While we have been working together since December 2015, PSISTORM Gaming is proud to formally announce our partnership with The Cave Gaming Center.
The Cave provides a top notch venue for gamers with computers, mice, monitors and gaming chairs, along with a team of dedicated staff. It’s no wonder we’ve had a couple of highly successful PSISTORMCup events there and will be more in the future.
Down 0-2 in a best of 5, TRUE comes back winning the final 3 games against CJ Entus Terran player Bunny in the Code A match this morning.
TRUE stuck to his ling/bane style unlike many Zergs in KESPA even after the first 2 losses would’ve force others to re-evaluate the game plan.
In game 1 at Frozen Temple, his ling/baneling bust failed to do enough damage that the hellbat timing counter sealed his fate.
In game 2 at Dusk Towers, the 2 base spire was scouted by the hellions and he was forced to transition out to roaches against a superior economy of the Terran.
He turned things around in game 3 at Frost, a map returning to the ladder pool. Bunny mishandled his hellbat rush, not doing any drone damage, and was finished off by massive zerglings / banelings counter attack by TRUE.
In game 4, King Sejong was another resurrected map. Here it was again lings and banelings. A massive group was ready to go at the Terran natural, while he defended Bunny’s drop. Bunny was forced to go back but TRUE did enough damage that Bunny was forced to gg.
In game 5 at Lerilak Crest, the Nydus network was used as the aggressive tactic with zerglings and queens.. While it did not do enough damage the first time, the 2nd nydus with banelings evened things out and allowed TRUE to get his 3 base economy at a significantly higher lead over the Terran. A couple of overlords dropping banelings put his SCV count at 7, so Bunny could never really recover. After scanning 2 saturated bases, Bunny gg’d out and the comeback was complete.
Talking with Freeedom, TRUE simply said “so funny games today”.
In attendance was teammate NoRegreT and Scarlett supporting from the audience.
pictures are screenshots from the twitch.tv/gsl
Yep since the 1st one was a success, we are having PSISTORMCup 2 June 4th, Saturday at The Cave in Fairfax, VA. You can come early and warmup, and registration in person opens at 10am. Games will start at 11am.
Register online to save here!
A few improvements from the 1st one include:
1. DX Racing chair to 1st place prize in addition to our target of $1000 prize pool
2. More games casted with different streams (B,C etc TBD)
3. cheaper entry fee, instead of $30/40, it will be $20 online, $30 at the door.
4. DJ for music and emcee
5. catered with Pizza for all participants!
6. it’s on a Saturday this time!
7. More prizes/games for casual players, we are thinking of a Swiss format where each play minimum of 5 matches and best records move up into playoffs.
More info will be added as they are determined, and this page will be updated.
Here’s the writeup from the previous event, including videos/photos.
NoRegreT is competing with Scarlett in GSL Code A qualifiers. Here’s his latest video:
He had a good run, here’s the info on brackets and players.
Jarrod “Midnight” Robinson, from AUS has come up with an idea to have a team open to all.
PSISTORM Gaming’s COMMUNITY TEAM
Hi and welcome to PSISTORM’S community team.
This community team is not just for your higher league players but, lower leagues as well. It is all about being active for the team/clan as well as what you can get out of it from us. Having this community team will provide already talented players with the opportunity to practice and play in a competitive environment on a more frequent basis, amongst their teammates and have lower leagues be able to progress faster in their improvement from the help of their fellow clan mates.
Being part of this community team is a privilege as it is not like your ordinary community teams as it is a selection only basis, where players will be reviewed based on questions answered and after trial periods of being watched against other players.
All players in the community team will have opportunity to compete in all in-house events that are held by psistorm and tournaments hosted by many of the managers in psistorm as well. meanwhile we will have our own in house tournaments against one another in the community team and I as the manager will organise clan wars for the community team as well. those who are performing highly in the community team and are of a high master – gm level may have the opportunity of being picked up for the B team or may be asked to replace as an emergency.
Under the condition that you’re not asking to join those team’s managers of an A or B team from psistorm has to approach you. it will be required that you don’t miss many practices that are scheduled unless you’ve notified myself in advance that you can’t. we want to maintain a strong community team that can represent psistorm well and bring a strong community backing behind the team.
If interested contact me:
skype – Jarrodmichael1
https://twitter.com/psiMidnight
jarrod-68@hotmail.com
Jake “NoRegreT” Umpleby will be going to Korea next month to stay in the MVP team house. He will train, and compete for qualifying into GSL and SSL while immersing himself Korean culture.
“I’m looking forward to representing NA in the GSL!” says Jake with a smile.
Pictured above is NoRegreT in the interview during Kings Of The North this past weekend, with Allaryce and Troy Pavlek.
His blogling site will be updated with videos and weekly news.
Formerly a pro Starcraft player from Mineski & Imperium Pro Team, WaningMoon joins PSISTORM Gaming as EnDerr’s teammate for the 3rd time. But this time, he’s our 1st HearthStone player. He’s ranked 45th in the world according to GosuGamers.net, and once reached #1 ladder ranking in NA server in 2014.
He will be competing in next month’s HearthStone Major in Singapore, April 8-10.
Follow him on twitter at @psiWaningMoon.
WaningMoon – back in the SC2 pro days, with Jabito left, and EnDerr right.
Overview
The inaugural PSISTORM Cup took place on January 31st, 2016 at The Cave Gaming Center in Fairfax, Virginia. Players competed in a double elimination bracket for their chance to earn the title of PSISTORM Cup champion, and win some money from the $1,100 prize pool as well. After a long day of intense Starcraft II action, a champion was crowned.
The final results (prize money earned in parentheses):
1st – Ruff ($500)
2nd – CNProtoss ($300)
3rd – Illusion ($150)
While knowing these final results is great, let’s get to the real important stuff here. We’ll be delving into what else was going on at the tournament.
PSISTORM players represent!
Seeing as this was the PSISTORM Cup, a couple of PSISTORM players had to show up to represent their team! The following PSISTORM players participated in the tournament: CNProtoss, EndOfLine, MygraiN, Freeedom, and Sugar.
PSISTORM Gaming’s players, overall, gave a solid performance. In particular, EndOfLine took 4th place while CNProtoss took the runner up spot.
However, we do have to turn our attention to CNProtoss, who fought his way through the loser’s bracket to the finals by teamkilling Sugar, MygraiN, and then EndOfLine. In the process, he eliminated many of his fellow PSISTORM players from the tournament. What a bad team player.
Is that an illusion I’m seeing?
No, that’s not an illusion you’re seeing. It’s the actual Illusion. Chris Lee, more commonly known as Illusion, decided to grace the first PSISTORM Cup with his presence. Although it seemed like he spent the majority of the LAN playing League of Legends (unfortunately no photographic evidence is available to prove this, you’ll just have to take my word for it), Illusion still managed to win his matches utilizing his superior mechanics to outplay his opponents and cause several headaches in the process.
Illusion cruised past his opponents in the winner’s bracket until he met his match in Ruff, who banished him down to the loser’s bracket with a swift 2-0. After waiting in the loser’s final for what seemed like an eternity, Illusion was rewarded for his patience with a brutal 3-0 defeat from PSISTORM’s CNProtoss, who reminded everyone of why he is a force to be reckoned with.
Despite his inactivity as a SC2 player, Illusion demonstrated why he is still a member of ROOT Gaming by taking 3rd place and a grand total of $150. We’re looking forward to seeing Illusion at our next event, who’ll most likely want to come to collect his free paycheck.
Some non-locals
Although the majority of participants in the PSISTORM Cup came from the Maryland/DC/Virginia area, there were several out-of-state attendees. Here’s a shoutout to these special folk who traveled all the way here just to play in our event.
Luis “FatCatChef” Lopez and Jimmy “Crayon” Or both drove down together from New Jersey and Pennsylvania respectively. Crayon made a strong run in the winner’s bracket, until he fell victim to Ruff like countless others before him. FatCatChef, on the other hand, got his revenge on Freeedom in the loser’s bracket after Freeedom eliminated him from the loser’s bracket in Cheesadelphia 1 (http://challonge.com/n3rdststarcraft2). A Bo1 loser’s bracket can be brutal that way.
Clearly feeling the passion, Kwame “Tempo” Mensah made the trip down here all the way from Massachusetts. Tempo casted several games and was a great presence here at the LAN. We hope you come back for the next PSISTORM Cup!
We even had a visitor from way up in Quebec, Canada! Rain came down here to the PSISTORM Cup by truck, interestingly enough. Though he was unfortunately eliminated by zamzx, Rain did not go empty handed as he won an entire case of Red Bull.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlTNYCfBKHE at 5:15)
ZombieGrub? ZombieGrub.
Despite casting the GnomeJon Archon Finals earlier in the day, ZombieGrub managed to drag herself out here to The Cave in order to hang out with us! She has almost as much passion as Tasteless. ZombieGrub, along with Allaryce, casted the loser’s final match between CNProtoss and Illusion.
The VOD for the first game can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFNp-lPReXU
No ragrets? Not even a single letter?
One notable player missi
ng from the PSISTORM Cup was PSISTORM’s very own Jake “NoRegreT” Umpleby. As the favorite coming into this day, the self-proclaimed “Best NA Zerg”
NoRegreT was surely already planning how he’d spend his tournament winnings. However, with an unscouted timing attack from the U.S. government, NoRegreT conceded his Bo1 series against the government and was, consequently, denied entry into the country.
Although we missed having NoRegreT here, hopefully he will make an appearance at the next PSISTORM Cup. 
U.S. government: 1
NoRegreT: 0
Note: For those who don’t understand the title of this section, it refers to a certain scene from We’re the Millers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqSXHiVfRlY
The Grand Finals: CNProtoss vs Ruff
In the first ever PSISTORM Cup grand finals, we had exciting Bo5 between CNProtoss and Ruff. The games themselves lived up to the hype, with the grand finals going the full distance with all 5 games played. Miraculous comebacks. Crazy proxy locations. Semi-basetrade scenarios. This series had it all.
This wasn’t the first time that these two players have met, actually. They faced off in the finals of DC LAN 16 (http://challonge.com/DCLANXVISC2) where Ruff beat CNProtoss with a score of 4-2. Additionally, Ruff knocked CNProtoss down to the loser’s bracket earlier in the PSISTORM Cup.
At the end of the day, CNProtoss had this to say about Ruff: I don’t want to play him again.
Final score of the grand finals: Ruff (3-2) CNProtoss
The 1st game of the grand finals can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n1rVlrvXgw&index=44
There’s always time for Korean BBQ
As is tradition, we went out to eat Korean BBQ at Ilmee Korean restaurant in Annandale, VA after the conclusion of the PSISTORM Cup. Although the all-you-can eat BBQ is nice, what we really wanted was the free ice cream. The ice cream machine was broken.
Not-so-quick interview with Allaryce
Hi, wou
ld you like to introduce yourself to those who may not know who you are?
My name is Anny, or Allaryce on Starcraft. I play Zerg.
How did you start playing Starcraft II and where did you get all your passion from?
I started playing Starcraft in my senior year of high school because I was going out with a guy who played Starcraft a lot. This was in 2011 with Wings of Liberty. He was a Protoss player, and so I played Protoss as well. When I felt that Protoss no longer felt challenging, I asked him to show me another race, so he showed me Zerg. Something about Zerg clicked with me, so I just stuck with the race.
After we broke up, I stopped playing until half a year ago. My friends stopped playing Starcraft then, so they let me use their accounts. I finally got my own account in July 2015, and I got into gold league after playing casually for a month. Soon, I stopped playing in order to work on my diploma. Then in December 2015, I started laddering seriously and after two weeks, I got into platinum league.
I would have to say that my passion comes from inner fire. I’ve always been a competitive person, and Starcraft fits me perfectly. It suits my personality.
How did you hear about the PSISTORM Cup?
I heard about it from Jake (NoRegreT). He told me about divisional prizes for top bronze/silver, gold/plat, diamond/master league placements. This happened while I was still in gold league, so I didn’t think that I would do well among the gold/plat players. Fortunately, I got into platinum league soon afterwards, so my confidence got boosted.
How was your experience in your first LAN event?
In the first round of the tournament, I was lucky enough to get matched against another platinum league player. We had a close series, and since I did end up losing, I think that I could’ve done better. Overall, I enjoyed my experience and wasn’t as nervous as people said I would be.
What did you like? What did you dislike?
I liked the turnout and the coziness of the atmosphere at the venue. It was intimate. One of my goals was to meet a lot of Starcraft players, and I got to do that here. Also, I got to cast several games with ZombieGrub so that was a really fun experience too.
What I disliked was that there was some miscommunication in the beginning of the tournament. I wasn’t registered properly, so my name didn’t appear in the bracket. Fortunately, KJ helped me out with that by letting me to take his spot in the tournament, so huge thanks to KJ for that!
Will we see you here again at the PSISTORM Cup?
Definitely, if you keep on giving divisional prizes, that is. The prizes for bronze/silver, gold/plat, and diamond/masters really incentivized me to come out in the first place. A lot of the time, players are hesitant to come out to these tournaments because they feel like they’ll just get knocked out by a GM anyways. I also think the prizes themselves are reasonable.
Any final words?
First of all, I would like to thank KJ for hosting me while I was here in the area! I’d like to give a shoutout to Jake for picking me up under his zergy wing. I also want to thank everybody in the Potato group, they’ve been really great to talk to, and really great to me as well. I’d like to give a final shoutout to kawemango because why not.
You guys can find me on Twitch here: http://www.twitch.tv/allaryce_
Also, my Twitter can be found here: http://twitter.com/allaryce_sc2
What we can do better
After all was done, several of us PSISTORM members got together to discuss the LAN. What we liked about the event, what we could’ve improved, everything was discussed. Here are several of our own ideas:
What do you guys think? Give us any feedback that you might using the form below:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1yOzIJYMkBf3-ahHNJNlEhYtRn6JYVMYISMm3y2MEs8Y/viewform?c=0&w=1
We would greatly appreciate your feedback!
Final thanks
The Cave Gaming Center in Fairfax deserves a huge shoutout for providing a great venue for this event, and making everything possible in the first place.
You can follow them on their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/TheCaveFairfax/) or on their Twitter (https://twitter.com/thecave_gaming).
PSISTORM Gaming has also been a huge part in the success of this event. Follow them on Twitter (https://twitter.com/psistormgaming) and on Twitch (http://www.twitch.tv/psistormgaming/) for more Starcraft II action and news on the next PSISTORM Cup.
Shoutout to Red Bull for providing free energy drinks to our participants! Keeping players energized in a long LAN event is important, and Red Bull has done an excellent job with that.
Last but not least, here’s a shoutout to the following people who helped out during the LAN:
Please look forward to the next PSISTORM Cup which will be coming very soon!
Tournament Links
Liquipedia page: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/PSISTORM_Cup
Bracket link: http://challonge.com/PSIStormTheCaveSC2/
YouTube VOD playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuxOPc104Mmm0wMB7_6HJhdUkjxNz3MUH
Last Sunday in SC2ITL Team League we had a big match vs team onFire who played Hendralisk, Scarlett, Neeb & Patience.
We sent out EndOfLine, NoRegreT, PiLiPiLi and EnDerr as ace.
For those that missed it here’s the VOD:
VODs are out for #PSISTORMCup #1
Here’s a memorable one, with ZombieGrub and Allaryce casting ROOT Illusion vs CNProtoss