As you should all know by now, the top three finishers from the Razer TSL are guaranteed a seat in the PokerStrategy.com TSL. IefNaij, Draco and Brat_OK are probably silently training away in preparation for the biggest tournament of their lives. Nony, the Razer TSL 4th place finisher, hasn’t got a free pass in, but he does have two chances to qualify – either by beating the 1st place ladder finisher or by qualifying through the qualifiers if he loses the match against 1st place. All four of them do not have to worry about the stressful and extremely competitive ladder like everyone else.

But what’s happening with the other 12 players that made the Razer TSL? Let’s take a quick look at what they’ve been up to since then and where they’re sitting at the moment. In this installment we look at the players who fell in the Round of 8 in the Razer TSL:

Place:	#70
Rank:
Points:	8244
Record:	65-12

If you followed the Razer TSL then there was no way you could have escaped Dreiven’s presence. During the Qualifiers Dreiven failed to show up for his first match of the day. Puzzled, the TSL staff called Poland to find out what was up. The phone call went something like this;
“Hey, is that Grzegorz there?”
“Yea?”
“I’m from Teamliquid – you have a TSL match today”
“Oh I forgot – I’m at a Barbeque right now, can you delay it an hour?”
“....”
Dreiven defaulted his first match, but qualified into the Top 16 anyway with the new nickname – BBQ Toss. He went on to create an uproar after defeating the #1 Ladder ranked player, Mondragon, in the Round of 16 with a clean 2-0 victory. His luck however ran out in the Round of 8 where he fell to the mighty Russian, Brat_OK, 0-3.

So what has Dreiven been up to since? 2009 was not a kind year to Dreiven in the world of Starcraft. He managed to qualify for a number of tournaments during the year such as ASL and Highlander but was unable to crack the top spots. His best tournament placing this year was in the ESL where he made the Loser Bracket Final where he lost to ret. That’s a pretty commendable result! But shortly after that Dreiven took a break from Starcraft – rumoured to be playing more CS than SC. It seems like the lure of the massive prize pool of the PokerStrategy.com TSL has managed to reawaken this beast as he currently sits at #79 on the ladder. He is certainly within striking distance of the top 48 and, despite the break, should still be capable of cracking the top 48. And once you’re in the top 48, anything can happen.

Place:	#88
Rank:
Points:	7849
Record:	72-26

GOsia was a silent killer in the Razer TSL. He quietly made his way up to the Top 8 where he was stopped by Nony. GOsia, unlike many other Zergs, tends to opt for a Macro style which typically results in unusual, yet familiar, games. It’s a curious thing really. Despite his ability to play a very strong macro game, he also pulled several cool plays in the TSL. If you haven't caught a lot of his games, you should go watch a few right now.

2009 has been good to GOsia. He started the year off strong with many strong wins in various clan leagues – particularly against IefNaij. Things only got better for him when WCG rolled around as he decimated the field and placed first. Winning WCG Poland is a big deal – Poland has always hosted some of the greatest talent in Brood War (like Draco, Blackman etc) and to be named the best in the country speaks volumes. GOsia is currently sitting on the fringe of the pack, but he certainly still has the skills to break into the top 48. Curiously though, he has been playing Protoss only on his account and still boasts a fairly impressive record. Here’s hoping that during the final week of laddering he switched back over to Zerg and shows why he is the reigning Champ of WCG Poland.

Place:	#19
Rank:
Points:	9437
Record:	175-112

White-Ra is one of the oldest faces in the BroodWar community. He literally has been around forever – he won WCG Ukraine back in 2003. To put that in context, Nazgul was still a progamer then. Not only has he been around forever, he’s also been consistent – winning WCG again in 2006, 2008, 2009, playing in various invitational tournaments between then, etc. The list goes on. White-Ra was a strong contender during the Razer TSL and indeed was responsible for taking out Idra in the Ro16. He was however stopped by Draco in the Round of 8.

Since then White-Ra’s skill has skyrocketed. If Bisu/Jaedong/Flash are the holy trinity of Korean Starcraft in 2009, then White-Ra/Ret/Idra are the holy trinity outside of Korea. He has been enormously successful this year. As of October this year, he made $4,500 from Starcraft winnings, the second most behind Idra. That’s very impressive. He took out the Justin TV Invitational, The Highlander and placed second behind Idra in a number of other tournaments. Furthermore, White-ra is probably the most mannered and friendly Starcraft player in the world. White-Ra is nothing short of a beast and a fierce contender for the PokerStrategy.com TSL 2. The only question lingering in the air is will White-Ra’s philosophy of never dodging a Korean on the ladder pay off? We’ll find out next week.


DinOt was one of the youngest in the field for the Razer TSL, in truth, he still is a very young player. His potential carried him through to the Round of 8 where he was stopped by the eventual champion – IefNaij. After a reasonably successful 2009, which included a 3-2 win over Idra in The Highlander tournament, DinOt decided that it was time to quit. As such, DinOt will not be participating in the PokerStrategy.com TSL. We do, however, wish DinOt a belated all the best for the future and hope that one day he returns to SC.

So Drone, let's just clarify before we start. You are known both as Liquid`Drone and as eriador. Could you sort that out for us please?

Well, the origin of my nicknames would be a rather long story. But basically, about 11 years ago, when I was playing starcraft as [ZoS]Eriador, which was my original nickname (and stolen from tolkien if you are curious :D ), I saw this guy named probe@nexus hanging around in some channel. I thought that was a cool nick, but I was playing zerg at that time and then decided to make the name drone@hive. Ever since, whenever I joined a new clan I chose the one of these two, drone or eriador, based on what name would look better in conjunction with the clantag. I never liked ToT)Drone( or Drone[pG] and felt eriador was more in style and also far less used, however with Liquid` as a tag, drone just sort of flows nicely as an addition to the clantag. rolls of the tongue. and your question is basically also an answer. im known as Liquid`Drone - not so much as drone. however I am known as eriador - not so much as ToT)Eriador( or Eriador[pG]. In norwegian we have an idiom which would literally be translated as "dear child has many names"

Wow, quite a story there. Let's hear a little bit about how and why you came to be with Liquid.

Well, team liquid was formed I'm not quite sure how many years ago, but I'd guess it must have been 2001 or something. at first it was just a starcraft team, eventually we created a team-related webpage, and then when we later on created a new webpage, it became more about professional and competitive starcraft. I had been playing some with Nazgul, and he basically asked me to join the brand new team he had formed together with some other dutch players - Liquid`Meat was one of them, in addition we had Liquid`Trip but he disappeared rather early. I knew that nazgul was a cool guy and a pretty good player (but I was better!!), and after some thought I joined.
Since then team liquid has grown to become an icon in brood war and I am very happy to have had the priviledge of being in since almost the very beginning!

Indeed. Team Liquid also went on to put together the biggest tournament outside of Korea. Tell us about your TSL experiences, and what you make of them.

During the first TSL, I was pretty much in a brood war hiatus. I did play some and wanted to qualify, but did not give qualifying a REALLY serious go, in the sense that I did not play enough to get top 48 with the win percentages I had during the ladder.

During this TSL, the timing of the tournament is both better and worse : better because I have played quite a lot through the year and I am in good shape, and you'd probably have to go back to 2003 for me to have been a better player relative to the competition. worse because it is right in my exam period and I cannot play even close to the amount I would have wanted to. However, I do have some days, especially after december 8th, where I will be able to play a lot, and if I just get top 48 I'll be able to play a lot

Speaking of the ladder, any interesting games so far? Who have you not played yet that you'd like to get a game with?

I actually played a DRAW today, that was certainly interesting. 47 or so minute long zvp heartbreak where I mined one expansion more than him (the middle) but where due to him being consistently more cost efficient, I ended up not being able to kill his last army. I also had quite a lot of sunkens, and it would not be possible for him to kill them. I have not yet played nazgul but we are the same rank and I do hope to play some games with him!

Talking of the TSL in general, who do you expect to see doing well, and whose ladder progress are you following closely?

The usual suspects, ret idra white-ra will all do well. idra has shown just how good he is through steamrolling through a- without any dishonesty, and that is certainly impressive. f91 is also an incredible player, those four are in my opinion the strongest players in the ladder. I haven't been monitoring anyone in particular, although I cheer for my tot) buddies, and I also hope oystein qualifies! Out of the top 4 I must say I personally hope the most for white-ra, he is incredibly sympathetic and a great guy.

Let's talk about change in gameplay a little. You've been around the foreign scene for over a decade now. Tell us a bit about what's different and what's the same between then and now.
Whoa. Interesting question, and potentially very deep. ;p There have been different eras of nonkorean bw. it's hard to accurately group these, but there is one huge distinction : before and after replays. If you look at pre-1.08 then the gameplay was altered significantly from several patches as well, like how in 1.00 everything was all about creating an invincible drone, in 1.02 it was about playing gauntlet and doing an incredibly fast reaver drop, then brood war came with 1.04 and obviously things changed a lot but either way, the most significant change in gameplay stems from people being so much better.

Pre-replays, everyone were ridiculously flawed. you had some players who were significantly less flawed, like the norwegian player Slayer. while he was a very smart player with tons of room for creativity, what set him aside from his competition was that he executed everything faster and better, and he was one of the first with truly impressive macro. Then you had players like NTT, whom did both incredibly brilliant things and was also very good at executing, but also lost a lot of games because he gave himself retarded handicaps, like "im not allowed to build more than 3 factories until I have supply limit", leading to him having 7 ccs pumping scvs and 3 factories making units and then once he got limit he'd attack with 50 scvs and then build 5 stargates and whatever number of factories.

The tendency is basically clear, NTT has disappeared from the scene and mostly all the top players are like slayer - mechanically stronger than the slightly less good players. This development has been greatly accelerated by the emergence of replays, but also by community sites like team liquid.. this site contains everything you need to become good at starcraft now. 7-8 years ago, you could not become good unless you either had a brilliant mind for the game, or if you somehow personally got acquainted with a top player willing to help you.

So called "natural talent" is less of a factor today, in the sense that the information is out there for everyone to absorb, and there is (at least below the VERY top levels) almost no need for genuine innovation. However, saying that creativity or strategy no longer matters is very flawed - it is merely that the focus has changed. Before, creative strategies were largely geared towards abusing a flaw in your opponents gameplan, and they would be more about securing an immediate win - stuff like 1 rax bunker tank pushing a superior player tvz (which was one of the best ways to beat a better player).

Now, creative strats are more about abusing what your opponent does correctly - abusing the predictability of "perfect" mechanical play. These creative twists are more about accumulative advantages - protoss players build nexus first and 1 cannon vs overpool without gas so they get a really fast core with better econ allowing them to kill 1 overlord more with the first corsair

Zergs can likewise make 8 instead of 6 lings, assuming protoss makes only 1 instead of 2 cannons, manage to keep the probe away from the hatching egg and then actually kill off protoss with the first 8 lings. While it was significantly easier for a worse player to beat a better player before than it is today, because timing and recon has improved tremendously, one thing does remain true ; mechanically stronger players win more.

The reason why NTT could play like a brilliant retard, in the sense that he was both, and be very successful, is that he had far greater mechanics than almost everyone else in the scene

Likewise the strongest players in the nonkorean scene today, idra with terran ret with zerg and white-ra with protoss, are all the mechanically strongest players of their respective races. I was always more of a "creative" "erratic" player in the past, and this is definitely still true, and returning to bw it was a little disheartening at first, because the blatantly obvious creativity was less of a factor. good luck playing a b or higher player and actually doing something he hasn't seen before - this really doesn't happen anymore.

But as I have played more and gotten mechanically stronger through this year, I have noticed that there are still sooo many areas where decisionmaking is still of the utmost importance, it is just that the decisions give smaller advantages than before. And honestly, apart from pvt, which I think has grown to be an awfully boring matchup the last years (maps are partially to blame, terrans are mostly to blame), I like brood war more than ever. it is ridiculous that a terran player can sit back and harass with a grand total of 10 vultures for the entire game until they have supply limit and still be really tough to beat.

However the zvp / pvz dynamic is fantastic, there are so many more subtle details now than before.. Zvt has also benefitted greatly from mutalisk micro improving, although I wish one-base tvz was still viable. To me, the perfect bw game is action-filled after the first 3 minutes and never slows down, and the strong tendency towards fast expansion strategies decrease the likelihood of such a game occuring, but in zvt, zvp and pvz you at least have choices to make it so.

Wow, thanks for that detailed response. You've certainly give us a lot to think about. It's obvious that you've been around Broodwar for a long time and thus feel very strongly about it. What do you think will happen to the game following the release of SC2? Will you still play it, even for fun?

I think it's very difficult to accurately predict what will happen to bw when sc2 comes, but it is obvious that a whole lot of players will stop playing immediately after the release.

We do have to realize that 11 years is a ridiculously long period of time for a computer game to remain competitive - brood war has thrived for probably 8-9 years since the first socalled informed voices were proclaiming its demise, but sc2 represents a much greater challenge for the continuation of competitive bw than anything else so far.

War3 was, for competitive one on one play, an utter failure compared to bw, and this is why it did not overtake brood war's role. it is possible that sc2 is going to be flawed in similar ways, through it catering too much to the occasional user to be suitable for the competitive user, but even if this is the case : immediately after the release of sc2 beta, every bw player with beta key stops playing bw immediately after the release of actual sc2, everyone is going to try that. IF sc2 ends up being a failure, its release might still end up killing the competitive bw scene through hordes of people quitting simultaneously.

Thus, I thing the best thing to hope for is that sc2 ends up being a smashing success. I can certainly picture myself logging on bw every full moon even after sc2 is released, but one thing I have found very true for starcraft is that it is more fun the more you play it. it's hard to really appreciate the complexity and nuances unless you feel that you master these nuances. it is also a lot more fun to play against people against roughly your own skill level. these factors make hard for me to picture "consistently occasionally" picking up bw after the release of sc2.

As for sc2, I will most definitely play that, but being an old man of 25, I will not be able to put nearly the amount of hours I put into bw, and picturing myself as a future top player in sc2 seems unrealistic ;p

OK, we're heading into theorycraft territory here, but this question just begs to be asked. Something you see in most SC2 discussions these days is people saying that it's a "different game". While this is true, which parts of SCBW do you think SC2 will need in order to be 'as good' as its predecessor? I guess what I'm asking is, from the tons of other RTS games out there, why did SCBW become your game of choice, and keeping this in mind, how do you see SC2 at the moment?

I think there are at least three aspects essential to sc2 having equal competitive success as bw, and these three things are what makes bw so great today:

1: The fast pace. No other game has had a higher speed-requirement (well, maybe war2, but that was ridiculously flawed in many other ways. a fun game though. ;p), and this feeling that there is always something you should be doing, and thus always something you can improve upon through doing it faster, is part of BW's replayability.

2: There needs to be multiple viable ways of playing all the matchups. Like tvz, you can open 1 fact vult into wraith, 1 fact vult into fast exp into m&m, 1 fact vult into fast exp into mech, 1 rax exp into m&m, vessel rush, etc. there are, with zvz as an exception, always more than 5 different ways of approaching a game before it starts, and this makes the game both very watchable because it's not always the same thing happening, and very playable because you aren't always doing the same thing.

3: It has to be reasonably balanced. balance is probably the least important of these aspects; looking at bw, many people have preferred playing tvz/pvz over zvz or zvt/pvt over tvt or tvp/zvp over pvp. This is because zvz fails in the diversity aspect, no matter how you open you will only be building lings, drones, mutas and scourge and that becomes stale after a while - although zvz is also the fastest paced matchup making it enjoyable for some. pvp and tvt are both less interesting to most people, which is because they are slower paced (but with multiple options)

As for why I ended up playing bw, this was sort of just luck of the draw.. I had played warcraft 2 quite a lot, and preferred it over C&C or red alert, so when starcraft came I instantly jumped on it. The fact is, I still remember the first game I played, and this was more than 11 1/2 years ago.. I don't think I remember the first time I did anything else, and this really shows how captivated I was by the game from the get-go. ;p

So, what was the first game you played?

A protoss vs zerg on the 5 player map diablo. I started at 4 and I was playing against my brother, whom started at 6. We had like 10 peons each and built most units, I remember towards the end I was really frustrated because my reavers kept getting killed by zerglings.. so we are obviously talking about a very low level of play here :D but it was a lot of fun, game prolly lasted like 40 minutes or so and I ended up winning, which was especially cool because he had played 4 games before (although all with terran) and I had not even seen the game!

Wow, that's some memory! Seeing that you seem to remember so much, let's talk a bit about Broodwar and life. What are the Broodwar related IRL incidents you remember the most?

Well BW has become a pretty integrated part of my real life. during the first years of BW I was going to a lot of Norwegian LAN parties, and these also tended to have BW competitions. I think by the year 2000 I had probably already participated in 15+ live tournaments, and I have always excelled at live play. one of the first significant events was during the LAN The Gathering during Easter in 1999, so one year after the release of brood war, where I as a 14 year old ended up winning roughly $700 through coming second in the BW competition - and this was a load of money at that point. That was a sweet motivation for playing more, and it was after this I started becoming better at BW - up until then I had mostly been playing island maps, but my total failure at land maps during this tourney forced me to change my ways (islands were played a lot during the first two-three years of SC / BW.

After that, I met sven and slayer in 2000 I think, when me and my brother lost the 2v2 competition in the same The Gathering lan in the semi finals against them, but we got third and that was also cool. slayer was at this point the best player in the world, and I literally thought to myself "there's no point in trying to become good at this game because this guy is three times as fast as me and I can never become as good as him". Luckily I didn't have anything better to do so I continued playing. :D

And that brings me to the next point of kind of, history of live competitive BW - WCG qualifications in 2004 for WCG San Francisco. This was the first open WCG BW competition in Norway, and in the winner bracket finals I beat slayer! :D And going to WCG San Francisco is definitely one of the highlights of brood war related irl incidents - going to Korea to play against Nada (and getting horribly raped) in the 2005 blizzard world wide invitational is another.

I've also met quite a lot of bw players in real life and grown very valuable friend and relationships from that.

Alright, let's drop some names. Apart from Slayer and NTT, which players, both foreign and Korean, have you rubbed shoulders with?

I had a lot of friends in the old [pG] gang, as well as everyone in team liquid. some of the most important are obviously nazgul, as he was both, and I went to visit him in holland like 4 times or something. I've always enjoyed playing and talking with rekrul. Liquid`Corbalt was an oldschool american protoss whom I used to play and talk with all the time, and I liked him a lot. I probably spent more time talking to these three than anyone else, but there were some players I played a lot with without a lot of conversation

I played very many games with elky when he was a progamer, and he was a lot of fun to play with. Eventually, these four kind of disappeared from the scene, and I think from 2003-2004 or so I played and talked more with testie than anyone else, we were both playing random and I've always liked random vs random a lot, as gameplans tend to be less clear before the game starts. After returning now, infernal has probably been the one I've spent most time with.

That's quit a cross section of Broodwar you've been buds with. OK let's start talking about this TSL. Obviously, a top 48 finish is your goal, but how much and how hard are you playing to assure this happens? You mentioned before that you have exams coming up. How are you balancing IRL and SCBW?

I generally do things in phases, and this hurts me when interests collide. basically, especially with regard to school, I slack for as long as I can, and then study intensely for a while. When tsl qualifications occur right in the phase where I was planning on studying intensely, I get screwed over.

I do want to get top 48 though. but having three exams during the next week (I also have one tomorrow, although that one I am fairly well prepared for ;p) my time is very limited it sucks a little. If this had happened during October or early November instead, I'd probably have 200 games played already, but now I'm sitting at 60-something. I do have a couple days though, after the 8th, where I have 7 days until my final exam of the semester, and then I will be able to mass game a little still though, with how much everyone else is playing, and me having played fairly badly so far, I am far from certain I'll be able to get into top 48, even though I have played a lot of iccup this season and have a- on another account. t.t

Right, good luck with the ladder then. As customary, let's have you lay out some smack talk. Nony said in an earlier TSL interview that he'd "squash" your creativity with his "iron fist of conservative play." Any rebuttal? Also feel free to go at anyone else!

Well I'd like to rust Nony's iron fist, but what I'd like more than anything is to play against idra and having a game completely free of any chat. As this would only happen through me winning, as idra does not say gg. Also if I meet any terran in any round, I will take their cc, and that you can quote me on. :D

I will! Well Eriadrone, thank you for talking to us, and good luck on the ladder. Hope to see you in the Ro48! GLHF!

You just started playing the TSL2 ladder this week. The fans were already wondering where you have been. Did you need a break after you came back from the WCG Grand Finale in China?

Nope, I can't really remember why I wanted to start laddering so late. But I think I did that because I didn't want to play against so many other TSL players during the laddering. I'd rather play versus Koreans.

Do you generally prefer playing Koreans? Don't you think that might be disadvantage in a Foreigner tourney?

Yes, I definitely prefer playing against Koreans, because they are usually better and they also use recent strategies. The style of top foreigners is not that much different, it's just that they usually have inferior mechanics.

You are known for a very Korean, standard style. Do you get into situations where you have it difficult against unorthodox strategies and styles because of that?

No, the Korean play style differs from foreigners' more from the mid game on. If my opponent does something weird I just scout a lot and adapt to it.

There are less than two weeks of laddering to go. What is your goal for the laddering phase?

Top 12 should be doable. Although many players already have a solid A-, I think I'll make the Top 12 nonetheless.

And how about the TSL overall? Do you consider yourself a contestant for the championship?

Realistically I should advance pretty far. To win it all I'll need some luck in the brackets though.

Who will be the strongest contestants for the Top 3 spots in your opinion?

The usual suspects: Idra, ret, White-Ra. And maybe F91, although I can't say how good he really is, since he hardly plays against foreigners.

Is there a player you really want to play against in the tournament stages?

Gosi[terran], since he eliminated me from the ASL tournament. And I want my revenge.

Haha alright. Who among the foreigners would you rather avoid during the tournament?

Again, the usual: Idra, ret, White-Ra. And F91 and Sen, because of lag problems. Even if they are in Taiwan, there will probably still be lag.

Because of your WCG placement there has been a lot of hype around you and the community has high expectations for the TSL. Does the pressure get to you?

No. I am not the kind of guy who gets nervous, or cares what other people think about me. I just play my own game.

WCG Germany and the WCG Grand Finale have been your first offline events. I couldn't tell from watching you, but surely it must have been something else playing on stage and in front of thousands of spectators?

Of course I was a bit nervous before the games. Especially when I saw the huge speakers in the player's box that were playing loud music nonstop. I needed to turn up the game volume pretty high just to hear anything. That was pretty annoying. But as soon as the game started I concentrated on the game and nothing else.

Until WCG you had been rather unknown outside of Germany. Hardly anybody expected you to make it out of the group or even beat Idra. How did the group games go from your point of view? And the series against Idra?

The group stage went as I expected. The series against Idra was rather surprising. I think he had a bad day. Or maybe it was because the thousands of people screaming "PJ" during the games so he couldn't hear anything with just his earphones.

Haha ok. You are rather new to the scene, did you even play Starcraft during the first TSL? Tell us a bit about how you got to play Starcraft and what brought you to play competitively all the way up to WCG Grand Finale?

I think I started playing around the time when the first TSL happened. I started playing Starcraft because my brothers recommended it. Since I had been playing WC3 before it wasn't hard to switch. I have played competitively since I started with Starcraft. And finally I developed my ambition to go pro when I joined ESC.

You are said to have great potential, not least because of your age. What are your plans for the future? Would it be an option for you to join a pro team in Korea as a pro gamer like ret or Idra?

My intermediate plans are to work myself up to A/A+ level over the next year. Should I get the chance to fly to Korea I would go 100%! Even though my parents probably wouldn't like to see me go at such a young age. And when Starcraft 2 is released and gets really competitive then I'll switch over and go pro with SC2.

Great to hear that! Did you already have the chance to try SC2?

No, not yet. But I don't think Blizzard will screw it up. There is too much on the line for them.

Alright kolll, thanks for the interview and good luck in the Teamliquid Starleague!

Thank you!