to sound so depressingly nostalgic. I really, really want to see something like this for SC2 (although I'm not sure how hard it would be and if it's even possible). All these invitational tournaments just annoy me, nothing can be a tournament where everyone has to ladder to qualify.
TSL2 was an awesome tournament. It wasn't that important to me, as I neither participated nor followed, but the huge storm of positive activity TL had at that point in time was really nice to see.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i1001.photobucket.com/albums/af132/edwinjung/standings.png)
) The German wonder kid kolll who had recently defeated Idra at WCG grand finals... Yosh going like 56-0 or something insane before losing and then later getting bagged for ladder abuse... So many interesting and dramatic developments and such a well run and overall fun event. So many intense broodwar streams on TL, stories of dodging and matchup picking... so many good times during that ladder stage. So fun. You didn't have to be a top level player to appreciate or enjoy the experience. You simply had to play and share a common love for the game.
