Group brackets for MLG Fall Championship released!

OMG!

Group Play Brackets for MLG Dallas 2012

At first glance Group C looks like the "group of death" with top korean killer nerds TaeJa and Life in it. TaeJa vs. Life isn't exactly a bad match to open the MLG Group Play up with either.

Our Danish hero BabyKnight has been placed in Groub B alongside NaNiWa, TheStC, Grubby, Hwangsin and 1 of 4 proleague players (Flash, Soo, Soulkey or Hyvaa).

These 5 players will be joined by 2 of the 8 players that makes it through Open Bracket.

Anyway, we can't wait to see BabyKnight in action in his first MLG.

His game against NaNiWa especially will be quite epic.

Recently we stalked NaNiWa on twitter and noticed him writing the following.

Even though it's just twitter and probably said in fun, it still seems pretty obvious that NaNiWa doesn't consider BabyKnight to be a Starcraft mastermind.

We sincerely hope that BabyK can prove NaNiWa otherwise and crush him in their PvP clash.

Is Starcraft 2 facing a serious crisis?

Personally we do not feel that Starcraft 2 is facing a crisis, but there is currently so much talk about the state and future of Starcraft 2 as a game that it's actually insane.

Two days ago it practically exploded when Destiny submitted this post on Reddit:

Starcraft 2 will be dead long before Legacy of the Void if Blizzard doesn't change its course

Most of what he is saying is undoubtable very interesting and impossible to ignore.

One of the issues he discusses is the fact that Starcraft 2's design is focused a lot on hardcore competitive 1v1 laddering, and that this is a major problem because most casual gamers aren't interested in this type of gaming.

In his opinion this is one of the main reasons why Starcraft 2 quickly will lose to games like LoL and DotA.

Destiny doesn't really offer any solution, but concludes that it's up to Blizzard to take drastic measures. Or else he sees no way of SC2 surviving.

With this rather depressing post in mind it was nice to see that Grubby today posted a list of suggestions that he feels could help improve SC2 as a game and the community in general.

This was based on his own thoughts along with the responses he got after inviting everyone on Teamliquid.net to give their takes on the problems that SC2 faces. Especially with regards to what he called "viewership tournament fatigue".

Grubby's Manifesto on SC2 eSports

There are a lot of interesting points and suggestions in his post and it is certainly worth a read.

It's also interesting to see how Destiny and Grubby show quite opposing viewpoints when it comes to having faith in Blizzard. And this is generally something a lot people in the community disagree on.

Does Blizzard listen to the community at all?

In the newest episode of State of the Game which came out yesterday JP McDaniel, Root.Tod, D.Apollo and Col.QXC also discuss Destiny's post and the problems SC2 is facing in general.

At some point while airing, JP was able to confirm that Blizzard has apparently noticed all that's been going on, and that they've agreed to meet with some notable people from the community and discuss the game.

Announcement on State of the Game

This discussion will most likely center around ideas for improving Heart of the Swarm, but hopefully they will also get a chance to discuss the game in general.

Yesterday Artosis also posted his opinion on the state of Starcraft 2 as a game, especially with regards to all the criticism of Heart of the Swarm.

Artosis discusses Heart of the Swarm

In his opinion Starcraft 2's survival isn't threatened, as he sees it as the best and most complex game in the world, and he also concludes:

I listened to people decreeing the end of SC1 from 2002 until 2010 (when the SC2 Beta was finally released). They were all wrong, and anyone talking about it now is wrong too.

We agree that Starcraft 2 is still a fantastic game, and that it offers something that no other games offer.

And perhaps it does not need to appeal to as many gamers and viewers as for instance LoL, in order to continue thriving on it's own terms.

But at the same time there are no doubt a lot of problems facing SC 2 and the community surrounding it.
The number of gamers and viewers is crucial when it comes to how much money the game generates. And the amount of money that the game generates is equal to how much work Blizzard will put into continuously trying to improve the game.

So naturally it's relevant to discuss ways to attract more gamers and viewers and hopefully Blizzard can find some good ways of doing it in the future.

WCS Europe Finals - We have a champion

So it's official.

We have a Sc2 European champion and his name is Stephano!

A majority of people in the community would probably already have agreed before the WCS Europe finals that Stephano was the best SC2 player in Europe, but to those few who didn't, Stephano certainly proved his worth.

Stephano beat Vortix in the grand final and took the 1st place trophy without ever really having looked truly threatened this weekend.
The fact that Stephano's original airplane from America to Sweden was extremely delayed so that he didn't arrive until shortly before his first game only made his dominance even more impressive.

An essential thing to add is that it's actually the first time that a European champion of a sport also has the coolest hair in Europe.

A very important part of what the players were fighting for in Stockholm were the seeds for the WCS world finals in Shanghai in November.
The 6 european players that managed to qualify were Vortix, Lucifron, LoWeLy, BabyKnight, Grubby and Nerchio along with Stephano and Socke who had already qualified earlier.

Congratulations to them all.

Stephano dancing everyone's pants off

 Stephano giving high fives while scouting for possible groupies

Stephano proudly waving the flag of his homecountry USA (no wait, is that right?

BabyKnight getting his prize thinking that it is hopefully the first of many to come

WCS Europe Finals day 1 Summary!

In the upper half of the winners bracket Vortix played some fantastic ZvZs and ended up in the 1st winners Bracket semifinal against our dear BabyKnight. Unfortunately for BabyK it was Vortix that came out on top in a pretty close series.

Vortix vs. BabyKnight = 2 - 1


In the lower half of the winners bracket Stephano lived up to expectations and tore his way through a list of very good opponents. He won his first three games 2-0 and it wasn't until he met Lucifron in the 2nd winners Bracket semifinal that he was actually challenged.
He did take the series though and knocked Lucifron into the losers bracket, even though Lucifron had played a really good tournament so far.

Stephano vs. Lucfron = 2 - 1


In the losers bracket the 4 players making it to round 5 were Nerchio, Grubby, Happy and LoWeLy.
Most people had probably not expected Nerchio, with his good results recently, to end up in the losers bracket, but seeing that he did it was probably no surprise that he ended up making it far.

So Nerchio and Grubby are now playing in the 1st losers bracket semifinal in what is turning out to be a fantastic series.
After that Happy and LoWeLy will play in the 2nd Losers bracket semifinal.
The winners of these two games will then face BabyKnight and Lucifron to see who can get to the losers bracket final.

Who ever reaches that final will then have to battle for a chance to play the winner of the winners bracket final between Vortix and Stephano in the Grand Final.

And then we will have our selves a European Champion!