Today we suggest you recall the brightest events of the 29-day e-sports February. The coldest month of the year passed under the sign Starcraft II – Among several worthy tournaments in this game we especially note Winter Assembly 2012 in Helsinki and American MGL Winter Arena. As for CS 1.6, then this month we were sad about the decay of DTS and rejoiced at the revival of Virtus.Pro, watched Kingston Trilogy Tour and qualifying on TechLabs Cup 2012. Dota lovers again remembered Ivan Antonov (Artstyle), who was announced by the boycott of three leading e -sports organizations of the CIS.
Meanwhile, most teams did not forget to prepare for the March world finals of Intel Extreme Masters in Hanover, as this tournament promises to be one of the most coolest championships of 2012.
10th place: Opening "Barcraft" in the capital of Russia
In the West, bars have long come into fashion, where they mainly broadcast Starcraft II, but from time to time they indulge in other e -sports games. Today in the world there are about twenty such institutions. Barcraft, as their visitors called, are very popular with the game community in the USA and in Europe. You can come there with your friends and watch out for various championships in your favorite discipline. Famous at the Starcraft community commentator Peptar He said that soon such a bar, combined with a new computer club, will appear in the very center of Moscow:
“_ -Sports bar – in fact, a phenomenon unique to Russia and the CIS, a bar with drinks and food in which daily Translations of e -sports events are taking place. There will be spacious, comfortable cabins for conducting the finals of various _lan. The club will have its own studio for broadcasts, with professional equipment, powerful computers, cameras, etc.D. He has no analogues in the CIS. The total area of the room is 300 meters, which is enough for starters. You yourself will see, there are a lot of places there. If the idea is successful, we will get at our disposal almost unlimited resources, which are enough for five analogues of Kyiv cyberrenc, several leagues a la GSL, etc.D. Of course, this will give e -sports an incredible push for the CIS. Therefore, we really hope for your support ".
[[Bullet]] This is what a typical American Barcraft looks like this.
The first Russian Barcraft should be opened very soon. Address – Taganka, 29, p. 1, seven hundred meters from the metro.
9th place: lawsuits Blizzard and Valve
Over the long -awaited second part of Defense of the Ancients from Valve Clouds thickened. On the website of the US Patent Bureau in February was A document published another giant Gamera, companies Blizzard , which requires to award the trademark Dota to her. Among many arguments you can find the following:
[[Bullet]] Holy Place does not happen empty. It seems that Blizzard is very serious in relation to Valve, the only question is whether they will achieve their own ..
“Blizzard is looking for a way to cancel the registration of the DOTA trademark, which the brand has been used exclusively by Blizzard and the Blizzard License Community. The DOTA brand has always been directly associated with Blizzard, including a very popular script for one of the best -selling games Blizzard – Warcraft III. Over the past several years, the DOTA brand has been used only in relation to Blizzard and its product – Warcraft. Valve has never used DOTA previously in connection with any of its product or public service. An attempt to register Dota's brand was the direct use of more than seven -year loyalty of fans for Blizzard. Valve did not have the right to take a name associated with the product of long -term development and costs of Blizzard, as well as Warcraft III fans ".
Valve has not yet commented on these statements. Meanwhile, the official release Dota 2 delayed: all the fault is supposedly problems with servers.
The situation turned out to be ambiguous: theoretically, Blizzard is right, the first version of the game was only an amateur card for their strategy Warsraft III, On the other hand, it works in Valve Icefrog , The main creator and ideological inspirer of the series Defense of the Ancients. Perhaps the problem will be resolved with the change of the DOTA 2 brand to neutral? We promise to observe the dispute between the two largest companies and certainly keep you updated by all the news.
8th place: adventures Artstyle
After Artstyle (Ivan Antonov), former captain Natus Vincere In the Dota 2 discipline, with the scandal left the team and, in addition, announced the departure from e -sports, it seemed that we would not hear more about him. But soon Ivan surfaced again – first in DTS (where, too, I must say, I did not stay long), and then in Moscow Five : The best Russian team after failure on ESWC decided to replace PGG And Vigoss on the "sweet couple" Artstyle and Santa. An experienced Ukrainian captain, among other things, attracted a solid partner to cooperate – a foreign game platform Darer.
[[Bullet]] ex-captain Natus Vincere Ivan Antonov (Artstyle) again and again ended up in the center of the loud scandal. This time he was declared a boycott.
It would seem that it can still happen? The team is staffed, the guys are ready to start training … But here Artstyle explains to the new comrades that they do not need to pay their own organization ten percent of the prize. At first glance, it seems that this is a little, but do not forget – ahead of the guys The International 2 with 1.6 million dollars of prize. By the way, it was because of the refusal to share Antonov won by the money that he left Na’vi, while the rest of the team players voluntarily agreed to give 20% of the prize.
In response, the three leading professional organizations of the CIS – Moscow Five, DTS and Natus Vincere – declared a talented but hand -made player a boycott, and the chances of being in one of them are now miserable meager. It is not clear, however, what else this emotional solution will be expressed in: the teams have no special levers of influence on the organizers and community. Our lovers Dota 2 caused a contradictory reaction: some spoke out about the Artstyle person, while others stated that this boycott was more likely to be on the circus.
[[Bullet]] This is how the Dareer game platform looks, the owners of which took the obligation to support the new team.
But this did not end: in the middle of last month, Ivan Antonov nevertheless lured the former Moscow Five players in Dareer, which, according to him, promised much better financial conditions. Dareer composition:
Ivan Antonov (Artstyle), captain
Yaroslav Kuznetsov (NS)
Andrey Golubev (Dread)
Sergey Bragin (GOD)
Alexander Koltan (Santa)
“On Paper” was a strong team, which, along with Na’vi and DTS, is included in the top three in the CIS. The Dareer included high -class players, and they will certainly claim to win on The International 2 (the tournament will be held in August in Seattle).
7th place: Copenhagen Games and India Gaming Carnival
Two large tournaments in different parts of the world were announced. Copenhagen Games 2012 will be held in the capital of Denmark from the fourth to the eight of April. In total, the organizers plan six disciplines, three of which are already known: Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike 1.6 and Starcraft II.
In the "Rifle" disciplines, the prize fund will be twenty thousand euros, in the strategy of Blizzard will be six and a half thousand. For the tournament in CS 1.6 have already previously registered ESC , Fnatic , SK Gaming , Winfakt , Nom Gaming , Semxorah And Alternate. It is especially nice to see the Russian team in the list of participants Znation. If the guys really go to the Danish Lan, this tournament will be their first serious trip (not counting competitions in Ukraine) and will provide the most valuable experience. And there rivalry with Moscow Five is not far off – however, they have been visiting all European tournaments for several years now.
[Bullet]] India Gaming Carnival promises to be one of the most interesting championships this year: you can often hear about the Indian tournament, and even with such prize!
In discipline Starcraft II Not all participants are known so far, but they have already expressed their desire to go from the CIS KAS , Happy And Aristeo.
Approximately then, in the Indian city of New Delhi, the Ayatti-Caparo International Center will take place India Gaming Carnival. In the homeland of Krishna, Starcraft II championships are planned as part of the festival, Need for Speed , Dota and Counter-Strike 1.6 (he replaced as a result of popular voting, the CS: Source firstly expected at the beginning. And the billiard tournaments and poker will become a side dish for the main e -sports "dish". The total prize fund is more than three hundred thousand dollars, and the organizers have already reserved this amount in the bank, so the money to the winners will most likely be paid on time.
Which of the tournaments will choose most of our players is not yet known. On the one hand, it is interesting to go to India, and the organization promises to be at a high level, and on the other, the road is not short, and compatriots visited Denmark repeatedly, and, in principle, they all suited. Wait and see.
6th place: Results Kingston Trilogy Tour
At the very beginning of February, in Istanbul under the auspices of KingSton, a mini-championship on CS 1 was held.6. The prize fund of the final amounted to five thousand dollars. Only three teams arrived: Na’vi (Edward, Starix, CEH9, Markeloff, Zeus), Moscow Five (Edik, Dosia, Xek, Romjke, Fox) and the Turkish team Hwa (Merentz, PHX, KENB, MarQNUE, EXTRAM), so what was happening more like demonstrative show matches.
To get to the LAN finals, our teams were forced to go through online qualifying in their countries, with which M5 and Na’vi task did perfectly. But the system was strange and raised a lot of questions. Three teams compiled one group: each with each played one map, and the first two places automatically went to the finals.
[[Bullet]] video of the best game moments of the Turkish championship from VirtusPro.Org.
If the main task of this tournament was to popularize e -sports in Turkey and increase the level of local groups, it would be more logical to form a group of four teams (adding, say, say, DarkPassage , which is not much inferior to fellow countrymen from HWA). Or play more than one card, but more-we doubt that the stubborn Turks managed to draw something from two cards lost in a row (against M5-07:16 on De_DUST2, against Na’VI-12:16 on De_NUKE). The match between Ukrainians and Russians was not played at all – he was taken to the final.
[[Bullet]] de_tuscan – the first map of the final match between Na’VI and Moscow Five.
By the sum of three cards, the Russians won (16:14 on de_tuscan, 04:16 on de_mirage, 16:12 on de_inferno), who last year the format of the Best of Three in fights against the "born to win" stubbornly, without obeying, without without cards.
5th place: ASUS Open 2012 goes online
This news, alas, with the fat sign "Minus". In mid -February, the owner of the Cyberfight portal.RU Dmitry Kuznetsov said in his blog that due to financial difficulties, the budget of tournaments will be significantly reduced. The fact that of the four tournaments planned in 2012, three will pass online did not add joy and only the final (at the very end of the year) would not move anywhere.
Both fans and professional players were amazed, because ASUS tournaments, despite the shortcomings, were always stable. Recall that the current format of holding – four tournaments a year – has remained unshakable since 2003. It is not surprising that after this some announced the desire to help ASUS tournaments, but we have not heard about any financial advancements in this matter yet.
[Bullet]] Due to the difficulties with finances, most tournaments under the auspices of ASUS will go online.
As for the disciplines, it seems that everything will remain unchanged, although perhaps Dota 2 will be added or League of Legends. Quake Live This year we will not see at tournaments due to its low popularity. It's a shame that such an interesting and complex game loses fans, and new blood does not pour into discipline.
And the schedule of tournaments for this year will be like this: ASUS Spring Online Cup-March-April, ASUS Summer Online Cup-June-July, Asus Autumn Online Cup-September-October and ASUS Winter Lan Cup-Final Battle of the Year-December. We promise to keep you in the know.
4th place: new composition Virtus.Pro and DTS decay
In the January digest, we wrote that one of the best players DTS, Taras Voitenko ( Craft1k ), decided to "hang a mouse on a nail". After his departure, the guys tried on Intel Extreme Masters: Global Challenge Kiev take the replacement of the player Virtus.Pro Dmitry Bogdanov ( Hooch ). This did not bring much result, the Ukrainian team took the last place in the group.
Many world portals raised topics of a possible replacement, it was said about Z1, Krutoi, Kler and many others. But the team decided differently and, by mutual agreement, ceased to exist. One of the players, Kirill Karasev ( Angel ), moved to Natus Vincere, and now he is one of the official commentators, as well as the project manager.
[[Bullet]] new composition virtus.Pro in theory looks very combat, but this still does not guarantee good results in practice.
Sniper Emil Ahunds ( Kucher ) I also found a new team for myself. He was sheltered by Virtus.Pro, trying to solve his personnel problems since the end of last year, when the squad left Kibaken And Misse. The leadership, apparently, preferred experienced players, and in addition to the Ukrainian Akhundov, Roman Abramov joined the old three (Lex, Evil, Hooch) ( Hacker ). By the way, he had previously played for the “virtus” as one of the leaders, but for some reason was expelled. The departure of the novel then caused bewilderment in the community: many stated that now nothing shines for the team at all. Indeed, the constantly worsening results forced Alexei Kolesnikov ( Lex ) admit that Abramov’s departure was a mistake. It's funny that the novel himself recently denied the possibility of his return, and now we see him again in the Virtus T -shirt.Pro. The composition of the team is as follows:
Dmitry Bogdanov
Alexey Kolesnikov (Lex)
Mikhail Garanin (Evil)
Roman Abramov (Hacker)
Emil Akhunds (Kucher)
The names are encouraging, but it is not known whether the guys will be able to play. Of course, in the internal arena, the team will try to compete with M5 And Team Vifort. But as for international prospects, it is not yet clear whether the organization will be able to send guys to major European championships. And how the issue with World Cyber Games , Also, go for me: only citizens of the Russian Federation can take part in Russian national qualifying.
3rd place: Mlg Winter Arena
At the very end of February in the United States as part Major League Gaming The largest tournament in Starcraft II. Thirty -two players fought for the championship title and $ 26,000 of the prize fund. Ten of them were intended to the winner. Thanks to the cooperation of the American League MLG and the Korean GSL, the tournament visited many of the strongest Korean players (DRG, MarineKing, Parting, Ganzi, Leenock, Nestea, Mc, Violet, OZ, MVP, etc.D.), who were considered the main applicants for victory.
The most amazing event of the tournament was the uneven performance of the strongest Korean Zerg IM.Nestea : loss in the first round of the upper grid is the Englishman EG.Demuslim , and then the defeat in the third round of the lower grid at the hands of the Swedish protoss Naniwa. Recall that the Korean was traveling in the USA in the rank of one of the main favorites. Our representative, Russian protoss was present at the tournament Rox.KIS.Pomi. He performed extremely unsuccessfully, by one by blowing Koreans Parting And Ganzi.
[[Bullet]] winner of the American tournament MLG Winter Arena – Korean Terran Jung Hong Li.
Nestea's failure turned out to be the only loud sensation; The rest of the favorites are Korean, Marineking , Dongraegu And OZ , and Canadian protoss HUK expected to reach the semifinals. We add that in the eight of the best, except Huk’a, the Asians graciously allowed only the Swede Naniwa to crawl.
In 1/2, the young Terran Marineking defeated the Canadian and became the first finalist. The company was made by Dongraegu – perhaps the strongest grave in the world. In the fascinating and stressed match, Marineking beat Dongraegu with a score of 4: 2 and became a well -deserved tournament champion.
2nd place: TechLabs Cup Counter-Strike 1.6
In March in Moscow, a festival called TechLabs Cup 2012. Among the game disciplines, there are and Counter-Strike 1.6 , True, only two teams will go to Moscow, which will play on the stage of the show-Match.
[Bullet]] In order to get around the SK, Natus Vincere will have to give all one hundred and more on the Moscow final and a little more.
To determine who it will be, the organizers decided to hold online qualifying, in which sixteen strongest teams of the Old World took part.
The results of the group stage
Group D1234VNP Fr
https://kaiser-slots-casino.co.uk/
KERCHNET M5ANEXISESAHARA
1.Kerchnet ########## 20:10 16:14 18:12 3009
2.M5 10:20 ######## 16:14 21:09 2016
3.Anexis14: 16 14:16 ######## 18:12 1023
4.Esahara 12:18 09:21 12:18 PM ####### 0030
Group C1234VNPO
SK Winfakt AlternateVirtus.Pro
1.SK ######### 21:09 13:17 20:10 2016
2.Winfakt 09:21 ######### 23:07 20:10 2016
3.Alternate17: 13 07:23 ######## 28:02 2016
4.Virtus.Pro 10:20 10:20 02:28 PM ######## 0030
Group B1234VNPO
Fnatic ESC Xapsosnt
1.Fnatic ######### 20:10 20:10 22:08 3009
2.ESC 10:20 ######### 17:13 25:05 2016
3.Xapso10: 20 13:17 ######## 15:15 1021
4.SNT 08:22 05:25:15 PM ####### 0031
Group A1234VNPO
Na’vivifort Shacklions
1.Na’vi ########## 15:15 18:12 28:02 2107
2.Vifort 15:15 ######### 22:08 07:23 1114
3.SHARK 12:18 FM 08:22 ######## 19:11 1023
4.Lions 02:28 23:07 11:19:19 ####### 1023
… – de_train … – de_inferno … – de_tuskan … – de_nuke … – de_dust2
Na’vi, Fnatic, Winfakt, Kerchnet, Vifort, M5, ESC and SK Gaming made their way to the quarterfinals.
There was no particular struggle at this stage, each of the teams won with a score of 2: 0. The results of the quarterfinals: Na'vi took revenge for defeat from M5 in Istanbul (19:17 on de_inferno, 16:09 on de_tuscan), and Ukrainians Kerchnet surprisingly easily coped with the strong Poles from ESC (16:08 on De_TRain, 16:14 on de_nuke), the rest of the couples: SK – Vifort (16:04 on de_TRain, 16:07 on de_inferno), fnatic – winfakt (16:14 on de_nuke, 16:12 on de_tuscan).
The fate of the vouchers to the final was decided in two Ukrainian-Swedish confrontations. In the first pair, Fnatic and Natus Vincere, the advantage was given to Ukrainians, since it was they who won the last full -time duel of these teams on IEM GC: Kiev. Even the newcomer Andreas Friedh did not help Swedam ( Moddii ), to which many predict a great future. 2: 1 for Ukrainians on cards (16:12 on de_tuscan, 14:16 on de_train, 16:09 on de_Dust2).
[[Bullet]] Frag-clip of the best gaming moments of online qualifying Techlabs Cup 2012.
Kerchnet is known for its good game on the Internet, and many believed that she can defeat SK and make the final in Moscow completely Ukrainian, but alas: the Swedes managed to impose a slow and viscous game to the opponents, which gave their results. SK Victory with a score of 2: 0 on cards (16:03 on de_train, 16:09 on de_inferno) – and in March in Moscow we will find a repetition of the recent Kyiv finale.
1st place: Winter Assembly 2012 Starcraft II Tournament
And heads our February rating Starcraft II tournament in Helsinki. We recently in detail about him They told And we will not be repeated.
[Bullet]] The recent tournament in Helsinki was remembered, alas, first of all, by the failure of all our players and only then – beautiful and tense matches of competitors.
Despite the crushing fiasco players from the CIS, the tournament turned out to be fascinating and rich in bright fights. The victory of the Korean terrane Song Hon Choy ( POLT ) representing the TSL team ( Team SCV Life ). The second place was taken by the Frenchman Ilyes Saturi ( Millenium.STEPHANO ), bronze – at the Korean EG.Puma.
And what's next?
In the first spring month, one can definitely distinguish Intel Extreme Masters World Championship , which is now taking place as part of the famous exhibition CEBIT In Hanover. This tournament will be the last in the career of the captain of the Swedish team of Fnatic Patrick Sattermon ( Carn ).
In March, EA Sports announces EA Sports Challenge on their sports simulators. Amazes the total prize fund of the tournament – it is equal to one million dollars!
And we will also have to continue the games of national teams at the online championship Clanbase Nations Cup XV. All favorites (Sweden, Russia, Ukraine, Poland) have successfully overcame the group stage, and now matches in the playoffs are waiting for them.