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Hello Ponytellers and welcome to a new issue of the numbah one magazine in all of teamliquid.net. When working for a theme for this issue, disciple came up with "winter". When it comes to thinking about the seasons It's kind of odd living in the southern hemisphere in this aspect. Let me give you some insight.

Right now, everyone in the US is talking about the snowstorms. That makes for 40% of teamliquid's population (I made that number up but it's probably pretty close). While you guys talk about snow on the roads and no school, it never snowed where I live, and just three days ago we had 40°C and 90%+ humidity. So it's kind of hard for me to get in the mood for the whole winter thing.

Luckily, as always, I have disciple working with me, who lives in the north. This month we had Lip working with us too (from the north too!). He has been a great addition to Pony Tales as you can see, making the artwork you see in this edition, as well as the comic for the Caption Contest.

As always, funsies, bans and the things you are used to, but hopefully, better.

"Happy winter"

-itw

The Sports & Games section is growing more every day. Even though Teamliquid is a Starcraft site, as time passes by we find people making threads on other games to play with TL users. This could be for a variety of reasons. Maybe people just want a casual game when they get tired of Starcraft. There are also those who watch Starcraft games live, but rarely play themselves. Of course, maybe TL users just feel at home playing with others from the site. Whatever it may be, these other games are a lot of fun. I experienced my fair share with Travian back in the day and more recently League of Legends.

This month I saw a thread about a game called Haven & Hearth.

The game basically plays out like this: you start off a hobo in the middle of nowhere and you are basically as skilled as a worm. You begin checking your surroundings and doing basic things, such as lighting a fire or building a place to sleep. As you do this, you gain points to spend on stats or skills which unlock more interactions with your surroundings. The game has no 'goal'. Meaning you can go and play it a la Minecraft or you can, you know, organize yourself with some fellows and go kill people. If you are interested in playing, you should read the two threads available (here and here) and try to contact fellow TLers so you don't start like me, in the middle of the woods alone and drowning because you thought you could swim when you barely started playing.

From the List of Common Misconceptions thread.

Pretty interesting overall, but this stands out:

Craving for some ESPORTS?

TLSubs team put up the first episode of Boxer's Wings. You can watch and comment on it here.

popzags made a list of what he thinks are some of the most memorable Brood War games, year by year. You can see the list here

If only banlings had tools like this at our disposal...

From the [GSL] Code A Ro16 Day 4 / Code S Ro16 Group D thread.

From the "Wife is fine with naming our son Terran." thread.

From the Picture of Jinro thread:

On the Demuslim with broken hand after "skirmish" thread:





and...

A thread about all the physical aspects of a male narrows down to penis size, but that's to be expected I guess. Incontrol gives us a nice summary of the first pages here.

I expect most people to have seen this, since mods have been changing the title back and forth. Some of the titles used include:

'How not small is your penis?'
'TL Penis Discussion: It's a long story'
'War Of the Worlds 2: The Tripods attack'
'All dongs go to heaven'
'The Penis Club: An insideHer Story'
'The longest yard... is in my pants.'
'You know what they say about guys with large post counts...'
'Anybody else have back problems?'
'Woodstock? Discuss'

And more:

In the "You can break a Zealot wall with Zerglings" thread:

Hordes of posters, white knights and trolls. Lord of The Rings or the blog section?

Be sure not to miss JackMcCoy's posts here, here and here.

In the thread: [Photos] CJ training house!

Fear of the Grack, watch here.

Thank God for Day[9], watch here.

Dan (Stan Parody) ft. Smix and Suspense!!, watch here.

From the latest imbalance thread:

The 'letsgosc' saga:
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2
3
4

I know it's from last month, but I just couldn't leave this out!

Caption the Comic is easy. Every month we will be putting up a comic with empty chat bubbles courtesy of Lip!
Your job: to make it funny. Add dialogue into the bubbles, a title if needed, and submit your version here. At the end of the month, we will pick the best entry and feature it in the next Pony Tales!

Here's what you get to work with this month:

The first of our Ten Commandments reads "This is our House". It is perhaps the loosest of rules - we welcome everyone, you don't have to knock, you don't have to take off your shoes, and it's pretty much okay to slouch on the couch, put your feet up, and turn on the TV.

Yet, TeamLiquid.net is the home of the Liquid` team and pretty much foreign StarCraft as a whole. It therefore strikes me as close to unbelievable that people still come here, to the forum, to the IRC, to the Teamspeak, and slag off our beloved players and casters. And I don't mean the, "That was dumb, running those roaches into twenty tanks," type critique. It's gone as far as, "Fucking noob scrub should go back home." What? Are you FUCKING serious?! YOU DON'T GET TO DO THAT.

Imagine walking into the Manchester United Fanclub pub, climbing on a chair, and proclaiming loudly that their top striker sucks donkey balls. In your mind, paint me the picture of what would happen to you.

...

Yes, you probably would be bottled in the face.


¤ to bottle in the face /tuːˈbɒtəl ɪn ðə feɪs/ verb.
Breaking a glass bottle on someone's face and consequently stabbing said person's said face with the remaining sharp end.

So yeah, although I sometimes wish we could give these offenders the good old knuckle-cracking hooligan treatment, you guys can consider yourselves FUCKING LUCKY to only get a virtual kick or ban, rather than having your facial features mauled savagely by a drunk angry Brit.

The Serial Killer
In Mafia, one of the hardest roles to play is the serial killer. The town gets to be with the crowd, the mafia gets his scum buddies, but the serial killer is all by himself. In fact, no serial killer has won a game of TL Mafia.

As serial killer, you have a great survival role. You can’t be killed at night, so as long as you are not lynched, you win! Of course, surviving is harder than it sounds. Lurk too much, and the town will probably kill you, thinking that you’re mafia. Be too active, and the mafia will hit you. Sure, they’ll fail, but they will then try to get you lynched.

A great way to do this is to stay below the radar by making a few good posts with new analysis. This way, when someone tries to analyze you, they’ll get nothing. But at the same time, you are able to shy away from attention so people aren’t really concerned with analyzing you or killing you. Staying in the limelight is a great way to be killed, so be the random townie that’s too afraid to vote differently than everyone else.

Hit List: Who to Use Your Night Kills On
Detectives - These people can expose your role and make your life really hard. It’s a good idea to try to take these out before they can investigate you.

Mafia - If you kill too much of the town, you might just lose the game if the mafia takes over. Hit a few mafia, and the town won’t be so concerned with trying to figure out who you are.

Emergency! You’ve Been found!
Don’t worry; it’s not the end of the world. You can still win. Just convince the town that you’ll help them win. In Mafia XXXIV, after being recognized, the serial killer claimed his role to the town and tried to help them kill some mafia. If you somehow get the game down to one townie, one mafia, and yourself, you win!

--
About the Mafia Forum: Ever wanted to argue and stalk people? Ever wanted to have the power of tasting the blood of newly killed innocents? Ask for permission here!

Hidden Expo

It's Sunday, 4 o' clock in the afternoon, and I’m just waking up. In an hour the national football team will be playing against Argentina, all my friends are gathering in different houses or pubs just to watch the game. I get several invitations but I respond to none. I go down the stairs to eat my “breakfast”, my sleep scheduled is definitely messed up.
I turn on the TV, where the newscasters are talking about some miners getting trapped inside a mine in the north, I quickly change the channel, is the eleventh time in the week they have reported the same story. I go to the PC and quickly log on to teamliquid to read the post game interviews. Sadly it’s the same as usual, “Thanks to my coach and partners who helped me practice” says the winner. Oh, how I miss Savior.
I live in a country where sport is synonymous with football, tennis barely appears in the news and others like basketball, rugby, boxing or hockey are simply not considered “worth it”. When I was young I wanted to play ice hockey like the “Anaheim Mighty Ducks” or escape from a dog like the guy from “The Sandlot”. We even discussed some of the play of the “Little Giants” with my friends. Wrong country, I suppose.
It didn’t get any better when I discovered Broodwar. That video of Boxer bunker rushing Yellow, the commentators screaming like it’s the end of the world while the crowd goes wild moving those dildo-like sticks. And I’m sitting here, 22.000 kms of ocean between me and the Coex Mall. Wrong country, definitely.
But If I have it hard? What about the others? I have to stay awake till 8 am to watch the games but I still have broadband and teamliquid. Maybe there’s a young monk trying to load the 2005 pimpest plays from a crappy wifi in Tibet. Maybe there’s a soldier hidden on a Carrier on his way to Guam, frantically pressing F5 to check a Battle Report.
I wanted to know hows the Starcraft fandom around the world and went to ask them.


Luna

Its 7 am in Karachi, Pakistan, and waking up isn’t hard. I skip breakfast just of the excitement; I get to the university early and while I go through the metal detectors and the armed guards I can only think about my lunch; today SKT1 is playing, and I’m craving for some Bisu.
Time magazine picked my country as the most dangerous place to live in, and while I can’t tell you exactly how true that is, I do know this. Shit happens here, a lot. You can be mugged at gunpoint pretty much anywhere if you are careless, or if it’s just not your lucky day a bomb goes off and that’s it, gg.
But today I don’t care about that shit. I get to my house and my mom is watching the news, she yells “Fuzzy, come and watch the news with me!”
I refuse; I don’t want to be bothered by some corrupt politician or another riot by the uneducated mass that populates the city. I quickly grab my lunch and head to my room, the first match is just starting, I’m in Jannat.
I got Starcraft 8 years ago as a gift from an uncle in the US; he came with a square shaped present, a magic box that took me 6 years to fully realize it’s potential. While I used to play Warcraft 3 and Counter Strike competitively (I can picture some redneck looking for some irony here) it wasn’t till 2 years ago, while randomly looking trough videos in youtube that I truly discovered Broodwar.
The game was Tempest vs Light on Byzantium II, it started with two cheesy marines and it ended with the most badass dragoon in the history of progaming: 32 kills. Why would I want to use a WC3 hero when in Broodwar I could make every single unit one?
After that I discovered Teamliquid and the rest grew exponentially. I started showing BW to my friends and visiting the pakgamers and wcck forums to find others like me, I stopped going to play Cricket and threw a couple of LAN parties even.
Lunch time is over and the ace match just finished, SKT1 won, can’t ask for a better dessert, if PayPal recognized my country I'd now be wearing the red T1 shirt to celebrate, can’t complain too much though, at least I don’t have to try to stay awake to watch the games.
I shut the PC and leave my house to hang out with my friends, a pleasure I probably won’t have in a couple of years. Most of them (either by their own will or encouraged by their parents) are thinking of leaving the country. Once I graduate, I’ll probably depart too. And while Cricket may not follow, I'm confident Starcraft always will.


The revolution will not be televised

I stand in the corner between Amistad and Dragones, I lay my back against the wall and light a cig while looking trough the ruins of an old abandoned building. I hear a familiar voice – Jordi, is that you. Its Jorge, I shake his and without looking as we start walking to the place of our reunion, we are planning the next HSL, we want to start a revolution. It’s a windy night in the Havana.
I came to Cuba when I was 4. My mother was assigned to work at the Mexican Embassy, the years passed and I started studying here, supposedly I was going to leave for college but I got the opportunity to stay here while going to law school
Because of the embargo there’s was no way any of us could have bought SC or BW, but while politics may restrict us, the internet knows no boundaries. Even though 90 percent of all connections here are 56k all that was needed was one guy with enough patient to wait through the download and we were set, soon everyone with a computer had Starcraft.
The SC (and BW) campaign was fun and enjoyable, but the the 2002 pimpest plays video and the increasing competition between friends started to change everything. While we couldn’t access battle.net and compete in the ladder, setting our modems to connect directly was easy and lag free.
Making a “scene” was the natural next step, the veterans would explain the game and teach the younger players whose desire for knowledge lead them to an even greater desire of competition, the “masters” of the past would become the rivals of tomorrow. Hardly anyone who follows a player doesn’t wants to also beat him.
At first it was just the people in Havana who started to throw small tournaments that never finished until one day, 3 people decided to organize a 32 people tournament. By the end it already had a name, the Havana Star League.
By the 5th edition I won 2nd place and decided to start actively participating in the organization. We began a team league while throwing small events like race wars. We have a mail list and regular weekly and monthly meetings to organize the various events in a scene that keeps on growing and attracts new players every day.
Today we have people in charge of the tournament, the promotion and the production of the final event. The “group” stage is done online and last 2 months while the finals and 3rd place are done after a month of preparation in front of a live audience. The 2010 Red Bull Havana Star League finals were nothing short of amazing.
Guevara once said, the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love. Well, this is our revolution, guided by a burning passion that hasn’t diminished in 8 years, and while our revolution may not be televised, rest assured that it will be live.


Thai rak esports

Maybe I should start by saying that I don’t practice Muay Thai. I tried boxing for 2 weeks but got beat up too bad and quit. I did use Sagat on Street Fighter 2 though, but come on, so did everyone, and while most foreigners will be amazed by all the bars and kathoeys here, believe me, there’s a lot more to do in Bangkok.
Starcraft is my passion, I started playing when I was just a kid 10 years ago and 4 years later, by my 17th birthday a friend showed me Battle.net and I got hooked. I loved the fact that it was more than how fast you moved your hands or how accurate you could click, this game required strategy and logical thinking. Broodwar was indeed the perfect game.
When SC2 was announced I became ecstatic, I did whatever I could to get my hands on a beta key and once I finally got one I started to play nonstop. Once it got released all that training paid off and I got invited to join MiTH. Whats even better, I finally could read “Jump” in the top 5 of the thai ladder.
I wanted to do more than just compete though, the BW scene was slowly dying here and while there were still some lonely fans cheering for their heroes fighting in the MSL and OSL the battle to preserve starcraft was pretty much lost. If we want SC2 to endure, we needed to be active about it.
Starcraft 2 gave us chance to keep the scene alive, new players were coming and the old ones that had left the game were taking it back up again. Sadly internet connections here aren't as massive and the internet cafés don’t have powerful enough computers for people to try SC2, which may end up turning SC2 away from the masses and into a niche game for the elite who can run it.
The government isn’t too helpful either, while in Korea they promote gaming, here they see it more as some kind of drug that corrupts the youth. I want to change that. I decided to fight against these perceptions by helping the community grow by moderating the forums and organizing tournaments.
But we still have hope though; while Dota and FPS are more popular with gamers, they are old now and SC2 still has a lot of future in it. I wish Blizzard would pay more attention to our community; after all, Thailand is pretty cheap so they can afford to take big risks. They can organize a GSL for half the price!
We are taking small but constant steps so that one day, when all that government obstacles are gone, a real “pro” scene can develop, and maybe I'll also be there playing, Mothership rushing like Kiwikaki , but even if I'm not playing, thaicybergames will be there, waiting.


Epilogue

Tonight is the Proleague and no friend would stay and drink with me until the game starts, there are no beers, no nachos or popcorn. Only me and the screen flashing while I eat the dinner leftovers and drink from a coke with hardly any gas left.
But at least I know I’m not alone, tonight is Proleague night and I join the others, those hidden expos of fandom around the world, into our daily passion.

From the "Why does it get so cold at nights?" blog.



At your orders!

From the Your calendar date is wrong! thread in Website Feedback.



Now that's a cute shame corner comment!

From the EU or NA ladder, which is harder? thread:

There's a bad thread, with bad drama. Nothing worst could happen right? Guess we were wrong:

BigT was just banned by Manifesto7.

That account was created on 2010-04-24 05:50:53 and had 304 posts.

Reason: "add me on facebook so that when I get banned from tl, which I obviously will, yo ucan still follow me"

You asked for it champ.

D3ath3nat0r was just temp banned for 2 weeks by Manifesto7.

That account was created on 2010-10-30 08:04:14 and had 138 posts.

Reason: Stop making posts in tech support. You constantly ask for advice about the same thing over and over. I don't believe you actually have a plan to build a computer. You are simply wasting people's time at this point.

If you are actually building a computer, you have now accumulated enough feedback to build optimus prime. Send him to my house and I will reverse the ban.

captain_boomeraang was just banned by Hot_Bid.
hotbid is my hero was just banned by zatic.
i luv hotbid was just banned by zatic.
ZaticAndTdaht 4ever was just banned by TheMango.
im not tdaht was just banned by zatic.
zatic is NOT homo was just banned by zatic.
tdaht begs for mercy was just banned by zatic.





dont time me bro was just banned by zatic.