Here’s a quick recap for you of 2015 and our recent end of year Championship.
Statistics from 2015:
190 Completed Partnered tournaments! (22% growth on 2014)
498 players earned OSC points! (39% growth on 2014)
$49835 (AUD) was won by players!
Our most active player was PsiArc, who played in 119 tournaments!
59 players all won at least 1 tournament
ByuN had the most tournament wins at 25
36 $ Bounties claimed for beating favoured opponents
There were 17 OSC 1v1 Challenge Show Matches
All of this was achieved in what was a transitional year for SC2 (many events trialling LOTV Beta, making then ineligible for league points).
EnDerr, DemiLove, PiLiPiLi, and TRUE all finished in the top 32 of our World Rankings at the seasons end and qualified for our $5000 finals – which was played over the weekend just past.
PiLiPiLi came 4th, EnDerr 5th, DemiLove 7th, and TRUE 9th! Fantastic effort!
Thank you for your support in 2015!
Attached are some screen captures from the Season 3 Championship.
Additionally you can see PSISTORM logo’s on our new home site, all threads, as well as a dedicated Sponsors info page.
If there are any new graphics, videos, news, events, etc you’d like promoted, please let us know.
With new partnerships, new sponsors, a new website, new rewards, continued investment, and an exciting game in Legacy of the Void, we are confident that we will have a $100,000+ League in 2016!!
The OSC is a Oceanic, South East Asian, North American and Chinese regional series that takes place yearly where the top 32 players are invited to a grand final with a prize pool of $3500. Now in its third season, the OSC concluded this year with several PSISTORM players placing highly among the top 32.
PiLiPiLi came 4th, EnDerr 5th, DemiLove 7th, and TRUE 9th. Congratulations to our players! We hope to see them compete again in OSC 2016.
This is a $100 prize pool weekly online tournament, open to all North American players (but only NA players). Every 4th weekly tournament will be open to ALL players globally. First place every week will receive $75, with $25 going to second place. There will also be OSC points awarded for the top 16 finishers.
The very first of these cups will be held:
Saturday, Jan 23 3:00pm EST (GMT-05:00)
Registration Link
If this goes well, I may hold larger cups less often as well (monthly? quarterly? tbd).
Streams:
[image loading] filthyrake (English)
Casters:
DrennoC
and
Draven
are confirmed as casters, with other casters still TBD – if you’re interested in casting any of these, hit me up! I would expect a rotation of casters each week, but everything will be streamed on the above channel.
Observers and Admins:
If you want to volunteer to act as an observer or an admin, please let me know.
Where:
The chat channel is FilthyNACup.
All games must be played on the NA Ladder.
Define NA Players:
Citizens of North American countries. No VISA or Green Card holders. In cases of question/debate, this will be left to the discretion of the admins. In future cups this may be expanded to allow Permanent Residents. Every 4th event will be open to all players, globally. The first such Open event will be Feb 13th, 2016.
Format:
The format is bo3 for every round until finals.
The finals are a Bo5.
Single Elimination.
Maps:
Map pool is current blizzard ladder maps:
Dusk Towers
Orbital Shipyard
Prion Terraces
Ulrena
Central Protocol
Lerilak Crest
Ruins of Seras
Vetoes
Vetoes work as below:
If your name is higher on the bracket you decide if you are A or B.
Player A Veto
Player B Veto
Player A Veto
Player B Veto
Player A picks map 1
Player B picks map 2
Last map remaining is map 3.
Vetoes for finals work the same, but with only 1 veto each instead of 2.
Results:
Players are expected to report their own match results on challonge. Players also must submit replays of their matches via challonge.
Prizing:
1st: $75 and 120 OSC points
2nd: $25 and 60 OSC points
3rd + 4th: 30 OSC points each
5-8th: 10 OSC points each
9-16th: 5 OSC points each
OSC:
I am super excited to announce that we’re partnering up with OSC to offer OSC points and other awesome incentives for participating in the Filthy NA Cup Weekly!
NA + L.Am players gain 2.5 bonus Participation points, which counts towards $1200 Participation Competition.
ANZ + SEA players gain 2.5 bonus Participation points, which counts towards $1000 Participation Competition.
After the code A qualifiers, we had an interview with Bang Tae Soo, aka TRUE.
Enjoy!
A summary of the questions and answers are below:
Freeedom) How did you start playing Starcraft? TRUE) When I was young, my computer could only play starcraft and everyone at the PC Bang was playing Brood War. So, that’s how I started.
Freeedom) When did you decide you would go professional? TRUE) I decided to go pro when I was in high school, in 2008. I remember watching professional starcraft on TV and I wanted to be on that stage too.
Freeedom) Why did you pick zerg? TRUE) When I first started playing starcraft, I wasnt too good so I was usually banking up lots of minerals.. [Editor’s note: at this point the interview got interrupted by the appearance of Sacsri]
Freeedom) How is your Terran and Protoss? TRUE) My Terran is really bad.
Freeedom) Really Bad? TRUE) Yeah, I think it is around Platinum or Diamond level.
Freeedom) No way, I dont believe that. And how about your Protoss? TRUE) My Protoss is better. I’ve gotten to the top 8 masters with the Toss. Because Protoss OP.
Freeedom) Who would you consider your rival? TRUE) Hm, I considered Fantasy as my rival. But since he essentially Retired, so.. Yeah.
Freeedom) Name some foreign players outside your team that you feel are great players? TRUE) Uh, I feel like Snute is a great player. He is a nice guy, and he has a very strong late game.
Freeedom) You were tied 3rd/4th in season 2 GSL in 2014 with Maru. How did you feel about that performance? TRUE) I felt sad, because I believed that I would win, and this was a great opportunity.
Freeedom) Why did you leave KR and go to EU to compete? TRUE) I saw JaeDong, JaeDong enjoy himself as he competed in Foreign tournaments. He just looked happy. I wanted to experience that for myself, so that’s why I went to Europe.
Freeedom) Your results after that in GSL wasn’t as good in 2015, failing to make code S. Why do you think you regressed? TRUE) After I moved into the EU Teamhouse, I suffered insomnia and wasnt able to sleep that much, I think I wasnt able to keep a good condition. So thats why I think my results declined.
Freeedom) What are the challenges of playing outside of Korea while with Dead Pixels? TRUE) There werent any particular challenges when I was playing abroad. I was just enjoying myself.
Freeedom) Did you feel like players improve better being in a team house like you were with SK Telecom T1 & Jin Air? TRUE) Yeah, I think it is better.
Freeedom) Why did you decide to do WCS in America? TRUE) When I came to america for Red Bull Battlegrounds, I had a chance to eat hamburger, and I saw that it was cheaper and bigger and tastier than european hamburgers. I also wanted to practice English in the US, which is different from the English that is spoken in Europe.
Freeedom) Tell us about joining a relatively unknown team in NA, PSISTORM Gaming? TRUE) I wanted to learn English, so I looked for an American team without any Koreans. Then I found PSISTORM.
Freeedom) What do you think so far of the team? owners, players, practice? TRUE) I havent been able to meet with the owner but I could tell that the owner is very passionate about starcraft and he has been very kind to me. As for my teammates, I only really known Enderr, NoRegret, and Arium. I know Enderr is a hard working player. Since I see him play a lot of games and he is always asking to practice with me. Noregret was the first player I got along with from the team. Sometimes when I streamed NoRegret would come to my chat and always interact with me, so that was nice.
Freeedom) You are going to compete in GSL and SSL while waiting for your VISA. What if you do real well in either (or both) and go deep, and then your VISA arrives, will you postpone your trip to the US to stay and compete in GSL/SSL as far as you can? TRUE) Even if I do really well in GSL or SSL. Interpreter) He wants to go right away.
Freeedom) What are you goals in WCS? TRUE) I want to win WCS of course.
Freeedom) Who are the players you watch out for in North America (outside of your team)? TRUE) I think Neeb is definitely a strong player to watch out for.
Freeedom) What do you like to do for fun outside of playing SC2? TRUE) Besides StarCraft, I like playing Soccer. My favorite team is Barcelona and my favorite player is Cristiano Ronaldo.
Freeedom) What is the last book you read that is not for school? TRUE) I dont remember.
Freeedom) What is the last international movie you saw? TRUE) I last remember watching Taken. Maybe Taken 1.
Freeedom) What would you like to do after your Starcraft career and military service? TRUE) I dont know exactly what I’d like to do.
Freeedom) Do you have siblings, and what do your parents think about you being a pro gamer? going overseas? TRUE) I have an older brother. And my parents hate that I am a pro gamer, and worry because pro gamer career is short. They think positively about my going overseas because they think the experience is good.
Freeedom) Do you have a girlfriend? TRUE) I dont have a girlfriend.
Freeedom) What last comments would you like to say? TRUE) Hello. Please look forward to me as I compete in WCS. Thank you.
We are proud to partner up with The Cave gaming center to bring out a monthly LAN tournament featuring Starcraft!
The first one will be on January 31st, Sunday starting at 11 and ends late afternoon.
There will be prizes for top placing casual players in Masters/Diamond, Platinum/Gold, and Silver/Bronze divisions: $50 each! Also if we have enough interest, Archon mode tournament.
Also we’ll be awarding cases of REDBULL drinks as additional prizes!
Depending on success of the event, we will do another one next month.
The total prize pool regardless is $1000.
The Cave http://cave-gaming.com/
10621 Braddock Rd, Ste B, Fairfax, Virginia 22032
We will be posting up short videos, pics and write up by North American GM Zerg Jake “NoRegreT” Umpleby, on his adventures with the team, competitions, travel and general life as a full time professional Starcraft 2 gamer.
Many of the pics/videos were taken by KJ “Freeedom” but eventually Jake himself will be doing the videos and uploads, especially on trips by himself.
Excuse the layout, we may reorganize later.
Packing in Canada.
video coming soon when Jake uploads them.
September 30th, welcome to the USA and dinner with the team
To finish off the year, EnDerr had one of his best showings in an international tournament to date. In iesF he started the first 2 days of competition with an undefeated 8-0, where he went 2-0 over Zanster, and 2-0 over NightEnd.
He lost in the semi-finals to eventual winner Serral, and set him up against Has for the 3rd place match. That matchup was probably the best series of the tournament. Artosis said “this was the match that was talked about during the tournament, where both players are really aggressive. I can’t wait.” They didn’t fail to deliver as the series went the full 3 games with EnDerr winning 2-1
Pavel “PiLiPiLi” Pilipenko, a Protoss player from Kazakhstan who lives in California, signs with PSISTORM Gaming and will compete in WCS 2016. We last saw him qualify for WCS with wins over Semper and Scarlett in NA Qualifiers.
“I am very excited to join team PSISTORM. I have been looking for a stable team for a while now and I think i found one 😛 I will be practicing with my new team mates to perform well in WCS and other tournaments! Looking forward to my progress with the team!”, said PiLiPiLi.
The team has been looking for more Protosses to join the roster, to join Arium and MygraiN. “With Legacy of the Void just releasing, it is imperative that the team have players to cover the 3 races to prepare each other for competition with practices and team leagues”, said Freeedom.
While he is focused on practice, he will return to some occasional streaming for his fans while playing for the team.
With the Legacy of the Void expansion being 5 days away and the WCS Finals starting this weekend, there is a lot of hype within the StarCraft 2 community at the moment. With all that hype, PSISTORM Gaming came in with a clutch move and threw a last minute Last Hurrah Heart of the Swarm tournament.
The tournament had a prize pool of $500 and some big named players such as TRUE, Solar and Patience from Korea, Masa, puCk, NoRegreT and JonSnow from North America, 4 Europeans like Zanster, GungfuBanda, Tefel & Namshar from EU, and 2 from SEA Seither & Law. The tournament also felt like a small friendly invitational, and worked to its advantage which helped pull in a decent viewer count on the PSISTORM Gaming stream with about 500 viewers. The stream had Pughy and PSISTORM’s very own Freeedom casting some fun and friendly matches with inside jokes. The tournament concluded with True taking first place, puCK in second, and Zanster & in at third & fourth.
For a tournament that was organized at the last minute, it was very well done and fun to watch. Hopefully, we get to see more of these, PSISTORM Gaming Friendly Invitationals once Legacy of the Void comes out. For now, we prepare ourselves for this weekend’s exciting WCS Finals and the release of LotV. Congratulations to the winners. Thanks to all participants and casters. Special thanks to everyone who came and supported PSISTORM’s Last Hurrah Heart of the Swarm Tournament.
Feeling down that there’s no SC2 action the week before Blizzcon Finals? No LOTV beta? Well, PSISTORM Gaming would like to host it’s first tournament for Heart of the Swarm!
Since there is not more LOTV until it officially releases, and we have a week of HOTS, this is our chance for one last HOTS tournament.
