MLG Dallas Thoughts

MLG's last and biggest tournament of 2010, MLG Dallas, took place this past weekend. If the GSL's pace is like a roaring fire compared to the slow burn of traditional Korean Brood War tournaments, MLG is like an explosion, whipping through a 128 person double elimination tournament in just three days.

So far, MLG hasn't attracted Korean participation the way Blizzcon does, but hopefully some of the players eliminated from the GSL will come to future events. As it was, MLG Dallas was probably the best attended non-Korean tournament in SC2 so far, drawing players from all over the world (although to be sure some of the best European players weren't able to go). Perhaps most notably, Team Liquid was there in its entirety, as was all of Evil Geniuses.

The results must be gratifying for Team Liquid. Always popular thanks to their discussion forum, the team's success in SC2 tournaments hasn't quite matched its reputation. With Jinro winning the whole tournament and three more Team Liquid players in the top 7, MLG Dallas proved Team Liquid is still a force to be reckoned with.

Now, if you're like me and focus most of your time watching SC2 on the GSL, the results are exciting for another reason. Despite being the "Global Starcraft 2 League", only a few foreigners have managed to qualify. So far, Idra and TLO are the only consistent performers (sorry Artosis), and TLO is going to back to Germany and won't participate in GSL 3. But for those of us hoping for a more diverse foreigner lineup in GSL 3, MLG Dallas' results provides plenty of hope. The tournament champion, Jinro, has already been in Korea for two months and its clear he has improved tremendously. Ret is still relatively new to SC2 at the highest level, so it's easy to write him off as needing more practice to qualify, but getting 7th at Dallas is plenty impressive. And while Idra's early loss was disappointing, the player who ultimately knocked him out of the tournament, SeleCT, will also be going to GSL 3 qualifiers (while it's true that SeleCT, a Korean who's been in America for school, isn't a real foreigner, from an SC2 perspective he's a product of the foreign scene).

With all three MLG tournament winners (Huk, Idra, and Jinro) in Korea for GSL 3, there's a better chance than ever to see a foreigner break into the quarterfinals. Later this week I'll running down the foreign players known to be playing in the GSL 3 qualifiers. It's an impressive list, but these qualifiers will definitely be the hardest yet.