StarCraft II
For the seventh time a season of the Intel Extreme Masters ends and for Starcraft 2 it was an especially exciting event. It's not even released yet but thanks to a cooperation with Blizzard IEM gained access to the restricted servers of the Heart of the Swarm Beta, which ended on the first of March.
Sadly, SK's own "Bosstoss"
Min Chul 'MC' Jang didn't manage to get a top two placement for the third time but someone else, actually an entire team, displayed it's undeniable dominance. In fact, if you open up the page of the event in Liquipedia, you might notice that the "E" in IEM could have been removed to make it the Incredible Miracle - World Championship. Beside Kang 'First' Hyun Woo every player from IM took first place in his group and had First been in group C instead of B the sensation could have been complete.
If you think that is impressive, this was not nearly enough for the Korean quartet of eSport titans. Not only did they all do well in the groupstage, they even turned the semifinals of the IEM World Championship to an inhouse tournament. Four attending players from one team taking the top four placements, a scenario practically unheard of. Dreamhack Winter 2012 had a "Liquid" final, which is already a rare occasion. Getting as many spots from the first place down as you sent players to the event is something any eSports-team would usually dream of at night. Actually seeing it happen can really only be the result of an Incredible Miracle.
The fact that Choi Byung 'YoDa' Hyun as replacement for Dong Hyun 'Symbol' Kang was able to take first place and thereby his first major tournament title only adds even more to the madness we saw at this event.
Seeing Heart of the Swarm in major tournament action for the first time also was quite nice and the race distribution was surprisingly equal. To call the game perfectly balanced would be a lie though. Determining the actual state of the game requires much more time to pass and players to experiment a lot more with the new units, tweaks and the timings resulting from the changes. Still this event was a good start for the addon and thankfully not a display of staggering dominance of a single race, at least not ingame.
I am blown away by IM's performane at this event and I hope they will take more titles in the future as they clearly deserve it for their hard work and ingenuity.
Have you watched the event and did something else surprise or disappoint you?
Source: wiki.teamliquid.net
Sadly, SK's own "Bosstoss"
Min Chul 'MC' Jang didn't manage to get a top two placement for the third time but someone else, actually an entire team, displayed it's undeniable dominance. In fact, if you open up the page of the event in Liquipedia, you might notice that the "E" in IEM could have been removed to make it the Incredible Miracle - World Championship. Beside Kang 'First' Hyun Woo every player from IM took first place in his group and had First been in group C instead of B the sensation could have been complete.If you think that is impressive, this was not nearly enough for the Korean quartet of eSport titans. Not only did they all do well in the groupstage, they even turned the semifinals of the IEM World Championship to an inhouse tournament. Four attending players from one team taking the top four placements, a scenario practically unheard of. Dreamhack Winter 2012 had a "Liquid" final, which is already a rare occasion. Getting as many spots from the first place down as you sent players to the event is something any eSports-team would usually dream of at night. Actually seeing it happen can really only be the result of an Incredible Miracle.
The fact that
Choi Byung 'YoDa' Hyun as replacement for Dong Hyun 'Symbol' Kang was able to take first place and thereby his first major tournament title only adds even more to the madness we saw at this event.Seeing Heart of the Swarm in major tournament action for the first time also was quite nice and the race distribution was surprisingly equal. To call the game perfectly balanced would be a lie though. Determining the actual state of the game requires much more time to pass and players to experiment a lot more with the new units, tweaks and the timings resulting from the changes. Still this event was a good start for the addon and thankfully not a display of staggering dominance of a single race, at least not ingame.
I am blown away by IM's performane at this event and I hope they will take more titles in the future as they clearly deserve it for their hard work and ingenuity.
Have you watched the event and did something else surprise or disappoint you?
Source: wiki.teamliquid.net
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