[Benji]

Saturday was the first NRG Hardcore Gamer Starcraft 2 tourney (You'd have to be living under a rock to not know about this tourney) and whilst I am bored at work, I thought i'd give those that did not attend abit of an overview like I always do with Sydney LANs.

Firstly, we were told first thing that NRG has already confirmed and locked in another 4 Tournaments with even larger prize pools than this one. The next will be in August/September with 2 happening each year, so if you're a SC2 player in SEA (Hell even worldwide), you NEED to be at this event. Its one of the biggest events in the world, and there is no excuse not to be at the next one if you think you're a top player. Its events like these that tell us who the best SEA players are, not coming is basically admitting that you aren't that good.

Also, I believe Unstable can shed more information on this but next time there WILL be a live stream/onsite casting. There are 2 VIP rooms at the venue where casted players can play in, which I believe are relatively soundproof, so look to see your favourite SEA casters (Unstable/Benji) doing live casts from the event.

Placings!

(Note 7th-12th i am sketchy about, if someone can confirm, please do so!)

1st: ST_Ace - $8000 + NRG Computer (Valued around $3000-$4000 imo) + Gear
2nd: nGenLight - $2000 + Gear
3rd: aLtiaguz - $1000 + Gear
4th: Team Immunity YoonYJ
5th/6th: VTAzz
5th/6th: FXOFilthy
7th/8th: TAScarecrow
7th/8th: TARossi
9th-10th: TAdeth
9th-10th: TAhocus
11th-12th: nGenStarhunt
11th-12th: TASanchez

4th-10th recieved assorted gear, Including Corsair PSU's, Razer Starcraft 2 Gear, Logitech Keyboards and Other Assorted computer accessories. 10th Place recieved more of a prize than most events have for 1st!

Notable Upsets:
nGenBenji - Ok i'm just putting myself in here to annoy Del, I'm not good enough to win :P
FXOtgun - Despite avoiding myself, faced endless ZvZ, was knocked to the Losers bracket early and was finally eliminated by Sanchez and placed 12th-16th.
aLtPiG - Was knocked to the lower bracket by his teammate, iaguz and hit TAdeth and was eliminated I believe around 12th-16th
nGenMafia - Hit ST_Ace in round 2 and was knocked to the lower bracket early and was eliminated.

Not sure if you can call it an upset, but Light completely demolished the lower bracket. Most people overlook him as a top tier player, and were predicting YYJ, Filthy etc to take second (Ace was never going to lose :P). But Light went through Starhunter, Filthy, YYJ and iaguz to take second. In my opinion he is one of, if not the, best Protoss on SEA at the moment.

There has also been quite alot of talk about ST_Ace, so i'll keep this short. He dropped 3 games all tourney, a Baserace vs YYJ, a BO loss vs iaguz and a PvP vs Light who tricked him into thinking he went Blink Stalker (When he actually went 1 base Coll). He was the best player there, no doubt, BUT he isnt completely unbeatable.

Next NRG I guarantee there will be more than just ST_Ace there, I imagine a few more Koreans and even some American Pros will come, so if you guys want to take some of these sweet prizes home, you're going to need to train hard for it. Being good on SEA is no longer good enough, we need to be good on a world stage. If Australians don't place well in these tourneys, the tourneys will simply move overseas.

VODS:

You Tube

You Tube

Pictures:
Pictures!

Interviews:
Dox did some interviews, will link when they are online!

[Dox]

I'm just gonna be compiling all of my footage into one video, interviews included. I'm like 10% done so far, won't have much time to resume until the weekend.

[Benji]

Really? Breaking it down to 5 min videos would be easier to watch tho.

[SkyBreaker]

Sounds like it was an awesome event and especially looking forward to the videos from Dox! Good stuff guys, will see you all at the next one!

[Dox]

The audio quality isn't good enough to justify them as standalone videos (no mic), but if there's a demand for them, I could do it.
Either way, it's going to take me just as long to produce.

[Benji]

Originally Posted by Dox

The audio quality isn't good enough to justify them as standalone videos (no mic), but if there's a demand for them, I could do it.
Either way, it's going to take me just as long to produce.

Honestly, as 1 video I won't sit and watch it all, but as many videos I will watch one when I have a few spare minutes.

[TAriiChard]

Quick question. Does anyone know the website that the team immunity guys were promoting?

[Dox]

Originally Posted by Benji

Honestly, as 1 video I won't sit and watch it all, but as many videos I will watch one when I have a few spare minutes.

It's only going to be like 10 minutes. :P

[Benji]

Originally Posted by Dox

It's only going to be like 10 minutes. :P

You said you had over 2 hours of footage in the other thread?

[Hocus]

Awesome event, a few placing corrections: rossi and scarecrow tied 7/8th, hocus 9th, deth 10th, sanchez starhunter tied 11th/12th i believe

[Dox]

"Oh, you mean esportsdaily.com.au?"
"Oh yes, esportsdaily.com.au!"
"I'll go to esportsdaily.com.au right now!"

[TAriiChard]

Originally Posted by Dox

"Oh, you mean esportsdaily.com.au?"
"Oh yes, esportsdaily.com.au!"
"I'll go to esportsdaily.com.au right now!"

LOL thanks Dox. And good epic games with you at the lan. GG!

[ETL.Santi]

Benji I like your stuff but you need to post a pic of Ace asap destroying noobs.

[Dox]

It was a great experience for him, and all of us. Don't hate.

[ROOT`iaguz]

Because I think the organisers wanted to create their own MLG/Dreamhack/Assembly style event. The thing is, they don't fully know wtf they are doing, so whilst they have money (which is cool), they haven't really embedded themselves properly into the greater international e-sports scene. I think they were only able to contact team Startale who deployed Ace to Australia, who basically owned everyone with his gosu skills.

At the end of the day, there's no real reason why Australians cannot get good enough at starcraft. It's not latency, you can manage that. So what should be the big deal about people who are better then us coming to our shores to beat us at starcraft? Yeah, i kinda agree, I would like money too, but comps this size will never work if it's purely an Australian thing. There's just not enough of us to justify it's expenditure imo.

So it's a choice. have big events which attract foreign attention and have good prizes and suck at it cuz you suck at starcraft two, or have nothing much larger then a local lan with a 500-ish prize pool, at most.

I'm with the former, honestly.

[deL]

I already got some expressions of interest from other big teams for the next one, but it depends on the prizepool. We have to pressure them to make smaller cash prizes go down to top 8 or 16 though so that the local talent is still rewarded. Also do what you can to make the event feasible for the sponsors and hosts!

[Benji]

Added a VOD

[Tom]

Originally Posted by Benji

Added a VOD

In fairness to Ace, at 5 min 27 seconds of that vod (just after 6minutes game time), Ace's computer froze for about 2-3 seconds as he walked up the ramp (I was standing behind him watching). That is the explanation the apparent error.

I am not offering an opinion as to how this affected the outcome of the game. This is the only time I saw Ace express any outward sign of irritation the entire tournament, although to his credit like a true sportsman he did not even raise it after the game concluded but just went straight on to his next game. For me this only increased the respect I have for him as a player.

[TAhackdZ]

Definatly gonna have to fly down t oSydney for the next one of these. I've got a snowballs chance in hell at winning, but damn. Just getting to come and play against some of the best in the world would be awesome.

So jelly I couldn't make it to this last one.

[nGenLight]

^ Yeah I was a little confused about what happened there during that moment. If there was no spike the game may have gone quite differently. Hearing about this solidifies my respect for him too!

To my defense though, I felt that I didn't play with half the skill level/confidence/adrenaline that I faced my Terran opponents earlier because I was starstrucked that I am actually vsing Ace and I was so tired after playing like 50 games. Example such as doing a 12-scout in a 2-player map on game 2 against his proxy gates and only making 24 probes with a phoenix build in game 4 are errors I normally do not make.

Nontheless, he blew me away with superior micro/sense and mindgaming, compeltely outclassing me! He is seriously at another level and it was an honour to play him!