EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/s9ASP.jpg)
Hey all, after the Article introducing Taiwan’s TeSL StarCraft II league this week I thought I’d start giving everyone a preview on the Friday before weekend matches and then a battle report on the following Monday or Tusday (Before TeSL starts up some English reporting). Let me know in the comments if that’s something everybody would be interested in! I’m basically going to do rough translations of TeSL’s mandarin articles, maybe adding in some comments or analysis of my own.
This week professional TeSL StarCraft II matches enters into the third week of play and all five teams have had at least one chance to play a match on live TV. Widely considered the favorite for this season (and also it seems are also a favorite among Team Liquid readers), Tt Apollos, this Saturday (3/26) will be facing off against the Wayi Spider, who are led by their coach Dus (An exceptional player himself who came one game away from qualifying for GSL3 in Korea, and a member of Taiwan’s Rush clan). On Sunday (3/27) Gama Bears coach Leaf (Also a Rush clan member and recent winner of StarCraft II tournament in Japan), after recently returning from studies in Japan to take this role, will do his best to help his players to end their two game losing streak.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/s5OGL.jpg)
[Gama Bears from left to right: Leaf (coach), Heero (formerly known as Pencil), Blanc and Croly]
Tt Apollos deadly two-man combo of “Taiwan’s Terran Emperor” Softball and former WarCraft III champion HRU (How Are You) will be going for their second win and try to keep their perfect record. Wayi Spider coach Dus has decided to send out Zerg player Max to take on the Apollos player Apro (No matter how many players are on the team every week only 3 players are chosen by the coach to be eligible to play. The order of the first three players are chosen pre-match. It is a best of 5 system, so if there is not a winner after 3 games, the coach then picks the next player, or potentially next 2 players to play. But those players must be from the 3 eligible players. So If the match goes longer than three games at least one player will play twice). Wayi Spider star player Demon Sheep (DS) will try his best to stop the bleeding after the Spider’s loss last week to the Xpec Ironmen. DS is a random player who is proficient at all three races, making him very hard to prepare for. Even though he won twice in the Spider’s lost last week it was still not enough, this week his teammates will have to step up if they want to get their first win.
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[The big two for Tt Apollo: "Taiwan's Terran Emperor" Softball (left) and former WarCraft III champ HowAreYou (HRU, on the right)]
And now for a little more juicy details about the Apollos vs. Spider match. I’m sure everyone will be interested to know that Apollos Terran player Apro is the uncle (even though their age is about the same) of none other than Taiwan’s ZergKing Sen. That’s right, uncle! And is therefore affectionately referred to as Senshu (The Sen Uncle) by Taiwan fans. It’s not hard to see that he’s had some hardcore training sessions with his “infested nephew”, he improved dramatically during tryouts and eventually got to the level where he could become a pro player. Also there was an exciting development yesterday when Spider Zerg player Max (One of the few Zerg players in the TeSL) in a page right out of professional wrestling raised the stakes when he released a video on youtube saying that if he loses to Apro he will shave his head! With coach Dus picking him to go out against Apro this week and this brave statement, it would seem that the Spider feel that Max has some sort of edge of Apro.
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[SPIDER_Max, with his full head of hair, the question is, will he still have it next week?]
Sunday’s game between the Gama Bears and Taoyuan Jets should also be exciting. Even the Bears are 0-2 in both losses they took the match to the 5th game losing by a hair in both times. They are hoping with coach leaf returning to Taiwan (before he was coaching long-distance from Japan) that they will be able kick things into gear with his strategically planning and vast experience. I was about to write detailed introduction of all the Bears players, but then I thought I should probably make different posts introducing all of the players of each team, there are a lot of interesting characters! For now I’ll just tell everyone about Bears Terran player Blanc (The only player in the league from the NW or New World clan). He is very respected among the community because he gave up a very high paying job and luxurious life style in China to come back to Taiwan to be a professional StarCraft II player. He is known as “the True Man” because of his sacrifice for eSports.
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[Gama Bears coach Leaf giving between game advice to Bears star player Croly]
The Taoyuan Jets are considered by many to have the most long-term potential of any team. While they may not have a player at the level of Softball right now, everyone on the team is very solid and hardworking. Their Protoss players Lin (was No.1 on the Taiwan ladder for a long time) and KaSim are considered to be very formidable opponents. After losing their first match, team manager Hulk made adjustments and led his players to victory last week against Wayi Spider. This week the Jets coach Manner very directly said in an interview that he is very confident this week, and his Jets have an 80% chance of beating the bears. It is interesting to point out that all four Jets players come from the Taiwan clan StorM. I guess I’ll let everyone in on inside Joke about KaSim, but everybody has to promise to keep it a secret. KaSim used to use the ID LoveStorM. One time in a friendly clan match with a Chinese clan, when StorM gave their player list to the China clan they said that LoveStorM was a girl and included picture of a random hot chick. I think they thought it would be obvious it was a joke, but the China shoutcaster doing the stream like totally took it seriously and got really into it. I guess he was really animated while talking about Lovemeimei (meimei being term for cute girls) and it kinda went viral among the Taiwan community, on top of that I think (but am not sure) that it was a KoF match and KaSim all-killed the other team. Anyways, after that whenever talking about LoveStorm Taiwan players use “she” to try to keep the inside joke going.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/rFWRJ.jpg)
[Taoyuan Jets from left to right: Nifi, Lin, Manner (coach), and GoW (God of War)]
The three maps for Saturday will be Scrap Station, Shattered Temple and Shakuras Plateau. The three maps for Sunday will be Zel Naga Caverns, Shattered Temple and Terminus Re. I will update this thread on Saturday and Sunday for links of the re-streams (unfortunately it will be in Mandarin though). If anyone has any questions or suggestions feel free to leave them below!
Good news everyone! The guys over at Taiwan's biggest StarCraft fansite: TWSL (Taiwan StarCraft League) have opened a forum just TeSL where they're going to put all the TeSL VODs from youtube with an english description:
http://sc2clan.tw/f/viewforum.php?f=140
not sure who to support atm though... will want to see their games first 
