I wouldn't really consider ret notable anymore. =X

he was on hyungjong becomes a pro gamer, he must be notable.

Anyone can play in courage, as hyung joon proves. =P

True, but this is comeback tournament after his break after coming back in Korea.

And he did win the first Liquibition.

he's gonna destroy.

Feels like Europe has several times more money tournaments in SC2 than the US has.

Will be interesting to see how MorroW does, not seen him perform for real yet.

I predict a Terran or Zerg will win this, as I still see Protoss as the weakest race (by a fairly large margin).

The next invitational is going to be a NA one according to TL.

I agree. To my newbish eye it seems Z and T are stronger than P, with Z getting the edge because it seems to be easier to play. Who knows though, we'll see.

It's more than to a newbies eye. If you check the stats for the top 100 rated players in Europe and their win rate this is what you get.

Race Wins Losses Win % Last patch difference

Protoss 637 834 43.30% -13.52

Random 749 569 56.83% -3.23

Terran 1681 1118 60.06% 7.46

Zerg 800 721 52.60% -1.80

If you check the actual amount of top platinum division players it's even more troubling.

Top Platinum players

Zerg: 47%
Protoss: 5%
Terran: 37%
Random: 11%

Judging from WoW and WC3, I have a strong feeling Blizzard was just lucky with balance in SC1. In WoW for example the lead designer made the class him himself played the only required class in both PvP and PvE for about 5 years.

WoW balance is a lot harder when they keep pvp and pve together like they do.

If you look at the top foreign SC players, you'd think P was overpowered in BW. Wait until the pros get their hands on it, as representation in an unskilled bracket means nothing.

also, the WoW bit is rubbish.

Would be a pretty poor game it was only balanced for 0,0001% of the players, don't you think?

BW was, so what's the problem?

BW was released over 10 years ago. For the past 10 years, no hardcore game has been successful. Nowadays, a game has to be user friendly and adhere to a casual player base in order to reach success.

Regardless, BW had good balance even at lower level, It has a fairly decent spread at all levels of ICCUP for example.

Foreign SC is still dominated by P, with some T in the mix, and rarely a Z. iccup at anything below B is allin rushes and stupid shit.

"BW had good balance even at lower level"

not really :) I mean the game itself is balanced if you know how to play it, otherwise P is the far easiest choice. Slow-building units so you don't have to have an as intense macro, instead of keeping track of 60 units you'll have 20 more powerful which makes them far easier to control, and so forth.

but then yeah, at a better level, it's balanced depending on map.

also, the WoW bit is rubbish.

Huh?

In WoW for example the lead designer made the class him himself played the only required class in both PvP and PvE for about 5 years.

Fabricated.

Are you claiming that Jeff Kaplan wasn't the lead designer of WoW?

Are you claiming he hasn't had Warrior as his main for quite some years when WoW was released?

Are you claiming you could PvE without a Warrior for the first years in WoW?

Are you claiming you could PvP without a Warrior (Mortal Strike) for the first years in WoW?

Are you claiming he hasn't had Warrior as his main for quite some years when WoW was released?

so?

Are you claiming you could PvE without a Warrior for the first years in WoW?

First years? You needed 40 people to raid in the first years. If you were alliance, Paladin was equally able to tank. Need a healer, as you can't PVE without a healer - in that department, only priest was viable early on. Also, since you generally only needed 2-3 tanks, the rest of your 40 man group NEEDED to be healers and DPS classes. It sounds like you didn't play at all in vanilla WoW, or at least never raided.

Now, moving on to Burning Crusade, Druid and Paladin tanks were equal (and in some cases, BETTER) to a Warrior.

Are you claiming you could PvP without a Warrior (Mortal Strike) for the first years in WoW?

What? In the first years, THERE WAS NO ORGANIZED PVP. The gods of 1v1 and small skirmish PVP in vanilla WoW were Mages and Warlocks. In Burning Crusade (actual organized PVP), Warrior was not good in anything except 2v2 with Warrior/Druid. In 3v3 (the most played bracket), it was RMP.

First years? You needed 40 people to raid in the first years. If you were alliance, Paladin was equally able to tank. Need a healer, as you can't PVE without a healer - in that department, only priest was viable early on.

Now I know you have no idea what you are talking about. Paladins equal to Warriors tanking raids in Vanilla? Are you for real? There wasn't even any Paladin tanking gear in the game and the Paladins went oom after a minute or two tanking. Please do tell which gear those Paladin tanks of yours were using when tanking raids.

The main reason you brought Priests on horde side was for defensive dispel. Shamans were superior healers due to mana tide stacking, simply put 5 Shamans in a group and that group will never run out of mana, whilst Priest had to have healing groups and heal in turns.

lso, since you generally only needed 2-3 tanks

Yeah sure, if you were only doing Onyxia. Please don't claim you could do MC with 2 tanks. You need more for most of the encounters, including Lucifron, Magmadar, Gehennas, Garr, Sulfuron and so on. I don't know any guild who was successful in doing MC with less than 5 tanks.

It sounds like you didn't play at all in vanilla WoW, or at least never raided.

Right, I was only leader of the most successful European raiding guild, Nilbog, whom amongst much else was the first guild to kill Onyxia (and most of the bosses in MC).

What? In the first years, THERE WAS NO ORGANIZED PVP.

I can grant you that on some servers there possibly wasn't, However, all decent PvP guilds in the EU beta decided to pick the same server. So we had weekly organized 5v5 tournaments and organized guild vs guild WSG (once BGs were released).

The main reason you brought Priests on horde side was for defensive dispel. Shamans were superior healers due to mana tide stacking, simply put 5 Shamans in a group and that group will never run out of mana, whilst Priest had to have healing groups and heal in turns.

Chain mana tide? Are you fucking insane? It's not about mana (as, at the time, good healers were using chain potions) - it's about keeping the tank alive. No Shaman healer could even pretend to main heal BWL/AQ. Shaman only even got to go into BWL for Razergore, and only for kiting.

Yeah sure, if you were only doing Onyxia. Please don't claim you could do MC with 2 tanks. You need more for most of the encounters, including Lucifron, Magmadar, Gehennas, Garr, Sulfuron and so on. I don't know any guild who was successful in doing MC with less than 5 tanks.

The MOST you needed in MC was 4 tanks, and only for SOME encounters. Garr needed a couple, majordomo needed 4, etc.. Again, you're talking a handful of actual tanks in the group, whereas you needed 40 (realistically, probably only 20 for most earlier raids, if you didn't have a ton of baddies) total players, comprised mostly of DPS.

Right, I was only leader of the most successful European raiding guild, Nilbog, whom amongst much else was the first guild to kill Onyxia (and most of the bosses in MC).

Onyxia and MC were EASY. The only thing that made them difficult with the sheer number of bad players in a 40-man raid.

I can grant you that on some servers there possibly wasn't, However, all decent PvP guilds in the EU beta decided to pick the same server. So we had weekly organized 5v5 tournaments and organized guild vs guild WSG (once BGs were released).

Our server did the same (5v5 tourneys in thousand needles), but Warrior was still useless. MS didn't make a difference when you were up against 5x DPS. There was no sustainability (even in T3) that would call for a healer in any way, as focus fire (with even 2 DPS) brought down a player in less than a second, no matter WHAT you did. BGs have always been dominated by Warlocks and Mages.

Chain mana tide? Are you fucking insane? It's not about mana (as, at the time, good healers were using chain potions) - it's about keeping the tank alive. No Shaman healer could even pretend to main heal BWL/AQ. Shaman only even got to go into BWL for Razergore, and only for kiting.

I was responsible for arranging all healing (amongst other things) in the guild and that led us to beat the encounters before the millions that tried the same thing (including BWL). And yes, we used Shamans as main healers, which worked superb. Please state why Shamans were so much worse healers than for example Priests (it's obvious you have no clue about this, if you analyze it you will realize that the Shaman heals are better than the Priest ones and they have greater utility in the form of totems).

It's not about mana (as, at the time, good healers were using chain potions) - it's about keeping the tank alive

Now I really should stop replying to you since you are completely oblivious to how raiding worked at that time (which guild were you in again?). Flash heal cost 380 Mana (including talents, greater heal had roughly the same efficiency at that point). It took 1.5 seconds to cast. In mix green/blue/purp you'd be lucky to hit 7k mana with some buffs. Which means that you'd run out of mana in less than 30 seconds if you were spamming (Priests had pretty much no regen in combat). Eating one pot for ~1.5k mana every 2 minutes didn't help, you would still go oom a couple of seconds later. Yes, mana was the major problem at that point in the game, not healing per seconds.

The MOST you needed in MC was 4 tanks, and only for SOME encounters. Garr needed a couple, majordomo needed 4, etc.. Again, you're talking a handful of actual tanks in the group, whereas you needed 40 (realistically, probably only 20 for most earlier raids, if you didn't have a ton of baddies) total players, comprised mostly of DPS.

Sulfuron for example required 5 tanks. It doesn't matter if it is some or all that requires it, it means you have to have them in the raid and they have to gear up.

Onyxia and MC were EASY. The only thing that made them difficult with the sheer number of bad players in a 40-man raid.

Out of all Dungeons ever released in the game, MC took the longest for anyone to beat. Millions of players tried to be first but failed, because it was too easy? Get a grip, doing MC with green gear prenerf with 40 people (of whom no one had any raid experience, since it was the first raid) was hardly easy. However, the discussion isn't about that, it was that Warriors were required for all raid content, no other class was.

You didn't answer the question either. What gear were your so called Paladin main tanks using in MC and BWL? How did they magically get mana? Which successful guild used Paladin as main tank in MC or BWL?

I was responsible for arranging all healing (amongst other things) in the guild and that led us to beat the encounters before the millions that tried the same thing (including BWL). And yes, we used Shamans as main healers, which worked superb. Please state why Shamans were so much worse healers than for example Priests (it's obvious you have no clue about this, if you analyze it you will realize that the Shaman heals are better than the Priest ones and they have greater utility in the form of totems).

Utility at the cost of better heals, and spots in the raid for DPS. Shaman are fine healers now, but they were the most mana inefficient class in ALL of pre-BC. You could probably get away with it on certain encounters, and only with QUITE a few shaman, but that doesn't change the fact that you were gimping your DPS substantially, and you still weren't able to use them on real fights. Mana tide didn't begin to even come close to worth using until BC, and even then, chain pots were STILL better.

Now I really should stop replying to you since you are completely oblivious to how raiding worked at that time (which guild were you in again?). Flash heal cost 380 Mana (including talents, greater heal had roughly the same efficiency at that point). It took 1.5 seconds to cast. In mix green/blue/purp you'd be lucky to hit 7k mana with some buffs. Which means that you'd run out of mana in less than 30 seconds if you were spamming (Priests had pretty much no regen in combat). Eating one pot for ~1.5k mana every 2 minutes didn't help, you would still go oom a couple of seconds later. Yes, mana was the major problem at that point in the game, not healing per seconds.

Mana wasn't an issue if you were using chain pots, and if you were bringing people in greens to a raid, you had no business raiding. You seem to fail at understanding raid efficiency. It was never about single classes - it was about the entire raid composition. I think this is why you only speak of Onyxia and MC...

Sulfuron for example required 5 tanks. It doesn't matter if it is some or all that requires it, it means you have to have them in the raid and they have to gear up.

...and you have to have healers, and they have to gear up... and you have to have DPS, and they have to gear up. So? You needed a ton of priests in naxx - OMG DEVELOPER CONSPIRACY

Out of all Dungeons ever released in the game, MC took the longest for anyone to beat. Millions of players tried to be first but failed, because it was too easy? Get a grip, doing MC with green gear prenerf with 40 people (of whom no one had any raid experience, since it was the first raid) was hardly easy. However, the discussion isn't about that, it was that Warriors were required for all raid content, no other class was.

Relatively, yes. It was VERY easy. The only problem beating it was having so many scrubs in any raid, and that the game was still relatively new. Once it was a standard, people were pugging it. People STILL fail at BWL/AQ, even in T10 gear.

edit: also, T7 geared players were losing in Naxx, and would still be in T10, if it hadn't been remade

You didn't answer the question either. What gear were your so called Paladin main tanks using in MC and BWL? How did they magically get mana? Which successful guild used Paladin as main tank in MC or BWL?

I was Horde, so I can't comment on any direct experience.

Utility at the cost of better heals, and spots in the raid for DPS. Shaman are fine healers now, but they were the most mana inefficient class in ALL of pre-BC. You could probably get away with it on certain encounters, and only with QUITE a few shaman

You are really beginning to eat your socks now.
At that point, compare Flash heal (the most common heal in those raids) to Lesser healing wave.

Flash heal (including talents)
973.5 average heal
1.5 second cast
380 mana
2.56 mana efficiency

Lesser healing wave (including talents)
973.5 average heal
1.5 second cast
361 mana
2.70 mana efficiency

If anything Shamans had greater mana efficiency compared to Priest, and they brought lots of utility in the form of totems. Priests brought no extra utility, just PWF but for that is was enough with one Priest.

Mana wasn't an issue if you were using chain pots, and if you were bringing people in greens to a raid, you had no business raiding. You seem to fail at understanding raid efficiency.

What kind of gear do you think people had when raids first started? You think people had epics when they did MC for the first times? How come mana wasn't an issue when you go through 28k mana in 2 minutes and the pots only gave 1.5k mana?

...and you have to have healers, and they have to gear up... and you have to have DPS, and they have to gear up. So? You needed a ton of priests in naxx - OMG DEVELOPER CONSPIRACY

Huh? There was no raid where you were required to have any other class (except certain gimmick encounters), Warriors on the other hand you were required to bring in good amounts for every raid. Priests could be swapped for Shamans, Paladins or druids, Mages could be swapped for Warlocks etc, Warriors were required, however.

Relatively, yes. It was VERY easy. The only problem beating it was having so many scrubs in any raid, and that the game was still relatively new. Once it was a standard, people were pugging it. People STILL fail at BWL/AQ, even in T10 gear.

Sure, any encounter is easier with better players. Why would it matter why it is hard? As for BWL we did clear the bosses there considerably faster, since at that point you had decent gear and people had raid experience, which made it much easier.

I was Horde, so I can't comment on any direct experience.

Just like most of the stuff you've written.

After reading what you said, your tactics seemed to be to bring only two tanks to MC, both of them could be Paladins, who had no tanking gear and no mana, so they had to tank in cloth gear. Then you didn't even need 40 people, you brought 20, no healers except Priest though. For some reason those who went to your raid were already in full epics however, which they somehow managed to get outside raids. Oh and I almost forgot, you manage to craft mana pots which gave you 28k mana.

You may be experienced at lots of things but at the edge of raiding in early WoW you were certainly not.

If anything Shamans had greater mana efficiency compared to Priest, and they brought lots of utility in the form of totems. Priests brought no extra utility, just PWF but for that is was enough with one Priest.

This was post-normalization (much later), and you also seem to be oblivious to the fact that priests had FAR more mana. Shaman merely can't keep up with long fights, or with heavy sustained damage in any of the high-end raids. Offheal/raidheal? Sure. Main heal? Maybe now with the talent changes. Pre-BC? Delusional.

What kind of gear do you think people had when raids first started? You think people had epics when they did MC for the first times? How come mana wasn't an issue when you go through 28k mana in 2 minutes and the pots only gave 1.5k mana?

You SHOULD have been mostly in blues, with assorted epics. It wasn't easy getting enough people to do it, as we had our own problems, but that's why we spent more time gearing up our players instead of just running into the wall a million times and hoping to progress. Quality over quantity has helped gain our server several world first titles.

Huh? There was no raid where you were required to have any other class (except certain gimmick encounters), Warriors on the other hand you were required to bring in good amounts for every raid. Priests could be swapped for Shamans, Paladins or druids, Mages could be swapped for Warlocks etc, Warriors were required, however.

I just got a phone call from naxx40 - it's for you.

After reading what you said, your tactics seemed to be to bring only two tanks to MC, both of them could be Paladins, who had no tanking gear and no mana, so they had to tank in cloth gear. Then you didn't even need 40 people, you brought 20, no healers except Priest though. For some reason those who went to your raid were already in full epics however, which they somehow managed to get outside raids. Oh and I almost forgot, you manage to craft mana pots which gave you 28k mana.

For Onyxia and MC? 20 raid-geared players is fine, so long as they know what they're doing. For BWL/naxx/AQ? Could probably drop a few people, but you needed as many good (and geared) players as you could get.

We DID bring other healers, but only for raid heal and support offheal. For any important healing, you just can't trust the job to anything but a priest. Yeah, we got our epics and blues outside the raid to start - so what? You can do that, you know. We used mana pots, NDB, tubers, etc.. I wouldn't expect you to know, as you didn't get far enough.

You may be experienced at lots of things but at the edge of raiding in early WoW you were certainly not.

This from someone who thinks that endgame raiding in WoW was Onyxia and MC. I bet you were the official OOC rezzer!

Now I really should stop replying to you

You really should. Arguing with me doesn't make you any less wrong.

This was post-normalization (much later), and you also seem to be oblivious to the fact that priests had FAR more mana. Shaman merely can't keep up with long fights, or with heavy sustained damage in any of the high-end raids. Offheal/raidheal? Sure. Main heal? Maybe now with the talent changes. Pre-BC? Delusional.

Mate, those are the numbers from before BWL was released (as I still have them written down).

You denying all the plain facts makes talking to you useless, so I will not honor you with further replies. It's obvious you've never been on top of raiding.

Whatever you say, MC hero.

Balancing games is pretty much impossible.
They will never be able to balance SC2 as well as SC, unless they make a lucky shot.
SC balance was luck too.

baby dont hurt me no more

Waddup TheLittleOne, Supreme Commander represent! Now just get TheBigOne back in action and own the 2v2 ladder. Kinda wierd that Dimaga wasn't invited. :s

dimaga is banned from every TL event for 1 year

Dimaga is banned.

what for exactly? :x

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=108352

IIRC, creating fake accounts and playing against them in order to qualify for the $10,000 tournament.

Funny, blizzard did not take action against that in their own ladder season last year :/. Makes me weary about the pro ladder in sc2 which will most likely also be a means to qualify for LAN tournaments as well.

I think protoss will do better after the patch, at least vs zerg.

Well the "Pro League" (the ladder division above Platinum) is suppose to be invite only, so hopefully they have enough control over it to prevent such things, at least to some degree.

Though I doubt Blizzard will have enough community managers to actually deals with such things. From what I've seen of the community managers of Blizzard games all they seem to do is post something unrelated one or two times per month on the Blizz forums and that's about it.

The WoW one does more than that, he shows himself to be an idiot twice a week.

so dissapointing that DIMAGA won't play it, feels like 1 finalist is missing :\

i was here

The word "foreign" seems to have its own meaning in the SC-communityv. Sounds very weird..

That's because South Korea is so advanced in skill compared to the other world in SC.

Well yeah, I kinda figured. It´s just weird that people not from Korea talking about themselves as foreign people.

haha agree.

Wow, ret needs to break out of this "all roach" style. Demuslim was pretty impressive. Very good micro and unit positioning.

Haypro won against strelok 2-0.. not lost.

Ah, thanks. My bad.

Fix'd.

TheLittleOne bringing in the Randompowah!

The next casted match will be TheLittleOne vs. Liquid`Nazgul btw.

awesome match, i want the replay from game 2

They need to invite better players next time : half of them were eliminated in the first round.

who is doing the updates on this?

in round of 16 HayprO is swedish, then in round of 8 he's german
and also loses by 2-0 (he didn't)

I am and yes, he is swedish. Thanks for noticing the mistake.

Fix'd.

So far TheLittleOne vs Nazgul is one fucking great series. Middle of 2nd game, some really great shit FINALLY being shown.

this game is insane!

first nuke i have seen in sc2 :)

The streams down for you too right?

GAH!!!!!

I was like cumming and then the fucking stream shuts off.

yeah, almost right after the nuke :(

TheLittleOne showing his insane SupCom macro and micro skills. Waddup now SC and WC3 players!?

what is his background?

He was one of the best Supreme Commander players in the world and together with his older brother TheBigOne they we're imo the best 2v2 team in the world. Day[9] said something about that he also played SC.

He is also a B+/A- SC player, this is him:
http://www.iccup.com/gamingprofile/IPS.Radio.html

TheLittleOne is fucking amazing.

That was the best tournamentgame ever in SC2.

the second game against whitera just beat that epic game by miles :D

I was spraying, this was one of the most intense esport experiences in this year, comparable to only few best cooller games @ ql, completely amazing, sc2 is spreading its wings, gonna to switch to this game as soon as i get a key

If your avek this could be a major news

hahaha good shot :)

random allowed with no race reveal = no thanks

omfg, just when u think uve seen the most epic match, thelittleone adds smt more crazy ontop

Yup. Good stuff.

W-Ra seems the more seasoned. TLO the more creative.

no that im into sc or whatever but is shoutcaster retarded?

No.

?
he is really good

He suffers from the typical american fake enthusiasm syndrome

I think his enthusiasm in genuine. He's just a bubbly little ho.

ye i was about to ask if hes american

nationality explains everything

He kinda broke the amount of "omg" record tonight

blasphemy

also don't enjoy day9

vods plssssssssss

VODs or gtfo.

u re doin 2 much 4chan

Don't go on the site.

i thought replays usually werent handed out by sc players?

tl always releases replays of their tournaments
they released a replay pack for tsl quali with 9500+ replays :)

this is NOT korea ;P

Exclusive to professionals. =P

this replay system within the game is really good, to study some actions from the players.

but im waiting for the vods with shoutcast, its much more fun, from TLO vs nazgul, hope they upload it fast.

Foolish fools think politics enacts change, but every wise fool knows it is science. When Galileo said, 'you stupid', the Spainards say, 'you true'. When Einstein told them to blow up everything, especially Japan, they say, 'true'. When the wheel was invented, Egyptians said 'blah blah fucking blah', and then the wheel was outdated.

It is true, science kicks your ass.

I am pleased to see Ukrainian success.

jonesy is fat

jamerio is poor

Yes, we want day[9]'s vod, he is truely awesome <3

I should specify, when I say "I am pleased", I mean 'We are pleased". Just remember - science triumphs. These goofy politicians, who think they have so much control. Al Gore created the internet.... nope, it was darpa scientists (key word being scientists).

jonesy is fat

jamerio is poor

Maybe I did figure out gravity and I invented things on par with wheels or rectangular white-person buildings, but I like humor too. I talk to Hitler and he says, "hmmmmm.... ". He doesn't have much to say. Honestly though, without black humor, I would have killed myself 20 years ago. I'm only 28.

dude, what kind of stuff are u taking? 0o

first i thought he is in the wrong topic, but he does this often xD

Jonesey 4 president!

jonesy is fat

jamerio is poor

The joke is that science is not competitive. Scientists work together and then share their work with other scientists and, depending on the results, with everyone else. When you put competition into a scientific model, it exposes competition for the degrading, destructive hierarchy it really is, and for what is completely opposite of science. Can you honestly imagine Jerry Rice talking smack to Einstein? It would be the most insulting and contemptible thing.

jonesy is fat

jamerio is poor