EPT
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ecPkI51.png)
Trozz ignored my pleas that we name the tournament "Gem League II: 2Pacalypse Strikes Backalypse."
For those of you who haven’t caught any of the Gem League yet, it’s a Brood War tournament run by everyone’s favourite haiku poster, Trozz. In a time when precious few Brood War tournaments still existed, Trozz took it upon himself to run a tournament for invitees at every skill level. Naturally, there would be players whose higher levels of skill and familiarity with Brood War would lend them what could be considered an unfair advantage.
With that in mind, Trozz chose a map pool that would do as much as possible to nullify the skill advantage. It was to be a map pool that ensured that an understanding of standard, safe play would do little to help players. It also had the side effect
This was to be a tournament that rewarded players not for their safe play, neither for their aggression nor their defense. It became a tournament in which the volatile, the unexpected, and the mercurial would have the supreme advantage. Chief among the Gem League’s uniquely adapted players is Kau, a man who it seems very genuinely cannot build an expansion hatchery within spitting distance of his main.
After the first Gem League, Kau’s high-risk strategies would be repeated in the first ThSL. For a fine example, you can check out this game he played against Cambium:
However, it wasn’t the five-hatch-before-gas stylings of the Cancer Zerg that won the Gem League. Indeed, it wasn’t even, as the official tournament record might indicate, 2Pacalypse’s strong play.
It turns out there’s one hail Mary strategy that beats them all. If you paid attention, you might have caught it in the game above.
You see, in order to win, you have to play the long game. I’m not just talking about the 25-minute epic you can see unfold in the video above; there was one player who managed to get a toe into every round of the tournament, a player so insidious that the majority of competitors didn’t even notice he was playing.
When the end of the first Gem League rolled around, 2Pacalypse might have won, but some of us benefited from the fact that 2Pacalypse, for all his skill at Brood War, isn’t so much a man for prizes. In the end, it was to the stealth competitor that the spoils fell.
I hadn’t expect the same trick to work for season two, but, lo’ and behold, when I opened by postbox this morning I found that I had a silent benefactor. So far, Rekrul hasn’t explained just why he deferred the prize from the Gem League Season 2 to me, but I have a feeling I wouldn’t be far wrong in guessing it’s part of a long-running campaign to claim me as one of his network of dark acolytes.1
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yMD5jeK.jpg)
To the nebulous "victor" go the tea-based spoils.
So I find myself now, at the end of season two of the Gem League, once again in possession of the array of strange and exotic teas that Trozz ships around the world to winners of his tournaments.
Sometimes, the best move is not to play at all.
Best of luck in season three, gents. I’ll be here.
Waiting...
Commentating.
1. Seriously, he keeps telling me to "rise." I don't know what that means, but I am afraid.
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