Day 4 of IEM Katowice – Mixed emotions

Articles, News, Tournaments

On the second day of the group stage, all of our members were set to play. TRUE and PiLiPiLi played in Group C, the so-called easiest group, while the towel-terran Gumiho played in Group D, the group of Death.

In the wee hours of the morning in North America, PiLiPiLi played against his fellow teammate TRUE. Knowing him well, he was able to fend off his aggressive style and won the series 2-1. With the teamkill out of the way, he played Zest, quickly getting dispatched 0-2. In perhaps the most heartbreaking series of the group stage, he found himself in a tie-breaking situation being 1-1 against HomeStoryCup champion Patience. Trying to end the game quickly with an immortal sentry based push, he ended up losing his entire army, yet was able to force his opponent to lose workers in the defense. Sensing no way to win, he left the game, despite his economic advantage. This decision was considered highly controversial and not the best move, you can judge for yourself in this video. Despite a clean 2-0 versus the Polish Zerg Nerchio, PiLi couldn’t recreate his success against Serral losing 0-2. With those games done, he finished 2-3 in series and just short of advancing, finishing in 5th place.

TRUE’s was even more heartbreaking. The WCS Circuit Champion started off by losing to PiLi, but brought it back with a solid 2-0 against another Protoss Patience. Next up against Nerchio, it started out with a 1-0 lead on Belshir, but he couldn’t eek out a win on the next two maps, losing the series 1-2. Everything went downhill after that series. Playing versus Serral, he looked outclassed losing 0-2 followed by a quick 0-2 against the one and only Zest. This meant he was eliminated from advancing going 1-4 in series and 4-8 in maps.

With Group C concluded, neither of our players were able to advance.
Group C standings

 

 

 

 

 

Right after, Gumiho played in the famous Group of D of Death. The Towel Terran first started off with a close series versus the BlizzCon finalist Dark. Despite winning game 1 and a very close game 2, the surprising bio style didn’t work against the Zerg in game, losing him the series 1-2. Not wanting to just roll over and die, Gumiho seemed to peak in performance, quickly beating the dutch Terran Uthermal 2-0, dispatching the german Protoss Showtime in a close 2-1-1, forcing a draw on the second map and defeating the IEM gyeonggi champion Innovation 2-1. His final obstacle in the group was the polish Protoss MaNa. He ended up losing the first game on Abyssal Reef, on the following map, Gumiho redoubled his efforts and knocked over his opponent, which he did once again on the next map. Having won all but one of his matches, GumiGod stood at the top of his group with a 9-5 map record.

gumiho group d

 

 

 

 

 

Not only does first place in the group of death grant a newfound respect, but it also seeds him directly into the quarterfinals of the bracket stage. With the draw completed, he will have to defeat the winner of Zest and TY to advance further into the bracket.
 

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We look forward to see what he can do!

3 of our players are in the Group Stage of IEM Katowice !

News, Tournaments

Cheer on our players at Intel Extreme Masters World Championship in Katowice, Poland!  We are tied with TeamLiquid with the most players getting into the round of 24, with PiLiPiLi, Gumiho and TRUE.

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On the 27th, PiLiPiLi was able to qualify through his bracket despite many European powerhouses like Elazer, SortOf and Dayshi. He was able to get to the winners brackets qualifying series against Uthermal, but lost decisively 0-2. In the loser’s bracket, he was able to make it back to the qualifying series by beating Dayshi 2-1. His last obstacle was the BlizzCon semi-finalist Elazer. Thanks to some well planned carriers and a perfectly executed immortal sentry all-in, he won 2-0, securing his spot and pulling the upset.

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As for Gumiho, on the 28th he played out his games in Bracket 3 heavily stacked with tough Korean opponents such as Bunny, jjakji, Impact and Losira. His first and only challenge came in the qualifying match vs. jjakji. He pulled off the win on Proxima Station in long macro game with plenty of back and forth battles. In the second game on Newkirk Precinct TE, Gumiho lost slowly, but surely to his opponents aggression, finally losing to a massive doomdrop on his production, causing him to GG out. In the last game, Gumiho started out with a successful reaper rush which caused his Terran opponent to do an all or nothing counter attack which he held steadily until the victory screen popped up.

group c pili and true

group D gumiho

 

 

 

 

 

At the conclusion of the games, the groups for the Ro24 were released. As luck would have it, we will have to suffer a team-kill situation in Group C ; PiLiPiLi and TRUE will be forced to play each other. On the upside, since it is a round robin format, the top 3 players of each group will advance, so both our players have the chance to make it to the bracket stage. In group D, Gumiho will have to play his heart out being in a group with Innovation, Dark and Showtime. It is no surprise this group is the group of Death.

Group C and D will both be played out on the 3rd of March. Our players have already played very well and we look forward to their performance on that day. Don’t forget to tune in!

CS:GO Roster

CS Go, News

csgoheader

Our CSGO roster to be fielded next season will be the following:

Nick “Nylee” Lee as team captain and rifle

Drew”v1king” Darbyas rifle

Mike “strize” Mellon as rifle

Rapheal “takibo” Medeiros as rifle and AWPer

Adnan “RsN” Nasir as rifle and in-game leader

We look forward to what they can do!

PSISTORM Gaming welcomes Gumiho

News

Just in, details to be updated but we have signed Gumiho to play. He will be flying over to IEM Katowice to compete for PSISTORM Gaming.

He has some successful results, notably in GSL:

gumiho_results
source: Liquipedia

Including one of the most memorable was while competing in DreamHack Tours Finals vs none other than PartinG:

“Having the “Towel Terran” on PSISTORM is an amazing opportunity for the team, and I am very excited to watch him represent us in Korea”, says FilthyRake, co-owner of PSISTORM.

PengWin who worked with the Korean player in getting signed said, “GuMiho has been a mainstay in the Korean scene since early Wings of Liberty, and has proved time and again that he is a top player. On top of that, after living with him for two months in the MVP house in 2015, I’ve also come to know him as a very kind individual with a strong commitment to the teams of which he’s been a part. I’m very excited to be working with GuMiho in 2017, and I am optimistic that he will continue to show himself as one of the absolute best”.

Follow him on twitter here.

TRUE Qualifies to IEM Katowice 2017

News, Tournaments

Earlier today, the final qualifier for IEM Season XI – World Championship took place. Among many other players, our very own TRUE fought for a chance for a seed in the group stage.

His first opponent was none other that Zest. Sadly TRUE lost in a quick 0-2 series, but his hope was not dead; he still could qualify by going through the losers bracket.

And that he did. 2-0 vs Dear, another 2-0 vs Stats, a hard fought 2-1 vs Scarlett, followed by a 2-0 vs Losira brought him to the best of 5 qualifying match vs none other than Zest, the one who nearly killed the dream.

This time around, TRUE played his heart out. His opponent was able to eek out a victory in game 1 thanks to DT’s and archons, yet TRUE stayed strong and fought back. Mass mutas won him game 2, mass roach/ravager got him game 3.

On potentially the final map Newkirk Precinct, a cheeky hatch block into evolution chamber block bought him enough time to macro up and build up a sizable force of roach/ravager/hydra to counter Zest’s early Phoenix harass. With his bases secure and a 4th almost completed, TRUE marched towards Zest’s third and slowly but surely chipped it away until it stood no more. With no pylons for overcharge and his economy potentially in shambles, Zest was forced into the final battle where TRUE won decisively.

Final score: 3-1 TRUE.

TRUE IEM Katowice Qualifying run
Source of image

With this result, TRUE will participate in the Main event in Poland at the Spodek Arena the 27th February- 5th of March.

We look forward to his results and make to sure to cheer for him!

Support TRUE on Twitter
Watch his stream here

Follow Frostbite on twitter

Academy player NYK Retirement Interview

News

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A couple of days after NYK announced on twitter he is going to retire, Frostbite was able to talk to him and flesh out his thoughts in better detail.

Don’t forget to follow NYK on twitter as well as Frostbite

Frostbite: You tweeted out your situation, explaining you are now going to retire. Can you explain in more detail that post?

NYK: Ok, so basically if you read the post, you would know my basic situation, as I only have maybe 6 months before I go into the military. I decided to put all my focus on that by training and also focusing on school. Before I decided to retire, I thought that in the time I had left, I could do something in Starcraft, but I didn’t have the opportunity to do so, my PC was breaking down, and my family didn’t support the idea, so I decided to focus on one of my life goals that i always wanted to accomplish.

F: The goal being military right?

N: yes, I want to make it a career, so I am going to work my way to special forces.

F: Now back to StarCraft, what would be your most memorable moment?

N: I would have to say, Dreamhack MTL, even if I didn’t participate in the main tournament, it was so exciting to be at a major LAN and having my teammate TRUE win it was a bonus in itself. I also got to hang out with my good friends while there and that was a blast.

F: Now lets get a little dark, what is your worst memory from StarCraft?

N: umm, I would say my first time playing Torcraft, when I had to play MaSa, I think it was 3 years ago, and I was just a high masters player. It was on Frost and we were both playing standard, he came across the map with 6 hellions, and killed all but 9 drones, at that point I just started laughing, that was probably the most heart wrenching of all.

F: Do you regret retiring after all this time spent on StarCraft?

N: well, I don’t, to be honest if I had a better environment at home to play the game and have the time to as well, I believe I could’ve done something with StarCraft, but the military is something I wanted to do even before I got into StarCraft. Its a life goal that I always wanted to work towards, so I am happy to give StarCraft up to the military. At the same time, I am not fully leaving SC2, me and my friends at GoodGameBarTO are working to promote the SC2 scene, and I will be helping them until I leave for the military, so I am happy U can still have an effect or the StarCraft scene in Toronto.

F: On that note, what is the biggest lesson you’ve learned from your time in the scene?

N: I would think that the biggest lesson learned from my time in the scene would be to never give up, I know it sounds somewhat cliché, but when you win a game of StarCraft after coming back from an unforgivable position, the feeling you get is amazing, and I can relate this to my life goals. Just as you should never give up in a game of SC2 you should never give up on your dreams.

F: Any games or series that come out as memorable from all your time in StarCraft?

N: As for one of my games that i play, it would have to be my somewhat rivalry with David’SteadFast’Loose as we are both zerg players from Toronto, we played each other in tons of tournaments and LAN’s, and I would also say that TRUE’s run at Dreamhack will be the most memorable for me, because I was there live and i got to celebrate with him at the same time.

F: now let’s wrap it up. Anything you to say to end?

N: Just a couple things, First of all big shoutout to my team PSISTORM for keeping up with me and for the good times with the guys playing in the team leagues. second i will still be playing and stream sc2 only on Saturdays from GoodGameBarTO and still represent PSISTORM there, last of all i would like to thank all the people throughout my career, most of them know who they are, but going from a low bronzey and a community clan where i made great friends to IvD where I started to develop my play on to PSISTORM was great and I won’t for get this part of my life ever, if I have the time I will try to make events but I can’t guarantee that, to wrap it up, even though you won’t see me in tournaments, you still have another couple months of me at www.twitch.tv/goodgamebarto . Thanks all and I hope the StarCraft scene only progresses in the future. <3 <3 :)