]]>I’m the first to admit that WoW Arena has its flaws but one thing we couldn’t accuse the game of:
Having real cheats.
Some will say that guilds have exploited bugs and therefore cheated but that’s not what I’m talking about.
You could go ahead and say that wintrading is cheating which I agree with but not to the degree I am going to tell you about.It has nothing to do with the game but everything with the player interaction.
Maybe a Chinese teleport hacker has grabbed a Frost Lotus from you and you cried for hours, but did it really ever have an impact on WoW Arena or the PvE competition? Hardly ever.
Again I thought long and hard if I wanted to contaminate the last moral high ground that we WoW players could take over other games in which Map hack and Aimbots are well known. With the latest wave of evidence however I think to save this season from a total disgrace, I have to expose the first real cheat that ever disrupted WoW as a whole.
For this we have to go back, before the Arena Pass Realm was even announced. Bladey and Draintrain were playing an extremely successful WLD together with an amazing win percentage and everyone started to believe in the strength of the comp again as similar movements were going on in the US. Draintrain, being the competitive nature that he is, decided to ask his team to participate in the big tournaments or just to try to make a name for themselves in order to find a sponsor and step into the spotlight.
Bladey seemed to didn’t really want to step it up, claiming that his mother wouldn’t let him. Draintrain went as far as to convince Bladey’s mother on VoIP to let him attend tournaments. Even with his mother’s blessing, Bladey still refused and left Draintrain high and dry which fortunately found Barburas as we know now. Fast forward about half a year, we now know why Bladey refused to potentially travel the world to play a videogame.
Bladey is one of the first cheaters who manipulated game files to have an unfair advantage over his opponent.
Due to an apparently undetectable change in an MPQ-file, players are able to effectively lower their GCD to 1 second without any haste whatsoever.
The advantage for every other class than Rogues is apparent.
Bladey was known for his ability to dish out tons of pressure which barely any Warrior ever compared to. Today we know he’s little more than a miserable cheater.
Supposedly he was informed about the cheat by none other than Deadly Gladiator Wintrader Icematikx. He himself had been playing ATC with Braindeadly and Kbus on TR and shied away from queuing on the last night albeit having a real chance to qualify sitting at the 10th spot at that time because “he had to raid Ulduar”. An achievement run, mind you. We at the time considered this to be an excuse in order to not show up at Regionals in shame of the things he had been doing in the past as surely some people would’ve tried to get back to him. Today we know there was more to it.
(Keeping in dubio pro reo in mind, take this with a grain of salt.) Apparently Braindeadly was also somewhat briefed by Icematikx, but I can’t say this for sure as we don’t have any hard evidence on this case at this point in time. It seems somewhat fishy though that a team that was hovering at 2,4k for a while is now competing on Cyclone for Wrathful Gladiator, with a ridiculous win percentage in their latest matches. (For example a win streak of 55 games from 2.8k to ~2925). Trustworthy informants also claim that they have confronted him and his team and he admitted to have used it “for fun” in PvE before and that it’s actually not that big of an advantage. May I remind you that this is coming from a Hunter, a class with basically no resources playing a comp in which no class really is limited by anything else than the GCD, ATC.
In closing I must say, that it isn’t easy for me to write this in a time where so many of you are disappointed with the game and he direction it took in WoTLK and also the recent happenings in the pro player community, be it because of a council, wintrading, or simply the borefest that is Wizardcleave. I assure you that as soon as I got word of this I contacted everyone in my power that could be remotely affected by this asap including the Loaded manager while MLG was going on etc. I also submitted it through the hopefully right channels to Blizzard. Since the hack seems to be untraceable, I decided to open Pandora’s box to raise awareness and allow you to report those cheaters.
We know that some of them almost made it to Regionals. The dignity of the entire community is on the line here.
Evidence is in Hydra’s blog below and I recommend to keep an eye out. Don’t be too paranoid though, some people are just that good and I’d argue that Barburas is probably an even better Warrior without the hack.
Yiska out.
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to find some more people to fight for the cause as being hopelessly outnumbered would result in a crushing defeat. Upon gathering her band of followers she heads to the Silverwing Hold to mount her attack on the Warsong Lumber Mill. After arriving at Silverwing hold the gate collapses after only five of her men are able to get in leaving Karuki and her friends left to fight with the few that are left in the area, surveying the battle she notices Arthhass from “Bloodlust” battling it out in the middle whilst being undecided about whether he would like to be blood or unholy and if cloth items or tank items are good choices for dks in pvp, “not today” she says as she raises her palm to her face and swiftly types /afk before she can see what other atrocities are in the gulch today.
With the current state of the random battleground system and the welfare gear it provides, this is a far more common than it should be occurance unless you’re running with a full premade, but what does the future with a proper rated battleground system hold in store for us within the gulch?
At the moment, skills that control movement are a huge part of WSG. In cataclysm we see the ‘counter’ to death grip, life grip. Whether you can life grip people up and down hills like you can with DG is something that I’m personally not aware of (although if it follows the same mechanics I’ll assume you can). This affects WSG in quite a large way with the hills and the barrier on the alliance side. The fence above the tunnel on the alliance side provides a nice barrier which melee can’t go through, but grip/spells can. What this presents is an interesting way to pull flag carriers around both defensively and offensiveley (especially since warriors can charge up the hill to people behind the fence).
The other possibility life grip would present is being able to grip people up cliffs and open up different paths to take the flag.
There’s also the counter to these cliffs however, knockback spells, although these now have a counter in DK’s Pillar of Frost, at the moment the tooltip reads “immune to external
movement such as knockbacks”. This could also be immunity to death grip (if someone with beta could confirm this that would be great), this would open up some interesting talent specs if the trees were not locked into 31 points before you can start another (making pillar of frost unaccessable for anyone who isn’t frost spec).
The other main points of interest are the areas where skills such as Smoke Bomb and Curtain of Frost are going to be at their greatest effects, small choke points which many teams will want to get through and avoid by using life grip/swiftness pots/body & soul etc. having several members caught in something like Smoke Bomb+Curtain of Frost (which should make for an interesting combo) would most likely lead to losing a few people if not that fight as a bunch of people isolated and slowed in the bomb would die pretty fast, at least on WOTLK terms.
Whilst it’s hard to say what it might look like so early into the beta, there should be some staples to WSG teams
- Can move fast with the Flag
- Good survivability vs melee, vulnerable to casters
- Stampeding Roar providing AOE sprint briefly to allow teams to avoid chokes
- Low cooldown abilities and self healing will lead to the best survivability out of any flag carrier
- Also brings alot of utility with strangulate/grip/necrotic strike/dark simulacrum (the potential of this yet to be seen skill is huge)
- Moble with charge/intervene/intercept/heroic leap allowing them to scale cliffs
- The best survivability vs melee with block
- Utility with AOE spell reflect/piercing howl/safeguard/huge amount of stuns
- Good survivability against both melee and casters due to Argent Defender
- Brings utility in disease/poison removal/divine guardian/sacrifice/auras/blessings/aoe silence from AS
Another thing which may see a use is flag couriers (rogues/druids/mages) that grab the flag and bring it to the carrier but depending on how the meta game unfolds will see to whether this used, either way expect much higher levels of coordination in how the flag is handed between players than it is in the current WSG pugfest.
No wsg team is going to be without these and bringing multiple amounts of each wouldn’t be a bad thing, the potential for chain grips both offensively and defensively as mentioned above is huge as well as thunderstorm’s ability to knock an entire group in different directions and isolate people in the midfield. I wouldn’t be surprised to see every team running with at least 2 knockbacks because of this.
A staple core of a lot of vanilla wsg, warriors+wf or paladin support were often a force that would just kill stuff with unhealable damage, it wasn’t uncommon to be able to kill stuff in an intercept stun if the wf+swordspecs lined up. Now that rets and dks have joined warriors as a viable force in the plate zerg teams will they see a resurgence in Cataclysm as the huge damage slowly pushing forward force that it was previously.
Thought healing 2 wizards was bad in 3v3? Try 7! These could either work very well, or not be very good, depending entirely on the dmg:hp ratio. With the current WSG scene I’d go as far to say as a wizard cleave lineup would be by far the best for the ability to just switch and global something before healers can react, use dk flag carrier for bonus points of having a grip with maxium wizards.
Whilst it’s still quite hard to predict trends in rated bgs that are still months off, I personally do hope that how teams use the map and posistion themselves around the big aoe skills is going to be what decides victories of the skirmishes around the map rather than the current situation of whoever can spam the most damage in the least globals (this is a valid tactic in arena too for those who have not yet played harrypotter).
Also a brief shoutout to Hendie’s video which hasn’t really got the views it deserves despite non existant editing – http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=159623
Offensive druid play from a bunch of different comps and one of the few resto druid vids which hasn’t left me skipping bits due to a minimal amount of tree hugging, “starfire” being a good way to sum it up, also has skype somewhere!
Karuki “knight of daeth” out.
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As many of you might have noticed, we have put up a blogging site as we are currently working on our new site which is not finished yet, so please bear with us while we work on it. We will be adding more features ASAP.
Update 5: EG took us down 2-3 
Came in 4th, well played to the guys tho!
Update 4: Took the next 2 games 3-2 and 3-1, we’re now up against Loaded, gonna be a thrilling game! Still trying to get hold of the players, not that easy when they need to focus on their games of course! Will keep you updated tho 
Update 3: Trying to talk to flyn on msn and find out whats going on, stay tuned!
Update 2: Lost 1-3 vs coL.Red and their mld setup.
Update 1: We won our 1st game vs coL.Black! 3-0
Links:
Team Dignitas coverage
MLG Stream
MLG spotlight on Team Dignitas
Game 1:
Nagrand
Game starts off slow as usual in RMP mirrors with Rogues looking for eachother. Kalimist gets the sap and a battle of attacking the Rogues goes off with no team really getting an edge. Kalimist as Shadowdance blows his 51pt ability and obliterates Satz after some back and forth.
1-0 DIGNITAS!
Game 2:
Nagrand
I don’t care who you are or where you are but you gotta love those RMP mirrors on the best Arena map. This is WoW in it’s purest form right there. Again a battle of Rogue training ensues even though Dignitas wanted to start with a Mage train. Loaded turns it around on Hydra who is pillar hugging extremely well and can top himself off with Flash spam. But also Kalimist drops insanely low for about 15 seconds and kites immensely well while my underpants are too drops richer. For a bit tip top CC chains are being exchanged but as his dance comes back up, Kalimist can turn it around.
2-0 DIGNITAS GET CRAZY!
Game 3:
RoV
Because of the different playstyle with Mutilate, the advantage for Loaded instantly shows as going on Hydra is much easier than in the games before and much less cooldowns are needed. Kalimist in the early game mostly the Rogue with slightly less HP than Satz but as the time to dance is right, Satz drops to 20% but still with Cloak up and no coL.Red-esque luck to be found for Flyn. Eventually Hydra gets caught in a long CC chain while Kalimist goes low but still has BM & Cheat Death which still can’t keep him up for long enough and a DF on Hydra finishes off Kalimist. Flyn and Hydra try to pull a 2vs3 as Numberone is oom but ultimately lose the battle.
2-1 Dignitas
Game 4:
RoV
Again a bit unfortunate with the map choice but it is not in my ability to judge if it’s really such a big difference. Dignitas really gets off to a bad start as Loaded gets on Hydra quite well and he has to trinket a fear simply to get away from Satz while Kalimist has to trinket a Blind. Orange this game putting the moves on Flyn as you here him call out schoollock outs and sheeps quite a bit. Because of the early usage of trinket from Hydra he isn’t able to trinket the Sheep into DF and Kalimist dies as the Cheat Death procs quite close to 0 HP.
2-2 Tie. I can’t believe this is happening
Game 5:
Dalaran Arena
Dignitas with an amazing opener and Kalimist absolutely focused and immidiately identifies Satz as Sublety. Orange has to block almost instantly while Dignitas switches it to Satz who dies in the Dance.
Blades edge arena
Complexity is going for the Mage as MM with a spider as pet and the Mage is forced to block rather quickly. A lot of range issues for coL.Red force Twix to use his deterrence. Flexx calls out that he’s been focused long before it gets serious as the Paladin gets CS’d and tries to bubble heal which is not enough. Quite well played by SK-C INT.
1:0 SK-C INT
Dalaran Arena
Again a lot of pressure on the Mage. Twix gets half duration blinded and Norman kind of wastes his BoP as they didn’t really have any momentum rolling. Again they can get on the Mage who is forced to block and coL switches off to the Rogue for a second. One more round of burst is alligned onthe Mage as the Priest gets put in a sweet CC chain that ultimately seels the deal.
1-1 Tie.
Dalaran Arena
This time the difference between Toez and Norman showed quite a bit as if course it’s his tournament. coL again hard on the Mage but SC-Int turns it on the Paladin who’s panicing hard at that point which causes a chain of bad decisions. The bubble is used in a very bad spot and gets immidiately dispelled. Also the positioning seemed to be off which Twixz is also complaining about. Flexx and Norman were simply too far apart to make anything happen offensively and as far as peels for the Paladin go. Eventually Norman goes down due to heavy pressure from Enforcer.
2-1 SK-C Int
RoV
Obviously good map for coL. Early block forced almost immidiately while Priest is put in a Scatter. Quick switch to the Priest during the immunity to keep the momentum rolling and back when it fades puts SK-C Int on the back foot again. Norman HoJ’es the Priest follow by Flexx instant Hex who trinkets but isn’t able to keep his mate up.
2-2 Tie again.
Blades edge arena
The game goes down with a close cross kill on Flexx and the Korean Mage and it turns into a full blown 2vs2. It looked like nothing could really win the match for SK-C but as Twixz’ pet goes down more and more opportunities open for Enforcer to burst and they actually eventually manage to take the series with a kill on Norman.
3-1 SK-C Int. What an upset.
Score of games played off stream: 2-1 for EG.
Ruins of Lordaeron
The game picks off with the MLS on the offense with Heroism being popped. Velsus drops dangerously low but can heal himself up with a critting NS and looks fine from there on. As Heroism fades you can almost instantly see the momentum shift with Pookz & Azael taking a ton of damage from both Starcraft2 hero Nadagast and Hoodrych but also Tenderloin seems to get a fair share. He drops low but dots are fading so Velsus cyclones him. He is able to heal himself out of this situation but eventually gets his Resto tree locked and dies eventually because of it.
Series tied at 2:2
Unfortunately our team lost 1-3 to coL.Red in a match that caused a lot of controversy because of a disconnect resulting in a rematch which was pretty much a secured win for our guys giving them more momentum after already winning the first match. To top it off RNG striked again and the last two deciding maps were of course played on Ring of Valor in which Kalimist even got [killed through Cloak of Shadows] once. Legendary…
Right now two matches are going on. One is the grudge match of Team Chris Thorman vs Nerdstomper Blue and the other is Nerdstompers Black vs Evil Geniuses. The later is not being streamed but the score seems to be 2-0 in favor of a fully out of practice EG.
The matches so far have been quite heated as both (ab)using the in voice to communicate what they think of eachother. Team Chris Thorman shot ahead 2-0 but seem to be unable to take advantage of their momentum as the series is tied at 2-2. One thing to note is that most games were decided by misscommunication between the players.
Ring of Valor
The game starts off with Nerdstompers Blue gunning for Chris who’s just blowing through his defensive cooldowns. He tries to LOS by a big pillar but as it goes down, he’s completely exposed to the damage that is being cast upon him. Glickz gets a fear off on the Druid who then gets put into a Kidney shot while Kollektiv hexes Uckington. The Druid goes down and rude words are being exchanged instantly. Nothing better than a little shit talk.
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Dignitas focuses on Twix for their opening strategy, which at the same time places a ton of pressure on Complexity.Black’s new Paladin Norman. Toez apparently retired from the team recently.
The match was very quick and ended with a kill on Twix,
Dignitas goes up 1-0.
More focus fire on Twix from team Dignitas.
After forcing the Paladin of Complexity.Black to blow a ton of his cooldowns early on, Team Dignitas lands a huge round of damage on Twix to score a kill.
Team Dignitas 2-0.
Complexity.Black switches to Beastcleave for game three.
Complexity.Black is able to put pressure on the Mage Flyn from Team Dignitas.
Norman tries his best to stay out of crowd control throughout the fight.
Though it looks like Norman was doing a good job at staying away from Flyn’s Polymorph, a full duration sheep finally lands and Team Dignitas gets a kill on Twix to take the series.
Team Dignitas wins the series 3-0.
The Shaman of Skill Capped.US lusts right off the start and then faces a ton of pressure. Skill Capped.International’s Mage and Rogue (Enforcer) nearly score a kill on the Nevershock.
You hear the team of Skill Capped.US screaming for a kill on the rogue. Going from 100 to dead in the blink of an eye, the wizard team of Skill Capped.US, whom are running an arcane mage, explode Enforcer.
1-0 SkillCapped.US.
This round, Enforcer opens up on Nevershock with a Sap. They then open up with a ton of damage and cause Nevershock to jump off the Blade’s Edge Arena bridge in order to line of sigh the Mage’s casts.
After a great fear from the Priest of Skill Capped.International, Nevershock dies and the Wizards go back to the drawing board with a loss in the second game.
1-1 series tied.
Enforcer, who is playing with two Korean players, opens with a Cheap Shot on Nevershock. You can hear Enforcer’s teammates calling out things in Korean.
Enforcer catches a bad fear away from Nevershock, but miraculously his teammate finishes off the Shaman with the aid of his Priest. Enforcer let out a cheer for his team as he did not know they scored the kill until after he came back into the fight to look for his target.
The Warlock and Mage Abn of US do not give up though and score a kill on Enforcer. Sadly, without a healer, they eventually drop to the Mage and Priest of SC.International.
2-1 Skill Capped.International.
Nevershock, again is the focus of Skill Capped.International’s opening strategy.
The Warlock of Skill Capped.US gets caught in a great deal of crowd control throughout the opening of this match and it proves to hurt their momentum as Enforcer escapes death.
Nevershock fighting to stay alive at the bottom of the bridge finally is taken down by the RMP of Skill Capped.International.
3-1 Skill Capped.International.
(A quick note on For the Motherland. Jetz team could not attend the event, so Happiminti and a Starcraft II player decided to play in the WoW tourney.)
Happiminti is the priority target for Hoodrych, but avoids an early pitfall through the use of cooldowns. The pug of For the Motherland shows how they do not have the chemistry that is required, drop the first game to Nerd Stompers.
1-0 Nerdstompers.
Hoodrych finds himself frustrated as the Hunter from Russia drops him in some ice blocks. Nerdstompers Warlock does not have a Devour Magic for him as his pet was feared far away from Hoodrych.
The hunter from Russia doing a great job at controlling Hoodrych, still is unable to put out pressure on anyone and finds himself falling to Hoodrych who finally lays him down.
2-0 Nerd Stompers.
Hoodrych bounces between Happiminti and the Hunter to keep them both off of his teammates. ‘The Boss’ Hoodrych is not playing around this game and drops Happiminti really easily.
3-0 Nerd Stompers.
Forced early heroism. Lots of target switches. Talbadar silences the Hunter… Novos gets exploded.
1-0 Uck’s HLD.
Uck runs out of shards and busts out an imp midway through this loooooong match.
Finally, Diziet gets CC’d while Novos is bursted down at the bottom of the bridge.
2-0 Uck’s HLD.
Lots of pressure from Uck’s HLD throughout the fight allowed Chris to stay at safe mana, while Diziet was stressed to heal Novos.
Novos dies to a Chaos Bolt from Uck as he runs for the big pillar.
3-0 Uck’s HLD.
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More information for Sunday’s matches here: http://www.gotfrag.com/wow/story/44921/
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As many of you might have noticed, we have put up a blogging site as we are currently working on our new site which is not finished yet, so please bear with us while we work on it. We will be adding more features ASAP.
Update 2: We won our 1st game vs coL.Black! 3-0
Update 1: Both of our SC2 players are in the LB Round 4. Our WoW team should begin shortly.
Links:
Team Dignitas coverage
MLG Stream
MLG spotlight on Team Dignitas
Hey guys, Yiska here and I want to bring you the information that is available to us at the moment.
Nerdstompers Black – Hoodrych, Nadagast, Velsus – WLD
The last remaining WLD in the professional scene will be at the event coming from with the hope that they get a better tournament path than they did at Blizzard’s North American Regionals. A thing to note about this team is that Nadagast is also participating in the SC2 tournament as is currently doing very well as he’s in round 4 of the upper bracket, showing that WoW players get the job done.
Nerdstompers Blue – Realz, Glickz, Kollektiv – RLS
The former SK.US only recently joined Nerdstompers. With the big disappointment of not qualifying for the NA Regionals due to different reasons, this team is looking forward to prove once again that their time in the spotlight isn’t over as they have haters a plenty. This team is known for their strategical strength as they always seemed to be the people who are called the exception. “We farmed every RLS on TR but Realz’ team” is a sentence that we heard countless times in the past.
Complexity.Red – Sodah, Snutz, Venruki, Reckful – RLD, MLD, MLP, RMP
One of the most versatile teams in the pro scene currently is on fire. After a second place at MLG Ohio in which they were only beaten by Loaded.Black and Nerdstompers (while playing RLD, not the freewin that is MLD vs WLD) and the first place at the North American regionals, the team is looking to go all the way once again and they are definitely one of the favorites going into this event. Looking at the winning record of this team, they are one of the only teams that doesn’t need any bracket luck to go far.
Complexity.Black – Toez, Flexx, Twixz – ATC, Beastcleave
Absolutely dominating team of the last season, not so much this time. The team has been on the decline ever since IEM Global Finals at Cebit. Nevertheless they managed to get into the upper bracket finals at NA Regionals before they got rolled by the Wizard broom. If they can get good brackets they can go far, but there aren’t many free wins for this team at this point in time.
Loaded – Satz, Numberone, Orangemarmalde – RMP
One of the most successful teams in recent history and also the last bastion before Hogwards overrun at Blizzcon. We are potentially looking at epic games against our own guys which hasn’t happened before in a regular tournament. The team is well known for their amazing coordination and perfectly executed bursts. Loaded.Black fightiiiiing!
TSG (PK.Cards) – Veev, Valrath, Zilea – TSG, odd comps
The current Blizzcon champions didn’t make it against the Wizards despite some very unorthodox comps which made the entire community raise a brow at the same time. It has been rumored that they will be a no show at the event as Veev and Valrath are said to have quit the game after this disappointment. It would be sad to see those players go as they could have a good shot if they got decent brackets. After all at a tournament with this many teams, someone else killing the Wizards isn’t entirely impossible.
ArenaPwnage – Talbadar, Novoz, Diziet – SPSD
Second place at NA Regionals and therefore qualified for Blizzcon, yet not really a community favorite as their playstyle was admittingly quite lame at times, hugging the pillar for felt hours. When all is said and done, they are still a team able to place very high up as only coL.Red and the RLS should pose a serious threat.
Team EG – Woundman, Azael, Tenderloin – RLS
This time without their Mage Pookz so they will only be playing RLS. Azael has been very active promoting WoW and their oranganisation Evil Geniuses around the country which caused the team to have very limited time to qualify for NA Regionals which they failed to do in the end. In general Azael reports that Tenderloin has quit the game and they have only been able to get a day or two of practice in which they still did pretty well. It would be very surprising if the team played a role in this event but with a team of that calibre it might as well happen.
Skill capped – ? – MLS
Big questionmark behind this team as they were supposed to attend with Filovirus, Nayro and Abni but one of their players has reported that they will be replaced by one of the other members in the skill-capped.com player pool.
Team CHRIS THORMANN – Uckington, Seruuf, Chris
A lot of ups and downs over the week for this team as the drama bomb around this team has just exploded around this team as they admittingly wintraded their way to NA Regionals. Nevertheless they did extremely well and they were easily one of the most exciting to watch and they weren’t too far away from going to Blizzcon. Uckington has been very guilty because of the way the qualified but this has not too much to do with the MLG invite. If the team will still attend remains to be seen.
Team Dignitas – Kalimist, Flyn, Hydra – RMP
I guess I need no introduction here but I can update you on what has been going on since the upset of European Regionals. The team has been bootcamping for quite some time practicing as much as possible on the rather inactive European battlegroups and TR to try to make up for their showing at Regionals. Of course there are a couple of comps you can’t really practice against in Europe such as RLS and Talbadar’s triple healer so the chances of the team are rather unpredictable. I for one would be satisfied with a victory over Loaded in a mirror, but due to the tournament structure it’s possible that this won’t happen.
The big differences between the WoW tournament this time in Raleigh to the one in Ohio are the following:
- The tournament system is no longer two groups into Double elim, but Double Elim from the get go which sadly allows for some very bad luck in seeding
- Teams are seeded based on their results of MLG Ohio. If the team didn’t participate, it is up to the admins to decide their seed.
- Only Vhell and Vansili will cast the event. They will be supported by the players themselves with the in-voice feature which means you will hear all teams talk during their games.
The stream for Starcraft II will kick off at 15:30 CET. If I’m not mistaken the WoW stream will kick off at 1:40 CET. The games for WoW will be sooner tomorrow.
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Hi, my name is James and I’m a 20 year old studying to become a vet at a university in England.
Originally draintrain asked me to play with him as his warrior (Blade, who is another excellent warrior) wasn’t going to go to LAN events. We started off trying WLD but struggled to find a good druid which I feel is essential for WLD, eventually out of desperation we played with a paladin (Demun) who drain played 5s with on live. It ended up working better than any of us expected and we were able to take R1 during practice phase. However for whatever reason it started going badly, so we tried out Fraki and were able to retake R1 during the practice. Fraki was initially tied down to his old TSG, but struggling to find a pally as good as him – we basically asked him to play with both his TSG and us and if his TSG qualified then he’d go with that. Fortunately (for me and drain) his TSG didn’t come top 8 and instead we got third with WLP on the european arena pass.
It’s a strong all round comp and can overcome most hard setups by outplaying without as much rish of stupid gib losses that can occur for example if you’re playing RMP and meet an ATC due to cooldowns like HoP, Bubble, Portal, etc. If I wasn’t playing this I would probably be playing Warrior Mage Priest, not as it’s exceptionally strong but because it’s a fun comp to play and I have friends playing Mage/Priest
I probably do the most offensive calling (like who to go on/swap to, etc); although drain does a fair bit too. Fraki usually calls how things are for him, whether we’re safe to go offensive, whether he can freedom and so on and we just try react to each other’s calls to play as best we can.
I think the second series was more a case of Inflame’s team replicating aAa’s play more than us playing worse, though we did have some bad luck. The first game was Dalaran arena where we effectively have 0 chance due to how thunderstorm works on that arena. The second game when Inflame had no pet, was on 20% hp with full dots, I had freedom and taunka proc up and was about to die, floated up to a pillar in RoV due to a bug with how fear/horror effects sometimes interact with RoV (he was death coiled) and that saved him and ended up costing us that game (which would have put us at 1-1 instead of 2-0 down). We won the next game extremely quickly when I pummeled inflame on shadow into a bladestorm he couldn’t portal into a HoJ + full dots + spell lock/fears on the druid. The final game was extremely close but eventually we lost; draintrain hadn’t realised he hadn’t got soul link up as he fel domed and was cycloned at the same time and I think he thought he’d cast it – he got killed as daylie was extremely close to dying too, but mistakes happen – especially at a LAN event. WLP really struggles with LSD if they know how to play vs us and while we may have been able to win it was definately stacked against us.
Well it’s always nice to be compared to a good player like Hoodrych, I like to consider myself a decent warrior – i’m far from perfect but I feel I’m reasonably good so yeah it’s a compliment to be compared to Hoodrych.
You gem a lot more defensively than most warriors, could you explain the heavy resilience gemming and how it relates to the way you play your setup?I don’t really feel it’s especially to do with the setup, it’s just my playstyle – for example Blade who also plays with Drain and Fraki on live plays with a lot less resi and it works well for him – I just like having enough of a resilience/stamina buffer to survive certain setups like wizard cleaves (LSD, shatterplay, etc) or teams such as RLS or RPS which may go extremely hard on the warrior – particularly to be able to survive cc chains on my healer. It does I guess relate a bit to the setup, as I gemmed a bit more offensively when I used to play warrior mage priest – as in that setup I’m something like 70-80% if not more of the damage, whereas playing WLP an affliction lock can put out a very respectable amount of damage so I can sometimes afford to wear a bit more defensive gear as I’m not the only one doing a lot of damage in the setup.
I feel LSD is an extremely powerful setup which can beat nearly every setup if played well. I don’t feel it’s impossible to beat like a lot of people believe, but only a few setups really have a chance vs it and I feel it has a lot less setups that would be considered hard or fair matches than most setups do. I feel europe, particularly aAa has a good chance at top spots at blizzcon – the only teams that I expect to be possible contenders would be complexity red and loaded black.
Shadowmournes, if there’s anything I hate about arena on live it’s the imbalance between the gear of people who purely PvP and those who PvE for better gear. That’s why I liked the TR as everyone had equal gear. Not that I like LSD by any measure, but LSD is an overpowered comp of which there are many others, both now and in the future. PvE vs PvP gear is a problem that’s been in the game for ages and probably won’t really ever be changed.
I’m not really sure, it’s too late to go to MLG raleigh but we may end up going to a later MLG event. I believe there’s going to be an online tournament sometime soon in europe so we may take place in that too.
It’s just a more active BG with better teams (particularly at the top of the ladder), although it’s become increasingly inactive lately but I imagine that’s the case across the board.
It’s a fun setup but it’s harder than most setups you could play as a warrior (such as double healer, or prot warrior setups). It’s just important to coordinate well with your mage (who acts mostly as a CCer to allow you the warrior to do as much damage as possible) and your priest to make sure everyone is safe and to keep people alive. Some games I’ve done more than 10 times the damage of my mage, just because he’s had to play defensive all game and when he’s playing offensively it’s more about hitting the right CC to allow me to do as much damage as possible.
Would like to thank my sponsor SK Sansibar, my teammates Drain and Fraki (and Blade) and some friends: Blowi, Kelz, Kubus, Rezie, Bmx.
Thanks for your time James!
]]>As a reminder:
Team Chris Thormann vs Arenapwnage
Map 1 BEM 1-0 TCT
Starts off Seraph moving out in the middle of the bridge and they start up on Novoz while switching Diziet pretty quick. Apwnage seem to be playing very defensive and it seems to be working well. Both teams do a soft reset and uck starts moving in a little bit but gets knocked way out with thudnerstorm but gets back up fine. Uck gets a decent howl but tremor breaks it and he gets rooted. Uck gets feared and drops down but his pet dies. He uses feldom and gets another pet and starts pressuring novoz hard who goes to 10k hp. Game is on the bottom now as Novoz uses pillars very carefully, while Apwnage uses lust and starts focusing Seraph. A nice cyclone onto diziet followed by some pressure on novoz and he barely lives but he finally dies to nice pressure by Chris Thormann.
Map 2 Dal 1-1
The match basically evovles around pillars and as boring as this sounds, it also actually is. The only thing that is in danger the entire first 8 minutes is Uck’s pet but he does a good job of getting hard summons off. Arenapwnage waits for the Heroism debuff to expire and they push Seruf hard. The Hunter disenganges off far away from his team mates and any possible heals and he ticks down from very few dots. Dalaran seems to be the slowest map in that match up.
Map 3 RoL 2-1 APW
Uck playing aggressively as usual with seruf slightly far back. Seems like uck preffering to pressure on diziet and novoz while APW dming uck and seruf some. Seruff gets pressure and goes back to the starting area but is quickly picked back up after getting out of a cyclone. Control onto uck as usual, as APW don’t seem to be doing too much damage in general. Some pressure onto Talbadar as he moves around the crypt in a clever way. Seruf gets down to about 18k but gets picked back up after using deterrance. Diziet gets caught into a bad spot but a really late coil gives him time to get into LOS and uck gets cced. Diziet gets to 11k and gets cloned but clones uck immediately out of it so nothing too bad for APW. WoW some nice burst onto Uck with a great bloodlust combined with uck being aggressive as usual and dies.
Map 4 Nagrand = Draw still 2-1 APW
Map 5 BEM 3-1 APW
Typical uck as he runs out onto the other side of the bridge almost immediately as his pet drops down to 50%. Also some pressure onto Serufs but APW continuing to play overly defensive as BEM makes that much easier than usual. A few pointless skirmishes later, talbadar gets pressure but disperses and keeps getting pressured by TCT but Chris going to 40% but gets picked back up easily. Both teams move down bottom as chris is clearly losing the mana but uses innervate and drinks so he catches up. More pressure onto talb as dispersion is still on CD but he LOS continuously with Shadow form which gives him 15% damage reduction. They follow up with Heroism and try to chase seruf down but uck doing a great job of peeling for seruf with shadowfury but they start dming uck but not much coming out of that. UCK gets pressured really hard but uses VW sac to stay alive but Diziet gets counter pressure but barely ables to live as well. Uneventful skirmishes later talbadar getting pressured pretty hard disperses and still getting prsessured pretty hard but chris is completely oom but talb almost dead but comes back up. Nice shadowfury by UCK but Spriest getting dangerously low but fears chris as he comes in for the bash. Diziet actually uses innervate on talb and gets pressured himself but uses barkskin and gets into a nice defensive position. Some pressure onto chris as he is almost completely oom but nice trap by seruf that saves him. Somep ressure onto novoz but barely able to stay alive but chris still oom and has to run around to get some drinks off. Chris and uck do some nice job ccing but chris goes oom again but innervates to get his mana back up. Unfortunately for TCT seruf gets caught in a bad spot and dies without deterrance.
map 1 nagrand MLD vs bcleave 1-0 Col.red
Flexx and twix start on to venruki who gets to 15k but blocks to pick back up. Some control onto flex with no real dmg coming out from col red as venruki drops down really low as he barely gets above 20k for over 15 seconds. Snutz seems to be destruction which im not sure is the smartest idea against toez but col red does alot of pressure against flexx who goes down to 8k but barely lives with toez defensive cooldown. Venruki getting really low on mana soon and dropping to 2k hp and barely able to live but flexx oom now as well with 15k hp and bounces out into the open as toez gets trapped while flexx drops and dies.
Map 2 BEM 2-0 Col.red
No lineup changes. Again straight forward combat with Black going for Venruki while Red goes on Twixz for a second. While Lust is up, Red is doing a really good job of minimizing the uptime of the Beast cleave. Eventually Flexx drops dangerously low which forces Toez to bubble. Only seconds after Toez comes out of his immunity, he gets CC’d while Flexx gets nuked hard and stunned in a deep freeze to keep him in LOS and goes down.
Map 3 Dalaran 3-0 Col
Flex goes in and tries to get on sodah and brings him down to 4k real quick before he spikes back up and is continuously pressured. Toez suprsingly uses bubble offensively and it doesn’t seem that well as he gets polied and twixz getting pressured really hard but Toez doing a GREAT job and keeps twixz alive. A great fear onto flexx putis him to a bad position and he dies to a great shadowfury shatter combo.
Complexity Black vs ArenaPwnage
Map 1 Ring of Valor 1-0 APW
Seems like Col Black has switched to Priest instead of pal which is much better esp with extra trash buffs and double offensive dispells against a druid. Apwnage seems to be crowding around the pillar in the beginning but talb moves to the 2nd pillar and almost has to dispersion early but the pillar comes up and he gets healed up a bit. Tons of pressure on Twixz and he drops almost immediately, possibly using deterrance offensively.
Map 2 Dalaran 2-0 APW
This basically seems like a more drawn out version of the first due to boxes and the Water pillar. Talbadar remains the most viable target for complexity black but twix eventually dies again.
Map 3 Nagrand 2-1 APW
Starts out with col black being aggressive as usual and they are pressuring Novoz really hard as he drops down to 14k. Some dmg on twix drops him to around 18k but not much else as he continues to drop. Great cyclone on Twixz as he gets PS but he deterrance and backs off after it. Novoz is being extremely aggressive and could cost APW the match if he makes a mistake. novoz seems to still be the target of Col black . Nice hex onto novoz but he barely survives and still spiking really high and finally dies to a GREAT burst from complexity black.
Map 4 BEM 3-1 APW
2nd matchpoint picks off on BEM arena with a dispell battle as both Shamans and both Priests are dispelling each other consistently. Finally the action starts in the middle of the bridge and Black again goes on Novoz to surpress his pressure. Both Shamans drop low and the pillar hugging picks off. If coL.Black can outlast Talbadar’s mana bar they may score a kill again.Flexx drops dangerously low but gets picked up by Toez rather quickly. This time it looks like coL.Black is losing the mana battle. Flexx goes a little too offensive and stands in the middle of trouble while Toez is still dry meanwhile Twixz is dropping low due to dots as well and they lose the game pretty much due to mana starvation.
It’s official, we got 5 Wizards at blizzcon(5th one is 2nd place korean if anyones wondering).
Complexity Red vs ArenaPwnage
Map 1 Dalaran 1-0 Arenapwnage
Col.Red seems to have changed to Priest for sodah which is a pretty decent change as he’ll be able to deal with ele dmg much better. Target for col.red seems to be novoz in the beginning with sheeps on talbadar. Almost no pressure on col.red as i don’t even know what they are focusing , talbadar BARELY lives but they switch to novoz and they take him to around 1k but three heals seems to come through for him to top him back off. He doesn’t stay topped off long as they start back on him and diziet applying more pressure on the team as a whole. Minimal control onto sodah stops some of the hot dispells but Novoz is still getting pressured really hard with secondary dots on Diziet. Snutz is destro for this like he was before. Novoz barely lives as he spikes down to 2k but gets picked back up. Surprisingly mana numbers for col.red are pretty good for a bit but they waste alot in an uneventful skirmish while cds are down. Some pressure on to diziet with dots on novoz don’t do much but col is just doing a great job of putting up constant pressure on Arenapwnage. Diziet is forced to innervate talb while not being able to drink himself as he gets feared by sodah. Sodah gets caught in a really bad psychic horror + bash but counter pressure on talbadar gets down to 6k but Venruki drops surprisingly low with 0 mana and dies.
Map 2 BEM being replayed:
Blades edge arena which should be a quite balanced map for this matchup. Interesting choice by Arenapwnage as they kill Ven’s pets almost instantly and he snaps fairly early. As Sodah’s game freezes, the game has to be replayed. I feel they could’ve capitalized on Venruki’s early usage of Coldsnap.
Map 2 Rematch on BEM again 1-1 Tied
Fine sportsmanship by Arenapwnage has to be noted and brownie points have been awarded. Early Pi out of Sodah as Novoz throws them off the ramp. As they get back up Novoz drops to 8k HP but gets fully healed in tow globals. col.Red turns it around on Diziet and he also drops to sub 40% but also bounces back to full. Sodah meanwhile gets quite the mana burns off on Diziet who has to use Innervate to get back to 9k Mana. Novoz has to be careful at this point that they don’t lose the mana war as they seem immortal when two people can offheal. Even though Diziet sits at 2k HP at times, the amount of healing he receives heals him to full in no time. AP turns it around on Venruki who an block the potential lethal casts succesfully. Diziet slowly but surely runs dry while all the other casters are at about 30-40% of their Mana. With heroism already used, the situation is really dangerous for ArenaPwnage. Venruki cutches an Innervate dispell after only one tick on Diziet. Sodah even though he has very low mana uses all he got on the final burst on the Druid and he finally drops.
Map 3 RoL 2-1 APW
Venruki opens off aggressively catching novoz in a Frost nova, while they completely strip down novoz but some rebuffs by talb. A great triple fear by snutz as col.red focus diziet to around 10k but he heals back up completely. Some great control onto venruki as diziet gets focused but talbadar helping out great and snutz uses cs on him instead of diziet. Snutz and sodah being the target of APW but Novoz being dropped to 8k as well but gets picked up with some hhelp by talb. Novoz gets deep frozen and gets burst really hard but great coutnerpressure onto sodah combined with a silenced and offdmg on to Venruki seems to nullify pressure onto novoz. Complexity seems to be losing the mana war compared to APW at the moment but diziet still constantly pressured. Venruki taking a ton of dmg as well as Novoz who continues to hug the RoL tomb. A nice deepfreeze onto novoz but help from talb combined with prehots save him from the burst opportunity. Sodah dropping dangerously low on mana as well as venruki as complexity tries to semi reset. Venruki manages to get an evo as well as a nicely timed shadowfiend by sodah. Novoz and ven taking TONS of damage as he’s barely staying above 20k. Lots of full CSes on Diziet but good pillaring by APW seems to nullify them completely. Novoz spiking down but counter pressure on to sodah with cyclone on venruki stops it. Some pressure onto sodah as venruki as APW focus on Snutz’s pet as well. Lots of spiky heals on sodah as he drops to 5k hp and pops PS. Talbadar completely oom so he really can’t pressure much as he uses sfiend to get picked back up mana wise. Sodah really low at mana but diziet drops down to 6k and runs continuously around the tomb to stay alive. APW go onto snutz for a little bit while col red try some more pressure onto Novoz. Novoz drops to 1k in a great burst oppurtunity but three heals seem to keep him alive. Nice fear by snutz but not much comes out of it. I’m surprised as to how Sodah is still not going out of mana as APW uses lust but it gets dispelled off of both talb and novoz immediately. Talb getting pressured alot but Three heals keep him up as sodah has only 2k mana as well as Ven, Tons of pressure onto Novoz and Ven invises and evos back to 14k mana. Venruki gets dotted up completely have but he has cold snap so block shouldn’t be a problem. Tons of pressure onto sodah as he runs around completely oom and dies.
Map 4 Rov 2-2
Let the phew phew and lasers and all that good stuff begin as the map is Ring of Valor. Talbadar gets a full sheep and they turn it to Novoz who’s hugging pillars as much as possible but as they are fairly thin he has to pop Lust in order to stay alive. Sodah loses a lot of mana a minute into the game and has to Hymn of Hope while AP sits at 90%+ mana on all of their members. coL.Red turns it around on Talbadar and he surely was in kill position and range but gets picked up again. A sweet switch on Novoz with a DF that keeps him in place and he goes down in a short but lethal squirt of burst. Match point coL.Red coming up.
Map 5 Nagrand 3-2 COMPLEXITY RED WINS!!!!
Snutz drops down a portal in the exact middle of the map as he goes aggressive against novoz who drops to 2k and barely lives and doesn’t go below 10k for awhile as three heals bring him back up. Not much coming from APW besides some CC onto venruki and against more pressure onto novoz as he drops down to 3k with shadowburn and barely lives yet again. Novoz gets completely trained even though diziet gets feared out into the open. Great burst by complexity red on a completely balanced map.
Make sure to head over to the forums or IRC to discuss the tournament!
Hey guys, I’ll be filling in for syeren with the usual liveblog for this tournament. The tournament itself seems little more barren(in the beginning) compared to EU Regionals due to the byes that both Complexity Black and TSG are getting. This should open up more time for Blizzard to stream almost all games on the stream so hopefully that happens. I wish they had switched to a round robin format due to the lack of two teams but i guess it wouldn’t be fair since EU regionals already happened with the bracket format. I’d like to get my personal bias out of the way before the games start, I hope nerdstompers and Chris Thormann qualify for Blizzcon. That being said, i have would have no qualms if a team completely outperforms them and knocks them out. The event itself is supposed to have started 7 minutes ago but i have no idea when they will start the stream. It will be most likely streamed here. Make sure to stay tuned once the tournament starts.
Map 1: Nagrand 1-0 Apwnage
Stream lagged out soon after start. Came back with pressure on talbadar and the hunter. Uck getting controlled split on Diziet and Talb. Some pressure on Seraph and Novoz. Talb going to 500 health and bouncing back up. They continue to pressure Seraph. Pressure onto uck and then switch to seraph and eventually goes down.
Map 2: BEM 1-1
Game 2 on Blade’s edge goes surprisingly quick due to a mistake by Novoz as he LOSed diziet who catches a cyclone which converts into a quick kill onto Novoz.
Map 3: Dalaran = Draw
Map 4: ROV 2-1 Team Chris Thormann
Looks like diziet is gonna start out in stealth instead of prehotting which i don’t think is a smart idea. Quick deathcoil by uck with starting pressure onto Novo and then control on chris with pressure on seraph. Dots on Chris followed by a clone. Talbadar going low but chris getting dmged harder barely lives with 3k health out in the open. Pressure onto diziet but some cc nullifies it. Novoz in a bad position but he doesn’t care as he waddles into LOS. More pressure on Talbadar while hes oom. Great pressure on chris and seraph. while talb disperses. Continued pressure on both diziet and Talbadar which forces some kiting onto Seraph as he gets targeted. Talbadar mainly focusing ucks pet. Talb low on mana again uses sfiend and almost dies with 400 hp but seraph getting low as well but force and loses. Ta;lb pressured again as he heals himself . Talb disperese out in the open as novoz gets pressured hard with minimal pressure on seraph. Talb GETS killed in a GREAT shadowfury stun chain with a chaos bolt.
Map 5: RoL 3-1 Team Chris Thormann
A quick kill on ucks pet followed by great pressure on Seraph. Pressure on Talb followed by a cyclone leaves him at half health but he gets picked back up. Novoz barely lives with 10k hp and gets out of LOS. Pressure onto Chris and he falls back to the starting player. Counter pressure on talb with pressure onto seraph too.Dispersion helps him get to 20k but continued pressure onto Novoz to stop his damage. Great damage on Talbadar but seraph really low on mana so not much gonna happen with that. Tons of pressure onto Uck’s pet but fear puts him in a really good positon. Seraph really low on mana getting continously pressure with no cds. Some pressure on to novoz takes him to 4k but makes it out due good cd usage by diziet. Weak pressure onto Seraph causes him to deterrance, and causes diziet to be out of position and catch some damage. Pressure onto Novoz takes him to 7k and dies to great pressure by thormann.
Map 1: RoL 1-0 Col.red
game starts with pressure onto snutz, his pet and velsus. Heavy control onto Nadagast while hoodrch gets kited and polyd. nadagast’s pet drops low and a quick switch onto velsus causes him to barkskin. Continued pressure onto snutz pet with some fears and silenceson to him. Switch to Nadagast pulls him low followed by an excellent howl on velsus. Hoodrch uses bladestorm defensively but nadagast gets really low and falls to continued pressure.
Map 2: nagrand 2-0 Col.red
Hood starts onto snutz and then gets into a CC chain followed by a quick shatter+conflag onto him forcing him to los. Hoodrch tries to get onto soda for abit but hoodrch gets coiled and then deep frozen but somehow hoodrch stays alive. He uses bladestorm to become unsnarable and get by a pillar. Col Red transitions into pressure on nada’s pet followed =by more pressure on hoodrch whose trying to get on sodah. Velsus gets an innervate off but gets caught in a clone i’m really surprised how he’s managing to keep his mana up. Some dmg onto Venruki seems semi effictive as he stops polying and just kites away. Deepfreeze onto Velsus with a conflag doesn’t seem very fruitful so they switch back onto hoodrch who drops really low but pops enraged regen and stays alive as velsus gets feared. They switch onto nada with no mana and follow up with a cyclone as his pets getting pressure really hard. Sodahs mana isn’t that well as Venruki gets constantly pressured and LOSes and gets off a full evo. Sodah completely oom with clearcast barely lasts till innervate as hoodrch gets pressure heavily while storming. Hoodrch goes onto snutz and his pet as nada gets polyd with a failed devour. Some pressure onto Velsus causes barkskin as he accidentally goes to the stealth seeing debuff. Hoodrch still bouncing up and down as he tries to get on Venruki and barely survives as he pops shield wall. He gets frozen and is forced to LOS more and gets cloned. Velsus oom and has to innervate but gets cloned for the full duration. This is followed by a fear as nada gets focused really hard and his pet dies and is forced to fel dom. Velsus pressured with a cs causes a barkskin but ven is out of mana so they both reset and drink up. Velsuz is still oom for the longest time due to snutz pet but snutz himself is dropping pretty low. Hood is barely able to stay alive as velsus gets cloned and has drink and Nada gets focused and dies.
Map 3: RoL 3-0 Col.Red
Nadagast being pressured heavily in the beginning who apparently is affliction which i dont think is the smartest idea. Some pressure onto Snutz is good but nada gets focused pretty hard with a df and has to port. Great pressure on venruki but no ms causes him to get picked back up as nada drops to 2k health and dies due to arcane explosion.
Map 1 Nagrand 1-0 Col.Black
Beastcleave pressure the druid pretty hard as the stream lags fllex goes down to 15k as we se uck playing a protret Pal. Constant pressure onto flexx forces him to LOS but he gets caugh in a bad positon with uck popping wings but not much comes out of that cd. 2nd BM from Twixz comes up as seruf gets pressure but is picked back up fine. Flex spikes up and down ridiculously fast as a bop is used on Chris. A switch on twixz is ridiculously effective but seraph dies in the process.
Map 2 RoV 2-0 Col.Black
Looks like Complexity BLack has switched African Turtle Cleave with flex as prot which doesn’t sound too good for uck. Uck pops wings right off the but puts off almost no pressure. Col Black starts on Seruf gets him to about 60% who then switch to switch. Seruff is getting pressurred really hard even at full range and really has very few options as kiting a prot war with toez seems impossible and he finally dies even though he constantly kited.
Map 3 BEM 3-0 Col.Black
Uck seems to have switched back to lock while Col black is still ATC. Uck goes out in the middle of the bridge and they switch onto twixz. Ucking playing really well by the ramp but he gets stuck below with no way out and no port for a bit. They switch onto chris and has to use barkskin with pressure still on uck and dies.
Map 1 Dalaran Arena 1-0 Col red
looks like TSG is gonna run shadowcleave with Veev on warlock. They ran it on 2009 TR to get to 1st place. Col starts on valrath which forces an early ibf but tsg pressures ven while he almost kills veevs pet. Zilea bubbles pretty quick and Veevs pet dies as Zilea almost dies as he goes down to 5k. Continued pressure on Snutz and ven but not too effective. Zilea moves away from the boxes for about three seconds and then gets snared and immediately burst down.
Map 2 RoL 1-1
TSG is going back to well, TSG. Ven starts with heavy control onto zilea and val but TSG seems to be cleaving Sodah REALLY hard and he dies. Zilea uses his bubble offensively to give TSG the edge they needed to win which combined with Sodah’s positional mistake, cost Complexity the game.
Map 3 BEM 2-1 Col.Red
Fast shadowfury on to veev stopping him from charging. The target for TSG seems to be the same as Valrath pops CDs really really quick. They switch to venruki as sodah kites away with dots still ticking on sodah. Sodah tanks a Bladestorm with a barkskin and Valrath gets tunneled hard and dies to constant pressure and a perfect CC chain on Zilea.
Map 4 BEM 3-1
TSG start off the game with the same basic purpose, cleave the druid. Bladestorm almost completely wasted, Sodah is getting used to just tanking it. Still a ton of pressure on sodah while TSG is pressuring both Snutz and Venruki. Ven drops to 11k as well as Sodah. Col.red tunnel into valrath for a bit and follow up with a nice CC chain combined with a final bash which causes valrath to eventually die to combined burst.
Map 1 Nagrand 1-0 Arenapwnage
First game on Nagrand arena and we see a ridiculous drain comp coming out of TSG – Double Disc, Lock. As expected TSG tries to drain the Shaman which Diziet tries to counter with an Innervate and he will continue using it on CD for the rest of the game. Despite playing a double healer, Valrath and Zilea (the two disc priests) are dropping so low that they have to blow Painsup just before Novoz is dry. The game is almost reset and Novoz gets drinks of and bounces back to 10k which get immidiately burned off like fat on Wing king Kintt’s body. Diziet doesnÄt have problems staying at full mana for the majority of the game as he doesnÄt really need to heal. Talbadar and Novoz are dry at one point but TSG is not able to make something happen. Valrath again drops really low but can get back up with the help of Zilea. TSG tries to burn the Druid for a change and can actually drop him to 50% but no further while Novoz gets decent mana back. Zilea is dropping low and has to use painsub the second time in the game and only shortly after he drops down again but nothing two healers can’t handle. At this point TSG seems unable to win the game at all, be it through killing someone or damage numbers. Eventually Zilea dies due to big damage and a nice lock out chain on the healers such as a silence onto Zilea himself and he eventually finally dies. Please no more.
Map 2 BEM 2-0 Arenapwnage
Looks like TSG has switched to an even more ridiculous comp with double lock disck featuring Veev as destro and Valrath as affliction. Both locks used coils early and then follow with dots and mana drains. Apwnage is trying to set up on Zilea with some dots followed with a fear but aren’t really successful. Novoz becomes oom really fast as Talbadar tries to take down valrath’s pet. Zilea seem’s get caught out of position again and eventually falls to combined burst by Arenapwnage.
Map 3 Dalaran 3-0 Arenapwnage
The name of the game is double Lock Paladin and not the comp that made TSG famous for the possibly final match. Talbadar also switched to Human for this one as he didn’t need the dwarf racial for the DK diseases. For the first time, TSG looks like they could be able to apply some pressure as Talbadar drops low with Diziet caught in a CC but it wasn’t even dangerous enough to force the Shadowpriest to disperse. As Zilea uses HoS on Valrath who’s sitting at 80% at some point, drops dangerously low himself which forces him to bubble. This is instantly dispelled by an MD that he apparently wasn’t expecting and the former Word champions bite the dust. Gandalf level wizards beat Neville Longbottom cleave.
The world champion is OUT. That was the last game of the day and with this we leave you for tonight. You may continue discussing the Regionals in our forums.
]]>Obviously I’m not an expert when it comes to teams strength from North America as I haven’t played against them for apparent reasons and we shouldn’t forget that I’m also quite horrible at WoW. If you want to be informed by someone who should know as he is one of the participants, check out Zilea’s blog here.
Who said that (The Super Gosus) – Veev, Valrath, Zilea – TSG, ATC, many possible comps
Nerdstompers - Hoodrych, Nadagast, Velsus – WLD
Sodah Snutz Venruki (coL.Red) – Sodah, Snutz, Venruki – MLD, MLP
Penance, Treants, Windfury – Talbadar, Diziet, Novoz – SpSD
team chris THORMANN – Uckington, Seeruf, Chris – Lock, Hunter, Druid
French toast mafia (coL.Black) – Toez, Flexx, Twixz – Beastcleave, ATC, many possible comps
Nevertheless, I once again tried to weave the future and this is what I came up with:
Feel free to share your predictions in the comment section even though predicting anything else than Yiska’s foretelling would be foolish at this point.
While looking at the brackets, my gut was screaming Snutz’ famous battle cry “CHIKA!” and I couldn’t agree more (not that I could ever say no to my beloved belly). Complexity.Red was sweeping the competition at MLG Orlando despite the Koreans when playing their main lineup and I expect them to be impress like SK.US did last year, coming strong from the winner bracket. Looking at the data they were the strongest team on TR with a positive winning score against every team out of the top 8 they faced. With Sodah being able to switch to Priest in possible matches against Talbadar’s triple heal, the only real threat that should be the diversity of Valrath an Veev.
Evidently Valrath can play Rogue, Mage & Death Knight extremely well and was learning to play a Hunter, Warlock and Discipline Priest month ago while Veev can play Warrior, Warlock and Elemental Shaman. Add a top Paladin and possibly some Druid to the mix and it could potentially mean danger even though I’m not even sure what MLD is countered by. Possibly the SK.Sansibar line up if played extremely well? If TSG has been practicing different comps other than their brand-comp Warrior/Deathknight/Paladin and ATC, they sure have been hiding it pretty well. While Zilea has been putting on his game face in his latest blogs, I don’t believe that this team would go into an event with a loss by default against any of their opponents even more since they only have to prepare for 5 others.
Talbadar’s team could potentially be the joker team that screws with the entire competition as they, after all, are the closest team to being an LSD. No offense to Talbadar as he seems to be a great person, but having him in the top 2 together with coL.Red would mean that we would have five Wizard Cleaves at Blizzcon, with Loaded.Black being the only Tiger to stop those Siegfried & Roy squads.
As much as I hope that the other three teams pull some crazy stuff and surprise us all as those teams have the icons of their respective class/spec such as Uckington, Hoodrych and Toez on their roster, I think they will have a really tough time at the event. Uckington in the underdog role, Hoodrych playing the skillcomp (we know some guys who are in this position don’t we?) and Toez being limited to Hunter only line ups are probably not diverse enough to pull ahead even though I would really like them to. It wouldn’t surprise me if Velsus played a different class this weekend too.
From a European perspective, the best thing that could happen would probably be coL.Black & team Chris Thormann as we saw LSDs handling ATCs quite easily and I don’t see Uckington’s team winning against LSD either even though I might be wrong as some people say that they might have a shot against Arenapwnage. The worst thing that could happen would probably be Hoodrych & coL.Red even though I’d love to see Inflame facehis old comp he failed to qualify with. Enigmz said that WLD can indeed be quite scary for an LSD and the Druid version surely is better against them then SK.Sansibar’s lineup is.
Everywhere we hear this doom and gloom preaching from the basements around the planet and one might be tricked into believing. It is especially harmful when top players, some of which are sponsored, are biting the hand that feeds them. I’m the first to admit that WoW isn’t perfect, but for it to be a competitive game it really doesn’t have to be. Above all and before any imbalances, bugs or lack of support should be considered, there is the community. Cheesy, isn’t it? Nonetheless it’s true. Let’s take a look at this picture:
Excuse my terrible German Youtube, I told itself to cry itself to sleep in a corner. “Aufrufe” stands for hits, so how many times this video has been viewed. This screenshot is directly taken from the Intel Extreme Masters channel, which are basically the recordings of what ESL TV broadcasted and is one of the biggest gaming events in the world. In the middle we got the CS finals, on the right we have the Quake. WoW on the left side has more hits than both other videos combined and I’m sure the viewer numbers aren’t much different. Granted, watching a Youtube video isn’t the way most fans consume their ingame footage for Quake and CS but I’d assume a majority watched the VoDs on the ESL TV website for WoW too. Being in the hall at Cebit and seeing which game gathered the most viewers supports my point. The reason the IEM won’t have WoW this year is because of their season model and it would mean that the Global finals had to be played in Cataclysm while the Continentals would be how it is now. This had been very unsatisfying last year at Cebit with patch 3.0 being the fresh out of the oven platform to compete. This is the big reason among other smalls things such as the departure of 2GD.
But I get it, with the release of the first Blizzard game after WoW, the focus has to be shifting. Or does it? Even in terms of profit which apparently is the only thing that Blizzard cares for if you listen to the loudest in the community, SC2 won’t be anywhere near WoW. The truth is, we all love Blizzard games and many of us have been playing more than one Blizzard franchise in the past. It is natural that we play with the new toy (Hydra also kicks ass in SC2 for instance, he won a collector’s edition at Regionals) and I have no doubt that SC2 will be the game in the e-sports scene for quite some time. Live changing information incoming: Things do coexist. The replay value for SC2 – The time that most of the people will spend playing the game won’t be anywhere near what WoW has and if you ever wondered, that’s what we pay our 12 Euro for. When it comes to games it is O.K to be polygamous as well. I know I will personally enjoy watching both the SC2 & the WoW games at MLG Raleigh.
Now I understand if you are still skeptical but because of being at Regionals, I’m a little ahead of what’s to come and what Blizzard general stance is on the matter. If I was doubting Blizzard’s intentions before, my hope was renewed that weekend. They not only developed a new client which allows the admins to queue teams in set arenas, but they are also opening new doors for the community to help in ways that had not been possible before and hopefully we will see the fruits of this in the near future.
“Don’t let anyone think that we don’t care about WoW as an e-sports”
A quote I picked up at regionals and even if you didn’t hear it you still felt that they actually meant it while being at the tournament. They treated every player from every game equally, they flew the best shoutcasters available in the scene over from America to a European event, WoW had just as much air time as other games, heck they even had the balls to interview Inflame even though they knew what was coming just to not disappoint the community.
There are more signs that could be interpreted as WoW’s decline such as the “death” of the most popular WoW e-sports blog World of Ming, or the cut in budget for WoW at MLG. Unfortunately those who have a voice in the community mostly think those are symptoms even though they are just not enjoying the game anymore for whatever reason. Even for us mortals, it’s easier to say “This game sucks” than “I suck at this game” even more if you are supported by someone supposedly at the top of the food chain. CS was in the exact same position in 2006 – the community was calling the death of 1.6 and the introduction of the supposedly noob version that is CS:S. Now look where it is now, still one of the most successful e-sports and most competitive games of all time in which the metagame is not stale and constantly we see other teams dominating a season while new comers such as Na’Vi are able to impress. A big reason for this is also that the scene which was formerly infamous for its community has matured, not that the game has changed.
Cataclysm albeit not being centered around WoW Arena, will still gather some lost souls who are searching to watch or participate in some competition. There is no reason to believe that rated BGs will hurt WoW Arena tournament stream numbers. WoW might be hilariously imbalanced (in your opinion anyway), but tournaments are coming with or without nay sayers.
That’s why the most constructive way should be to suggest ways to improve the game. It’s by far the best time to do so as well. Blizzard slowly but surely is moving from creation to fixing-mode. It’s no surprise that those who try to support the game are usually the ones winning the big titles as they seem to have the best attitude and one of the winner’s of the Intel Extreme Masters Woundman is showing how it should be done.
In his blog he lists some really annoying bugs and also suggests some changes to make the game more competitive while supporting his points with small clips of him showcasing the issue where it’s needed. He went ahead and posted it on the official forums where some people instantly flamed him for the way he presented it in one thread. With his ever lasting patience, he still didn’t give up and reposted his suggestions even though blue posters probably had been reading it before, just to ensure he’s abiding the forum guide-lines and people would have less to complain but more to discuss. If we had more responsible and professional players like him, you wouldn’t be reading this and this is why we can’t have nice things…
…O.K. maybe one:
Yiska out.
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