With the first half of IEM Katowice falling in February and the second half concluding in March, we've decided to go with the incredibly pedantic choice of limiting this edition of Best Games of the Month to strictly the month of February. Forget the fact that we've already made exceptions in the past—the guy who compiled that previous list didn't understand the value of strict formalism for its own sake.
Anyway, we hope you enjoy these games! You've probably all seen the marquee games from IEM Katowice already, but we've lived up to our hipster reputation and dug around for all the other amazing games you might have missed. They might not all have the pomp and circumstance of a $400,000 event (we did include a few games from IEM), but they damn sure contain some fine StarCraft II.
Zest vs Impact, aka the greatest rivalry in the world, got another one of its infamous bouts during the Team Liquid Map Contest tournament. In one corner, we had Zest, a two time GSL champion, IEM champion, and champion of many other things in general. In the other corner we had Impact, a player who has never made it beyond the Code S RO16.
Going by resumes, this match should have been ridiculously one-sided in Zest's favor. But if that's how it played out, this wouldn't be the greatest rivalry in the world. Zest has developed a strange dual-identity, especially when playing the PvZ match-up. In online matches, he tap dances over the faces of the best Zergs Korea has to offer. But once it's time to play them in live matches, he falls flat on his face and looks like a player who doesn't belong on the same stage. The only constant is that when he plays Impact—online or live—things get ridiculous.
[ "Doth thou prefer bionic or mechanic?", they asked. And the GuMigod answered: "C Y C L O N I C"
When GuMiho plays, it's always time to pay attention. It's not necessarily because you're going to learn anything that will make you better at StarCraft. GuMiho plays his own brand of StarCraft II, one that works for him and no one else on the planet. None of the elite Terran players in the world are as bizarre and unique as GuMiho, the only Terran who possesses a style that may be truly inimitable.
Yes, you could also build a ton of Cyclones against Zerg and say you're playing GuMiho-style, but you wouldn't have captured its true spirit. You wouldn't be anywhere near as scrappy and wild, hitting timings that most players don't even realize exist. You wouldn't be able to mix-up your offensive and defensive tempo in seemingly random fashion, utterly confusing your opponent. For those reasons, GuMiho has a reputation as quite possibly the single most entertaining player in StarCraft II. And for those reasons, you should watch this game.
TvP is a match-up that causes a lot of friction in the StarCraft II community. Insults and accusations are thrown around. "Protoss is unbeatable" say some, while others respond "Terrans should just stop whining." Very few people seem actually happy with its state. From TY's various streams, it's been reported that his TvP winrate in practice is well below 50%. That's a rather big weakness for a player the community has consistently rated as a top-two Terran in LotV.
However, TY's weaknesses in practice doesn't seem to show up often in tournament play, especially in this best of five where he gave herO a proper thrashing. We're fine spoiling this particular match—it's one that's awesome because of the winner's virtuoso performance, not because of the tension of close games. On Cyber Forest, TY opted for a mass-tank style, reminiscent of his incredible GSL semifinal against Neeb last year. Whether this is something he will use in a big GSL match remains to be seen. At the very least, we got to see TY methodically destroy herO in the Olimoleague weekly final with this style.
Some games improve in context. This game is a story of redemption, and everyone loves a good redemption arc. You see, three days before this game was played, KeeN had been eliminated from GSL Code S. Playing Dear and Trust, he won no maps, which is at the very least forgivable considering those are skilled Protoss players. However, it is the way KeeN was swept that was irksome. The entire process seemed hopeless. Not because of some great imbalance. Bluntly put, KeeN's play was inept. The level he showed up with to play in the GSL RO32 was unfit for the competition. Was it just a bad day, or had KeeN lost his touch? It appears to be the former, as this performance is on an entirely different level of the KeeN that showed up to play GSL. At the very least, it's certainly much better entertainment.
Non-Korean Terrans lead a rough life. While the other races have been led to glory by a foreigner before, the Terran race is consistently over-shadowed by their Korean counterparts. SpeCial keeps finding a way to step on the BlizzCon stage, but the semi-finals seem like an insurmountable career obstacle. uThermal shows up in the IEM Katowice group stage every year to remind everyone that he can beat your Code S heroes, only to suffer excruciating, last-second elimination.
In the wake of their performances, HeRoMaRinE is overlooked a surprising amount of the time. There's nothing too flashy to be found in his play, which is probably the reason why most of his games are not remembered (his BlizzCon series vs sOs did win the Korean community's 'worst game of the year'). But he has a better claim than anyone to be called the best European Terran, and when he's in his comfort zone, he can play games as great as this one.
The "Has Award" for games that don't make sense but happened anyway so we will have to live with them
One of the biggest positive surprises of WCS Winter EU so far is the story of HateMe, an Austrian Zerg. With no real resumé to speak of, HateMe went into the tournament expected to be one of those guys who goes 0-2, 0-4 in the RO32. But he wasn't that. He challenged established names in the European scene and took a fair amount of wins, even eliminating uThermal. And yet, just a few minutes into this game, it didn't look like he would ever get the chance to play uThermal in the next round.
SortOf opted for a hidden expansion to the top right of Cyber Forest. Namshar had attempted a similar play against Serral to the bottom left the day before, but was found out instantly due to fortunate overlord pathing on Serral's part. HateMe is not Serral, and so he didn't actually locate this secret expansion until very late into the game, playing as though he did not even consider it a possibility. Eventually, both players decided muta tech would be a good option, HateMe still unaware of SortOf's advantage. At this point, surely the game was as good as over? Dear readers, let me tell you this: the foreigner is always half full.
More recommended games from February
For all you fans who can't get enough StarCraft II.
On March 12 2019 04:49 Elentos wrote: These writers have no clue, clearly X or Y game should have been featured instead but wasn't even mentioned. Typical TL content.
Seriously, how can you call these the best games when Serral isn't even featured?! I can't believe you're bullying him this way!
Great list as always, loved the punny video titles as well.
On March 12 2019 05:22 yubo56 wrote: Surprised there weren't more games from IEM, though I can't really disagree w/ the choices here (and look forward to catching up on them!).
IEM only truly hit its stride by March 1. I could make the entire Best Games March article games from Katowice.
On March 12 2019 05:22 yubo56 wrote: Surprised there weren't more games from IEM, though I can't really disagree w/ the choices here (and look forward to catching up on them!).
IEM only truly hit its stride by March 1. I could make the entire Best Games March article games from Katowice.
Ohhh, that makes a lot of sense cool. Looking forward to March then
On March 12 2019 05:59 BisuDagger wrote: It's terrible, but if Reynor loses a game you know it's going to be entertaining AF.
Most of Serral's best games are of him losing as well.
That's not generous! He is very hard to kill on average so he usually entertains when he loses, but most of his best games are of him actually winning.
On March 12 2019 11:39 Nakajin wrote: Is there an english version of those olimoleague games?
Only on twitch - KeeN vs Patience - herO vs TY English casters (Wardi, Basetrade, Maynarde - doesn't matter) unfortunately almost never upload to Youtube, and if they do, they do it much later than Crank does, which is why you'll usually Crank's VODs in best games. Call me a korean elitist, but that even goes for WCS vs GSL VODs
On March 12 2019 11:39 Nakajin wrote: Is there an english version of those olimoleague games?
Only on twitch - KeeN vs Patience - herO vs TY English casters (Wardi, Basetrade, Maynarde - doesn't matter) unfortunately almost never upload to Youtube, and if they do, they do it much later than Crank does, which is why you'll usually Crank's VODs in best games. Call me a korean elitist, but that even goes for WCS vs GSL VODs
Why don't you just link the twitch VOD in the post then? I would dare to presume that while some people like hone their koreaboo status by pretending to prefer Korean VODs, the vast majority of your reader would rather watch the English one instead and the platform doesn't really matter.
On March 12 2019 11:39 Nakajin wrote: Is there an english version of those olimoleague games?
Only on twitch - KeeN vs Patience - herO vs TY English casters (Wardi, Basetrade, Maynarde - doesn't matter) unfortunately almost never upload to Youtube, and if they do, they do it much later than Crank does, which is why you'll usually Crank's VODs in best games. Call me a korean elitist, but that even goes for WCS vs GSL VODs
Why don't you just link the twitch VOD in the post then? I would dare to presume that while some people like hone their koreaboo status by pretending to prefer Korean VODs, the vast majority of your reader would rather watch the English one instead and the platform doesn't really matter.
Because, at least for me, Twitch VODs work like garbage. Assuming I can even load the page, I have to watch in worse quality than I can watch live at the same time (e.g I can watch 1080p live but forced to stick on 480p on the VOD otherwise it pauses to load). I don't have this issue with Youtube, which makes it much easier to search for specific matches - not to mention that matches are usually uploaded individually on Youtube as opposed to having to search for the match in a 4+ hour VOD. I don't know if other people have the same issues with Twitch VODs as I do, but they are so bad for me I'll only go through them as a last resort
On March 12 2019 11:39 Nakajin wrote: Is there an english version of those olimoleague games?
Only on twitch - KeeN vs Patience - herO vs TY English casters (Wardi, Basetrade, Maynarde - doesn't matter) unfortunately almost never upload to Youtube, and if they do, they do it much later than Crank does, which is why you'll usually Crank's VODs in best games. Call me a korean elitist, but that even goes for WCS vs GSL VODs
Why don't you just link the twitch VOD in the post then? I would dare to presume that while some people like hone their koreaboo status by pretending to prefer Korean VODs, the vast majority of your reader would rather watch the English one instead and the platform doesn't really matter.
Because, at least for me, Twitch VODs work like garbage. Assuming I can even load the page, I have to watch in worse quality than I can watch live at the same time (e.g I can watch 1080p live but forced to stick on 480p on the VOD otherwise it pauses to load). I don't have this issue with Youtube, which makes it much easier to search for specific matches - not to mention that matches are usually uploaded individually on Youtube as opposed to having to search for the match in a 4+ hour VOD. I don't know if other people have the same issues with Twitch VODs as I do, but they are so bad for me I'll only go through them as a last resort
Yet, you apparently do know the link, as shown in the quote, so you could have posted it in the OP. Interesting to hear about the Twitch issues. There used to be a time when live streams worked like complete ass in Czech Republic (due to lack of CD servers, it didn't even depend on your connection) but VODs worked well since forever ...
In the past I got complaints because I wasn't linking English VODs. Linking to English VODs meant linking more Twitch VODs. This lead to complaints about dead VODs because the Twitch ones expired.
So I came to the conclusion that I can't make everyone happy. And since I have basically no help at all on this project at this point, I minimize the effort I have to put in and simply link to the first available YouTube VOD. Which ist commonly Crank.
On March 12 2019 20:06 Elentos wrote: In the past I got complaints because I wasn't linking English VODs. Linking to English VODs meant linking more Twitch VODs. This lead to complaints about dead VODs because the Twitch ones expired.
So I came to the conclusion that I can't make everyone happy. And since I have basically no help at all on this project at this point, I minimize the effort I have to put in and simply link to the first available YouTube VOD. Which ist commonly Crank.
...which is perfectly fine. Keep up the good work!
If someone wants to provide an exhaustive selection of VOD links for each game surely the OP can be updated with that too
On March 12 2019 11:39 Nakajin wrote: Is there an english version of those olimoleague games?
Only on twitch - KeeN vs Patience - herO vs TY English casters (Wardi, Basetrade, Maynarde - doesn't matter) unfortunately almost never upload to Youtube, and if they do, they do it much later than Crank does, which is why you'll usually Crank's VODs in best games. Call me a korean elitist, but that even goes for WCS vs GSL VODs
Thats not fair we upload to youtube all the time ;( the reason i dont upload so fast is because of how much i havw to upload :D actually starting to only upload the best onto yt to speed up uploads
On March 12 2019 20:06 Elentos wrote: In the past I got complaints because I wasn't linking English VODs. Linking to English VODs meant linking more Twitch VODs. This lead to complaints about dead VODs because the Twitch ones expired.
So I came to the conclusion that I can't make everyone happy. And since I have basically no help at all on this project at this point, I minimize the effort I have to put in and simply link to the first available YouTube VOD. Which ist commonly Crank.
If you ever want to add a game that i casted and i dont have it on youtube let me know, i would love to prioritize the upload for you
On March 12 2019 20:06 Elentos wrote: In the past I got complaints because I wasn't linking English VODs. Linking to English VODs meant linking more Twitch VODs. This lead to complaints about dead VODs because the Twitch ones expired.
So I came to the conclusion that I can't make everyone happy. And since I have basically no help at all on this project at this point, I minimize the effort I have to put in and simply link to the first available YouTube VOD. Which ist commonly Crank.
If you ever want to add a game that i casted and i dont have it on youtube let me know, i would love to prioritize the upload for you
Thank you, I'll remember that. Funny coincidence, I was looking for the VOD for the TLMC tournament finals because I wanted to recommend that match and it had been uploaded to Youtube less than an hour before I checked your channel.
On March 12 2019 11:39 Nakajin wrote: Is there an english version of those olimoleague games?
Only on twitch - KeeN vs Patience - herO vs TY English casters (Wardi, Basetrade, Maynarde - doesn't matter) unfortunately almost never upload to Youtube, and if they do, they do it much later than Crank does, which is why you'll usually Crank's VODs in best games. Call me a korean elitist, but that even goes for WCS vs GSL VODs
Why don't you just link the twitch VOD in the post then? I would dare to presume that while some people like hone their koreaboo status by pretending to prefer Korean VODs, the vast majority of your reader would rather watch the English one instead and the platform doesn't really matter.
Because, at least for me, Twitch VODs work like garbage. Assuming I can even load the page, I have to watch in worse quality than I can watch live at the same time (e.g I can watch 1080p live but forced to stick on 480p on the VOD otherwise it pauses to load). I don't have this issue with Youtube, which makes it much easier to search for specific matches - not to mention that matches are usually uploaded individually on Youtube as opposed to having to search for the match in a 4+ hour VOD. I don't know if other people have the same issues with Twitch VODs as I do, but they are so bad for me I'll only go through them as a last resort
On March 12 2019 11:39 Nakajin wrote: Is there an english version of those olimoleague games?
Only on twitch - KeeN vs Patience - herO vs TY English casters (Wardi, Basetrade, Maynarde - doesn't matter) unfortunately almost never upload to Youtube, and if they do, they do it much later than Crank does, which is why you'll usually Crank's VODs in best games. Call me a korean elitist, but that even goes for WCS vs GSL VODs
Thats not fair we upload to youtube all the time ;( the reason i dont upload so fast is because of how much i havw to upload :D actually starting to only upload the best onto yt to speed up uploads
That's true, looking at your channel now. Back when I started working on this, I'd always try your youtube channel but never had any luck, so I basically stopped looking
On March 12 2019 20:06 Elentos wrote: In the past I got complaints because I wasn't linking English VODs. Linking to English VODs meant linking more Twitch VODs. This lead to complaints about dead VODs because the Twitch ones expired.
So I came to the conclusion that I can't make everyone happy. And since I have basically no help at all on this project at this point, I minimize the effort I have to put in and simply link to the first available YouTube VOD. Which ist commonly Crank.
If you ever want to add a game that i casted and i dont have it on youtube let me know, i would love to prioritize the upload for you
Thanks wardii for putting your content in youtube. Much more easily accessible than being back to the twitch vod trying to filter which matches you want to see or trying to find out where did you stop watching last time.
On March 14 2019 14:34 zodiaczerg wrote: Man, I love watching HerO play. I don't tend to like Protoss games unless it is ZvP, but I will watch any game that man plays
HerO retired a long time ago. herO is the guy you are thinking of.