Six months ago, the Intel Extreme Masters tournament at Gamescom Cologne came to a close. In the first major offline tournament in Starcraft 2's history, a global audience became familiar for the first time with the major players in the European scene and saw how up-and-comers, like Huk and DeMuslim, performed at their first SC2 live event. A major theme running through that tournament was imbalance: Morrow's 5 rax reaper play and his 3-1 win over Idra in the finals led to a 185-page thread on Team Liquid that was ultimately locked due to too much QQ. Additionally, for a tournament dubbed the "Global Challenge", the player list was very skewed towards Europeans: 13 players from the EU participated, 3 from the US, and zero from Korea.
In stark contrast to the tournament that ended half a year ago, the theme of the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship is balance. With five Europeans, three North Americans, three Koreans, and one Australian, this event will be the first ever offline SC2 tournament with a truly international composition. Furthering the theme, there are four Terran players, four Zerg players, and four Protoss players in attendance, with two of each race in each of the two groups. The games this weekend will be broadcast in English, German, Russian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Chinese. Most excitingly for English fans, the ESL has brought in a truly great trio of casters: Day[9], TheLittleOne, and Rotterdam, who will switch off on casting duties throughout the week.
The qualification method for this tournament involved ESL events all corners of the globe and granted fresh prominence to previously unknown casters and players alike. KellyMilkies, for example, was the main commentator for the IEM SEA qualifiers.
IEM Gamescom was the first great offline SC2 tournament, and the IEM World Championship looks to continue ESL's track record of excellence. This event will truly live up to its name. Get ready for an outstanding week of Starcraft 2 action!
Daily Schedule March 1st -- Group A March 2nd -- Group B March 3rd -- Quarterfinals March 4th -- Semifinals March 5th -- Grand Finals
All streams are free in LQ, and will not use Octoshape.
Arguably the top three players from their region, Fenix, QXC, and IdrA have show consistent results throughout their respective careers. Fenix and qxc qualified for this event through IEM America, where Fenix beat qxc 3-1 in the finals in a series that exhibited his excellent TvT. Fenix solidified himself as a fantastic TvT player when he beat oGsTOP 3-1 to take 3rd place in Dreamhack last November. Though he hasn't shown spectacular results in MLGs so far, he recently qualified for TSL 3 due to his excellent performance in TL Opens.
Qxc has similarly put out a steady stream of tournament wins and top finishes. After showing respectable results in MLGs, he won the second EG Master's Cup tournament in December, moved to Spain to study abroad, dropped by Assembly (only to get knocked out by HuK), and qualified for the TSL by winning a TL Open. His TvZ was strong enough to scare Idra at MLG DC and neither his TvT nor TvP are glaring weaknesses.
Idra, now that he has moved back to the States, is the best player outside of Korea. With consistently improving finishes in each GSL season, Idra proved that he can hang at the top in the most competitive SC2 scene in the world. Since winning the King of the Beta tournament, he's won every foreign tournament he's entered ( at least, he's won the ones that didn't have Kulas Ravine in the mappool. Come on, MLG!). We'll see if he can continue his success here at IEM.
The Europeans
The five European players, White-Ra, SjoW, Socke, Tarson, and MorroW, are some of the best that Europe has to offer.
The finals of IEM Europe featured two players, White-Ra and Sjow, who have taken radically different paths to get where they are. The winner of that finals, Sjow, was a 2v2 player in WC3 before taking up Starcraft 2, and has been wildly inconsistent in his short career. At one point, right after IEM Europe, he was able to confidently claim the title of top European Terran, and there were talks of him going to Korea to pursue a berth in Code A of GSL. But recently, Sjow has been on a major cold streak, losing to two unknown tosses in Assembly and to a Protoss named "Bubbles" in the FXOpen. He also wasn't able to qualify for TSL 3. Just yesterday, though, Sjow was able to beat EG.Axslav in a Bo7 showmatch, so there are signs that his TvP might be coming back to life.
The other finalist and the runner-up at IEM Europe was White-Ra, a fixture of both the SC:BW and SC2 communities. Only taking time off from crushing his enemies to get married, White-Ra has shown consistently excellent play. From his win of the HDH way back at the beginning of the beta, to his 3rd place finish at Blizzcon, to his 2nd place at IEM Europe, White-Ra has never given his fans reason to believe that he'll ever show anything but top-level Protoss play.
Morrow is perhaps the first player in Starcraft history to qualify for a massive tournament with one race and participate in it with another. His disassembly of Idra during IEM Cologne left the world screaming about Terran imbalance, yet Morrow switched races to Zerg shortly thereafter (claiming Terran was too easy in terms of mechanics), leading Idra to famously make the proclamation that if Morrow ever won a prize tournament with that race, he'd never say the word "balance" again. Multiple patches and several Terran nerfs later, that promise perhaps no longer holds any weight, but Idra's prediction seems to have taken the form of a curse: second place finishes in the SCreddit invitational, in Assembly, and in a TLopen mean that Morrow is likely itching to get the silver monkey off his back and win a major tournament with his new race. He's certainly got the skills to pull it off.
Frankly, I know nothing about Tarson, except that he was a SC:BW Terran who was brutally murdered by Nony during TSL 2. Check the comments of this story; Tarson fans may have written some facts about their favorite player if they aren't too busy yelling at me for being ignorant.
Socke rounds out the field, a top level Protoss with a few big money finishes under his belt. He isn't even supposed to be here at this tournament; he replaces DeMusliM, who is still suffering from his injury. Yet Morrow famously won IEM Cologne, even though he wasn't supposed to be there either (he replaced a player who had visa issues). Socke has history on his side, and having the EPS Germany title doesn't hurt, either.
Three Koreans and an Aussie
Amazingly, all four of these qualifiers were in Code A, and all four lost. $13,000 in prize money at IEM might be a worthy consolation prize, though.
Moon was almost certainly invited because of his celebrity status. The legendary WC3 player has been showing poorer results than his teammate, Lyn, and, to me, it seems like Zerg is just the wrong race for his style. Whatever the reason, Moon is probably weaker than most of the foreigners in this competition.
Ace is an ex-BW player who got an incredible amount of hype during his time on MBCGame Hero and then never actually accomplished anything. Now in SC2, he's managed to be stunningly mediocre, losing to weak players in the GSL, but showing pretty good results in team leagues.
mOOnGLaDe is a man with beautiful ZvT. He didn't show it in his Code A games, but this Aussie's ZvT is a work of art. He plays a very Idra-like management game, but in the games I've seen, he does it even better than Idra: in the FXOpen game I watched he didn't lose a single mutalisk unnecessarily, keeping the Terran restricted to two bases through fantastic harass and army control. His weakness is a lackluster ZvP.
Squirtle lost his recent GSL games vs Supernova, but we'll forgive him for that since he's just a cool player all around. With an all-kill in the GSTL, a legendary game vs MVP, innovative builds in his GSL appearances, and a screenname that makes countless jokes during GSL casts possible, Squirtle will be a fan favorite heading into this tournament. We'll see whether he can evolve his play to a high enough level to allow him to win it all.
Interview with Rotterdam
Hey! Thanks for doing this interview. Can you introduce yourself and tell us how you're involved with the IEM World Finals in Hannover? Hai, of course. So my name is Kevin "RotterdaM" van der Kooi, a former professional Wc3 player and casted quite some tournaments as well, most famous ones would be GOMTV World Invitional 2008 and the WCG's 2008/2009/2010. Nowadays I'm working for ESL as their English mainly SC II Commentator, and since IEM is an ESL product, I'm obviously part of the process :D
In the regional championships for IEM, the map pool was simply the 9 Blizzard ladder maps. Has this map pool changed for the world championship? Yes it changed a little bit, the system they use is the following: there are 7 maps (BS, DQ, Meta, LT, Scrap, Shakuras and XNC), both players have 2 vetoes in the groupstage and 1 in the playoffs since its Bo5 from there on. I have to say though I have absolutely 0 saying in that whatsoever, I'm not a league admin and they never ask for my opinion, unfortunately
How exactly will you be splitting casting duties with Day[9] and TLO? We will rotate throughout the entire tournament, making sure no one gets too exhausted or whatsoever since the days are quite long ( we have to be there at the event every day at 7 AM haha - I don't think Dario knows this yet btw, will be unpleasant news I think ) but in general I prefer to cast games with Toss involved since that's my race and I know a lot more about it than TvZ or ZvZ for instance so I'll try to get the toss games in general , but in general we will just rotate, so we might start with Day9 + me, then Day9 + TLO, then TLO and me etc etc.
How do you think the three Koreans will perform against the best Europe and North America have to offer? Who among the Koreans do you think will do the best? Very hard to say, I'm very excited to see them play and cast their games :D, I think they'll do fine but I don't expect 3 Koreans in the top 4 for instance, that would be a big surprise for me. I personally think Squirtle will perform best, was super impressed when I watched his games but I have to admit I'm not a super GSL insider. I'm focusing a lot on the European scene, so I'm just gonna let them pleasantly surprise me :D, of course as a former Wc3 player I'm looking very forward to see Moon, but it seems so far he's not really been able to make the difference in SC II .
Give us one awesome detail about this tournament that we don't know already (like whether or not the dreaded Octoshape has been done away with!). If ESL has already announced everything, give us one thing you're personally really excited about. Haha, No worries, we are not streaming via Octoshape anymore so that's nothing to worry about. For all news whatsoever just keep a close eye on the Intel Extreme Masters page but personally I have too much to look forward to :D. Casting with Day9 is of course an awesome experience and I think we'll do really well, it's nice that he has the ultimate Broodwar Background and I'm pretty much a Wc3 Veteran ( Okay I entered the pro scene in 2005 but that's quite a while already ), but for every event the thing I look most forward to by far is just meeting the players and guys that I like in general. I'm absolutely sure I'm gonna have a great time once more with TLO, Sjow, White-ra, Tarson since they're just really nice and humble guys and guaranteed fun to hang out with and of course shouldn't forget Idra, who I unfortunately don't see that much considering he's living in the USA but we always had quite some fun when we did meet up so its great to have The Gracken! here as well. :D But in the end more I just hope we're gonna see great StarCraft games that we hopefully will remember for a long long time, because that is in the end of the day, the reason why we are all there and the reason everyone is watching at home, but with these players one would say that almost can't go wrong.
Prediction time! Who do you think will make it out of each group? Hard to make a proper prediction and I kinda don't like to do it since I'm one of the hosts for this tournament, but it would be a bit lame to back out so for one time I'll do it. My guess is that Idra wins group A with White-Ra and MorroW taking 2nd and 3rd, for Group B its a bit tougher because we are still not sure whether or not DeMuslim will be recovered from his elbow injury in time and unfortunately I don't think he will (Editor's Note: ) but I think Squirtle will win the group with Moon and MoonGlade taking 2nd and 3rd place, even though honestly every player can advance and I'm quite sure my predictions ain't flawless haha, but well, gave it a good go .
Okay well, thanks for the interview! Good luck at the event! Thanks to you <3
Whoever wins the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship will be a top class player, because we only have top class players in the lineup! Whatever happens, I know it will be spectacular. Enjoy the games!
Thanks to Pholon for making the interview with Rotterdam possible.
Ugh I really wished they had invited some stronger korean players... I know, the even collides heavily with the ongoing GSL seasons, but still, they should be able to work something out together with the GSL organizers.
Great writeup and a REALLY good interview with rotterdam. Seems like a good group of players, much diversity in both style, race and nationality. I'm also looking forward to see the different casting duo
Haha, No worries, we are not streaming via Octoshape anymore so that's nothing to worry about.
Excellent. I uninstalled that thing a while ago, and it seems like I'll still be able to enjoy IEM without it's annoyances. I look forward to an excellent stream, especially with Day9 and TLO casting.
Awesome write-up really excited to see how morrow and socke do at this considering they are both on a really good form atm, bit worried for sjow and white-ra as they have seemed to let off the steam a bit but who knows.
As a consequence of demuslim not being able to play any chance if he will be casting?, him+rotti is almost as amazing as tastosis
I find it somewhat disappointing that there are not too many games a day and the tournament has to be spread over five days. I would very much like to go to Hannover for a day, but if i'm only gonna be able to watch one or two series, i'm not sure if it is worth the money I'd have to pay for travelling.
Anyway, GREAT lineup. Really looking forward to the matches. By the way, is it a coincidence that every group consists of 2 Terran/Protoss/Zerg each, or were they arranged this way?
On February 27 2011 21:45 Robqxz wrote: I find it somewhat disappointing that there are not too many games a day and the tournament has to be spread over five days. I would very much like to go to Hannover for a day, but if i'm only gonna be able to watch one or two series, i'm not sure if it is worth the money I'd have to pay for travelling.
The reason for this, is that the event is 5 days(tuesday till saturday) and IEM didn't want the main tournament(let's be honest, SC > all ) to be done in 2-3 days and have nothing to show on the other days
mOOnGLaDe and White-Ra are definitely who I'm going to be rooting for the hardest, I'm really glad they're in separate groups. I'm a bit surprised they're using DQ in the mappool, but at least the veto system is there to help out my Zerg buddies
Wow, since when is moon attending? sick! This tournament is gonna own. Gah everyone is too hard on moon, his macro is outstanding for how long he has been playing starcraft, his only problem is his game know how, ie decision making.. this is easily seen if you watch his games in the gsl.
Seems like a strong pool of players, excepting the Korean invites. Idra is the heavy favorite IMO. Moon will be eliminated early. Ace probably somewhere in the middle of the pack. Squirtle has a great shot at a top 3 finish, assuming we see the squirtle from GSTL and not the squirtle from code A. I recognize all the names of the NA and Euro players but I don't follow those scenes close enough to predict how each of them will do.
Great article!! I especially like that the article is actually hyping up the event (a lot of Germans complain constantly about the ESL but in the end events like this are just awesome :D)
Too bad I cant go to Hannover myself because of too much work though ;p
fuck it this tournament is timed so bad for me :[ having an exam on thursday the 3rd, but well... might watch the last two days (though i have to prepare for another exam on the 17th -_-)
as a former Moon fan i have to cheer for him! go Moon Other than that, MorroW vs IdrA will probably be fun and could summon a shitstorm on the forums if MorroW wins
btw: great interview with Rotterdam, was very fun to read.
It's a shame they didn't manage to get any Code S level koreans for this tournament, but it's gonna be awesome anyway with White-Ra, IdrA and Morrow there :D.
On February 27 2011 22:02 marcesr wrote: I especially like that the article is actually hyping up the event (a lot of Germans complain constantly about the ESL but in the end events like this are just awesome :D)
Germans complain about the ESL, cuz (as you know) the events here arent always that perfect... But imho the last international events have always been a blast.
Obv amazing lineup, but hey, which other event has such a long and intense qualification period... Socke will be a great replacement for DeMusliM (and just to remember everybody: he earned the spot by placing 5th at the IEM Euro finals)... we'll have to see about the Korean performance though - obv not their best players, but Ace and Squirtle are able to show strong games.
Depending on who qualifies for the final days, I might def make the trip to Hannover =)
Achievements: 2nd place HomerJ XMas Cup - Finals | 200 EURO + SENNHEISER MM450 1st place Go4SC2 Cup #65 | 200 euro 1st place Go4SC2 Premium Qualifier #2 2nd place HomerJ XMas Cup Qualifier #1 1st plae Go4SC2 November Finals | 500 euro 2nd place Close Combat #23 | 100 euro 1st place Go4SC2 #55 | 200€ 4th place Close Combat #22 2nd place Go4SC2 Cup #54 Winner of GosuGamers nVidia King of the Hill #7 | 100€ 1st place Dignitas Western Digital Halloween Cup | 320GB Western Digital My Passport Essential USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - HDD 2nd place Close Combat #18 | 100€ 3rd place Go4SC2 Cup #51 2nd place ZOTAC Cup #29 1st place CraftCup #16 | 150$ 2nd place Go4SC2 Cup #48 1st place iomega CraftCup #12 | 100$ 2nd place ZOTAC Cup #27 3rd place Go4SC2 Cup #46 1st place Go4SC2 Cup #44 1st place Go4SC2 Cup #39 | 200€ 4th place IEM Global Challenge | 900$ 1st place IEM Poland Qualification Cup 2nd place EU Craft Cup #3 3rd place Go4SC2 Cup #25 1st place Cybersport 36i6 | Laptop Lenovo iPadY550 1st place ProCPU Cup #01 2nd place ProCPU Individual League Season 1 3rd place ProCPU Cup #04 1st place ProCPU Cup #05 1st place ProCPU Cup #06 1st place ProCPU Cup #07 1st place ProCPU Cup #08 1st Place SC II 1on1 MSI GX660 1st place Starcraft II 1on1 Winter Special
BETA Achievements: 1st place Go4SC2 Cup #21 (BETA) 100€ 3rd place Go4SC2 Cup #20 (BETA) Top4 place Go4SC2 Cup #19 (BETA) 1st place Go4SC2 Cup #18 (BETA) Top4 Go4SC2 Cup Finals - May (BETA) Top32 Go4SC2 Cup #13 (BETA) 2nd place Go4SC2 Cup #12 (BETA) 2nd place Go4SC2 Cup #11 (BETA) 2nd place Go4SC2 Cup #9 (BETA) 2nd place Go4SC2 Cup #7 (BETA) Top4 ZOTAC Cup #12 (BETA) Top32 ZOTAC Cup #11 (BETA) Top64 ZOTAC Cup #9 (BETA) Top16 ZOTAC Cup #4 (BETA) Top8 ZOTAC Cup #3 (BETA) Top16 CraftCup #9 (BETA) Top16 CraftCup #4 (BETA) 1st place ProCup #1 (BETA) 50€ 1st place AGL Final Cup (BETA) 50€ 1st place AGL Ladder Cup #3 (BETA) 25€ 1st place AGL Ladder Cup #1 (BETA) 25€ 1st place Raynor Cup (BETA) 75€ 1st place TerranLeague (BETA) SteelSeries Xai, QcK SC2 Edition, Zboard
The games will be broadcast in English, German, Russian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Chinese.
No love for French? D: D: Not that I care, Frenchies need to work on their poor English anyway, but hey gotta point it out. ;D
Anyway looks like some great stuff right here. Surprised that TLO is gonna commentate. I like the list of players here. Rooting for Idra and Whitera. ;D
Something that would be great to see is Idra vs Morrow. ;
On February 27 2011 23:46 TemplarCo. wrote: To bad we can't get to see White-Ra vs IdrA finals... but its gonna be a great tournament!!
Still possible right? If they end up 1st/2nd in their group, they end up on separate halves of the finals brackets, or not?
I'd imagine.
There are more than 1 person advancing from each group, there's A) no reason that one has to be knocked out, and B) no reason they'll end up on the same side of the bracket after the group stage.
The schedule is absolutely awful for Europeans, all games are being played through morning and afternoon, when a lot of people are at work. I know I will miss all the games as I work from 09:00-17:00
On February 28 2011 01:07 Odoakar wrote: The schedule is absolutely awful for Europeans, all games are being played through morning and afternoon, when a lot of people are at work. I know I will miss all the games as I work from 09:00-17:00
they cant help it. Cebit closes at 18.00, so its not possible for them to have games later than that.
This will definitely be the most awesome IEM to date! I hope it will kickstart the events around Europe!
About cheering ... IdrA and MorroW (zergs) fighting! It would be ridiculous if MorroW beats IdrA at ZvZ but any of them winning the finals is all I want :D
Seems like Grack-attack should handle his group pretty solidly. The one wild card is QXC, who always manages to surprise me, and has game-planned Idra effectively in the past. Whitera always manages to put up a hell of a fight as well.
What really wonders me is why isnt it broadcasted in Korean also? i mean its the world championship + 3 koreans taking part in it? somebody here who knows why?
On February 28 2011 02:03 Kleinmuuhg wrote: Morrow vs Idra Finale would be epic indeed. Too bad my ESL.TV subscrition ran off this week so I only have semi-high quality on the stream
MorroW's ZvZ is really weak though, so it would probably suck. IdrA plays in a similar way to Ret, albeit stronger, and Ret dominated MorroW's Zerg a week ago.
Now put either of them in the finals against someone else and it'll be epic as hell.
Group A seems really stacked. Not that there aren't good players in group B but the two don't seem equal in terms of overall player skill. To be fair, I don't know as much about the group B players, so maybe they'll wow us all even more. This tournament is gonna be siiick.
On February 28 2011 02:03 Kleinmuuhg wrote: Morrow vs Idra Finale would be epic indeed. Too bad my ESL.TV subscrition ran off this week so I only have semi-high quality on the stream
MorroW's ZvZ is really weak though, so it would probably suck. IdrA plays in a similar way to Ret, albeit stronger, and Ret dominated MorroW's Zerg a week ago.
Now put either of them in the finals against someone else and it'll be epic as hell.
And isn't Fenix from South America?
Morrow's ZvZ isn't weak, he is one of the strongest ZvZ player outside of Korea.
Let me summarize the ZvZ against ret: Morrow did his one-base all-in against a fast expansion because it worked in his practiced matches against the build order (I think he tried it in 3 games, because he didn't want to throw away his practiced strategy). Ret's fe build was too refined, so it didn't work out. Morrow said this in the Interview.
I doubt that he will try the same all-in build again. The only map both players did the same fast expansion BO (on Metalopolis) morrow won because of better unit control. If idra plays the same way ret did, morrow probably will be prepared.
Idra is probably stronger in ZvZ, though. So I think that he will win.
I predict the winner to be either IdrA, WhiteRa, or Squirtle. I don't think anybody other than WhiteRa or Squirtle can beat IdrA in a full set, and if they do they'll be finalists. Glade is great, but I don't think his ZvP is strong enough to win a full set against them.
A lot of it will come down to how good Squirtle performs. If IdrA beats WhiteRa and Squirtle turns out to have been slightly overhyped after GSTL then IdrA is in good shape to win.
On February 28 2011 05:12 Zerokaiser wrote: There is no way that MorroW has a Code S ZvZ.
Depends...Morrow has just no clue about the metagame and you can't really blame him for that, because EU is basicly a wasteland when it comes to good zergs and I don't think morrow can train with most of these few since afaik they mainly play ladder.
Anyway, his mechanics are scary like hell, seriously he has insane micro, creep spread and everything but he is still weak at adapting fast which made him look like a fool against Ret.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that I think the some of the Euro players have caught up with Idra and have a very good chance of knocking him out of contention early. I'll take White-Ra, QXC, and Squirtle for the top three, with Idra, Sjow and Morrow at their heels..
And were the groups drawn randomly? Group A seems a LOT tougher than B..
My wild random bet is on White-Ra for group A (with Idra getting taken out by him or QXC) and SjoW for group B (taking it from Squirtle), with White-Ra for the win
If you buy the HD access, there are VODs posted yea? Just might not be able to watch many games live, so hoping they post the VODs onsite instead of just adding a replay etc
On February 28 2011 07:26 Sephimos wrote: Morrow doesn't stand a chance vs Idra, to be kind. Ret is worse than Idra and Ret dominated Morrow's face 2 weeks ago.
The way i see it, Ret simply won because hes build was better. He only needed to get roaches out and that's it. There was not much of effort done for the wins. One game where Ret didn't open with the same build he lost. Morrow just microed better and won that game.
On February 28 2011 07:26 Sephimos wrote: Morrow doesn't stand a chance vs Idra, to be kind. Ret is worse than Idra and Ret dominated Morrow's face 2 weeks ago.
The way i see it, Ret simply won because hes build was better. He only needed to get roaches out and that's it. There was not much of effort done for the wins. One game where Ret didn't open with the same build he lost. Morrow just microed better and won that game.
Ret was better. Morrow glided through the easier side of the bracket and hit a brick wall in the Finals. His ZvZ wasn't bad, it was awful. Ret was a quantum leap ahead of him in the metagame.
What kind of argument is that anyway? "It's just that his build was better"? This game is 90% having "a better build", adapting to your enemy and being solid like Ret is.
On February 28 2011 07:26 Sephimos wrote: Morrow doesn't stand a chance vs Idra, to be kind. Ret is worse than Idra and Ret dominated Morrow's face 2 weeks ago.
The way i see it, Ret simply won because hes build was better. He only needed to get roaches out and that's it. There was not much of effort done for the wins. One game where Ret didn't open with the same build he lost. Morrow just microed better and won that game.
Ret was better. Morrow glided through the easier side of the bracket and hit a brick wall in the Finals. His ZvZ wasn't bad, it was awful. Ret was a quantum leap ahead of him in the metagame.
What kind of argument is that anyway? "It's just that his build was better"? This game is 90% having "a better build", adapting to your enemy and being solid like Ret is.
lolz easier side of the bracket??? Kas, TLO, Tarson, Socke vs Sase, Naniwa, Pomi, Adelscott ???
Considering that the foreigners here are the best of the best, I'd rather have seen no Koreans than Koreans who aren't also the best of the best.
Although Ace, Squirtle, and Moon are great players and have good chances of winning, I don't feel like they represent Korea the way the rest of the players represent their country. Not trying to be too negative, it'll still be a great tournament, it just doesn't feel like a "world championship" without players like MVP and NesTea who have good cases for being the best in the world.
On February 28 2011 07:26 Sephimos wrote: Morrow doesn't stand a chance vs Idra, to be kind. Ret is worse than Idra and Ret dominated Morrow's face 2 weeks ago.
The way i see it, Ret simply won because hes build was better. He only needed to get roaches out and that's it. There was not much of effort done for the wins. One game where Ret didn't open with the same build he lost. Morrow just microed better and won that game.
Ret was better. Morrow glided through the easier side of the bracket and hit a brick wall in the Finals. His ZvZ wasn't bad, it was awful. Ret was a quantum leap ahead of him in the metagame.
What kind of argument is that anyway? "It's just that his build was better"? This game is 90% having "a better build", adapting to your enemy and being solid like Ret is.
My argument is, Morrow seemed to be better when it comes to micro and macro. On assembly both were just sticking with the build they had scouted out to be best for zvz. At the end of the day Rets build was superior compared to Morrows one. There was not much adapting done in the finals lol.
On February 28 2011 07:26 Sephimos wrote: Morrow doesn't stand a chance vs Idra, to be kind. Ret is worse than Idra and Ret dominated Morrow's face 2 weeks ago.
The way i see it, Ret simply won because hes build was better. He only needed to get roaches out and that's it. There was not much of effort done for the wins. One game where Ret didn't open with the same build he lost. Morrow just microed better and won that game.
Ret was better. Morrow glided through the easier side of the bracket and hit a brick wall in the Finals. His ZvZ wasn't bad, it was awful. Ret was a quantum leap ahead of him in the metagame.
What kind of argument is that anyway? "It's just that his build was better"? This game is 90% having "a better build", adapting to your enemy and being solid like Ret is.
lolz easier side of the bracket??? Kas, TLO, Tarson, Socke vs Sase, Naniwa, Pomi, Adelscott ???
On February 28 2011 07:26 Sephimos wrote: Morrow doesn't stand a chance vs Idra, to be kind. Ret is worse than Idra and Ret dominated Morrow's face 2 weeks ago.
The way i see it, Ret simply won because hes build was better. He only needed to get roaches out and that's it. There was not much of effort done for the wins. One game where Ret didn't open with the same build he lost. Morrow just microed better and won that game.
Ret was better. Morrow glided through the easier side of the bracket and hit a brick wall in the Finals. His ZvZ wasn't bad, it was awful. Ret was a quantum leap ahead of him in the metagame.
What kind of argument is that anyway? "It's just that his build was better"? This game is 90% having "a better build", adapting to your enemy and being solid like Ret is.
lolz easier side of the bracket??? Kas, TLO, Tarson, Socke vs Sase, Naniwa, Pomi, Adelscott ???
Compare the brackets.
Almost every player (in Interviews) and viewer agreed that the upper half of the bracket was much stronger. So yeah, morrow had a harder way to the finals.
On February 28 2011 07:26 Sephimos wrote: Morrow doesn't stand a chance vs Idra, to be kind. Ret is worse than Idra and Ret dominated Morrow's face 2 weeks ago.
The way i see it, Ret simply won because hes build was better. He only needed to get roaches out and that's it. There was not much of effort done for the wins. One game where Ret didn't open with the same build he lost. Morrow just microed better and won that game.
Ret was better. Morrow glided through the easier side of the bracket and hit a brick wall in the Finals. His ZvZ wasn't bad, it was awful. Ret was a quantum leap ahead of him in the metagame.
What kind of argument is that anyway? "It's just that his build was better"? This game is 90% having "a better build", adapting to your enemy and being solid like Ret is.
lolz easier side of the bracket??? Kas, TLO, Tarson, Socke vs Sase, Naniwa, Pomi, Adelscott ???
Compare the brackets.
Almost every player (in Interviews) and viewer agreed that the upper half of the bracket was much stronger. So yeah, morrow had a harder way to the finals.
Had the brackets backwards in my head. Changes exactly nothing, he wasn't prepared for a top level ZvZ and it showed.
On February 28 2011 07:53 jalstar wrote: Considering that the foreigners here are the best of the best, I'd rather have seen no Koreans than Koreans who aren't also the best of the best.
Although Ace, Squirtle, and Moon are great players and have good chances of winning, I don't feel like they represent Korea the way the rest of the players represent their country. Not trying to be too negative, it'll still be a great tournament, it just doesn't feel like a "world championship" without players like MVP and NesTea who have good cases for being the best in the world.
I couldn't agree more. It will be fun to watch the foreigners beat them though
On February 28 2011 11:11 ZlaSHeR wrote: I won an HD pass for this from ESFIworld lol, pretty cool, I would have bought one anyways so I'm pretty happy ^_^
On February 28 2011 07:26 Sephimos wrote: Morrow doesn't stand a chance vs Idra, to be kind. Ret is worse than Idra and Ret dominated Morrow's face 2 weeks ago.
The way i see it, Ret simply won because hes build was better. He only needed to get roaches out and that's it. There was not much of effort done for the wins. One game where Ret didn't open with the same build he lost. Morrow just microed better and won that game.
Ret was better. Morrow glided through the easier side of the bracket and hit a brick wall in the Finals. His ZvZ wasn't bad, it was awful. Ret was a quantum leap ahead of him in the metagame.
What kind of argument is that anyway? "It's just that his build was better"? This game is 90% having "a better build", adapting to your enemy and being solid like Ret is.
lolz easier side of the bracket??? Kas, TLO, Tarson, Socke vs Sase, Naniwa, Pomi, Adelscott ???
Compare the brackets.
Almost every player (in Interviews) and viewer agreed that the upper half of the bracket was much stronger. So yeah, morrow had a harder way to the finals.
Had the brackets backwards in my head. Changes exactly nothing, he wasn't prepared for a top level ZvZ and it showed.
He wasn't prepared for ret's specific build, that's really the only thing you can say.
For example you also can't say that Tyler and Huk weren't prepared for top level PvP just because they lost to Socke.
While this will probably be a great tournament. How can the focus of this really be balance? Other than Idra and Squirtle there won't be a single player who is arguably in the top 50th best in the world.
It's rather hard to determine "balance" when there are players who just simply aren't up to par to determine such things.
Rotterdam is horrible. Why the heck do they let one none-native-speaker and knows like nothing about SC2 to commentate? LOL Since when TLO has British accent O.o
Hey guys here's a tournament coming up but...no time is posted when it is, and as far as where it'll be streamed "free on tl" Does anyone know when this is taking place each day? And am I correct in assuming it'll be on the stream page when it does go live ?
I don't know about you guys but Moon has been flat out raping everyone he's faced. Not bad considering he still plays wc3 and has not fully devoted himself to sc2. I really like the way he plays zerg. His mass baneling drops versus protoss as well as his scbw style zerg drops are quite amusing. His micro makes sense but most importantly, he has a very nice macro. Props to the guy!
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/motbob/iem5_header.jpg)
IEM Season V - World Championship![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/motbob/esl.jpg)
QXC
MorroW
White-Ra![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/motbob/nabanner.jpg)
.
) but I think Squirtle will win the group with Moon and MoonGlade taking 2nd and 3rd place, even though honestly every player can advance and I'm quite sure my predictions ain't flawless haha, but well, gave it a good go 
) to be done in 2-3 days and have nothing to show on the other days
