GSL 3 Final Match Results.

oGsMC [P] 4 vs 1 TSL_Rain [T]

Round 1: oGsMC
Round 2: oGsMC
Round 3: TSL_Rain
Round 4: oGsMC
Round 5: oGsMC

Starcraft 2 GSL 3 Semi Final results and Final match lineup.

Day 1
HongUnPrime.WE [P] 2 v 4 TSL_Rain [T] : TSL_Rain

Day 2
oGsMC [P] 4 v 0 LiquidJinro [T] : oGsMC

• HongUnPrime and TSL_Rain both made a lot of mistakes this set and have been getting a lot of negative criticism.
• The final match up will be Terran vs Protoss. This is the first time a Protoss has had a chance to win a GSL tournament.
• Jinro, the only foreigner, was eliminated this round. He's the only non-korean to ever make it that far and is widely seen as the current best Terran player worldwide. 
• The prize money for this tournament are 100,000,000 KRW ($85,700USD) for the winner, 30,000,000 KRW ($25,700USD) for the runner up, 10,000,000 KRW ($8,600USD) for the two semifinalists, 4,000,000 KRW ($3,400USD) for the quarterfinalists, as well as lesser amounts for the Ro16, Ro32 and Ro64.
   

Sigh. I kinda thought Jinro would lose this round but not 4 and 0. That's disappointing. MC vs Jinro should have been the final match up, Rain isn't anywhere near Jinro in skill. MC will win this GSL for sure.

The finals will be streamed on Dec 18, 2010 2AMPST, 19:00 KST(GMT+9). Time is subject to change, as they often do with the final matches. You can watch the live stream for free at GOMtv.

Athene claims world first level 85 in Catalysm.

Famous World of Warcraft player Athene, known for holding the speed records for leveling a character from 1 to 60, from 60 to 70, and for being "the best paladin in the world" achieved the world first level 85 character 6 hours after cataclysm released with only 5 hours of total playtime. He hit the level cap before I could even be bothered to write something about Cataclysm. That's a pretty...special, thing to accomplish. But the kicker is, he claims to have done so in the name of science.

He transferred his famous character "Athenelol" to the Neptulon server and renamed himself "Forscience". The problem with that is Blizzard disables earning Feats of Strength for characters that transfer servers for 60 days, so he didn't receive the feat. The only proof is the screen shot and video evidence. Well and his  character armory.

So what's all this science stuff mentioned? I have no idea. It might be something or it might just be him trying to regain his lost e-fame.Watch his video for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcD5rQJONV4&

Starcraft 2 GSL 3 Ro8 results and Semi Final lineup.

Day 1
IMNesTea [Z] 2 vs 3 TSL.Rain [T]
TSL.FruitDealer [Z] 2 vs 3 HongUnPrime.WE [P]

Day 2
MarineKingPrime.WE [T] 1 vs 3 oGsMC [P]
LiquidJinro [T] 3 vs 2 choyafOu [P]

• Previous GSL champions IMNesTea and TSL.Fruitdealer were both eliminated this round.
• There are no Zerg in the Semi Finals.
• TSL.Rain was able to defeat IMNesTea with all in tactics and bunker rushes. 
• oGsMC pulled off a brilliant starport rush in his first match against MarineKingPrime.WE.
• In the last game of Jinro VS choyafOu, choya forgot to research Thermal Lance for his colossi which probably cost him the game.
• Both semi final matches will be TvP.

Semi Final lineup
Dec 09, 2AM PST, 19:00 KST(GMT+9)
TSL.Rain [T] vs HongUnPrime.WE [P]

Dec 10, 2AM PST, 19:00 KST(GMT+9)
oGsMC [P] vs LiquidJinro [T]

Woo! The matches literally just ended. I'm happy Jinro made it to the semi finals. A non Korean making it this far is amazing. It's 5AM here so this is my post for the day, I need to get some sleep.

Oh and as always, you can watch the games live for free at www.gomtv.net. If you've missed any of the matches it only costs 20USD for the season.

Starcraft 2 GSL 3 Ro8 lineup and Ro16 results.

Day 1 
IMNesTea [Z] vs MakaPrime [T] : IMNesTEA 
ST_GgoBooGie [P] vs TSL_Rain [T] : TSL_Rain 
BitByBitPrime.WE [T] vs TSL_FruitDealer [Z] : TSL_FruitDealer 
TheBestfOu [T] vs HongUnPrime.WE [P] : HongUnPrime.WE


Day 2 
MarineKingPrime.WE [T] vs LeenockfOu [Z] : MarineKingPrime.WE 
oGsMC [P] vs ST_July [Z] : oGsMC 
PoltPrime.WE [T] vs LiquidJinro [T] : LiquidJinro 
IMmvp [T] vs choyafOu [P] : choyafOu

• There a balanced racial break down this time: 2 Zerg, 3 Terran and 3 Protoss.

• NesTea and FruitDealer, both previous GSL winners are still in the running.

• MaineKingPrime is GSL 2's semi finalist BoxeR aka FoxeR.

• LiquidJinro is the only non Korean player to ever make it to the round of 8.

Round of 8 will take place on Dec 06, 2010 19:00 KST (GMT+9) and as always, be streamed at gomTV.

New Starcraft 2 custom maps: Raynor's Party and Roachsnake.

The other day Blizzard featured two new custom map games, Raynor's Party and Roachsnake. And yes, they are exactly what they sound like. Sadly, I don't have any screenshots to go with this post. :(

Roachsnake is a snake clone. Plain and simple. Each player controls their queen and the object is to run around collecting zerglings. Each zergling you collect adds a roach to the back of your queen that follows you like a tail. If you run into your opponent's or your own tail as well as walls you die and have to recollect the zerglings you lost. Players vote on a number at the start of the game and the first player to collect the set number of roaches wins the game.

Raynor's Party is the Starcraft 2 version of Mario Party and despite how it sounds, is actually pretty fun. Each player takes turns selecting one of 8 mini games to play. The winner of each round gets a point and the person with the most at the end wins. It features mini games such as Tassadar Teaches Typing, where Tassadar says a phrase and players are required to correctly type it out or be psionic stormed to death, Lurker Rally: EXTREME where players control lurkers and run through tracks filled with hostile enemies, and my favorite, Hungry Hungry Ultralisk, where players control stalkers and are chased by a giant Ultralisk.

Both maps are very well made, and if you're a Starcraft 2 player you should really check them out.

Blog name change with some minor news.

So I was trying to google search my own blog to see how popular it isn't (lolololol.) and I found out there was already a blog named D20. It hadn't been updated in a few years, but just in case I decided to rename it anyways. Welcome to D20+1, not only is it NOT the same as the other one but also BETTER, because it's +1.

Anyways...

GSL 2 semi finals are in 14 hours. It's SlayerS_BoxeR VS NesTea and (fake) BoxeR aka FoxeR VS HopeTorture. It's going to be exciting as hell. I hope BoxeR and FoxeR make it to the finals. Here's where you can watch it if you're interested.

http://www.gomtv.net/

Also just for the hell of it, here's me dressed as a paper bag monster.

Why it's sideways, I have no clue.

DotA - What has it become? TL;DR warning.

Anyone familiar with Warcraft 3 knows what DotA is. It was a hugely popular custom map created using the WC3 engine and played over battle.net. It became so popular that the DotA communities and WC3 communities were separated. DotA was practically another game, entirely community driven. It even sparked Basshunter's rise to fame after he sang about it in his remix of Daddy DJ.

But this isn't about what DotA is/was, it's about what it's turned (or turning) into.

Back after a busy weekend with a few minor thoughts.

I had a busy weekend so I apologize for the lack of posts, but now I'm back with a few ideas for later on in the week which I'll talk a little about later.

First thing, Blizzard released all the Blizzcon SC2 match replays for download including BoxeR vs Fruitdealer. Anyone who missed it or wanted to cast it, here's the download link.

http://us.media.blizzard.com/blizzcon/2010/replays/blizzcon_2010_sc2_tournament_replays.zip

Second, the Korean SC2 clan WeRRa disbanded this weekend over accusations of one of the leaders attempting to molest one of the newer members. For those of you who follow the SC pro gaming scene, you can read about it here at TL.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=163268

And lastly, I have no idea what to be for Halloween. I was planning on getting a makeshift zoot suit and going as a 1940's era American type gangster but I haven't been able to find a hat. If I wasn't white as hell I would go as Undercover Brother, but I couldn't pull that off. Any ideas?

Oh I almost forgot to talk about my idea for later posts. Something I've always wanted to do was compare unknown games to similar popular ones to see how they stack up. I'll be looking at things like graphics, game play, music, and controls. Hopefully I'll have everything ready something this week.

SC2 - SlayerS_BoxeR vs. Fruit Dealer (Cool) at Blizzcon

SlayerS_BoxeR is known as "the emperor" in Korea, a SC 1 legend vs Fruit Dealer, the winner of GSL 1 and regarded as the best SC2 player in the world right now. Commentated by Artosis, Tasteless, my man Day9.

Such a great and intense match that I felt like I needed to post something. I don't have much to say as I'm not a good commentator and I don't wanna spoil anything for anyone who missed out. This match was just amazing.

IdrA takes first in MLG 2

As most Starcraft fans know, the 2nd SC2 MLG tournament just finished it's final match up of IdrA (zerg) vs SeleCT (Terran). You'd also know that Blizzard applied patch 1.1.2 in the middle of the tournament. The question here is, how much of a difference did it make on the final outcome?

The patch hurt Terran drops a bit. By slowing Medivac speed and buffing the health points of a handful of Zerg buildings, it gives players much more time to react against stimed marauder drops. On top of that, building a barracks now requires a supply depot, which had a sudden impact on many opening Terran builds by delaying how quickly they were able to build a barracks. The most notable one effected would be early Reaper harass/rushes, a common effective early harass option again Zerg players. It wouldn't be a huge deal if on top of it they didn't move Nitro Packs (Reaper speed upgrade) to be researched at the factory, making early reapers a thing of the past.

On the other hand though, the Zerg unit "Roach" got range upgrade from 3 to 4. This makes Hellion and Reaper harass a little easier to deal with, more notably the Hellions. This makes to very popular and strong early harass options against Zerg weaker as well.

So, it would seem that the patch obviously favored Zerg, and would logically lead to pushing the win into IdrA's favor. Or maybe not. IdrA didn't win with mass Roaches, he won with Mutalisks and Zerg/Banelings. Also keep in mind SeleCT is a professional player who doesn't need to rely on early game cheese tactics to take a win. You don't often see early Reaper bunker rushes in tournament play because it's hit or miss, if it fails there's usually no chance to recover your economy. So maybe this patch didn't hand IdrA the win like it would seem. SeleCT himself admits he didn't practice TvZ as much, but who could blame him? There's hardly anyone to play against and it was an "underpowered" and unpopular race in the tournament scene.

Bottom line though, two recent high level tournaments have been won by Zerg players. (fruitdealer winning GSL) Maybe it's time Blizzard stop balancing their games around Bronze League and start looking at top level game play because at Diamond and pro league levels, win rates are (and have been) fairly even. Sure tweaks need to be made, but Zerg don't need a massive buff just because it's hard to time your Inject Larvas.

PS: Nerf marauders.