As this is the hardest tournament ever (™), there are challenges at every turn, inside every box and chest. Every part of the tournament is unrelenting, the smallest of missteps will cause an end to any run. It harkens back to my days with the trusty NES, when men were men and games didn't have second chances. When every new landscape was the hardest trek imaginable.



Pool A is a dynamic mix. As with the first Mega Man, the challengers come in all shapes and sizes. The pool is a wide mix of people from around the world, and having all sorts of backgrounds. BoxeR, now one of the grandfathers of the game is on one end, with relative newcomers TLO and Drewbie on the other. Each player represents a different country, and the range of skill is impressively large.

And just like Mega Man, any of them can kill you. It might be spikes or disappearing blocks, the slightest miscalculation will end in your death. Any rogue enemy shooting lasers, or a single blade aiming to cut you in half.

It will probably be spikes though.



Pool B is nice because it looks like a fun ramp in terms of difficulty (even though it isn't). On one side there is iNcontrol who, despite being a strong player, hasn't seen much success in MLG lately. On the other is Bomber, reigning MLG champion who has a definite chance of a repeat performance. Playing any of them is cause to break peripherals and throw the nearest object at a monitor.

In between is Sheth, KiWiKaKi, and PuMa. Men who occasionally look beatable, if only one is familiar with the secret path that can bring them down. Many will try and few will succeed.

And, even if you are able to luck your way into some progress, a bat will swoop down and end your life. That unbeatable bat.



Like Top Gun, this is a list of names that is deceiving. At first glance it seems to be comparatively weaker than the other groups, HongUn is the only one with recent Code-S play! In Top Gun all you need to do is fly around, you're simply avoiding death for long portions, not even engaging enemy targets. It seems easy enough, surely any player can learn that skill.

And then you hit it. The aircraft carrier. The boss of bosses. It could be HongUn, it could be Rain or maybe Ret, but there will be a wall. A wall that is impenetrable to even the most hardened, the most experienced of gamers.



With four Protosses in the group, this looks akin to a 1985 platformer. Graveyard after graveyard, the landscape seems similar if the difficulties that arise are somewhat transformed. Even if you are able to defeat North American staples HuK and Tyler, the later stages involve a reinvigorated MC and new blood HerO.

Your reward for merely surviving the beating from them is to also face July, the God of War himself and owner of a gold mouse.

Oh, also you can only get hit twice before you're dead. Good luck.

One is the king of marines.

One is the master of marauders.

On October 14th, 2011, Polt and MarineKing, fourth and fifth respectively in the current GSL rankings, only behind MVP, Nestea and MC, will be making their American debuts at MLG Orlando. You can already hear the footsteps of bio units marching their way from Korea to America, ready to torment everyone in the sunny state of Florida with decisive timing attacks and powerful pushes.

The two most prolific bionic players in Starcraft 2 were teammates for the past year until recently, when Polt, wanting a new star to his career and not seeing eye-to-eye with the coach, left Prime and switched over to TSL, leaving MarineKing to be the sole ace player on the team.

At the beginning of their careers, MarineKing was the one with more success. While Polt did decently in the first season of GSL (beating MC in the first round), he never got very far in the next few tournaments and was looked at as just another mediocre Terran in the grand scheme of things. MarineKing, at the time known as Boxer (and known as Foxer by the community), took the scene by storm, getting to the finals in his first ever GSL tournament and gaining thousands of fans along the way with his exciting marine-oriented style. He would go on to lose in the only GSL finals to ever go seven games against Nestea, but he had done enough to already become one of the most popular players in the world. With his never before seen splitting of marines, aggressive style, and outgoing personality, MarineKing was on his way to becoming the fastest rising star in e-sports.

His impressive run continued, getting to the finals of both the January season of Code S and the World Championship, facing MVP in both. Sadly for MarineKing, the ending to both of those tournaments ended up with him getting the silver medal for the second and third time, earning himself the reputation of a player who would always get second place when getting to a GSL final.

On the other side of this bionic coin, Polt continued his way in the GSL, not doing as well as his Prime counterpart, but doing well enough to get into the first season of Code S. Unlike MarineKing, who got to the finals, Polt struggled in his first Code S, losing to Nestea and then TheBest, knocking him into the Up-and-Down matches.

When it looked like it couldn't get any worse, he got beat by Lyn and TheWind back-to-back to get knocked into Code A without winning a single game in the two series. Everything looked lost for the Prime Terran. While MarineKing was gaining a new fan by the second, Polt had bombed out of Code S and was heading towards Code A where he likely could have been knocked out from the GSL forever.

Luckily, in a weird turn of events, LiveForever announced his entry to fulfill his military service and left a spot open in Code S for the taking. After a wild card tournament to decide which player knocked from Code S to Code A would have another shot, Polt emerged victorious, saving himself from the depths of hell.

With a new lease on life, Polt, who was studying and going to one of the top universities in Korea, Seoul University, took a year off from his schooling to put full effort into being a progamer. With his full attention now on Starcraft 2, it was the first time Polt went from a Terran at the bottom of the pack to being someone you had to keep your eye on.

Everything came to ahead at the GSL Super Tournament, the biggest competition GSL or any other company has put on so far in the year history of Starcraft 2. With a staggering prize pool that gave away almost $100,000 to the winner of the tournament, everyone was giving it their best shot to end up on the final stage.

MarineKing and Polt were on a crash course to meet in the finals as they both ended up on opposite sides of the semifinals. Polt went against TOP, where in the end, after making a massive comeback in game four to save himself from being eliminated, Polt came out victorious and gained his first entry to the GSL finals. In the other semifinal, MarineKing went up against the MLG Columbus champion MMA. After taking the first two sets in decisive fashion, it looked like he would be making his fourth trip to a GSL final. Then, well, everything apart; MarineKing lost the next game, started to tilt, and MMA continued his momentum to take the next two games, eliminating MarineKing from the Super Tournament.

For the first time in their careers, Polt was the one in the spotlight. When it came to the Super Tournament finals, Polt demolished MMA with a clean sweep and took home Prime's first GSL championship, after MarineKing had failed to do so three times before. With the championship passed to his teammate and the celebratory confetti falling from the ceiling, did MarineKing resent the fact that after so long, he wasn't the person to win the GSL championship from his team? Was he upset that the title of OptimusPrime, the ID given to the Prime player with the most recent GSL title win, wasn't going to be passed to him, but to Polt?

Well, that might have been the case, but he didn't show it, as he was the first person to jump on stage and hug Polt for his victory.



Polt and MarineKing weren't just teammates, they were best friends. When asked at a group selection, Polt said he wished he could be more like MarineKing. MarineKing responded by saying he wished he could be more like Polt. The two of them have massive respect for one another and thrive to be like the other when it comes to their play.

In the more recent months, MarineKing had a falling out into Code A while Polt continued to do well in Code S, even getting to another semifinal before losing to TOP, but they continued to have similar overall winning percentages, both slightly under 60%. Together, they were the two stars of Prime, having the most success by getting to four GSL finals between them and both being used as aces in their team's GSTL matches.

That is why it was such a shock when Polt left Prime a month ago. Polt and MarineKing were Prime. As the two aces, they were the faces of the team. He was their first ever GSL champion and the holder of the OptimusPrime title. Polt wasn't out a team for long, joining TSL two weeks later and becoming a rival to his former teammates and friends.

Now Orlando is upon us. MarineKing is coming through the power of his fans that raised enough money for him to come to MLG. Polt is coming through the power of his new team, TSL, who have enough money to send their top players to foreign events. They will be both in the open bracket, trying to get into pool play and work their way into another final.

In the end, all I have is a warning: the footsteps are coming for you, open bracket player who thought it would be a good idea to sign-up for fun. Can you hear them? They will come wave after wave and not stop until you're dead. You don't if they'll come from the ground or from the air, but they're coming for you, Orlando.

The two kings of bio are coming for you.