ECG Gaming Does Starcraft 2 Livestreamed
Kaiba has been streaming live gameplay for a couple years now and has recently moved from streaming World of Warcraft towards streaming Starcraft 2. He streams about 4 nights a week, typically as Terran, and does everything from 1v1, to 4v4, and FFAs.  He rolls with the ECG clan and loves to interact with the viewer community. http://www.justin.tv/kaiba12 He will be streaming tomorrow Oct 13th @ 5PM EST!
GomTV GSL News: First Preliminary Round Complete for Season 2
The first day of the gomtv gsl season 2 qualifiers are complete. Now we know the first 16 players that are going to be taking part in the broadcasted part of GomTV’s Starcraft 2 GSL Tournament. A couple of names, particularly IdrA, have made it in among the non-Koreans. However, at the same time, some more names didn’t quite make the cut into the Starcraft 2 Tournament. Among those that got knocked out this time around include GomTV’s english commentator Artosis (who did make the cut last year). In addition to him, a couple other names that were hopefuls coming in also got eliminated. Luffy and Moon, that latter of whom made the transistion from WC3 to SC2. Just a reminder that this is the first set of players to be qualified for the RO64 matches that will start on October 18th. There are still 3 more days of qualifiers before we’ll get our complete bracket going into the live broadcasts.
Starcrafting 16-Player Tournament on Sunday October 10th
This Sunday, we’ll be getting in some major Starcraft 2 Tournament action.  A 16-player Diamond level tournament is planned for this Sunday evening.  The spots will be filling up fast.  So, if you’re playing at the Diamond level and want to get
oGs Has Acquired Nada
He is a legend of Brood War and now he’s making the move to Starcraft 2 progaming official.  Nada has signed a contract with Korean team oGs.  As his first event as oGsNada, he’ll be taking part in GomTV GSL Season 2.  No doubt that this is huge for the GSL as Nada is now one of the biggest names now participating in the Starcraft 2 Tournament.  Unfortunately, one of the bigger storylines of the upcoming tournament has failed to develop as Boxer seems oddly absent from any GSL news.  Which means no Nada vs Boxer. Officially speaking, Nada is retired from the Brood War pro circuit.  At least thats the word from KeSPA.  Now, he is spending his time prepping for the GSL Prelims with his new teammates.  While not living in the oGs/TeamLiquid house, he will be spending a lot of time there practicing for his matches.  It seems the house is even more full of famous names to the worldwide Starcraft 2 Community.
Blizzard Project Director Hints At 2012 Release For Heart of the Swarm
There has been a lot of speculation about when the date in question might occur.  Heart of the Swarm, the second part of the Starcraft 2 Trilogy, still has no real confirmation on anything resembling a release window, as per Blizzard’s ‘It’ll be released when its done’ strategy for release dates.  Normally, Blizzard employees are very careful when speaking about release projections or plan that involve a release window.  However, one Blizzard rep let a juicy tidbit slip out. When speaking that GDC Online out in Austin, Texas, Battle.net Project Director Greg Canessa spoke about the future plans of the all-encompassing service.  When responding to question, he hinted at the current release plans for Hear of the Swarm stating “a main area of focus we’re going to be seeing on the Starcraft 2 side over the next 18 months between now and Heart of the Swarm.”
ESL News: Starcraft 2 Tournament Live at New York ComicCon
Lots of ProGaming News today after a bit of a post-GSL lull, but we’re getting back into full swing this month.  If you guys are looking for some quick Starcraft 2 Tournament action right now, there is one ready and waiting.  The Intel Extreme Masters event for the American Championship is going on right now.  The tournament consists of 8 players that have already survived a stage event and will be playing over the next couple of hours. The event itself is being streamed live.  If you’re interested in the tournament, since its a uncommon chance to see some HuK Progaming play, you can check it out right now.  ESL is providing a free live stream for anyone that wants to watch it live.  As a bonus, its co-commentated by day9, himself.  Enjoy the stream.
MLG News: Dallas Passes For Starcraft 2 Go On Sale Today
In the off chance that you don’t find yourself in the DC area next weekend, you still have a chance to get in on some pro-level Starcraft 2 play next month.  The passes for the MLG Dallas event went on sale today for participants in the Starcraft 2 Tournament.  The passes themselves run $60 USD and admit a single player to participate in the events at the Dallas competition. If you happen to be in the Dallas area that weekend you can get in on the action as a spectator.  There are plenty of events planned just for spectators as well as the chance to check out all the gaming live.  So, if you happen to end up in Texas November 5th through 7th, be sure to check out this event if you can.
GomTV GSL News: Starcraft 2 Tournament Season 2 Preliminaries Begin Tomorrow
Over the course of September, we had a look at what the best of the world can bring to Starcraft 2.  Epic games, awesome comebacks, and incredible dominations were all the for us all to enjoy.  From the preliminaries to the grand finals, millions around the world tuned into the biggest Starcraft 2 Tournament to be held.  Well, beginning tomorrow it gets even bigger with the beginning of GomTV GSL Season 2. The participant list has become increasing more epic and competitive.  Old-school Starcraft 1 champions are transitioning into Starcraft 2 to have a chance at the huge grand prize.  We’ll get to see fan favorites from Season 1 coming back, including IdrA, TheLittleOne, HopeTorture, and the grand champion himself, Fruit Dealer.  In addition, we’ll see many names from Starcraft’s past glories including, Nada, July, Moon, and old-school pro legend Boxer.
Blizzard Developer Blog Takes A Look At Balancing
When it comes to competitive gaming on any level, it seems that there are always imbalances in one way or another.  Well, Blizzard Lead Developer Dustin Browder is still concerned about how Starcraft 2 Zerg players are faring in the Ladder.  This should come as a sigh of relief to many Zerg players that felt the changes brought in Starcraft 2 Patch 1.1 didn’t do quite enough to bring them up to the level of the Terran and Protoss. Browder’s concern deals with the very early rushes that still plague the Zerg.  In particular, the Reaper Rush still shows a great deal of ability of knocking out a Zerg player before they have a shot at getting setup.  Well, it looks like in the next patch we may see a severe nerfing for Reaper rushes.
Starcraft 2 Zerg Strategy – Baneling Guide
Everyone loves explosions.  This is especially true when its your opponents that is exploding.  While Starcraft 2 Zerg lack the certain overkill flair of a Tactical Nuke, they have their own impressive explosions in the form of Zerg Banelings.  These little mutated Zerglings ram head first into their target and in the blink of an eye, their target is suddenly missing a huge amount of health.  Granted, the Baneling doesn’t survive the fun, but its still a ton of fun to watch. Papp has given us several awesome guides on utilizing Zerg units to their full potential.  His Baneling guide is no different.  He goes through and explains how to best utilize a Baneling group and goes over the advanced tactics involved in using them with other units.  Everything from a Mass Baneling steam-roller, to the Overlord Bomber, its all here.  Enjoy this awesome guide from Papp.  Also remember to check out our awesome Guide Forums for even more great Starcraft 2 Strategies.
Blizzard Makes Some Changes to the 1v1 Map Pool
In the world of competitive gaming, the term “different, but equal” may never be true.  This is also true in the case of the maps that Blizzard has created for the 1v1 map pool.  Some maps favor one race’s style while another map favors another race.  Sometimes the differences are even bigger than others.  This, of course, prompts Blizzard to make changes in the hopes of creating a more balanced playing field for any matchup it sets up for the Starcraft 2 ladders. Some of the changes they’re implementing are replacing two maps in the Starcraft 2 1v1 ladder map pool.  Desert Oasis which notoriously favored Zerg play.  As well as Kulas Ravine which did the complete opposite for Zerg players.  These two maps are being replaced by Jungle Basin and Shakuras Plateau.  This will hopefully smooth out some of the challenges that appear simply because of map selection.
Starcraft Protoss Build Strategy – Korean 4-Gate All-In
If you keep tabs on the international Starcraft 2 Tournaments such as the GSL Tournament, then you know that different styles of gameplay emerge in different sort of ways in different regions.  On top of that, Korea is known as the holy ground of Starcraft gameplay.  Most of the top progamers in the world are Korea and their media is in love with them.  Tournaments, TV shows, even TV channels are devoted to Starcraft.  Well, that’s what makes their strategies so interesting. This version of the more standard 4-gate rush is even more risky and requires even more commitment.  However, it does still maintain a certain level of recoverability in that you aren’t forced to surrender in a failed attempt as with many other all-in strategies.  However, it is still a risky play, but let’s take a look at the build.
Blizzard Bans 5000 Starcraft 2 Accounts for Cheating
When it comes to Account Administration, Blizzard does things in bulk.  This is certainly reflected when they announced that 5000 Starcraft 2 accounts were banned for using cheats and hacks.  The announcement came down about three weeks after they sent out a warning concerning the use of hacks and cheats.  Pretty much everyone got the warning about incoming bans in plenty of time to stop.  It seems that at least 5000 players didn’t heed the message. This action comes after weeks of player complaints concerning the state of cheating within Starcraft 2.  The Battlenet forums usually have a post or two a day concerning a player that is aggravated about playing against a cheater or a hacker.  Now, it seems, there are 5000 fewer players to worry about.  This shouldn’t effect the vast majority of the player base as there are over three million Starcraft 2 players worldwide already.  Still good news from Blizzard concerning this hot topic.
MLG News: Official Washington DC Player List Released
Now, that we’re in a lull between GSL seasons, its the perfect time to catch up on whats going on in other competitions around the world.  Today, we’re going to be looking at some info for the next big MLG Starcraft 2 Event.  We’re just a couple weeks out from MLG’s Washington DC Championship competition.  Some big and familiar names are set on the list, especially for those that have been following Starcraft 2 Tournaments thus far. A couple of the names stand out, of course.  LiquidHuk (that is HuK in TeamLiquid form) and Kiwikaki were the top two finishers in the Raleigh competition earlier this year.  In addition to those two, Idra is going to be coming all the way from Korea to participate and is looking to prove his stuff again after getting knocked out early in GSL Season 1.  Now, let’s take a look at the list.
Blizzard Releases BlizzCon 2010 Event Schedule
Well, we’re just a few short weeks away from Blizzard’s biggest event of the year.  The Blizzard Entertainment BlizzCon 2010 begins October 22nd and they’ve made the schedule of panels and events available for you all to peruse.  There are a total of five panels dedicated to all things Starcraft 2.  Everything from story to art to gameplay is covered over the course of the weekend.  In addition, there’s also the BlizzCon Starcraft 2 Invitational tournament. If you’re attending BlizzCon in person, we’ll give you a bit of a low down on what to expect from the panels.  If you’re not so fortunate and have to rely on the DirecTV live stream, we’ll let you know which channel all the Starcraft 2 action is.  Even if you are stuck with the live stream, the production values have risen considerably from last year as each area of the convention has their own dedicated video stream.  So, there’s never a moment where you don’t get to watch what you want live.
Blizzard Implements New Battle.net RealID Privacy Options
The way that players identify themselves in Starcraft 2 has changed a bit from the beta phases of the game. A lot of the changes were prompted by the advent of Battlenet 2.0, Blizzard’s one-stop social stop for all things Blizzard. The system is integrated in all aspect of Blizzard gaming. From World of Warcraft to Starcraft 2 to eventually Diablo. One of the bigger changes has come with the partnership between Facebook and Blizzard that has given us the RealID system integrated into the lastest BattleNet system. The identification system that has become available has allowed players to find each other across all Blizzard games. The system, however, didn’t allow for much privacy. There was no way to become invisible to the system or to other players. On top of that, you basically had to be a part of Facebook at that point.
Starcraft Zerg Strategy – Zerg Anti-Stalker Guide
When it comes to Protoss opponents, the Stalker can be quite the handful to deal with.  The unit is armored, shoots fair-far, and even has the ability to Blink forward.  This can be quite the challenge to deal with, especially for Starcraft 2 Zerg players.  Stalkers do quite well against most any unit type.  What they can’t deal with head-to-head, they’ll just kite till their enemy is dead. Well, from our guide forums, Papp has come up with a guide to help deal with Stalker well with two of a Zerg player’s main types of units.  First, he explains how to use Zerglings to your advantage by using higher battle strategies.  Then, he gets into how to deal with Stalkers with Hydralisks.  Also, how to use both at the same time for the best results.  Quite the excellent guide to check out.
EuroCup 512-player Starcraft 2 Tournament October 9th
Normally, when we see Starcraft 2 tournaments posted, they’re usually restricted to the North American Battlenet servers. This is especially true for tournaments of this scope. However, this one is special. This upcoming Starcraft 2 Tournament is for the Europeans. This is the Zowie Gear EuroCup. A 512-player tournament for European players. Starting next saturday at 5pm CET, this is a single-elimination BO1/Bo3 split tournament. In addition, there are some prizes. Second and Third place are getting hooked up with some Mousepads while first place gets a Headset, a mousepad, and a gaming contract with Playzone.
GomTV GSL News: Starcraft 2 Tournament Grand Championship Final Results
*Spoiler Warning: Results are revealed in this story* Its been a long month getting here. We’re finally going to take a look at the GomTV GSL Starcraft 2 Tournament Finals for Season 1. The original pool of players numbered in the thousands. Among them are the best Starcraft 2 players in the world. There is, of course, a good reason for the incredible level of competition. The prize pool for this tournament is the largest of any Starcraft 2 Tournament in the world. The total prize pool is $170,000 for the top players in the tournament. Both of these players have won $27,500 for making it this far. The winner of the tournament will recieve $85,000. For the next couple weeks there won’t be much GSL Tournament news as we still have a couple weeks till season 2’s preliminaries start.  You can expect to see the same awesome coverage you’ve seen these past couple weeks along with coverage of all the biggest and best pro-gaming tournaments from around the world.
Starcraft Zerg Strategy – Zerg Vs Zerg
Following his look at taking out Terran air units, one of our forum go’ers set out to make another guide to help out Zerg players.  Papp’s last guide has helped new Zerg players take out Terran players with even greater ease.  So a huge thanks to Papp for giving us another great look at utilizing Starcraft 2 Zerg forces. Now, Papp takes on other Zerg players.  Nothing is imbalanced in a mirror match, but there are still counters to use and tactics to employ.  He takes a look at how best to deal with all the threats that the Zerg bring to the table. Papp takes us through the various stages of a standard Zerg build and identifies the threats you’ll face as a Zerg player yourself.  Anything from Zerglings to Mutalisks, Papp has you covered.  He sets you up to get the counters in place so that you don’t lose in a mirror match.

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