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Greetings to TeamLiquid from El Salvador
This blog might be a long read so better hold your horses (see what I did there , tl, horses,  ) but don’t worry there will be pictures!
This is the story of a small organization in El Salvador that was inspired by team liquid to spread the Starcraft love in a place where video games are a true luxury.
Allow us to introduce ourselves. We are StarcraftSV, basically the only Starcraft community in El Salvador a small country located in Central America and in fact the smallest country on the whole continent.
Our Starcraft journey began in 2007 with the solitary endeavours of our founder Jacopana. He basically was the only competitive starcraft fan in the whole country for a long time. (At least to the best of his knowledge). He was a big fan of the korean leagues thus he used to lurk sites like teamliquid (specially teamliquid), among other communities. (So basically he didn’t have any IRL friends xD) he eventually wanted to know if there was a community like this in our country and sadly there was nothing to be found but a few disperse players who only played with their mouse. Gladly he didn't quit there and began recruiting these latin pros, they played online casually for a while, at least to have some starting point to make a clan to compete. Sadly again, nothing became solid but like our starcraft hero that he is Jacopana did not quit there. (you might know him for his blog about his paper mache marine gun right here Gauss riffle made of paper)
![[image loading]](http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/40358_419076148132_561633132_4867333_951912_n.jpg)
our starcraft hero in question,also a terran player
![[image loading]](http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/9787/elsalvadorr.png)
the tiniest country in America
By 2008 Jacopana met some friends from out of town that owned a small Computer Cafe (the other 2 guys that knew about competitive gaming in El Salvador) made a contact with the organizer of the largest anime convention in El Salvador (of course like everything in our country comparatively small). This guy agreed to give us a space to make the first ever national tournament within the convention. They didn’t want the action to end there with a single tournament so they gave the organization a name thus SCSV was born (short for starcraft El Salvador if it isn’t too obvious)
![[image loading]](http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/4618/header20terran.gif)
Our banner
![[image loading]](http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/35476_462690768132_561633132_5614693_1586642_n.jpg)
The first tourney ever, the rumour is the guy in the orange cap would launch a nuke then stand up to see how it fell on the opponents screen xD, notice all the one handers...
![[image loading]](http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/60775_462689858132_561633132_5614674_4948947_n.jpg)
We even had a girl in there
This tourney was an absolute new experience for jacopana, he actually had to come up with a system to run a tourney with the 30 players that showed up, and opted for a group phase followed by single bracket elimination. This resulted in the tournament taking too long and the organizers of the convention kicking everyone out of the building come nightfall. The final game was between the players Vic (later AcmeSV) (P) and Belcebez (Z), Belcebez trampling Vic like a bull on mating season due to the fact that apparently he was a C+ Zerg player on Iccup (No one knew what that shit was), so basically we found out there where actually decent players in the country, we just had to find them.
By 2009 we had a small staff formed by members of the community in order to organize the tourneys. This time it ran a double bracket elimination format (we learned a lesson, Incontrol might be proud that we did not try extended series) and had 26 participants that had vastly improved since last year, the top 8 players where all C level players on ICCUP and we had a very exciting final between Belcebez(R) and Itrainsforever(Z) with 3-2.
![[image loading]](http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/6496_239200330653_787125653_8266716_595500_n.jpg)
itrainsforever playing while everyone watches attentively, this guy had gosu muta micro...
In 2010 we got our first visitors from another country, we got the Guatemalan champion at the time Chivu.GT (P) and WCG veteran and some of his friends. This time we had even a smaller affluence of players, but got a very nice final between our champion and the Guatemalan, who played at B level at the time and rocked our Salvadorian asses 3-0
![[image loading]](http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/19234_383677320103_787775103_10122192_1182557_n.jpg)
The tourney
![[image loading]](http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/19234_383687515103_787775103_10122256_3018607_n.jpg)
Acmesv, hums and extasis looking confused discussing strategy with Josh our youngest player, all tricky protoss players
![[image loading]](http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/19234_383687670103_787775103_10122267_7768161_n.jpg)
Notice the map pool stuck on the board, fighting spirit was one of them
![[image loading]](http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/19234_383693910103_787775103_10122286_3727905_n.jpg)
The guys from Guatemala holding our banner with some of our staff
![[image loading]](http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/19234_383693975103_787775103_10122293_7225873_n.jpg)
We even had cake, the cake was not a lie
And then came the dawn of a new Era, the launch of starcraft 2. We aimed high in making a sort of launch event where people could try out the game in some FFA, challenges and team games.We ran into many issues including the rampant poverty that we have in SV, we only had about 6 members who could afford Starcraft 2 on the date of launch (and had computers capable of running the game) so we had to improvise so everybody could play (Thanks God for Guest Passes although no lan really made it tough for us). Thankfully the event was a success. The boom of a new game was enough to get everyone’s attention, we had an attendance of about 300 people ready to meet and try out the new game.
![[image loading]](http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/40083_10150233638380177_645940176_13886688_6012378_n.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/38649_10150233639205177_645940176_13886736_3639652_n.jpg)
A new era! Belcebez our Older player with Acme.sv and Hums also oldschoolers
![[image loading]](http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/40580_10150233677485177_645940176_13887780_4130929_n.jpg])
Me and my brother playing in the teams tournament, we were both diamonds and rocked everyone.
After the first SC2 event we got a corporate sponsor for the first time (like everything in El Salvador, small, but we Thank AEON computers for giving us prices, I really got lucky finding our sponsor. I am a business student so I have gotten my practice doing marketing and relations for us and this was my first big contribution to our community). But the largest thing of all is that the WCG took notice of us and for the first time a Salvadorian representative in the World Cyber games for Starcraft was a possibility. We creamed our pants after we heard the news, our hard work finally was getting noticed.
We finally ran a SC2 tournament this last December, had a small turnout like always, and visitors from Guatemala. The finals where between myself and a former WC3 pro from Guatemala that runs under the handle “Cool” in Masters league. I came a long way to achieve that second place, I was a d- zerg during the broodwar days and currently rank at high diamond zerg(haven’t been able to hit masters yet with all the cheese and rushes, somehow I have a very low mmr, but I hope to get into masters soon) I had to topple a few currently masters league players and even our former champion, but everything is possible when you have the spirit of fruit dealer inside of you  . Best thing is that the WCG has decided to run a Starcraft tournament in our country and because I got second place I get seeded directly into the round of 8. The winner of that tourney will head for korea in the WCG 2011. Needless to say everyone is training their ass off.
First sponsored prices!
![[image loading]](http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/63547_10150335421795654_614415653_16087206_5507886_n.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/67142_10150335422395654_614415653_16087213_8028922_n.jpg)
Usb drives courtesy of Kingston, I got the 8gb then it was taken from me by Jacopana but that is a different story xD
![[image loading]](http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/165097_10150335422985654_614415653_16087225_7438184_n.jpg)
We even got a projector and a crowd
![[image loading]](http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/164574_10150335424440654_614415653_16087265_4133737_n.jpg)
There where actually 2 players behind the screen, also the tournament brackets on the tv...
We have always been a small organization with all the funds coming from the players. We don’t charge more than 2$ entry fee for our tournaments and rely mostly on our own equipment and recently what our sponsors can afford to provide us with. With all those limitations we have been able to run the events we have and even run some online leagues with Central American players.
We currently are at the best we have ever been and have some good players with a promising future. We have our old veteran player Belcebez who has been playing the game for 9 years now and is rumored to have played with the best of the best in his time (maybe someone knows him from back then.) We have our youngest player called Josh who is a 15 year old masters league protoss. His biggest dream is to get trained by Incontrol and to challenge pokebunny to earn teenager supremacy. Me and Jacopana dream of meeting all the big names here in Teamliquid, I personally would like to shake hands with Idra as he has been my inspiration in playing Zerg in Starcraft 2 and to follow his path I have been playing my best even though I complain about balance every now and then . Maybe I can even shake hands with the guys from State of the Game, one can only dream...
So basically this is it for this blog. Feel free to ask for our Character codes so we can play some games (We play on the NA servers since LA servers suck  ), and also feel free to visit our website. our webpage and facebook page so you can follow our endeavours StarcraftSV on Facebook
Also if any of you are in the country feel free to contact us, we will take you out for dinner and talk starcraft, and if we have a tournament running you can play as a guest with us.
Team liquid, we salute you, you have been a huge inspiration to us and we hope one day we can meet in a LAN and play like the biggest of rivals!
TheBlueOne signing off!
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I absolutely love things like this. It's amazing how much change just a few people can bring about to a community, much less a whole region.
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Osaka27140 Posts
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On February 22 2011 17:13 Manifesto7 wrote:
Great post. Spotlighted.
That's three posts that have been spotlighted in the past few hours man. wtf
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Katowice25012 Posts
4 actually. People are too good at making threads today.
Really awesome writeup!
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This is such an amazing read. Thank you for sharing!!!
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really awesome post, enjoyed the read, although that cake looked awfully small for all those people, maybe a fight with plastic forks ensued? oh and my g/f was actually born in El Savador and lived there for quite a while, so maybe I'll have somewhere to visit if I go there .
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Thanks Manifesto7 for the spotlight! and thank you guys for your comments. Lovelyrose if you are ever in the country contact us, It would be the most amazing thing to have guests from canada, the cake was small because the budget is small xD but it was to celebrate the first year of SCSV I think, so it was the symbolism that counted..!
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Fantastic writeup... Its great reading about people who have the motivation and love for the game to organise stuff like this. I wish I did too!
Congratulations on getting the sponsorships and for the WCG tournament!
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
Awesome stuff :D. Really nice read.
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Wow, I'm envious! This looks like great fun. Thanks for sharing 8)
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Good stuff! Now to try this at home.
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Amazing read, loved it. ^^
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We have our youngest player called Josh who is a 15 year old masters league protoss. His biggest dream is to get trained by Incontrol and to challenge pokebunny to earn teenager supremacy.
How about it, guys?
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You guys must have had a blast!
On February 22 2011 17:32 heyoka wrote:
4 actually. People are too good at making threads today.
Really awesome writeup!
What! already?
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Dude this is fucking amazing, you and your team's commitment to planning and then achieving what you wanted to do it so inspirational. Well done, keep up the great work!
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On February 22 2011 19:58 CooDu wrote:
Dude this is fucking amazing, you and your team's commitment to planning and then achieving what you wanted to do it so inspirational. Well done, keep up the great work!
So true, you guys rock!
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This is almost as cool as the cuban starleague.
Very interesting read.
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Really awesome read. Amazing what the sc community can do!
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Amazing story
This community truely is inspirational
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Are you planning on doing LANS this summer? I'm planning to go visit my family over there so maybe I could participate.
Anyway, great read! I never actually thought that there was a SC community over there
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Enjoyed reading this blog, good to see people not letting anything stop them from doing what they want to do in regards to E-sports. Best wishes and give 'em hell!
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That's sweet! Best wishes for your community!
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What an inspirational read. and you write so well too. Insta 5/5. ezpz.
Also GL for Masters... Just got demoted to plat from Diamond my self. Seems like I need a community around me too.
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Really cool, amazing what can be done when you have enough drive.Best wishes for your community.
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Wow, judging from those pictures alone, I bet more people play Starcraft in El Salvador than in Thailand
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awesome, very very nice read, loved the cake joke
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This great story brought a tear to my eye. May the pro gaming scene grow and prosper everywhere!
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Thanks for all the support and good wishes TL! English is my second language so I was a bit apprehensive with my writing but I'm so glad everyone likes it. Our next tourney will be on May, but if you are in town we can get together and lan some... Im thinking I might take up on some casting to show you guys some of the games we play, but I guess I'll have to work on my accent!
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gosh, i think everybody should do this in his own region :D
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Inspiring read as someone who is trying to find some ways to promote esports i have to say you guys did an amasing work
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Amazing stuff!!! Truly inspirational!!
5/5
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Everyone there looks so badass! Always great to see non American communities in SC!!!
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Awesome post!
I would like that happening on my country u.u
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Thank you all for your good wishes, and to my friend TheBlueOne for making this blog, truly TL.net has always been an inspiration for me and my best StarCraft resource. I hope this community keeps growing and generate some really good players. Ty TLrs!!
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what a great story. thanks for sharing
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omg this is so good. wish you guys the best
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Dominican Republic913 Posts
Felicidades hermano!!! arriba los Latinos, pronto republica dominicana tendra algo a esto!!!
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Hi Blue, I'm "ForAuir" in sc2 and play Terran from Mexico.
I've played with some of you guys before. I've played mostly with Acme since BW. I didn't know you had a tl account.
I haven't play lately but thx to this I feel like playing again with you guys!, those little tournaments Acme makes in battlenet are fun.
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TheBlueMeaner, we should be saluting you and your companions for spreading the love of Starcraft. I'd take my hat off to you but I don't wear hats. So a happy smiley will have to do, 
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wow TheBlueOne... really nice post you made here, I can tell you all this community is awesome, great players, great people to hang out with, I am from Guatemala and found out about their first tournament by luck, I asked Jacopana if I could play or help him and he asked for some help so I made the travel and since then (2007) I have been with them in all of their tournaments they even came to Guatemala once (Belcebez, Acme, Extasis, who am I missing??) for a tournament I made sponsored by Logitech, good "old" times hehehe... Guatemala is 3-4 hours away.
Best of luck for all of you and hope to see you in the next tournament maybe I can bring some more Guatemalan players this time, Cool wants to go again.
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United States4796 Posts
Nerd chills all over, man.
This is beautiful. Keep doing it please. It'll only get bigger from here on out.
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El Salavador FIGHTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D
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This is awesome. I was born in El Salvador but moved to Canada when i was a toddler.
El Salvador HWAITING!
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On February 22 2011 21:58 Ko1tz wrote:Are you planning on doing LANS this summer? I'm planning to go visit my family over there so maybe I could participate. Anyway, great read! I never actually thought that there was a SC community over there
Usually our LAN tornaments are one on the first weekend of August, and other in the middle of December, but ass TBO said, anyone who comes to SV can join us and we make a minilan to have a good time =)
On February 23 2011 03:31 Cyberspace1 wrote:
This is awesome. I was born in El Salvador but moved to Canada when i was a toddler.
El Salvador HWAITING!
Thanks man!! its always good to know about salvadorian players in other countries that play SC, indeed hwaiting!
On February 23 2011 02:17 kawoq wrote:Best of luck for all of you and hope to see you in the next tournament maybe I can bring some more Guatemalan players this time, Cool wants to go again.
Thanks to you for bringing players from Guatemala to our tournaments, thats the best kind of support we can have, hope to see you again in all upcoming LAN tours.
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On February 22 2011 17:05 TheBlueMeaner wrote:our starcraft hero in question,also a terran player
what's that thing with the logo of the german football association in background there? 
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On February 23 2011 03:45 FliedLice wrote:what's that thing with the logo of the german football association in background there?
Its a ps3 or an xbox 360 inside of a glass casing, that picture is actually from an event we had in a local video game store to promote starcraft 2, I guess they were fans of the bundesliga
edit// what jacopana said
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On February 23 2011 03:45 FliedLice wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2011 17:05 TheBlueMeaner wrote:our starcraft hero in question,also a terran player what's that thing with the logo of the german football association in background there?
is a stand for a PS3 console from the gaming place, the logo is for the 2010 World Cup time, each stand had a diferent national football association logo.
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this is awesome!! I love El Salvador (f$##$in beautiful country), and have a lot of friends there. I haven't been in years and have actually been planning a visit this summer. It is GREAT to hear that there is a flourishing/still growing community there, I will definately visit and inflict my terrible spanish and nonexistent zerg skills on you guys.
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So good, looks like a lot of fun! Please keep us updated.
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felt good reading all of this.
good job putting all the things together ^^
Suerte!
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Congratulations! Can't wait to see SV represented in Korea!
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Awesome thread. Love the pics!
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So much respect for you guys right now. Wicked props.
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The guy in the pic with all the orange Kingston loot. I think I know him. I spent 8 weeks in El Salvador in 2005 when Dell opened a call center there.
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cheers to E-sports! hope it gets big and we see a ESSL or something like that
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Awesome, awesome stuff Really inspiring stuff, glad to see this is happening in El Salvador (both my parents are from there)...Ariba Salvadorenos!
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On February 23 2011 06:30 SBJones wrote:
The guy in the pic with all the orange Kingston loot. I think I know him. I spent 8 weeks in El Salvador in 2005 when Dell opened a call center there.
That was the guy that brought the prices, maybe he stayed in the computer business..
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Good read ^^
lol you kept saying how your country is to tiny, I went to see the population cause I was sure it was higher but you made it out to be tiny. El Salvadors population is 1 mil more than Scotland
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im pretty jealous of you...i wish I could actually start a LAN on SCII or even BW, but I just have to stick with my brother and his friends having LAN parties on Fastest Possible Map
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On February 23 2011 07:00 NexUmbra wrote:Good read ^^ lol you kept saying how your country is to tiny, I went to see the population cause I was sure it was higher but you made it out to be tiny. El Salvadors population is 1 mil more than Scotland
The country is small, we have lots of people though, like most third world countries...
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On February 23 2011 07:00 NexUmbra wrote:Good read ^^ lol you kept saying how your country is to tiny, I went to see the population cause I was sure it was higher but you made it out to be tiny. El Salvadors population is 1 mil more than Scotland
Population might be more but the geographical size of the country is more comparable to that of Wales, to give you a better picture.
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What an awesome read. Nice to see SC and SC2 have had such a major impact in your life and in the life of people around you. ^^
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amazing, very nice read
keep moving forward!
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Very good nice post, great to see the StarCraft community outside of US and Korea!!
If only there were tournaments like that on Mexico... T-T.
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Incredible and impressive. Thank you for a sunshine-post! =)
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Canada5565 Posts
Wow!
Really heartwarming story. Hearing about things like this makes me so happy ^ ^
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Amazing read =)
Thanks for sharing such an encouraging story!
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This made my nerd heart all tingly. Feel free to hit me up for some games.
Ulfsark.345 Protoss.
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Thank god for spotlight. That was a great read and I love that everything is right on track
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Nice, I know Belcebez! Great guy and awesome practice partner :D
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this post made me nearly cry its so full of emotions and heart blood
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On February 23 2011 07:00 NexUmbra wrote:Good read ^^ lol you kept saying how your country is to tiny, I went to see the population cause I was sure it was higher but you made it out to be tiny. El Salvadors population is 1 mil more than Scotland
haha I was thinking that too.
@OP Awesome read :D
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I didn't know this existed... I'm terrible as a protoss, and I bet that my ass would be kicked if I play with any of you, but at least, I know there are other salvadorean players... guess I'll have to keep a close aye to this... at least I'll be able to find some salvadoreans to add to my bnet account...
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This was fun to read. I imagine you had some fun too.
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On February 23 2011 23:33 soujiro75 wrote:
I didn't know this existed... I'm terrible as a protoss, and I bet that my ass would be kicked if I play with any of you, but at least, I know there are other salvadorean players... guess I'll have to keep a close aye to this... at least I'll be able to find some salvadoreans to add to my bnet account...
hey I see you are salvadorian, we want to know all salvadorian players that is on our country and over the world, we have a public list of members of our community in our website, please visit it and feel free to add any of those players if you want, also if you are salvadorian and play StarCraft 2, send us your nick.code to add you to that list and to our players database
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On February 22 2011 18:15 MarryMeSeanPlott wrote:Show nested quote +We have our youngest player called Josh who is a 15 year old masters league protoss. His biggest dream is to get trained by Incontrol and to challenge pokebunny to earn teenager supremacy. How about it, guys?
Bring it.
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Brought a tear to my eye Nice write up, thanks for sharing.
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Ah that looked great, thanks for putting the time into this
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On February 24 2011 02:33 Pokebunny wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2011 18:15 MarryMeSeanPlott wrote:We have our youngest player called Josh who is a 15 year old masters league protoss. His biggest dream is to get trained by Incontrol and to challenge pokebunny to earn teenager supremacy. How about it, guys? Bring it.
Hi Pokebunny im that 15 year old guy, if you would like to play i would like too just tell me what day and what time you can play. LETS DO THIS
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I'm pretty free all of this week.. Got no school. Just message me whenever on bnet or any of the contact info in my profile.
VTPokebunny.787
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lmao I am from el salvador!! diamond (identity issues but actually zerg) here. Damn I can't wait to get back home. When do you guys organize the tournaments and stuff?? and where do you play? en la UCA?
well anyway....yiodee.818 if you guys wanna play some games
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Very cool! Good luck with your tournaments and with growing SC2 there!
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Amazing story and so inspiring to see the commitment behind the entire setup. Truly inspirational, great job guys, keep rocking!
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What can I say apart from great great work! Great read. Glad its been a sucess. All the best in the future to your group.
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VODs are up of me and TheBlueOne/TheBlueMeaner casting the Pokebunny vs. Josh showmatch on youtube.com/vtgaming
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We have some plans to promote e-sports in our country and hope Tl will support us
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Great story, thanks for taking the time to share it
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EPT![[image loading]](http://img820.imageshack.us/i/elsalvadorr.png/)
![[image loading]](http://img404.imageshack.us/i/header20terran.gif/)
