Chun “Sweet” Jung Hee has retired from Warcraft III, ending his career as one of the strongest Undeads to compete in the realm of Warcraft. He played since the days of MaDFroG on the SK Warcraft III team, wrapping up his career in BeT with the FoV and Winners.
Now, Jung Hee will enter the Korean military, fulfilling duties required for Korean citizens. At the age of 22, Sweet ends his time in the Warcraft III with a great number of accomplishments under his belt.
The current status of BeT is unknown, with some speculation that powerhouse FoV may also be retiring, and Winners following his teammate Check to mTw (currently mTw has only four players on its roster, indicating more roster additions are incoming).
More info as it comes.
SCForAll.com has announced a StarCraft tournament open to the public with 128 slots available. the 300th, 500th, and 1000th user will receive a free mousepad autographed by a Korean pro gamer.
Prizes will be awarded to players who place from 1st to 16th place. Shoutcasting will be provided for the best matches. All players are eligible, regardless of nationality.
The tournament format is single-elimination, best of three. Semi-finals are best of five, and finals are best of seven. All the details can be found at the post at SCForAll.com.
E-Stars Seoul is set to take place July 24-27, 2008. Stars from the western European side of the world will be competing against the east Asian countries for both glory and prizes.
Candidates will be selected “50% from on-line poll result, 20% from achievements in 2007, 30% from the evaluation of the Continental Cup Committee,” according to E-Stars.
Voting will be open at http://www.estarsseoul.org.
Note: Yoan “ToD” Merlo, Warcraft III Human player, was not invited due to last year’s last minute drop involving a conflict with tournament organizers.
Don’t break out the champagne yet; Blizzard hasn’t officially stamped the 1.22 patch for standard play.
However, the development teams has been hard at work pulling data together and gathering input from pro players. The players have been selected to test the patch before its public release, soon publicly accessible for testing by anyone who wants to give it a whack.
Players have been itching to see the newest balance changes and maps for ladder.Test servers will be up with the patch, as well as forums for reporting bugs and feedback.
Karune’s progress log can be found here
After much input from the community and game experts, WCG has unveiled the lineup for 2008. Some new faces in the lineup, while the classics sit down for another round of competition.
Warcraft III
Starcraft
Counter-Strike (version not specified, 1.6 perhaps?)
FIFA 08
Need for Speed
Command and Conquer 3
Age of Empires 3
Carom3D
Red Stone
Project Gotham Racing
Asphalt 3
Halo 3
Guitar Hero 3
Virtua Fighter 5
Quite an interesting selection of games this time. WCG does not include Dead or Alive 4, currently used by the CGS as one of its staple games. The Guitar Hero 3 competition could be pretty intense too. Overall, the game pool looks heavier towards racing games.
For more information, go to WCG’s website.
Gamesports.de has released first person VODs of top Warcraft III Players contending at the NGL-One finals. These are not just someone watching and doing commentary, it’s the actual move by move point of view from the players.
Currently, only the first SK vs. mTw and MYM vs. mouz matches of the first round have been posted.
First person VODs are an amazing tool for any player trying to learn how to play. Unlike previous releases, these feature both the winning and losing players’ points of view. If you’re smart, you could play them both at once and see the game play out both ways.
All VODs up so far can be found here at gamesports.net.
In a best of five set, Jae-Dong “JaeDong” Lee defeated Ku Hyun “Kal” Kim taking the StarCraft MSL Season 4 championship.
The set went to four games, with JaeDong losing the first map but taking the following three in powerful fashion. JaeDong potentially could have lost this set, with the Protoss versus Zerg matchup being one of his weaker ones, but he proved that conclusion wrong.
After losing Blue Storm, he defeated Kal on Katrina, a more Protoss favored map. The game was close, but a poor decision by Kal cost him his main base, while JaeDong suffered little damage. Kal soon conceded, the match reaching a tie.
Zodiac and Loki were far more one-sided games. JaeDong showed little weakness and pressured Kal in both matches, quickly shutting him down to go home and continue his reign as the top Zerg player in the world.
JaeDong now holds titles for each of the major proleagues in Korea: He is an MSL champion, an OSL champion, and his team won the most recent Proleague finals.
With Flash claiming the StarCraft GOMTV GSI title for himself, Stork is now grasping for the OSL. Flash, considered on of the top Terrans in the world, has been gaining momentum, rolling over so many opponents lately. With his GOMTV win, he turned from a dark horse into a crowd favorite. Showing he can defeat Stork despite stacked odds against him, Flash will sit down once again to prove his victory was not a fluke.Stork is arguably the top Protoss player to set foot on the proleague scene today. Excluding Flash, Stork has only lost one PvT game to Iris (later on in GSI event he would sweep Iris 3-0). He can multitask and optimize every move, balancing micro and macro to an incredible degree even among players in his class. Stork demonstrates the full potential of the Protoss races in his games, never disappointing spectators.
While the players are clashing for a rematch, the maps have changed for this set.
Game 1 - Blue Storm
Game 2 - Katrina
Game 3 - Troy
Game 4 - Fantasy II
Game 5 - Blue Storm Read more »
Fnatic picked up Clan Go in a move restoring their status in the Warcraft III world. Clan Go has had trouble finding a stable organization in the past, parting ways with NoA after their absence from the NGL-One Finals. Fnatic had to separate from its Warcraft III team not too long ago, creating a mutual interest for both teams.
Focus and Shy rejoin Clan Go after some time at MYM. Both players are top notch and produce great results, bolstering the team’s status even more. Unfortunately, Ohjie was pulled into the Korean military. Expect some good results now, with Clan Go backed by a great sponsor and with a great lineup.
Their current roster:
- fnatic.Shy
- fnatic.FoCuS
- fnatic.Space
- fnatic.MinHyuk
- fnatic.Kei
- fnatic.YanGe
GomTV has given thanks and announced some upcoming events on their GSI website. The GSI was a huge success, bringing over one million unique IP hits.
GomTV now is in the process of planning a Star League. Other events planned include World of Warcraft invitationals and an International Star Invitational.
GomTV’s successful webcast of their StarCraft invitational tournament generated incredible amounts of attention.
With the possibility of international players entering the mix, Korean players are facing lots of potential upsets. They’re going to have to defend the honor and reputation of their homeland if the International Invitational gets mixed with the professional players.
Juha-Matti “Satiini” Bäckström and mTw have separated after Satiini’s absence at the NGL-One finals. The two parties broke on good terms, reaching a mutual agreement to end their partnership. Satiini is a Warcraft III Night Elf player among the best in Europe.
However, personal issues prevented him from attending major LAN events, often being replaced after online qualifiers by another player. Before the problem was brought to light, Satiini was often accused of maphacking or cheating since he never played against another player in person.
Currently, mTw’s roster consists of Protois, hanf, KiWiKaKi, NightWOlf, Rainbow, and Pato. They finished fourth in the NGL-One finals last season.
GomTV’s Star Invitational is complete after several grueling rounds of play.