“HEY HEY HEY HEY!! GUYS, GET OVER HERE!”
“What is it that you see, Comrade?”
“A STAR, A NEW STAR IN THE SKY!!”
“Uh, Comrade, I don’t see the star from my telescope.”
“Nononono, Gecko, use my telescope”
“Oh wow, what could this mean? Voddy, cross reference every text and prophecy that references a birthing of a new star in this quadrant of the sky”
“Hmmm, if I am reading this correctly, This is a sign of a new Bonjwa”
“A new Bonjwa? We have been devoting our lives to the study of past Bonjwas and now a new Bonjwa arises? QUICK MY MAGI! We must make haste for the home of this newborn Bonjwa and give homage to him!”
And so it begins. the 3 magi packs all their bags, their camels (magis always travel in style), and prepare gifts for the newborn Bonjwa. Magi Comrade has prepared the gift of a QSENN DT-35, a keyboard that will aid the newborn Bonjwa in his macro and multitasking. Magi Gecko prepares the gift of a Logitech Optical Mini, a mouse to aid the newborn Bonjwa in his micro. Magi Voddy prepares the gift of K-One ion Mouse-pad so that the Bonjwa’s mouse will be ever so gracefully sliding during his reign as the new Bonjwa.
With these gifts solemnly prepared, the 3 magi began their long journey to the home of the Bonjwa. They went through fake grudge matches, flame wars, SKT fanboyism land, the Russian conspiracy, and through the massive portals that is known as the internet. They stopped by the castle of the tyrant King Game, and asked for directions. King Game replied that the Magi should come back when they find the Bonjwa
They finally arrived at the scene of the newborn Bonjwa (It has been documented and researched by various prominent professors thousands of years later that the initial home of the Bonjwa was http://www.twitch.tv/seroqt) and arrived to see the newborn Bonjwa Sero already wrecking Iccup noobs with nothing more than a ball mouse and dell keyboard. His protectorate, Lord Flash and the ever-omnipresent Marwin stood guard, watching Sero closely. Magi Comrade went first, presenting Sero with his gift of the Keyboard. Next, Magi Gecko presented his gift of the Logitech Optical Mini mouse. And finally, Magi Voddy presented his gift of the K-One Ion mousepad.
And with these gifts in his hands, Bonjwa Sero looks up to the Magi, to his protectorate, and finally to the brightly lit heavenly skies above and smiled.
However, later that night, the 3 magis all received a vision from the archangel Boxer, who warned them that King Game was planning to murder the Bonjwa Sero to stop him from playing in STL and that the 3 magi should go home another way.
After their stay was over, the 3 magi left the practice room in which Bonjwa Sero was in and headed back home, making sure to avoid King Game.
Thus begins the story of Christmas. Sero, join my team pretty please??
Tis the Season for Reviews
Let’s start off with AoV and iM so that we save the real Christmas treat (which was PsB vs Sas)
Game 1 was a TvP featuring Probert vs Elegant on Oxide. SCV dueled probe to the death in Probert’s main, with both workers escaping with 10 hp. Elegant goes for a funky Range first into Robo bay build with Probert opting for the FD build. Probert moves out with his FD push but holds back when Elegant is able to hold the push. Probert takes his natural and so does Elegant, going into the macro game. Probert continues to vulture harass Elegant around the map and gets a massive mine off on Elegant’s transferring probes to his 4th, nabbing about 20 probes or so. WIth that advantage, Probert goes for his 2-1 timing while Elegant recalls Probert’s 4th to kill it while Probert kills Elegant’s 3rd. Elegant goes for the last hurrah but Probert, with 2 groups of tanks, holds easily and Elegant taps out, mentioning that “What a surprise, I died”.
iM) 1-0 AoV
Game 2, Entaro had a walkover Hope (who claims that his GF turned his alarm off, causing him to miss the clan war. Girlfriends are literally killing E-Sports!!!!)
iM) 1 - 1 AoV
Game 3 featured Fazers vs Mewka on Outsider, the other TvP of this clan war. Fazers goes for the wall-off at his ramp into an FD, while Mewka gets a zealot and goes for 1 gate robo into reavers. Fazers pulls back his push, seeing no expo from mewka. Dat starsense at work from Fazers. Mewka’s first shuttle gets into Fazer’s main, but loses the shuttle, reaver, and the 2 zealots in it. He still got a couple scvs in return from the reaver shot and expanded to the mineral only. Fazers takes a 3rd CC at his mineral only, out expanding Mewka at this point. Mewka takes his natural and gets templar tech while Fazers makes a factory outside of his backdoor expansion. Mewka goes for an attack at Fazer’s natural while Fazers was attempting to move out. Both players traded off and Mewka backed off. But Fazer’s advantage has him a 40 supply lead ahead of mewka at this point. Fazer starts to push across the map and mewka doesn’t have the tech nor army supply to deal with this push. Fazers did land his barracks at Mewka’s backdoor and produced marines there. Mewka Taps out, bringing iM another win
iM) 2 - 1 AoV
And while the rest of the iM) lineup was there, AoV managed to not have any more players. So iM) win 4-1 due to having more players show up.
puppey just wanted a full clan war for Christmas, why AoV?
Now, the real treat begins.
For Starting out for PsB on Oxide we have voddy again (Come on Birdie, Get more creative with your lineups) against Non, a TvT on Oxide. Voddy goes for Tank expand while Non gets wraiths and drops to harrass Voddy. Voddy then goes into bio play. Non has good vulture harras but is still being contained by Voddy’s bio forces and with Voddy’s overwhelming macro and economy, rolls over Non.
PsB 1-0 Sas.
Game 2 had a ZvZ on Collosseum II, with Fengzi vs Zaraki. Fengzi goes for 9 pool gas, while Zaraki goes for 12 hatch. And Fengzi gets the win with the BO advantage, sniping Zaraki’s pool before his lings even finish. Fengzi continues to snipe more drones nets more kills. Zaraki goes for a last hurrah with his lings but fengzi has mutas already out. Zaraki manages to get a spore colony out, but is only left with 2 drones at this time. Fengzi goes for manner sunkens in zaraki’s main but is unable to, but kills all of zaraki’s drones. Zaraki taps out when his last group of lings fails to kill fengzi’s lings defending his base.
PsB 2-0 Sas.
Game 3 had Shrinker vs Skzlime on outsider. Shrinker 12 nex at his backdoor mineral only, while Skzlime goes for the wall-off at his ramp. Skzlime responds by getting his CC up at his natural. Skzlime gets a vulture with mines into Drinker’s main, netting some probes kills before it dies. Skzlime contines to pump vultures to take map control and takes his 3rd at his backdoor, while Drinker takes his natural. Drinker goes for fast 4th at his other backdoor, which is scouted by Skzlime’s dropship flying in with tanks and 2 vultures. Both players then goes afk macro until Skzlime moves out with his ball, leapfrogging tanks. Shrinker goes for a flank with his army but doesnt have tech nor upgrades and just melts to skzlime’s army. Skzlime moves into Shrinker’s natural, taking it out. Shrinker taps out soon after that, desperately trying to come back but has nothing.
PsB 2-1 Sas.
Game 4 features Dragon again against Vorti (again) on Overwatch. Vorti goes for 9pool and a hatchery at Dragon’s natural to block dragon’s nexus. Vorti then cancels it when dragon throws down a canon and then proceeds to go 4 hatch hydras, while dragon sends out early zealots to harrass vorti. Vorti goes for a ling runby into dragon’s main, and kills Dragon’s artosis pylon. Dragon moves out with his zealot forces to secure a 3rd, but Vorti has mutas to deflect that. Dragon moves out to take his 3rd but Vorti shuts that down again. Dragon agains attempts to get his 3rd up, and gets it while shutting down vorti’s 4th with a zealot pack. Both players are able to get their 4th up now and Vorti has reached hive, already making defiler plays. Dragon goes to secure his 5th and both players play the run around the map game. Vorti then goes to secure his 5th and a big fight ensues. Dragon loses all of his units, but delays the 5th. Vorti is finally able to get the 5th, but gets mined out and fails to do damage to Dragon’s bases, who was banking 6k minerals at that time and maxed on archons and reavers. Vorti taps out.
the writers group definitely recommends this game to watch
PsB 3-1
Game 5 featured Braintoss vs Michael on Tau Cross. Michael goes for 9pool, while Braintoss goes for the forge nexus canon opening. Braintoss pulls probes to protect his wall while Michael gets his 3rd hatch at the close 3rd and goes to lair for the 3 hatch spire build. Braintoss sends his first group of zealots out but Michael already have sunken defense and simcity to pressure braintoss. Michael starts producing queens, while Braintoss sends in zealots to the 3rd to net a couple drone kills, but gets cleaned by michael’s lings. Braintoss goes for the elevator into michael’s main, but Michael scouts it with the scourge and holds the elevator push easily. Braintoss moves out to take his 3rd, while Michael Broodlings all of Braintoss’s templars and just goes in with his hydra force, Braintoss unable to defend without any storm.
PsB 3-2 Sas.
Game 6 on Fighting Spirit featured Dsaqwe vs Infected on Repetitive Spirit, another ZvP. Both players spawn in cross positions, Infected with overpool and Dsaqwe with forge cannon nexus opening. Infected goes for 5 hatch before gas, an interesting choice from him. Zealots move out for dsaqwe to attack Infected 3rd, and commits quite hard to it. Infected was unable to defend due to the greedy nature of his 3rd, and taps out.
PsB 3-3 Sas.
OMFG, ACE-UUU MATCH TIME!!
Ace match had Dragon vs Skzlime on Destination. Both players opening standard, Skzlime going for FD and Dragon going for gateway FE. Dragon holds the FD push with 2 goons living and taking the tank out. Skzlime throws down another 2 factories while Dragon gets 2 more gates. Skzlime manages to sneak vultures into Dragon’s main, netting 8 probe kills before Dragon takes out the vultures. Eric laments about the Rynadon blocking his 3rds, while Skzlime takes his 3rd, cc already done while Dragon’s 3rd goes up as well. Skzlime starts to build up the Flash-esque defensive position on his side of the map. He trying to do vulture runbys, netting few probes every time. Both players take their 4th now, with Skzlime going left side of the map and Dragon getting the other close 3rd. Skzlime gets 2-1 and now starts to slow push to Dragon’s 3rd with his maxed out army. Dragon is unable to defend the 3rd and is forced to let it fall. Dragon goes for a wraparound into Skzlime’s natural, but Skzlime pulls units back to defend it. Skzlime messes up his tank positioning and loses a lot of tanks to storm and zealot surround. Dragon tries to attack Skzlime’s army across a bridge, but loses way too much for it to be of any good. The 3-2 upgrade advantage of Skzlime is destroying the 1-0 upgrades of Dragon, which allows Skzlime to be very effective in the following army battles that occurs. Dragon is able to stay in the game with Storms, but Skzlime just simply has too much terran mettle, and Dragon GGs.
Sas. 4-3 PsB
Preview: Week 9
Current Standing!
The last wars in this year are more important than they look. In the first war iFU is going to face iwL - both teams are from Russia, only one can still advance to the play-offs. And that's what makes it so important. Insanity without Limit has little to no chances to make it to the fourth place, if they're not magically white washing all of their next opponents, while the other teams lose horribly against the bottom teams and sas. However, iFU had a terrible start into the season, which forces them to lose as little sets as possible. Every single set can be the pivotal. The only question is if iwL, for one last time, gets their stars to play. They still haven't showed up with Ramms, Biggus only played twice and only Ace fought regurlarly. If every of their stars would come to the wars instead of doing... whatever you do in Russia this time of the year, iFU might really have to step up once more.
The second war is even more important. The Russians iFU will most likely win four sets, which will give them a total of 16 won sets by the end of Saturday night. LaGFree has to win at least three matches to defend their important fourth place in the score table. LRM Evolution's manager is still pretty pissed about the horrible, horrible Scan incident and probably wants his stacked team (plus paid mercenary) to stomp over the uprising Peruvians. However, if you read the interviews carefully, you'll notice that the guys from LaGFree train offline before each day. They got plenty new talents we haven't heard much from yet, in addition to TerrOr and CastrO. Who knows, maybe, just maybe, LaGFree could abuse a weak(er) LRM line-up to drag the game until the Ace match or even cause the big upset and defeat LRM. Theoretically speaking, it's possible LRM loses so hard that they'll end up on the fifth place or tied on the fourth with iFU. Imagine that. If I was Terror, I'd try to drug some of the LRM guys.
Let's see what happens next sunday!
Jolly Jolly Interviews
The STL Writer team has been running out of people to interview due to many various factors, so if you want to get your 5 minutes of fame and shame, contact us and we’ll interview you!
+ Show Spoiler [Fazer] +
Ok, introduce yourself to the world!
Hi, this is Fazers. I'm a terran player from the USA and am in [PaiN]. Been playing BW for a bit now and was heavily into the professional scene which was mainly why I love this game as much as I do today.
Unfortunately, I don't play as much because of terrible Internet connection D:
alright, let's talk about STL. What's your opinion of the maps, the league, the games, etc?
I feel like STL is a fantastic addition to the foreign community. With SOSPA on the rise it seems like BW is getting better and better by the day. It truly shows that as long as the love is there, the game won't disappear anytime soon.
As for the maps, my only complaint would have to be there is no rotation nor variety. It's not too big of a deal but maybe they will implement that to next season?
The games have been very interesting so far! The top 4 is fierce right now. It's kinda been tough for iM but I still enjoy playing for a team.
Yea, about iM ( I need players...). but anyways, Right now, the top 4 have already been kinda seperated from the rest. We got Sas, LRM, iFU, PsB, and LagFree battling it out. Who do you think will make it to the playoffs stage? And how prevelant will the lower teams play in determining the playoffs teams?
It's interesting because LRM is stronger than ever with Sziky, but sas are holding their own extremely well with a stellar 4-0 record. Shows how strong their core team is even without their ace. PsB has Fengzi but he hasn't played much. iFu has Scan. I think a key factor is going to be whether or not each team brings their ace. At this point for them, every set will count.
I think that sas, LRM, iFu, and PsB will make it to the playoffs. LaGFree seems like a wildcard, and if iwL wins the rest of their season, who knows. Shit happens.. The lower tier teams can also make or break a higher tier team on making the playoffs, so losing is not an option for them. We'll see, it will get very serious in the future.
I edited parts of my post btw, there were some obvious errors.
Ok, hope said after the clan war against aov on Saturday that his girlfriend turned his alarm off do he didn't wake up. Are girlfriends literally killing e-sports and why do players not show up to the clan wars? (Aov vs im perfect example of this)
Girlfriends definitely kill ESPORTS, they are imbalanced. ;-; People don't show up for clanwars because of possible low morale, inability to wake up, or simple lack of discipline. Show up if you have a responsbility you decided to take! If not, you're only bringing your other teammates down. Especially vs PaiN I believe we only sent out like 3 players out of 6. It was pathetic and I truly felt no need to play that day. Life goes on tho (inlove)
At least I got my Chirstmas wish of having a win by Christmas.... What's the plan for recruiting more players to im)?
Sell old baseball/hockey/whatever sport that was cards and buy out the high tier players ^^
You heard it here first, we gonna win season 2.
I don't have any sports cards, only magic cards . Do you have sports cards?
I dunno, ask Eywa. He knows more than i do D:
Pretty sure that Eywa wouldn't give me money to buy out players he just spent it all on Sziky, remember?
:
Since today is Christmas, what did you get for Christmas?
Hm, I don't have any family in the States so I got nothing. Only good thing I got out of it was a bonus on my check, I guess?
so beer money?
Yeah I suppose, like every other holiday
Ok ok ok, I kinda wana wrap this interview up since I'm behind on deadlines and I'm hungry. What are your new year plans and most importantly, Do you have any shout out to give?
Finish my last semester of school strong, get better in BW whenever I can, and most importantly further pursue my interests in (hopefully) a music career. No school means lots of free time which means more productivity. Shout outs to the iM crew, AmorVincitOmnia from TL, Artzilla, and LuMiX! Happy holidays!
+ Show Spoiler [Terror] +
Could you please introduce yourself?
Well my name is Rodrigo Campos I am 21 years I play in Peruleague and I am currently leader of team LaGFree
LiquiDpedia tells me you played in WCG Peru 2009 and were in the Peru National Team before the Beta. Seems quite successful to me. When did you start BW and what do you consider your breakthrough?
I started playing around 2007-2008 after I saw some starcraft videos on yotube before that I played counter strike and Age of empires. I played my first wcg in 2008 being a D+ newbie and because a lucky bracket and some w.o's I ended up in the top 8 there I was demolished by fenix. Actually I lost to fenix in both wcg 2008-2009 and in some lan tournaments that took place here during 2009. I would say my breakthrough was being part of Peru national Team B there I was able to learn a lot more from other players and improve a lot.
Speaking of Peruvians - you guys seem to be a big community unknown to the English speaking world. Can you give us outsiders some insight on what's going on in Peru? Do you have big fanpages or do you guys just meet in b-net?
Well nowadays there are a lot of players most of them are not in the capital though so there are like small comunities in different cities but we are all conected through facebook and we play in the peruvian servers like condevilla server and red-g. You can see that in iccup there are a lot of peruvians too but we can't really take part of the big foreign community as very few of us speak english so most of the players only join iccup to play but don't know about TL GG.net or even the iccup website because other people create accounts for them. This year there have been a lot of online tournaments hosted by the servers I mentioned before not big $$$ prizes but enough to keep people playing actually there is a league that eonzerg is taking part atm. Also I've hosted Lan tournaments since August and it was awesome you could check photos in https://www.facebook.com/Starcrafperu
That sounds nice. Is LaGFree another result of the strong community you have? Or how did you guys come up with the team?
Yes Lagfree was born in this tournaments. After SJ/Nb disbanded I really didn't want to join other team so I share the idea to participate in the SBWI Team league with all the players and all were really excited we actually practice in the Lan Center "El Bunker" every friday before our match, it is really cool the environment and I guess that's why we have had good results so far
LaGFree does seem to bring in strong results. There are a few suprises already - CastrO playing again for example. Did you think your team would grow so strong right from the start, given that other teams recruited Scan, FangZi or even bought Sziky?
We really didn't expect this results from the begining as our first roster was good but not as strong as I think it is now with the new additions. I know we lack an ace player like other teams have the players you've metioned scan fenhzi and sziky are truly above all others I think. So our main goal is to make it to the play offs and try to end every match before the set 7
There's one player who jumped to my eye when I added results to Liquipedia and TLPD - Dienmax. He apparently did well in the TLS and now in STL - can you tell me more about him?
You discover our ace T_T. Well Dienmax is a protoss player who is really good in all match ups but I think he plays much better offline than online so you haven't seen his best games yet. Him and dandy will be the surprises next year without any doubt.
The situation in STL right now is quite tense, given that LaGFree, LRM, PsB and iFU are fighting for the four qualifier spots. How do you think your chances are and who do you think will eventually make it?
Yes the league is very exciting atm there are 3 spot for those four teams so even though all are very good eventually one will be out of play-offs I sincerely hope we can make it. I think it all comes down to ifu vs psb and lagfree vs psb. In my opinion sas lrm ifu and us will make the play offs. Our chances are really good atm
What's your impression of the league so far - the new maps, the new organizer, other teams, etc…
The league is awesome!!! best league ever!!! SBWI rocks !!!! hehe It is really cool that these guys are supporting so much the bw scene jaevlaterran is really nice I've had the opportunity to talk to him and he truly loves what he does and that's why this league is so succesfull also he have people who supports him a lot like you the writers and everybody who is behind this league. Both maps are different oxide seems like terran paradise unless you are playing sziky and overwatch don't know too much I've only played a couple of times there and seems like terran graveyard. The teams participating are all very good and I hope next season more join this awesome league
Ok - we're almost through. Do you have any last words for your fans? Greetings or such?
Sure first thank you for the interview you are very cool guy and your writings are always entertaining. I want to thank everyone who supported us from the beginning Lan Center "El bunker" who let us practice in the best computers in the world and sysecomperu who provide us with the fee otherwise we wouldn't be participating. Finally thanks to SBWI TL ICCUP DEFILER and everyone who keeps Bw alive, cheer for us. :D
We will. Thanks for the interview and especially huge thanks for organizing a very good working team!
Sources
VODS, Liquipedia,
Writer team's source of inspiration,
TLPD
the STL writers team would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Writers: Comradexkcd, GeckoXP