2010 European Warcraft Invitational

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On August 7 and 8 the 2010 European Warcraft Invitational will take place in Cologne, Germany. The top European Warcraft III and World of Warcraft arena players will be fighting for honour and glory on stage, and we hope to see you there.

To get a taste of what’s waiting for you, just head over to our 2010 European Warcraft Invitational site. There you will be able to uncover the identity of the participants, watch video coverage from last year’s Regional Finals, find information about the venue and learn more about our dedicated gaming area activities. Can’t make it to the event? Fret not, for you will still be able to follow the games through our free live stream.

So what are you waiting for? Head on over and check it out!

For the viewing pleasure of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty fans everywhere we’ve arranged a showmatch between two of the world’s best players at the 2010 European Warcraft Invitational in Cologne, Germany.

In one corner we’ll have German Terran/Zerg player Dario “LiquidTLO” Wünsch – always a big crowd favourite thanks to his very creative and entertaining play style. He has proved to be one of the strongest players so far in StarCraft II, either winning or placing highly in almost all tournaments in which he has played. In the other corner we’ll see Swedish Zerg player Fredrik “MaDFroG” Johansson. While many newer players might not recognise him, he has been a true powerhouse since 2001 when he took 3rd place in the World Cyber Games StarCraft tournament with his Swedish team. He then followed this achievement with numerous Warcraft III tournament wins, including at the 2004 Blizzard Worldwide Invitational. He is back in action for StarCraft II, riding high in the Diamond league at the time of writing.

Both players will face off in two best-of-three series which will take place live on stage at noon on August 7 and 8, during the 2010 European Warcraft Invitational. If you can’t make it to the event be sure to tune in to the free high-quality stream on the official event website. Don’t forget to visit the site today to learn more about the 2010 European Warcraft Invitational!

Official Event Website: http://www.wow-europe.com/rf10/

So while a series of Warcraft III matches took place, we kicked off today’s action by focusing our live stream on the fast and furious StarCraft II action between Dario “LiquidTLO” Wünsch and Fredrik "MaDFroG" Johansson. Even with large groups of Roaches at the ready, MadFroG was unable to consistently repel the advances of LiquidTLO’s Hellion-heavy terran assault and so LiquidTLO won today’s showmatch 2 to 1.

Playing terran, LiquidTLO won the first and third game by a combination of fast teching and some critical early rushes against MaDFroG’s zerg swarm. After choosing to build a refinery before the barracks he went on to concentrate his efforts on the rapid creation of a heck of a lot of highly versatile Hellions. This was most evident in the third game with the creation of a total of three factories, each fixed on pumping out those speedy, manoeuvrable Hellions and ultimately leading towards the timely deployment of mighty Thors to hit the nails into MaDFroG's coffin.

Pushed into a defensive position early in game one, MaDFroG had very little room to move and the game was resolved rather swiftly to LiquidTLO’s favour. Even with the assistance of a sneaky expansion right up near to LiquidTLO’s base in game three, MaDFroG was again unable to assert himself against the might of the terran assault. However, in game two it was evident MaDFroG was back in the driving seat by focusing more on the macro view: the bigger picture. Similar to LiquidTLO's predilection for Hellions, MaDFroG seemed to like using Roaches and to a lesser extent Hydralisks. However it was his fast expansion that allowed him to assume map control, and a risky but successful play for the richer resources in the centre of the map that helped assure him of victory in game two.

Congratulations to LiquidTLO for the overall victory but our thanks to both him and MaDFroG for an excellent showmatch to start off the action here in Cologne today. Tomorrow we’ll be returning the live stream’s focus back to SCII briefly again with the final showmatch between these two legendary players at around midday CEST – so be sure to be ready to watch! But if you’re keen to continue following the frantic WoW and Warcraft III action that’s currently streaming from our site, then keep your eyes on today’s live stream as there’s still more to come!

WoW Arena, Round 1

Our first round of WoW matches is now over; the results include some early victories by the following teams: LightZ CaMerA ActioN, SK Sansibar, *aAa* and Virtus Pro. The line up still features one of the previously favoured combinations -- Rogue, Mage, Priest -- in the form of Team Dignitas. But this year we’re seeing a very clear trend towards the current particularly favoured combination of Warlock, Shaman & Druid, which started gaining attention seemingly after an update of gear available for competitive Arena play.

French & Italian team team *aAa* did well in employing this newly popular class combination to win against their fellow Alliance team Stay Small, and another set of matches where this class combination proved effective were some noticeably long games between LightZ CaMerA ActioN (Warlock, Shaman, Druid) and x6tence (Paladin, Death Knight, Druid). Alliance-playing LightZ CaMerA ActioN managed to take advantage of crucial windows for bursting down the members of the opposing Horde-aligned x6tence.

Though Warlock, Shaman, Druid also proved very powerful in ensuring Virtus Pro’s victory over Team Dignitas, it didn’t seem like it would at first. During their first round, Team Dignitas made a successful assault on warlock Shurko from Virtus Pro: focusing on him, killing his pet and then ensuring he was stunned, silenced and essentially unable to re-summon his pet to assist him. This was crucial for their victory in the first round, but unfortunately for them Virtus Pro bounced back and defeated them in the following three rounds.

Using a currently favoured combination skilfully is obviously an effective strategy, but the use of skill is still the real winner, as SK Sansibar are apparently proving with their deployment of Warrior, Warlock & Paladin. Horde playing team hehe xo aimed at bringing down either SK’s warlock Draintrain or their warrior Barb, while keeping paladin-healer Fraki crowd-controlled. But SK kicked back the assault effectively: Draintrain using his Fel Hunter pet to devour the controls whilst trying to ensure the opposing healer, Demun, was controlled himself. SK warrior Barb performed a couple of well timed intervenes to help ensure Fraki was still able to get off some crucial heals. The end result was victory for SK and their choice of Warrior, Warlock & Paladin.

Already as I type the second round of WoW matches has come to a close, so if you were unable to see them on the live stream, be sure to check back here later to see a recap of those matches too.

To say the last few hours have been intense is most definitely an understatement. There's been a lot of matches, some relatively short and straight-forward but also quite a few that have seemingly gone on for ages, most especially certain games between LightZ CaMerA ActioN and x6stence! It seemed some of those matches hit the 20 minute timer, in fact; but the fight was eventually won 3 to 2 by LightZ CaMerA ActioN, who'll be facing up against SK Sansibar tomorrow.

It's not the first time these two teams have faced each other, though, and perhaps looking back at some of the previous games between SK and L.C.A. from earlier today might give us a clue as to what's to come tomorrow. Kai "Noonia" Gade from SK was kind enough to take the time to sit with me to discuss some of the matches SK Sansibar played earlier today, including some between them and L.C.A but also about those against *aAa*.

A few hours ago, *aAa* rained a lot of pain down on SK -- particularly by focusing on SK warlock Draintrain's pet and causing him to summon and re-summon again some more. In fact at one point, while Fel Domination was on cooldown and Draintrain was debuffed with Curse of Tongues, Draintrain impressively managed to raise his pet from the dead seemingly just in the nick of time. But unfortunately for SK, Inflame from SK took this opportunity to Drain Soul Barb and Draintrain was simply unable to counterspell in time. In fact, a lot of pressure was put on both Barb and Freki over the course of these matches and even though Draintrain was able to attempt to avenge his own death by casting Drain Soul back on Inflame and score an SK win, ultimately *aAa* went on to win against SK 3 to 1.

But of course what we're all thinking of is LightZ CaMerA ActioN against SK Sansibar, which happened earlier today but will happen again tomorrow too. In the games earlier today, SK did very well against L.C.A., eventually winning against them 3 to 2. Across the games, impressive team work and communication ensured they were able to meet the challenge that L.C.A. were more than able to present them with. These matches were generally quite intense, and there were some quite close calls on both teams at times. Fraki generally did well here, especially coming to the aid of Barb in times of crisis -- particularly at one point with Hand of Sacrifice. And both Barb and Draintrain had to put up a strong fight to ensure their team's eventual success. But the win was certainly hard to achieve and L.C.A. were particularly good at putting the pressure on SK. During the second game, while Draintrain's pet was down, L.C.A. took the chance to burn Draintrain to the ground and that was not the only time SK lost in these mancic but memorable matches.

So is the victor tomorrow now obvious or does the intensity of the matches between L.C.A. and SK obscure the ability to predict ahead of time? Well, we'll leave that for you to decide but if you're keen, be sure to tune in tomorrow for more fast-paced WoW Arena action.

That's it for Day 1, folks -- see you tomorrow for Day 2!

StarCraft II Showmatch #2
Sunday 8th of August 2010

So with the today’s final epic showmatch between LiquidTLO and the legendary MaDFroG over, it’s time to take a look back: both at their match today but also at the performance of both players over the weekend. Of course, the matches were a showcase -- a sample of the high end competitive play that’s possible with StarCraft II -- but still it was evident both players were working hard to secure a victory. They had no interest in playing for the camera: it seemed that all they were wanting to do was play hard and fast and continue to display their obvious skill and prowess.

Today we saw a lot of evidence of that: both players were really putting in the effort to keep the pressure up high. MaDFroG seemed to be shying away from the sly expansions of yesterday, and usually managed to expand rapidly across the map. He didn’t seem quite as interested in the Roach swarming today, either – or perhaps he ensured he was more able today to focus on more effective strategies instead. But just as he did yesterday, he seemed extremely adept at setting up his economy and ensuring the flow of resources -- though at times it seemed he was stockpiling and not quite as able to put them fully to good use.

TLO was also not quite as keen on the rapid and massive creation of Hellions today, but yet he did continue to build Hellions and mech units in general and he used them very effectively to harass and poke at MaDFroG bases and expansions. At times he effectively managed to use most especially Hellions to bait MaDFroG into turning towards some early base defence and thus disruption of MaDFroG’s economy – though MaDFroG always seemed to ensure his economy bounced back.

During match 2 on the Lost Temple, though TLO was lacking a few turrets and a bit vulnerable to Mutalisks for instance, he did well concentrating on ensuring a Medivac was able and ready to lift a Thor over to annihilate MaDFroG’s natural expansion – a useful and effective strategy for this map. But when TLO seemed ready with a siege assault, MaDFroG quickly decimated them through the use of a healthy group of Infestors and Zerglings.

Definitely some intense and entertaining matches today, and it’s great to have this early peek at the kind of competitive play we’ll be seeing with StarCraft II over the next few years. Though of course congratulations are in order for TLO for his victory both today and yesterday, we’re very grateful to both him and MaDFroG for taking the time out for these riveting showmatches here at the 2010 European Warcraft Invitational.

Though the Warcraft III and World of Warcraft action continues here in Cologne, Germany, that’s it for our StarCraft II action this weekend. Thanks for tuning in and checking out the live stream!

We've got some FLVs videos from today's SCII showmatch that we probably won't be putting on on the website anywhere. If you'd like to download them, below are the links. We're looking into providing FLVs from yesterday's showmatches too, and we'll update this thread if we can:

1st map:
http://media.wow-europe.com/stream/r...-1map-day2.zip
2nd map:
http://media.wow-europe.com/stream/r...-2map-day2.zip
3rd map:
http://media.wow-europe.com/stream/r...-3map-day2.zip
4th map:
http://media.wow-europe.com/stream/r...-4map-day2.zip
5th map:
http://media.wow-europe.com/stream/r...-5map-day2.zip

All 5 maps:
http://media.wow-europe.com/stream/r...howmatches.zip

Day 2 General Recap
Sunday 8th of August 2010

All the action here in Cologne has come to a close, but now there’s a chance to sit back and take a look at some of the exceptional play that’s been on display here today at the 2010 European Warcraft Invitational.

As well as excellent performances in Warcraft III from Happy and Thorzain, but especially from Grubby in particular -- who went on to be the European winner for Warcraft III today -- we also saw some fantastic WoW Arena matches throughout the day.

Though not on the live stream, the matches between SK Sansibar and LightZ CaMerA ActioN were at times pretty intense. Though generally SK kept up their usual plan of DoTing up one of the DPS and then controlling the opposing healer, they were ultimately unable to withstand the might of L.C.A who won against SK, 3 to 1. But perhaps things could have been a bit different if one of the L.C.A. team members, who SK were close to annihilating, hadn’t taken an unexpected flight through the air during the match in the Ring of Valor. LightZ CaMerA ActioN then went on to take on *aAa* and though at times things looked promising, *aAa* kept up the pressure and managed to repeatedly burn L.C.A. down, with an end result of 3 to 1 again -- which of course meant an overall European victory for *aAa* for World of Warcraft.

Congratulations to all the winners and of course to all those who fell before them on the way. Good luck to those going on to further matches that await them later on this month at the Global Finals at BlizzCon on August 22nd and 23rd in Anaheim, California.

StarCraft II match between TLO and a Blizzard employee, are you for real?

Yes it really happened! Just after the award ceremony, you may have been just as surprised as I to see that we had an unexpected StarCraft II showmatch on the live stream between TLO and Blizzard Europe Community team member Krzysztof. If you saw the matches, you’d see that Krzysztof was not just a simple bug for TLO to squash. In fact, with both players choosing to play random races, he only played the bug-like zerg once. But even if he wasn’t super-easy to annihilate, TLO did still go on to win victory against Krzysztof three times in a row. Can anyone beat TLO? Only time and the Global Finals can tell!

Remember if you want to check out all the results for both Warcraft III and World of Warcraft or see any of the match videos and other content we’ve uploaded, be sure to check out our main page for the event here: http://www.wow-europe.com/rf10/

We’d like to take the chance to thank everyone for tuning in for the live stream – we hope you enjoyed what you saw. That’s it for us here at the 2010 European Warcraft Invitational, but keep your eyes on our websites and the dedicated event page over the next few days for more updates from the event, including a few more match videos from all three of our games involved during the event this weekend. Thanks and goodnight!

Citazione:

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Two of the world’s very best StarCraft II players, Dario “LiquidTLO” Wünsch and Fredrik “MaDFroG” Johansson faced each other live on stage in a StarCraft II showmatch during the 2010 European Warcraft Invitational that took place this weekend in Cologne, Germany. Before the showdown, we had a chat with LiquidTLO.

Blizzard: During the StarCraft II Beta, you participated in many tournaments and amazed the audience with your imaginative tactics. You are known as one of the most creative players around. How do you come up with your strategies?
TLO: Well, I do think about the game a lot in general. Sometimes, before I go to sleep, I think about StarCraft II and try to figure out where I went wrong in my games. But I don't specifically think about new strategies when I am not playing. I usually just have these spontaneous impulses where I can't resist trying something new. Some of the standard build orders I play nowadays were made up in one or two tournaments. So actually, I’m doing it the wrong way! I’m coming up with something new when it is important and then I work on perfecting them afterwards! :P

Blizzard: In the early beta you chose mainly “Random.” Later, it appeared that you preferred terran over zerg and both over protoss. Why did you decide to focus on those races instead of continuing the random option?
TLO: It’s not that I don't like playing protoss, but I had to face the fact that they are, by far, my worst race. I had terrible tournament statistics playing protoss so I decided to quit them for my own sake. Terran always was my favorite race; even back in Brood War. They have so many options and different styles you can play successfully. As for the zerg, you just have to love these cute zerglings running around the map wreaking havoc in three different spots at once. Not to mention the Infestors, which are probably my favorite unit in the game right after the ghost, at least.

Blizzard: What do you like most about StarCraft II so far, and what do you expect for the future?
TLO: Oh, there are so many things about StarCraft II I can't really pick one thing. It is so good! It has this perfect balance between macro, micro, multitasking and decision making. Hence many different styles can emerge. There is not one correct way to play it but tons of different paths that lead to victory.
I hope that StarCraft II will change eSports itself and I think it already has started doing so. We have huge tournaments, a gigantic community, regular streams and shows. Furthermore, even TV channels are starting to show interest in broadcasting StarCraft. So I expect a very bright future for gaming and StarCraft II.

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http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/424209

A proposito del Warcraft Invitational volevo segnalare questo replay della finale di TFT tra Grubby e Happy... micro spaventosa soprattutto per il non morto, riguardare questo game mi ha fatto venire un bel po' di nostalgia...

http://www.gosugamers.net/warcraft/replays/35275