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But you don’t know who I am or what I do. That is why I am writing this, here, right now. I figured, what better way to pass the time than to write blogs, every week, relating to the news in the eSports League SEA, of which I have my finger on the pulse through my inside line.

I’m Hellfyre, and I’m a casual gamer. I have no delusions of being a great sc2 player. I know what my strengths are. That’s running things. Being there, being the guy that you rage at when you get matched up against mOOnGLaDe or PiG in the first round. Being the one that has to go through your match sheet to correct the mistakes that you may have made. I make it sound bad, but in reality I live for it. I’ve run clans in games, even been in one pro-gaming clan once myself. I like dealing with people.

That is why I applied to be an ESL admin.

The ESL is huge in Europe and indeed all over the world. I’m sure all of you have heard of the Intel Extreme Masters. That is an ESL-World event. Not long ago a mysterious man, working in conjunction with the suits, brought this magnificent thing to us. So became ESL SEA. We’ve had a busy few months, running the first ever Go4SC2 Cups in SEA, and having monthly finals. Capping it all off is running the SEA qualifiers for the Intel Extreme Masters. The level of play is amazing, as is the community. Most of our competitors are regulars on sc2sea, some aren’t. Slowly, though, we are growing.

New cups are springing up all the time, and more and more competitors are coming from just about everywhere to compete. We all encourage the growth of the gaming community in South East Asia, and this can only be a good thing.

I’m sure all of you have already heard about the Intel Extreme Masters Guangzhou China qualifiers that were held last week, as well as the many qualifier cups that led up to it. I’m sure also that most of you know that SEA’s two slots are going to PiG and mOOnGLaDe, who capped off an impressive night to win over SEA’s best players.

But are you aware of how each player got into that finals series?

PiG was actually knocked out in the second qualifier by Filthy, before beating Derpy, Fatal and then Azz to qualify in the third qualifier.

Glade, on the other hand, who had been absent from ESL SEA’s cups for some time due to his repping it up in Cologne, Germany, whirled in to the ooh’s and aaah’s of many people to storm the second qualifier for his place.

So when it came to the final of the winner’s bracket, and everyone saw who it was up against each other, ZvZ, I think PiG will forgive me for thinking that mOOnGLaDe would come away with the win. To my shock, that was not the case. Instead, Glade lost the winners bracket final and went on to face none other than iaguz, who had qualified in exceptional circumstances.

iaguz took part in all the qualifiers except for the first, but it took until the last one for him to secure a place in the final. This wasn’t the easiest for him either, as the last qualifier was also a Go4SC2 cup, and included players that had already qualified, as well as one Korean player, Master. Master, or Soulman, as I’m sure many of you are now aware, has been dominating in SEA after coming into the region as a GM level Korean player and rocketing up to hold SEA #1 for some time. Iaguz, who was not particularly happy about having to play a Korean for his qualification spot, played a macro game so crazy that master grilled him afterwards about his build, and I quote; “but why would you even do that?!”

Unfortunately for iaguz, GLaDe was too strong, and took the Losers bracket place to qualify two Zerg’s for the SEA region to go play in Guangzhou, China.

So I’m sure many of you are scratching your head and thinking, “what’s these Go4SC2 cup’s that Hellfyre keeps going on about?”

Well, whether or not you were asking that question, here is the answer. The Go4SC2 Cup’s are twice weekly cups that the ESL runs all over the world for cash prizes and points standings for placements in their monthly finals. Sometimes, these cups even become qualifiers for something else as with the IEM Guangzhou event. In SEA, the Go4SC2 cups are on Thursdays and Sundays, and on Sundays the players vie for $75. The monthly prize in SEA is $250.

We have seen many players win the cups, and many players do some amazing things. When a community grows, and word gets out, that’s when things start to get more difficult. With the growth of the ESLSEA, one person in particular found us. Another soon followed. That person was Master *cue star wars imperial march music*. Soon enough, Master and GGgalaxy, two Korean Grand Master’s had begun to dominate the ESL cups.

So I’m going to pose a challenge to you here, sc2sea community. Can someone rise up against them? Cups take little more than a couple of hours on a slow night, and you could gain the reputation for being the SEA player that took back the SEA cups! Plus there is the chance to win money and that this opportunity costs you nothing except the time taken to play the game. Think about it. Think about whether you’re up to it.

Just to mess with you all, because I’m kind of sadistic like this, I’m going to give you these teasers in abstract form. Whether it be a riddle, or a rhyme, or an anagram of the real teaser, I’ll leave up to you to work out. As we get closer and closer to the actual announcement date, the clue will get clearer and clearer, until finally it gets announced by ESLSEA, and then by me in a blog.

1 They play it in cold when we are hot,
on a day when newbs become not.
Two and 50 times they cross,
the eight-eyed beast, more than us.

2 To strike fear into the heart of those in the colonies, one must take a different view. One that is endless, but one that will affect those that will come. Playing on their fears of the underground, or of their children, will work, yet on the moment before the ultimate glimmer of hope passes, the ones who conquer will go to where the birds cannot fly. Their ferocity will ensure that the most difficult time will be shared by family. A chilled beverage and a computer will take this endless view and will make the final assessment of the fear of the nines. Save yourself precious minutes by leaving now.

3 (ps I’ll make this one a little easier, good luck with number 2...) Some things you type, some things you speak. Other things you record. Sometimes you do all of these things, separately, yet you do them about the same thing...Possibly on youtube. Possibly soon.

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