Project 2!

So my project 2 is up.  It is kind of an old version, so I might have to bring in the newer one at some point, link right HERE!

Dreamhack Winter

NOTE: I actually started writing this at like, 10 on Monday because of the way that the video upload schedule worked out but I didn't finish it until after 12.  Oopsy!

Yet again a Dreamhack tournament.  I love Dreamhack.  I didn't get to catch any games live sadly, and that makes me sad.  I caught the finale first by accident, so I knew what the outcome was going to be.  So I'm just gonna go through and watch at least the finals real quick.

Of course the two finalists are Korean.  Hero from Team Liquid Vs. Puma from Evil Geniuses.  Just in kind of skimming these games, I can see some of the little mistakes that the players made.  Puma especially seems a bit off his game.

In the third game, Puma made some seriously bad mistakes when dealing with the early stalker aggression.  His bunker didn't have any marines in it, he tried to repair and almost lost several SCVs.  Seriously, that third game was brutal for Puma, all of the early aggression that he just couldn't cope with.  That's one thing I don't like about Korean builds.  Some of them can be so early game dependent, compared to the long term macro games that are my favorite to watch.  It's like, the longer the game goes on, the more there is at stake, which makes it that much more exciting.

The early warp gate harass during game 4 was awesome to watch, but yet again it just happened so fast and Puma couldn't come back in any way as far as I could see.

Game 5 was much more in the style that I like.  It ended up being a much bigger, macro focused game.  The VOD did cut off at like, 8 minutes and then restarted at 14, so we missed a lot of the mid game.  At one point it was all infantry, then all the sudden Puma had Medivacs? What.  But yeah, maybe a glitch when they were recording.

I just kind of skimmed game 6.  Saw that it was an all in and just didn't care that much.  The only part that I really liked was when Hero's probe almost held back the army, and then it just got steamrolled.

Game 7 didn't get interesting until minute 13, where Hero had some great force field placement that led to his immortals ripping apart everything Puma had.  There were so many satisfying things that Hero did.  All of the force fields  psi storms and Colossi just made this game great.  I mean really, Psi storms are just awesome.  He landed like, 4 in a row at one point, which just ripped up the whole force that Puma had.  All in all, this game really made the series.  If it would have just been all ins or early game wins, I would have been very disappointed but it ended up being pretty okay.

MLG Providence

Ugh, I haven't had time to watch any games lately, but I found some time and here's what there is.

So looking at the comment last week, I thought I had to do a post about the Idra vs. Nestea matchup.  As a little background, Nestea is pretty much considered to be one of the best, if not the best Zerg players in the world.  Idra is another really great Zerg player.  So when these two played eachother in the semifinals of MLG, it promised to be awesome.  

The first game was very suprising.  The first thing that made the crowd and I get all riled up was when Idra got his lings into Nestea's base. It's always feels great when banelings run straight into a group of workers/marines and just blows all of them up.  Then right at the end, both armies at full supply, they just smack straight into eachother.  At first it looked like Nestea was going to take it but then Idra got upgrades and reinforcements, clenching the first game.  The macro in this game was great, which is why it had such a huge finish.  

The huge armies really made this a great series to watch, seeing giant armies just destroy eachother is wonderful.  There was also many, many baneling strikes from Idra that were just so... there really isn't a good word to explain baneling busts in supply lines, there is only that sound the crowd makes that's kind of like "oooooOOOOOHHHHH! , aaaaaaah....".  

Honestly, I don't know that much about Zerg play.  I'm more of a Protoss fan, so it's a little harder for me to really look into these games, and I spent more time just enjoying them.  Thanks for the recommendation!  Hopefully I'll get to watch some of the Dreamhack games live.  

Project 1 finished!

Project 1 is finally done! For my project I did a site that talks about and reviews indie video games.  Indie games are very interesting so I think it is important to spread the word as much as possible.  If you've never played an indie game, think about looking at the site and checking out some of the games mentioned.  (Except for the ones on the homepage, those aren't really indie titles for the most part).

Project 1 site!

Controversy in Esports

Sometimes, the decisions made by tournament holders can be seen as controversial.  Recently in the WCG qualifiers  team Dignitas pulled some fishy maneuvers, which led to much speculation on whether or not they should advance.  The controversy is mostly surrounding the player Jatt.  At first, he competed on a Canadian team that was eliminated, after which he used his double citizenship to fight with Dignitas on the US side.  It is against the rules to be on two teams at once, so WCG eliminated the Canadian team, which had already lost.  Dginitas went on to win and go to Korea for the finals.  I think that the whole thing was really shady, including rule changes mid tournament.  I think that CDE should be allowed to go to Korea and compete, even if it means both teams going, I think it would be more fair.

A little league spectatin'

So a couple weeks ago was IEM (Intel Extreme Masters) New York.  I didn't get the chance to watch any of the games live, but I did find the vods for the semi finals (I guess they haven't uploaded the finals or 3rd place games yet).  Even with my opinion that Summoner's Rift is pretty boring, it is always awesome to watch super good players go head to head.

My favorite were the SK vs CLG games, mainly because SK dominated for most of them.  I'm not a big CLG fan, although Saintvicious is one of the few streamers I have ever enjoyed watching.  I had never really seen SK in action and I wasn't disappointed.  The first game saw Ocelote playing an AMAZING Kassadin.  At one point, he pretty much ate their whole team after almost losing his own.  In the second game, Ocelote played Gragas, who is such a weird pick, but whenever he is played well he can be terrifying!  I loved the opening gank on Saint in the jungle.  By the middle of the game, Gragas and Vayne both had perfect games going, so they were doing CRAZY damage.  Ocelote could pretty much one shot the enemy Caitlyn with his ult.  All in all, I'm glad SK won.

In the Fnatic vs Sypher games, I knew exactly who I wanted to win.  Fnatic has some really cool players, like Shushei.  Shushei played Talon for both of the games I saw, which wasn't too exciting.  The real star of the show was either Mellisan or Cyanide.  Mellisan had some great Sona ults that left the other team completely stunned.  Cyanide did a crazy awesome job as Lee Sin during the first game.  The second game was really the only interesting one out of this series, because Fnatic was so far behind for most of it.  Sypher owned the early game, where their Garen did a seriously amazing job surviving.  Then at the very end, Fnatic got two aces and the other team just couldn't hold on any longer.

Pretty cool tournament!  Can't wait to see the finals.

League!!

The past few weeks have left me with little time to focus on fun things to do.  Mainly it has all been either school or work.  But when I do have some time to myself, I usually get on League of Legends and play a few games with my friends Pat, Kyle and Laura.  We are pretty bad at the game, but with the recently added Dominion mode, we have more fun then ever.  Dominion is much more fast paced and action packed when compared to the classic DOTA style play present in Summoner's Rift.  It's almost like there is always a chance to win a game, even if you've been behind the whole time.  It's so much fun!  I have a few replays that would be awesome to add on here, maybe I'll fraps a few games in progress so people can hear us yelling stupid things in the middle of games.  Dominion might lead to less of an esports focus for this blog, and more of a focus on the everyday player, playing exclusively for fun.