The Life Fan Club - Page 104

MLG Winter 2013, 7 Impressions

MLG 2013 Winter Championship, ends with Lee Seung Hyun’s (Life’s) victory

For 3 days my night and day were reversed, but I don’t even care. Resisting the urge to sleep and missing out on the beautiful weekend weather, I instead spent my time with Starcraft 2 Heart of the Swarm. After watching the Starcraft 2 channels of the MLG 2013 championship, which was held from March 16th to the 18th, I felt the need to write down a few thoughts.

Lee Seung Hyun, Life becomes the Heart of the Swarm in style

StarTale Life’s victory is a worldwide topic of discussion. I honestly didn’t think a Zerg would win. Of course I kept thinking, “I guess Life could…,” but this MLG, as well as the IEM Season 7 Championships showed how strong Terran was. With an early Reaper harass opening followed up with Bio/Medivac/Widow Mine, Terran’s had a strong yet agile style of play that Zergs just could not keep up with.

But Life was different. He was different than any Zerg. Reapers, Hellions, and Widow Mines were all dealt with just Zerglings. Sacrificing a few lings to disable Widow Mines, then following up with a swarm of Banelings to overwhelm his opponent; his play was very much on the offensive side. Though he occasionally got into cost-inefficient battles, he controlled the flow of the game. This prevented any Terrans from using their drop play to harass. He also showed an incredibly smooth transition from a Zergling/Baneling combo into Mutalisks, Brood Lords, and Infestors.

Even during Wings of Liberty, Life had a style that no other Zerg had. In fact, there was no big disparity between his WoL play and HotS play. His Zerglings prevailed even before the renewed Reapers or even the new Widow Mines. This is “Life Style.”

It’s to the point where other Zerg players say, “It’s difficult to play like Life.” Whether it’s Brood War, Wings of Liberty, or Heart of the Swarm, a Zerg must act like a Zerg. I can’t judge exactly what that means, but in the current scene there is no other player more like a Zerg than Life.

The Ultimate Weapon Flash, his improvement is intimidating!

Finishing in second place, Lee Young Ho (Flash) was a very high-profile player in this tournament. There was word going around that Flash’s SCII skills were vastly improving and it showed that he is an ultimate weapon in SCII as well as in SCI.

Flash was victorious in Round 3of the 2013 GSL Season 1 Code A to enter Code S for the first time. In the Heart of the Swarm launch event he played a close series with Life, and secured a strong second place finish in the MLG finals. If you watch his games, it is clear that the Flash of Brood War days is coming to SCII. The way he used his impeccable macro to completely demolish his opponents was very reminiscent of his Brood War days.

It looked like Flash had found his favorite type of play. Terrans have a variety of styles to choose from but it seems he has found his own. He defeated foreigners with resilient force, out produced his Protoss opponents, and his TvT was just incredible.

Terran OP? The balance talks have started

‘Zerg won, but is Terran too strong?”

Though Zerg may have won this time, the race that had the spotlight was undoubtedly Terran. There were 10 in the round of 32, 8 in the round of 16, and 2 in the round of 4. Also, in any non TvTs, matches were almost universally one-sided.

The ‘Ignite Afterburners” ability got the most flak for its ability to make Medivacs rush in and out of bases while Zergs and Protoss had no choice but to watch. There was even discussion between the casting crew through SNS.

There is no answer to this balance issue. Over time, players may figure out how to deal with it on their own. Sometimes, Blizzard puts out a patch right away. We don’t need an overheated debate, but a calm exchange of opinion cannot hurt in the least. It’s interesting to see the Terran morale suddenly turning around with the coming of Life, making balance talks a little more thought-provoking.

Heart of the Swarm, it’s a lot more fun to watch

Though only a few units were added to each race, along with a few more being tweaked, the game has become much more entertaining to watch. This MLG there were more games that were long and close to the end than there were short, disappointing ones. It shows that Heart of the Swarm is a much more dynamic game than Wings of Liberty was.

Choi Ji Sung (Bomber) had a game that lasted about 80 minutes, and there were many TvZ final battles. Protoss players showed new builds and timing rushes using the Mothership Core and Oracle, and Terran’s use of Widow Mines made watching the game tense and enjoyable. Especially, the fact the Widow Mines can hurt friendly units was much like the Spider Mines of Brood War days. As the players’ understanding of the game increases, I am sure that there will be much more to look forward to.

The greatest content of Heart of the Swarm, “Restore Game”

From the launch event, the ability to restore the game was used very smoothly. Even in this MLG, there were quite a few times where they were able to continue the game by restoring from the replay instead of having to re-game.

Seeing as how well this function works already, I can see it being used continuously from now on as well. It has even been said to be “the best aspect of Heart of the Swarm.” Of course, there can be situations like when Jang Min Chul (MC) was given the observer status during his match against Jung Jong Hyun (Mvp). But as the players and staff learn to use this function, I believe it will be used well in the GSL, GSTL, Starleague, and Proleague.

The difference between Koreans and foreigners

“You can do it foreigners!”

Koreans dominated in this MLG. It came to no surprise however. But it is a little sad to see the difference getting bigger and bigger. Though Korean players have many foreign fans, players like Liquid Ret were showered with cheers. It would be nice to see some foreign players that intimidate even the Koreans in the SCII eSports scene.

In this tournament there was not one foreigner who advanced after beating a Korean. Even the fan favorite Ilyes Satouri (Stephano) lost 0:3 in the round of 32. The skill difference was to the point where no foreigner was able to take more than one map off of any Korean.

The American casting, the fans' “to the end” attitude

The second day ended way after 1am. There were many matches that day and since many of them went over 30 minutes, the casters and the audience were dead tired by the time Life vs. Polt started in the round of 16. But these people showed such an amount of enthusiasm even through exhaustion.

The light jokes and humorous comments from the casters helped alleviate the feel of the environment, sweetening it up a bit. When Polt built his Fusion Core, you could see fans dancing with the movement of the building. It was as if we were watching a basketball as the fans yelled “Defense!” and “Offense!” in unison. Though it may not seem much to some, the passion and pure enthusiasm of the foreign fans have left us Koreans with a very good impression.