Updated: Starcraft 2 SEA Top 200!
For the week of Aug 23-29, Blizzard released an updated list of the top 200 players on the SEA server.
Here is the top 10:
| 1 | Protoss | nirvAnA |
| 2 | Terran | RedArchon |
| 3 | Protoss | indy |
| 4 | Protoss | Azz |
| 5 | Zerg | GLaDe |
| 6 | Protoss | Kowi |
| 7 | Protoss | Legionnaire |
| 8 | Zerg | fpx |
| 9 | Zerg | schiznak |
| 10 | Protoss | Renson |
Complete list here: Battle.net
Philippine Matchup: Mineski vs Old School Gaming!
Another matchup between two Filipino Starcraft 2 teams was held last night, this time between Mineski and Old School Gaming. Team Mineski, who defeated team CUBE 2 days ago, consists of some players from the Mski-SC (Starcraft: Broodwar) team along with some new blood. Team Old School Gaming consists of mostly old school gamers as the name suggests, that have experience playing Starcraft: Broodwar and Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne. Some notable ones, markpopo and def, even have WCG experience. So now we have 3 teams for Starcraft 2 that can represent the Philippines: Mineski, CUBE and Old School Gaming. Good luck to the players!
Match rules and results after the cut.
Philippine Matchup: Mski vs CUBE!
Last night two Starcraft 2 teams from the Philippines went head to head against each other in a proleague style match. Both teams consist of some of the best players here in the Philippines and this is a friendly exhibition match to test each other’s skills. There are 4 players to represent each team, each player will be battling a player from the other team. I certainly hope we get more exhibition matches like this to further promote e-sports here in the Philippines. I will try to cast some of the games and upload it to the SC2PH Shoutcast Channel once I get the replays from the players.
Read on to view the rules and the results of the matches.
Philippines vs Vietnam Exhibition Match
Last night there was Starcraft 2 exhibition match between the Philippines and Vietnam teams. This friendly matchup is in preparation for the SEA NationWar that will begin on Aug 27-29 where we will see the participation of the different countries within the SEA/AU/NZ region. The Philippines was represented by PYRO, Blade, Zendex, Mhorvin and Psychatog for a total of 5 games. The matchups were very intense and the score was tied at 2-2 after the 4th game. The 5th game was an ACE match between Psychatog (T) and fantasio (P) on Metalopolis. Want to know who won the game and the entire matchup? Read on.
Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty Invitational Tournament for SEA!
Holy crap! Blizzard is going to hold an official tournament for SEA/AUS/NZ! They will be selecting the top 16 Starcraft 2 players from South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand to participate in the SEA region’s first official Starcraft 2 online tournament. The grand prize is $3000 and the first- and second-place winners will be invited to go to BlizzCon 2010 in Anaheim, California! This is a good chance for SEA players to step into the limelight by proving themselves on the international stage, and I certainly hope we can have someone from the Philippines make it to the top 16. Time to practice!!!
Official Blizzard announcement after the cut.
Mineski’s MPOT Ro16 Results!
The Ro16 of Mineski’s MPOT was held last weekend and now 8 players are left to play on the next round. Read on to view the list of players who won in the Ro16.
Starcraft 2: Top 200 players
Ever wonder who are the 200 best players in the SEA region? How about the US? or EU? Battle.net listed the top 200 players from each region. I have compiled the top 10 players from each region, and a link for each list.
View the list after the cut.
Mineski hosts the first Starcraft 2 Tournament in the Philippines!
Simply named Monthly Philippine Online Tournament or MPOT, Mineski is hosting the very first Starcraft 2 tournament in the Philippines starting this month of August. Prize for the overall winner is 1500 pesos. If successful, we can be assured that this will be a monthly affair (hence the name). There are a total of 32 players participating in this tournament, which is set to start this Saturday, August 7. First weekend will be the Round of 32 (Ro32) matchups, second weekend will be the Ro16, third weekend will be the Ro8 and the last weekend will be the Ro4 and the Finals. All tournament slots have been filled, so for those interested in joining but didn’t make it can get their chance on the next tournament. The final player list is interesting as I see some familiar names from the Mineski SC1 group as well as some players that played the Starcraft 2 Beta. This looks to be one hell of a tournament. Hopefully Mineski provides replays or VODs of the games for our viewing pleasure.
Tournament details and player list after the cut.
Chill’s Self Guided Road To Improvement
Do you always find yourself on the losing end of a Starcraft 2 ladder match? Do you tirelessly play yet you don’t seem to improve one bit? Do you feel that everyone that you play with is now in the Gold division and continues to go up yet you are still stuck in Silver and below? Then kindly read this guide by Chill from TeamLiquid.net. It was created in the Starcraft 1 era; I know it is quite dated yet a lot of the points he made are still applicable in Starcraft 2.
If you want to play Starcraft 2 at a competitive level, you need to have a good mindset. Chill’s guide will help you realize that and hopefully after you read this you will be enlightened and you will play your games with the proper mindset.
Disclaimer: I found this article a couple of months back and saved the contents on a text file. I was not able to find the original post by Chill in TeamLiquid.net, so this will serve as the citation of my source.
Read more to view Chill’s guide. There are 2 parts. Strong warning: Wall of text. Whiners go away.
SC2 Ladder Rank without the Division
If you are a diamond and player and curious to know how high you are against the whole server, you can check this site up to know where you stand.
http://sc2.vacau.com/sc2/krranks.php
I found myself at 2186th in the US server as of July 17 2010 01:34:14. More updates will be coming at that site so check regularly.
Beta 2 Patch 16 Undocumented Changes
With every patch Blizzard releases regardless of what game it is, there will always be undocumented changes. It’s a good thing that there are people in the community kind enough to research, list and post these changes for everyone to know. Here are some of the undocumented changes with Starcraft 2 Beta’s Patch 16:
– Stalkers can’t Blink up cliffs blocked by rocks without vision. Previously you could Blink onto the rock itself and be moved to the other side.
– Psi storm cooldown decreased from 2.5 seconds to 2 seconds.
– Zealot buildtime increased from 33 to 38 and warp-in cooldown increased from 23 to 28.
– This may be a glitch, but you now require less Force Field coverage to trap units. Spaces between FF’s that would previously allow units through will block the unit pathing.
– Barracks build time increased to 65 from 60.
– Reaper buildtime increased from 40 to 45.
– Terran buildings no longer separate add-ons by tab command. Is this a bug? It seems like a terrible change.
– Creep Tumors take 30 seconds before another can be spawned, from 15 seconds.
– There is now a 1 second cooldown for Transfusion from the Queen.
– Ultras get +2 and +2 vs armored per upgrade, instead of +3 per upgrade.
– Rally point has been changed to a move command, previously an attack move.
It’s weird that some of these changes are game-changing ones yet Blizzard didn’t even bother to list it as a valid change in the patch. It is also worthy to note that Patch 16 is approximately 500mb in size yet the patch notes don’t seem to justify it. However, this is still beta and those lucky enough to get keys should not whine but instead adapt to these changes. If you want to see the current list of undocumented changes, you can go to TL or Battle.net. Thanks to Zelniq (TL) and Nightshade (Battle.net) for compiling and posting these.
Source: TeamLiquid, Battle.net
Strategy: Who is Day[9]?
The previous post was about a 12-hour Starcraft 2 countdown party that will be hosted by the famous “Day[9]”. But who exactly is Day[9]? For the uninitiated, Day[9] is a very popular Starcraft commentator. His real name is Sean Plott, a top American Zerg player. He was invited to represent the United States in WCG Grand Final three times so we can say his knowledge about the game is pretty good. What made him popular in the community though was his in-depth commentaries of Starcraft 1 and Starcraft 2 games. You will most probably hear his voice on a lot of the recently held major Starcraft 2 beta tournaments. He always provides great insight on different aspects of the games he is commentating on. Some say he talks too much, but if you really want to learn the “thinking game” of Starcraft, you can count on Day[9] to teach you how to play the game on a professional level.
You can visit his Day[9] Tv site to view his daily casts, but I warn you, the casts are in high definition and typically 1-hour long, so unless you have a good broadband connection, it may take a while for his videos to load.
See Day[9]’s My Life of Starcraft video to know his passion for the game. I’ve also added his site to the new Strategy links section on the sidebar.
Source: Liquipedia, Day[9] Tv
Update: Koreans get SC2 with LAN! FALSE!
Update: Yesterday I posted news about the Starcraft 2 Professional Edition that has LAN functionality and will only be used for televised tournaments. I just saw that my source GosuGamers corrected that it is NOT going to happen. Blizzard made it clear that there is no plan to include LAN or a professional edition of Starcraft 2. The only thing confirmed that is close enough to the subject is the other news about the post-launch tournament patch.
SC2PH apologizes for this mistake. We strive to bring you the most accurate and up to date news as possible, so rest assured that if there is some error in our posts, we are more than willing to accept fault and update our facts quickly and accordingly.
However, these news tidbits remain true:
– Korean SC2 will be download only. This is reasonable given that Korea’s broadband speed is #1 in the world.
– Korea and Taiwan will have Starcraft 2 as open beta intially, with options for upgrading to an unlimited/full version (70USD), 30-day (10USD), or per day (2USD) options. Blizzard should also extend these options to SEA countries.
– South Korean WoW players will get free playtime for Starcraft 2 as part of their active subscription. No fair!
– University scholarships provided by Blizzard can be earned by professional Starcraft players to support their dedication to the game. I hope this will help progamers get on with their lives after they retire from playing Starcraft.
Source: GosuGamers
Starcraft 2 PH 
Video on Demand: HD and Husky
Today I will share two Youtube channels that you might find interesting: HDStarcraft and HuskyStarcraft. HD (who happens to be Asian, he might even be a Filipino based on his looks) and Husky both provide quality shoutcasts of games played by pro-Starcraft 2 players. If you are always looking for new strategies and tactics played at a pro level, you can expect to see them from HD and Husky’s casts.
They have gained popularity during the first phase of the Starcraft 2 beta, up to the point where they were able to hold the HDH Invitational, a Starcraft 2 tournament with a whopping $3450 as the prize pool! This might have been the tournament that had the biggest prize pool during the Beta 1.
Now that Beta 2 is up, I am sure that HD and Husky will be pretty busy again with shoutcasting to provide us with more pro-gaming goodness.
Links: HDStarcraft, HuskyStarcraft
July 9, 2010 | Categories: Media, News, Pro Gaming | Tags: beta, commentator, philippines, sc2ph, shoutcasting, starcraft 2, strategy, tournament | Leave a comment