After mainly MSN/AIM/ICQ and a few email/forum votes, the communities decision had been narrowed down to two eSTRO members for ToT)ret( to face this Saturday, they were Say[Join] and KT.MGW)Grape.

We decided to first go with Grape, as he is the weaker of the two players, and is the person we’re more looking for at the moment. The reason we chose Grape was because this series is for a top foreigner to work his way up, and play the worst to the best players on a pro team, but all of you, The Starcraft Community, helped us make this decision, and we shall eventually see Ret vs. Say[Join] in the near future.

The map list will determined tomorrow, and you will find out on the day of the event what they will be. We’re trying to keep it as balanced as possible, while using Pro League maps.


Link to the live commentary by Artosis: LiveStream.com

We're back with some more action for you all! Even though Quakelive is out there we still wanna try to get some Quake 3 CTF action and we really hope that you'll join us for this. The summer cup is about to start on Sunday the 5th of July. Divisions and exact hours will depend on the signups. To join the league, send a mail to chatfragger[at]fastmail[dot]fm with the usual data (teamname, contact person, lineup).

Players: 4v4 by default (5v5 if both teams agree)
Time: Sunday 20:00/21:00/22:00 CEST
Maps: Fixed per week. q3wcp1, q3wcp9, q3wcp14, q3wcp18, q3w5, ospctf2, q3w7, q3ctf2.
Servers: xs4all (another server is ok if both teams agree an hour before the game starts).

Otherwise the rules are pretty much the same as the usual league. Also, if you want to help out with admin stuff then you're very welcome to join us, just give us a slap at IRC!


Website: stickrunners.com. - GTV: gtv.stickrunners.com - IRC: #Stickrunners

ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks (Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3), has completed its acquisition of id Software (Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein).

"id Software will continue to operate as a studio under the direction of its founder, John Carmack," vowed ZeniMax. "No changes will be made in the operations of id Software in the development of its games. All the principals at id Software have signed long-term employment contracts, assuring they will continue in their roles...at the studio."

Founded as an independent game developer in 1991, id Software is currently working on the post-apocalyptic shooter RAGE (PC, PS3, 360) and the long-awaited Doom 4.


Sources: ZeniMax Media, id Software, Kotaku

The 5th edition of the EQLT is starting next Sunday! For this one the cup format will be altered: 16 players are directly invited, and 16 players must qualify after a first group stage including 32 players.

The sign-ups are already opened for the 32 slots and will be closed on the 27th of June. Then the qualification phase will start on Sunday evening at 12:00 CDT. Finally the cup with the 32 final duelers will begin with the regular Group/Playoff stages.

The map list will consist of dm6, dm13, t4, t7 and ztntourney1. The admins are still trying to find some sponsors willing to give some prizes for the cup, but nothing is sure yet.


Source: EQLT

ClanBase announced last Saturday their Summer Cups for 2009. The short Summer Season is always the occasion to try new cup formats. The sign-ups are already open and will be closed on Monday 29th of June. This season will only use playoff and no group stage. The first matches will start on the 12th of July.


Source: Official announcement

Scheduled: 08:00 CDT, 26 June 2009 to 13:00 CDT, 26 June 2009
Schedule: Passed

The StarCraft Tournament Valor featuring players from 15 countries with the total prize money of 1,000$ ( 700$, 200$, 100$) is held by Daniel "SuperDanielMan" Lee & Nick "Tasteless" Plott and hosted by GOMtv.net.
The LIVE broadcasts of Ro.16 and onward will be available on GOMtv for all the users who have purchased Averatec-Intel Classic Season 3 Premium Tickets everyone. Sadly though you'll need a Premium Account to watch the VODs.

The Round of 8 Matches have already been delayed by a week but will (hopefully) be shown this week:

08:00 CDT, 26 June 2009
idra -vs- CaStro
BRAT_OK -vs- ret
Strelok -vs- Fenix
Mondragon -vs- aoOa

Cameron "fams" Carson’s latest feature to follow up the very popular E-Motions piece. A sequel of sorts; Motivation will focus on how to stay motivated in E-Sports, what effects it can have on your game-play and personal life, and more!

Contains interviews with the following:

Alessandro "Stermy" Avallone (FPS Player)
Sun Yi "F91" Feng (Best SC player in China)
Min-sik "reis" Ko (SK Wc3 Manager)
Patrik "cArn" Sattermon (fnatic CS captain)
Marcus "djWHEAT" Graham
Daeduck "Kei" Yoon (Pro Wc3 player)
Alex "Jax" Conroy (Former owner of JMC and current co-owner of coL)

Read the full article and interviews at Fnatic.com.

Piece of Cake has blown their competition away and have won the first ever Fnatic PLAY QuakeLive Clan Arena Cup, powered by BestPoker.com!

Piece of Cake (poc) started the cup easy, as they got two def-wins as their opponents didn't show up. In the Quarter Finals, poc met deathreign and the BO3 system kicked in. Piece of Cake won quite easily: 10-1 on ca1 and 10-6 on dm6.

A harder matched followed in the Semi Finals. They were up against Fishtix who were on a good run. The first map, dm20, was won with a close score of 10-9. The second map, dm14, went to Fishtix with 10-7. The third map, dm6, was again a thriller and went to poc with 10-9 again.

In the Grand Final poc were up for possibly their hardest challenge, the French all star team, Weird Monkeys. The French side had been showing strong results all through the tournament with l1nkin leading his teammates to victory after victory. The most impressive match must have been against the mix line-up with Dutch stars such as Forever and tua, where they won 2-1.

But Weird Monkeys proved to be no challenge for Piece of Cake. 10-2 was the score on the first map, ca2. An easy victory was expected, but the second map was a lot closer, but poc again proved to be strong and took dm20 with 10-8.


We had a great time and thought it was a real success. We look forward in hosting more cups for this great community. Feel free to leave any feedback to the admins in #fnatic.play.

A special thanks goes to BestPoker.com, and of course Quake-Live.tv and their commentators and staff: gibz, Scotsman, TGM and the rest of the crew! Also, keep your eye pealed on the fnatic PLAY page, as demo's will be uploaded soon! Demos, short interviews and more can be found on play.fnatic.com.

Fresh off an unlucky defeat, ToT)ret( is back once again to prove himself to his fans around the world, this time taking on an eSTRO Protoss player. But who could it be? That is for you to decide.

We decided we want to see him play a Protoss to change things up a bit. We don’t want you to obviously pick the best Protoss in the world, rather who you think would be best against ret in a show match.

From the first series, we know that ret is weak on Neo Medusa when he spawns at the 11 o`clock position vs. Zerg, and we know that he ZvP’s, so list down 3 maps you think he would do good on that are used in Pro League, and we can use your feedback when making our choice.


Please leave your feedback on the ToT)ret( vs. eSTRO Protoss match up and maps. To watch ret's match last week against Hwata[saM], check on scforall.com.

Marcus "djWHEAT" Graham returns to broadcasting while Scott "SirScoots" Smith returns behind the mixer for this weekend's Devastation fighting game tournament.

This weekend's Devastation event will be streamed live through uStream.tv for three consecutive days, 8-10 hours a day, featuring all-day coverage, expert commentary, exhibition matches, player interviews, special guests, and special features. The event will be dubbed a Live On Three production, and mark the return of Live On Three's Marcus "djWHEAT" Graham and Scott "SirScoots" Smith to a live gaming event. djWHEAT hasn't covered an event since the Championship Gaming Series fell through, and SirScoots hasn't either since last year's MLG PC circuit for GotFrag TV. Both have been itching to get back to live streaming competitive gaming and eSports, and Devastation is the perfect event to start with. They will be joined by Live On Three co-host Rod "Slasher" Breslau, author and journalist Bryan "DrDogg" Dawson, as well as former CGS player and WCG Ultimate Gamer contestant Adande "sWooZie" Thorne.

Every game at the event will get air time including Tekken 6, Guilty Gear Accent Core, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, Guitar Hero: World Tour, SF3: 3rd Strike, Marvel vs Capcom 2, SSF2 Turbo HD Remix, King of Fighters XII, and of course the main event, Street Fighter 4. The video feeds for all the games will be hooked up directly to the cabinets for great quality. This will also be the first Tekken 6 tournament in the US, and the first major KOFXII event.

The Street Fighter 4 tournament will be the largest so far this year, with major competitors flying in from all around the country and on both coasts. GameStop National champion Justin "Marvelous" Wong and his SBO partner Martin “Marn” Phan will be flying in from the east coast along with Flash Metroid, and Ari "fLoE" Weintraub from the midwest. The west coast will be representated nicely with SBO qualifier winner Peter "Combofiend" Rosas looking to extend his win streak, along with Ryan "gootecks" Gutierrez, Mike Ross, Ricky Ortiz, Ed Ma, and, Ken I. Guest commentary provided by Gootecks, Mike Ross and others will come as the tournament progresses.

All the action will start at 12:00 PM EST (18:00 CET) each day and last until 10:00 PM EST (05:00 CET). For the live stream, tune into djwheat.tv or ustream.tv/channel/djwheat.

The last week of id software's campaign "6 Maps in 6 Week" brings us the map Quarantine, which was originally designed for Clan Arena but is also suitable for TDM, 1v1 and FFA. Read the official release announcement for more information:

For week 6 of our campaign we're very excited to deliver "Quarantine," another totally new arena created by resident designer Yan 'Method' Ostretsov - author of our week two CTF arena 'Siberia' as well as other popular CA maps 'Trinity' and 'Asylum'. Quarantine was originally designed specifically for Clan Arena and features 3 primary "zones," surrounding and connected in multiple ways to an area of higher ground in the center. This architecturally and artistically distinct arena is medium sized and most suitable for 2-10 players in Clan Arena, Team Deathmatch, Duel, and Free for All. For team deathmatch, the teleporters have been blocked and power-ups added to better promote the strategy and style of TDM play.

We hope you are enjoying all of the arenas that we've released over the past six weeks, and we look forward to bringing you more in the future.

Source: Official News

This week the classic match of the week of AGP covers the 2002 World Cyber Games USA match between Jason "Socrates_" Sylka and Jonathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel with shoutcasting from djWHEAT followed by an entertaining interview with Socrates. Presented here by the AGP (Association of Gaming Professionals). Game A is played on "Proving Grounds".

The video shoutcasted by djWHEAT is available from agptour.com, or from YouTube.

Last week the classic match featured the WCG 2002 USA qualifier between Makaveli and Zero4.

We’re back once again in the real studio where we have better lighting and that awesome blue background that you’ve all grown to love.

This week we dig deep into DreamHack and the recent winner, ToT)ret( and his upcoming series vs. eSTRO, Canada’s latest Starcraft lan, SC2GG StarLeague, Zotac Cup and its special Korean guest player, WCG USA, random people throwing the word "talent" around, Starcraft 2 beta, Tip of the Week, Pro League, GomTV Season 3, the recent Starcraft 2 discussion by Artosis & Tasteless, as well as the latest Mutalisk Micro Map we released.

You can view Episode 15 on scforall.com.

Netherland’s finest takes on eSTRO

ToT)ret( just finished taking 1st place at the 2009 DreamHack Summer event in Sweden, with a 3-1 victory over DIMAGA from Ukraine in the final match.

Ret is now up for another challenge, this time taking on pro gamers in a series of foreigner vs. pro matches that will be ongoing at SCForAll.

First up to face Ret is a player from the eSTRO pro team, who will be announced at a later date. While it’s still a mystery who he’ll play, he will definitely have his hands full, as I’m sure both NonY and IdrA can tell you from their experience from being on the team themselves.

The format will be a best of 3, and the maps will be released when the player is announced, but the good thing is that Artosis will be doing live commentary on the matches. Don’t worry if you can’t watch the games live, they will all be available in VOD format shortly after.

If you have any suggestions on who you would like to see go up against Ret, feel free to share your opinion on scforall.com.