EPTPlay this while reading
Background Information
If you spend your last few years under a rock, you might not know what Defiler.ru is, or what the tournaments are supposed to mean. That's rather bad, because you missed out on the best international Brood War – and that's not the fanboy speaking here, that's a fact. Ever since winter 2010 the Russians organized tournaments on their newly done, well, how to say, „fan page“, defiler.ru. And with „the Russians“ I mean the magister
yoda himself. Back then he was a nobody, really. Just another nerd wanting to promote Brood War. That he did by coding a tournament script, a chat and a stream overview. More wasn't needed. Ever since, Defiler's community donated significantly more than $5000 and hosted a clan league, hundreds of small show matches, more than 75 tournaments and covered any important offline (!) event in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Chelyabinsk (hope I got that written correctly).
Winning a Defiler edition is rather hard and only few did it more than once. Most notably,
Sziky and Scan managed to fight for the eternal Defiler throne for the better part of the last three years. Personally, I'd say they're about tied for that place, even though Sziky won more gold medals. Yet, Scan long tried to win with offrace, went to sleep sometimes or whatever. Well, if they both meet, and that's the important part, shit's going down. It's not really a secret, their rivalry took part elsewhere too. However, the most derby matches happened in Defiler. The Caster
The caster, also the organizer, is called „yoda“. You should adress him with „magister yoda“. He's like the Don of the page, the mafia boss, the master of puppets and the most chaotic and lazy person you will ever meet.
Aside from being a capable player in his own right, he is mostly known to stream any game he can while the tournament progresses. Many people might argue that the best caster of all time is Day[9], and that Sayle is the go-to guy for great shows past SCII Beta, but I say: You have never heard yoda the great, the emperor, the defiler of newbs. He can't really speak English well, he's casting in Russian. Which doesn't matter, like at all. He's the real deal. He doesn't artificially scream, since he doesn't need to. He's living the game, his camera is always on point and on top of it all, his humor translates into English.
Even if, like really if, there's a downtime or the games are boring, you never know what the magister will do. Or his wife. Because he's backed up by lovely Asja (I think that's her name), who makes up for good entertainment. If the magister has to wait for players to start, she'd play a grudge match against the ghastly Garm Brood, or if the game is too one sided, she'd take over the mic and sing „My Heart Will Go On“. Yes, that happened. And yes, I hope you burn in hell, to the guy who made my edit of „Asja vs. Garm Brood“ disappear on Liquipedia.
Before I forget, learn this phrase: boom, boom su4ka (Boom Boom Suchka)
Ten Notable Players
Only 39 people are signed up thus far and it's hard to say if that'll be all or if someone else will sign up as well. For now, these are the guys to look forward to:
1. Sziky
Well not much to say here. If there's money the vampire will come from his grave and haunt the foreign scene. There's no statement to ask for, as he would most likely say something like „is for google.translate, there money, sziky now has good day, thank you zergling. And today no work but throatwobbling“.
2. eOnzErG
I haven't really watched any streams other than to have something open while watching Snooker in the past months. However, eOn usually plays very well and is a good Zerg. If he really is on top of his game he's one of the players with a higher l ikelihood to take some games from Sziky in a mirror. The Spaniard's also does not have to fear anyone else in the grid – at least for now, you don't know if Scan turns up or the odd Korean semi-pro comes over.
3. Alfio
The self claimed king of the foreign scene with his own version of Liquipedia, the Alfipedegia, has signed up. But, since I read enough Alfio lines for the rest of my life over at defiler, I can say this:
- Alfio has a huge member, so he doesn't need to play really good to win
- he already won any opponent at least ten times with off race
- his hands are cold and he has a woman waiting in his bedroom, maybe even two of them
- he hasn't trained Brood War since 1999
Here's probably what's going to happen to Alfio: He's going for an early stroll through his hometown shortly before the check-ins open. Then he'll chat up two or more likely three hot American super models in the St. Marco's square by accident and totally misses to sign up.
4. Tama
Now for some real cool shit. Tama is a Russian Protoss, already won a medal on Defiler and has a good record in international clan leagues. His play, especially against Terran, is really entertaining. His strategies make sense and he can pull down anyone if he sets his mind to it. I really, really am a fanboy, but right now, writer is too lazy to come up with more hype. Let's just hope Tama will check-in and play at his best. If he does, finally a non-Zerg might enter the top 3.
5. Dandy
Dandy is a Peruvian Terran player, who already showed his high skill in the SBWI Teamleague like a year ago. He won't play, I'm rather certain, he's like 10 hours behind in time zones and probably asleep when the tour starts.
6. Cryoc
Recently playing rather well, even against the better foreign Protoss players. About a year ago he was „only“ the vs. Zerg sniper of his team, the international Federation of Ubiquitous. However, from what I gathered, he mostly plays Protoss nowadays and most likely improved a ton. He played well in the recent Hearthstone tournaments, as well as in the German King of the Hill. Let's see how far he can come tomorrow.
7. Lancerx
The last really notable name of the list is the Russian sex machine and the destroyer of childhood dreams. Lancerx is the single most active player in the last three years. He came from a mediocre yellow rank to the international top circle for now, only by pure will to improve. Hands down, he is an awesome and funny person, with the ability to take down the best. His game vs. Zerg, imo, improved, but not enough to actually cause Sziky to shudder (or most of the international names). Yet, he might be good for some uproar or something.
8. Flisk
Feature this streamer. Now. Go TL.net staff, finally do something.
So, flisk has been streaming constantly these past months and played a ton on Fish's ladder against the better players of the world. Meaning, he fought Koreans and did rather well. You might still not know this Terran, but... Terran + Russia + APM>200 = Androide.
Honestly though, he took the stony road to improve and got good results in the biggest event this year: the Defiler Super Tournament. He made it to the fourth place, much adding to the awesome atmosphere over at the Defiler Chat. He really is good and imo the newcomer of this year. Why he hasn't received more attention is beyond me. Look out for him.
9. KycT
The Ukrainian Protoss named Bush is not bad either. He's one of the new comers as well and made himself a name in the other summer tournament of 2013 (name forgotten, the one Endy added to Liquipedia). He played some good games against better players and really impressed me back then.
On Defiler he's one of the veterans, always winning the first rounds but usually killed in the later stages. With less of the best signing up, he could be in the mix for the last eight. Let's see though.
10. Wallace
I don't know man, Wallace, I really don't know. A few weeks past I discovered pisstorm.eu and thought the page was splendid, because they had Wallace replays. I was hyped. Wallace does well and is one of those „newbs“ of 2010 who wouldn't lose themselves in their own rectum over losing against higher ranks. Instead, Wallace trained and he improved. By now, he would be a really worthy addition to any higher ranked clan, if there still were high ranked clan leagues. He is not bad by any means, and if he has a good day, he might pull some good names down.
However, his series against infamous German starplayer Fischei (not to be mistaken with FiSheYe) was so-so. Good games – no. Entertaining games – yes. Well... go Wallace regardless, I'll cheer for you. At least you have the best music of all those players.
So that's about it. Go sign up for the tournament and play the best there are left. It's really an awesome series, if you miss it, it's your fault alone.
Source: Defiler Tour 68 Live Report Thread
P.S.: Memes are forbidden, sadly. This topic needs more. Imagine dancing bears, pictures of Lancerx' face and almost naked women holding up signs for yoda. Just do it.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/bNN8s1Lb.jpg)
Flisk is really the up and coming player of this year to me so far. He has been doing very well in the defiler Super tour and i think we will see more good of him in the future. Also russian Terran -> rest
