in proleague
Transcription
in proleague
week 1 March 2015 NUMBER 5 NEUROSCIENCE 50 SHADES OF RAGE INTERVIEW MYI KANE GAME OF THE WEEK LIFE VS INNO QUIZ PRO TEAM TRIVIA MAP HACKING IN PROLEAGUE MAP ANALYSIS THE STARCRAFT II ESPORT community NEWSPAPER VAANI RESEARCH TYCHUS FINDLAY THE LIFE AND TIMES QUIck NEWS week 1 March 2015 By Mike “MikeySCE” Harrell Reddit occasionally has a real problem with The Day9 tweets about SC2; appears to remember Smurfs. that’s still a thing. The ladder redistribution happened this week! Liquid Ret won the DSCL Clan Wars to return with teams from TL, EG, and more! FilterSC launches new coaching show, “The Ground Floor”. A few days after the ladder redistribute, no one can tell a difference. NaNiwa replaced by MaNa in Fragbyte Masters tournament. Dustin Browder thinks the LotV campaign is going to be awesome! well mannered post of the week By: Jackson Hughes [–]ZergPcaKestheaod 7 points 7 hours ago ZergPcaKestheaod pointed out that one of the “Bro for real though that was Weekly All In’s own, Lycan, demonstrated a beautiful sabering technique for opening a smooth as fuck. How many bottles of champagne bottle. I myself was a bartender champagne did you go through in my younger years, but couldn’t perform the before you got that little trick down?” technique to this level. What does this mean? Well it of course means that in the near future oes anyone know the hardest part about our lovely Lycan will dominate his group in becoming a DreamHack Champion? DreamHack and bash his way through the Well you’re wrong! Because it has bracket to the grand finals. Following a quick nothing to do with game skill, challenging flick of his sword, we will see Lycan beat the “last opponents or better tactics. The true way to boss” of DreamHack for his first championship! become a DreamHack Champion is to be an Okay but really, someone has gotta give the absolute bad ass at opening a champagne champ a demo before he walks on the stage. bottle. Because, let’s be real friends, who cares Shout out to my friend Lycan looking handsome if you beat many of the top players in the as all hell during his instructional video, here’s world if you can’t complete the simple task of to life skills bud, cheers! opening champagne, Kappa. Well in this light, THE weekly all in n°5 D 2 most bm reddit coment of the week By: Jackson Hughes community, or comes from Blizzard itself. For those that are not in the know, earlier this week Blizzard announced the implemented changes to the ladder system. Ideally it would restructure the percentages of league distribution and ideally increase the amount of Masters [–]onksk 9 points 2 days ago players globally - in some “I would at least like cases by double. However, the community is not terribly a cigarette…” certain whether or not these riends, I’m not entirely changes have done what was sure if this weeks BM desired. To that end, our friend post comes from the onksk pointed out what we are all F THE weekly all in n°5 By Jackson Hughes week 1 March 2015 really thinking. Blizzard should have at least taken us out to dinner before being so… rough with our sensitive nature. The community is rather split in the beliefs that either the updates did not do what they were intended to, or that results will take a longer time than anticipated. It looks like the community will have to patiently wait and see if their sweet intentioned advances was taken for granted by Blizzard, or if sugar daddy will in fact take care of us. I walked up to Zeratul’s secretary with a smile on my face, following last weeks interaction I knew that our relationship had been repaired. She had already asked me to take a seat for a moment before I had realized she was a new secretary. She was a very beautiful redhead, and I just had to strike up a conversation with her. However, before I could even get her name, my wife had given me a call on my cellphone. The dutiful (whipped) husband I am, I always have to answer the phone with “Hello my darling dearest wife.” Needless to say, Zeratul’s secretary proceeded to ignore me for the rest of my waiting period. She mumbled something and waved me in to Zeratul’s office. He was noticeably sick as I entered the room, I immediately apologized and assured him my visit would be short. He attempted to tell me something, while indicating to his mouth; Igathered he had lost his voice from coughing. The mystic scribbled something on a piece of paper, attempted to thank me and motioned for me to leave. The paper merely read: “Sweden, Protoss.” My mind flew to only one answer as I passed by his glaring secretary, I knew who Zeratul was mentioning! He had given me a look into the future and parted the shroud. Zeratul had so simply explained to me that NaNiwa would advance through his group in the Fragbite Masters Season 4! 3 week 1 March 2015 the life and times of tychus findlay I N T E R V I E W By Chad Abshire recently got to sit down with a polarizing character in the StarCraft II universe for a chat about his life since the end of Wings of Liberty, his thoughts on Heart of the Swarm, his hopes for Legacy of the Void and his appearance in Heroes of the Storm. i Chad Abshire: Mr. Findlay? Hi. I’m Chad Abshire with the Weekly All In. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. Sorry I am a little late, you know how crazy traffic on Korhal can get at this hour. Tychus Findlay: Hell, it’s about time. I was starting to think you wasn’t gonna show up and that you were wasting my time, boy. It was Chad, wasn’t it? I got a lot of things in life – Chaddy. Women, money, fame. One thing I don’t got though? Time. Yes, of course. My apologies, sir. Uh, can we still do the interview? I reckon. Get to it. Whadaya want to know? Well, we’ve not seen you in StarCraft II since the ending of Wings of Liberty ever since, well, you kn-Since Jimmy shot me? (laughing) Haha, that boy always was such a kidder. Oh, you two have patched things up? Hell no we ain’t patched things up! That sunofabitch shot me! And there I was, about to do my part of the contract and he shot me. I woulda been a hero, Chaddy. Me! Tychus %*!#in Findlay, killer of the Queen of Blades. But Jimmy let his dong get in the way of that. THE weekly all in n°5 I see. So after that, what happened? Well, I got out. Since Char happened and Kerrigan got unZerged or whatever ya call it, Mengsk pretty much said, “eh, *!$# it, close enough” and let me go free anyway. So I did what any self-respectin’, gun-totin’, badass does. I went into business. Business? What sort of? Dammit, Chaddy. Ain’t you never heard of Findlay’s Fritters? Wait, that’s you? You’re the guy behind Findlay’s Fritters? Is that your face on the box? This %&!#in generation. Who the hell else do you think it would have been? And yes that’s my face is on the damn box! Well, I’d never really seen you outside of that battlesuit so… Findlay’s Fritters is only the biggest fried food distributor in the Koprulu Sector. And I made sure of that. (laughing) We got apple fritters, crab fritters, Zergling fritters, an acquired taste but my favorite, and tons more. 4 week 1 March 2015 the life and times of tychus findlay I N T E R V I E W You…fry Zerglings into a fritter? I got other things goin on in my life, son. I got a business to run and asses to kick in another ga-. No. Never mind that. I know. I was the same way at first, Chaddy. But I’ll be damned if ain’t ta die for. And I do mean that. People die for it. Lots of people. It’s hard to get them ingredients. But you gotta spend money to make money. Yeah. Understood. So let’s switch gears. What are your thoughts about Heart of the Swarm? I hate it. Next topic. But. I mean. You don’t have anyth-Those &%!*in swarm hosts. God am I glad I ain’t in that game. Now think back to earlier - What is the one thing I told you I ain’t got? Um, time? Ding ding ding! And lemme tell you, I tried watching them swarm host games. I really did. And they eat up so much of my time that I just about wished I had died on Char. It’d been better than havin to sit through them 3 hour long snoozefests. Right then. So what about Legacy of the Void? Still don’t care. I’m out of the StarCraft game. It’s dead. It’s done. Ain’t nothing ever going to change that. StarCraft died with me and that’s that. Well, you didn’t die. And you seem to be doing pretty well. Don’t you think StarCraft can do the same thing? THE weekly all in n°5 I mean, I reckon so. Dammit, Chaddy, I don’t know. All I know is that just ain’t me no more. A lot of people seem excited about Legacy. Does that surprise you? Nah. It don’t surprise me. Sometimes it’s hard to break old habits. I almost feel bad for the sorry sons of – Right then. Well, I’ve got to say, I’m kind of surprised at how much you don’t like StarCraft anymore. By Chad Abshire Were you going to say another game? Are you talking about Heroes of the Storm? Great segue! I didn’t say nothing. I’m pretty sure you did. Anyway. So you’re saying Heroes of the Storm is your new game? Kicking some asses in your battlesuit for that one? I’ve heard some things about it. So what’s it like teaming up with Raynor and Kerrigan in that? Is that awkward at all? Hell, it’d probably be awkward if they ever did anything! All they do is run into the woods or jungle or whatever you call em and say they’re “clearin” camps out but I never see any of them mercs come out on our side! I don’t know what Jimmy’s clearin in there, but I know it ain’t no camps. It’s probably Kerrig- So Heroes of the Storm pulled Grubby, IdrA, Khaldor and even Tychus Findlay away from StarCraft? Listen, Chaddy. You gotta do what’s best for you, just like they did for them and I did for me. Sure, they ain’t playin the same game, but they’re still the same person. It’s OK if they ain’t in the game no more. They’re still out there, just like me, tryin to do the best they can in the crazy world of ours. And you always got memories. You always got the good times to look back on, Chaddy. That was remarkably touching, Mr. Findlay. Where did that come from? Well, I’ve been workin on bein a motivational speaker, you know? Traveling to schools, talkin about my time in the clink, bein thiiiis close to endin this war and makin myself into what I am today. What do you think? Uh. Yeah, that sounds great. I don’t think I have any other questions, Mr. Findlay. Thanks for your time. 5 week 1 March 2015 league distribution THE weekly all in n°5 changes go live The StarCraft II league distribution changes went live March 5, a little more than a month after they were first announced Feb. 3. According to a Battle.net forum post from StarCraft Communtiy Manager Psione, the changes “should allow many more players to be in the correct league, and for each league to have the correct percentage of players based on the figures we announced for Heart of the Swarm.” “We’ve identified that the current league distribution percentages aren’t in line with our target percentages,” Psione said. “Once this adjustment is made, some players will see a change in their current league placement.” However, there haven’t been any noticeable impacts on the global league distributions according to nios.kr, since the changes went into effect. When Heart of the Swarm was first announced, Blizzard stated it was looking to place 800 players in Grandmaster league and section each league with a percentage of the player base. It had 753 players at the moment as of Sunday night. Master league should have 2 percent of all players, but currently only has .97. Diamond should have n e w s By Chad Abshire 18 percent, but only has 8.37 percent. Platinum is set for 20 percent, but is still hovering at 12.9 percent. Gold, Silver and Bronze should be at 32, 20 and 8 percent, but are at 36.21, 32.02 and 9.25 percent, respectively. Psione said other changes that went live included changing where new players start on the ladder which “should improve the new player experience as they’ll be initially matched against lower league opponents once again.” Some users on /r/starcraft questioned whether or not the update actually did anything or if it was a placebo. One thread from user stavor showed that the American ladder hadn’t much at all. While the number of players in each league increased by a couple hundred, that only made small dents in league distrbution of a few hundreds of a percentage. The most upvoted comment in that thread belonged to Xilogh, 114 points, who said what everyone was apparently thinking: “So, nothing really happened?” 7 week 1 March 2015 maphacking woes get aired on proleague he issue of maphacking reached one of the biggest stages in StarCraft II recently with the coaches of StarTale and MVP calling on Blizzard to fix the problem. In pregame interviews before the teams faced eachother in Proleague March 2, StarTale Coach Yi “Legend” Seong Jeon and MVP Coach Lee “Choya” Hyung Seop addressed the issue while casters Brendan Valdes and Wolf “Wolf” Schröder translated. Valdes said Legend “has something to say to the Blizzard staff” during his interview, saying “the fans are getting a lot of stress because of maphacking recently.” “And (Legend) wants the blizzard staff to in fact take care of (maphacking) as soon as possible,” Valdes translated for the StarTale coach. “It’s even more important to get rid of the maphacking than considering even the balance right now. You’ve got to get rid of the maphacking right now instead.” Valdes said Legend ended his interview by addressing maphackers directly by saying “do not use maphacks; let’s play manner games.” Wolf said maphacking was “a really big issue in korea, more even than you guys see on reddit for example.” He even said it was “causing people to stop laddering.” Choya, with Wolf translating, said he felt “the same way as Legend.” “He said what I wanted to say,” Wolf translated. “And (Choya) doesnt understand why people are hacking. A lot of people who are using the maphacks are using a lot of curse words in the game and (Choya is) really hoping the Blizzard staff responds to the problem very soon.” Valdes said it seemed like the two coaches got together under the guise of “we need to actually make a statement” regarding maphacking. The two casters agreed with the coaches, with Wolf saying maphacking “needs to go,” but that he didn’t know “what the response needs to be.” THE weekly all in n°5 t n e w s By Chad Abshire Valdes said Blizzard needs “get a system in as soon as possible” to handle maphacking. The /r/starcraft community also agreed with the coaches and casters in a thread discussing their comments. “To be at the point where it’s mentioned in a Proleague broadcast is awful,” User Xaeldaren posted. “Psione, please take this incredibly seriously.” Psione, the StarCraft II community manager, did not tweet nor respond on /r/starcraft in regards to the Proleague broadcast. Maphacking has been around the game for a long time and has been picking up even more notoriety as of late. Juan Carlos “MajOr” Tena Lopez posted on reddit Feb. 8 about maphackers, saying one out of 10 games was a “blatant maphacker.” “I reported all of them to Psione,” MajOr posted. “But they (are) still running around. It’s very annoying.” In a Feb. 7 tweet from John “TotalBiscuit” Bain, he said “watching the amount of obvious maphackers CranK is running into on KR is disgusting. If anything’s gonna bury Starcraft 2 it’ll be that.” Mun “MMA” Seong Won tweeted Dec. 22: “I really don’t understand why nothing is done about maphackers!!” And nearly a year ago to the day, David Kim, the game’s balance designer, answered a maphacking question in a reddit AMA March 6, 2013, prior to Heart of the Swarm’s release. In response to the question “is anything being done to prevent hacks in HotS? If so, what?” Kim said Blizzard’s hacks team “has always been working hard to eliminate maphackers from the ladder.” “On our end, we think the maphackers that cause the biggest problems by far are the players who use it to climb the ladders quickly and disrupt pros, streamers, and just the highest level ladder players,” Kim said in the 2013 post. “We think our community actually does a really good job of alerting us to these players, and we will continue doing our best to keep looped in in order to act on the maphackers as quickly as possible.” 8 week 1 March 2015 Roasty Toasty Zerg Feast T V Z G U I D E By Lycan What’s more satisfying than the smell of burnt Zerglings? Washing down your victory with a tall glass of your opponent’s tears. It’s time to get down and dirty with another Terran build. Build Overview Mines, Marauders w/ CC, Hellbats. Self-explanatory. The Goal To hit hard and fast, supply block your opponent, and deal game ending damage before the Zerg knows what hit them. THE weekly all in n°5 The Build The Execution With your widow mines, take out any overlord stupid enough to stick around the edge of your base. Beware of splash damage if he’s sitting over your units or mineral line. Once you have your two hellions and marauder, you can push out. Use the widow mines to snipe every overlord you see on your way to your opponent’s base. Take the towers and kill Zerglings to make them panic. Keep rallying your units across the map. You should arrive at your opponent’s side of the map NLT 7:00 game time. The sooner the better. Transform hellbats before hitting their natural. DO NOT engage their third base if they have one. If engaging roaches, queens, spines - be sure to focus fire and quickly reduce the Zerg’s DPS. 9 Supply If engaging queens/spines and Zerglings, do not focus fire your hellbats. 12 Gas 13 Rax If engaging banelings - split, damn you! Split! 15 Orbital Continue to rally reinforcements from the other side of the map. Attempt @100 Gas - Factory to force engagements in the mineral line to kill drones with hellbat AOE. @50 Gas, Ractor on Barracks Continue SCV production until you have 18 on minerals Follow Up and 3 in gas. This build is pretty damn all in. If you don’t win and don’t kill workers, Swap Rax w/ Factory - Start Tech Lab on Rax you’re going to have one hell of an uphill battle. If you DO manage to wipe out a drone line and a few waves of enemy units, but lose most Two widow mines of your army, build your command center and transition into another After widow mines, constant hellion production. aggressive mid-game push. @100% Tech Lab, Marauder @100 Gas (after 1st Marauder), start Armory @50 gas, concussive shell Continue producing marauders, mines, hellions. 9 myinsanity kane the interview week 1 March 2015 by Nicolas Chaussois Today we have the chance to interview the awesome and handsome kane. He’s one of the best foreigner in the world and everybody think he’s a nice guy. Let’s scratch the surface to get to see if all of this is true... Nicolas Chaussois : A lot of people, professionals and viewers, consider you to be a “nice” guy. Is that something you consider true? If yes, did you work on it or you can’t help it? mYi Kane : I’ve just always had a really upbeat personality and I would consider myself pretty nice in real life yeah so when I stream I think that definitely comes across. THE weekly all in n°5 Would you prefer to be considered badass rather than nice if you had a choice? I’d rather be considered badass since I’m considered really nice in real life; I like my online persona to be different than my real life persona because it’s almost like acting like an entirely different person We all have something we dream of, that we fantasize about and that calms us before we fall asleep. Would you mind sharing with us what’s yours? I fantasize about winning a big tournament but I’m pretty sure every pro does that; I don’t know if that calms me down. I’m usually good at just turning my brain off so I don’t know if I need anything to clam me down. You recently had a twitter fight with Naniwa. What is your relationship with him now? Is it forgiven? I actually don’t mind Naniwa at all, more than anything I enjoy the tweets that people send at me in response or the posts on reddit. They’re definitely good for a chuckle. 10 myinsanity kane the interview week 1 March 2015 by Nicolas Chaussois Some players, casters and viewers complain about the lack of good players in the North American scene, saying that it’ not like it was in the good old days of Starcraft 2. You’re playing all sorts of tournaments, laddering all day in GM, and should be well placed to see if new talents will emerge in time for Legacy of the Void. Are you optimistic about the North American scene this year? I’m not sure what the NA scene will be like this year; I spend a lot of my time in Europe / Asia anyways so it doesn’t affect me THAT much. It’d be nice if when I was home there were some tournaments around Canada/USA that I could attend though! I’m hopeful. If you’re not motivated or in a losing streak during your training session, what do you do to clear your mind? Recently I’ve become really good at avoiding losing streaks, and I just don’t play when I don’t feel like it. I used to force myself to play even when I didn’t feel like it, but these days I”m a lot happier to just lie down and watch or even just think about SC2 instead of actualy practice. You said that when you will retire you would get your degree and go into the “real world”. ESports and video games in general grow each year, why not be a part of that even if you’re not a SC2 pro anymore? I don’t think I could stand to be a part of esports/SC2 if I’m not relevant anymore. I would hate to fade off and stay in mediocrity rather than just cut all ties with the game completely. I don’t know if I’d have time to get a job in esports or be a part of the scene even. The mYinsanity team has grown a lot recently, in my opinion because you and PengWin have done a lot to popularize the team, appearing in a lot of talk shows, casting for free and also by picking up very good players at the right time. Where will this success story will lead? Can you share what’s the next big step for mYinsanity? mYinsanity is actually a really cool team because we have a lot of really solid up and coming players like Serral and Arium. I expect and think that big results will continue to come in 2015 or 2016. As for our next steps, I’m not certain since I’m not living in the teamhouse right now. When I was in the teamhouse I was usually a part of those discussions but now that I”m at home it’s a bit harder to keep in contact with the management (unless I need something!). THE weekly all in n°5 Next month you will come to my country for the WCS finals in Poitiers. Do you intend to enjoy the good French food, the good alcohol and the beautiful girls or do you prefer focusing on the finals? My brother was in France and said the food and wine was amazing, so I’ll try to get as much enjoyment as I have time for. I really don’t intend to focus at all on the finals, I have absolutely no expectations to advance so I don’t really care what happens in the finals. I know some people will be upset to hear that, but there’s no point in focusing on this tournament with the extremely limited amount of practice and large amount of jetlag I will have leading up to the tournament. I’ll just try my best, which should be nowhere good enough to advance if my opponents are somewhat capable at playing SC2 at a professional level. If you were forced to switch race, which one would you choose and why? I would switch race to Protoss so I’d have to practice even less than I do now! It would be quite relaxing. If you had to pick 2 Protoss, 1 Zerg and 2 Terrans to compete with you in a fantasy team for an imaginary epic proleague final, who would they be? I’ll pick foreigners to make it more interesting. Zerg: Serral, Terran: Major, Bunny, Protoss: Puck, Harstem I guess. I dunno there’s not a lot of really strong foreign protosses right now I think haha 11 COGNITIVE STRATEGIES 50 SHADES OF RAGE : FROM QUIET AWARENESS TO FULL TILT Mammals experience emotion. Some things bring joy, others terror. Whether a situation is joyful or terrifying depends upon the release of [neurotransmitters]: objects which dock into brain cell terminals and deliver chemical signals which influence circuit patterns of electrical signals. The intensification of focus from an adrenaline rush is not a willed transition, it is an emotional boost of awareness to motivate rapid serious action. Scenario A You’re walking across the road and see an object moving in peripheral vision. A vehicle approaches much faster than the speed limit and flow of traffic. You accelerate to maximum speed to cross the road, but don’t experience a stepwise process of verbalizing the situation, like: ‘That vehicle is moving quickly! I should start breathing quickly and elevate heart rate to prepare for increased velocity! Let’s accelerate to maximum sprint!’ Primates who pondered this slowly when faced with peril probably died before they could reproduce. Rapid action is paramount to survival. to focus on the game. The opponent has a very fast stalker and kills your favorite overlord. Now a second stalker shooting your second favorite overlord. You spawn more and more overlords and brace for attack--but the attack never comes. It’s quiet. The opponent types: ‘u should leave now and save us time’. Jackal, the noisy rude type trying to get inside your head. *The sound of scythe rending flesh* *Intensifies* Your 90% progress Lair technology Hatchery dies. Your units run to defend, but cannot see the threat. Workers killed: 20, Lair research progress: 0%, +2 attack charge zealot count: 50. Opponent types ‘out’. You misclick In this scenario, emotional activation for the pause on your way to the surrender button and the motivation for flight behavior is incredibly useful. opponent mocks you about it after the game. You click securely into full tilt mode and karate chop your keyboard in half. Scenario B You slept 4 hours last night and feel groggy. Traffic is terrible on the drive to work and 2 motorists cut you off in a row. You arrive at work 20 minutes late and your manager gives you a lecture. Work sucks, drive home, reddit. You decide to play a few games of Starcraft. There wasn’t an opportunity to play over the past couple weeks and you’re a bit rusty. The opponent is Protoss. You have a plan against Protoss, but usually die to Gateway units. You type ‘gl hf’, opponent types ‘stfu noob’. You keep up with your worker production and try Scenario B is based on 50 true stories of compounding frustration resulting in destruction of personal property. Unlike Scenario A, Scenario B’s motivation for rapid action net loss. Emotion is a modifier on behavior. Scenario A modifices movement speed. Scenario B destroys an input device. Both share a basis in human emotion, but only one is productive. COGNITIVE STRATEGIES Consider a few questions to expand evaluation of noticeable through the noise of 21st century living. emotion Additional obstacles or adverity will add fuel to the fires of frustration, up to 5, 6, 7...sometimes Which emotions are useful? all the way to 10 (maximum). Humans experience Which emotions are counter-productive? emotion differently, so let 10 be your most angriest Which emotions are sometimes useful, sometimes experience in memory. Try to notice when your counter-productive? anger level rises above 0 and take a mental break Which emotions are useful in Strategy games to calm down. Quantify elements of experience: but counter-productive in personal life? estimate key values, probabilities, and frequencies. How can we be more mindful of emotional Consider whether data from memory is useful to activation? keep in conscious awareness. ‘What is the benefit How can we predict the arrival of impulses? of [emotion] in this scenario?’ What are effective emotional management techniques? Exercise for Venting Aggression Emotional Management Techniques Quantification for Dissolving Frustration Anger is not just ‘on’ or ‘off’, there is a spectrum. Moments spent at maximum anger are usually preceded by lower levels of anger activation. Say an unfortunate even transpires and bumps anger level from 0 to 2. Such a small shift is barely If you suddenly arrive upon 7+ anger, have a predetermined physical outlet. Step outside and breathe fresh air. Take a walk. Lift. Run. Humans make less proficient conversationalists on full tilt, so prioritize dealing with tilt before engaging in communication. Bend anger into courage and perseverence. Use emotion as a tool and do not be used by emotion or blinded by it. RAGE-O-METER 0-3 4-7 8-10 life vs innovation week 1 March 2015 g a m e o f t h e w e e k By Andrew Park GSL S1 Code S Ro8 game 5 Life completely off guard, and kills nearly half of Life’s drones. It looks really bad for the Zerg player but he barely manages to hold. Luckily Life has gone for a 2 base play with early Spire. But he’s still very far behind. Life sends his 5 Mutas across the map to try and claw his way back into the game. He hits just before turrets come up and ep, it’s time for another ZvT: the best matchup in Starcraft 2. Life and INnoVation played the series to match point on Merry Go Round. Life had been up 2-0 showcasing his excellent macro play, but when the robotic Terran player ramped up the early aggression Life showed his weakness. So instead of leaving it to chance, Life decides to open up with a pool first and put on some aggression of his own. Unfortunately for him, INnoVation doesn’t open up CC first, which would have resulted in almost an instant victory for the Zerg. So Life does some initial damage and then falls back to an expansion with quick gases. INnoVation on the other hand has started off with what looks like standard macro. He is forced to THE weekly all in n°5 y scores some economic damage. It’s not nearly enough. He needs to do more. To make matters worse, he gets hit by a widow mine shot reducing the time he can stay in INnoVation’s base before losing more. Life manages to prevent the Terran from mining at his natural, but he needs to get better economy to catch up. Once both players have stabilized they go into the mid game with Life pulling the Terran’s force back and preventing the rally push, while INnoVation is pushing his presence out into the map. Finally INnoVation is able to get across to the Zerg Natural. The Terran player goes for a big push onto creep, but Life’s Baneling splits force it back. Both players overextend, but then pull back to regroup. All the while, Life has been slowly crawling back into the game with Mutalisk efficiency. Life has a third base up, and INnoVation has been going for cancel his natural by Life’s early lings, but he then too early of a kill attempt. INnoVation is forced to makes a new one in the main and is no worse off. lift off his main base to the third since the game His build deviates when he goes for early drop has been so scrappy and with so many trades. play with hellions and marines. This move catches 14 life vs innovation week 1 March 2015 g a m e o f t h e w e e k By Andrew Park GSL S1 Code S Ro8 game 5 headache, but it’s not enough. Life demolishes the paltry force with his Lings and Banes gathered at the natural and INnoVation is forced to tap out ‘GG’. THE weekly all in n°5 Life eventually loses a big chunk of his Mutas due to a miss click, and this sends INnoVation across the map once more. But it backfires. Life counterattacks and crushes the Terran natural and main. INnoVation likewise kills off the Zerg third base and starts pushing for the natural. He still has his original army that was sent out to attack the Zerg, but no reinforcements streaming in. The rally push has been cut off by Life’s counterattack. This is it, if INnoVation’s remaining army dies, Life wins. The Terran splits stronger than your worst Pro or Throw: This game was a throw by INnoVation. He had the game in the bag when he got all the drone kills early on, but he made the wrong choice to attack off of only two bases. He should have done what he normally does and play with the lead, and win with 3-3 bio. It’s likely he was thinking “I can just push and win now right?” considering how much damage he did to Life’s economy early. But Life’s continuous Muta pressure, as sloppy as it was at times, was in the right spots to pull the Terran back. This game showcases one of the few times where someone who is significantly behind can still manage to come back in a game and win. 15 week 1 March 2015 maphackers on the ladder ...and what should be done. r e f l e c t i o n aphacking is a problem. It seems just about every day now there’s a new thread on TeamLiquid or Reddit discussing the problem of maphacks on the ladder. Sometimes folks even provide evidence against specific hackers, linking replays and pointing out where the transgression occurs. But for every hacker caught by the community there are a lot still out there who remain undetected. This is because most of those caught are only identified by either A) their stupidity, or B) their blatant use of hacks. What scares me way more than seeing nothing done about obvious hackers is knowing how many others there are out there on the ladder who are smart enough to hide the fact that they’re hacking. accusations and develop bad reputations for no reason. THE weekly all in n°5 m By Andrew Park Most of the hacking occurs between Diamond league and GM league (across all regions). This is because hacking gives a player enough of an advantage that they’ll win easily against players in lower leagues and they’ll get bumped up into leagues they don’t belong in. But there is a caveat: hackers almost always have horrible mechanics since they haven’t had to practice mechanics as much to get to those leagues without the crutch. This is most notable when you look at a hacker’s macro. Usually the player can’t keep up, and relies on his magical map vision to win instead. This is why hacking from players who, on their own, are To start with, it’s important to know why hacking is Masters and above is a much more significant such a problem right now in StarCraft. There are problem than it is for lower leagues. obvious reasons of course, like the fact that cheating is intrinsically bad. But more important than that, Believe it or not there is actually a macro cap in if you go into a match thinking there is a good that if all you were doing is macroing, you’d only chance your opponent isn’t legit, it affects your be able to achieve tech or supply benchmarks attitude towards the game. It’s already extremely by the maximum speed possible given game rule easy to get discouraged when you lose, but now constraints. Most legitimate players around Masters add to this the knowledge that anyone you face MMR are going to be capable of getting close to on ladder could be a hacker. Are you motivated to this. So now take 25% of those players with similar hit the “find match” button? Certainly not as much macro play and give them vision of the entire map. as you are if you believe you’ll find an opponent It’s only natural that they would win against others is playing fairly. Further, why play at all when the with far superior decision making in most standard rest of the playing field has the potential for such games. Yeah, sure, it’s possible to win with all-ins an unfair advantage? It seems counter-productive. and cheeses, but at a certain point, consistency is more important than coin flipping, and that’s The rampant hacking not only ruins the competitive why we generally see trends in the metagame. experience, it also breeds a negative climate of Winning in lower leagues on the other hand has illegitimacy into the game. No longer do we assume a lot more variance to it. You could win because our opponents are legit, and only when something you have really good decision making but really extremely blatant comes our way do we check poor macro, or vice versa. You can rely on a much the replay for map vision, pre-spreading and so wider variety of strengths to win you the game, on. Instead we’re getting closer to assuming our since generally folks are all over the place when opponent is a cheater, and only if the game runs it comes to their mechanics. Moreover, luck plays its course without any randomness or luck do we a larger role in these leagues. concede legitimacy. And that’s a big problem, since those who do play legit are targeted with baseless 16 THE weekly all in n°5 week 1 March 2015 maphackers on the ladder ...and what should be done. r e f l e c t i o n Now consider the trickle-down effect of hackers in the higher leagues. If you watch your favorite streamer, and he’s in Masters or GM, and he’s consistently hitting hackers and calling them out on it, how are you going to feel when you go into your game in Silver, Gold or platinum league? If there’s even a chance that you think your opponent is cheating you’ll damn well call him out on it. This contributes to the hostile and accusatory environment of “guilty until proven innocent”. We need to be careful of this, especially in the lower leagues. Chances are you didn’t hit a hacker, the guy just got lucky. Watch replays before accusing anyone. does) to detect potential hacks. Even Steam has a more robust anti-cheat system in place. So why can’t we have this? There are actually good reasons this time, and it’s not because ‘the technology isn’t there’. When EA launched Origin it received an unrivaled amount of hatred for the fact that the game launcher spied on its users. Similarly, Steam has been widely criticized as “DRM”, and don’t even get me started on Uplay. This is not to say that those tools were specifically designed to get rid of cheaters, only that their EULA allows too much of our private information to be accessed by the publisher than is desirable. While using the launcher for benevolent purposes instead like rooting out the bad apples is completely warranted, the client still provides the publisher with more information. Broadening the scope of the EULA gives them more freedoms to spy on their users, and this isn’t something that’s generally gone over well in the past, regardless of their intentions. I can only imagine this factors into the decision not to switch anti-cheat philosophy. What is actually worrisome is the hacking that takes place in the higher leagues, and that’s because the good ones disguise it. For example, if they see an army coming in, they won’t pre-spread or change their vision, instead they’ll magically scan its position, or send a ling out to ‘scout’. This makes them appear to be legit since they technically did see the army coming at them. You’d never know that they had full map vision and knew where check to ‘get lucky’. They might even seem suspicious during the game, but when you go over the replay from their point of view, you’ll find nothing that any legitimate player couldn’t do. THIS is the number one problem we face as a community. The ladder is tainted due to the high amount of these types of players, and without a major overhaul from Blizzard’s anti-cheat team, we will simply have to rest with the uneasy knowledge that these guys are out there getting wins undeservedly. You’ve likely lost points to them many times before. By Andrew Park So what can we do? Luckily there is hope. After the release of the recent WCS handbook, there was some talk of competitors being required to download programs that would scan for potential violations. This would make sense considering the extensive problems WCS has had in the past with cheaters in its online portion. Yay Blizzard. But this has no bearing on the ladder… Yet. We can only hope that with the release of LoTV, they introduce a similar requirement for ladder play and make everyone agree to a more invasive EULA. That’s right I said it, we should actually want Blizzard to spy on us. Sadly, Blizzard’s anti-cheat currently doesn’t catch the majority of hacks out there. This is because it’s simply not designed to scan the appropriate areas for violations. The terms of service in the EULA do not allow Blizzard to spy on your PC (like Origin 17 MAP ANALYSIS season1 new maps 2015 week 4 February 2015 By Neuro Vaani Research Station Scientists, explorers, warriors, and bramblebushes alike find space to flourish at the Vaani Research Station. Players command a wide main with a tight exit ramp and a low pocket natural. Large area dead space surrounds the edges of the map resulting in numerous air attack and drop angles. Be wary of drops and other forms of indirect harassment! With medium-long rush distance and a tight defending ramp (2 queens, 1 forcefield), attacks breaking into a 2 base player will be weak. 2 base Protoss timings with high sentry count can shut out reinforcements from 2/3 of the opponent’s bases and snipe the 3rd. Be prepared! The 3rd base is wide open to the center and east attack lanes and has a western grass path to a potential 4th. Despite its surface area exposure to attack, it is a relatively easy location to defend because of its distance from the main and natural. Be sure to fill vision on the far side of your grassy path or seal the opening with structures! vaani research station map is a landscape. Upon release, maps seem unfamiliar, treacherous, dark. Only with practice and study and continued practice can a strategist endeavor upon the path of exploiting its geography. Rather than distract ourselves with oversimplified questions like ‘Is this a Terran or Zerg favored map?’, let us endeavor to quantify details of the mapflow. How long is the rush distance from your natural to the opponent natural? What are the blind spots of the main? What are common proxy locations? What is the width of the natural ramp? Which timings will be especially dangerous when defending a natural? What are the most effective ways to deal damage to a player with 3 bases? Which army compositions and playstyles are particularly successful? What are the main cheeses to look out for? What is the volume and distribution of dead space? How many bases total? How many high yield bases are there and what are the circumstances under which you should seize a gold base? Let’s take an investigative approach to understanding the maps as a general scrutinizes the battlefield. THE weekly all in n°4 A Get dat gold $_$! Each commander has 1 high ground gold base at a long rush from their main. Hold the Xel’Naga Watchtower to for warning of incoming attacks and add some static defense to defend attacks from the dead space. Moving into the 3-4-5 base phase means developing either a slow siege force and expanding toward your opponent or navigating the wide lanes with fast, fragile units and setting up counters or even a full-on base race. Be mindful of attacks established from the high ground plateau behind the mid-map high yield base, counter attacks can navigate around armies in the wide low-ground lanes. The plateau is an excellent platform for proxy pylons to establish a forward assault and is crucial to control when mining from the high yield base. The major themes presented on the Station are: -Wide open spaces without many obstructions -Large area dead space -Small travel distance between main/natural/3rd -Watchtower vision for map control on the East side -Gold base deciding forward/backward lean in the late game tl;dr: 1-2 base cheese weak, 3-4-5-6 base macro strong, opt for slow siege army or counter/base race when opponent is out of position. Think of commanding two blades of different sizes, a small dagger to harass the natural with indirect aggression and a larger sword for direct engagements. If the opponent’s army is stronger, run around them and attack. If weaker, crush them underfoot and hear the lamentations of their citizenry. 18 THE weekly all in n°5 pilipili week 1 March 2015 s t r e a m e r o f t h e w e e k By Mike “MikeySCE” Harrell www.twitch.tv/pilipili96 n the great firmament of Starcraft 2, there is a new and shimmering star. A star that was raised on White-Ra’s Special Tactics. A star inspired by the likes of NaNiwa, PartinG, and Lilbow. A star that went 3-2 last week against an MLG champion. That star is Pavel “PiLiPiLi” Pilipenko. i if he could cast any spell in Starcraft in real life, what would he chose and what would he use it for, he let his age show and responded that he would choose cloaking so he could get better looks at girls. But when I asked what it was like to get some real tournament winnings, he said that he would rather win $100 in a tournament than get $1,000 from stream donations. Tuning into PiLi’s Twitch stream, it is obvious that this is a player bound for competitive greatness. In just two years, PiLi has already accomplished more in competitive gaming than the vast majority of us ever will: reaching Grandmaster on the NA, EU, and KR servers. Also, while he now lives in California, he hails from Kazakhstan, meaning that that he can make truly superior “In Soviet Russia…” jokes (“In Soviet Russia, Stalkers get You!”). Also, this isn’t an “edutainment” stream full of excuses and smurf accounts. This is a stream devoted to perfecting a craft, providing commentary, and getting that deliciously dirty esports money by winning games. That last statement stuck with me. This isn’t a streamer that’s just looking to cash in on his hobby. This is a new professional-grade player rising up right before our eyes. He is an example of the fresh blood that strengthens the scene and enriches the game. He brings with him new ideas and new energy, and he hasn’t even hit is prime. Sure, his victory over HuK was a showmatch on a test map, but the victory was real. If he wasn’t much of anyone six months ago and can beat HuK today, who will he be able to beat in another six months? In a year? PiLi plays the all in game, 100% all ins and cheese, all the time. As a casual viewer, this makes for shorter, funnier, and more varied games. A little less casually, this is a playstyle that PiLi has begun to wield at a truly world class level. Six months ago, he was just a streamer with a couple thousand followers. Today he is winning weekly tournaments and prepping for the second season of WCS. What’s more, he provides coaching for only $20/ hr. That’s right, you can get coaching from a guy that’s been #1 GM for only 20 bucks! In preparation for this article, I spoke with PiLi to discuss the pressing matters of the day. He responded to all of my questions with respect and candor. I asked him why Twitch viewers should watch his stream, he responded, “Commentary, high level play and knees.” When I inquired I didn’t think to ask if Beshbarmak was actually any good or if his mother makes the best Borsch. But I do know that PiLi is exactly the kind of player that we can expect to accomplish great things. He has passion for the game and his sights are set solely upon improvement and victory. When you watch PiLi’s stream, it’s your chance to get in early on the next big thing in Starcraft. PiLiPiLi streams almost every day and provides ongoing high level commentary. Tune in at twitch.tv/pilipili96. Also, you really can’t beat that bang for your buck on coaching. 19 readers letter “My question is directed to the author so called ‘Chad’. Reading through your High on the Psi article from the previous week, you seem to have an incredible amount of first hand information. This might be forward of me, but have you or a loved one also suffered from Vespene, Psi, or otherwise addiction?” - Anonymous THE weekly all in n°5 “At the risk of sounding rude, I have a lot of firsthand information about Vespene abuse because I interviewed a former addict. I mean, James was the focal point of the story and he was a High Templar for years. I talked with him for a matter of weeks while putting the story together. That’s sort of how reporters get their information.” - Chad week 1 March 2015 deep into the ground. The Baguette tree was born, and since then, a lot of variety of Baguettes can be grown on those wonderful trees, supplying the good French people with delicious Baguettes to this day. As for the Cigarettes, it’s another story. As you know, French people are better and stronger than others. At least they think they are. But it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, because it affects their bodies, scientifically building barriers against dangerous things, like Cigarette smoke that allow them to smoke from the morning to the evening without giving a single fuck.” - Nicolas “Hi there Andrew, I have been a big supporter of Winter “Neurooo! I love you! OMG you’re liek… my fav for a long time now. I do recognize the polarization of personality!! Ummm.. right, a question.. how did you get so the community between supporting or disliking him. I was handsome, my BF just… ugh he isn’t at your level. He never wondering if you could comment on why you think people seems to be there for me, or surprises me with something seem to dislike him. Thank you friend.” - GoLdAlLdAy12 romantic. Is it something wrong with me? Am I not attractive enough? Please give me some advise!” - Gamegurl227 “Some people dislike Winter for two main reasons. First, there are those who hit him on ladder when he’s “Reader, ‘smurfing’. Obviously he’s better than the league he’s Handsomeness (more generally Attractiveness) is playing in, so the game turns into a stomp. They don’t an attribute which can be increased over time with like that he’s playing in their league, and they think it’s an deliberate effort. A given person has some fitness unfair. Add to this the fact that the smurfing contributes level, complexion, bone structure, charisma. They have to his streaming presence and the stage is properly set some level of mastery over their body. They have some for rustled jimmies. The second reason some folks might awareness of technique and understand refinement dislike Winter is that he seems to care too much about of technique. Consider ways in which a given couple mass appeal. I would even put myself into this category. can endeavor upon improving on some of these fronts. I appreciate the kind of personality that doesn’t change Remember--a relationship is a 2 way street but often 1 depending on who is listening. You do get a sense with person will take initiative. In your case, consider creating Winter that there’s some pandering taking place. But opportunities to endeavor upon new experiences. it might be argued that this is something any popular Spontaneity starts with you! Try new things and create streamer has to do. So you can’t necessarily fault the guy habits which are long-term beneficial.” for sticking to what works. However there are also a lot -A human being of gimmicks and hooks on Winter’s stream, ranging from production value quirks to the dog loop. This is the nerd “Nicolas, do French people survive on cigarettes and equivalent of female streamers displaying their bodies baguettes?” - BritToss to gain popularity. Part of the dislike for Winter on Reddit also comes from the idea that “he’s just a kid who plays “Yes we do. We came from a long tradition about video games”, or ”he’s barely GM, why should I watch it. For many centuries the French were hard working him?”. There is some truth to this sentiment, and again peasants surviving only on eating bread. They didn’t I often found myself having this attitude towards him. have a pleasant life, but it was enough for them. But one But Winter is the perfect example of how accessibility day, a peasant named Jean Baguette realized he could trumps skill. You can’t deny that the production quirks/ make life much more easier for his fellow people. It green screen and overall high quality stream contribute was so simple and pure that he wondered how nobody to his success.” hadn’t thought about this before. He just mixed the three - Andrew main ingredients, wheat, salt, and water and buried them 21 quiz pro team trivial pursuit By Chad Abshire 7. Which European team has a random player on its roster? a. ROOT b. Team Liquid c. mYinsanity d. Trig esports 8. Which team did Choi “Polt” Seong Hun play for when he won his GSL championship? a. TSL b. MVP c. CM Storm d. Prime 9. Which team did KeeN leave after joining about six weeks earlier? a. MVP b. Im c. Prime d. Invasion eSport 10. Which of these European team doesn’t have a Protoss on its roster? 1. Which team has the most GSL champions on its current roster? 4. Name the former GSL observer who is now the coach for StarTale. a. SK Telecom T1 b. KT Rolster c. MVP d. Mvp a. Yi “Legend” Seong Jeon b. Jungmin “HeavenDom” Yoon c. Phil “inFeZa” Bertino d. Florence “flo” Yao 2. Who founded SK Telecom T1 and when? 5. Before it was called Jin Air Green Wings, what was the team called? 3. Before KT Rolster, the team had a series of names. Which of these is not one of them? a. olleh KT b. KTF MagicNs c. KT WinWiN d. KT Fingerboom a. Team Eight b. 8th team c. 8ight d. The Ocho 6. Which team had a foreigner reach the semifinals in a GSL? a. Evil Geniuses b. Team Liquid c. ROOT d. A foreigner hasn’t gone that far Answers : 1. b 2. A 3. c 4. a 5. b 6. B 7. c 8. d 9. d 10. b a. BoxeR – 2002 b. firebathero – 2001 c. sAviOr – 2000 d. iloveoov – 2003 a. Millenium b. Team Acer c. Dead Pixels d. Team Dignitas 22 The Weekly All In Art, layout and edition : Nicolas Chaussois Writers : Andrew Park, Chad Abshire, Jackson Hughes, Lycan, Mike Harell, Neuro twitter : @weeklyallin @nicolaschaussoi Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/weeklyallin contact us : nchaussois@yahoo.fr skype : nicopower5000