With the MLG Winter Arena just a couple of days away, JP McDaniel, Rob Simpson and Chris Puckett gathered together on Tuesday night to draw the matches for the playoffs bracket. The 32 participants qualified through a total of four events - MLG Providence and three regional qualifiers - and will go through a double elimination bracket, ending with the grand final on March 26th. $26,000 will be up for grabs in New York this weekend as well as important MLG Winter Championship seeds. MLG Winter Arena playoffs dde United States Sheth United Kingdom DeMuslim Oz ...

Barely clairvoyant: Code S Semi-Finals Preview MVP_Genius I will be very frank with you: I would've never guessed that Genius would make it that far. If his Ro32 was not hard enough having sC, DRG and JYP in it, the Ro16 surely was a total nightmare. Genius was once again in the company of his famed zerg team-mate, plus MarineKing and NesTea. I bet there are people that have skipped school or work to watch this group unfold. As you know, DongRaeGu, NesTea and MarineKing all fell victims to Genius, and so did the acknowledged PvP master MC in the quarter finals, making me wonder why this guy never made it to top four before. The protoss enters the semi-finals full of confidence, proving to all of us (and to him most of all) that he is capable of beating the best in the world. In...

It’s less than a week before the semi-finals of Code S 2012 Season 1 and with that idea in mind we come back to revise the events that determined the top four as well as peak in the crystal ball in attempt to predict who will advance to the Grand Final in March. For a long, long time, the GSL has been the most prestigious tournament on the StarCraft 2 scene and I am not coming out with the statement just because of my South Korea fandom. You can be an MLG admirer or a die-hard DreamHack supporter and there is nothing wrong with that, surely, but every time along comes the question of who are the best players in the world, all eyes inevitably turn to those who reach the Code S play-offs. Having already established the Code S superiority, next on schedule is examining who, actually, are those top world-wide contenders at least as far as this season is concerned. And it’s a...

SK-Gaming's editor-in-chief Duncan "Thorin" Shields had a chat with Kevin "qxc" Riley at the Intel Extreme Masters stop in Kiev. He discusses his competitive spirit, the misconception of Korean prohouses and how becoming a better player.

Photo source: TSL Min Gyu "Inori" Woo is the newest acquisition of Team SCV Life. This comes with the news that TSL will be moving to a bigger team house next month, signing a new terran player at that time. Inori - most known for his top eight finish at IPL 3 where he beat MC and HuK before finally falling to eventual champion Stephano - has been on the look for a new home since his former team ReIGN disbanded recently. Inori's acquisition is a logical step towards reinforcing the protoss line-up of TSL, who were left without a single protoss in November 27th when JYP and Killer left the team. Inori is the second protoss to join the roster since the major restructuring last year, the first being Cyrano (signed January 15th). With their roster growing,...

Photo by: Thisisgame.com Sang Ho "Killer" Shin is the last of the three Korean players to join Complexity, the team having already signed Nada and Heart. Killer departed from Team SCV Life in late November 2011 during the major restructuring of the roster and has been teamless since. Sang Ho has been one of the long-time GSL veterans, staying in Code S for five straight seasons, peaking at a Top 8 finish in May. Killer would eventually lose his Code S status after being defeated in the Ro16 of GSL November and staying in Code A after failing to beat the up-and-down matches. Complexity SC2 roster Nada Heart Killer Drewbie Catz United States Goswser United States Minigun United States qxc United States ...

Photos by: WellPlayed, Fragster, SC2 Zerg Lair With three Koreans and two champions in it, one could argue that the group of death of IEM World Championship Hanover is very easy to spot. A second glance at all the stacked to burst groups, however, would alter this first impression. With the completion of IEM Sao Paulo (with Violet, Supernova and Ret as the top three), the player line-up for the World Championship in Hanover was finalized. A total of 24 players are divided into four groups, awaiting the tournament's start on March 6. Group A Violet MMA JYP Killer Socke Strelok Group B MC Sound Elfittaja ...

As promised, Complexity announced today the second of the three new addition that will join their ranks. The player in question is the ex-TSL terran Min Hyuk "Heart" Kim. Heart follows the steps of Nada - announced to have joined Complexity yesterday - finding a home at the American-based organization after being teamless for a month since he left Team SCV Life on January 19th. Although one of the less known players on the scene compared to his fellow Korean terrans, Heart is already building a name for himself, having eliminated Bomber from Code A 2012 and advancing to the Ro32 where he is to face Ryung. Complexity will reveal the third and final newcomer to their team within a day. Source:

Photo by: WellPlayed.org EG's Benjamin "DeMuslim" Baker will step in Artist's spot as the Korean will not be able to attend the upcoming MLG event at the end of February. To fill the empty spot, MLG ran a consolation bracket consisting of Ostojiy, Illusion (both eliminated by Artist in the Ro16 and Ro32, respectively), Killer and Demuslim. After beating Illusion 2-1 in the first round, Demuslim dominated Ostojiy 2-0 in the next to secure his spot at the Winter Arena. Source: MLG

Photo by: MLG Nick "LastShadow" De Cesare, formerly of Team GosuGamers, talks to team Dignitas about his stay in Korea, the players he holds highest esteem of and why he would never shoot for an MLG-granted Code A seed. LastShadow joined GosuGamers in March 2011 and in August he traveled to Korea to live and train with the Mvp B-team. Since October, Nick has been releasing vlogs on his stay in the East and those are one of the topic discussed during the interview with team Dignitas. LastShadow opens the chat by expressing his adoration of South Korea, not just in terms of practice environment but also in terms of culture. The ex-GosuGamers player is positive that moving out of the United States and to Korea helped him improve both...

Photo by: Reignsc2.com The existence of American-based StarCraft 2 team Reign comes to an end as today president Frank "Mirhi" Fealds officially announced its dissolution, leaving players such as Kiwikaki, Slush, Axslav, Inori and Artist teamless. Team Reign was formed mid June 2011, initially housing KiWiKaKi, SLush, Phoenix, Fayth, and Spades. Two months later, Reign acquired IGN as a sponsor while constantly adding more player to the roster, including Artist, Inori and Axslav. Reign's disbandment comes as a result of them and IGN parting ways, leaving the team without a strong sponsor. - "Yesterday afternoon Team Reign and IGN decided to part ways, which unfortunately means Reign will now also be disbanding," said Fealds. "Having only existed for a short time, we have not grown enough as an organization to currently be able to provide for our...

The IdrA MC rivalry resparkles as the IronSquid groups pair them up in Group C. With the full line-up announced four days ago, the tournament organizers announced the groupings today. Group A Lee 'PuMa' Ho Joon Joseph 'ret' de Kroon Lim 'BoxeR' Yo Hwan Yoan 'ToD' Merlo Lee 'MarineKing' Jung Hoon Group B Lee 'Life' Seung Grzegorz 'MaNa' Komincz Jung 'Jjakji' Ji Hoon Ilyes 'Stephano' Satouri Moon 'MMA' Sung Won Group C Jang 'MC' Min Chul Greg 'IdrA' Fields Kang 'Symbol' Dong Hyun Marcus 'ThorZaIN'...

Photo by: PlayXP Former oGs member Yoon Yeol "Nada" Lee finds new home in American-based team Complexity. Signing Nada, however, seems to be just the first wave of reinforcing the roster, as two more players are to be revealed by the end of the week. NaDa has been teamless since January 31st when he departed from oGs to give himself "new challenges and motivation". In his statement, Nada also said that he is willing to join a foreign team, which was followed by community speculations that the terran legend shall sign with SK Gaming since the two parties were involved in a partnership deals since July 2011 and the European team had already signed Nada's ex-teammate MC. As such speculations were refuted, the question of where Nada would go remained hanging...

After only SEn manage to survive the Code A Ro48 and Idra and HuK said goodbye to their GSL hopes for this season, it came time to see how far would the other three foreigners go. Xigua, MacSed and Morrow are no slouches but neither were their Code A opponents, some of them seasoned Code S veterans! We all know that eSports is huge in China. WarCraft 3 and DotA are just a couple of examples about the flourishing gaming life in the East. When it comes to StarCraft 2, though, fans know little to nothing and what is known is mainly just the names of a few players that are of War3 fame or have appeared at IEM Guangzhou or WCG 2011. Now, after a long time of absence since Loner was last seen in Code A January, China returned on GSL stage with two of its best children - WCG 2011 runner-up and arguably the best Chinese zerg Xigua and his protoss team-mate MacSed. The greeting...

ASUS ROG Assembly Winter is coming to Helsinki in a week. All known players are already distributed to their respective groups and the intense practice for the $20,000 tournament should be on its way. As all players but one have been lined up for the upcoming event in Finland, it is time to see the lot that each one has drawn. The 32 players are divided into eight groups of four, where they will play a Bo3 round robin to find the top two. Those will advance to the direct elimination playoffs (played the next day on Saturday), where the matches will be again Bo3 till the semi-finals. The Ro4 will be Bo5 and the grand final shall be a Bo7 series. ASUS ROG Assembly Winter groups Group AGroup BGroup CGroup D Puma Stephano Moon...

Shaun "dApollo" Clark - a professional commentator and zerg player for team Dignitas - has released two lengthy videos, dissecting the two newcomers to the ladder map pool: Cloud Kingdom and Korhal Compound. Apollo does not spare effort in analyzing the smallest of intricacies of the new battlefields, examining them from the viewpoint of all three races and various play-styles. Apollos also discusses the expansion patterms, how viable certain build orders are and what are the dangers and opportunities for each race.

Just one week ago, I was praising the first ever five-man all-kill in GSTL history, a doing of none other than ST_Bomber. Now, IPL TAC 2 comes forth with double the stronger statement, saying that, hey, such a boasting is not an exclusive property to Korean tournaments. GSTL 2012 Season 1 FXO e-Sports VS ZeNEX It was time for consolation matches in this week's GSTL and no, there weren't any all-kills but both winners came really close. FXO led the charge with Lucky at the point of the spear and that paid really well for them. It took ZeNEX four games to finally find an answer to the zerg threat, suffering meanwhile the...

Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski, one of the most analytical StarCraft 2 casters, comes out with a 90-minute video of doing what he does best - providing deep high-level insight on SC2 matches. For the first episode, Artosis has two games on line: ToD vs Nada and NesTea vs Juan. Take me to Artosis' channel

Photo by: MLG Curious to know what's coming in ten days at the first major event of MLG 2012? Take a look at the big picture and see which 32 players will be playing February 24-26 for the $26,000. Hundreds of players walked a heavy road to reach the MLG Winter Arena. It all started with the best eight at MLG Providence 2011, followed by three regional qualifiers that were also to determine the most worthy of a spot on the Arena stream. Finally, the player list is complete: MLG Winter Arena player list MLG ProvidenceEU QualifierKR/TW QualifierLA/NA Qalifier Leenock Violet Nestea Drewbie Naniwa Ret Parting Ddoro ...

Photo by: Thisisgame.com StarTale is the first Korean team to sign a foreign female pro-gamer, namely former War3 pro Yi Ying "MisS" Han, who is currently working as a host and caster for a Chinese gaming cable TV. A TL.net translation of Thisisgame.com article reports that MisS' pro-gaming talent was discovered by StarTale's captain Rainbow, who attended the ZOWIE Divina female cup in November 2011 with the mission of not only supporting his girlfriend Aphrodite but to, apparently, also test and search for potential new members. Lots of people told me that I am stupid for giving up my job as a TV hostess to become a computer player, but how often do you get a chance to follow your dream? When I got informed of this test to become a member of StarTale I was really nervous, just to get the opportunity is a dream come true. When I was told I could...