|
I joined TeamLiquid in December of 2007. I joined because although I was one of the best players in a small group of friends, a guy named Yaqoob beat me and two of my friends in a 1v3 on Luna. When I asked him how he got to be so good at the game he said he frequented a website called TeamLiquid that had VODs of pro players and strategy discussion. Looking back at the almost decade I've been part of this community, I have had a share of good times and bad. With Starcraft: Remastered coming out in one week, I have been getting back in to Brood War, and visiting TeamLiquid actively again. I thought it could be fun to go over a few of the memorable experiences I've had due to TeamLiquid - so without further ado and in no particular order:
1 - Greg Meadows - TeamLiquid Attack with Idra
IdrA's name is Greg Fields. A meadow is somewhat similar to a field. Therefore, Greg Meadows. SuperiorWolf played IdrA in 2008 on TL Attack, which was a variation of the Korean show Battle.net Attack in which a pro player would play a variety of random players. I was on ventrilo with SuperiorWolf as he tried to beat IdrA, and when it became clear he wasn't going to win, he started to spam GREG MEADOWS in chat in an attempt to make IdrA pick me for his next match.
Below is a link to the TL Attack. You can hear Chill's deadpan narration, "SuperiorWolf continually spamming Greg Meadows for some unknown reason."
youtu.be
Here's another hilarious comment from Chill, "GregMeadows this better be an incredible game for all the people you've had spamming for you all day." SuperiorWolf was the only one who was spamming it at first, but the fact that he did it with such insistence encouraged other people to do it too. It worked out and I got my game with IdrA.
youtu.be
The match begins and I chose Longinus as the map. I'm a Protoss player, IdrA is a Terran player. Longinus was a unique map in that it didn't have much of a choke into your natural or your main, and both locations were on the lowground. The reason I chose this map is because there was a particular build you could do on some maps called the 10/15 gate - in which you would wind up with a large number of ranged dragoons at a deceptively fast time. You had to cut probes to do it, so it was risky, but on a map where there isn't a small choke or high ground, it was very strong: youtu.be
Long story short - the attack was very successful, I did a good amount of damage and had I micro'd better I perhaps could have won the game, but I was very nervous because there was a large audience and my stupid gambit was actually paying off. I was listening to the stream while I played and at one point IdrA is asked, 'What's the skill level do you think of GregMeadows?' and IdrA complimented me saying that the build was smart and my micro was decent. Upon hearing this I immediately shit the bed and played very poorly - leading to IdrA commenting near the end of the game that it turns out I actually wasn't good at all, haha.
2 - Suppy's Bad Manners - TeamLiquid Attack with InControl
SuperiorWolf was fairly well known as he was a young boy on YouTube that did BroodWar commentaries with a lot of prepubescent enthusiasm - as such, he scored another appearance on TL Attack, this time against InControl. InControl is a Zerg player, but was playing Protoss against Suppy. I'm a Protoss player, and I don't know much, but one thing I do know is some annoying shit that Zerg players can do to Protoss. I was on ventrilo with SuperiorWolf for his game, telling him where InControl's units and buildings were and what to do. SuperiorWolf wound up winning and I told him it would be funny to make a commentary on the win: www.youtube.com
I told Suppy it would be funny if he made a very sarcastic commentary where he bragged about what a great win it was. Of course, the actual game itself is just Suppy making a lot of speedlings and trying to be as cheesey as possible, but that was a charm. After this commentary came out, someone made a post about the video and how Suppy was badmannering InControl. InControl posted in the thread about how it wasn't a great game, SuperiorWolf cheesed him, and he had a lot of nerve making a commentary about it. At that point he hadn't watched the video and later on he did and admitted it was just a stupid video that a 12 year old made for some fun.
The funny thing is between the first and second post of InControl's where he sees it's just a joke, SuperiorWolf was legit pissed off at me because I told him it would be a funny video and now InControl, someone he respected thought he was an asshole. Of course later on when SuperiorWolf became a foreign pro for Starcraft II he was on EG - the same team as InControl.
3 - TeamLiquid vs SC2GG Showmatch
As a perpetual C level Protoss player, TeamLiquid's strategy section was usually out of my depth - I didn't have a lot of valuable information to contribute, even though I wanted to. SC2GG was a fairly new website - it's gimmick was that it was going to prepare for the influx of new players that SC2 would bring, but in the meantime, it catered to Brood War players. I moderated the strategy forum on SC2GG and as such, was considered 'staff'.
Although not much of a rivalry in terms of userbase - I think a lot of people on SC2GG viewed TeamLiquid as elitist, and some at TeamLiquid viewed SC2GG as a joke. At some point a showmatch between the staff at both sites was organized. I can remember the thread in the staff section of the SC2GG forum - going over who TeamLiquid was going to send out. Amount them were Rage and Chill - who I think were both B or B- on iCCup. Psyonic Reaver was going to play versus Rage, but they didn't have anyone to play versus Chill.
The last match was going to be Chill vs a SC2GG staff member on Andromeda - which is a non-standard map in it's layout. Chill was considered by the staff to be the best player and they asked if I would play him - no one else wanted to do it, especially not on Andromeda. I agreed and practiced about 60 PvZ's on Medusa on iCCup versus C+ Zerg's to try and get ready.
The first problem was that PvZ on Andromeda can be difficult. I wasn't a very good Protoss to begin with - C+ at the time - and most of the pro games I watched on the map utilized corsair / reaver - which seemed like a bad idea for a player of my skill. Ultimately I settled on just playing a normal PvZ and seeing where it took me.
youtu.be
What followed was a total collapse. As odd as it sounds - I had not really ever seen someone play the type of game that Chill did. The games I played on Andromeda, the Zerg would either go for mutalisks or hydralisks - and it was clear which one it was. What Chill did was this type of build: wiki.teamliquid.net
That style of play was new to me at the time - it was either something that was newly developing and hadn't been adopted by C+ Zerg players on the ladder yet, or just C+ players I played weren't using it. I scouted Chill making a spire after three hatcheries and started to prepare for mutalisks by making dragoons - instead, Chill just went into hydralisk. My confusion at what he was doing combined the nerves of playing in front of a large audience resulted in the game I played.
When the show-match happened, Yaqoob was at my house. There was a stream delay, so when I typed 'gg' and left, Yaqoob was still watching on his laptop with his headphones on. I turned around and his back was to me as he watched a few more minutes until he saw that I had conceded on the stream. Yaqoob takes off his headset, turns around and looks at me. Then he says, "Man.. Chill raped you, eh?" Thanks, Yaqoob hahaha.
After the game I got some pretty brutal comments and PMs - the thread of the showmatch is still up and you can see the aftermath: www.teamliquid.net. Later on in a Toronto meet-up I got to play Chill again in a rematch on Chupung-Ryeong. Chill won but it was a good game and I was happy to have somewhat redeemed myself- although no one besides a few Canadians saw it.
______
And that's it! With SC:Remastered coming out I hope there will be an influx of new people, both to the game and to the site. For veterans of the site though it's fun to look back - here's to another 10 years.
|
I have so many good memories playing with everyone in op swbk such as Superiorwolf, Gladstone, Sharpie, Ahzz, everyone else and you 
I can't wait for SC:R to be released so we can play together again!
Here's to 10 more years on Teamliquid!
|
United States24719 Posts
I didn't know that bit about Yaqoob and Salv meeting in a 1v3 lol good story.
I'm looking forward into bumping into people again when SC:RM comes out and I start playing again after a very long hiatus (I have no delusions of grandeur though). Even seeing names like Gladstone and Ahzz is very nostalgic. My only notable interaction with suppy was playing go with him and discussing the game afterwards on vent or teamspeak or whatever a long time ago.
|
Wooo SCC reunion on SC:R!!!
Salv, I remember you being a pretty strong player and I'd try to get you to show up to CW's for SCC but was not too successful heh.
|
On August 08 2017 09:11 Jonoman92 wrote:
Wooo SCC reunion on SC:R!!!
Salv, I remember you being a pretty strong player and I'd try to get you to show up to CW's for SCC but was not too successful heh.
Are you going to be playing SC:R? I've slowly been trying to reconnect with players I remember and get a bit of a community going again - that was before I found the discord that Faust is a moderator for - he's done a good job of it already, haha. Look forward to seeing you on there, maybe I'll finally be able to steal a PvP game off you - but I doubt it
|
Not sure how much I'll play but I'll certainly give it a try.
|
TLADT24920 Posts
"I was on ventrilo with SuperiorWolf for his game, telling him where InControl's units and buildings were and what to do."
Surprised that no one jumped on you guys for cheating lol or was that allowed back then? 
Good read. Wasn't around for any of this stuff so always nice to read about TL's past.
|
United States24719 Posts
I'm pretty sure watching the stream was considered 'ok' because it was kind of unavoidable and there was a somewhat significant delay.
On the other hand, when I played against sea[shield] I turned off the stream because I was worried it would distract me
|
God nothing is more humiliating than losing my game vs RaGe hahaha.
It was a fun showmatch, and the TL vs GosuGamers.com showmatch, despite the drama around it. It's too bad there really is no chance for anything like that to ever happen again.
Welcome back Salv. You know where to hit me up.
|
On August 08 2017 08:10 micronesia wrote:
I didn't know that bit about Yaqoob and Salv meeting in a 1v3 lol good story.
I'm looking forward into bumping into people again when SC:RM comes out and I start playing again after a very long hiatus (I have no delusions of grandeur though). Even seeing names like Gladstone and Ahzz is very nostalgic. My only notable interaction with suppy was playing go with him and discussing the game afterwards on vent or teamspeak or whatever a long time ago.
I remember Ahzz. I remember watching a bunch of his Zerg videos when I started BW. He helped my ZvP and actually was why I hit C for the first time copying his builds .
|
Thanks for the writeup... very fun to read.
|
United States889 Posts
I wish TL still did things like Tl.net attack and showmatches (Chill vs. Combat-Ex missing btw) like 08-10. Those were the best years. /nostalgia
|
On August 08 2017 10:41 BigFan wrote:"I was on ventrilo with SuperiorWolf for his game, telling him where InControl's units and buildings were and what to do." Surprised that no one jumped on you guys for cheating lol or was that allowed back then? Good read. Wasn't around for any of this stuff so always nice to read about TL's past.
Like Micronesia said, I think anything was allowed. The whole point of the show was to illustrate how big of a difference there is between a top player and just the average player. They would put restrictions on the player some matches, like you have to make wraiths, or you have to off-race this match just to make it competitive.
|
Calgary25986 Posts
Seems like SuperiorWolf was the source of many of your Starcraft problems
It was a great read - made me go back and watch the old TL vs SC2GG vods.
I think you are underselling the Chupung-Ryeong game. If I remember correctly you denied my natural and I had to break out of my main, resulting in a crazy long game that went to the entire map. I remember it being a very close game. I wish I still had old replays, because my memory is terrible.
|
Lmao I just watched the TL.net attack with IdrA and I can't believe I didn't gg out until I was down to my last building. So fucking BM haha. I remember being so proud afterwards when I think IdrA said I was maybe a C or C+ player. But yeah my memory of everything is pretty faded too especially since I was so young and stupid so this was a great post to read That TL attack actually has 23,000 views on Youtube which I feel like is quite a lot for how small and tight-knit our community felt back then. Hearing Chill and Hot_Bid commentary on it is pretty nostalgic
During your showmatch vs Chill on Andromeda I was so hyped and convinced you would win, I remember being so super disappointed and embarrassed when you lost haha. All the TL veterans gave me quite a bit of shit for that after the showmatch Glad you guys were able to get a rematch that seemed to give the matchup the hype it deserved!
Also I don't remember being mad at you afterwards for telling me to make that IncontroL commentary video, if anything I feel like now it is one of my crowning achievements XD. Funny how it is that I ended up on EG with him and IdrA after I used to bm them so hard on teamliquid. Some people on Reddit dug up some old posts of me just shitting on IdrA nonstop and it was pretty funny to read
Definitely interested in playing some SC:R if I ever have the time. We need to have rivalries and showmatches again
Oh yeah and before I forget, one of my fondest memories was when we met up at Niagara and got some brunch food and the waitress asked me how I would like my eggs done and I just stared at her and had no idea what she was asking. I will never forget how to order eggs after that experience LOL
|
On August 09 2017 00:32 Superiorwolf wrote:Funny how it is that I ended up on EG with him and IdrA after I used to bm them so hard on teamliquid. Some people on Reddit dug up some old posts of me just shitting on IdrA nonstop
Hahaha, that's awesome!
Hope to see you online :D
|
TLADT24920 Posts
Ah I see, ya, makes sense. Seeing as he was a pro, he should technically win even if you were telling your friend what he was doing or where his units are etc...
|
Nice writeup. Definately brings back memories... And the dedication that was put into playing this game for a notable portion in my life.
It's funny to think back how I, or just about anyone seemed to get pissed for 'BM attitude', whatever that even means. I'm pretty sure that just about anyone of those getting angry would be pretty indifferent about it.
Or maybe not, after all, the foreign community was pretty tightly knit together and it would be impossible to avoid interaction again.
Because I dedicated so much time to SC at the time, I sometimes felt bad for 'wasting my time', but I've realized that I've learned many life lessons in competitive SC that I've come to appreciate only later.
I doubt nostalgia can bring me to play SC:RM anytime soon, but there sure were some fun times.
|
I really enjoyed this blog for some reason. Lol, more please?
|
United States24719 Posts
Well the game is out and people are starting to play SC:RM! Let's meet up at some point.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
