WCS Challenger NA was a huge fiesta. Don't think any series is worth watching unless you're a fan of a player.

Yeah, I will second that opinion. I dunno man, if it is not two of the top five koreans battling it out I'm just not that interested.

That being said WCS Valencia starts july 12th

I'm fine if the games are fun/competitive.

[SPOILER]this WCS was everyone getting swept in not close games. [/SPOILER]

GSL groups! US-friendly time is 9pm Pacific the previous day/midnight ET (more like west coast friendly I guess), EU-friendly time is 5:30am Eastern

Group A: Jul 4, EU time
Classic vs. Reynor
sOs vs. Ryung

Group B: Jul 7, US time
Maru vs. Forte
Dear vs. Leenock

Group C: Jul 11, EU time
Stats vs. Hurricane
Innovation vs. Cure

Group D: Jul 14, US time
Gumiho vs. MMA
Hero vs. Solar

Group E: Jul 17, EU time
Zest vs. Parting
Byun vs. Impact

Group F: Jul 18, EU time
TY vs. Ragnarok
Trap vs. Bunny

Group G: Jul 21, US time
Dark vs. Neeb
Alive vs. Losira

Group H: Jul 22, US time
Soo vs. Special
Rogue vs. Keen


As finalists, Maru and Zest were entitled to pick their opponents - really interesting that they selected Forte/Parting instead of Reynor or Special (I can understand dodging Neeb, terror of Korea)

12 hour broadcast with Artosis and NoRegret about to begin for the KOREA STARCRAFT LEAGUE (that's BW) qualifiers.

https://www.twitch.tv/starcraft

HomeStoryCup is happening this weekend and Dutch Terran uThermal is offracing as Protoss.

In his current group, he's lost to all 4 Koreans (naturally)...but beaten Snute and Zanster.

https://clips.twitch.tv/SpookyInexpe...edpandaVoteYea

lol Protoss

A long for a world where people recognize that youtube live is the superior streaming platform.

if it gives you anywhere near as many ads as their mobile app does, then its the biggest aids google has ever touched

That twitch clip is great

Zest vs Parting has got to be a troll, right?

Before leaving this morning I saw a game of Parting-Stephano that was pretty good - Stephano managed to win against the same cannon + gateway + shield battery base-outside-yo-base rush that devastated Snute multiple times yesterday (uThermal and Parting both did it to him, I think). He snuck a couple drones out to make proxy hatches around the map, turned one of them into a lair, built a nydus at the proxy base just as Parting was moving into crush his main with stalkers, got all his units + drones out with a nydus worm, then nydused Parting's main with lings. He did a ton of damage to Parting's main while Parting tried to counterattack with his stalkers, but without the shield batteries to fall back to Stephano was able to clean them up and win.

fun fact, I am like 1-12 against that build, the only time i managed to beat it was because i made two expands at random locations while it was going on. roaches are definitely not the answer. mutas can be good because usually they just rush to immortal and don't go too stalker heavy. a sunk or two by your ramp and some queens can really buy a lot of time, although obv. you need to have a base or two aside from your main for this to be viable.

i've been going ham on my own form of cheese on the ladder, doing 12 or 13 pool followed up by proxy hatch in my opponent's natural. seems to be holding its own so far.

Yeah, roaches are trash because everything Protoss will follow up with does bonus damage against them and outrange them. Mutas...I dunno, I've seen stalkers as a pretty common followup. Stephano's speedlings don't seem half bad tbh, but it seems like no matter what you make they can hard counter (i.e. speedlings won't look so great vs zealots/adepts).

I played a little tonight and was very curious if a lot of people would be trying that cheese after HSC. 2 or 3 people tried, though it was the base-outside-my-base variant and not the 3 pylon wall at ramp version. The first guy got up 3 gates but I went pool first after drone scouting so my hatch got up and I got spines down, it became a normal-ish game and I ran him over with army. 2nd game, guy got a gate up but could never get a cannon to finish and kept trying even as I streamed more and more lings out, was pretty funny.

some decent games so far at Home Story Cup, I've been watching the footage over the saved videos of the Take TV twitch channel

GSL S3 Group A

O ****, forgot that started! Time to see how our young Italian friend fared (ty for appropriate spoiler usage)

"There's a female Karak, looking for the male Karak...Karack...Karawk?"
- Tasteless

RIP Karak

Interesting games last night, in particular: