Reigning champion TRUE’s return to DreamHack Montreal

pics from DreamHack flicker account

A year ago, TRUE’s first WCS tournament was his only chance to get to BlizzCon. And the chance was slim, he had to win the whole thing. Previously he had not looked great in HomeStoryCup losing 0-3 to HeroMarine and just looked outclassed. His chances was so slim that he was ranked 13th in a TeamLiquid power ranking article leading up to the event. 13th for a Code S Korean competing in a WCS Circuit of mostly foreigners (the other 3 Koreans were Polt, Violet and Hydra) is a far cry from favorite.

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However at the actual tournament in Montreal, TRUE had a dominant run, 3-0 over Snute, Harstem, Welmu, and 3-1 revenge over HeroMarine. He was set to face either Polt or Neeb in the Finals, and in the interview he was asked which he’d rather face. He said Polt coz he wants to defeat a legend. And in that finals, he destroyed Polt 4-1 with some amazing new strategies then, like queen drops.

This year however it’s a much different scenario for TRUE. Despite 2 semi-finals, he comes in with no tournament wins. But he had good enough results overall that he has enough points to make BlizzCon if it ends today with almost a 600 point lead over Cham at 8th place. Perhaps a little gunshy from previous power rankings, TeamLiquid does not rank TRUE this time, but did say he is in great form.

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TRUE is joined by 9 other PSISTORM Gaming players, and the team is hoping for successful results again at Montreal.

article by Freeedom

PSISTORM At Dreamhack Montreal : Preview

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This weekend, the last stop of the 4 WCS stops takes place in Montreal. With 100 000USD and 11 000 WCS points on the line, it is the last chance to get points and clinch that BlizzCon seed.

With this being the last chance, all our players went all out and will congregate in mass to the event. We will have TEN players compete in the event who will be joined by a couple community members and staff.

Competing this weekend, we have : TRUE, JonSnow, jheffe, Silky, PiLiPiLi, Zanster, PengWin, UpATree, DisK & Poizon.

We will also have Magitek, Temp0, Team Owner KJ Freeedom & Writer & Photographer Frostbite.

This will be our largest gathering in a long time, we have nearly all our professional roster present and a few of our academy members present. So expect a massive amount of pictures and content on our twitter : @psistormgaming. A few days after the event we will also publish a vlog/documentary of the event giving you an inside look into what a tournament means to our players and staff!

We hope to see you there!

PSISTORM At GSL Season 3

In the past week or so, we had GuMiho play in GSL, Zanster play in 2017 WCS Montreal – Europe Open Qualifier.

In Korea, our GSL Season 2 Champion picked INnoVation and was placed in Group A with Solar and aLive. The first series started out well, with GuMiho beating INnoVation in a close TvT series. Highlights include GuMi stealing one of his opponents build, which seemed to work out pretty well. His next match was up against the Zerg player Solar. Despite being the favorite, GuMiho was unable to defeat the Splyce Zerg and fell in a quick 0-2. This sent him to the losers match where he had to face INnoVation once again. He lost the first map on Ascension to Aiur, despite a decent doom drop into his opponents base, he was unable to deal enough damage while also losing his tank count. After defending, INnoVation simply leap-frogged his tanks until GuMiho GG’d out. On the second map, Odyssey, GuMiho was able to create an early advantage with some cyclone harass, this continued until starport tech which gave him the opportunity to jump into his opponents base, disrupting his mining and dividing his attention, all the while he expanded and prepared the death push. INnoVation’s forces were spread too thin and he was unable to defend his natural from a flood of marines. 1-1. On the final map, Whirlwind, it started out all even, with little to no early game shenanigans. Going into standard tank-marine vs. tank-marine, INnoVation decided to produce more vikings and gain air control, with this advantage, he was able to find a better position for his own tanks and slowly picked off Gumiho’s. Losing slowly in tank count, he was unable to keep up in supply and slowly died off, forcing a GG and ending his Season 3 run.

PSISTORM At IEM Shanghai & Cheeseadelphia 5

We had another busy weekend with players competing on two different continents. We had GuMiho compete in IEM Shanghai while TRUE, PiLiPiLi, JonSnow and PengWin played at Cheeseadelphia 5.

At Shanghai, GuMiho was placed in Group B with iAsonu, Stats and Rogue. He first faced the Zerg Rogue, despite losing the first map on Odyssey, he was able to take the second map on Ascension to Aiur. Being only one map away to advance to the winners match, Rogue was somehow able to create some advantages and took the map and the series. Knocked down to the losers match, he faced the Chinese Zerg iAsonu, being on his opponents home turf, GuMiho was unable to break the zergs defenses and strategies and lost the series 0-2. Having flown from Germany straight to China, we do understand that GuMiho might not have been playing at his best, but this is still an upset and a disappointing result. We hope he will take these two or so weeks before GSL to rest up and come back in top shape. GGs!

Back in America, all 4 of our players playing at Cheese were able to make it to the Ro16 without any problems. Collectively, they lost 9 maps (PengWin contributing 6 of those losses) and won 31, with TRUE not dropping a single one. In the Ro16, we had the amazing luck of PiLiPiLi facing off against PengWin, while JonSnow played Cuddlebear and TRUE played omgabanana. JonSnow won 3-0 versus his Terran opponent, PiLi showed no mercy towards his manager and 3-0’d him and TRUE 3-0 his Protoss adversary. In the Quarterfinals, JonSnow defeated Bails 3-0, PiLiPiLi dispatched PandaBearMe 3-0 and TRUE took out Semper 3-1 in closer-than-they-looked games.

In Semi-finals, JonSnow faced off against the formidable MaSa, up until this point, he only dropped a single map against Suppy in the previous round. Despite great effort and some close moments, JonSnow was unable to overcome the Canadian-Korean Terran and lost the series 0-3. Meanwhile, TRUE and PiLiPiLi had to face off after cleaning up their sides of the brackets. PiLiPiLi started off strong taking the win on Odyssey, but then TRUE decided there was no time for fun and games and took the next three maps in quick succession, taking the series 3-1 and moving on to face MaSa in the finals.

In the Bo7 series, TRUE had a tough opponent ahead of him, to reach the finals, MaSa went 15W-1L in maps while TRUE only went 15W-2L. These two players were the obvious heavy hitters of the tournament and their series should be an interesting one. Well that’s not what happened. MaSa completely dominated TRUE and took the series 4-0. Somehow, someway, the Canadian-Korean Terran simply knew how to deal with TRUE in every single aspect, not a single timing or a all-in worked. Despite the shut-out score, the series was not as one-sided as one would think, TRUE did have moments where it seemed he could take a map, but MaSa always found a way to crawl back in it. With PSISTORM taking 2nd, 3rd and 4th at Cheeseadelphia 5, it was still a successful event for us, even without the win. GG’s!

We are glad our players enjoyed their weekend at Cheese, they even had a very welcoming AirBnB host

PSISTORM at HomeStoryCup XV and at Dreamhack Atlanta BYOC

Starting the 20th up until the 23rd, we had players compete in tournaments on two continents. We had Zanster and GuMiho play in Krefeld, Germany at HomeStoryCup XV, while PengWin, PiLiPiLi, TRUE, jheffe and Sugar played in Atlanta, USA at Dreamhack Atlanta BYOC.

In Germany, Zanster was placed in a group with Snute, HeRoMaRinE and Mythic. Unfortunately, he lost to HeRoMaRinE 0-3 in the first series, won 3-0 vs. Mythic and was finally 0-3’d by HeRoMaRinE once again, ending his tournament run. Meanwhile, GuMiho was placed in a group with Dns, Lambo and the last second replacement RotterdaM. He first played against Rotti and quickly went 3-0 against him. He then faced DnS and took the series in a convincing 3-0.

In the second group stage, GuMiho was placed in Group D with uThermal, PtitDrogo and TLO. First off against TLO, Gumi took the series in a clean 3-0. Next up against PtitDrogo, he seemed untouchable and went 3-0 once again. Moving on to the Playoffs, GuMiho faced off against Zest, this time, the Korean Protoss showed us Gods can bleed. Zest took the first game on Sequencer in some quick action. Seemingly angering him, our Korean Terran took the next two maps, Proxima Station and Abyssal reef with some proxies and some drops. Unfortunately, on the next two maps, Ascension to Aiur and Odyssey, Zest won them both, with some proxy stargates and some cheeky Protoss play.

With GuMiho out, all our players have been knocked out of HSC, it was a fun 4 days of Starcraft, not without its high jinks.

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On the other side of the pond, we had TRUE, PiLipiLi, jheffe, Sugar and PengWin compete in the Dreamhack Atlanta BYOC.

In the open bracket portion of the tournament, jheffe was able to claw through the loser’s rounds and qualified to the second day going 7-2 in matches losing only to Honeybear.

Sugar, on his end, went 7-5 through the losers’s and winner’s bracket, knocking out PengWin, but ultimately getting knocked out by jheffe. His last chance was the 8th seed match where he faced the Zerg Tambi. In a clean series, he took it 2-0 and advanced to the second day.

TRUE and PiLiPiLi qualified to the second day, having won the Road to Atlanta qualifiers put on by BasetradeTV with help from Dreamhack ad Blizzard. Sugar played MaSa who seemed unstoppable taking him out 2-0. jheffe had the unfortunate luck to play TRUE and was defeated 2-0. PiLiPiLi played SirRobin whom he defeated 2-0. In the semifinals, TRUE played PiLiPiLi, in a good series that seemed closer than it was, our Korean Zerg took out fellow teammate 2-0 and advanced to the finals. TRUE faced MaSa in a best-of-five series to take home 2 025 USD and all the bragging rights. Despite great effort, MaSa was too strong, taking the series 3-0, he won the tournament without losing a single map.

TRUE finished 2nd, PiLiPiLi 3rd-4th, Sugar and jheffe 5th-8th and PengWin 9th-16th. Overall, not bad results.

We even had co-owner JD visit and mingle with our players.

PSISTORM at Dreamhack Valencia – Day 3 : Resolution

On the third and final day of Dreamhack, we had our last remaining player; TRUE, face off against Elazer in a Bo5 series. This series would determine who would advance to the finals and have a shot at $25 000 USD and a seed in the BlizzCon finals.

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On the first map, Ascension to Aiur, Elazer went pool first with the intent to harass, while TRUE went hatch first. These build order choices made it impossible for TRUE to hang on to his natural expansion as he desperately tried to pump out lings. The one base ling attack from Elazer was too much and our Zerg was unable to defend it, costing him the game.

The second map, Defender’s Landing, was TRUE’s attempt to be cheeky, as he usually does. He went pool first in an aggressive attempt to create an early advantage. Unfortunately for his, Elazer went gas/pool and had enough lings to defend the initial harass. With the early stages of the game completed, the Polish Zerg was able to create an economical advantage and closed out the game with a superior army. 2-0 for Elazer, he was now in mach point.

On the third game, TRUE had to make something happen, and that he did. On Sequencer, TRUE was relentless with ling harass reminiscent of his series versus Serral. A few drones here, a couple roaches there, over time TRUE was able to gain the lead and had mutas out on the field, ready to harass. Elazer had other plans, he wanted to use a nydus worm to destroy TRUE from the inside of his own main base. With quick flying units, TRUE was able to sniff out the strategy and adequately prepared. The nydus play did not have the results Elazer wanted and was overun by lings and mutas, granting our Zerg the win. 1 win for TRUE, 2 wins for Elazer.

This fourth game was to be played out on Abyssal Reef. Both players actually went for a hatch first build order, TRUE went for the standard gas while Elazer opted for a gasless style. This gasless style was actually the beginning of a massive roach timing, although TRUE had a faster third and a better economy for the early stages of the games, he saw the timing too late and did not have enough time to muster up a proper defense. With roaches, ravagers and even some queens in the mix, Elazer took the fight and took the game.

3-1 for Elazer.

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With this, all our players have been knocked out of Valencia, it was a great tournament overall for the team.

* Strange finishes in the top 64.

* JonSnow finishes 17th-24th and takes home $1 000 USD.

* Zanster finishes 9th-16th, takes home $ 2 500 USD and 300 WCS Circuit Points.

* TRUE finishes 3rd-4th, takes home $6 500 USD and 900 WCS Circuit Points.

We can’t wait for the next event to see what our boys can do!