[STL1] Episode I: A New Hope

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

It is a time of chaos and despair, the former FOREIGN REPUBLIC is in ruins. Only few rebels continue fighting isolated battles, their ultimative goal is to restore the international competition. Their members are scattered over many nations, but their spirit remains unbroken. The Swedish Brood War Initative formed a new council, trying to stabilize the community and introduce a new order. Their first plan is eager, dangerous and the start of a great adventure. With the help of the returning commentator Hacklebeast and his brother in arms L_Master the first week of the SBWI Teamleague opened yesterday and might symbolize the beginning of a new era...




Eight teams have joined the rebel alliance thus far. Each of them is involved in political affairs causing major disturbances in the force.

One of the older Teams, Los Reyes del Mambo Evolutions, was the center of conflicts during the sign-up phase already. Despite featuring a scary Zerg line-up (WhistleR, Bakuryu, kollll, trutaCz and finally TechnicS), as well as promising talents (Wallace) and veterans (Bonyth), they caused a giant uproar when they received financial support of Eywa the Hutt, who built an empire thanks to trading card schemes; as a consequence they were able to hire one of the most ruthless killers out there: Sziky. This means the new Death Star that this team is, might destroy an entire army without a big effort.

Sziky's former team sas.¹ might seek revenge for the transfer. They're a unique family and feature a lot of characters you don't find anywhere else. Luke 'Dewalt' Skywalker showed his talent in the previous winter and is ready for a comeback, Canadian Chewbacca (DraW) and first shooting Han 'skzlime' Solo make the trio perfect, especially since they're supported by Admiral Dsaqwbar, a known analist of strategys and managed by charming Lando 'ZaRaki' Carissian.

However, the most fearsome team has to be introduced just yet – the International Federation of Untouchables. Russia is known for having great players, especially since Master Yoda himself supverized the training of his padawans on Moscwobar for three years, before he came one with the force². The Federation is one example of East Europe's greatness. Even though Dewalt Skywalker is not with them, they have Tama, Lancerx, TTF, spx, AlfiO and eOnzErG – the finest of defiler.ru's scene. The two strongest are however Jedi Knight Marwin, a very furious Ukrainian Terran and the Sith Lord Darth Scan, who already competed in Sonic's Ranking Tournaments.



The second Russian team to represent the strength of Defiler.ru's community is insantiy without Limits. They have plenty of experienced players like Fenito, Boom, Biggus, Bender or Artanis. With GameZZZ and Ramms they have two trained veterans, as well as Justice, who's always good for some really amusing trash talk.

One of the new teams would be LaGFree. Their line-up reminds me a bit at sand people, the always underestimated population of Tatooine. They're always lurking behind a dune, ready to snipe the most known names. Even Luke Skywalker was almost killed, the story could have ended right there – TerrOr, CastrO and DienMaX could very well mean an end to stronger players. I do trust this team might be able to change the rules of the league!

The merged team of Stealth Bunnies and PaiN³ is new and old at the same time. Their name forces a comparison with Ewoks. Bunnies are fluffly, just like Ewoks. That's where the comparison ends. Ewoks did take down the GALATIC EMPIRE, but the problem is, that PsB will fight for the throne themselves. They have a lot of known names like Inf3cted, Bizzy and DragOn, but also the promising talents like Dr.Shrinker. Furthermore, their newest recruit FengZi Fett is a real tyrant, he already slew a number of the SOSPA Koreans!

Team intrinsic Motivation (iM) is a bit of a mystery, just like the Empirial Guards. They stand there, covered all in red, and look dangerous. What else is red is the Spanish Inquistion, and nobody expects them. It'd be a crucial mistake to underestimate a team with a lot of names you know, and then you don't. Mca64 already suggested that two of their players might be clones – Bibiane and Rush. Who knows, maybe he's right⁴.

Last in line are the moisture farmers Avatars of Victory. They do work in the sandy ICCup lands, they don't just sit around all day every day, but get their hands dirty. They do the neccessary work of training new talents. With the exceptions of MaD and Safina, most players haven't had the chances to shine in the big arenas just yet. But Fold, ProfProtoss, Glio and Poetic show that a vast number of the new generation are in line waiting for their opportunity. We all know how bad it can end for a GALACTIC EMPIRE if a bored and thrilled moisture farmer decides to 'score center-hits on two-meter targets in complex zero-altitude maneuvers'.



Most of you might not know, but the league started a while ago already. At least unofficially. People simply can't wait, sometimes it turns out badly and you get your hand chopped off and end up falling from a planetary station, sometimes it's good, even though you end up in a dumpster, but that's better than getting arrested by Stormtroopers for invading a galactic battle station. The first unofficial war featured the eagles⁵ and team LagFree. They wanted to test the waters first and played a few matches. It was funny, nobody was playing super serious, the stream by LuMiX was entertaining and it enabled a bunch of interested viewers to see what the Peruvians could do. It already showed Dewalt's return, which was my personal favourite. Also, skzlime, non and LuMiX theory-crafted a bit about the new maps. The replays are recommended! Spoilerfree results were provided by TerrOr and DraW already – thanks for this eagles and LaGFree!

Sources: Replays – VODs

The fist week (and the official start) featured two wars: LRM Evolutions vs. insanity without Limits and Avatars of Victory against PsB. Spoilers ahead. If you dislike spoilers, check the LR Thread for links to the VODs!

Let's be honest, LRM vs. iwL- was a bit of a downer, the established team steam rolled iwL. It'd be a bit of a waste of space to go into much details here. There's was a ZvZ with lots of lings, Szikyling ZvP and Wallace showing he worked on his PvZ, as well as some relatively static TvP of Justice, which he ended with his traditional „Fucking Lagger“ - which also is the quote of the day.

PsB vs. AoV was much more entertaining, despite the war being heavy on mirror matches. Mirror matches often offer boredom – not so in the case of Glio vs. vOddy. The French and the Swede duked it out, engaged in quite nice fights, showed that TvT doesn't need to be two turtles racing each other.

Two PvPs between shrinker (PsB) vs Fold (AoV) and Splax (PsB) and Mewka (AoV) followed. The first one was already pretty good, featuring a not-so-boring game, especially since Fold made it 2-0 for AoV – they were already better than most thought. Sadly, Mewka couldn't keep up in the third set on Outsider, even thoug he put on a hell of a show. Reaver harass and tightly fought battles.
In the fourth set Dutch Zerg Sabas (AoV) had to take on the first true monster of PsB: Canadian DragOn. The Zerg put on a good fight and surprised many with a strong opening, but wasn't able to keep up with the Protoss in the long run. Next in line was Poetic (AoV) against infamous masslinger OctZerg (PsB). Their match wasn't about macro, but about offensive openings. A bunker rush turned into some counter attack into a gg. PsB was leading and overcame the blow. In the last and deciding game Bizzy basically destroyed his opponent Entaro fairly easily, he's just on a different level right now. Keep your head up Entaro, we understand, next time you'll get a revanche, AoV shows how fast their members become stronger!

Sources: VODs of Week 1




The second week is coming close and with it we'll get two more highly interesting wars. The first one will feature our new Peruvian friends, who already introduced themselves against sas. Back then they were able to almost win against the Hungarian eagles, only one game. However, that war was played with the all-kill format and had no stakes, their opponents iM) won't be such an easy target. The two big question marks will clash – it's really hard to predict who'll come out on top. It also does depend on the shape of returning Bibiane or oldschool Handy. Same goes for LaGFree – not sure how good their players are. Terror and DieNMaX were up for some good games in the TLS Seasons so far, but CastrO remains a bit of a mystery.



The second clan war – the eagles vs the federation – will be the real highlight of the first two weeks. Marwin already showed last sunday that he hadn't lost any bit of skill yet, he completely smashed the competition on stream. Obviously, the rest of iFU isn't bad at all, since almost all of their players are highly active. The eagles on the other hand have a bunch of players, who weren't exactly active in the past half year. Dewalt just returned from SCII or still trains both, skzlime is busy spamming skype groups and DraW isn't even done with using the list of excuses he has prepared a few years ago. Then again, with non and ZaRaki returning recently, they also have experienced players to fill the gaps. Anything from a close win for the Eagles to a complete rape for the Federation is possible. We're awaiting this clash of titans!




Star Wars nerds and StarCraft fans have more in common than meets the eye. Both franchises inspired masses, introduced them to a new universe, but also enabled them to share their passion with peers. Both parties shared a devotion to their idols, George Lucas and Blizzard respectively. Both were disappointed time and time again; Lucas created Jar Jar Binks, Blizzard made Battle.net 2.0. Lucas tried to erase his original copies of the Star Wars trilogy, Blizzard knocked on Sonic's door. Both fans are consequently used to bad news and moreover commentate on them with passion. It's a subtile rule of social sciences that you can not Jedi Mind Trick people's thoughts, but it's possible to tell them what they should talk about. It's also known that bad news are the thing you embrace first. Drama sells, while other interesting news, the bright side, is neglected. Eric Idle would be deeply disappointed.

In summer 2005 Mondragon's Templars of Twilight changed their tag, they now were part of pro-Gaming. This meant a lot to the fans, the comments exploded, people argued and a lot of dirt was thrown. The context was relatively simple: The Templars started as team of friends, who slowly became the most powerful clan of the international scene. They supported everything, they had humble, yet highly skilled players, Mondragon being the symbol of it. pro-Gaming on the other hand gave out contracts, tried to bind their players with money to them and was consequently seen as the suits of community. Perfect rivals.
Whenever both teams or two of their players met, it was a duel everyone wanted to see. The underdog of the Templars should show the allegedly greedy empire of pro-Gaming what's what. ToT's transition hence was seen as betrayal – suddenly money was trumping family and friends. The prophets came out of their caves and predicted a less traditional community and a generation of players selling themselves.



In this light, Sziky's transfer to LRM Evolutions, especially since plenty of money is involved seems as betrayal. The negative comments were to be expected and they came in minutes after the news. His former team are seen as the victim, Anakin 'Sziky' Skywalker turned into Lord Vader.

In 2005 the drama was everywhere, and again, the good news were ignored. The Templars brought new live in the rotting corpse of pro-Gaming, the ex-pGs found new homes, new teams were created and the newly squad of pG suddenly fought many more friendly wars. They combined money and family values. It also added another story line, making it more interesting to outsiders – it had impact on several multi gaming portals coverage wise. People realized that the foreign Brood War community wasn't dead. Even though pro-Gaming fell apart due to non-StarCraft related incidents, the Templars had an positive effect while trying out sponsorship. The community wasn't dying, the prophets were wrong, like they always are. The negative impact came from within the community, they simply forgot that life went on, regardless of Mondragon's new clan tag.

I predict the same for the Sziky transfer. The eagles have been hurt badly, so much is true. Yet, their line-up still gives them a realistic chance to fight for the title. Sziky also did not betray anybody, he helped his former team to a lot of prestigeous title in the past three years, he added to their fame, he trained with his colleagues and most likely, will continue to do so. The transfer, again, creates a story line. You know have reasons to cheer more for the eagles – which would be positive. It might motivate the eagles to train even harder – another positive aspect. LRM members might gain a good training partner, the level of exchange might increase – which would (again) be a good thing.

Back to the Star Wars analogy – the remastered versions of A New Hope created a lot of positive things within the Star Wars community. More and more people started to cut their own version, more discussions popped up, the level of exchange increased, more inspirational things were done. People forgot about it. They focussed on the bad things.
In the case of the Sziky transfer, a few things have to be noticed. First, Sziky is not Darth Sziky. Second, let's not forget about the other tremendous news – Scan, FengZi and Marwin are back; we'll not see a lone domination by Zerg again. Third, if you have to indulge in self-pity and hatred, don't fall for the dark side. Use your wrath, disappointment or whatever to not blame Sziky, but to do it StarCraft nerd style. Make angry rap videos, write a giant over-the-top blog about it, use MS Paint to create memes. Let the anger out without flaming anyone, but start to get creative. Punch an ursadon if you must, as long as it adds to the hype and the story lines!




To finish this first piece of SBWI Teamleague coverage, we tried to get a few words of random community members – to catch a bit of the atmosphere of yesterday's cast. The question was: 'What are your thoughts in one line about the opening week of SBWI?'⁷ Here they are, have fun!