Only four TLCs have been played so far yet we've borne witness to some amazing games and upsets and have seen various strong contenders battle it out for the TLC champion title. Overall, Scan, a player of Korean descent who was allowed to participate in TLC did not end up disappointing his supporters as he beat trutaCz in both TLC1 and TLC2, eOnzErG in TLC3 and ifu.spx in TLC4 finals on his way to 4 first place finishes. He had several clean runs and ended up with an overall record of 12-2 in the finals, only dropping 2 games to trutaCz after he offraced in TLC1.

Despite his good form and strong gameplay, Scan had quite a few scares along the way. In TLC1, he met noname on Paranoid Android, a map that was replaced with Destination in TLC2 due to mining imbalances. In a bizarre but exhilarating match, Scan fought back and won against noname who matched his every move and even took a small advantage at one point. In TLC2, Scan had another scare against Dandy, a Peruvian terran who placed third in TLC1 after beating Julia. On Destination, Dandy decided to play protoss and failed his proxy 2 gates strategy after it was scouted and destroyed. However, he rallied back and with a bulldog strategy caused massive damage at Scan's natural with Scan barely surviving by the skin of his teeth to take the game later on.

Several other players also distinguished themselves through their gameplay. Trutacz was pretty dominant against the competition, only dropping a single game to Dandy in TLC1 and had a clean run in TLC2 before he met Scan in both finals. He was upset in TLC3 by Vanatir who won after opening with a cannon rush at trutaCz's choke on Tau Cross (trutaCz learned from his loss, and in TLC4, he blocked his choke with a drone). Vanatir went on to make it to the semifinals where he forfeited his game with Scan citing lag complaints and forfeited his third place match giving the win to dsaqwe.

Trutacz was also upset in the semifinals of TLC4 by ifu.spx, a terran player, and ended up 5 pooling twice for a quick 2-0 win against Brain[Pain] in the third place match. It turned out that Brain[Pain] was afk for a long time because he was watching the stream, while trutaCz just wanted to go to bed after waiting for over an hour for the third place match.

Other notables include:

• Sero: A promising terran player (see interview below) who used bio in TvP to beat LancerX on Tau Cross.
  
• Drone: A previous Norweigen champion who showed some impressive games against Julia in TLC1 but suffered from some connection problems later on.
  
• Adelscott: A previous protoss SCII player who had strong goon micro and beat Terror using a proxy goon build as well as Dandy before losing to Scan in the semifinals of TLC4.
  
• dsaqwe: A Croatian protoss player who played the longest PvZ games in TLC history killing both casters and viewers in the process.
  
• eOnzErG: A Spanish Zerg player who placed Top 3 in both TLC2 and TLC3.
  
• ToT)Naugrim: It's hard not to get excited by seeing that awesome ToT) clan tag. Naugrim is an old school player that has been getting eliminated in ZvZs so far, but definitely someone to keep an eye on.

If all of that didn't excite you enough about the TLCs, here's a video made by Stratos, which features some of the most interesting moments from our casts.

One of the main reasons why we're organizing these weekly tournaments is to get players excited to play and compete in BW. However, unless you're one of the top players, it can become a bit frustrating at times trying your hardest only to fall somewhere in the middle of rankings. Some people find this extremely motivating though, when they see how much more there is to improve themselves. But in any case, it's very hard to step into the spotlight unless you're one of the best.

That's why in our TLC write-ups, we'll try to shine a light at some of the players who might not otherwise be noticeable and in a small way, try to show our appreciation for their participation. Invitational tournaments with only the best players have their place, but tournaments like these, which are open to all colors of the ICCup ladder rankings, are special. Here, an average Joe, with his freshly acquired bright yellow icon on ICCup, can play with best of the best and get crushed in the process. This can be highly inspiring for our average Joe, or utterly demoralizing; the choice is his.

The first player we're featuring in our spotlight, is none other than Sero! Hardly an average Joe, but with only 3 years of playing BW under his belt and not missing a single TLC yet, we just had to get to know this up-and-comer more closely.

Since our initial announcement of the TeamLiquid Legacy Cup series, we have maintained that the primary purpose of the series is to strengthen the activity and support of the foreign BW scene. We've continued with that goal, and everything that has been done so far has been done in the hope of fostering a more active foreign scene.

Community members who have been following TLC news will undoubtedly know about the controversy caused by the decision to allow Scan to play. This decision was made on the premise that even though Scan might not be a "foreigner" in the traditional sense of the word, he has been a part of the foreign BW community for so long that it would be wrong to leave him out. This was also true for other Korean players like Pro7ecT, Michael, Bizzy etc. At the same time, we also wanted to allow non-Korean players who are currently residing in Korea. And thus, we made an addendum to our eligibility rule by stating that exceptions could be made on case-by-case basis.

When we first discussed Scan's case, it seemed obvious to us that he should be allowed to play because he has been a part of the foreign BW community for so long. We knew about the skill difference between Scan and other players, but not allowing a member of our community to play because he was simply too good seemed slipshod at best. Also, at the time, we thought that having Scan in the tournament might even prove beneficial for the scene in the long run; encouraging players to practice and push their limits.

However, with the lengthy discussion that followed in the forums, we realize that we may have been overly optimistic and naive when thinking about our long-term plans. There is a good chance that having Scan in the TLCs might be detrimental to the goal of increasing the activity of the foreign BW scene at the moment. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen, but given the very real chance of it being true and having the goal of TLC in mind, we have no option but to take that chance. That is why we have decided to revoke Scan's permission to participate in further TLCs.

This is one of the hardest decisions we have had to make. Scan is a contributing member of our community and we wish nothing more but to see the situation in foreign BW scene improve to the point where this wouldn't have been an issue in the first place. We'll be monitoring the progress of the TLCs very closely to see if our decision has a positive impact. We also maintain the right to review our decision at a future time.

A word from Scan himself:

That about wraps it up for our first write-up on TLCs so far. We're planning on giving you an update after each four cups along with the updates on TLS, so stay tuned! Until then, be sure to tune in each Saturday at 19:00 GMT (+00:00) for exhilarating cast of some BW action.

Players. It's your time to shine! Registration is open for TLC #5



If you have missed any of our previous TLCs, you can look around the Liquipedia page at Legacy Cup, for full results, VODs and replays.

And as always, a big thanks to our sponsor: Rus_Brain