piątek, 27 maja 2011

Swedish pro-house tour and interview TL.net

Hellspawn and me(bobhund, duh) from Rakaka.se visited the Swedish Pro-house today. TLO took us on a tour and we did an massive interview with all the players living in the there. Enjoy.


The house tour with TheLittleOne

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oMH1qMhsIA&feature=player_embedded

Interview with SjoW, MorroW, HayprO, TheLittleOne and Bischu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzhhCiOkit8&feature=player_embedded

We will also cover the Swedish WCG qualifiers tomorrow, so get ready for some more (Swedish) interviews!

Justin.tv King of the Hill Invitational by GG.net

Justin.tv will sponsor a King of the Hill tournament. Sixteen players have been invited and will take part in the event. The total prizepool will consist of $100.

Non-private sponsors have become rare in today's StarCraft tournament hosting, but that doesn't mean that everybody has shut their doors. This has been proven by the streaming website Justin.tv by sponsoring the Justin.tv King of the Hill Invitational with a total of $100.

Many players have been invited and sixteen players got gathered together to play, alongside several back-up players if anyone cannot make it.
Those sixteen players are divided into two group à 8 players and two players from each group can advance to the semi-finals. But only those who make it into the finale will take home some of the money. $75 are reserved for the first place and the restly $25 for the second.

The first group is going to be played on Saturday, 28th May, 2011, while the second group is to be played a week after, on Saturday, 4th June, 2011. The semi-finals are scheduled to the same day, starting at 23.30CET, while the groups start at 19CET, each.
In this format two players will make the start and the winner stays. The next contender will be the next player on the list. This goes on for four hours in total and then two players advance. The player with the most wins, and the one who is the current king after those four hours.
The two groups and the invited players can be found ahead.



Justin.tv King of the Hill Invitational - Groups
Group A - May 28thGroup B - June 4th
Italy Nb.IamAlfioCanada NrG.DragOn
Germany LRM)KolllPoland SouthPark
United States LRM)SemihHungary sas.Kashu
United States Michael(OD)Macedonia LRM)OctZerg
Russia FR.BylatSweden LRM)OyA
Poland aFF]Sznycel[Romania Nb.FlaF
Germany LRM)BakuryuHungary sas.Ace
Peru Nb.TerroRNorway Nb.WhistleR.


The organization is taken care of by rD.Eywa- and LRM)Game while the streaming will be done by rD.Sayle via his justin.tv channel and the VOD's will be found on an according YouTube channel.

For the rules, mappool and a message from justin.tv about this event you can visit the according teamliquid.net thread.

Links
teamliquid.net - Source
justin.tv - Sayle's livestream
justin.tv - Sponsor

Interwiev with LastScan by iccup.com

Scan, keyboard and mouse warrior
While some foreigners see the scene as a crumbling relic of yesterday, one particular mighty keyboard-and-mouse warrior is still out there, playing his ass off, winning high-level (and in some unfortunate cases, low-level) tournaments left and right like a wizrad. He stood atop a pile of bodies during the last KOTH hosted by Canada[KiDCaNaDa], became a defiler.ru champion, and won [AoV]'s ISL, defeating ArgentinaAce 5-2 to win the largest BroodWar tournament outside of Korea since TSL2. He even recently took out iCCup's current ladder leader, KoreaBeggarTerran 2-1 in an iCCup tournament to advance to the finals and take that tournament, as well. But who is this Terran monster, and what kind of character lies behind that slew of ferocious smurf accounts? I took some time to answer that question through this interview.
Me: Let's start off by introducing you. Tell us a little about yourself.

Scan: Hello everyone! I'm Scan [Aka LaStScan; US West: Minus)Scan] I'm using bunch of names in iccup to rank up 1v1 and 2v2. Apparently I achieved 1v1 rank and 2v2 . I'm trying to spend little bit of more time on 2v2 games so I can get end up with Olympic .

Me: Yeah, I saw you reached rank twice this season, but one of them got cleared.
Scan: Oh yes. One of them is name called CanadaPhoto. I agree I broke the rules. It was hardcore mistake for me to rank up on that name since I played only protoss to get 1v1 10k .  I could've made that account 1v1 rank too.

Me: I think I saw you make on that account.

Scan: No, I didn't make on that account.

Me: Ah, I see. So, how old are you?

Scan: I'm 17 years old.

Me: When did you start playing StarCraft? Which year?

Scan: I started playing StarCraft in 2003 because [ReD]Nada and Boxer were really crazy in that time. I also achieved getting into SKT1 campus and practice in there (2005). However, my parents decided to move to United States and I left the team. When I just moved to United States, I had nothing to do and I haven't played StarCraft between 2005-2008. Then I suddenly comeback since I started to feel about my back-in-the-day and I started to play.

Me: Well, if it was 2005 then, and it's 2011 now, you were 11 when you became a progamer?

Scan: I would say myself that I was a rusty gamer even thought I was in the team because I was too young, but I went to a lot of PC cafes' tournaments and even won some money.

Me: Ah, cool. Were you on the B-team? or A-team?

Scan: I was on the B-team. A-team is for mostly progamers that come up on the stage and play games on TV. A-team and B-team have different level skills.

Me: Alrighty. Now, recently, you won the ISL, congratulations. And that was a livestreamed event, so it was almost like playing on television.

Scan: Thank you.

Me: Who was your toughest opponent in the ISL?

Scan: my toughest opponent in the ISL was USAMichael(OD). I wanted to say ArgentinaSziky but Sziky is not good after the mid games. To be honest, Michael(OD) has stronger mutalisk micro than Sziky and I was almost got eliminated by him in 3rd game. His style is agressive, good at taking expansions. The most bothering his move is that he takes my 3rd or 4th base's expansion. which means in the late game, I'll be dead because I have no mineral fields to gather.

Me: Well, interesting! Speaking of the ISL, there was some controversy over you being barred from the Test Your Might BGH tour and the Justin.tv KOTH, even though you are an American as well as Korean. How do you feel about that and what are your thoughts on that?

Scan: I wanted to play the tournament but LRM)Game hates me for useless reasons and I couldn't participate those tournaments. I think it seems no fun because I'm not playing that tournament  

Me: Ah, that's too bad. I thought you and Game were friends, because you were even in LRM) at one point. So what happened?

Scan: He kicked me out of the team. Probably because I didn't participate the CW for his team. He didn't even give me any information on when to play the CWs. Currently, I'm in Very Talented Veterans team and my clan leader always tell me what time it will start and what time I should get ready for it. on the other hand, LRM)Game didn't tell me anything and blamed it on me.

Me: I'm sorry to hear about that.

Me: So, let's move on to a less controversial topic. When did you move to America?

Scan: in 2005

Me: Do you like it here? We have good food.

Scan: I like the American school education's systems and they give a lot of chances for everything.

Me: Oh, that's a pretty nice compliment.

Scan: If I compare it with Korean school education's systems, they have only one chance, one final to go College/University, and that's it.

Me: Oh wow, I didn't know that.

Me: So anyhow I know you're still 17, but I have to say… you're pretty cute. Do you have a girlfriend yet? ^_^
[YES I FLIRTED WITH SCAN DURING THIS INTERVIEW A LITTLE, SO SUE ME]

Scan: I'm working on that and she needs time to understand things. Mostly guys move on if a girl rejects you but I want to show her something different than others. I got rejected by the same girl twice but I'm not moving on. I'm still being her good friend and we will see what will happen when she gets little bit more older.

Me: aw =(

Scan: by the way, she's younger than me XD..

Me: I won't ask how young she is. I hope it works out for you though.

Scan: wish me a good luck ^^

Me: I do!

Me: So anyhow… here's a more StarCraft-related question I noticed you picked the ID Leta. Is he your favorite progamer?

Scan: His style and my style of TvT games are extremely smiliar. I also good at using wraiths. I would say my TRADEMARK unit will be wraith so I picked the ID Leta. I have two favorite progamers: Leta and Fantasy.

Me: Since you play all the races, which match-up is the most fun for you to play?

Scan: The most fun for me to play is TvZ and ZvP because it's hard to see turtling and most likely you'll get engaged to fight at center.

Me: ZvP is also my favorite, mostly for the same reasons. =p

Scan: ^^

Me: Did you know that you and I were in the same clan once? We were in eX_ clan on US East. You were eX_LastScan and I was eX_sNowbuNNy.
Note to the reader: Here is some background to this question. A couple of years ago, a few months before TSL2, USAeX_LRB of clan eXecutioners hosted a 16-person 1v1 tournament on US East, which drew players from iCCup, including LastScan, ToT)Yosh(, ESC.Lee, Octzerg, LRM)Game, and players from US West, including gosI[Wendy] and Darin[Shield]. There were many more players, and the list goes on and on, mainly because they were competing for an amazing cash prize of 25 dollars! Subsequently, if you were in Team eX, the prize money doubled to 50 dollars, which Scan and Yosh both did, taking the eX_ tag, which lead to them  meeting in the tournament finals several times, playing very exciting and near-legendary games (like one where Scan built 20 engineering bays, or another one where both players had 20+ battlecruisers and zero money left) that unfortunately, almost no one got to watch. Nevertheless, despite Scan's hard-fought efforts, he never seemed to be able to overcome Yosh in all those hard-fought TvTs to win the 50 dollar prize.

Scan [slowly remembering that awful experience]: Oh I see, I was rusty that time because I started to learn and improve again. However I joined eX for eX tournament. Leader wanted me to make the tag or he will not send any money even when I win xD. Guess what, he never sent me any money.

Me: Yeah, I saw you play a lot of games to try and win the eX_ tournament. USAToT)Yosh( was also playing as eX_Yosh, and you met him in like 8 finals I believe.

Scan: Yes.

Me: I remember you saying you were in a TvT slump after that. Were you depressed by that at all?

Scan: I think I was just practicing ZvT on destination that time too much. At that time, a lot of people started to use Mech against zergs.

Me: Yeah, I remember that, too. You even played him once doing ZvT.

Scan: I don't remember it.

Me: I have a good memory, but you played well.

Scan: Did I win? Was it close?

Me: You came very close! I even said you should play Zerg against him again, but you said «No, my Zerg is not good.» or something like that.

Me: It seems like your TvT has really improved since then, considering that you just beat KoreaBeggarTerran in a bo3! Tell us about that.

Scan: I heard his information back in the day in PGTour. I heard he was 500-500 user. His TvT is like rock-paper-scissor game and that's all he knows how to do. I think I can win him easy if we play standard.

Me: Hmm, well, who would you say the toughest opponent you've EVER faced was?

Scan: Korea1a2a3a[fou]. I played him at US West Op TOL channel.

Me: Did you win any games?

Scan: We played bo3. I lost to him 1-2

Me: Not bad ^_^ Do you have any rival players that you compete against?

Scan: I don't have rival players nowadays but 2 years ago, I had one.

Me: Oh, who was it?

Scan: He has no aka but he plays iccup sometimes with me. Mostly he plays in korean server.

Me: Ah, so we wouldn't know him?

Scan: he is KoreaiG.Mutal in iccup.
Me: Oh really? I thought that was you. xD

Scan: He stopped at 1v1 20 losses and 2v2 with 35 losses. iG.Scan is me.
Me: Alright. I have a couple questions left. First is: Do you plan on ever going back to Korea and try progaming again?

Scan: I would like to play in the boost but not really.  I would stay in the middle between progamer level and amateur level.

Me: So no tries for the B-team?

Scan: B-team is about semi-progamers and trial progamers level.

Me: Well, a lot of people enjoyed watching you play in the ISL. Is there anything you'd like to say to your fans?

Scan: Thank you for watching my games and I'm always uploading good games on my youtube channel so if you want to watch my FPVODs, go to my youtube channel.

Me: Alright, thank you for taking this time to do this.

Scan: and you too

Want more Scan in your life? Here are some links, and take note that he plays ALL races: