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United States22154 Posts
Good reads on TL
Well, after the fiasco that was my last blog, I thought I'd write something a little less bitterly angry, and a little bit more useful and entertaining. I have collected here a number of pieces on TL that I think are worth a read. Many of you will have already read the articles, threads and blogs linked here. That's fine, these are of such excellent quality that I suggest reading them again. The pieces included here are in no particular order, I've tried to stay away from the well know "funny" threads, in favor of articles I consider are more overlooked. That's not to say that the day[9] plane story or the underwater basket weaving thread *aren't* good reads, this is just geared to the opposite side of the spectrum, articles which are first and foremost informative or impactful, with humor taking a backseat, I did include a couple of reads that I found personally amusing which are less well known. Without further ado, have some of the best things TL has cranked out over the years. (This is part one, there will be more.)
1. Ver's How to Improve
Summary: Ver has written a lot of very excellent works, and at least a couple will make it to this list, but this is, in my opinion, one of his better pieces. Even though this was written before SC2 was even a glimmer in people's eyes, much of the general principles he writes about here apply to both SC2 and BW. Download it and read it. I keep a pdf of it in my e-book collection.
2. I Loved Victory by Plexa (part 2)
Summary: Plexa is another of the tl authors who pretty much only writes gold, but I Loved Victory has a special place in my heart. Oov is perhaps my favorite player in the history of BW, so I may be biased, but my bias makes this Final Edit no worse. Its a masterpiece of a tribute, its a damn shame the tribute video at the end no longer works (if anyone happens to find it anywhere, PM me), but this is well worth the read. More so if you know nothing about who iloveOov is.
3. riptide's Mind Over Mechanics
Summary:Continuing my trip down Final Edit lane, we get to a FE by Riptide (a man who deserves his typewriter icon). I always enjoy pieces that are timeless by the nature of the topic they discuss. This is one such piece. This talks about things that are better than build orders and APM, it talks about the true defining traits of champions, their comprehension of momentum, not just in games, but in whole series. Reading this article changed how I looked at series played between high caliber players, if you've ever sat there and wondered why your favorite player was doing something strange in a Bo5, this article will probably give you some insight.
4. Mind Games by RaGe
Summary: I can't talk about Mind Over Mechanics and not touch on the closely related Mind Games. This is another timeless piece, instead of talking about momentum, experience and handling pressure, this talks about single games, preparation and the battles that occur at the highest level levels of starcraft, battles not of units, but of psyches. Read this and understand the true beauty of starcraft, the battles that take place not in the game, but in the minds of the players.
5. Plexa's Apple Pie
Summary: Moving away from starcraft for a moment, this is one of my favorite blogs of all time. Its a simple reflection by Plexa. Many of you won't find it that significant, but this blog really got to me for some reason. It was sort of like seeing a reflection of yourself in a rippling pond. Give it a read, if nothing else, Plexa is an excellent author.
6. Before ESPORTS by Heyoka
Summary: Wow, six articles so far and all are by staff. That actually wasn't intentional. Anyway this is an excellent look at the very early days of "esports" before it had even gotten that tag. Knowing your history is important, so read this. Its interesting even on a "neat, old history" level, and there is a lesson to be learned from it.
7. Rekrul Breaking the Savior Scandal
Summary: This still stands as one of the moments that defined starcraft for me. The whole thread is a must read if you want to know how damn hurtful the Savior matchfixing scandal was. This is actually a very sad thread to read, it brings back bitter memories, but if you want a fascinating portrait of what people were thinking when Rek broke the news, this is the thread to read. Skip it if you'd rather not be reminded.
8. On the Shoulders of Giants by Riptide
Summary: While I'm linking history of the pro scene, I thought it appropriate to also link to the history of TL news. This is a tribute of the greatest contributors to TL FE/Articles/News from the earliest times up to 2009. Notice that most of them are still around. Its written in riptide's awesome narrative style, and it gives a interestingly candid snapshot of the people who made the articles section of TL what it is.
9. Trozz's blog
Summary: On a much, much lighter note, a really great blog by one of my favorite posters. For those of you who don't know Trozz always posts in hiaku. This blog impressed me both with the amount of commitment someone I knew relatively little about put into TL, and by the fact that it only used hiakus. Is it an epic read like some of the other pieces here? No, but it is one of the blogs that really impacted me, so it has a place here.
10. Blogs by Zatic
Summary: I picked one of Zatics blogs about traveling abroad, but really his entire series on Germany is awesome as well, and I suggest reading all of them. It gives a honest first person perspective of both working abroad and of living in Germany. Besides the entertainment value, I found these to be genuinely informative, and the style they are written in makes them a light read.
11. onepost's Stay One Step Ahead
Summary: If you haven't noticed yet, I really enjoy reading about mindgames and the like. This is a down to earth guide on the mental/tactical aspects of starcraft at a less than pro level. Its chock full of examples, and is one of my favorite threads ever. Its not long, its not arduous to read and much of what it says seems obvious, but its still something that is well worth reading.
12. A Legacy of Distinction by Arrian
Summary: Read it. Its about endings, and legacies, and how, no matter what happens to BW, its legacy will remain. I know I keep linking FE's here, but thats because they are so damn good.
13. Colbi's How the Cards Have Fallen
Summary: Ok, this will be the last FE I link in this list, I promise, but with all my talk about history, I'd be remiss to skip over a piece that looks at non-korean teams just as we saw SC2 peeking over the horizon. Give it a read and see where the author was right, and where he was wrong.
14. Bittersweet Symphony by Rekrul
Summary: If you read no other piece here, read this one. This is another of those blogs that formed my view of TL. This is Rekrul's story as a Pro Poker player in Korea, and its a story that merits being listened to. Read it, trust me, its worth it.
15. TL's Requiem for a Mani
Summary: At one time Manifesto said he was retiring from tl. This is his sendoff thread. Its one of those threads that cements the fact that tl is awesome, and its one of those threads that is probably worth reading in full.
This ends part 1, part 2 will be here soon(tm), feel free to suggest threads/blogs/posts which you think are overlooked but awesome/informative/interesting.
 
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Why you never answered me on the penis thread?
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You really did not choose my favorite FEs at all... Well I'm harsh, I loved victory is good, Plexa's best work by far at least. Rekrul's thread is amazing though.
I've missed a couple of those threads though, thanks.
As for suggestions, I have some I guess, but I'll wait to see if they are in your part 2^^
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This is a really good blog 
Sad thing is, I was about to go to sleep when I saw this blog and now I'm going to read some of those things listed. T_T
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oh man that requiem for a mani, so many old names you don't see around too often on that card, lol brings back a lot of memories
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Oh G, you forgot to mention the entire Headphone scandal. That was hilarious!
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Canada5565 Posts
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Everyone should read the R1CH quotes thread.
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The Rekrul thread is pretty crazy.
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Now this is worthy of a featured blog!!!! Great stuff
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United States33475 Posts
no honesttea? 
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Sweden5554 Posts
Damn you GMarshal, I had things to do today, not spend the whole afternoon/evening reading awesome TL threads/posts! 
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Trozz's limerick commentary - it's been so long since i've seen that.
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Welp. Time to go through and read pretty much every TLFE.
Also, I really liked Finale in Five (probably my favorite) and God of the Battlefield (probably 2nd)
EDIT: Can someone direct me to the FE homepage? I can't seem to find the list TT_TT
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Obligatory God of the Battlefield nomination.
Also, semi related to the thread - Once, I think right around the time T1 won the Winners League in the penultimate PL season, an article about the history of the team way back from Boxer and the Orion days popped up. It was pretty long, fancy and well written. I looked for that article on several occasions, but I wasn't able to find it ever again. I would appreciate if somebody could link me to it. And it should also be in Part 2 of this blog obviously!
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Honestly I really liked this: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=231400
Shameless self link, but the interview portion with Day[9] was incredibly informative. Even after doing the interview, and transcribing it all, I read it and still learned about stuff. And not exclusively SC2 stuff, but real life stuff. Sean really knows how to give a speech.
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On July 14 2012 04:08 humanimal wrote:Welp. Time to go through and read pretty much every TLFE. Also, I really liked Finale in Five (probably my favorite) and God of the Battlefield (probably 2nd) EDIT: Can someone direct me to the FE homepage? I can't seem to find the list TT_TT
http://www.teamliquid.net/tlfe/
It's under features, at the top of the page.
You could say those were burried, such a shame...
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On July 14 2012 04:56 Chargelot wrote:Honestly I really liked this: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=231400Shameless self link, but the interview portion with Day[9] was incredibly informative. Even after doing the interview, and transcribing it all, I read it and still learned about stuff. And not exclusively SC2 stuff, but real life stuff. Sean really knows how to give a speech.
That was awesome. He's really good at stand-up comedy too!
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How is Nadas body thread not in this list?
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Baa?21244 Posts
^^^^
The best thing written on TL that article is sickkkkk
On June 09 2011 16:15 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
[01:14] <@CSheep> only until midnight remains, to this day, the best piece of writing
[01:14] <@CSheep> on TL
[01:14] <@CSheep> at least in terms of emotional impact for me
[01:14] <@CSheep> i still go back and read it and tear up from time to time
[01:14] <@CSheep> Q_Q
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I'll support you on #2. I really think that that one is the best piece of writing on TL.
The piano man (the H.O.T.Forever piece) is also fantastic. Not as analytically of fact heavy as the other TLFEs, but so emotional.
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This is a pretty nice collection. I'm gonna GUESS Ver's oov writings will be in the next part.
I think riptide, ver, honesttea, and sometimes plexa are the best writers we've had.
Regarding savior and match fixing:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=14893¤tpage=All
That's a thread of a young and obnoxious me making a thread about a game that was very suspicious and wanting to discuss it. A ton of high-profile TLers, future banlings, TKWL, Jinro [ FrozenArbiter back then ] claiming that game rigging is not possible or warranted or that crazy conspiracy theorists are just having dumb ideas. Notice the post date, its years before match fixing by savior was discovered.
Day[9], Klogon, fakesteve were some of the very few to entertain the idea that it could be possible yet gave logical reasons why they thought it wasn't. It isn't a coincidence that I really like these TLers.
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If you want tons and tons of material to waste your time through, take a dive into Our Ol' TL Hall of Fame, obvious simply because of the sheer volume of stuff linked.
Beyond using web backups to go back in time, it's the only remaining record of Fanatacist's blog series, but its mainly TL 'memes' and whatnot. Ironically, I always aspired to be 'in' on the cool kids clique in TL, the ones who made the funny posts and had the inside jokes and drama. The ones who really lived it. I always aspired to be like that, but didn't take enough action to make that a reality. LOL, and now my interest in the community is fading as it's getting diluted 20-fold, and BW bye bye :/
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There was a great thread that predicted the SC2 launch (Beta i think) based on insider information. I recall the whole community was so hyped the thread generated huge amounts of pages and F5s. In the end, the kid was banned because he wasn't right, but that was a great moment. Can't find it though.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
wow, didn't realize how insightful Zatic's blogs are. Thanks!
(also: fuck, didn't make the cut, lololololol)
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My god, I've always kinda missed the BW days but reading this thread and thinking about some of the FE posts, so nostalgic x_x
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Baltimore, USA22256 Posts
Good list, made me a little nostalgic because I remember reading most of those 'live' or even posting in them at the time.
Makes me feel old to realize that this list is probably but a mere fraction of the amazing/wonderful reads and experiences I've had with TL over the past 8 years.
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omg, that Rek's thread... so sad to read.
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are you sure that should be on the list? maybe you are just bi-est.
certainly interesting going through the old thread.
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God of the Battlefield part one plz 
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Well ya know....if we had the arrows acts as scrollers between pages it would be SO much easier to read...
T_T ah well
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Oh my goodness. Could be one of my new favorite blogs. Soooo much fantastic stuff, really brings back the memories, good and bad. But mostly good by a fair bit.
And worry not people, he has said it's only part 1 ^^
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I'd honestly have to agree with this ~
why wasn't God of the battlefield included TT
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On July 14 2012 16:46 zhurai wrote:I'd honestly have to agree with this ~ why wasn't God of the battlefield included TT
he kinda hates savior for the max fixing scandal if im not mistaken.
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God of the Battlefield was indeed just amazing. Everything about it, from the subject matter, graphics, writing, information, emotion, just everything was fantastic. Just a fantastic article and one of the pillars of good writing on TL. It was so sad that it had to be postponed for a year, but it was the right choice, I think. That was a legendary write-up about a legendary player.
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Zurich15355 Posts
Aw thanks for including me, sweet! <3
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Badass, love archive posts from teamliquid
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Beautiful selection, some excellent threads and blogs there, comments have a few good ones too
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So I went back and read a few pages of the scandal... and just remembered what Midas did when he was offered money.. I miss that cute fucker even more now. My real true hero!
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Thanks so much, GM! I just finished Plexa's double feature on iloveoov and it was fantastic, I'll be reading through the rest of the articles in the coming days.
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Katowice25012 Posts
Saw a thread of mine. Voted 5.
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United States22154 Posts
On July 14 2012 16:52 XenOsky- wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2012 16:46 zhurai wrote:I'd honestly have to agree with this ~ why wasn't God of the battlefield included TT he kinda hates savior for the max fixing scandal if im not mistaken.
My feelings about savior won't affect my selection of articles, but Ver's final edit on savior is basically the most well known FE on this site (Elephant in the Room is arguably better known), with about ten times the comments of the other final edits (Plexa's Oov article, part 1, has 94 comments, Ver's has 1100+) , which means it "mainstream" enough for me to feel comfortable leaving it off a list of what I consider to be lesser known or at least more forgotten articles. Not that that takes anything away from how awesome God of the Battlefield is.
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i have a penchant for old things
by X)Benny (who stopped being active way before i joined but he made a ton of the R&S threads for old OSL/MSLs), the whole thread is kind of fun. also a marshal in that thread but things didn't turn out well for him.
there's really a lot of really good stuff on here, doesn't matter if it's a grand glorious final edit or just some cute little post like that i don't remember how i found it but somehow it stuck in my mind so now i'm sharing it with you... maybe it'll get out of my head this way. i also remember this old  IntoTheRain interview i read where he talked about future of esports (and this was in like 2001) but i can't find it again.
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An seriously, you can hate what savior did with that match-fixing (althou, he was just a middle-man, althou, I don't want argue about that), but not include God of the Battlefield in the list?
This is a great piece of writing, you must admit it.
And I think Symphony of Destruction is also good.
The two other favorite TLFEs that wasn't mentioned in OP:
Only Until Midnight
Revolutionary Magic (this one probably because of Bisu-fanboyism )
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United States22154 Posts
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Oh, except my apologies then.
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This is a great list, will enjoy reading most of these thanks.
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this is not a good op
User was warned for this post
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TLADT24920 Posts
^?
This bump couldn't come at a worse timing, I had things to do and now I'm going to be reading for hours >< lol.
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EPT
