[IEM] Balance Text by motbob Graphics by pachi

IEM Season V - World Championship



Six months ago, the Intel Extreme Masters tournament at Gamescom Cologne came to a close. In the first major offline tournament in Starcraft 2's history, a global audience became familiar for the first time with the major players in the European scene and saw how up-and-comers, like Huk and DeMuslim, performed at their first SC2 live event. A major theme running through that tournament was imbalance: Morrow's 5 rax reaper play and his 3-1 win over Idra in the finals led to a 185-page thread on Team Liquid that was ultimately locked due to too much QQ. Additionally, for a tournament dubbed the "Global Challenge", the player list was very skewed towards Europeans: 13 players from the EU participated, 3 from the US, and zero from Korea.



In stark contrast to the tournament that ended half a year ago, the theme of the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship is balance. With five Europeans, three North Americans, three Koreans, and one Australian, this event will be the first ever offline SC2 tournament with a truly international composition. Furthering the theme, there are four Terran players, four Zerg players, and four Protoss players in attendance, with two of each race in each of the two groups. The games this weekend will be broadcast in English, German, Russian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Chinese. Most excitingly for English fans, the ESL has brought in a truly great trio of casters: Day[9], TheLittleOne, and Rotterdam, who will switch off on casting duties throughout the week.



The qualification method for this tournament involved ESL events all corners of the globe and granted fresh prominence to previously unknown casters and players alike. KellyMilkies, for example, was the main commentator for the IEM SEA qualifiers.



IEM Gamescom was the first great offline SC2 tournament, and the IEM World Championship looks to continue ESL's track record of excellence. This event will truly live up to its name. Get ready for an outstanding week of Starcraft 2 action!



Six months ago, the Intel Extreme Masters tournament at Gamescom Cologne came to a close. In the first major offline tournament in Starcraft 2's history, a global audience became familiar for the first time with the major players in the European scene and saw how up-and-comers, like Huk and DeMuslim, performed at their first SC2 live event. A major theme running through that tournament was imbalance: Morrow's 5 rax reaper play and his 3-1 win over Idra in the finals led to a 185-page thread on Team Liquid that was ultimately locked due to too much QQ. Additionally, for a tournament dubbed the "Global Challenge", the player list was very skewed towards Europeans: 13 players from the EU participated, 3 from the US, and zero from Korea.In stark contrast to the tournament that ended half a year ago, the theme of the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship is. With five Europeans, three North Americans, three Koreans, and one Australian, this event will be the first ever offline SC2 tournament with a truly international composition. Furthering the theme, there are four Terran players, four Zerg players, and four Protoss players in attendance, with two of each race in each of the two groups. The games this weekend will be broadcast in English, German, Russian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Chinese. Most excitingly for English fans, the ESL has brought in a truly great trio of casters: Day[9], TheLittleOne, and Rotterdam, who will switch off on casting duties throughout the week.The qualification method for this tournament involved ESL events all corners of the globe and granted fresh prominence to previously unknown casters and players alike. KellyMilkies, for example, was the main commentator for the IEM SEA qualifiers.IEM Gamescom was the first great offline SC2 tournament, and the IEM World Championship looks to continue ESL's track record of excellence. This event will truly live up to its name. Get ready for an outstanding week of Starcraft 2 action! Daily Schedule

March 1st -- Group A

March 2nd -- Group B

March 3rd -- Quarterfinals

March 4th -- Semifinals

March 5th -- Grand Finals



All streams are free in LQ, and will not use Octoshape.







Group A Group B QXC Fenix MorroW mOOnGLaDe White-Ra Socke Tarson SjoW IdrA Squirtle Ace Moon



Place Prize Money 1st $13,000 2nd $6,500 3rd $4,000 4th $2,500 5th/6th $800 7th/8th $400 9th/10th $400 11th/12th $400



The North Americans







Arguably the top three players from their region, Fenix, , and have show consistent results throughout their respective careers. Fenix and qxc qualified for this event through IEM America, where Fenix beat qxc 3-1 in the finals in a series that exhibited his excellent TvT. Fenix solidified himself as a fantastic TvT player when he beat oGsTOP 3-1 to take 3rd place in Dreamhack last November. Though he hasn't shown spectacular results in MLGs so far, he recently qualified for TSL 3 due to his excellent performance in TL Opens.



Qxc has similarly put out a steady stream of tournament wins and top finishes. After showing respectable results in MLGs, he won the second EG Master's Cup tournament in December, moved to Spain to study abroad, dropped by Assembly (only to get knocked out by ), and qualified for the TSL by winning a TL Open. His TvZ was strong enough to scare Idra at MLG DC and neither his TvT nor TvP are glaring weaknesses.



Idra, now that he has moved back to the States, is the best player outside of Korea. With consistently improving finishes in each GSL season, Idra proved that he can hang at the top in the most competitive SC2 scene in the world. Since winning the King of the Beta tournament, he's won every foreign tournament he's entered ( at least, he's won the ones that didn't have Kulas Ravine in the mappool. Come on, MLG!). We'll see if he can continue his success here at IEM.



Arguably the top three players from their region, QXC , and IdrA have show consistent results throughout their respective careers. Fenix and qxc qualified for this event through IEM America, where Fenix beat qxc 3-1 in the finals in a series that exhibited his excellent TvT. Fenix solidified himself as a fantastic TvT player when he beat oGsTOP 3-1 to take 3rd place in Dreamhack last November. Though he hasn't shown spectacular results in MLGs so far, he recently qualified for TSL 3 due to his excellent performance in TL Opens.Qxc has similarly put out a steady stream of tournament wins and top finishes. After showing respectable results in MLGs, he won the second EG Master's Cup tournament in December, moved to Spain to study abroad, dropped by Assembly (only to get knocked out by HuK ), and qualified for the TSL by winning a TL Open. His TvZ was strong enough to scare Idra at MLG DC and neither his TvT nor TvP are glaring weaknesses.Idra, now that he has moved back to the States, is the best player outside of Korea. With consistently improving finishes in each GSL season, Idra proved that he can hang at the top in the most competitive SC2 scene in the world. Since winning the King of the Beta tournament, he's won every foreign tournament he's entered ( at least, he's won the ones that didn't have Kulas Ravine in the mappool. Come on, MLG!). We'll see if he can continue his success here at IEM. The Europeans



The five European players, White-Ra, SjoW, Socke, , and , are some of the best that Europe has to offer.



The finals of IEM Europe featured two players, White-Ra and Sjow, who have taken radically different paths to get where they are. The winner of that finals, Sjow, was a 2v2 player in WC3 before taking up Starcraft 2, and has been wildly inconsistent in his short career. At one point, right after IEM Europe, he was able to confidently claim the title of top European Terran, and there were talks of him going to Korea to pursue a berth in Code A of GSL. But recently, Sjow has been on a major cold streak, losing to two unknown tosses in Assembly and to a Protoss named "Bubbles" in the FXOpen. He also wasn't able to qualify for TSL 3. Just yesterday, though, Sjow was able to beat EG.Axslav in a Bo7 showmatch, so there are signs that his TvP might be coming back to life.



The other finalist and the runner-up at IEM Europe was White-Ra, a fixture of both the SC:BW and SC2 communities. Only taking time off from crushing his enemies to get married, White-Ra has shown consistently excellent play. From his win of the HDH way back at the beginning of the beta, to his 3rd place finish at Blizzcon, to his 2nd place at IEM Europe, White-Ra has never given his fans reason to believe that he'll ever show anything but top-level Protoss play.



Morrow is perhaps the first player in Starcraft history to qualify for a massive tournament with one race and participate in it with another. His disassembly of Idra during IEM Cologne left the world screaming about Terran imbalance, yet Morrow switched races to Zerg shortly thereafter (claiming Terran was too easy in terms of mechanics), leading Idra to famously make the proclamation that if Morrow ever won a prize tournament with that race, he'd never say the word "balance" again. Multiple patches and several Terran nerfs later, that promise perhaps no longer holds any weight, but Idra's prediction seems to have taken the form of a curse: second place finishes in the SCreddit invitational, in Assembly, and in a TLopen mean that Morrow is likely itching to get the silver monkey off his back and win a major tournament with his new race. He's certainly got the skills to pull it off.



Frankly, I know nothing about Tarson, except that he was a SC:BW Terran who was brutally murdered by Nony during TSL 2. Check the comments of this story; Tarson fans may have written some facts about their favorite player if they aren't too busy yelling at me for being ignorant.



Socke rounds out the field, a top level Protoss with a few big money finishes under his belt. He isn't even supposed to be here at this tournament; he replaces DeMusliM, who is still suffering from his injury. Yet Morrow famously won IEM Cologne, even though he wasn't supposed to be there either (he replaced a player who had visa issues). Socke has history on his side, and having the EPS Germany title doesn't hurt, either.



The five European players, Tarson , and MorroW , are some of the best that Europe has to offer.The finals of IEM Europe featured two players, White-Ra and Sjow, who have taken radically different paths to get where they are. The winner of that finals, Sjow, was a 2v2 player in WC3 before taking up Starcraft 2, and has been wildly inconsistent in his short career. At one point, right after IEM Europe, he was able to confidently claim the title of top European Terran, and there were talks of him going to Korea to pursue a berth in Code A of GSL. But recently, Sjow has been on a major cold streak, losing to two unknown tosses in Assembly and to a Protoss named "Bubbles" in the FXOpen. He also wasn't able to qualify for TSL 3. Just yesterday, though, Sjow was able to beat EG.Axslav in a Bo7 showmatch, so there are signs that his TvP might be coming back to life.The other finalist and the runner-up at IEM Europe was White-Ra, a fixture of both the SC:BW and SC2 communities. Only taking time off from crushing his enemies to get married, White-Ra has shown consistently excellent play. From his win of the HDH way back at the beginning of the beta, to his 3rd place finish at Blizzcon, to his 2nd place at IEM Europe, White-Ra has never given his fans reason to believe that he'll ever show anything but top-level Protoss play.Morrow is perhaps the first player in Starcraft history to qualify for a massive tournament with one race and participate in it with another. His disassembly of Idra during IEM Cologne left the world screaming about Terran imbalance, yet Morrow switched races to Zerg shortly thereafter (claiming Terran was too easy in terms of mechanics), leading Idra to famously make the proclamation that if Morrow ever won a prize tournament with that race, he'd never say the word "balance" again. Multiple patches and several Terran nerfs later, that promise perhaps no longer holds any weight, but Idra's prediction seems to have taken the form of a curse: second place finishes in the SCreddit invitational, in Assembly, and in a TLopen mean that Morrow is likely itching to get the silver monkey off his back and win a major tournament with his new race. He's certainly got the skills to pull it off.Frankly, I know nothing about Tarson, except that he was a SC:BW Terran who was brutally murdered by Nony during TSL 2. Check the comments of this story; Tarson fans may have written some facts about their favorite player if they aren't too busy yelling at me for being ignorant.Socke rounds out the field, a top level Protoss with a few big money finishes under his belt. He isn't even supposed to be here at this tournament; he replaces DeMusliM, who is still suffering from his injury. Yet Morrow famously won IEM Cologne, even though he wasn't supposed to be there either (he replaced a player who had visa issues). Socke has history on his side, and having the EPS Germany title doesn't hurt, either. Three Koreans and an Aussie



Amazingly, all four of these qualifiers were in Code A, and all four lost. $13,000 in prize money at IEM might be a worthy consolation prize, though.



was almost certainly invited because of his celebrity status. The legendary WC3 player has been showing poorer results than his teammate, Lyn, and, to me, it seems like Zerg is just the wrong race for his style. Whatever the reason, Moon is probably weaker than most of the foreigners in this competition.



is an ex-BW player who got an incredible amount of hype during his time on MBCGame Hero and then never actually accomplished anything. Now in SC2, he's managed to be stunningly mediocre, losing to weak players in the GSL, but showing pretty good results in team leagues.



is a man with beautiful ZvT. He didn't show it in his Code A games, but this Aussie's ZvT is a work of art. He plays a very Idra-like management game, but in the games I've seen, he does it even better than Idra: in the FXOpen game I watched he didn't lose a single mutalisk unnecessarily, keeping the Terran restricted to two bases through fantastic harass and army control. His weakness is a lackluster ZvP.



lost his recent GSL games vs Supernova, but we'll forgive him for that since he's just a cool player all around. With an all-kill in the GSTL, a legendary game vs MVP, innovative builds in his GSL appearances, and a screenname that makes countless jokes during GSL casts possible, Squirtle will be a fan favorite heading into this tournament. We'll see whether he can evolve his play to a high enough level to allow him to win it all.



Interview with Rotterdam



Hey! Thanks for doing this interview. Can you introduce yourself and tell us how you're involved with the IEM World Finals in Hannover?

Hai, of course. So my name is Kevin "RotterdaM" van der Kooi, a former professional Wc3 player and casted quite some tournaments as well, most famous ones would be GOMTV World Invitional 2008 and the WCG's 2008/2009/2010. Nowadays I'm working for ESL as their English mainly SC II Commentator, and since IEM is an ESL product, I'm obviously part of the process :D



In the regional championships for IEM, the map pool was simply the 9 Blizzard ladder maps. Has this map pool changed for the world championship?

Yes it changed a little bit, the system they use is the following: there are 7 maps (BS, DQ, Meta, LT, Scrap, Shakuras and XNC), both players have 2 vetoes in the groupstage and 1 in the playoffs since its Bo5 from there on. I have to say though I have absolutely 0 saying in that whatsoever, I'm not a league admin and they never ask for my opinion, unfortunately



How exactly will you be splitting casting duties with Day[9] and TLO?

We will rotate throughout the entire tournament, making sure no one gets too exhausted or whatsoever since the days are quite long ( we have to be there at the event every day at 7 AM haha - I don't think Dario knows this yet btw, will be unpleasant news I think ) but in general I prefer to cast games with Toss involved since that's my race and I know a lot more about it than TvZ or ZvZ for instance so I'll try to get the toss games in general , but in general we will just rotate, so we might start with Day9 + me, then Day9 + TLO, then TLO and me etc etc.



How do you think the three Koreans will perform against the best Europe and North America have to offer? Who among the Koreans do you think will do the best?

Very hard to say, I'm very excited to see them play and cast their games :D, I think they'll do fine but I don't expect 3 Koreans in the top 4 for instance, that would be a big surprise for me. I personally think Squirtle will perform best, was super impressed when I watched his games but I have to admit I'm not a super GSL insider. I'm focusing a lot on the European scene, so I'm just gonna let them pleasantly surprise me :D, of course as a former Wc3 player I'm looking very forward to see Moon, but it seems so far he's not really been able to make the difference in SC II .



Give us one awesome detail about this tournament that we don't know already (like whether or not the dreaded Octoshape has been done away with!). If ESL has already announced everything, give us one thing you're personally really excited about.

Haha, No worries, we are not streaming via Octoshape anymore so that's nothing to worry about. For all news whatsoever just keep a close eye on the Intel Extreme Masters page but personally I have too much to look forward to :D. Casting with Day9 is of course an awesome experience and I think we'll do really well, it's nice that he has the ultimate Broodwar Background and I'm pretty much a Wc3 Veteran ( Okay I entered the pro scene in 2005 but that's quite a while already ), but for every event the thing I look most forward to by far is just meeting the players and guys that I like in general. I'm absolutely sure I'm gonna have a great time once more with TLO, Sjow, White-ra, Tarson since they're just really nice and humble guys and guaranteed fun to hang out with and of course shouldn't forget Idra, who I unfortunately don't see that much considering he's living in the USA but we always had quite some fun when we did meet up so its great to have The Gracken! here as well. :D But in the end more I just hope we're gonna see great StarCraft games that we hopefully will remember for a long long time, because that is in the end of the day, the reason why we are all there and the reason everyone is watching at home, but with these players one would say that almost can't go wrong.



Prediction time! Who do you think will make it out of each group?

Hard to make a proper prediction and I kinda don't like to do it since I'm one of the hosts for this tournament, but it would be a bit lame to back out so for one time I'll do it. My guess is that Idra wins group A with White-Ra and MorroW taking 2nd and 3rd, for Group B its a bit tougher because we are still not sure whether or not DeMuslim will be recovered from his elbow injury in time and unfortunately I don't think he will (Editor's Note: ) but I think Squirtle will win the group with Moon and MoonGlade taking 2nd and 3rd place, even though honestly every player can advance and I'm quite sure my predictions ain't flawless haha, but well, gave it a good go .



Okay well, thanks for the interview! Good luck at the event!

Thanks to you <3



Hai, of course. So my name is Kevin "RotterdaM" van der Kooi, a former professional Wc3 player and casted quite some tournaments as well, most famous ones would be GOMTV World Invitional 2008 and the WCG's 2008/2009/2010. Nowadays I'm working for ESL as their English mainly SC II Commentator, and since IEM is an ESL product, I'm obviously part of the process :DYes it changed a little bit, the system they use is the following: there are 7 maps (BS, DQ, Meta, LT, Scrap, Shakuras and XNC), both players have 2 vetoes in the groupstage and 1 in the playoffs since its Bo5 from there on. I have to say though I have absolutely 0 saying in that whatsoever, I'm not a league admin and they never ask for my opinion, unfortunatelyWe will rotate throughout the entire tournament, making sure no one gets too exhausted or whatsoever since the days are quite long ( we have to be there at the event every day at 7 AM haha - I don't think Dario knows this yet btw, will be unpleasant news I think) but in general I prefer to cast games with Toss involved since that's my race and I know a lot more about it than TvZ or ZvZ for instance so I'll try to get the toss games in general, but in general we will just rotate, so we might start with Day9 + me, then Day9 + TLO, then TLO and me etc etc.Very hard to say, I'm very excited to see them play and cast their games :D, I think they'll do fine but I don't expect 3 Koreans in the top 4 for instance, that would be a big surprise for me. I personally think Squirtle will perform best, was super impressed when I watched his games but I have to admit I'm not a super GSL insider. I'm focusing a lot on the European scene, so I'm just gonna let them pleasantly surprise me :D, of course as a former Wc3 player I'm looking very forward to see Moon, but it seems so far he's not really been able to make the difference in SC IIHaha, No worries, we are not streaming via Octoshape anymore so that's nothing to worry about. For all news whatsoever just keep a close eye on the Intel Extreme Masters page but personally I have too much to look forward to :D. Casting with Day9 is of course an awesome experience and I think we'll do really well, it's nice that he has the ultimate Broodwar Background and I'm pretty much a Wc3 Veteran ( Okay I entered the pro scene in 2005 but that's quite a while already), but for every event the thing I look most forward to by far is just meeting the players and guys that I like in general. I'm absolutely sure I'm gonna have a great time once more with TLO, Sjow, White-ra, Tarson since they're just really nice and humble guys and guaranteed fun to hang out with and of course shouldn't forget Idra, who I unfortunately don't see that much considering he's living in the USA but we always had quite some fun when we did meet up so its great to have The Gracken! here as well. :D But in the end more I just hope we're gonna see great StarCraft games that we hopefully will remember for a long long time, because that is in the end of the day, the reason why we are all there and the reason everyone is watching at home, but with these players one would say that almost can't go wrong.Hard to make a proper prediction and I kinda don't like to do it since I'm one of the hosts for this tournament, but it would be a bit lame to back out so for one time I'll do it. My guess is that Idra wins group A with White-Ra and MorroW taking 2nd and 3rd, for Group B its a bit tougher because we are still not sure whether or not DeMuslim will be recovered from his elbow injury in time and unfortunately I don't think he will (Editor's Note:) but I think Squirtle will win the group with Moon and MoonGlade taking 2nd and 3rd place, even though honestly every player can advance and I'm quite sure my predictions ain't flawless haha, but well, gave it a good goThanks to you <3



Whoever wins the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship will be a top class player, because we only have top class players in the lineup! Whatever happens, I know it will be spectacular. Enjoy the games!



Thanks to Pholon for making the interview with Rotterdam possible. Amazingly, all four of these qualifiers were in Code A, and all four lost. $13,000 in prize money at IEM might be a worthy consolation prize, though. Moon was almost certainly invited because of his celebrity status. The legendary WC3 player has been showing poorer results than his teammate, Lyn, and, to me, it seems like Zerg is just the wrong race for his style. Whatever the reason, Moon is probably weaker than most of the foreigners in this competition. Ace is an ex-BW player who got an incredible amount of hype during his time on MBCGame Hero and then never actually accomplished anything. Now in SC2, he's managed to be stunningly mediocre, losing to weak players in the GSL, but showing pretty good results in team leagues. mOOnGLaDe is a man with beautiful ZvT. He didn't show it in his Code A games, but this Aussie's ZvT is a work of art. He plays a very Idra-like management game, but in the games I've seen, he does it even better than Idra: in the FXOpen game I watched he didn't lose a single mutalisk unnecessarily, keeping the Terran restricted to two bases through fantastic harass and army control. His weakness is a lackluster ZvP. Squirtle lost his recent GSL games vs Supernova, but we'll forgive him for that since he's just a cool player all around. With an all-kill in the GSTL, a legendary game vs MVP, innovative builds in his GSL appearances, and a screenname that makes countless jokes during GSL casts possible, Squirtle will be a fan favorite heading into this tournament. We'll see whether he can evolve his play to a high enough level to allow him to win it all.Whoever wins the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship will be a top class player, because we only have top class players in the lineup! Whatever happens, I know it will be spectacular. Enjoy the games! Moderator Good content always wins.