I don’t have too much time today so here is a quick linkdrop. This weekend, there was a great LAN Party in Weekend called Dreamhack. They had a StarCraft 2 tournament sponsored by SteelSeries and having a handsome total of $25,000 in prize money. It was moderated by everybody’s favorite StarCraft 2 commenter, Day9.
I watched some of it and it turns out that it was quite spectacular, especially the finale. It was Namaa vs. MaNa. And yes, it was also hilarious to listen to a commentary when the two players have such similar names. Both players were from the same team but I was rooting for MaNa. He is playing Protoss and he is from Poland. I’m not deep in enough yet to have any other criteria for favoring players. 
It was a best of 5 so they played until a player wins 3 games in total. I was shocked to see Namaa win the first two games. All seemed lost. However, the tides turned in the 3rd game. MaNa started to get a hold of his enemy and won the following two games in a spectacular fashion. It came down to the final game which I won’t spoil.
Especially the 3rd and 4th game are quite exciting. The players clash huge armies against each other. Even when Namaa seems to have an advantage, MaNa always seems to find an angle to get the upper hand. It’s also interesting to see how the players learn each other’s strategy and modify their own accordingly. A genuinely entertaining match. I can seen myself preferring this over football or any other sport.
You can watch the matches here:
Game 1
Game 2
Game 3
Game 4
Game 5
There will be another big tournament here in Cologne this Friday. I’m tempted to check it out now.
