Tournament Spotlight: Stay At HomeStory Cup #4 - Take Off
by Wax
So, you see, the plan was to do a little preview of StayAt HomeStory Cup #4 to give fans a heads up on the upcoming tournament and hype them up as we head into the weekend. The thing is, less than twenty-four hours out, we still don't know half the players who will be competing at this thirty-two player event, nor do we even know what the prize pool is. Typical TakeTV.
However, there's another thing that's 'typical TakeTV': this lack of details doesn't affect the level of excitement one bit. For nearly a decade now, TakeTV has made a great case that it's the most creative and consistently entertaining entity in StarCraft II. By now, StarCraft II fans have come to know that TakeTV + HomeStory Cup = good shit.
Anyway, what DO we know about StayAt HomeStory Cup #4?
The most notable feature of SAHSC is that it will be the first major European event to have a live component since the global pandemic, with live audience tickets being sold and a portion of the players planned to be in live attendance. So far, Reynor, Kelazhur, Lambo, Elazer, PtitDrogo, and HeroMarine have been confirmed via TakeTV Twitter to be present live (seven in-person players is the theoretical max according to TakeTV posts on TL.net). It may not be the DH Open LAN event that we all hoped for at the start of 2021, but it's still a big step toward restoring the full energy of live events.
Schedule: Stay at HomeStory Cup #4 runs over four days from October 21st to 24th. The start time for the first day of games is 12:30 GMT (+00:00), though this may change for later days.
Format: Like regular HSC tournaments, SA-HSC #4 is a 32-player invitational comprised of two group stages and a double elimination playoff bracket. Both group stages are held GSL-style as 4-player double-elimination groups (8 groups of 4 in the RO32, 4 groups of 4 in the RO16). The top 8 players from the RO16 stage play in a double-elimination playoff bracket for the championship.
Prize pool: Who knows?
Roster: At the time of writing, seventeen players were confirmed.
Things to look forward to (that I wrote without knowing half the roster)
New maps: We got a taste of the new map pool in Wardi & Rotti 3, but this will be the first 'full' event under the new map pool.
For many fans, this will be the first and last time they get to enjoy the 'creative' aspects of the new maps before progamers figure out they're horribly imbalanced and ban them from every single series. Enjoy!
The asymmetrically-tooled furniture building contest: Look, I don't have any inside information, but I'm going to be extremely disappointed if TakeTV don't make the live-attendees engage in some kind of furniture building contest with different sets of tools. Just give all the players the same IKEA bookshelf to assemble, but hand PtitDrogo a power drill, give Lambo that cruddy IKEA hex-wrench, and force Kelazhur to use only his teeth. C'mon, the content produces itself.
The Dennis Gehlen "thank you fans" speech that's heartwarming at first but gets awkward because it's too long: If TakeTV really wanted our money, they would just set this segment to be one hour long to start, and lop five seconds off of it for every donation they get.
Pizza-making contest with Big Gabe and Riccardo Romiti: In one corner, we have HeroMarine who almost burned TakeTV down trying to cook a pizza. In the other corner, we have Reynor, an Italian and badge-carrying pizza cop. These two shouldn't be settling their difference on Battle.net—they need to fight it out in the kitchen.
The actual StarCraft competition: Oh yeah, that should be pretty good, too. I mean, they surely wouldn't lie to us after putting out tweets like this?
What if the 7th Player at the Venue would be MaxPax and we would finally know how he looks like? Would be pretty HYPE if you ask me
They could pull it of in 2 ways 1. Do a Big presentation 2. Have him sit in the crowed anonymously and somehow pick him to Play a showmatch at "random"
I think Naruto announced many more players during one of the DH streams. Unfortunately, I only remember Ryung and Skillous, but there were several more.
Excited to see Classic play, I know he's been beating some pretty good players but I haven't gotten to watch him much yet. Hope he puts on a good show.
On October 21 2021 00:45 tigera6 wrote: Full group is out btw, all the big names from EU are in. KR are pretty much the same minus Maru Dark and Cure.
Reynor Byun and MLord in the same group is full HYPE.
Cure did accept the invite and cancelled later. I dont know the reason. Special accepted and cancelled later. His choice to share or not share why. Parting declined.
Watched most other (StayAt)HomeStory cups and really liked them. So looking forward to this one!
But is it just me, or does the organisation this time round seem a little bit lackluster? - No real schedule announced yet, apart from "start time for the first day of games is 13:30, though this may change for later days". - Only half the players confirmed and no groups known, 1 day (!) before the event. - Not even an indication of the prize pool, which even TL picked up on: "Prize pool: Who knows?" Doesn't surprise that some players cancelled.
On October 21 2021 02:17 Thomastt wrote: Watched most other (StayAt)HomeStory cups and really liked them. So looking forward to this one!
But is it just me, or does the organisation this time round seem a little bit lackluster? - No real schedule announced yet, apart from "start time for the first day of games is 13:30, though this may change for later days". - Only half the players confirmed and no groups known, 1 day (!) before the event. - Not even an indication of the prize pool, which even TL picked up on: "Prize pool: Who knows?" Doesn't surprise that some players cancelled.
prize pool is the same as the previous edition. Groups are announced one day before (they are already announced at the time of this reply) and yea we didn't announce all players
So hyped and that line up is sick, we can feel things are almost returning to normal again! Hopefully Clem bounces back and becomes the unkillable TvZ machine once again
On October 21 2021 10:00 Kitai wrote: Hooray for my favorite SC2 tournament!
Really happy to see Classic in a tournament again. When did his service end and has anyone seen his form lately?
He s been playing for a while now. His Service ended right before the recent GSL season started. He almost made it into the Ro16 as well. He s still rather Rusty and will most likely not have a significant impact here
On October 21 2021 15:38 KappaKingPrime wrote: So who are we missing from the top KR players here - Maru, Cure, Dark, and Parting? Pretty stacked overall with all the top EU players.
I dont bother inviting Maru and dark , parting declined, cure cancelled
On October 21 2021 15:38 KappaKingPrime wrote: So who are we missing from the top KR players here - Maru, Cure, Dark, and Parting? Pretty stacked overall with all the top EU players.
I dont bother inviting Maru and dark , parting declined, cure cancelled
But how can this be a proper HSC without Maru's and Dark's decline?
On October 23 2021 09:18 shwiinnator wrote: Hey, so are some of these matches pre-recorded?
Groups A&B on day1, Groups A&D on day were live, rest of the groups via replays
Playoffs are live (with the exception of the upper Semifinals)
It is done to allow korean players better times of play for the playoffs we can not avoid it entirely, but for the groups we wanted to make it as comfotable as possible
EPT
