eSports Report 03/12/2012

We’re starting a new segment in today’s Inside Gaming called the ~eSports Report~! We even made a neat graphic for it and everything. Does that look nice or what?

This will be all about StarCraft II, because it’s the manliest game for real men. Brandon can add stuff later if he wants to talk about fighting games but nobody cares.

WHAT ALREADY HAPPENED:

There were some cool StarCrafty events last week. Here’s a list of events to catch up if you want to get on top of things.

INTEL EXTREME MASTERS – 

The IEM tournament in Hanover, Germany concluded on March 10th with SK_MC taking first place. With the earnings from that win, MC is now the winningest player in StarCraft II, breaking the $200K barrier. Second place went to EG Puma, while SlayerS MMA took third. I’ll be buggered if I can find VODs of the event, but you can get all the replays from this website right here.

IRON SQUID GROUP A –

The showdown I’ve been waiting for — SlayerS Boxer vs. MarineKingPrime — totally happened and it was hecka awesome. The VODs for the bracket that aired yesterday don’t appear to be up yet, but I’ll add them here once they hit YouTube. In the meantime, check out the above video to get a taste for the production value and casting flavor of the Iron Squid tournament. Despite the confusing ass name, I’ve been really enjoying those streams so far.

TOTALBISCUIT’S MONOBATTLES TOURNAMENT –

TotalBiscuit’s mad idea of a pro monobattle tournament arrived this weekend and holy shit is it hilarious. If you’re unfamiliar, a monobattle is a game of StarCraft in which you’re assigned one unit and can only build that one unit. The tournament is four players from Dignitas, Quantic, Team Liquid, and Evil Geniuses talking a ton of shit and building thirty medivacs.

The ENTIRE VOD is embedded above, but you can check the highlights page on Twitch if you want to see the individual matchups.

COMING UP THIS WEEK:

GSL 2012 Season 2 Up / Down Matches –

Running all this week, the Up / Down matches for GSL 2012 Season 2 will decide who can break into Code S and who will get stuffed into Code A like a misbehaving kid locked in the basement. EG Huk has been seeded into the matches, making him the great white hope for anyone that wants to see a non-Korean in the GSL tournament.

Old timers Startale July and SlayerS Boxer are also in the Up / Down matches, and I’m hoping that both of them make it through. oGs_Inca, Bumblebee_Prime, and oGs_Fin are my personal picks for some good matches, even if they don’t make it through their groups.

Day[9] Red Bull LAN Orlando –

Not technically a tournament or competition, but it’s an event where you can see pros get together and practice. It’s a way to see where the metagame is headed, because you get to see pro players try out new ideas and experiment. I have no idea where this stream is going to live, but Twitch.tv is a good bet.

LoneStarClash –

This is the event I’m most looking forward to this week. Held in Austin, Texas, the LoneStarClash offers a prize pool of $10,000 and will even host a collegiate division with a prize pool of $1,500. This event will run March 17 – 18, and there’s no info out yet on where the stream will live.

Yeah that’s right, there’s a collegiate division. And you know what else? My alma mater is competing. WHOOSH MOTHERFUCKERS.

Aside from that, a lot of colorful characters that we haven’t seen in tournaments for a while will be present including Quantic.Destiny, EG.iNcontroL, vileHawk, and Grubby.