This ladder will go down in history as one of if not the most revolutionary tournaments to hit the Brood War scene ever. The ladder stage is over now and the final 48 have come through GosuGamers gives you a closer look at how things turned out.
In the Mecca of StarCraft, Korea, there are many leagues to prove a players strength and win some cash for doing something you love. Players from all around the country gather to duke it out for thousands of dollars in prize money, and the fame that comes along with it. In the foreign scene there has been WCG for years which carries a large amount of prize money by itself, but the rest of the scene is lacking a chance to get to WCG and win. Now we have the TeamLiquid Star League at the forefront of the competitive StarCraft scene, here is a review on whats gone on in the last three weeks.
Who Qualified?
As the ladder began we saw nearly every well known foreign gamer come out and play their best to get to the top. German Zerg ToT)Mondragon( began the ladder in the lead defeating nearly every opponent that came to challenge him. Now as the ladder ends he still holds that same position, ahead of everyone by a very small margin but nonetheless ahead of the pack. Mondragon has been known as the best player outside of Korea to many Brood War players for quite a long time now, he has say atop GosuGamers rankings for months on end it seems. There is little surprise that he made it to the #1 spot.
Riding on his coattails are some really impressive players who will most certainly give each other a hard time in each game respectively. Testie, Draco, IefNaij, Redeemer, Skew, Tarson, Legionnaire, White-Ra, Nony.... well the point is proven by now, this ladder hosts some of the best players ever to touch a Brood War box. Draco came in at second place further proving that he may have the best chance out of anyone to take this tournament by storm. But he will really have to try since he has been inactive for the past half year or so, and of course his competition will be relentless. The list of gamers who are playing this is just to impressive to put all of them in one paragraph and almost too much for one feature!
| TSL Qualifiers Round 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| #31 |   MYM.Testie | vs | #34 |   Dunaj | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #17 |   Skew[Media] | vs | #48 |  Legionnaire | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #18 |   RoX.ALF | vs | #47 |  fuSion.spx | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #23 |  3D.Temujin | vs | #42 |  iG.sky | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #21 |  LG)HanDy | vs | #44 | fuSion.Rondo | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #24 | MYM.Dreiven | vs | #41 | RoX.EX | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #28 | 3D.Notforu | vs | #37 | NaW-LzGaMeR | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #22 |  ToT)iNfeRnaL( | vs | #43 |  OctZerg[F2F] | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #19 | Execllo.CaStrO | vs | #46 |  Qpad.ZpuX | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #20 | Idra[Media] | vs | #45 | Dashwriter | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #26 | iG.Slider | vs | #39 | Artosis[Media] | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #27 | BVG.Tarson | vs | #38 | Excello.ChOseN | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #25 | RedeemeR[Media] | vs | #40 | RoX.Advokate | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #29 | [SD]KwaK | vs | #36 | Machine[Media] | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #30 |  ReasoN[saM] | vs | #35 | HayprO | ||||||||||||||||||||
| #32 | ToT)GOsia( | vs | #33 | FT.aCt)Love | ||||||||||||||||||||
Round One About to Begin
The players have been matched with their opponents now and all that is left is to prepare for their respective matches. The qualified players must also abide by some very easy to follow rules and report for a lag test to see if they will be able to play together on the day of the first qualifier. Here are the rules from TeamLiquid.net. There will be a admin present for each set of games and so far Kennigit and Chill have been confirmed to take care of a few of the matches this weekend. This tournament has had its share of rain clouds over its head despite the professionalism it has been run with hackers, and abusers have tried to ruin a good thing but were brought down by the swift hand of justice.
Hackers Removed and Abusers Punished
Just a few days ago eight prominent players were revealed to be hacking in previous tournaments within the last year, thus disqualifying them from the TSL. Five sites combined to check hundreds if not thousands of replays using the new method discovered by Flag of TeamLiquid to oust these cheaters and put them in their rightful place. You can check out all the details in GosuGamers feature Here, it has an explanation of the method as well as how to use it.
Then as the ladder stage closed down two more well known players were disqualified for abusing the iCCup system to get more points near the end. Both hackers and abusers have been dealt no mercy in this tournament, these two received none either.
G5
In the early days of the ladder stage G5 made a complaint on TeamLiquid.net about his opponent MistrZZZ using a drop hack to defeat him early on in the game. TeamLiquid admins spent alot of time looking over the Polish players replays and decided to remove him from the tournament due to evidence of the disconnect being intentional. MistrZZZ fought to prove his innocence and was eventually cleared of all charges and re-accepted into the ladder, unfortunately for G5 his stats were reset due to some abusing he had done at the same time. Then as the ladder was nearing the end he played three games against LzGamers second account and won all three, this is enough proof for the TSL admins and he has been removed from the top 48.
UltraLing
This player scraped his way into the top 48 by just a few hundred points but unfortunately did so without being honest. On further review after the close of the ladder stage it was discovered that he had played 22 games against the same player in only two days. To be fair the admins at TSL did not just disqualify him they took away four of the games as to make it a reasonable nine games per day, this dropped him out of the top 48.
These two players have been replaced already by a couple of notable names that some argue deserved it more than these two. First off is MYM.Testie, no real introduction needed here since this player has been the best Canadian gamer for years in the past. He was retired from the scene for awhile but came back fighting for the TSL and his chance at the five grand. There are quite a few Testie fans out there and this decision must have pleased all of them. Second was well known American gamer Machine[Media] coming in so close to the top 48 but a few points short he has now been added due to abusing in the ladder. Remember though that he is one of the best Zergs in America right now and definitely deserves his position in the top 48.
Time to Fight!
This weekend marks the first round of the tournament stage in the TSL the games will begin on Saturday at 16:00 CET and go until midnight that same day. Then on the second day, Sunday the 27th, the games will begin at the same time and run until 22:00 CET. If you are one of the players set to play then remember to show up for the lag test on Friday the 25th at 0:00 CET so that you will not be disqualified if there is lag in the game. Replays have already been promised by the staff at TL and they should prove to be one of the best packs this year. Make sure to place your GosuBets for these matches as soon as they have been added and get ready for some great games!
