Former compLexity Counter-Strike star, Lincoln “fnx” Lau, has announced via an interview with Teamplay.com.br, that he would be retiring from the game, only two months after joining Gamerhouse which followed his departure from compLexity.
Lau has made it clear that he will continue to be a part of the community by launching a Counter-Strike academy with two other Brazilian players.
His retirement leaves GamerHouse with the following roster:
Henrique “rikz” Waku Vito “kNg” Giuseppe Lorenzo “lrz” Caruso Nathan “fv” Mendes
For a link to his interview with Teamplay, click here.
During the weekend we’ve witnessed our fair share of drama and excitement from the EG Masters Cup, but it is all over now and the results are in: CompLexity take second place! After a grueling close match in the first round, getting cast into the lower bracket, and then clawing their way to the grand finals, the team has done very well and showcased the strength of the CompLexity team.
Being able to set aside the disappointment after losing an extremely close set to mouseports in the first round, coL.SC2 were able to take an easy victory in the next match going 4-0 against Fnatic and advancing towards a match with Diginitas for a spot in the finals. It seemed dark for a while for the CompLexity team but they pulled off the reverse all-kill, with CrunCher clinching two very important wins and CatZ and Drewbie, as always, being reliable in the team game. Unfortunately they were not able to go all the way, coming into the Grand Finals with an inherent handicap because they came from the lower bracket, losing 1-3 in the finals; as always the 2v2 team showed their strength and stability.
We’d like to give a congratulations to all our members in coL.SC2 as well as the EGMC Champions, Mousesports!
EG Master Cup
Following some grueling prelimiary rounds, the EG Master’s cup is having their grand finals this weekend, and CompLexity’s StarCraft II team is in the midst of it. After securing their spot last week by taking down Fnatic, coL.SC2 is in position to take home up to $10,000 in prize money. The Master’s Cup Series Season V Final’s Weekend to take place July 2-3 at 9:00am PDT / 12:00pm EDT / 4:00pm UTC for the pregame show. Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham will be joined by Greg “IdrA” Fields as they cast the event.
The first match will be CompLexity Gaming vs Mousesports and is set to begin at 12:00PM EDT.
Gootecks and Mike Ross continue their AE Adventures. In this episode, they encounter one of the twins! Makoto! Seth! Featuring Clubbing Fei Long and Oscar Award Winning Oni!
Today the ESEA announced that it will be starting a new program to help cut down on harassment and bad manners. Dubbed ESEA Invite Conduct Policy, this new program will highlight sportsmanship and general civil behavior by putting established teams into an elite Invite division. These invited teams will be held to a higher level of scrutiny so that they can be trendsetters and pillars of good faith in the community.
It’s no secret that our ever-expanding community can at times be a hotbed of immaturity, insecurity, and antagonism. Over the years we’ve somewhat policed it, mostly tolerated it, and created tools to isolate users from it through various privacy options, but it’s time we did more. While many might not admit this, and however lame it may sound, a vast group of our active members look up to Invite players as a level they someday hope to attain. Because of this, we feel one of the best ways to improve the behavior of the community is to start from the top down.
According to the ESEA punishment for Invite players who don’t meet the standards will run the gamut from “48 hour website ban to having their VIP Premium accounts revoked and being forced to sit out matches.”
After several weeks of waiting, two have been selected to be the first ever compLexity Academy shoutcasters. The competition was vast, but in the end there were only two spots to give and two applications to shine above the rest.
Without further ado, the first commentator who has been selected is Adebisi and this is his story:
Adebisi
Hello everyone! My name is Mike, I use the handle “Adebisi” online and I’m pleased to be joining up with compLexity to cast for the compLexity Academy. To give a brief history of my gaming experience; As a young child I picked up a game called Warcraft 2, I don’t remember too much about it other than that I was awful and the peons said funny things. From there I fell in love with Blizzard games and picked up Starcraft as soon as it was released. I played through the campaign very quickly and started in on the multiplayer, mostly focusing on Money Maps and UMS games, although after playing for quite a while I found out about the joys of turbo newbieing people on Lost Temple and spent a lot of time doing that.
Adebisi
As I grew older and Starcraft got boring, and I got owned nonstop by kids in Clan x17, eventually a game called Warcraft 3 came out, I played it quite a bit, deciding that after being pretty newbie for my entire Starcraft career I wanted to be better. I played the ladder quite a bit, trying to focus on 1v1 but my interest slowly waned, I was always pretty good at he game but mostly just played casually as the RP-RTS style didn’t have the same zing of Starcraft to me, I played tons of team games and would occasionally do some hardcore smurfing on the ladder, before they fixed the match maker and you could go 50-0 pretty easily. Eventually though a friend of mine introduced me to a game called Lineage 2, I spent a LOT of time on this game, for anyone unfamiliar with Lineage 2, it is to Korea what WoW is to the Western World, only the grind is about 10 times as long and far more mindless, but it did have open PvP so the competitive spirit in it was much higher. I was one of the leaders of the top PvP guild on the primary server Bartz. After playing Lineage for a few years, I decided MMORPGs were no longer for me and decided to quit, as I’m sure anyone who’s played MMORPGs knows, they can be very taxing on your real life if you want to be competitive. From here I spent a few years in what I would consider “Gamer Limbo” without a real home, floating meaninglessly between games, playing more DotA than I would like to admit, until finally the Starcraft II beta came out.
Since the beta I have been playing Starcraft II, after my failed pledge to be good at WC3 I feel like I have accomplished my goals with SC2, being a top masters player, by no means on par with the professionals but being good enough to take the odd game off of some here and there, I began casting during the summer in 2010 when I had some spare time, starting up a YouTube channel to help fill the percieved void of the lack of Terran content out there, and since then I have been casting replays on and off, as well as casting live events here and there, I’m eager to work with the compLexity Academy and see some of the rising talent the North American scene has to offer!
The second of the two casters goes by the name of Wombat, and this is what he had to say:
Wombat
Woah, a self written bio. Lots of pressure. So… I grew up in a small town in the south. We didn’t have dial-up internet until 1999 and broadband until 2001. Still, I loved gaming the entire time. Started out on a CoLeCoVision and an Atari 2600. I was pretty crap at everything in those days. Except Mr. Do. Had the sort of main systems growing up. And NES, then I was a Genesis kid, because hey! Sega does what Nintendon’t, know what I’m sayin’? But yeah, I really loved Mortal Kombat. Like… a lot. Thumb blisters, man. Genesis kids know about the thumb blisters.
Wombat
I guess it naturally leads from there that my first foray into competitive gaming proper was through fighting games. I was really good at Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, got recruited into a junior clan but they never really did anything so I don’t count that. So I moved on to Guilty Gear and I found my first true love. That game really brought out the competitor in me and I loved the speed and acuity required to really be great at it. From there it was on the Third Strike for a bit, but I never really did any major tournaments due to the fact that the places I lived, rural North Carolina and Illinois, weren’t conducive to major competition.
As for SC2, it was the beta Battle Reports that first caught my eye. I had touched RTS games maybe once or twice in my life. A game or two of Warcraft 3, some Command and Conquer: Generals and that was it. The Battle Reports really showed me that there was this deep game there, but I didn’t really go looking any further than that. I knew BroodWar was huge in Korea but I never expected there was such a vibrant scene behind the game. Still, I got the Collector’s Edition of the game expecting to play with friends and they all bailed so the game sat unused until about October of 2010. That was when I found the power and the glory that is Tastosis. The GSL really opened my eyes to just how amazing the game could be, especially when there are entertaining people sitting behind the microphone, augmenting the amazing talents of the players in the game. From there, it was all naivete and roses. I jumped into casting with nothing but a head full of stupid and a wish to be as good as the casting gods that came before me. It was in early January that I started casting proper, and it was bad. But a few thounsand games and a whole bunch of research, reading, and hours upon hours of studying later, I feel like I’m finally starting to make headway. With a few decently sized events under my belt like the UC Davis LAN and the TTeSports Challenge, I’m ready to give it my best for the Complexity Academy in helping shed some light on these amazing new players.
We at the compLexity Academy are thrilled to have both Adebisi and Wombat joining us. In their first debut on June 25th, they will be casting the compLexity Academy Tournament where 10 players will be selected to join. We would be delighted if you tuned in to listen to our two new casting prodigies and wish them the best of luck in their first tournament.
Tonight, coL.LoL is in action as they take on Unrestricted E-Sports in the finals of the WCG Online Qualifier #3. coL is coming from the lower bracket after being sent there by Unrestricted in Round 2 of the event, where coL lost 0-2. The winner of this match will automatically advance to the WCG US Grand Finals set to take place in late 2011.
The match is set to begin at 9PM EST (6PM PST) and will be a best of three.
Game 1: Cross Fire SE In typical CatZ fashion, he opened the game with a fast expansion into Speedling build. Hoping to catch his opponent off guard, CocoA went with a two Rax Bunker rush. Unfortunately for CocoA, he didn’t place his Bunker in a particularly safe spot, allowing CatZ to clean it up with a Spine Crawler no problem.
Realizing that he needed to do some damage, CocoA transitioned into a Hellion follow up. Again, CatZ’s Spine Crawlers and Speedlings had no problem cleaning it up.
Knowing that his opponent wasted a ton of money on pushes that did no damage, CatZ took a risk and expanded to the gold base. From there, he had no problem teching up to Mutas and Infesters. While this was going on, CocoA powered up for a Tank Marine Medivac push.
While moving out for the push, CocoA took a third base. Unfortunately for him, CatZ easily took it down with Mutas before any mining could be done. In a last ditch effort CocoA continued with his push only to be wiped out by Mutas and Fungal Growths. CatZ takes game 1.
Game 2: Tal’Darim Alter Both players used the same openers seen in the previous game. Again CatZ had no problem cleaning up CocoA’s Bunker rush. While the Bunker rush was going on, CocoA took a fast expansion at his natural.
This time, rather than going for heavy Speedling play, CatZ went with Roaches. Catching CocoA off guard, CatZ was able to harass the natural expansion wall with his Roaches, keeping CocoA busy and sniping a few building under construction. With his opponent contained, CatZ teched up to the classic Muta Baneling composition. CocoA powered up for a Marine Tank push and tried to move out. His army was easily squashed by the Banelings and Mutas and he had to tap out.
Game 3: Terminus RE Again CatZ started the game off with a fast expansion. CocoA on the other hand realized that his 2 Rax Bunker play wasn’t going to break CatZ so he opened with Reactor Hellions. Lucky for CatZ he was going Roaches again and had no problem shutting down any harassment.
CatZ being the clever observant player that he is, noticed that CocoA’s Hellions hit at an earlier timing than normal. From this he was able to conclude that CocoA must not have a standing army to defend with, so he attacked with a handful of Roaches. While he didn’t take down any of CocoA’s infrastructure, he did cause a lot of SCVs to come off the Mineral line to repair and managed to snipe a few workers to boot.
With his opponent contained on one base, CatZ took a third and started to work on getting a Baneling Muta Inferster unit composition. CocoA was able to break the contain around the 10 minute mark, allowing him to finally get an expansion up. Assuming that CatZ must have taken a third, CocoA had to act quick before the supply differentials got too far in CatZ’s favor. CocoA made a big Tank Marine Maurauder push. Unfortunately for him, CatZ powered up with a ton of Banelings and had no problem cleaning up the push.
The game would have ended there if it wasn’t for CocoA’s constant drop harassment. While it didn’t do a lot of damage, he kept CatZ in his base allowing him time to expand and power up.
Both players continued to marco up, CatZ taking the whole bottom half of the map and CocoA gearing up for another big Tank push. CatZ knew it was coming and prepared by teching up to Brood Lords. With a handful of Broods in his army, CatZ was eventually able to wear down CocoA and force the GG.
Game 4: Metalopolis Again CatZ opened up with his fast expand build, where as CocoA went with a heavy tech getting one Reaper out followed by a Hellion. Unfortunately for CocoA, neither unit was too effective and both were easily picked off by Speedlings.
Knowing that his opponent heavily invested in tech, CatZ transitioned into a classic Baneling bust. With only a handful of Marines and one Tank CocoA stood no chance holding the bust and had to leave the game.
GGs to both players who put on a fantastic show. While the score maybe one sided, there were plenty of exciting moments making these games worthy of The V’s grand return after a month hiatus. Congratulations to CatZ who gets to keep his crown for another week as champion of The V. Tune in next week to see if he can make it three weeks in a row.
The V
The compLexity Syndicate is proud to announce week 18 of our Starcraft 2, 1 v 1 initiative, called The V! After a brief hiatus due to MLG, Tactic3D Tournament and AskJoshy’s epic move across the country, we are back. This week, our new champion Paulo “CatZ” Vizcarra from compLexity Gaming will take on Aaron “CocoA” Dier from Sixjax Gaming. This will be CatZ’s first defense of his title after taking down Optxzero from FXO three weeks ago, before the break. This week, The V is being presented at a special time of 9PM EST (6PM PST) on Saturday, June 24th.
Each week we will invite two professional SC2 players to square off for a $100 cash prize. The winner will return the next week to take on a new challenger. In addition, every week we will offer viewers the chance to enter to win great prizes, including the new Sound Blaster Tactic Headset.
Information
Date: 9:00 PM EST Format: Best of 7 Streaming:Justin.tv/compLexity Prize: $100.00 per week Casting: Shoutcasting by AskJoshy
Be sure to mark your calendars and check in every Friday night for some of the best 1v1 action in StarCraft 2! Tune in to see who can survive the longest in THE V!
compLexity Gaming: YOUR source for professional gaming news and entertainment!
Following the acquisition of both Mike Ross and Ryan ‘Gootecks’ Gutierrez of Cross Counter this past week, Jason Lake sat down with ESFI to answer a few remaining questions and give his take on the fighting game community and what it holds for the future. Jason also discusses the roles that both Gootecks and Mike Ross will be filling as we move forward.
Below is an excerpt from the interview:
ESFI World: Based on your press release, it looks like Mike and Ryan will have fundamentally different roles in Complexity with Mike filling the role as “Player Manager” and Ryan as the “Media Manager”. Can you elaborate more on what their day to day roles within Complexity will be? Will they also compete under the Complexity name?
For the most part I’m sure they will consult each other on all aspects of coL.cc but I wanted to be sure each had a specific title to ensure proper decision making and accountability. Therefore, Mike will be primarily responsible for player acquisition and management and Ryan will focus more on the media side of the division like videos, interviews, etc. [Ed. Note: Lake later clarified the new roles will be primarily managerial, but the players could compete at their own discretion.]
On June 25th CompLexity Gaming will be hosting its first ever Academy Tournament. The tournament will consist of twenty aspiring professional Starcraft II players playing for only ten spots in CompLexity’s Academy. Each pool has been randomly determined, and at the end of group play the player with the worst record will be eliminated.
Group D consists of one grandmaster and four masters level players. There are two terran, two zerg and a protoss player making for a well rounded pool of players.
From the top, Goswser is a top level master’s zerg. One notable tournament he has played in is the TACTIC3D tournament where he lost to FXOSheth2-1. He just recently played in MLG Columbus and made it to the second round losing to mouzMorroW in the winner’s bracket, sending him down to the losers bracket to face off against ROOTDestiny. He ended up losing to destiny 2-1 and being eliminated from MLG Columbus.
The second player on the list is a terran grandmaster by the name of opticalRH. He is the only grandmaster of the whole bunch and will look to show off his unique style in the tournament. In his application video he stated that he enjoys creating his own builds, which makes him a unique player. His opponents can try to study his builds, but they will not know what he is going to be throwing at them.
The only protoss player in Pool D is Fallen. Fallen is a top level master protoss who claims his best match up is protoss versus protoss. This could be an issue for him as there are no other protoss in his group.
He also says his worst matchup is protoss versus zerg and he will be meeting up with two zerg. Fallen is going to have a difficult path ahead of him to make it into the CompLexity Academy, but he says he plays in total 50 hours a week which is quite enough time to get into tip top shape for the tournament and prepare for the zerg players.
HPthegreat is a master level zerg player who has participated in four total LAN tournaments for Starcrat II. All four of the tournaments were for the New England Starcraft II League. He finished first in the very first one that he participated in and top 3 in the next two. In his video he states that his hobbys are, “Starcraft, Starcraft, … and Starcraft.” He is an aspiring zerg player who seems to have the hunger to progress in the Starcraft II professional scene and is going to be a threat in Group D.
The final player to round out the group is a terran master by the name of Railgun. He proved his potential by playing a top 200 master terran (before grandmaster was around) by practicing his terran versus terran, which he said was his worst match up, for weeks and actually coming out with the victory. He participated in the TACTIC3D Pro/Am tournament where he was eliminated one round before the end of the amateur bracket by RevShadow. He is an extremely hard-working terran who if he sets his mind to it with preparation can prove to be a force in this group.
This is an extremely strong pool which could have some long series and a hard fight all the way to the end. Every player in Group D is hungry for one of the ten spots in the Academy and we will see them prove that on June 25th. The other pools and more information about the tournament can be found here.
Best of luck to the players and be sure to tune in!
Effective immediately compLexity Gaming is announcing that we have parted ways with Steven “Destiny” Bonnell.
Due to the fact we so recently announced him as a coL.SC2 player, we feel obligated to explain to the coL Community what took place. Mr. Bonnell was invited to join compLexity as part of the ROOT acquisition. He agreed and on June 11, 2011 executed a legally binding contract with our organization. Then, despite being fully aware of what would be expected of him, he decided that he didn’t want to be part of a “big organization.” He refused to honor any of the terms in the contract.
This behavior left us in a difficult position as a management team. Despite Mr. Bonnell’s agreement to exercise solid judgment and professionalism in his trade, some of the polarizing opinions being expressed on his stream were in direct opposition the values compLexity has stood for since 2003. This behavior made our decision clear and Mr. Bonnell has been released from any and all contractual obligations. We apologize to our fans for this situation but strongly believe this is in the best interests of everyone involved. We wish him the best for the future.
Henrique “rikz” Waku
