Random Musings

So I occasionally post random fpvods and commentary/highlight stuff to my youtube channel. I haven't done shit in months (haven't had time) but recently I started recording random ladder games (at C+ level currently) I enjoy doing instructional commentary to help lower level players out (aiming for solid c and under level instruction) and other little starcraft highlight stuff... I've gotten fairly positive feedback from my work. But I digress- this is not the primary purpose of my blog update here tonight.

Onto what I actually wanted to talk about...

I'm playing this one game a few nights ago and after 17 minutes or so of recording the game first person I accidentally stop the screen capture when he pauses the game. Instead of scrapping the project what I decided to do was ALSO record a full video of the replay and commentate that and sort of mix it into the fpvod recording. The result I feel is something a tad out of the norm. It takes MUCH more work than just doing an fpvod with commentary (you have to do basically 2 full videos for one) but it does provide an interesting alternative to the standard fpvod or a plain replay analysis.

I'd like to get TL's opinion on this, what works well here, what doesn't? Is it annoying to be flipping between an observer moving around and fpvod of the player? Is it hardly noticeable? I just added little transitions when it cuts from replay footage to fpvod footage and also added some music in the background. Again much more work edit wise but possibly a much more enjoyable final viewing product. I love trying out new ideas and mixing stuff up a bit!

I'm interested as to what people think considering this is not a method used often (as far as I know) from typical fpvoders.

-LF

Hey Teamliquid.

Yesterday yet another LAN took place in the DC/BALTIMORE area. It's really great we've now had 4 events in the DC area in the past few months. (3 LANS and a proleague finals viewing) This event was by far the most competitive event in the DC area in some time, (soon to be topped next month though kekekeke O_o) those who attended yesterday (to the best of my recollection):

Torenhire
Louder
Xeris
LastShadow
Nyoken
Tossim
Slog
LuckyFool
Valtyr
Zeppelin
Purpos3
Krackling
Boardin
LordWeird
StorrZerg
HatchetWound
Sadistx
CPeter123
PedoCows
Haemonculus
AuHsoj
Sentient66
Orb
CaucasianAsian
Duckett + princeton gosus
d3_crescentia

All in all we had a 24 man tournament and around 28 or so total people. (counting the princeton gosus and a couple others that I might have missed)

Really awesome that some great gamers were able to make it yesterday, slog, Nyoken, Louder, some really well known names were there which was good fun and made for some really great games.

The tournament was good fun, big thanks to Xeris for saving the day bracket wise. In typical Xeris fashion we ninja'd a pretty sweet bracket together after some problems and started games, a tad later than intended but nevertheless things got underway. Personally I feel I played pretty shitty but I haven't been practicing hard against good opponents (tons of D games on iccup doesn't count as legit practice) and it costs me. I won my first match 2-1 against zepplin (who I had to play in the first LAN back in July) and then lost to Tossim 0-2 in 2 pretty decent games. The first game on Tau Cross I went for a push but kinda just got content when I took control of the two middle bridges. This proved to not be wise as he was able to flank around and eventually break it, also got a nice recall off in my main. In game 2 I lost on colo2, my 200/200 push worked more or less but like usual my lategame macro sucked and I have no clue wtf to attack on colo2 when protoss is making like 3 different mains around the map. I always like start splitting up my army and just get raped. I then won a match against orb in the losers finals, he went carriers but I pushed pretty fast and he only had 2 when he had to use them to try and stop the push. I then faced slog in the losers bracket and should have had the game, my push succeeded but since my macro is so shitty I couldn't follow it up really and had to gg I think the difference maker was when I lost 3 tanks to a mine, boy was I raging over that ohman. Overall I didn't play horrible yesterday but I can play better fo sure. I played only TvP yesterday in all 4 rounds that I played in.

What I learned yesterday is to fucking stop getting supply blocked at 52 in TvP (happened probably 5 times in at least 7 games.) and that it's time to start incorporating a more harass style TvP. Vs shitty people you can just macro and rape with the first push, doesn't work vs somebody who knows what their doing.

lastshadow played pretty well, for some reason I have no replays of any games he won, just the ones he lost, (hmm what an interesting coincidence) I wonder if he saved ALL his replays on the pc he was on in the cafe...
Last time I was pissed I forgot to upload some of my games vs Superior and later at the next LAN I checked the same PC and got them all over a month after we had played them. (EZ!) Maybe I'll ninja lastshadow's replays too if I'm ever back there at some point in the future.

I got most of Louders replays, for some reason I missed the first bo3 of the grand finals, where lastshadow 2-0'd louder. Probably the best game of the tournament (that I saw) was Louder vs LS on destination where Louder had a 30 kill reaver. That shit was pretty intense at differnet points in the game it looks totally over for the other player and they both manage to fight back until Louder takes out like 10 scvs with a scarab that glitches THROUGH minerals. High level shit like that is awesome and it's great when we have players of that caliber in LAN situations. Shit like this needs to happen more often yo.

The other most epic game I heard about (didn't see it) was CaucasianAsian vs Hatchetwound on Destination in losers bracket, some 40 minute PvZ with like everything mined out and coming down to 200/200 armies with maelstorms and shit and eventually 6 ults ending it. That game will be forever a memory though because both players forgot to save the replay... FAIL!

Dinner was pretty sweet (even though they screwed up some shit and thought they were missing a bill when it was really them just fucking up) Korean buffet was good but in my opinion slightly overpriced for the value. I would go back there again sometime though (not every night though or I'd be totally broke after 2 trips)

Overall I'm pretty pleased with how things turned out yesterday and I hope everyone had a great time. I hope to continue keeping Starcraft alive in the DC area as there's a pretty kickass group of guys now that have gone to all 4 events (or even 2 or 3 of the 4) and knowing who people are is a blast. Around a 30 person turnout was amazing. CaucasianAsian finished the night with epic PvZ's against StorrZerg. I dunno why but I was so into those games... Those guys are a pretty good match but CaucasianAsian ultimately raped like 3-1 only losing in a ZvZ at the very end.

YepYep good times, LAN's are so much fun.

By on the lookout for quite an exciting event on November 7th in the DC area, Xeris will be hosting and coordinating and I would expect to hear more news on it shortly.

until next time,
-LF

edit: sadly this LAN was seriously void of cameras, I think maybe 1 person brought a camera and took like 3 pictures. That was fail.

Lategame TvP is a fucking joke. Everything about it makes me want to punch someone. Carriers are seriously one of the most imba and retarded units in the game. A perfectly macroed 200/200 terran ball of death can die in 5 seconds to surprise carriers. Terran can play a perfect game and miss scanning the one place protoss made like 6 carriers and it can rape 40 tanks so fucking easily. It doesn't even take any micro or skill u just select and attack that shit. Terran has nothing even nearly like this. Even battlecruisers need fucking yamato cannon targeting omg.

Why can't terran have one god damn unit that just attacks at full power without some sort of godlike micro or casting ability.... omfg.

Carriers are to lategame TvP what DT's are to early game. Instant game enders if you haven't been perfectly scanning and scouting for it all game. Even if you fucking scout it before a single carrier is out you better have godlike micro with gol+tank army against his mixed goons+storm+mass carrier army. Are you kidding me? LoL. People will say to "push while he's making carriers cuz his ground army is weak" if you've already committed to a 3base build it aint gonna happen. Carriers are ridiculously strong on a map like blue storm. They can fly around and pick off all kinds of shit and gols get fucking clusterfucked in ur nat.

You can have perfect macro and push at the exact perfect timing but even if you mismicro one god damn thing it's basically gg. 2 storms and 20 gols can go poof in 2 seconds. And have fun microing that shit vs the actual carriers, any good protoss will just hit and run and keep carriers out of range of gols while all ur shit gets raped. Even on a map like othello carriers are strong as shit. You can have millions of gols and it wont matter they just run around picking off random shit while they take the map. actually Carriers are strong on every map what the fuck. seriously there's something wrong here.

Have fun when they transition back to a ground army. 20 goons vs 20 gols gg no re rofl. Even when ur prepared for carriers u have to constantly be on the lookout for a transition back to ground army by protoss. You kidding me? All fucking game Terran has to know exactly what the P is trying to do or it's instant gg.

It's even more fun when they mix an arb or two in with their fucking carrier fleet. Stasising all my shit and making me scan as well as micro omfg. Like seriously? As if 14 carriers alone weren't strong enough this unit makes all of them cloaked. lol?

Oh and your army can NEVER be out of place. You could be out in the field fighting carriers and 1 recall in main=gg. Seriously wtf. You can kill the protoss main and he can still rape u cuz he owns the rest of the map and just rebuilds his main elsewhere. I mean seriously what the hell. Terran cant even lose like 5 depots in his main or it puts him so far behind and protoss can lose a main and still be in the game rofl. Everything about lategame TvP is just retarded bullshit seriously what the hell.

You can mine and turret up perfectly for recalls and he can just lead with an observer to spot the one place you didnt plant mines and recall 40 units there. U can pull ur shit back to deal with it but his other 160 supply of army rapes ur expos. Terran has a fucking ridiculously hard time taking and keeping expos too. Protoss can waltz around make a couple cannons and be perfectly safe. Terran has to slowly move around praying the toss doesn't notice they are trying to expand and take a 3rd or 4th base. Are you kidding me? And terran always has to keep units around to protect or storm drops or protoss army will just rape expos. Protoss can just avoid terran army until terran moves too far or over extends and then rapes everything. If terran doesn't set up perfectly for every engagement its total rape. Complete RAPE.

Lategame TvP is retarded protoss is fucking retarded as shit and has so much time to plan and rape terran so easily. All it takes is one fucking mistake by terran and it's gg at basically any point. While Protoss can waste their entire army multiple times and lose their main and still win, total complete and utter bullshit.

Mod Edit:
Edit 2:

This game is hard enough. I don't need Heartbreak Ridge making it any harder.

I'm already a dumbass and choose to play Terran as my main race. (seriously why am I playing terran? I think I asked why in a previous blog...) Terran on it's own is a fucking impossible race to play. Every game on any map is like uberhardmode. Now add this god awful map called Heartbreak Ridge to the equation and you get some ridiculously stupid mix of uberhardmode and impossibility.

What it should have been called was fuckyouintheass ridge.

I swear EVERY possible FUCKING thing that messes with your mind is in play on HBR. First of all it's a one on one map, so say hello to bullshit cheeses 24/7. Proxy gateway in ur main with pylon on ridge outside. How fucked up is that. If you spawn right side you have to wall or u pretty much get stolen gas which is pretty much gg. Especially since there are no ramps. Are you kidding me? No ramps even? At least on destination we had a ramp. As if no fucking ramps was bad enough, there's a LEDGE above your choke. rofl? Ledge above ramp is bad enough on colo2 but at least there you get a nested natural. Here any possible wall is on the inside so you still have to work your ass off to simply survive a 10/15 gate and then still have to work like a mofo for ur expo.

Your nat is a joke, positioning turrets vs muta harass is like rofl. You can place turrets above but they get picked off so easily. You can position stuff below but u have no vision and he just rapes scvs randomly and ur gas always gets raped. Oh and I just found out recently u can siege tanks at the third and rape the other guys nat gas TvT and other guy can't do jack shit about it. fucking homo.

There are multiple main paths to the enemy base. Your army can be pushing on one side while a million troops march for a counter and when you try to pull back all ur shit gets clusterfucked in the middle. Oh by the way why the FUCK is there a base in the middle. I swear it's probably more fucking retarded than the middle base on Andromeda. Good luck trying to take a 4th base TvP. Good luck taking out zerg expos at 11 or 5. If they position sunks correctly and have swarm the chokes into those bases is so small its gg no re. And it takes u an hour to get to those bases. Reminds me of Katrina when ur troops basically had to run 26 miles to take out zerg expos. hell even taking a 3rd base feels shitty. half the time when you try to take 1 or 7 your stuck covering with tanks on the low ground near one of the ridges. If you don't mine+position perfectly every time u get fucked. How stupid is that? I mean seriously this game is a fucking hardmode game already why... just why.

Did I mention the temple+mineral fucking idiotjoke behind ur natural yet? No? Well guess what, whoever decided this map wasn't a fucking homonightmare already decided to add this shit which u can mine out or glitch units through. glitching DT's through there is really fucking retarded. You can have turret positioned at ur nat and turrets in main but if he glitches a few dts or mines it out u can get fucked so easily.

I don't give a shit what the progaming stats are on this map btw this is the most imba and most retarded map ever. (I'm sure it's a "Terran" favored map, BULLCRAP)

I do believe this is the worst map to grace the competitive starcraft scene in my 11 year history of playing this stupid game. It's motw on iccup right now and easily the most popular map in random public games. F that and F HBR. All I can say is the next one on one map better fucking have choke ramps or there will be hell to pay.

So I've been MASSSSSSSING on iccup this past weekend. I gotta get back to reality tomorrow but first I figured I'd share the experience here. This mass iccup session taught me a thing or two about starcraft, it got me a bo5 with the best zerg player I've ever played and ultimately reminded me just how crappy a player I really am.

In the past 3 days since the new iccup season started I've played 85 ladder games and 4 non ladder games. In the 4 non ladder games I went 2-2 (against 2 different C opponents). In the ladder games I went 34-51. For a grand total of 36-53. All at the D and D+ ranks. Quite a poor record!

I'm really glad the iccup season restarted over a 3 day weekend. I happened to have no plans so I just said screw life for 3 days and played sc. Which is rare for me. I usually tend to avoid playing sc on the weekends, usually I'm tied up with other things or out of the house for one reason or another. This weekend I ditched everything and stayed holed up mass iccup'ing. I ended up averaging 28 games a day.

I played over 10 games against A- or higher ranked opponents which was a joy. Sure I lost all the games and was probably horribly outmatched but many of the games I was legitly alive 15 minutes into the game which tells me early build order execution isn't always all that horrible. Bunch of games I lost to cheese which reminds me one of the big things I dislike about iccup, people playing solely for points and a record. It's far too easy to let stats or a letter grade dictate how you play the game. People play for cheap wins not to improve. 2 days ago I played the then #40th ranked player in the world TvZ on colo2. He 4pooled into sunk rush. I stopped it easily but I thought, this is all this guy is probably doing. He's now 52-17 C-, bashing noobs with his 4pool sunk rush on the same map every game most likely... This isn't what sc should be about... sc should be about improving as a player and having fun while doing so. Many koreans use iccup solely for testing cheese builds which is amusing but can be frustrating!

I forced myself to play on heartbreakridge. A map I have absolutly detested since it was released. There are many places to proxy and cheese, a ledge above your choke and no ramp. Multiple paths to the enemy base, a near impossible 4th base to take TvP, not easy mech TvZ, a tiny choke that can get cluster blocked to easily by a proxy pylon, or a landed rax... All of these factors plus HBR is a courage map in Korea currently (Right???) so korean progaming hopefuls of tomorrow must be practicing that map hard these days. I went 5-25 on HBR overall. A ridiculously sad record. Of course I did myself no favors by constantly seeking out koreans with good records in the channel...... I hated desti when it came out but I've grown to like it, I hated HBR and I still hate HBR. It is easily my least favorite one on one map now.

Perhaps the most educational experience of this mass iccup session was a 5 game set played against wooricard an A+ zerg from last season. In the fifth game I actually almost had a slight advantage but sadly the bridges on destination prove to be VERY difficult moving across when there are half dozen lurkers and mass hydras camped out there. That rep along with game 1 rep were posted up in the iccup who's who thread, he told me he was a progamer and I believe him. He was nice enough to give me advice in a channel after the fifth game. He told me how to react and properly deal with "many lings -> 2hatch mutal" Told me how important it is to always be checking for zergling speedupgrade, what it means when a zerg makes gas before spawning pool, but how this is very risky for Z because Z can't stop 8rax if he does this. He taught me how you should always make ur 3rd rax before adding turrets when you know its 2hatch mutal. How you should always keep troops positioned and be ready for ling run in to try and pick off turrets right before mutal timing. And how there will only be 6 initial mutal + 1 + 2 with 2hatch so if your prepared correctly and at the right time you can handle it and will be strong going into 11th minute of game which is usually most important minute TvZ. Something to do with the zergs 3rd being vulnerable at this timing and depending on what zerg does and how fast his hive tech is you have timing window here...

he taught me ALOT more, must have spent a good 20 minutes chatting in channel afterwords, (through spotty english of course...) he told me I was not a bad player either which was nice... lol. The really high level koreans that I've gamed/talked to are almost all really well mannered and really cool people. It's too bad more people don't take after them manner wise...

I went 9-4 TvT which is pretty good. Couple wins TvT vs B last season too.

TvZ remains my worst matchup statistical wise. 7-19.

TvP is what I consider my best matchup timing and game sense wise. I still lose to random DT drop bullshit but in standard TvP I am overall pretty strong. I have TvP timing and understanding down pretty well which gets me by up decently enough.

Overall a really fun weekend of iccup, some really amazing games that I won't soon forgot. Many of my best games were ones I lost in the end, it's pretty crazy when you play a 25 minute game and know you can't really play any better and still get crushed... I will always have a profound respect for how hard koreans drive themselves in this insanely difficult game. And for how well they have picked it apart and analyzed it so deeply.

It blows the mind honestly when you step back and think just how sick amazing the game of Starcraft Broodwar is...

game on.
-LF

So I know there have to be some golfers on TL. Today was an epic round for the ages. I hit some sick shots and sank so many putts, one of those days where EVERY aspect of my game was spot on. Drives 270 yards dead straight, solid iron play and crazy good pitching/chipping and good putting.

I play lots of golf in the summer. I play with a couple friendly leagues at a couple different courses around my house in VA and with a teaching pro I know in Connecticut. I play about once a week or so from about April-September and usually around August and September I have a round where everything comes together, today was that round and I STILL felt like I left shots on the table. Around this time last year I shot a 79 on 18 holes on a regulation course, which was 7 over par for that course. (A par 72) I never thought I'd touch a round even NEAR that for a long time. Today I smoked it by 2 strokes, shot a 77 on a par 71. 6 strokes over par. Zomg!

And that was with a triple bogey on a hole on the back nine. (rofl so stupid, drive was like 60 yard wiff and second shot was shanked into the woods...) Other than that I was playing SUPER solid all day today. Shots from 170 yards sticking to within 5 feet, both the 550 yard par 5's on in 2... I still can't believe how well everything worked today. 9 times out of 10 one aspect of the game is missing. Either I'm shit off the tee or the putting is gone or both or a combination of other things...

Today was pretty amazing all around. The course is pretty easy I don't know the slope/course ratings exactly but it's just a public course like 6500 some odd yards that I'm pretty used to- but still a 77!!! I have an average handicap of around 15 or 16, a round of 86 or something is where I typically shoot. (Pretty much bogey golf on a moderate golf course) But dude, occasionally crazy sick days like this roll around and it's SWEET. Starts getting me an itch to enter a few tournaments. Sadly the summer always seems to end too fast and I usually don't swing a club after late September until April or May of the following year... I won a couple small junior tournaments when I was in high school but never played for my school or for college, dunno why, maybe I never really thought of myself as that good and I also didn't put in as much time as everyone else I knew who played hardcore. You have to play like 3 times a week at least and have LOADS of money to enter events and pay for everything...

Golf is a fun game and a great way to get outside and meet people, it can get kinda expensive really fast though. I'm super lucky my Dad is great friends with a golf pro who gets me out for FREE all the time at good courses... Between the lessons I get from him and the deals he cuts for me to get out at the various country clubs I play it it saves me like 2k a year at least.

Hello TL.NET!

Another gathering Only a few weeks after the last one was awesome in the DC/BAL area last night.

List of people who were there:

CaucasianAsian
duckett
LuckyFool
ktp
-orb-
Haemonculus
Monkeyboi2k3
StorrZerg
Torenhire
cpeter123
shudmeyer
Clutch3

12 in all! (I didn't miss anyone did I?)

Thanks for coming out everyone!

Was nice to see 4 new faces who missed the first one join us this time.

Some people came and left at various times throughout the afternoon/evening so here's a recap of EVERYTHING!

Didn't take many pictures this time around, took a few shitty ones of people playing in the dark pc cafe on StorrZergs cameraphone but yeah...

No long battle reports this time we played a more casual/fun series of games this time, no tournament.

Showed up around 3pm and played an epic series of 2v2's with storrzerg/luckyfool team vs orb/haemonculus team. storrzerg/LF team won 5-3, gg's! When storr didn't die 3 minutes into the game the storr/LF team was usually ok.... usually.... Lost a 1v1 vs CaucasianAsian (u dt rushing fag u) Played in a racewars game which was really fun in person. Everything is way more fun in person no matter what ur playing. Some of the race wars games were truly epic games, 3 -correction: 4 control groups of fully upgraded scouts plowing through dozens of turrets, clutch cc's covering cannons (LOLWHAT?) mass queens and infested terrans were just some of the epicness of these games.

So after this we head to dinner and Clutch3 meets us there, I talked to him on the phone beforehand and I was like "yeah just look for the group of sc nerds walking up to the restaurant and you'll know its us." As we're walking up there he declares; “YOU GUYS FROM TL.NET?” (The most awkward question in the universe to ask random people in a PC cafe btw) Good times, no korean bbq this time we just headed to a casual sit down burger place. Dinner conversation revolved around sc2, The Rock and his 1base carrier builds, oldschool progamers and iccup adventures. All totally awesome convo's of course. Couple people left after dinner but we had 8 or so head back after dinner for some games. Had some more 1v1's, Clutch3 vs duckett, duckett vs storrzerg, and some more team games.

Watched proleague games, day 1 of the playoff matches between OZ and CJ. Talked with CaucasianAsian and Duckett for a long time about the oldshcool days of TL.net and all it's glorious drama. We all agreed that TL is pretty drama free these days, which is both a good and bad thing heh.

Had debates over what the best feeling is as a terran player. I said emping stacked arbiters and protoss army, duckett said owning muta eggs with mines. "How do you know they're muta eggs though? I mean they could always have been drone eggs and u'd never know the difference..." LOL.

Told lots of stories about good past wcg times. Talked about epic old maps and epic old progamers guys like TheMarine, ChoJJa, Goodfriend. Talked to one of the guys who works at Seoul PC, he said his uncle used to be a progamer, DongWook2 was his aka, 0-2 lifetime but damn that's pretty cool.

All in all a really fun night that everyone seemed to enjoy including myself!

On another note I've also started a spreadsheet of names of everyone who has gone to past lans, lives locally or who has expressed interest in attending future LAN's. This makes sending out PM's with news on future events/LAN's easy.
The list:
+ Show Spoiler +

Seriously I have no clue why I play Terran. Why just why.

Terran is so ridiculously hard it isn't even funny. You need to have 250+apm to play it anywhere near a competitive level. You have to have ridiculous micro against any forms of cheese from both protoss and zerg. You can't make ANY mistakes. Even making 1 fucking mistake can EASILY cost you the game against anyone halfway decent. Losing even the first tank in TvP hurts SO god damn much. Losing the first vessel in TvZ is basically fukin gg.

Microing terran units is stupid. You need to stim rines and irad and siege/unsiege in TvZ midgame it's stupid. You have to watch out he doesn't scourge ur vessels yet ur still forced to basically lead with them to be on the lookout for lurks and other random bullshit in the field. You can't get caught in a flank at any point or it's over. You can be at 140 supply 12 minutes in and if you even mismicro once during a battle it's gg vs an army 50 supply less.

T has almost no cheese either- and all of it is basically all in. Protoss can proxy gates and still be in the game if it gets scouted. 8rax is fukin lame now any halfway smart Z can rape you with drones like it's nothing. You have to have the most fucking timing senses in the universe as T. You have to always be on the fucking lookout for speedling all ins, you have to know EXACTLY when to push in TvP for a timing push. During a push you have to siege and keep everything angled correctly, make turrets, lay mines. Unsiege, move... If even one aspect fails it's basically gg just about. Holy shit wtffffff. You can't let speedzeals get near the tanks, you have to plant mines perfectly so they damage him and not rape all ur tanks.

T has no fuckin game ending units either. DT's are instant gg vs no detection. Lurkers same thing. T has what? Cloaked fucking wraiths? U shitting me?

Dude and then there's fuking TvT. TvT the bullshit matchup of epic proportions. “It's like chess.” Screw that. It's like a clusterfuck. You can have a ridiculous lead, be 3 bases ahead and still lose to some bullshit drop in ur main. You can win every battle in the first 15 minutes of the game and still stand no chance. Hell you can flat out lose with the opening build 50% of the time in TvT. 90% of the players outside korea don't understand this matchup worth a damn so most of us just macro around and pray our build was the better build in the given game.

Oh and speaking of builds there are so many ridiculously hard builds to defend in every matchup. 10/15 gate on Longi or Medusa is near suicide for a T, even if you wall you have to have fucking godlike micro to even hold it while ur tank and siege mode finishes. They have like 4 goons vs 1 tank even if you go rax/gas on 10. Then you have to siege it in the perfectly correct spot or they'll still rape you. Too close and it gets fukin raped by ranged goons, too far away and 7 goons just destroy the wall ezpz. Protoss has so many fucking directions to take the game too. Dt drops, reaver drops, double expand, 2base arbiter.......... You have to constaly be sending scvs around the entire map to keep on the lookout for proxy'd shit or hidden expos. If T goes for expo elsewhere on the map it gets spotted and raped so easily T can't do shit about it.

TvZ you have to deal with 9pool speedlings, even if you send scouting scv at 10 and have 4 scvs on ur ramp- if your scvs aren't perfectly placed and rines right there u get raped anyway. TvZ you have to deal with muta micro even with turrets and bunkers behind ur mineral lines they just fly around and pick off every little unit that's sitting around. You can't have a single marine leave the group or a single scv building a building out in the open or it'll get raped. And while this shit is happening the Z is taking the map and massing 26+ lurkers.

Swarm is imba too you cant do shit. You can be winning the game and he sneaks 2 defilers near ur nat and main and swarms and 4 lurkers rape all ur rax like it's nothing.

Omfg u have to be thinking about 42 things at once all while microing, macroing, keeping an eye on the minimap and not missing a fucking depot.

You have to be constantly scanning and adapting to the other players, especially in TvZ. U can't decide how the game is going to jack shit in the early game. Ur forced reacting to if they go quick mutas or hydras or lurkers or speedlings. Unless you try to go for some stupid all in sunk break or something, and that's so damn easy for Z to stop just make 8 sunks and it's gg. Or if you try to mech they just sunk and block their ramp so vult cant do squat. Then just mass up speedhydras and get ovie speed to rape ur minefield like their fukin wipen dust off their feet from the sahara desert.

It takes so much god damn work to even start to compete at higher levels... I have no fucking clue how or why the fuck I play terran.

I just needed to say that and vent some terran rage after playing very poorly tonight in wcg matches.

**WARNING Long Blog Entry on the event last night @ DC Area TL.NET meet up**

Last night we managed to get 21 members of TL together for a DC/Baltimore area LAN @ Seoul PC World in Annandale Virginia. It was a really great time meeting many people from TL and playing games with everyone. Superiorwolf organized the whole thing, Sadistx was there, EvilTeletubby was there, who by the way is getting married in 13 days... (CONGRATZ!) and a whole bunch of other awesome TL.Net people were there.

For those that missed out, and even for those who there- this is a recap of the nights proceedings as well as battle reports on all the tournament games that I played. We had a tournament with cash prizes and everything. I'm writing this while it's fresh on my mind so I can jot down the great details of the fun times! I encourage other people who were there to give their thoughts here too if they wish!

So I showed up at like 1:45pm and most people were already there. It was really awesome putting faces to TL names, everyone was so awesome and laid back too it was amazing. By my count 20 or so TL members were there and at times there were more because some people brought some friends and such. They were cool too.

The PC cafe was really sweet, cheap rates and great computers and setup. It was pretty much the exact opposite of the picture that was posted beforehand in the original thread:


"Seoul PC Gaming Center" . . . yeah right, LOL!!!

The place was fairly dark and awesome with computers set up everywhere but it was pretty cramped.... They had a ton of computers too, TL basically took over a section of like 20 pc's in one part of the cafe muhahaha. We played a bunch of games from like 1:45pm to nearly 2am in the morning. That is one awesome day of starcraft my friends... We all walked across the street to a korean restaurant for dinner which ended up being a really great place. All in all it was an amazing time and everyone who went already wants to plan another one at some time in the future...

Moving on to the battle reports...

TOURNAMENT BATTLE REPORTS. . .
tournament BRACKET

These quick battle reports will contain some overblown drama and some witty humor... I will also make them short because I played a shitload of games yesterday (23 to be exact) and want to cover all of my tournament ones. Some of the games are REALLY good. The replays with the big WATCH THIS GAME have the LF seal of approval for a game that is worth watching for some reason or another...

Games played on LAN are just so much more fun, probably because it's so rare....

ro16:
So the tournament started around 2:30ish and my first round opponent is the one and only CaucasianAsian who plays Terran but doesn't mirror so he plays PvT. The matchup is PvT on Python. I'm the red terran at 12 and CaucasianAsian is the blue protoss at 9.



+ Show Spoiler +

Result: + Show Spoiler +

2-1 Haemonculus

I win the first game and turn to ask which map Haemonculus wants for the second game. This was the first time we see face to face, we had been sitting opposite of each other the whole time... Oh so that's the mystery terran player, cool! t.t
Second game goes on Tau cross and literally nothing I try works. I try to drop on a ledge at the natural, gets shut down, I try to set up a contain, gets destroyed and when I go to wipe out a base at 3, 40 tanks attack my main... 5machine shop mass tanks just comes out of nowhere. I'm thinking dammit what just happened... I told tossinyosalad at dinner later that I never should have looked face to face, it screwed my gameplan and I got overconfident from that point on I was thinking, “yeah playing vs some newbie girl ezpz 2-0 win.” Ha! duckett watched the replay of the game later and was speechless. It really wasn't bad play at all by Haemonculus.

So we're tied 1-1 after 2 games. On to game 3. My choice of map, I choose Rush Hour III which was a map I was choosing throughout the night in various matchups. It's a fairly oldschool map that seemed to suit my style well. (At least I thought so before last night haha...) Long 35 minute game 3. I go for 2fact speedvults opening but it's countered by a 2fact gol drop opening, sets me back early. The game moves into drops and vulture harass and siege attacks and stuff everywhere... It was determined afterwards by StorrZerg that I went too Goliath heavy in the game and should have done more with vultures... Either way I lost in this game in the ro8 but sad news immediately follows the game... Haemonculus has to leave early and can't play in the semis! It feels wrong staying in the winners bracket now but oh well kinda sucky...

Result:+ Show Spoiler +

3-2 Superiorwolf (Epic Series)

Just watch these games most of them are pretty epic, words can't really describe how cool they were By far the best games I've ever played @ a LAN in person. Superiorwolf was B ranked on iccup in the past and I was B- last season. The Korean owner of the place came over when he sensed this epic series going on and said we were and I quote: “Really good.” After I was up 2-1 going into game 4 I chose bluestorm and went for a proxy factory into 2port wraith. A build that I've beat top zerg players with and have become pretty confident with. I put pretty much all my energy into trying to end the series in this game. I should have won the game and I was ahead, but some mistakes with marine and wraith micro really ended up costing me. All of these games were crazy fun to play, some massive plagues, a verity of builds by both players, mech, speedling rushes, fast mutas.... It really was an amazing series of games. And they were played on LAN! I highly encourage everyone to just watch the games which is why I'm not going into big detail abou them here... Plus this blog post is getting fricken way too long...

From LEFT to RIGHT:

LuckyFool, Orb, CaucasianAsian, Zeppelin (Wearing a T1 shirt signed by Bisu, zomfg) Hatchetwound, Storrzerg, duckett, d3_crescentia, hazelynut, Superiorwolf.

Other people that were there earlier but left before the picture was taken:

Sadistx, EchOne, syndromepdp, Loophole, ktp, Torenhire, EvilTeletubby, Haemonculus, tossinYoSalad and probably more people that I forgot... There were so many people there it was amazing!

So yeah I'm playing sc again in case u didn't notice. 3 weeks off seemed to do the trick, sad thing is I'm a fukin noob now... Oh well life's tough.

Moving on to the actual topic:

Setting: Iccup.
Players: "zG.Future" C+ (Green Protoss) "LuckyFool" C Blue Terran
Map: Python

Situation: Very standard opening by both players. I decided to opt for the usual siege expand. Future goes straight for reaver drop. First drop does minimal damage, second drop is where we have the lawlbomb (first of two in the game). It's been a looooong time since something has caused me to giggle like a little girl when playing starcraft but this my friends did it. I've seen zillions of reavers and shuttles die. I've made maps with triggers where everything explodes in the same second... I've seen it all in 11 years. I've seen retarded noob mistakes time after time which resulted in a casual "lol" but something about this particular deal was different for me. I can't really pinpoint it. I guess I just haven't seen 3 things die in the same millisecond in this fashion in a long time in competitive play. Or how epically it failed. (I epic fail shortly later so it's all good...)

Point is I could not stop laughing for 3 solid minutes following this moment. I almost had to gg and leave the game because I literally couldn't move the mouse I was shaking so hard from laughing. Looking back in hindsight I should have just asked for a pause. God I'm a retard.

I had such a huge advantage all game and I blew it because of my inability to control these stupid giggles of glee. I couldn't shake it. These laughs and snickers wouldn't leave me. I was possessed with lol's or something. I can't remember laughing so hard over something in this game. It's something I've missed...

I would say the screenshot does it justice but you have to just watch the game. (7:56 where the lawlbomb happens) I epic fail a few minutes later with the timing push because I'm freakin stuck laughing and giggling over this crazy shit.... It's especially bad at like 84 supply I get jammed for so long I actually stop playing for lik 5 seconds and try to control myself to no avail...

omg what a moment though. Thanks for the games tonight future! With a bit more practice I'll hopefully be back to my gosu TvP ways.

SCREENS:

Lawlbomb #1:

+ Show Spoiler +

Notice both tanks and the turret fired at the exact same time and the angles were perfect.

LAWL!