Wednesday 26 December 2012

Starcraft 2 Review 2012 /w Top 10 Games!

2012 really has been an amazing year for Starcraft 2. The quality of games, in integration of the Koreans into the scene has made the standards go really high. With each patch modifying certain units and/or upgrades, its so interesting to see how it effects the games and strategies that people use.

I've watched so many games and totally been immersed in the scene. The biggest thing that stands out in my mind is the power of the Zerg race in the last 6 months since the Queen range buff. This combined with the fact that Zerg players have improved a lot, have made them a lot harder to beat.

As a Terran player, it makes me shout with frustration that my race seems very fragile and unforgiving in comparison to the other races. It seems that if we mess up an engagement and lose a battle quite significantly, then 90% of the time the race is over. This is because we cannot reinforce as quick as Zerg and Protoss. Zerg having the ability to save up and accumulate larvae means they can respawn their units in huge numbers, allowing them to use up all their money instantly. Protoss can rewarp in their units first, before having a cooldown period, which is the reverse way of how Terran gets their units out.

However, imbalanced players are complaining about, the cream of the crop top top players are always up to the challenge of finding interesting solutions to solve these problems. Whether it being STParting's unstoppable Immortal All in vs Zerg which he has no problem using 3 times in a best of 5, or Polt's TvZ Marauder Hellion Marine timing attack, or even EGStephano's newly implemented switch to using Hydralisks in his composition in ZvT, it always feels like there is something cool and new round the corner, evolving strategies, and back and forth mindgames that renews my love for the game. Its Chess on Meth, its not just a game to me, its Starcraft!

So here ado is 10 picks of games that I loved this year in no particular order! There have been so many cool tournaments streamed on twitch.tv, and its so cool that not just Starcraft but a ton of other games are shown there so that the gamers can expand their communities together. From MLG, Dreamhack, Redbull Battlegrounds, IPL, NASL, Homestory Cup, Iron Squid, Intel Extreme Masters and GSL... there's so much content out there! (Some might say too much)

1. Polt vs Stephano MLG Winter Arena - Amazing comeback in which it seemed impossible considering the amount of bases that Stephano had.




2. Naniwa vs Huk MLG Winter Championships - A really funny game where it all comes down to micro in the end!




3. MarineKing vs Hyun... How can one stop 83 Banelings rolling towards you?




4. MarineKing's super solid macro to win him the Winter Championship MLG final game vs DRG




5. DRG vs MarineKing's (see the bias? =D) hidden Thor/Hellion/Marine play




6. Squirtle's sick vortex on MVP's 30 battlecruisers in the final of GSL. Amazing 7 game series tho.




7. MVP's last game 2 rax play vs Squirtle to win him his 4th record GSL





8. MarineKing's Blind CC First hold vs Hyun's 6 pool in GSL (Sorry its in Chinese LOL). Its the greediest economical build vs the fastest possible aggressive build!



9. Taeja vs Stephano from Dreamhack Winter. Amazing adjusting and readjusting to each other's army compositions. Day[9] also did a cool daily on this game looking at it in detail.



10. MVP vs Nestea at IEM Cologne - Mass Hunter Seeker Missile awesomeness!



Funnily enough, if you play Starcraft 2 you will ultimately have a bias towards liking the games that your race is playing (and winning). I guess its just a natural thing that happens in anything.

All's well looking at the super high level play but there has also been a good amount of games which are just all about having fun and being silly! Redbull's Trial of the X'el Naga was a really awesome event in which modded maps had crazy things happening like nuclear bombs and random explosions and rules which the audience voted that would happen to the players =D




And of course we have the Day9's Funday Monday... playing the game with random contraints, streamchat participation to celebrate his 500th episode!



And some halloween shitting myself screaming gaming! :P Day9 plays Slender


DAMMIT, I was supposed to do shorter blog posts!! >_< Alright lets cut it off here lol, but yay for Starcraft ma favvvvvvve game of all time!! I know a lot of you guys probably have no idea what on earth anything means lol, but I've been meaning to do a kinda newbie explanation blog post on what the game is and why I love it so much later on (whenever that is).

Anyways, y'all have a great Xmas and see you at the tables, or in Starcraft ladder!!


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