The Devil Plays Protoss: Every Local Has a Story

by Jacqueline Geller

Any opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of compLexity Gaming or its parent company.

Edmonton search on TL

The “Devil Plays Protoss” article for last week was on a local LAN event that I refuse to attend. My friend, Mitchell “Gofarman” MacPherson, had a big problem with the article because he is both passionate about and sees the importance in supporting local eSports. He knows as well as I do that I love our local SC2 community, and I’m writing this week’s article to show some love as well as encourage others to get involved in their local community.

How the Edmonton SC2 community was started is beyond me, but when I became a involved, there was already a tight knit group of core members. I found the community in a basic way: by simply searching ‘edmonton’ on TeamLiquid. If I were to guess, I would say that our local community started slowly with people in the area connecting through TL and then at events over the years. There are old forum posts for OSL parties or people mentioning local SC on-goings in Edmonton dating back years.

The GSL January Code S Finals were the weekend before my phone interview for the Art Director position of the Handsome Nerd. The three-month long interview process is its own epic tale, but it did encourage me to reach out to my local community for whatever reason. The first event I attended was a party for the GSL finals hosted by Zack “kCaZ” Banks. If you ever meet me in person, one of the first things you’ll notice is that I’m awkward and can be incredibly shy. I was so nervous about going to the event and dragged my friend, Brett “Brettatron” Wells, along with me as a security blanket. I don’t know if I would have ever had the courage to attend that event without him.

Since that GSL party in January, my involvement with both the local and the North American SC2 community has been ever increasing. kCaZ hosts a party for every Code S finals, and I attend each one to consume unrealistic amounts of sugar, watch SC2 with the boys and drive home at a miserable hour of the morning. Although I’ve never competed in any of them, I’ve done my best to attend the monthly SC2 tournaments hosted by Edmonton Gamers. As mentioned in my “Devil Plays Protoss” article on SC2 coaching, Thomas “tQArchaic” MacPherson started hosting bi-weekly coaching sessions in Edmonton to allow players to network, learn a few new tricks and hang out which were a great tool for bringing the community together. I even hosted my own open house for MLG Columbus which was a surprisingly fun time.

With the help of the local SC2 community, my game has improved greatly as well. The community here genuinely cares about helping each other getting better. As much as SC2 friends from Twitter are great to play with and can help with improvement, there’s something to be said about having someone with you in person to help you overcome barriers in your play. It is also great having friends who want to help you improve. Tomasz “SolidWolf” Lang has put in more hours into helping me get better at this game than I’d like to admit. Travis “Clonze” Miller has the patience of a saint for putting up with my playing sometimes and especially for constantly encouraging me to play more. As much as everyone would like to see me laddering with more regularity, I know they’re proud of the progress in my game and will be there to help me out whenever I need it.

Connect on Twitter

As much as I am loving getting involved in the NA SC2 community, the experiences I’ve had with the local community are priceless. I cannot encourage you enough to reach out and get involved. Search for your city on TL. Connect with local gamers on Twitter. Start your own LAN tournament, coaching event or tournament watching party. Even if the first event is attended by you, five friends and two people who saw your TL post, with the right encouragement and dedication, your community can grow. Who knows who will be at local events, what kind of friends you’ll make and what kind of experiences you’ll have? A community doesn’t grow overnight, but if you give it the right care, it will grow and great things can happen.

On a final note, the local SC2 community and its members have become a phenomenal source of support. Whether they know it or not, I am incredibly grateful for their constant encouragement of my SC2 endeavors. Sometimes, the community members drive me a bit crazy, but since I started my journey into SC2 community, they have been with me through everything, pushing and encouraging me along the way.

Boys, thank you for your support, and I can’t wait for what the future has in store for Starcraft2 in Edmonton.

GL HF

-Jacq

About the Author – Jacqueline Geller

After years of playing World of Warcraft, a friend introduced Jacqueline to Starcraft early last year. Jacqueline’s relationship with Starcraft started out slowly: a handful of casual dates, a little bit of flirting but nothing serious. She took her relationship with the game to the next level after BlizzCon 2010 where she experienced eSports magic first-hand and realized that Starcraft was the one. Despite being a mediocre player, she has been clambering the ladder at a glacial pace and has spent more time watching Starcraft online than she’d like to admit. In March, Jacqueline made the leap from eSports fan to eSports professional when she was hired by the Handsome Nerd as their Art Director, combining her design skills with her love of Starcraft. Since its start in April, Jacqueline has been a contributing writer for the North American Star League, writing coverage for Division 1. Offline, Jacqueline is a bookworm, a runner, a freeride snowboarder and has a Human Ecology degree with a Clothing and Textiles major.

View Jacqueline’s profile here.
Visit @jacquelinesg on Twitter

In what has been years in the making, four notable Counter-Strike 1.6 events, including ESL, Dreamhack, ESWC,  and eStars have all announced their plans to utilize two new maps in addition to the standard 4 or 5 map pool that fans have become acustomed to.

The events have decided to add de_mirage, a remake of the popular de_cpl_strike and de_forge, a remake of the classic, yet one-sided, de_cbble.

This brings the standard map pool to 7 maps:

• de_dust2
• de_nuke
• de_train
• de_inferno
• de_tuscan
• de_mirage
• de_forge

Source: HLTV

Today MLG and GOMtv revealed the final two Korean players who will be making the trip to California for MLG Anaheim. Joining SlayerS_BoxeR and MMA will be LG Cinama 3D Tournament champion MVPDongRaeGu and two time GSL Champion IMMVP. Both players are absolute monsters in game and will undoubtedly make a big splash with the foreign community.

But that’s not all. GOMtv’s Mr.Chae has also confirmed that the SlayerS team will also be sending both Alicia and Ganzi to fight their ways through the open bracket along side ChoyafOu.

To watch these titans duke it out with the foreign community, check out MLG Anaheim’s live stream on July 29th through the 31st.

In what many are already dubbing one of the best finals in SC2 history, NASL has concluded its first season with a spectacular grand finals. In a weekend full of games from the Ontario Convention Center, MC and PuMa fought their way through extremely tough adverseries to face off in a full Best of 7 series.

PuMa was widely considered the underdog coming into the series, as he was an unknown to the scene at large. He had fought his way up through an extremely grueling open bracket and knocked out players of high calibre such as Ret, Squirtle and July on his way to the finals. MC, of course, being a two-time GSL winner and always consistently performing at a high level obviously had huge expectations on him.

PuMa started out the series by showing unbelievable micro and multitasking and dropping everywhere; All this while MC went phoenix/void-ray which should’ve shut that down. Regardless, MC was unable to cope with PuMa’s activity and went down quickly, making the series 1-0 in PuMa’s favor. The next game was very much the same, with almost identical builds and the same outcome, the series now 2-0. MC was in dire straits, as a 3-0 come-back is extremely rare. The next game would be pivotal. He managed and somehow won with a very similar build to the previous games. His high templar use was perfect and he used storm impeccably, and the ghosts of PuMa were not able to get the snipes/EMP’s they needed.

With the series at 2-1, the stage seemed set for an epic final. That promise was however shaken up a bit as MC faltered and fell in the following game, bringing the set to 3-1 for PuMa. One game away from taking his first major championship, the nerves were surely felt from PuMa. In an amazing game where MC seemed to be absolutely everywhere and reading the mind of PuMa, intercepting every drop and picking off every unit, MC took the game making the series 3-2. The following match was one of the greatest TvP games to date, taking the set to 3-3 in unparalleled play by MC showing a new dimension in TvP. The unit control was impeccable and it seemed that PuMa was feeling a bit nervous and was faltering in the unit control department. 

The final game was set, and as some thought MC opened it with a cheese, doing a 4-gate all-in which was held beautifully by PuMa, who did not have any units and frquently pulled SCV’s off the line. This was however not something that put him behind, as he had fast expanded against MC’s cheese, and he had a massive lead. With perfect ghost control, PuMa capped off an incredible series with a defintive win showing he is a spectacular player.

In front of a crowd of 85,000 people by the end, the two players from oGs and TSL showcased the beauty of StarCraft 2 and displayed phenomenal skill. They fought and clawed their way to the finals, overcoming adversity and showing amazing amounts of discipline.

More information about the NASL and VODs can be found here.

In a twitter status update by Sundance DiGiovanni, the CEO of Major League Gaming, he has announced that they are working on adding League of Legends to the official list of games. Currently, no details are available as according to DiGiovanni, they are still in the planning phase.

The twitter status can be found below:

More information regarding the addition of LoL to the MLG Raleigh event will be relayed as soon as it becomes available.