It is time!!!! After 8 grueling weeks of the http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/ESV_TV_Korean_Weekly , it has come time for it all to come together for the first ever ESV TV/Twitch TV Grand Prix #1!! With over $2,000 in prizes and a seed + travel to the $20,000 ASUS ROG tournament in Finland later this month, these players will be bringing it all to try and become the first ever Grand Prix Champion!
This tournament will be a 36 man tournament with two vicious group stages followed by an 8 man single elimination championship bracket! The winner will have fought through hell and back to become champion!
Additionally, ESV TV will be hosting 4 English streams simultaneously for this event! We will have 100% coverage and be bringing you more games than you can handle in 4 days! With 4 streams there will be nothing missed, and every game will be caught in all it's glory!
Grand Prix #1 - Day 3 Thursday, Feb 16 11:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00)
I'm really glad there are starting to be so many tournaments for koreans to qualify for big foreign events. Would love to see any of these players overseas.
Mass bio against mech on Cloud Kingdom, just not gonna happen. Glad Taeja realized this and switched to tanks, his air dominance really allowed him to switch tech without dying.
WHY ISN"T DREAM GETTING GROUND MECH UPGRADES!??!?!? He's playing really really well apart from that, but why? WhY?
Second game in a row where Dream gets a big lead playing really nicely, but his late game management seems terrible, he's never established a good economy, whereas Taeja just keeps his bases alives and counter attacks well.
On February 17 2012 09:19 Dodgin wrote: Taeja just on another level compared to Dream really.
Yeah, but taeja really did have alot of sloopy moment during that game. Dream threw away to many tanks by unsiegeing his entire army and being pulled around by a few units by taeja many times during that game
but there are moments where i long for the randomness/humour of artosis, tasteless, apollo, totalbiscuit, incontrol, day9 etc to spice it up. especially in boring super standard games where orb has no choice but to repeat himself, a bit of improv would be awesome.
then again, i enjoy watching avilo's stream because i find the bm, rage and balance whining to be hilariously entertaining.
On February 17 2012 09:33 shizna wrote: orb is one of the best casters imo...
but there are moments where i long for the randomness/humour of artosis, tasteless, apollo, totalbiscuit, incontrol, day9 etc to spice it up. especially in boring super standard games where orb has no choice but to repeat himself, a bit of improv would be awesome.
then again, i enjoy watching avilo's stream because i find the bm, rage and balance whining to be hilariously entertaining.
You should watch orbs stream when he's playing then xD
I've watched a couple of games on Cloud Kingdom, and while I'm not ready to say its broken, Brood Lords when properly controlled are completely. utterly. absolutely. IIIIINNNNNSSSSAAAAAANNNNNEEEEE. Life still played awesome though.
Wow, aLive's hold was scary. Life had basically chopped his legs off and took a deep breath, just to find that aLive would crawl toward him on his arms.
Yeah, was Orb not paying attention at all? Talking about Life as if it was a won game when he had only 3 broodlords left and a bunch of corruptors, not mining with like a 100 mineral bank
On February 17 2012 10:18 Gryffes wrote: Life giving a sick demo on how to throw a game away from a 100% won position.
Haha was thinking the exact same thing.
aLive is the only terran I know that tries to beat Broods/Infestors with just more marines. He has great control and played it well but, ghosts are good haha.
On February 17 2012 10:18 Gryffes wrote: Life giving a sick demo on how to throw a game away from a 100% won position.
Haha was thinking the exact same thing.
aLive is the only terran I know that tries to beat Broods/Infestors with just more marines. He has great control and played it well but, ghosts are good haha.
kinda hard to switch to ghosts when there's enough lings to a-move win against you... because ghosts are not cost effective against lings.
but life's economy was awful so he couldn't reinforce any ground units... also seemed like a pretty dumb "lolz i wann tier3 cos tier3 is tier3 and 3 is higher than 1 therefore it must be greater than tier1" decision to go mass air/infestor at the end when alive has like 2 tanks and 999 marines... errr if you have a good number of cracklings/banes under your broodlords, what do marines do to that?
broods hardcounter tanks, not marines... and infestors are support units - you can't bank on killing pure marine with just infestors. even platinum leaguers understand that.
A comment on the game might be necessary, life is so good and tends to hit really nice timings but when they aren't effective enough he never has the economy to back it up; I guess that's called all-in but I hate the term ^-^
On February 17 2012 10:43 milesfacade wrote: It's a UK page so far, keep it up guys!
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A comment on the game might be necessary, life is so good and tends to hit really nice timings but when they aren't effective enough he never has the economy to back it up; I guess that's called all-in but I hate the term ^-^
Should we declare aLive as actually from the UK and all type UK, UK, UK?
In terms of relevance I'm actually 100% on with my predos so far
On February 17 2012 10:41 shizna wrote: life only has 1 strategy? the mass speedling into 15 minute hive broodlord.
alive adapted and went blue flame. childs play.
he went roach/ling/bane in game 2 >_>
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This 2 base only Terran play in TvP is an interesting choice. Basically boiling it down to a kill or be killed scenario.
maybe i'm blind, but i haven't seen a single roach from life in this series, and banelings don't really need to be your composition.
alive played macro in game 1 and 2 and life got a huge pile of lings. he didn't have banelings until much later, because you can make banelings in reaction. if you dont need banes then you can use that gas to get fast hive and broodlord. this is life's gimmick build - fast broods gave alive all kinds of problems.
having loads of speedlings on map is awesome and pretty much guarantees that zerg can stay 1-2 bases ahead of terran.
On February 17 2012 10:41 shizna wrote: life only has 1 strategy? the mass speedling into 15 minute hive broodlord.
alive adapted and went blue flame. childs play.
he went roach/ling/bane in game 2 >_>
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This 2 base only Terran play in TvP is an interesting choice. Basically boiling it down to a kill or be killed scenario.
maybe i'm blind, but i haven't seen a single roach from life in this series, and banelings don't really need to be your composition.
He built quite a few in early/mid to handle aLive's hellions leaving his queens free to handle banshees. Went as far as getting roach speed too. Just happened to tech pretty fast after that because aLive double expanded and couldn't threaten anything else for ages.
On February 17 2012 10:43 milesfacade wrote: It's a UK page so far, keep it up guys!
___
A comment on the game might be necessary, life is so good and tends to hit really nice timings but when they aren't effective enough he never has the economy to back it up; I guess that's called all-in but I hate the term ^-^
Should we declare aLive as actually from the UK and all type UK, UK, UK?
Our empire is over but I think our next objective should be the imperial domination of the starcraft 2 world.
On February 17 2012 10:41 shizna wrote: life only has 1 strategy? the mass speedling into 15 minute hive broodlord.
alive adapted and went blue flame. childs play.
he went roach/ling/bane in game 2 >_>
---
This 2 base only Terran play in TvP is an interesting choice. Basically boiling it down to a kill or be killed scenario.
maybe i'm blind, but i haven't seen a single roach from life in this series, and banelings don't really need to be your composition.
He built quite a few in early/mid to handle aLive's hellions leaving his queens free to handle banshees. Went as far as getting roach speed too. Just happened to tech pretty fast after that because aLive double expanded and couldn't threaten anything else for ages.
roaches is why he had a 16 minute hive instead of a 13 minute hive then
On February 17 2012 11:29 Asha` wrote: Taeja would be in a great position if his macro hadn't gone to hell this game =/
add more barracks champ T_T
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Jjak-attack crushes Tiger to advance to the finals =)
Thats been Taejas problem against Protoss forever. He gets maxed and just wants to end the game, hardly ever plans for more than 1 200/200 battle.
Awesome that Jjakji is in the finals, would love to see him go to his first foreign event. Really have to wonder if aLive will accept the seed to Assembly with him still being in the GSL.
Bad idea to have a 3rd place match. After playing so many matches in a tournament and then barely losing the LAN spot, I doubt the players want to play a bo7 match for 100$.
On February 17 2012 12:34 cyclone25 wrote: Bad idea to have a 3rd place match. After playing so many matches in a tournament and then barely losing the LAN spot, I doubt the players want to play a bo7 match for 100$.
The players didn't mind. They asked why, I explained another $100 and there was 0 argument.
Edit: Also if the top 2 could not attend for whatever reason (visa, scheduling, etc) then they would be next in line. That was not the case here, but it sets up an extra level of protection.
On February 17 2012 12:34 cyclone25 wrote: Bad idea to have a 3rd place match. After playing so many matches in a tournament and then barely losing the LAN spot, I doubt the players want to play a bo7 match for 100$.
Better than nothing. Plus, most players are pretty cash starved and would love to get some cash for playing just a few games, which they do all the time anyway during practice.
On February 17 2012 12:34 cyclone25 wrote: Bad idea to have a 3rd place match. After playing so many matches in a tournament and then barely losing the LAN spot, I doubt the players want to play a bo7 match for 100$.
The players didn't mind. They asked why, I explained another $100 and there was 0 argument.
Edit: Also if the top 2 could not attend for whatever reason (visa, scheduling, etc) then they would be next in line. That was not the case here, but it sets up an extra level of protection.
How about the Code A spot though, Taeja's already in would it go to 3rd place?
On February 17 2012 12:34 cyclone25 wrote: Bad idea to have a 3rd place match. After playing so many matches in a tournament and then barely losing the LAN spot, I doubt the players want to play a bo7 match for 100$.
The players didn't mind. They asked why, I explained another $100 and there was 0 argument.
Edit: Also if the top 2 could not attend for whatever reason (visa, scheduling, etc) then they would be next in line. That was not the case here, but it sets up an extra level of protection.
How about the Code A spot though, Taeja's already in would it go to 3rd place?
On February 17 2012 12:34 cyclone25 wrote: Bad idea to have a 3rd place match. After playing so many matches in a tournament and then barely losing the LAN spot, I doubt the players want to play a bo7 match for 100$.
The players didn't mind. They asked why, I explained another $100 and there was 0 argument.
Edit: Also if the top 2 could not attend for whatever reason (visa, scheduling, etc) then they would be next in line. That was not the case here, but it sets up an extra level of protection.
How about the Code A spot though, Taeja's already in would it go to 3rd place?
We haven't had a code A spot in awhile.
As far as I'm aware, there's another Korean tourny for a code A slot now.
On February 17 2012 12:34 cyclone25 wrote: Bad idea to have a 3rd place match. After playing so many matches in a tournament and then barely losing the LAN spot, I doubt the players want to play a bo7 match for 100$.
The players didn't mind. They asked why, I explained another $100 and there was 0 argument.
Edit: Also if the top 2 could not attend for whatever reason (visa, scheduling, etc) then they would be next in line. That was not the case here, but it sets up an extra level of protection.
How about the Code A spot though, Taeja's already in would it go to 3rd place?
We haven't had a code A spot in awhile.
As far as I'm aware, there's another Korean tourny for a code A slot now.
omg, fuck my life yeah. Completely went back 3 months lol sorry >.>
On February 17 2012 12:34 cyclone25 wrote: Bad idea to have a 3rd place match. After playing so many matches in a tournament and then barely losing the LAN spot, I doubt the players want to play a bo7 match for 100$.
The players didn't mind. They asked why, I explained another $100 and there was 0 argument.
Edit: Also if the top 2 could not attend for whatever reason (visa, scheduling, etc) then they would be next in line. That was not the case here, but it sets up an extra level of protection.
How about the Code A spot though, Taeja's already in would it go to 3rd place?
We haven't had a code A spot in awhile.
As far as I'm aware, there's another Korean tourny for a code A slot now.
omg, fuck my life yeah. Completely went back 3 months lol sorry >.>
It's okay. 3 months ago Taeja was still rocking everyone he faced in the weeklies, and considering his last match that was casted, he hasn't changed much :p
On February 17 2012 12:34 cyclone25 wrote: Bad idea to have a 3rd place match. After playing so many matches in a tournament and then barely losing the LAN spot, I doubt the players want to play a bo7 match for 100$.
Neither of those players has won any major prize money and 100 dollars for one series is a lot when they practice 8-12 hours for nothing. Don't understand why you think they would want to turn it down. Maybe if it was like MVP or somethin.
On February 17 2012 12:34 cyclone25 wrote: Bad idea to have a 3rd place match. After playing so many matches in a tournament and then barely losing the LAN spot, I doubt the players want to play a bo7 match for 100$.
Neither of those players has won any major prize money and 100 dollars for one series is a lot when they practice 8-12 hours for nothing. Don't understand why you think they would want to turn it down. Maybe if it was like MVP or somethin.
On February 17 2012 12:34 cyclone25 wrote: Bad idea to have a 3rd place match. After playing so many matches in a tournament and then barely losing the LAN spot, I doubt the players want to play a bo7 match for 100$.
Neither of those players has won any major prize money and 100 dollars for one series is a lot when they practice 8-12 hours for nothing. Don't understand why you think they would want to turn it down. Maybe if it was like MVP or somethin.
Diamond (in a trench coat on a shady corner): "Hey man. Over here." Starcraft Player (who isn't winning big tournies): "What do you want?" Diamond: "Do you want to get money for doing what you love?" Starcraft player: "Oh, no thank you. I enjoy being broke, it builds character."
On February 17 2012 13:30 TheNessman wrote: well i'm sorry. i'm also done watching in that case
gg to both players
You were flaming both our streams over today, starting with Axeltoss on Stream 2 then Orb on 1. If you were legit looking to apply to cast this, you went about it the wrong way.....
I'd love to see a Taeja win at Assembly, would really help him break out. Oh, what's the deal with him at the moment? Is he not living in the practice house? Why is that?
On February 17 2012 14:36 Bagration wrote: Taeja's group at ASUS ROG: elfi, Adelscott, and Jinro
Will be tough for him with TvP being the chink in his armor per se. But I am sure he is going to go into this 2000% prepared. I will be rooting for him for sure!
On February 17 2012 14:40 Derity wrote: Taeja has a special bond to ESV Cups---
He does, he understands the system in and out from experience and thrives in it. It's an honor to have such an amazing player have that bond with my tournament.
On February 17 2012 14:40 Derity wrote: Taeja has a special bond to ESV Cups---
He does, he understands the system in and out from experience and thrives in it. It's an honor to have such an amazing player have that bond with my tournament.
On February 17 2012 16:38 Waxangel wrote: If online skill translated directly into live event skill, Taeja would be the favorite to win Assembly... alas
Maybe (and hopefully) this will be his breakout performance that gets him over it. I still think even if the GOM TV Taeja shows up he'd be one of the top contenders, he tends to only lose to stupid good players.
On February 17 2012 14:36 Bagration wrote: Taeja's group at ASUS ROG: elfi, Adelscott, and Jinro
Will be tough for him with TvP being the chink in his armor per se. But I am sure he is going to go into this 2000% prepared. I will be rooting for him for sure!
What!!?? Maybe I've missed some games, but from what I've seen Taeja has ridiculous TvP, especially on his stream.
Will be tough for him with TvP being the chink in his armor per se. But I am sure he is going to go into this 2000% prepared. I will be rooting for him for sure!
Maybe with the current Korean late game TvP meta, he would have trouble with the top Korean Protosses (he hasn't really played them since he wasn't in Code S). But I don't think he will have much problems with foreigners tosses.
hey anyone noticed that taeja's TvT is insanely good and he NEVER EVER goes mech? interesting... maybe mech isn't the 'future of tvt' like a lot of foreign players are preaching.
i've always felt that mech is just so weak to so many different builds... even with turret defense how are you gonna stop a doomdrop with a couple of ravens for PDD's to block turrets? ravens are getting more and more popular, and the non-mech player will have more gas to get those ravens.
the best thing about orb:
"ok the marine got in to scout... OHHHH MY GOOOOODDDDDD THE MARINEEEEEE GOT INNNNNNN!!!!!!!"
or
"oh wait did he forget combat shields.... *zooms in* OHHHHH MY GOOOOODDDDDD HE FORGOT COMBAT SHIELDDDDDD!!!!!!!"
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/4rNN3.jpg)
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