[BW] [STLOne] LR Resources

Open Heat: Player „Hype“

writers: DonGeckone, Liquileaks CEO
Brood War: Open Heat

Main Thread | Qualifiers Results | Qualifiers Replay Pack | Detailed results on Liquipedia | Ro9 Preview

note: my f key asks for more money, it refuses to work sometimes. Don't wonder if you read uck. it means uck.

Related: unofficial write up. Improvized.

It's summer, or in other words, there's not much going on. The world cup is over, yet the hordes of Brood War players hide out, have to write exams or are abroad on holiday. But, there's also the Open Heat Tournament going on, which is enough to spend some more words on it. Granted, there was an official write-up for the qualifiers already, but that's not enough for me. Let's do some unofficial player hype now and forget that this introduction doesn't really has a point and probably contains more grammar mistakes and typos than the every day YouTube comment.

The Polish Veteran: ZZZero

There are not many people around still, who earned way more respect than they received in the past months. ZZZero is one of them. The Polish Zerg has been playing for more than a decade by now and was long term member of a clan you can not pronounce without breaking your tongue: Zajebiście Zjebany Zespół. Yes, the ZZZ is actually a clan tag – and it had a ton of notable players: remember polska, polska legend MistrZZZ? He was one of the former colleagues of ZZZero.

ZZZero, together with his allys, grew up in an era, which still had plenty of tournaments, clan leagues, show matches and related events. Since the dawn of history, the Zerg showed strong performances for his team, was former member of one of the strongest national teams in foreign history and, surprisingly, never stopped playing. It's not a realy surprise that he qualified soon.

Futhermore, ZZZero should not only be respected for his individual skill, but also for organizational efforts. Thanks to him and netwars.pl, we got to see two Netwars Cups and two Bombastic Starleagues. In contrast to other managers, ZZZero never fell short to inform and communicate with others, being friendly, polite and helpful. Ladies and gentleman, we need more of his kind. If we had them, there was no shortage of content.

Sadly, other than remembering his name from a gazillion of grids, line-ups from WGTCL, ICCCL and related leagues, I can't really tell more about ZZZero. Let's just all agree that he is no outsider and that he will for sure deliver great games. There's nobody he couldn't take down in a longer series, especially thanks to his experience.

eOnzErG

The Spaniard eOnzErG doesn't need many words as well. If you lived under a rock the past four years, we'll try to help out in the following few paragraphs.

The Spanish Zerg, in contrast to ZZZero, has not a lot of experience, he's most definitely not an oldschooler. Aside from a gold medal in a Cuban LAN tournament, there's nothing on his record for the pre-beta time. Yet, he as well did not transition to SCII and instead focussed on laddering on ICCup. He was one of the dozens of names you wouldn't read twice, a C+/B-ish skilled player at best in winter 2010.

Since Defiler Tour 6 eOn signed up for hundreds of tours, participated in any event and never stopped trying. He joined the Russian team international Federation of Untouchables, the soon-to-be winners of ICCCL and BWCL; he grew familiar with other Defiler users, exchanged, trained, never gave up. In the first months of 2011 he was one of the regular names among the Top 16 of Defiler with the tendency to temporarily explode skill wise. But... it still wasn't enough.

eOnzErG's booth girls

In his 'second tier' era of 2011 he often played very aggressively, used too many Zergling/Mutalisk all-ins to regularly beat the big names, the mechanics weren't really developed and he often lost to no-names, who already countered his style. However, once the leading trio of Defiler (Heme, Scan, Sziky) went away, eOnzErG, among others, slowly took over.

Fast forward to late 2012: by now eOnzErG was a regular for Defiler gold medals, rarely faced a defeat prior to the Loser Semi Finals and usually took down even the greatest – including the likes of Sziky. His overall play was more refined now, his mechanics could be compared to the big players – no way of stopping him.

However, in the past months there was not much to see of the young Spaniard, other than his weird appearances in the Defiler chat – where he btw is known as „the coach“ for his partially unwanted, yet most times helpful „advices“ towards newcomers. As of late, he showed either very sloppy play on his stream or really great games , nothin gin between. I guess he took a temporary pause and is on his way back to the top. To be fair, in his latest competitive, serious games, he didn't show much weaknesses. If he can keep it up, he definitely has a shot to go far in Open Heat as well.

P.S.: eOnzErG is confusing and annoying with his English tirades in chat. However, I got to respect him highly for his dedication and his commitment. If you haven't realized, he apparently threw a lot of money into Defiler's tournament pot, so we can see more Mini Tours soon. Be sure to thank him!

Lancerx

Mustafa „Lancerx (Must)“ Singh is literally the most lovable character in post-beta history. Everyone who says otherwise should be forced to watch a non-stop marathon of Sex in the City. He really is the icon of Defiler.ru and the symbol of a true BW fanatic – weird, passionate, unique.

The Protoss was around for longer, yet can't really be classified as notable oldschooler. Lancerx has a long row of shiny blue ranks on his ICCup history, often showing rather bad win/lose ratios. However, that doesn't mean Lancerx should be underestimated. He does have a lot of experience, he never gives up and continues to perform very strong.

Mustception

It's true that Lancer is most likely not one of the S-Class foreign elite, yet he's no second tier player either. His game vs. Zerg often suffers from, compared to the best players, weak mechanics, and probably the reason why he did not win a lot of tournaments in the past four years online. And that's the odd part of him. If you have watched the live streams of the memorable Russian Moscow LANs, you'll have noted how much better the Protoss performs under stressful conditions offline. The longer these lasted, the better he was. And it's not as if Russia/Moscow did not have a ton of great players in these – there was Dewalt, Tama, Djem5, Largo, Pro7ect and others who fell victim to the offline monster.

Anyway, a few words on his style: it's very moderate. It's Brood War by the book, always following the most recent meta strategies. There's no outstanding build order brilliance, neither against Terran, nor against Zerg. In the slow paced match up against Terran, he can take on anyone and only slips against names like Marwin. However, against Protoss, in my opinion, Must is outstanding. That's where he shines, especially during clan leagues. His judgement of situation and his choice of build orders seems always to work out, regardless of the circumstances. I can't come up with one name of the past four years, who could seriously hope to just roll over Lancer.

Which brings me to my predictions: Lancerx, as much as I like him, will most likely not go too far in this tournament. The best players are either Scan or Zerg. He could beat half of them, especially since it's only Best of One, but... well. You need to have really high chances to win all of them.

Julia

There's a few words coming to mind when trying to describe Julia. Exhausting is one of them. Exhaustion is the emotion any admin will experience when dealing with the Polish Zerg. You can't help but being torn and undecided of what to make of him as outsider.

First off, he's not a total scrub, he's definitely not bad and he really did deserve to qualify. Yet, he's no top level player either, at least not in most tournaments or leagues. The Zerg has also been around for long using the aka. „Kinslayer“. Again, not much to show for him, other than tons of appearances in the first rounds pre SCII beta. He also went under the radar after beta for a longer time frame. Not sure why, maybe he didn't sign up, maybe he was overtowered by seasoned players from his native country Poland. It's Poland after all, one of the breeding grounds of talents.

Julia Strategy

Then again, he showed what he is capable off in TLS and the ICCup Main Event, the last two big events before Open Heat. Then he fell short in other events, such as the minor Hearthstone Tournaments by Broodwar.de, where he suddenly was crushed by seemingly second tier players like Largo. Well...

The Zerg is the example of a yoyo player. He either does perform very, very strong, or plays very, very weak and predictable. Usually, I start to loath Zerg players rather fast if they play by the book. And there's not much a Zerg can do to not play by the book. That'd need an oversight of Mondragon, manuvers like Breakdown Lurker micro against Terran, or the godlike level JaeDong displayed – outside of the game it would need a great character as competitive players, like ZZZero has.

And here's why I am undecided, Julia often makes up for interesting play. I remember a time in which you could anticipate him doing risky builds and performing strategies like slow Lurker drops and harassment play or an hour or so. Even though knowing what's coming, it was enough to kill the foreign elite. That's good for a Zerg in my eyes.
But he's Julia. He whines, he bitches, he cries. Polish rage can into space. There's not few players who ridicule Julia for his trash talk, according to Clawson, the clan PaiN already has an internal meme for his rants: Protoss, Lag, Lag. He also almost won the BM Award of the SBWI.

Be that as it may, it's 'just' mild bad manners and also entertaining, mixed with the random skill explosions he needs to be among the top class for now. He could be a really great add-on for future, official write ups, especially if he creates some mild drama, while showing good strategies. Let's hope for the best and anticipate the worst.

Wallace

The really interesting names start now. Our community lacked stories of newcomers for years by now. No more kolll, no more new faces slaugthering the alleged kings. Here they are, let's greet Wallace, the Bulgarian Protoss.

Wallace is a posterchild of this community, one true fan and a passionate player. Before being any notable, he already helped out over at ICCup writing news, interviewing people, covering the great clans and events, one of the few motivated and diligent people willing to help out, regardless of the time it took to do so.

Wallace and Towel

He then gave up the writer's career and focused on playing more. Being an ex-admin myself, I can relate, at least kind of. I can't relate to the unbroken will though, something I missed and something Wallace mastered. He joined the low level C rank leagues and events at this page, while also joining better clans. Wallace worked really hard on his play and never gave up as well. It took a longer time, before he started to place higher in these second tier tournaments. Actually, he was one of the few players who convinced me that C rank tournaments are not to be underestimated and did a fair amount of good to the community.

He started to bloom after joining Bulgaria's clan Bulgaria Elite Gamers (BG). This clan also head a ton of other known names, such as TechnicS, Jim and INF3cted. In my opinion, he is now equal or even better in skill than the last two names and on his way out of a second tier player rank.

However, as good as he is now, he is still no match for most other players in this stage of Open Heat. His spot is deserved, no qestions and hands down, but taking on the likes of Sziky, Scan, ZZZero or Lancerx should be a little too much.

KycT

The second and probably only real surprise thus far is the Ukrainian Protoss KycT (which means 'bush'). He's one of the two reasons I wanted to write this piece – finally a silver lining on the horizon.

If you considered the Defiler Tournaments good, but only tuned in once the tournaments approached the late stages, you now have to realize you did a stupid thing. KycT is by not really new, at least not if you followed the Russian tournament scene closely. Even before, KycT appeared in Ukraine's Top 16 in WCG 2009 alongside players like Strelok, Marwin, ALF or White-Ra. That's how good he already was.

However, he is hard to judge. One of my Russian sources describe KycT as „B ranked Protoss, not really notable“. I think he's a good example of the strength of the CIS nations – again. KycT performed really well in the Defiler Tours, and much like Wallace or eOn, grew with the series. In the last two years his records show that he rarely lost to no-names. Actually, he never lost to a player below a C rank. Instead, he took games off S-Class foreigners and had the ill fortune of facing them around the Lower Bracket Quarter Finals.

Saying KycT only qualified, because he had an easy grid, would be mean and disrespectful. He shows a solid, yet non outstanding play. Imo, he's better than Wallace, a player we know to be good occasionally. If our scene endures more years, KycT is one of the players we should watch out for, as well as several other Defiler users. Do never underestimate this scene. If he is anything like the other CIS users, he might be the guy to suddenly take out a big name in a best of one, making it harder for them to score much needed points.

Dienmax

And here's the other reason we need more player hype. Dienmax. It's amazing to see how short the memory of many people is. Dienmax is one of the names which make you wonder if you should know him or not, if he's just another lucky player, or one to watch out for. Again, a reminder to read grids and line ups carefully, in order to not miss out on the future.

Let's go one year back. The TLS were taking place and the SBWI Teamleague was approaching as well. Dienmax registered for the TLS qualifiers and was part of the Peruvian team LaGFree. Now you know where you should have read his name. Personally, this name jumped my eye immediately. He beat a couple of names already. Granted, none of which I thought would qualify, but certainly names, which should not drop out against a no-name. Beating a notable player once is not a big deal, beating them regularly and almost always finishing among the Last 16 on the other hand is. At least to me. His TLPD also is dangerous to read, he has a ~48% win ratio there; but if you look closely, he only lost to likes of Sziky, only once slipping against KenZy, who in turns, isn't that bad either.

Lagfree hwaitin~

Even though trying to dig out some information, I failed. It's now getting really interesting. From the pieces I found, I can paint a blurry picture. First off, according to TerrOr, the leader of LaGFree, Dienmax is one of the reasons the Peruvians surprised us all in the Swedish Teamleague. Remember, they finished better than the Hungarian sas, the Russian iFU or second tier teams like iWL.

According to TerrOr, the Peruvians train a lot off line, in the infamous LAN center „El Bunker“, where they host tournaments regularly. Dienmax apparently is new to the English speaking scene and rarely plays in the regular ladders. Which explains why we don't know a player, who is most likely in the higher B ranks. TerrOr also described Dienmax as „the Ace of his team“. This needs context. LaGFree has TerrOr himself, CastrO and Dandy. Being counted among them, or described as better than this trio offline is a huge deal. All three of them are most certainly S-Class foreigners, although not playing regularly. It seems TerrOr was also correct to predict that 2014 would be the year the international scene would come to realize the talent of Dienmax. Let's wait and see what this Peruvian is capable of. He already defeated trutaCz. There's plenty of room at the bottom.

Sziky & Scan

Yeah well, Sziky and Scan really do not need much introduction. At least Sziky doesn't, so their profile is going to be merged. Let's focus on their rivalry instead.

Sziky and Scan plus Heme were the first three players who gave us a story to tell after the SCII beta. The trio fought against each other in numerous venues, BWCL, ICCCL, Defiler Tournaments, GosuGamers events, the first two ISLs (including ladder stages). While Heme is long gone after trying to promote Scam, Scam, Scam 2012, the other two remained.

We all know that Scan used to be a misunderstood teenager, often flaming the shit out of his opponents, while bragging with his skill. We also know he really is skilled and so is Sziky. Their rivalry started in January 2011 and lasted around 2013 in occasional matches. All of the early Defiler tours and other events went to one of those three (two) with a really high likelihood. If you don't know how hard Sziky and Scan fought for the throne, I suggest watching the ISL 1 Quarterfinals. It shows how hard Scan hates on Sziky and vice versa. This, people, is the stuff.

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However, since Scan is banned here for bad manners (I think) and there wasn't much content featuring him, let's catch up. Scan actually and surprisingly changed, at least that's what I saw. Less bashing, bragging and spiteful remarks, more helpful comments, good streams and even improved skill. After Game and Eywa banned Scan for hacking, which he never did, and his bad manners, which he very much commited to, he had no option to participate in foreign events. He continued to play in Defiler for a bit, but not too much. So where was he? In China. He played tons and tons of games on the VS platform, dominated the Chinese scene and won a shitload of tournaments, which escaped our eyes. He now regularly beats FengZi, has an iron grip of Chinese events and occasionally rapes even Korean BJs. He also guest starred in some SRTs, even though not coming futher than the Last 16. But still. There's not foreigner being able to play as good as Scan. Or is there?

SOON

It's really hard to say, in the most recent games between Sziky and Scan the Korean American won with ease, even with off race. Yet, we're talking about best of ones in minor events, of tournaments the Hungarian didn't train for a lot. We also know that Sziky also beat a row of Koreans and is the guy to smash the rest of the international scene. Hm. Hard to say, but these two will battle it out, unless there's an outbreak of SARS in Hungary in the States.

Lickypiddy Challenge

So, LiquiDpedia offers us to edit stuff. Hopefully, this topic will help us all to have some more hype for the tournament, so we don't just migrate to the streams and talk there. Let's actally try to predict outcomes here. Let's LickypiddyBet on this.

How to do that? Easy, go over to Liquipedia and enter the scores. It's still possible. I created a copy&paste code for you, which will generate a list of games. Just fill in the results, add them to your userspace and you're almost done; you also have to copy&paste the URL to your predictions and post them in this thread.

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/User:GeckoXp/OpenHeatExample

+ Show Spoiler [how to edit] +

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