The Liquid Weekly #34

From Dallas to ~~Seoul~~ Stockholm.

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Liquid` Sightings

Dreamhackers
Headed for Stockholm.

Liquid Fighting
The first rule of Liquid Fight Club is...

This Week In Replays

Liquid`Tyler in TSL Ro16 - 9th April 2011

Liquid at DreamHack Stockholm Invitational - 12th April 2011

Liquid in NASL - 12th April 2011

Liquid at MLG Dallas - Event Finished

Liquid in TSL3 Ro16 - This Weekend

Liquid's last man standing, TLAF-Liquid`Tyler takes on the best in Starcraft in the TSL3 Ro16. This round he faces the Swedish Terran Thorzain, and we're going to be treated to a Bo5 of Tyler style PvT.

Though Liquid hasn't performed as expected in the tournament, Tyler has single-handedly flown the flag for all of us, and you better be here as we root for him on Saturday. What's that? You have plans? Don't make us laugh.

Clear your caches, open your IRC clients and make sure your flash plugin is up to date. Join us here on TL and follow the news and brackets on the awesome new TSL site as we head into yet another weekend of TSL goodness.

Liquid`Tyler fighting! For glory, for honour, for TL!

Liquid at DreamHack Stockholm Invitational - 12th April 2011

TLAF-Liquid`Jinro, TLAF-Liquid`TLO and TLAF-Liquid`HuK will be in Stockholm this weekend for the Dreamhack Invitational. They'll be going up against the likes of Boxer, MC, Idra and WhiteRa, so be sure that the action is going to be fast and furious.

Coming right off a weekend in Dallas, TLO and Huk might both get the chance to rematch EG's Idra. It will be an interesting tournament in particular for Dario, whose games against NaDa in the Ro32 in TSL 3 were the first time in a long while that we saw him pitted against a top Korean. Jinro on the other hand will be flying in from Korea, ready to fight on his home-turf after an early exit in the GSL World Championship. Meanwhile, HuK is ready to make up for missing the podium in MLG and with no loser's bracket, every game is going to count.

Head over to Dreamhackers to see what these three players have to say as they head to Stockholm early next week.

Liquid in NASL - 12th April 2011

TLAF-Liquid`Tyler, TLAF-Liquid`TLO, TLAF-Liquid`HayprO and TLAF-Liquid`Ret take to North America's newest league next week and play their opening NASL matches against ViBE, KawaiiRice, Ace and MaNa.

Though there are many weeks of games to come in this round of the NASL, the opening stretch is sure to deliver some awesome Starcraft 2. Join us here on TL as we take you into the NASL via streams, LR threads and IRC.

Here are all NASL Week 1 Liquid games, formatted for your convenience!

North America: April 12th at 9pm EDT / Europe: April 13th at 7pm CEST
Match 2: [image loading]

TLAF-Liquid`TLO vs. [image loading]

NrG.ViBE

North America: April 14th at 9pm EDT / Europe: April 15th at 7pm CEST
Match 3: [image loading]

TLAF-Liquid`HayprO vs. [image loading]

fnaticMSi.KawaiiRice

North America: April 15th at 9pm EDT / Europe: April 16th at 7pm CEST
Match 3: [image loading]

TLAF-Liquid`Ret vs. [image loading]

ST_Ace

North America: April 16th at 9pm EDT / Europe: April 17th at 7pm CEST
Match 2: [image loading]

TLAF-Liquid`Tyler vs. [image loading]

mouzMaNa

Liquid at MLG Dallas - Last Weekend

Liquid held forth at MLG Dallas last weekend, finishing 5th, 10th, 13th, 14th and 16th at the weekend. Though all Liquidians finished shy of the podium, they head into the rest of the MLG 2011 season with at least a few points under their belts.

TLAF-Liquid`TLO had quite the run, knocking out both Idra and his teammate TLAF-Liquid`Tyler in the Championship bracket. Our Korean resident, Huk, monstered his way through the open bracket, coming fourth in Pool A right under Socke. After braving the stacked, Terran filled Pool B, Haypro lost to TLAF-Liquid's nemesis, Socke, and Ret went down 1-2 to Huk in TLAF-Liquid's second team-kill.

Not all of the games were shown on MLG's stream, so be sure to pick up the MLG Dallas replay pack and check out each TLAF-Liquid` player's run at MLG Dallas.

Good things come in threes.

TLAF-Liquid`TLO

[image loading]

TLO and his mysterious companion take on the world.

Hi TLO! How you doing? We're catching you between MLG Dallas 2011 and the Dreamhack Invitational in Stockholm. We gotta ask - did you plan to finish 5th at both Dallas events? How did you manage to make this happen?

Hey I am doing fine, still a little bit tired of all the flying and travel. Haha YES of course it was planned all along... no of course I wanted to place higher than 5th but I guess it's a decent result so I am not too sad about it. Dunno how it happened, it just did.

Thanks to R1CH, we have a picture of your face soon after seeing Incontrol's proxy pylon. What was going through your head at this point?

Well, I can actually remember myself thinking "oh shit oh shit, this is not happening, oh no no... NOOOO" :D

Many players flip out and rage when they are cheesed. You were obviously not ecstatic about what happened, but you held it together like always. What about your approach to the game helps you do this?

I just get really really sad and angry at myself. Believe it or not, whenever something like that happens I come VERY close to just smashing my fist against a nearby wall. I just try to ignore that feeling and move on and try to be productive, telling myself "never again".

You ended up knocking out Idra and your teammate Tyler, two very big names. How are you feeling only days away from DreamHack? Confident?

Well I am very happy I could win against Greg, even though game 1 was kinda lucky and game 2 pretty cheesy. I am feeling okay, I could be doing better and the Dreamhack invitational has some insane names in there, I dont really count on winning it tbh. I mean... MC and Jinro...

Have you had a chance to prepare for the two Koreans, Boxer and MC? You must feel pretty rushed going immediately from one tournament to another. Maybe Jinro has given you the inside scoop?

Yea it's all really rushed at the moment, there are so many things to do. It doesn't really help my practice schedule, but I gain tourament experience like no other so that helps, I guess. I will get all the insights I need from Jinro when I meet him in Stockholm. I am thinking about intercepting him at the airport :D

You will, of course, also be playing fellow TLAF-Liquid` members Huk and Jinro. How do you approach playing against someone who knows you and your style so well? Will you just stick to your gameplan or go for something more along the lines of the mineral-line bunker we saw in Dallas?

I will just do whatever seems most reasonable. I don't try to think about who I play too much, I just do it.

Stockholm is a big event for you. What are you most looking forward to about it?

It's always a pleasure to be in Stockholm, the city is beautiful. I love the city, I have a lot of friends there and the E-Sport scene feel SO alive. Call me crazy but I could actually imagine staying there for a longer time one day :D

All right! Looking forward to seeing you on stream at Dreamhack, Dario. Good luck, have fun, own it up.

TLAF-Liquid`Jinro

[image loading]

Jinrolling!

Hello Jinro! Welcome to the LW. You're going to be flying out to Sweden soon. Excited to be going home for a while?

Sure, not looking forward to the actual flight tho... But at least Ive got compadres traveling with me.

And by compadres you mean the HuK? What's it like traveling with Chris?

HuK and MC. And I haven't travelled with chris before, but I can only assume it's as entertaining as living with him.

Speaking of HuK, who would emerge victorious in a Liquid Fight Club FFA?

Me, because i have like 20kgs on everyone else? Plus used to train MMA, so I think me. I guess Tyler is the same size as me maybe? Not entirely sure.

You're coming out of a GSL WC that you weren't very happy with. What went wrong? What do you make of the entire tournament?

Just a combination of lots of things - I was kinda low on motivation about the time I lost GSL March, and even slightly before. Then I got sick for a while. I've got my motivation back now though.

What are you looking forward to the most about being back home in Sweden?

Family, eating whatever I can't get my hands on in Korea and still miss, like a decent breakfast! Koreans don't believe in this whole breakfast thing. It's just lunch 3x a day. Sure, they eat breakfasty products on occasion, but not for breakfast! Unless it's an on-the-go breakfast I suppose.

If you could pick anyone, who would you like to face in the opening round at DH?

There's nobody there who I think will be easy, so not really. WhiteRa at some point would be nice but I don't know about first round.... He's scary.

This will be your last major tournament before the next GSL. What do you hope to accomplish in Stockholm and where does it fit in to your GSL preparation process?

At this point I'm mostly looking at putting in a good performance after a lackluster last month. We'll see. MC being there does make winning pretty difficult for anyone else, but not impossible.

All right. Well, good luck, Jinro! Hope you have a fantastic time next week and bring your A game as we all watch you on stream.

Thx! Streaming has been good for focusing and playing hard I think. Hopefully the tournament will be a success.

TLAF-Liquid`HuK

[image loading]

Love in the age of Protoss.

Hi HuK! Thanks for joining us. You went into MLG Dallas 2011 as a past MLG winner and placed 10th. Are you satisfied with your performance this time? Anything you'd do differently if you got to play last weekend's games again?

No. I would play a lot different and try to get better rest next time. I don't know, just try to play better in general, I guess.

You're flying out again next weekend to Stockholm for the Dreamhack Invitational. Does international travel ever get any easier or do you always end up tired and jetlagged? How do you try and rested, even when you're playing in two corners of the globe in the same week?

I think it gets easier as you do it more but I don't think it will ever be ideal for me. Traveling is really hard since I find it hard to sleep in public and especially on planes. I'll just try to sleep a decent amount, exercise as much as I can while I'm in Korea, and eat as healthy as I can.

Pillow doesn't help?

No.

How do you feel about the player pool? DreamHack looks like it could be a much more difficult tournament for you than MLG.

I don't know, t's probably more skilled but then again I don't have to go through an open bracket either. So less games and hopefully better rest since I'm arriving 1-2 days ahead.

If you could choose someone to play in the first round, who would it be?

Boxer, I guess.

Not Idra? There seems to be a rivalry between you two - not holding a grudge?

I would like to play almost everyone there. Idra knows he will always have a special place in my heart.

Your group for GSL Code S has been announced. This will be your first time in Code S. What do you think about the players you will be facing? Do you feel you have something to prove?

There's always something to prove, especially since I haven't won a gsl yet. I think my group is pretty tough and the players in it are tough as well. I usually have problems vs july and inca. I think inca may have top 1-2 pvp in the world and july is just beastly, so we'll see I guess.

At the last Dreamhack, DH Winter 2010, you 3-0d your group but lost 1-2 to Socke in the first knockout. What are your thoughts on returning to Sweden? What do you like most about the country?

My thoughts are pvp is a bitch and for some reason sockes pvp style or choice in builds always comes out ahead of mine, maybe maphacks. I love sweden because of the people. I've met a lot of really good people there and hope to reunite with some of them and meet some new ones.

Thanks for your time, Huk. Good luck next week in Sweden!

Thx.

Well, we've been trying to hide it from you guys for some time now, but the Liquid Fight Club was finally made public this weekend by JoshSuth. In what just may be the expose of the year, the community reporter released footage from one of Liquid Fighting's first meetings.

Taken at MLG Dallas last year, the footage shows Liquid`Nazgul and Liquid`HuK locked in a bitter fight to the death. Similar footage provided by Liquidian Liquid`Tyler shows HuK engaged in battle with TLO as well. Please stay tuned to Team Liquid as we bring you more on this story in the days to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV1csIZoDoU

Vroom!

Download Tyler, Jinro, HuK Ladder Replay Pack

Put together by the Liquid Replay team - TheMango, p4ndemik, GTR, heyoka, Xxio and Ares[Effort]. Thanks guys!

Liquid` is proudly sponsored by The Little App Factory, makers of fine applications for Windows and Mac OS X and fans of great Starcraft! Their flagship program, iRip allows you to recover your music from iPods - a life saver if you, like many of us, do tech support for friends and family. In fact, for a limited time, you can use the coupon code TEAMLIQUID to get 25% off when you get TLAF products!

Want to help support TLAF, the company that supports your team? Beta test their applications. It's a great way to say thanks!