This is a VOD of ASL 21, the premier Brood War tournament in South Korea, which was played last weekend. Since Brood War is my favorite game and I'm very passionate about it I wanted to share what...
This is a VOD of ASL 21, the premier Brood War tournament in South Korea, which was played last weekend. Since Brood War is my favorite game and I'm very passionate about it I wanted to share what I consider to be the series of the year. It's really amazing that Brood War is still going so strong since it was released in 1998. I've linked to the Artosis / Tasteless cast of the series. If you're curious about the highest levels of RTS player, I think this series showcases it spectacularly.
One of the most amazing things about Brood War is that it hasn't received any patches in over 20 years, but the meta has continued to evolve and new builds still pop up from time to time. The game is actually balanced around maps, so there have been people who have studied this game extensively for literal decades in order to create well balanced maps that allow for high level gameplay. When I say that the game is balanced around maps, this means that various features of the maps are designed such that none of the game's races is able to gain too much of an extreme advantage.
This season in particular was very special because we saw the return of FlaSh, who is widely regarded as the greatest Brood War player of all time. He said he would be playing for one final season after having retired a few years back. The FlaSh that we see today is a grizzled veteran, although the years have not been kind to him. He's had multiple wrist surgeries and he says that he can no longer grind the same number of games as when he was younger because his wrists start to hurt. In interviews with other pro Brood War players they always say that when you're preparing to play against FlaSh in his peak you cannot really find anyone to practice with who can match his level of play.
Spoilers.
I'm not going to do a writeup for each game as that would be too time consuming, but part of what made this series so exciting is that it went the distance to all 7 games! soma adapted perfectly and he responded to FlaSh's greedy builds perfectly. From FlaSh we saw him make mech builds work vs Zerg multiple times, something that is widely considered out of fashion and non-standard.
I hope this writeup is enough to motivate at least a few people to give Brood War a try, since it was the first video game I fell in love with and I still keep coming back to it nearly 30 years later.
This is a VOD of ASL 21, the premier Brood War tournament in South Korea, which was played last weekend. Since Brood War is my favorite game and I'm very passionate about it I wanted to share what I consider to be the series of the year. It's really amazing that Brood War is still going so strong since it was released in 1998. I've linked to the Artosis / Tasteless cast of the series. If you're curious about the highest levels of RTS player, I think this series showcases it spectacularly.
One of the most amazing things about Brood War is that it hasn't received any patches in over 20 years, but the meta has continued to evolve and new builds still pop up from time to time. The game is actually balanced around maps, so there have been people who have studied this game extensively for literal decades in order to create well balanced maps that allow for high level gameplay. When I say that the game is balanced around maps, this means that various features of the maps are designed such that none of the game's races is able to gain too much of an extreme advantage.
This season in particular was very special because we saw the return of FlaSh, who is widely regarded as the greatest Brood War player of all time. He said he would be playing for one final season after having retired a few years back. The FlaSh that we see today is a grizzled veteran, although the years have not been kind to him. He's had multiple wrist surgeries and he says that he can no longer grind the same number of games as when he was younger because his wrists start to hurt. In interviews with other pro Brood War players they always say that when you're preparing to play against FlaSh in his peak you cannot really find anyone to practice with who can match his level of play.
Spoilers.
I'm not going to do a writeup for each game as that would be too time consuming, but part of what made this series so exciting is that it went the distance to all 7 games! soma adapted perfectly and he responded to FlaSh's greedy builds perfectly. From FlaSh we saw him make mech builds work vs Zerg multiple times, something that is widely considered out of fashion and non-standard.I hope this writeup is enough to motivate at least a few people to give Brood War a try, since it was the first video game I fell in love with and I still keep coming back to it nearly 30 years later.