EG.IdrA and dignitas.SeleCT revealed as the final two invited players for the ASUS ROG Stars Invite Starcraft 2 tournament held 4th of November in Helsinki, Finland.
ASUS ROG Stars Invite is starting next week and it’s time to reveal our last two contestants who will be competing for the 10 000 $ prize money with six other world class players in a two day tournament. Today, we are happy to complete our roster with the long term Zerg champion, representing North America and team Evil Geniuses, Greg “IdrA” Fields, and the foreign Korean, Ryoo “SeleCT” Kyung Hyun from team dignitas.
Love him or hate him, one thing’s for certain: IdrA doesn’t leave anyone cold. Coming straight from his title at IEM Guangzhou and a deep run in MLG Orlando, the Gracken is right back in the front lines of the most beautiful foreign zerginess after a period that many have considered a slump. The little known fact is, however, that during this time IdrA simply focused on his bodybuilding career, and after taking over that scene with the help of his coach Geoff, he’s back in StarCraft 2 to reclaim the foreigner throne.
The story goes that once an aspiring RTS player, yet without a nickname, was staring at a “Select a nickname” prompt of a game name input screen for some time - and finally ending up with the first word he saw on the screen: SeleCT. Judging by the player attendance lists, you might think tournament organizers have gone through exactly the same procedure: from MLGs to the almighty Blizzcon, this Korean/American hybrid has shown his exceptionally aggressive Terran style to many an audience. Some might think he’s outclassed by his fellow competitors here, but he has surprised many naysayers before.
There you have it. The tournament lineup is now complete and looks as follows:
Soon we will be announcing more details about the tournament such as who will be your host and caster-combo for the weekend. Make sure to get ready and prepare yourself for this awesome event and join the audience with ASUS and Nvidia on site or online.
Nice one, elKaDor!
In the previous player announcement about MC and SjoW there was quite a buzz about who the last two remaining players are going to be or who they should be. To our surprise, one clever TeamLiquid.net user guessed it right only 14 comments after the announcement.
On October 18 2011 05:03 elKaDor wrote: IdrA and Select!
We think this calls for a reward. ASUS and NVIDIA would like to thank elKaDor for his interest in the ASUS ROG Stars Invite tournament and his excellent insight. We think excellent insight calls for an excellent reward and want to congratulate elKaDor with a ASUS GeForce GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP graphics card. We will contact elKaDor with a private message tomorrow about the details.
♥, from NVIDIA and ASUS
About ASUS ROG
Finally, to remind you all of the company who makes this tournament possible, ROG -- Republic of Gamers, a gaming sub brand of ASUS that is comprised of cutting edge hardware tailored for serious gamers. The product branches include; Motherboards, Graphics Cards, LCD Monitors, Gaming Peripherals, Desktops and Notebooks. The ASUS ROG Stars Invite will be solely powered by ROG hardware.
A month ago, I would have been very disappointed that IdrA was on the list, however after his recent resurgence, and his upcoming return to Korea, I could not be more excited.
SeleCT is also a very strong player and I'm glad to see him on the list.
i hope the brackets break down to the semis being dimaga vs white ra and idra vs MC... then either a white ra over idra final or dimaga over MC final... (i can dream right?)
Select's picture overshadows the huge ammount of hair and little muscle mass Idra has in his picture. organizers really need to work on getting more recent pictures of him :p
Lot of fan favorites and good players in this tourney. No way I'm not tuning in! Also, was that thing about IdrA bodybuilding a joke? I'm a very guillible person, so don't make fun of me for asking please.
On October 26 2011 04:50 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: Lot of fan favorites and good players in this tourney. No way I'm not tuning in! Also, was that thing about IdrA bodybuilding a joke? I'm a very guillible person, so don't make fun of me for asking please.
Shouldn't MC just stay in Korea and train like a madman for a while so he doesn't fall out of Code S again? Or maybe he should just not pick too hard enemies.^^ Go Idra! \^_^/
On October 26 2011 04:52 chocopaw wrote: Shouldn't MC just stay in Korea and train like a madman for a while so he doesn't fall out of Code S again? Or maybe he should just not pick too hard enemies.^^ Go Idra! \^_^/
Eh, MC has grander dreams, he wants to be an international superstar and win every foreign event. The travel doesn't seem to affect his play too much, except that he can't train while he's away.
Really happy about these last two picks. IdrA was no surprise, but SeleCT...well...his pic says it all!
On October 26 2011 04:50 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: Lot of fan favorites and good players in this tourney. No way I'm not tuning in! Also, was that thing about IdrA bodybuilding a joke? I'm a very guillible person, so don't make fun of me for asking please.
I'm actually very glad for IdrA that he has been invited to the tournament. He has shown good results recently and I wish him all the best for the ASUS ROG Stars Invite. This certainly should prove to be a great event with such a good line-up of players participating.
On October 26 2011 04:50 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: Lot of fan favorites and good players in this tourney. No way I'm not tuning in! Also, was that thing about IdrA bodybuilding a joke? I'm a very guillible person, so don't make fun of me for asking please.
On October 26 2011 04:52 chocopaw wrote: Shouldn't MC just stay in Korea and train like a madman for a while so he doesn't fall out of Code S again? Or maybe he should just not pick too hard enemies.^^ Go Idra! \^_^/
Eh, MC has grander dreams, he wants to be an international superstar and win every foreign event. The travel doesn't seem to affect his play too much, except that he can't train while he's away.
Really happy about these last two picks. IdrA was no surprise, but SeleCT...well...his pic says it all!
i dont get how you can say it doesnt affect his play when he fell to code b
MC is to busy pretending hes a rockstar to do waht makes koreans so good, endless practice
Idra "should" win this one. Oh wait there's MC. Well if Idra has fixed his ZvP then yeah he could win. MC favourite but it won't be easy. Not by a longshot.
Rather a disappointing line-up from a terran perspective. Neither Sjow or Select are serious contenders to be honest, but maybe one of them will surprise.
On October 26 2011 05:14 Derez wrote: Rather a disappointing line-up from a terran perspective. Neither Sjow or Select are serious contenders to be honest, but maybe one of them will surprise.
isnt select doing training in Korea though?
man though how do tournaments get such terrible pictures anyway? youd think it would be easy for them to ahve palyers send them a RECENt photo to photoshop
Hahaha awesome picture by SeleCT. The invites are just ridiculous though. Not winning a single match will not be something to be ashamed of with those invites.
Wow.. awesome 8 selections! Not hard to imagine anyone winning it! I don't think any of the players are completely dominant (I would give Idra and MC an edge) and there have been pretty good recent tournament results by most of the players!
On October 26 2011 05:20 Forikorder wrote: man though has MC won ANY foreign event? im pretty sure he was bragging that he would win every foreign event he entered
figures i miss one tournament and it completely destroys my argument >.>
man though has MC won ANY foreign event? im pretty sure he was bragging that he would win every foreign event he entered
You knew he had won IPL3 and still compared him to Spanishiwa?
Uhh... Which IPL did Spanishiwa win?
i had mentioned IPL in my post, from the games i saw (vs STC and the zerg in the finals) i didnt think his opponents were very good hard to say how good someone is when playing bad people and then he had a disapointing run at MLG getting knocked out by BoxeR (and im still amazed he won the first game)
so i figured he was jsut like Spanishiwa he had an interesting out of the box style and everyone thought he was amazing for that reason alone
Really sick group of foreigners, would really like to see a more diverse Korean mix though next time. MC has fallen off the wagon in my opinion lately, besides getting second at MLG orlando (Which as HuK said was missing a lot of the top Korean Terran's) However it will not stop me from tuning in to every nail biting second! IdrA fighting!
On October 26 2011 05:20 Forikorder wrote: man though has MC won ANY foreign event? im pretty sure he was bragging that he would win every foreign event he entered
Dreamhack Invitational and Copenhagen Games.
didnt HuK win dreamhack? or did MC win a different dreamhack? or am i confusing myself?
On October 26 2011 05:20 Forikorder wrote: man though has MC won ANY foreign event? im pretty sure he was bragging that he would win every foreign event he entered
figures i miss one tournament and it completely destroys my argument >.>
man though has MC won ANY foreign event? im pretty sure he was bragging that he would win every foreign event he entered
You knew he had won IPL3 and still compared him to Spanishiwa?
Uhh... Which IPL did Spanishiwa win?
i had mentioned IPL in my post, from the games i saw (vs STC and the zerg in the finals) i didnt think his opponents were very good hard to say how good someone is when playing bad people and then he had a disapointing run at MLG getting knocked out by BoxeR (and im still amazed he won the first game)
so i figured he was jsut like Spanishiwa he had an interesting out of the box style and everyone thought he was amazing for that reason alone
figures i miss one tournament and it completely destroys my argument >.>
man though has MC won ANY foreign event? im pretty sure he was bragging that he would win every foreign event he entered
You knew he had won IPL3 and still compared him to Spanishiwa?
Uhh... Which IPL did Spanishiwa win?
i had mentioned IPL in my post, from the games i saw (vs STC and the zerg in the finals) i didnt think his opponents were very good hard to say how good someone is when playing bad people and then he had a disapointing run at MLG getting knocked out by BoxeR (and im still amazed he won the first game)
so i figured he was jsut like Spanishiwa he had an interesting out of the box style and everyone thought he was amazing for that reason alone
You must not have been following the scene very recently. Stephano is known for being good. See: this thread or the results of IPL/ESWC.
Your only comparison to "Spanishiwa" is that he didn't do well in one tournament...seriously? Every good player has had a tournament that they bombed out or didn't perform to expectations. The difference is the Spanishiwa has never yet demonstrated his performance among the top tier of players. It's doubtful he would win among the best North Americans, let alone among Europeans and Koreans. It's a terrible comparison to make.
[Edit]: It's like trying to compare Huk to Agh. No hate on Agh, but their respective tournament results are nowhere close.
On October 26 2011 05:15 AIOL! wrote: This means no Stephano ?? WTF !
is Stephano the new Spanishiwa? as in the new Zerg palyer who gets tons of tons of hype without really having spectacular results?
i mean maybe its jsut me but his final and semifainal opponent in IPL didnt paly so well and he didnt have an amazing run at MLG
What. Am. I. Reading .... Please get a clue before embarassing yourself with such ridiculous statement. Stephano won IPL & ESWC and he went through the open bracket at MLG losing in a close serie against a beastily Emperor...
On October 26 2011 05:15 AIOL! wrote: This means no Stephano ?? WTF !
is Stephano the new Spanishiwa? as in the new Zerg palyer who gets tons of tons of hype without really having spectacular results?
i mean maybe its jsut me but his final and semifainal opponent in IPL didnt paly so well and he didnt have an amazing run at MLG
What. Am. I. Reading .... Please get a clue before embarassing yourself with such ridiculous statement. Stephano won IPL & ESWC and he went through the open bracket at MLG losing in a close serie against a beastily Emperor...
I love Select pic btw :-P
Yeah srsly. Let me know when spanishiwa wins two major tournaments within like 2 weeks of each other.
On October 26 2011 05:15 AIOL! wrote: This means no Stephano ?? WTF !
is Stephano the new Spanishiwa? as in the new Zerg palyer who gets tons of tons of hype without really having spectacular results?
i mean maybe its jsut me but his final and semifainal opponent in IPL didnt paly so well and he didnt have an amazing run at MLG
unlike spanishiwa he's won over 50k$ in the past month just from first places in major tournaments... if that isn't spectacular results i'm not sure what is.
MC will be one of the finalists unless he has to play a PvP before that. Idra will be the other finalist unless he has to play a ZvZ or MC before that.
On October 26 2011 10:26 red4ce wrote: MC will be one of the finalists unless he has to play a PvP before that. Idra will be the other finalist unless he has to play a ZvZ or MC before that.
Hmm I'd favor IdrA against Ret ZvZ... I think they played 2 MLG ago or something with IdrA winning o.o idr tho... thats just what i think (yea colombus)
I've got free tickets for this event . Saturday/Sunday would have been better days because when the tournament begins, many people are still at school/work. Who are the casters? TB and Apollo I assume.
On October 26 2011 05:15 LlamaNamedOsama wrote: elKaDor, forever motivating tons of people to now constantly predict invites in the hopes of free stuff XD
haha indeed :D will always predict invites further on :D
Really cool by Asus/Nvidia, cant understand that i won just by guessing the invites.
I cannot wait to see SeleCT's TvP, his ghost control is so much fun to watch (I spend my free time watching looped vodz of HTs dieing to perfect ghost control).
Even if the invited players are really good and deserve their invites, I can't help but think that it's always the same players who are invited in tournaments.
The only relatively new player is Elfi. Other than that, it will just be the same match up we have already seen many times.
I really think tournaments could make efforts to bring players that haven't been seen often but are still very good. For instance, instead of having EG send Idra and Huk, they could invite Demuslim.
On October 27 2011 23:23 Elean wrote: Even if the invited players are really good and deserve their invites, I can't help but think that it's always the same players who are invited in tournaments.
The only relatively new player is Elfi. Other than that, it will just be the same match up we have already seen many times.
I really think tournaments could make efforts to bring players that haven't been seen often but are still very good. For instance, instead of having EG send Idra and Huk, they could invite Demuslim.
Demuslim is in no way even close to the level of the other EG members invited, even Puma who lately is behind Huk and Idra is arguably much better than Demuslim. The reason many other players aren't invited is because there are at most 15-20 foreigners who dominate the foreign scene. People want more players but the reason that they don't have them is that they usually invite the better players to the tournaments.
On October 27 2011 23:23 Elean wrote: Even if the invited players are really good and deserve their invites, I can't help but think that it's always the same players who are invited in tournaments.
The only relatively new player is Elfi. Other than that, it will just be the same match up we have already seen many times.
I really think tournaments could make efforts to bring players that haven't been seen often but are still very good. For instance, instead of having EG send Idra and Huk, they could invite Demuslim.
Demuslim is in no way even close to the level of the other EG members invited, even Puma who lately is behind Huk and Idra is arguably much better than Demuslim. The reason many other players aren't invited is because there are at most 15-20 foreigners who dominate the foreign scene. People want more players but the reason that they don't have them is that they usually invite the better players to the tournaments.
See, that's exactly what I'm saying
There are really good players who don't get enough air time.
Demuslim is really good, arguably better thant he terrans who got invited. He is one of the highest ELO ranked player. He is owning the ladder. He is doing better than Idra or Puma in the NASL.
And yet there are ignorant people who would say he is no good, just becuse they haven't seen him often in tournaments... just because he doesn't get invites.
I'm sure you were among the people who said Stephano wasn't good before he won IPL3.
And I gave Demuslim as example, just because I know his team could send him, but there are other players like that.
On October 27 2011 23:23 Elean wrote: Even if the invited players are really good and deserve their invites, I can't help but think that it's always the same players who are invited in tournaments.
The only relatively new player is Elfi. Other than that, it will just be the same match up we have already seen many times.
I really think tournaments could make efforts to bring players that haven't been seen often but are still very good. For instance, instead of having EG send Idra and Huk, they could invite Demuslim.
Demuslim is in no way even close to the level of the other EG members invited, even Puma who lately is behind Huk and Idra is arguably much better than Demuslim. The reason many other players aren't invited is because there are at most 15-20 foreigners who dominate the foreign scene. People want more players but the reason that they don't have them is that they usually invite the better players to the tournaments.
See, that's exactly what I'm saying
There are really good players who don't get enough air time.
Demuslim is really good, arguably better thant he terrans who got invited. He is one of the highest ELO ranked player. He is owning the ladder. He is doing better than Idra or Puma in the NASL.
And yet there are ignorant people who would say he is no good, just becuse they haven't seen him often in tournaments... just because he doesn't get invites.
I'm sure you were among the people who said Stephano wasn't good before he won IPL3.
And I gave Demuslim as example, just because I know his team could send him, but there are other players like that.
I see your overall point.. however there are plenty of online tournaments every week where lesser known players get a chance to shine. This is an 8 player tournament. As a spectator I expect them to attempt to invite THE BEST that they can. + Show Spoiler +
obviously, there will always be some debate over player C being better than player Y - AND most of us will never know how many on our list of best players declined invites (I'm guessing MC wasn't the ONLY Korean invited...)
I think the 8 players attending are some of the best and should produce a very high quality event.
On October 27 2011 23:23 Elean wrote: Even if the invited players are really good and deserve their invites, I can't help but think that it's always the same players who are invited in tournaments.
The only relatively new player is Elfi. Other than that, it will just be the same match up we have already seen many times.
I really think tournaments could make efforts to bring players that haven't been seen often but are still very good. For instance, instead of having EG send Idra and Huk, they could invite Demuslim.
Demuslim is in no way even close to the level of the other EG members invited, even Puma who lately is behind Huk and Idra is arguably much better than Demuslim. The reason many other players aren't invited is because there are at most 15-20 foreigners who dominate the foreign scene. People want more players but the reason that they don't have them is that they usually invite the better players to the tournaments.
See, that's exactly what I'm saying
There are really good players who don't get enough air time.
Demuslim is really good, arguably better thant he terrans who got invited. He is one of the highest ELO ranked player. He is owning the ladder. He is doing better than Idra or Puma in the NASL.
And yet there are ignorant people who would say he is no good, just becuse they haven't seen him often in tournaments... just because he doesn't get invites.
I'm sure you were among the people who said Stephano wasn't good before he won IPL3.
And I gave Demuslim as example, just because I know his team could send him, but there are other players like that.
I see your overall point.. however there are plenty of online tournaments every week where lesser known players get a chance to shine. This is an 8 player tournament. As a spectator I expect them to attempt to invite THE BEST that they can. + Show Spoiler +
obviously, there will always be some debate over player C being better than player Y - AND most of us will never know how many on our list of best players declined invites (I'm guessing MC wasn't the ONLY Korean invited...)
I think the 8 players attending are some of the best and should produce a very high quality event.
Well, you don't really see my main point. My problem is that they don't invite the best players, they invite the most known. And since they get invited, they remain the most kwown etc..
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.sett.fi/sites/default/files/tuotekuvat/Starcraft_II_StarsInvite_2011-04.png)
EG.IdrA and 
dignitas.SeleCT revealed as the final two invited players for the ASUS ROG Stars Invite Starcraft 2 tournament held 4th of November in Helsinki, Finland.![[image loading]](http://sett.fi/sites/default/files/henkilokuvat/kuva_idra.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://sett.fi/sites/default/files/henkilokuvat/kuva_select.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://sett.fi/sites/default/files/uutiskuvat/ENGTX560_Ti_DCII_TOP_2DI_1GD5_TopView.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.sett.fi/sites/default/files/tuotekuvat/ASUS%2BROG_590px.png)
hulk sad 
