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Hey, Watch Some Pro StarCraft This Weekend At MLG Dallas

Otherwise known as "Learn to Understand What the Hell Brad and Norm Talk About All Day Long."

If you've been hanging around this website or our sister site Tested lately, you've probably gotten sick of hearing Norm Chan and myself babbling on and on about competitive StarCraft II. Or you've realized that watching competitive StarCraft II is the best thing ever. If you're either of these people, you should head over to the Major League Gaming site this weekend and check out the tournament streams they're running from their Dallas event this weekend. You will either love what they've got going on or, damnit, you will learn to love it.
 

 HuK, winner of MLG Raleigh and veteran of Thursday Night Throwdown.
 HuK, winner of MLG Raleigh and veteran of Thursday Night Throwdown.

I have to stress that you don't need to be a Diamond-level player to appreciate pro-grade StarCraft II matches. That's what commentators are for, and MLG has some great ones onboard, starting with Sean "Day[9]" Plott, whose Day[9] Daily is essential viewing if you're actually serious about getting better at (or at least understanding) SC2 on a fundamental level. Other well known casters like Marcus "DJWheat" Graham and (friend of Giant Bomb) the MLG's own JP McDaniel will be throwing down their commentary to explain what's going on minuet to minute.

Anybody who's already keeping up with pro SC2 will only need to hear names like IdrA, HuK, and TheLittleOne to know that this tourney is serious business. If those names just sound ridiculous to you, just know these guys are among the best SC2 players outside Korea... although they'll all be heading back to Korea after this is over with to start practicing for the next season of the GomTV StarCraft League. You're guaranteed to see some very high-level play on the stream this weekend (a free version of which is available) so if you're wondering what the hell I've been babbling about on the podcast week after week, this is a good place to start.

MLG will be running tournaments around other games like Halo: Reach, Tekken 6, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, if those flavors are more agreeable to your palate. Me, I'll be spending the weekend keeping an eye on the MLG stream while catching up on GSL matches in preparation for next week's finals. And probably thinking hard about finding something else to do with my life besides StarCraft.
Brad Shoemaker on Google+

184 Comments

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Bouz

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Edited By Bouz
@Deathpooky said:
" @sixghost said:
" @Deathpooky said:
" Blizzard will add Lan... when they get sued by the GSL/MGL and some player who loses out on $50,000 in Korea because Bnet blew up midway through a game. "
What could they possibly be sued for? I know you're mad but stop talking nonsense. "
Breach of contract, breach of warranty, and loss of earnings are three that come to mind.  If you purposefully get the game involved in tournaments worth tens of thousands of dollars in winnings and likely a hundred times that in advertising and other costs (probably much much more in Korea), not providing a stable service to play the game on is a PR and legal recipe for disaster. "
Isn't all that covered in the TOS and they probably have extraordinary contract lawyers.
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sixghost

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Edited By sixghost
@Deathpooky said:
" @sixghost said:
" @Deathpooky said:
" Blizzard will add Lan... when they get sued by the GSL/MGL and some player who loses out on $50,000 in Korea because Bnet blew up midway through a game. "
What could they possibly be sued for? I know you're mad but stop talking nonsense. "
Breach of contract, breach of warranty, and loss of earnings are three that come to mind.  If you purposefully get the game involved in tournaments worth tens of thousands of dollars in winnings and likely a hundred times that in advertising and other costs (probably much much more in Korea), not providing a stable service to play the game on is a PR and legal recipe for disaster. "
You don't think Blizzard thought of any of that when preparing the ToS? Not to mention there is most likely a second ToS agreement signed by the organizations when they apply for a tournament license.
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fattony12000

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Edited By fattony12000

Jino: day9 hey im not getting any invite btw 
MLGCast: yeah thats cause were playing, go away im busy 
Jino: lolol

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thatfrood

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Edited By thatfrood

Battle.net 2.0
wave of the future.

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fogh

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Edited By fogh

Can anyone tell me why my stream looks like this? 

 
 

It only shows the top left corner and it's all squeezed. There is also no full screen option. Do I have to pay to watch or what?
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Jeffsekai

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Edited By Jeffsekai
@Scooper said:
" @ThaMilkMan said:
" @Scooper: What regionals are these? Are we talkin SSF4? "
SSFIV, HDRemix, MvC2, TvC, Tekken, ect.  Best players on the planet playing loads of great fighting games. Good stream quality and good commentary. "
And all the games have LAN support.
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fattony12000

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Edited By fattony12000
@Fogh: I'm using latest Chrome and latest Java and it's good, try checking you're not zoomed in with your mousewheel.
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villainy

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Edited By villainy

Seems like the official forums for Battlenet status and SC2 are conveniently offline. Hopefully the MLG folk are giving Blizzard hell right now. This really doesn't look good for Blizzard. Looking forward to a fairly out of character hardcore rant by Brad in the next podcast. I know you're pissed Mr. Shoemaker, let us know how you feel!

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fogh

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Edited By fogh
@Fattony12000:
I installed Chrome and now it's working fine, so thanks for reminding me that Internet Explorer isn't the only web browser.
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LegalBagel

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Edited By LegalBagel
@sixghost: I'm sure both agreements discuss Battle.net disruptions, but that won't exactly stop a group from suing.  I imagine Blizzard had to make at least some warranty of the battle.net service when licensing it out for use/broadcast.
 
There are lots of ways to get around contracts, and with probably millions of dollars at stake some North Korean and US lawyers will have a lot of fun managing the inevitable legal dispute that'll come about when battle.net screws up GSL tournaments.
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darknaut

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Edited By darknaut

Look at your game, now back to me, now back at your game, now back to me. Sadly, it isn't me. But if it had LAN support for tournament play it could be stable like me. Look down, back up, where are you? You're at MLG with the game your game could be like. What's on your monitor? It's Jinro using a manner factory to block mining. Look again, the game has successfully concluded.
Anything is possible when your game actually has LAN support for tournaments. Bunker rush.
 
I think I've seen that commercial too many times now. Bummer that they don't seem to be continuing to cast replays though, that was actually making it alright. =/

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Ineedaname

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Edited By Ineedaname
@Darknaut said:
" Look at your game, now back to me, now back at your game, now back to me. Sadly, it isn't me. But if it had LAN support for tournament play it could be stable like me. Look down, back up, where are you? You're at MLG with the game your game could be like. What's on your monitor? It's Jinro using a manner factory to block mining. Look again, the game has successfully concluded. Anything is possible when your game actually has LAN support for tournaments. Bunker rush.  I think I've seen that commercial too many times now. Bummer that they don't seem to be continuing to cast replays though, that was actually making it alright. =/ "
Genius sir.
 
 
And I agree, I was enjoying those replays, watching some Modern Warfare 2 now, that game really shouldn't be played at this kind of stage, it's so dull to watch like this.
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fattony12000

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Edited By fattony12000
@Fogh said:
" @Fattony12000: thanks for reminding me that Internet Explorer isn't a web browser. "
MOAR LIEK SHADOWOFAMNEYEWRIGHTBROTHERS!?
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Kamisaki

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Edited By Kamisaki

This tourney is amazing.  Jinro is my new Terran hero.  His game 2 against Socke yesterday was the single most epic game I've seen yet!

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Zolfe

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Edited By Zolfe

a little anti-climactic after all the wait for the final game, but i guess that was to be expected,
 
those connection problems sucked hard

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ThaMilkMan

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Edited By ThaMilkMan
@Scooper: where? where where?
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Scooper

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ThaMilkMan

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Edited By ThaMilkMan
@Scooper: thanks dude!
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sixghost

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Edited By sixghost
@Deathpooky said:
" @sixghost: I'm sure both agreements discuss Battle.net disruptions, but that won't exactly stop a group from suing.  I imagine Blizzard had to make at least some warranty of the battle.net service when licensing it out for use/broadcast. There are lots of ways to get around contracts, and with probably millions of dollars at stake some North Korean and US lawyers will have a lot of fun managing the inevitable legal dispute that'll come about when battle.net screws up GSL tournaments. "
I'm sure Blizz has to make some guarantee that there will be fair effort given to keep the b.net servers up, but how could they possibly guarantee the servers will not go down during important tournaments? That's just unreasonable. Regardless, your argument about this pertaining to the GSL is ridiculous, because Blizzard all but runs the GSL themselves. If anyone ever tried to pull something like that against blizzard, you could bet that they would never be given a license to operate an SC2 tournament ever again.
Also, I'm not sure if you were making a joke, but you do know that it's SOUTH Korea that is way into SC. North Korea is the one with the nuclear weapons and the crimes against humanity.
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DoctorWelch

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Edited By DoctorWelch

If Blizzard doesnt add LAN after this, then they really are as ignorant and disconnected from the community as a lot of people think. Now that the game has been out, there isnt any argument against LAN because the only argument against it in the first place was sales numbers. Now most of the people who were gonna buy it have already bought it, and the people that still want it but dont have it will still probably buy it because the amount of people that will 1. still be/want to be playing the game months after it's out, and 2. only want to play their friends, is a very small minority.

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JoeRosa

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Edited By JoeRosa

To many macros going on at once >.<

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audiosnag

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Edited By audiosnag
@Kamisaki said:
" This tourney is amazing.  Jinro is my new Terran hero.  His game 2 against Socke yesterday was the single most epic game I've seen yet! "
Agreeeeed.
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Daggith

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@Darknaut: 
Hahahaha, nice.
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Bouz

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Edited By Bouz
@DoctorWelch: There are adding 2 expansions so piracy could still hurt sales. 
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Onizuka36

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Edited By Onizuka36

Congrats to Jinro! Team Liquid had a good showing.

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SwagginWagon

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Edited By SwagginWagon

Great series.

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chewii101

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Edited By chewii101

I think Bisu and SKTT1 will continue to domin-..............wait a minute. 

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Ignor

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Edited By Ignor

Meh, Star Craft.
Meh, competitive gaming.

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Addfwyn

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Edited By Addfwyn

I mostly stick to GSL to get my competitive SC2 fix it's almost constantly on and the level of play is just a lot higher than some of these other tournaments.  I also am more partial to the Korean playstyle, but that's solely personal preference.  

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Fish_Bulb

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Edited By Fish_Bulb
@leebmx: A natural refers to the player's natural expansion, which is the expansion location right outside of their main base.  A 6 pool, for instance refers to a build where a zerg player builds a spawning pool (for zerglings) when their army supply number (top right corner of the screen) is at 6.
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Hangnail

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Edited By Hangnail
ITS OFFICIAL: StarCraft II has taken over my life, but dammit to hell if I'm going to let myself be dragged out of my hole to stoop into THIS level of crazy...!
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Themanohall

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Edited By Themanohall

So is there anywhere where you can watch replays of the stream? I missed Friday and a little of Saturday, and I love Day 9's and DJwheat's commentary.

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snotboogie

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Edited By snotboogie

Yes Blizzard, TT1 really wants LAN.

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nexex

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Edited By nexex

Battle.net, what me worry.