EPT
Following Carnac's great introduction to the super exciting free porno and potato chips MSL will be difficult, but I will give it a go. The OSL is starting tomorrow, and I am here to introduce you to the 2006 ShinHan OSL2. ShinHan is a banking company in Korea that is filthy rich, so dont be surprised if we are reporting on the 53rd ShinHan OSL in the future. However, it is hard to play keepy uppy with a bank so it is not as impressive.
![[image loading]](http://image.fighterforum.com/showImage.asp?realFile=FFNEWS20060818153908001.JPG)
Adorable and lovable, your defending champion, Casy
The last OSL was won by Casy in a 3-1 defeat of a garden gnome. Terran has won the OSL title ten out of nineteen times, followed by protoss with seven titles and zerg with two. In order to correct this imbalance, all zerg eggs will produce double units for this OSL.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Manifesto7/hydra2.jpg)
For the swarm!
Speaking of rule changes, there has been some tweaking to the OSL system in the second 24-player season. You can check out a full list here, with most of the rule changes focussing around the round of 16.
Players
Of course, one of the biggest differences with the two major leeagues is that the OSL was expanded to 24 players last season. Six players make their way into the league with seeds, whle the remaining eighteen players have to qualify through the Dual League system.
The Seeded players from last season are:
#1. Casy (T) OGN Sparkyz
#2. ChoJJa (Z) KTF MagicNs
#3. YellOw (Z) KTF MagicNs
#4. JJu (Z) Samsung KHAN
#5. ZergMan (Z) Samsung KHAN
#6. IriS (T) CJ Entus
Protoss is obviously under-represented here. To remedy this, protoss cannon range has been increased by 6, and now do 400 damage. Another interesting point is that no SK player has been seeded. In a gesture of friendly sportsmanship, the KTF coach gave the SK coach a present of laser equipped sharks to help motivate his players.
The Dual League qualifiers are:
A1. Shine[Name] (T) OGN Sparkyz
A2. Ever)P(TT (P) Samsung KHAN
B1. GGPlay (Z) Hanbit Stars
B2. Canata (T) SKTelecom T1
C1. Firebathero (T) Samsung KHAN
C2. Bisu[Shield] (P) MBCGame Hero
D1. Midas (T) SKTelecom T1
D2. NaDa (T) Pantech Ex
E1. AnyTime (P) Lecaf Oz
E2. Sea (T) MBCGame Hero
F1. JiHyun (Z) Samsung KHAN
F2. GooDFriend (T) KTF MagicNs
G1. Rock (P) Pantech Ex
G2. Light[Alive] (T) MBCGame Hero
H1. GoRush (Z) SKTelecom T1
H2. July (Z) MBCGame Hero
I1. Sea.Jy (Z) CJ Entus
I2. ClouD (T) OGN Sparkyz
![[image loading]](http://image.fighterforum.com/showImage.asp?realFile=FFNEWS20060814210352001.JPG)
GoRush is going to use the force to win this tournament
All of this leads us to a disapointing race breakdown:
T: 11
P: 4
Z: 9
Lastly, the teams being represented are:
Samsung KHAN: 5
MBCGame Hero: 4
SKTelecom T1: 3
KTF MagicNs: 3
OGN Sparkyz: 3
CJ Entus: 2
Pantech Ex: 2
Hanbit Stars: 1
Lecaf Oz: 1
eNature Top: 0
One thing to remember about the fall tournament; it has traditionally been won by a protoss player. Anytime is back in the hunt after his victory last autumn. Garimto, Kingdom, and Reach have also won during the fall session. Take a trip down memory lane and read about Anytime's victory over the emporer here.
Groups
The thread about the group drawing is very informative and full of long wided blowhards. If you want to cut to the chase, here are the groups:
A: [t] Casy -> [p] Anytime -> [t] Midas -> [z] July
B: [z] ChoJJa -> [z] JiHyun -> [p] Bisu -> [t] Firebathero
C: [z] Yell0w -> [p] TT -> [t] Shine -> [t] GoodFriend
D: [z] JJu -> [p] TheRock -> [t] Canata -> [t] Sea
E: [z] ZergMan -> [z] Sea.jy -> [t] Nada -> [t] Light
F: [t] IriS -> [t] Cloud -> [z] GoRush -> [z] GGPlay
![[image loading]](http://image.fighterforum.com/MAIN/2006/08/FFMAIN20060818224359001.JPG)
The group drawing started very poorly, with the zerg seeds quickly poaching the protoss players. The protoss players buckled like belts and chose the weak terran players, except for Anytime who chose super-scary Midas. Anytime almost recieved the Giant Balls Award of the evening, but then Midas selected July as the final member of group A. As a reward for haing such enourmous balls (and screwing Anytime completely), marines will build 4x faster and cost 10 minerals for the next OSL.
Group A features three former champs and a terran player that simply doesn't lose these days. Another game to catch is newcomer Sea.Jy, well known in the foreigner community, against NaDa whom Jy picked for his group. Jy tore it up in the ODL so look out for his royal road quest.
Maps
OGN overhauled its maps for this season, ironing out some difficulties in one, borrowing a solid macro map from MBC, and introducing two new maps. Without further ado..
New Peaks of Baekdu
![[image loading]](http://www.columbia.edu/~kml2013/New_Peaks.jpg)
Tau Cross
![[image loading]](http://www.columbia.edu/~kml2013/Tau_Cross.jpg)
Arkanoid
![[image loading]](http://www.columbia.edu/~kml2013/Arkanoid.jpg)
Arcadia 2
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Carnac/pringles2mslstart/arcadia.jpg)
You can DL the maps here to try them out.
Schedule
Here are the matches for the first two weeks, shamelessly copy/pasted from Honestea:
8/25 Friday 19:00 Korea Time
1) Casy (T/OGN) vs Anytime (P/Lecaf) on Arcadia II
2) Bisu (P/MBCgame) vs FireBatHero (T/Samsung) on Arkanoid
3) Yellow (Z/KTF) vs Ever (P/Samsung) on Tau Cross
4) Canata (T/SKT) vs Sea (T/MBCgame) on New Peaks of Baekdu
5) Zergman (Z/Samsung) vs Click_No.1 (Jy)(Z/CJ) on Arcadia II
6) GoRush (Z/SKT) vs GGPlay (Z/Hanbit) on New Peaks of Baekdu
8/30 Wednesday 19:00 Korea Time
1) Midas (T/SKT) vs July (Z/MBCgame) on Arkanoid
2) Chojja (Z/KTF) vs JiHyun (Z/Samsung) on Tau Cross
3) Shine[Name] (T/OGN) vs GoodFriend (T/KTF) on New Peaks of Baekdu
4) Jju (Z/Samsung) vs Rock (P/Pantech) on Arcadia II
5) Nada (T/Pantech) vs Light[Alive] (T/MBCgame) on Arcadia II
6) Iris (T/CJ) vs Cloud (T/OGN) on New Peaks of Baekdu
ProGaming Tools you can use!
If you would like a taste of the korean progaming coverage but cant read korean, there is a great way to get some insight. Use Progamizer! Developed by PoP (our liquibet lord and master), progamizer allows you to browse korean progaming sites with translated player, map and team names. It makes muddling through much easier, and is invaluable to me. Check out the information in the articles section or just follow this link: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?&topic_id=34723
You have several options for watching SC games if battle reports are not for you (although I hope you read them
) First, you can use the TL.net torrent service. We have some amazing people in Live2Win and hasuprotoss that spend large amounts of time and resources providing us with games. Don't know where the torrent service is? Look up... WAYYY up, and find the handy torrent button on your TL toolbar. While you are there, check out some of the great articles . Secondly, if you fear sleep you can watch the games live. Details on how to do that, as well as a progaming schedule, can be found here. Lastly, there is a new website with VODs for dl. Sites like this often die quickly, but lets hope they can stick around. Visit http://www.bwvods.net/ and check it out.Lastly, I would like to mention a partnership we have with another site. Something we lack at TeamLiquid are brackets where you can check the status of ongoing tournaments. zonbi, owner of the best facial hair on the site, has created a great site with Progaming brackets, groups, and history. His site is the official reference site for TL readers. Take a moment to check it out at http://www.replays.hu/nOia/korea.htm
Conclusion
This OSL really doesn't have the big names that the MSL does. I don't mind watching new gamers however, because they bring excitment to the table. What I do mind though is the lack of protoss players. Watching mirror matchup's week after week gets tedious, and starcraft is best when all races are featured well. Why this happens so much in the OSL needs to be dicussed and hopefully remedied.
Happy watching,
Mani
