[ABC] Amateur Brood War Coverage (Vol I)

Hello ladies and gentlemen of Brood War.

I'd like to introduce to you a new community project that is starting today; the main focus of this project will be Amateur Brood War Coverage. That doesn't mean our coverage will be amateur (if we can help it at all), but the leagues and tournaments we'll cover are. We understand that many BW fans were following professional BW exclusively, and haven't given the foreign scene a second thought, but I think it's time to change that. We could just call it quits and move on with our lives when KeSPA abandons BW, but, if any of you still enjoy playing and watching BW, why not just continue to indulge and make the best of what we have... because the truth is that we have plenty.

Brood War is a classic game and I have no doubt it in my mind that there will always be players playing it. Even though the glory days of BW might be fading, the numbers are still there to support a healthy amateur scene. There are those of us who, though we no longer have the time to play, would love the chance to see the best amateur players compete after a hard day's work. We'd like to give you a little context for those tournaments, because we all know that it's much more enjoyable to watch games when you're familiar with the players and their backstories.

What to Expect

While the foreign BW scene is nothing like the professional leagues in terms of its monetary rewards, it is a worthy hobby, and one that's competitive enough to provide a great deal of entertainment. If you haven't been following any foreign BW leagues or tournaments this past two years, we have corumjhaelen explaining to you what exactly have you been missing out.

We'll put spotlight on players, teams, casters, streamers, organizers and everyone else who is helping to keep BW alive in some form with their hard work and determination. We're gonna start with an interview with ImbaToss aka. Elegant[AoV], an organizer and caster extraordinaire.

For those of you who worry about the caibre of play after years of watching professional leagues, we hope to change your minds with our coverage and encourage you to give foreign scene a chance. So, to help everyone who might have an interest in following the foreign BW scene, but don't know where to start, TL's very own writer kjwcj has prepared a little guide that should help you know what is what and who is who in the foreign BW scene.

Help Us Achieve Immortality

Last, but by no means least, I'd like to issue a call to arms. In our darkest hour, we stand here and say goodbye... We mourn death as though there is no hope. But I say to you: we are immortal.



Even though this isn't an official TL project, we have a team of highly motivated people working with us, but we're always looking out for more talent. If you consider yourself competent writer and, more importantly, have enough motivation to help us on this project, feel free to send me a PM. It would be preferable if you have some knowledge of the amateur (read foreign, chinese, or afreeca based) scene, but it's not a necessity as long as you really want to help.

I hope you provide some feedback and post what you'd like to see in terms of regular content. In our next write-up, we'll start coverage of leagues and tournaments that are currently running, while also talking about stuff from past and future. I'd also like to point out that our write-ups will most likely be fortnightly, but if there's enough content, and enough people willing to help, we might even make it little more frequent.

Until next time, I bid you farewell and long live BW!

What is dead can never die, but rises again, harder and stronger.

-- 2Pacalypse-



On November 13th 2010, when foreign BW seemed to be destined to completely disappear, an ICCup A/B rank tour took place. To everyone's delight, a terran named Beamface built 13 factories with only one add-on on Match Point, and went on to proxy nukes in the middle of Fighting Spirit. The man to take up the necessary position of caster was to be a then unknown admin from ICCup, named Sayle. Since that point, tons of events were organised and successfully took place thanks to passionate people who knew foreign BW was still worth watching. Here's what you might have missed, or a trip down the memory lane.









You probably understand it by now that I and many others have had a lot of fun following all these events over the past year and a half. You probably don't have the time to watch it all, so I selected 6 games trying to show different aspects of the foreign scene. These might not be the very best by any universal standard as, if nothing else, BW is highly subjective, but I think all in all they deserve to be watched and enjoyed.





Interviews are a great way to learn about people. With that thought, we'll be conducting a series of interviews in each of our write-ups to introduce you more intimately with the people involved in the foreign BW scene. These are the people who spend ungodly hours providing a service to the fans, while asking nothing in return. For our first post we have Elegant[AoV] aka ImbaToss, a caster and organizer whose love for the foreign BW scene is unrivaled, giving us his unique perspective.




The release of Starcraft 2 was a watershed moment for the foreign Brood War community. While in Korea, things continued on almost as if nothing had happened, the foreign scene jumped at the new exciting game with its promise of a massive new audience and huge prize pools. Those that were left behind are the purists, those who either could not or would not leave behind their favourite game and who continue to support the community with their time, money and hard work.

Getting involved with watching foreign Brood War can seem intimidating, after all this is a community that likes to recall stories that sometimes pre-date Korean progaming. However, armed with a little background knowledge, it’s easy to see what has led to so many fans sticking around long after the boom time has come and gone. Through this short article, we hope to provide new fans with enough to get them on their way, to give them an idea of what tournament is most interesting to them and show them how to get involved in what is tight knit and fun loving community.

The International Starleague is the premier tournament of the foreign Brood War community; the highest quality players, competing for the most money and often in front of the largest audiences. The most recent running, the Altitude ISL, took place over the course of several months earlier this year, culminating in another dominating finals performance by Hungarian behemoth, Sziky. For a prospective fan looking to get a glimpse at foreign Brood War at its best, the ISL is a good place to start. Although it begins with a 56 player group stage, the player count is quickly whittled down and new fans should find it easy to pick up on who to look out for in the later stages of the tournament.




Alongside the ISL at the top of the foreign Brood War pyramid is Gambit’s Cup. While it doesn’t offer the same consistently high level of competition as the ISL, Gambit’s Cup makes up for this with its sheer quantity of games. With four best of sevens happening every weekend over the course of multiple round season, there is never any shortage of entertaining foreign Brood War.

The upcoming season of Gambit’s Cup features, for the first time, an all Chinese team. Having made a run to the final of the 11-12 Altitude Nation Wars as part of team Asia-Pacific, the Chinese are beginning to make their presence felt again in the foreign scene and their performances this season against established powerhouses like LRM and sas will show whether or not they’re good enough to overcome the time-zone and latency issues which have always held them back in the past.

More good news came recently from China in form of the “C-OSL”, an individual league tournament held on the vs server. Thanks to the good work of TeamLiquid community members, most notably Caihead, we’re able to watch the absolute best that the Chinese community is able to produce, including a number of players notable for their performances at international tournaments of the pre-Starcraft 2 era.

For fans with a slightly shorter attention span, there is the Defiler.ru Tournament. Run by our friends from the Russian community, Defiler is an open tournament in every sense of the word. Taking place over a single night and with replays of every game played immediately available on the tournament website, Defiler is a great place to see the absolute best foreign (and sometimes Korean) players compete in a quick and dirty competition. The list of Defiler winners since the tournament's beginnings in 2010 is a guide to foreign Brood War in and of itself, featuring almost every top player from the post-Starcraft 2 scene. Another thing that makes Defiler unique is the opportunity to watch the first person view of competing players, with top foreigners like Bakuryu and DraW streaming their progress through the tournament.

Finally, for those with a patriotic streak, there is Nation Wars. Similar in format to Gambit’s Cup, Nation Wars is a tournament taking place over several months in which countries or regions compete to define the non-Korean Brood War hierarchy. Although Nation Wars features the very best players from tournaments like ISL and GC, it also represents an opportunity for less skilled members of the community to join their relevant team and get involved. Whether there to improve, make up the numbers in 2v2 or win an ace match for your country, for foreign Brood War, Nation Wars is where competition meets community.

The foundation upon which all these major tournaments are built is, of course, the community. While for many people watching is enough, for those who want to raise their rank, watch their friends or simply have fun, there is an abundance of small tournaments run in varying formats. The C Ranks Team League, D Ranks Team League, Amateur Starleague, C Ranks Open, D Ranks Individual Tournament represent just a handful of the tournaments open to players of all levels and which still manage to produce some exciting games. When fun and only fun is on the agenda, community focused open tournaments like Trozz’s Gem League and the Torenhire Starleague provide a well-produced and light-hearted approach to a game which is often taken far too seriously.




Almost important as the tournaments themselves are the casters who present them to us. Most notable amongst them is Sayle, who picked up casting while an admin of ICCup in 2010 and who went on to play a huge role in rebuilding foreign Brood War following the release of Starcraft 2. For a period of time in late 2011, Sayle almost singlehandedly casted every major tournament, often four or five nights a week. While he has wound back his involvement due to commitments casting Korean Starcraft, Sayle remains the premier English language Brood War commentator and was most recently involved with the later stages of the ISL.

Alongside Sayle, casters like hacklebeast and EleGanT also provide high level commentary, mixing gameplay analysis with their extensive knowledge of (and sometimes personal friendships with) the top foreign players. Up and comers like TheShimmy and LMaster work hard at the sometimes tricky job of making C and D rank players seem good and can occasionally be seen pitching in with the higher level leagues. Beyond these stalwarts are a myriad of other players and fans who volunteer their knowledge and enthusiasm to help with casting or co-casting should the need arise.

Of course, any competition is worthless without its competitors. Luckily, foreign Brood War has a large community of gamers from all over the world who work hard in their free time in order to compete at the highest level they can. Dominant among them since the release of Starcraft 2 has been the Hungarian Zerg Sziky. Winning the last two ISLs at a canter and recently taking games off former progamer Eagle and OSL semi-finalist Pusan, simply put, Sziky is the best there is. Competing on all fronts, in both long and short competitions, Sziky very rarely loses when it counts and alongside his two ISL titles has also won more than a dozen Defiler tournaments and contributed to his clan reaching the final of the last two Gambit’s Cups.

The number of other players that compete on a weekly basis is simply too large to individually mention in this article. However, if you’re looking for a player to follow or simply want to enjoy a first person stream between tournaments, then TeamLiquid has a number of top foreign players listed, both featured and unfeatured. Amongst them is dOTY, German Protoss player and Altitude ISL finalist, Michael, a Korean-American Zerg user and notable purveyor of cheese and ZaRaki, well-loved Spanish Zerg and fan of creepy vocaloid.

If you’re looking for any more information on watching or participating in foreign Brood War, check out the http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Portal:Foreign_Scene on Liquipedia or check the Brood War Tournaments sub-forum.