In all honesty, I didn’t even know that there was a professional Brood War scene until I started following Pro-StarCraft 2 at the start of SC2’s release. I had heard of the Brood War scene but I couldn’t name a single pro-gamer. What’s even worse is that my friend Fallen and I had played countless hours of UMS games in Brood War (I’ll forever have a soft spot for Lurker Defense games) and I didn’t even know he was B/B+ on iCCup. I played hundreds of hours of UMS and Fastest Maps games and literally had zero idea about the entire competitive scene.
I feel that as a StarCraft 2 fan, I’m almost obligated to be BW fan. Ever play the State of the Game game where you bet over/under on how long it will take BW to be mentioned? Ever read about the BW vs SC2 threads where everyone laments about how bad SC2 is in comparison? Ever heard the squeals and cheers anytime BoxeR is mentioned? The endless love for NonY?
I don’t fully understand all of this. Yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZNdaEM9SfI#t=0m12
Pimpest Play 2004: DAT ‘RINE MICRO
This was my first real exposure to the pro-BW scene. Fallen sent me this clip for some reason and I remember I watched it over and over and over again. This shit is wild; it still hurts my head every time I watch it. Since then, I’ve caught glimpses of BW history. A few BoxeR matches on nevake….some BW streams….a few questions here and there. But there’s so much I still don’t know.
Finally I have started to explore this MASSIVE history that has eluded me. The 10 years of epicness that I missed out on.
I recently started an internship that is super laid-back. With lots of downtime and no internet filters, I started to seriously watch nevake VODs. I watched the TSL2 finals with NonY versus Mondragon. Holy shit that was wild. Corsair/Reaver is pretty fun to watch. I finally SAW why NonY is so beloved. Then as Team 8 was being formed and players like Midas and Tempest retired, I watched more and more VODs. Tempest’s hero dragoon? Goddamn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG1U25luMOA#t=6m18
Tempest vs Light 1/3/2009 MBC Survivor: DAT ‘GOON MICRO
Fast forward to Saturday 11/26 when I watched my first live ProLeague match ever: Grape versus free. I then managed to miss JangBi versus Light and Stork versus Zero (Bad CPTBadAss, Bad). The thing that gets me every time is that the builds are so crisp; it’s so refined. I remember listening to Day[9] and Chill talking about the finer points of an Overpool (I had to Liquipedia that bad boy). It boggles my mind that BW fans and players can decipher a build order based on supplies 8 through 10. If he builds drone at 8 or extractor at 9, people can see EXACTLY where the build goes at 100-150 supply.
Next day, I watched Hero win Dreamhack Winter 2011 with Fallen. While waiting for the Quake finals to end, we went to get coffee. And I tried asking him about sAviOr and the match-fixing scandal. As he explained the drama to me, I realized that it was literally only a year ago that it happened but to me, it felt like another universe.
Brood War is SO fascinating.
Remember that State of the Game when Day[9] asked that if basketball and American football can co-exist, why can’t Brood War and StarCraft 2? I agree. I may be chobo at Brood War, but I WANT TO KNOW. I’ll leave you with these last two items:
From "Why we love Brood War"
+ Show Spoiler +
(o.O) Holy shit, someone fill me in!
From what if i told you
+ Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VkN0spswwg
How can this NOT inspire us noobs?
I want to know. To all the Brood War faithful, please educate this humble noob.
Edit: I repeated myself =X