Lizzuma has continued to dominate the academy by never losing a tournament. He has definitely proved his worth and his next big break through would be to place well at an MLG event. Here is an interview with Lizzuma after winning the MLG Raleigh compLexity Academy Qualifier.

You continue to dominate the compLexity Academy. You have not lost one tournament at this point in your time with the Academy. Why are the other Academy players having so much trouble taking you down?

I think the answer revolves around my style. I mostly play a huge macro style. My practice time is a lot more efficient, because in practice you usually end up playing macro games. I’m really confident in the late game in all 3 matchups. Lately, I have been practicing a lot on defending early cheese to make sure I always survive until later on. This gives me a huge advantage of some of the players who focus more on the early and mid games. I also think my ability to mix in all ins to my play makes my play really strong.

You faced Cheech in the finals, and he ended up taking a series off of you. You showed great resilience by taking the next series off of him and being crowned victor of the tournament. What was your thought process after dropping the first series?

I wasn’t too worried. After taking the first game pretty easily, I knew I could win the macro game. Game 2 I went for a 2 rax build which is pretty much a cheese. I had to transition into bio, which I never practice. Game 3 he just prepared a really strong aggressive build which I wasn’t ready for. He played well, but I decided to go back to playing safe and solid in the second series. Testbug also really helped to shut down his early reaper player, as there is only one place to jump into the main.

From the first tournament to this tournament, do you feel as if you have improved and developed as a player?

In MLG Anaheim, your result seemed to actually be worse than your result in Columbus. Did you think the open bracket was harder than in Columbus or do you think it was a personal mistake? If it was your own mistake what are you going to do to fix it for MLG Raleigh?

The open bracket was harder. I ran into Inka, who can be very strong, and I wasn’t quite as comfortable in my TvP as I am right now. I also was really uncomfortable with the keyboard I brought, as I never really practice on it. My control suffered a lot from that. This time I’m going to be prepared with a better keyboard with way more practice on it, and I’m also going to spend a lot more time familiarizing myself with all 3 matchups.

The compLexity Academy website is officially LIVE. Here you’ll find up to the minute rankings of the top 10, as well as the latest news, forum threads, blogs and information about the compLexity Academy. To visit the sub-site, click here.

Last month, a terran by the name of Lizzuma won the last compLexity Academy tournament and only lost one game in the final versus Gensulitor. Both members attended MLG Anaheim and they did very well in the open bracket. The open bracket is extremely difficult, but it is great experience for our up and coming professional gamers.

This is compLexity Academy’s qualification tournament for MLG Raleigh and is set to begin on August 11th at 7 pm EST. The winner from this tournament will receive an all expenses paid trip to go play at MLG Raleigh. The format of this tournament is double elimination and best of 3 for each game. 

Seed Determination:
Seeding is determined by the points gained from the initiation tournament. Future tournaments for the Academy will use the same format, so accumulating points will be important for all players. The points are given out on an opposite placing x2 scale. So, if you get 1st place you would get 10×2 = 20 points and if you get 10th place you would get 1×2= 2 points.

Player list and Seedings

1)   Lizzuma
2)   Gensulitor
3)   Goswser
4)   Brobocop
5)   Cheec[h]
6)   Strength
7)   Lagragian
8)   Damncats
9)    Fallen

Starting Map:
The starting map will be determined by veto’s. The lower seed veto’s first so the higher seed will get to choose between the last two maps. After the first map is played, all other maps will be playable for each game after and there will be ONE veto per player. Example- Lizzuma wins map one and then he will get to ban 1 map and his opponent can pick from all other maps except the one played and the one veto’d. Lets say his opponent then wins, now his opponent will ban 1 map and then Lizzuma can pick from the rest except from the ones played and banned.

Brackets: http://challonge.com/mlgraleighqual

Map Pool:
MLG Dual Sight
MLG Metalopolis
MLG Shakuras Plateau
MLG Shattered Temple
MLG Tal’Darim Altar
MLG Testbug
MLG Xel’Naga Caverns

View the tournament LIVE on our Twitch.TV stream by clicking here.

The compLexity Academy website is officially LIVE. Here you’ll find up to the minute rankings of the top 10, as well as the latest news, forum threads, blogs and information about the compLexity Academy. To visit the sub-site, click here.

Please join me in welcoming Damncats and Fallen. These two took 11th and 12th place in the Academy qualification tournament. They both are extremely talented and we are excited that they accepted our invitation. I asked both of them a few questions and here are their answers:

Fallen

What was your reaction when you did not manage to finish top 10 in the compLexity Academy placement tournament? How do you feel now that you have been invited back to the team?

I was extremely bummed when I didn’t make it in the top 10 after the initial tournament. I trained pretty hard for it and didn’t give a good showing. I actually took a few days off sc2 out of frustration :P. While this isn’t the way I wanted to get into the Academy, I certainly couldn’t turn down the offer once I found out what had happened.

Two of the players who had been dropped from the compLexity Academy due to commitment constraints. What level of commitment are you able to provide to the compLexity Academy? Should fans be expecting you to be at the top of the team quickly?

At the very least I’m going to be attending all the weekly practices for sure; how could I not want to practice with people better than me or on my level each week, and they can’t say no! 😀 But in all seriousness, since I got the new I’ve been chatting with a few members, doing some side practice with some people and ironing out a few builds and it’s been a blast. I’m definitely committed to the Academy
100% and I hope that I don’t disappoint any fans out there. I’m in this Academy to
improve and I won’t rest until I’m #1 rank in the Academy.

What do you believe will be most beneficial about the compLexity Academy for you? What are you going to do in order to take full advantage of this? 

Well as I said we have weekly practices together and I think it helps a lot to say “Hey I need help with this PvX, want to iron out some games?” And you’ve got a group of guys together that are pretty open to practice and definitely open to helping one another even though we’re sort of competing against each other at the same time. I think the competition and practice and the fear of failure are what’s
most beneficial for me. I want to show that not finishing top 10 in the tourney was a fluke. I’ve been putting a lot of time back into sc2 and I think with practice with the team and just in general I’ll be able to take advantage of the positives of being in the Academy.

Damncats

What was your reaction when you did not manage to finish top 10 in the compLexity Academy placement tournament? How do you feel now that you have been invited back to the team?

I was disappointed, I felt like I could have done better in the placement tourney. It definitely helped me get over my apprehension/anxiety of playing on a streamed match (and the fear that I will embarrass myself horribly). I did a pretty good job of embarrassing myself I think and it wasn’t so bad after all. Lesson learned at least. I feel pretty lucky to have been invited back. Although it’s a rather lame way to get into the team I must admit, I am glad that two people decided not to join. 😀

Two of the players who had been dropped from the compLexity Academy due to commitment constraints. What level of commitment are you able to provide to the compLexity Academy? Should fans be expecting you to be at the top of the team quickly?

I can commit heavily to any practice/tournament sessions that the academy will hold. I play a lot already so I should be able to fit any events that happen into my schedule no problem. As for the second part I would have to default to the standard Korean response: I will do my best to show entertaining games and to get to the top of the rankings. There are one or two people I am rather scared of though.

What do you believe will be most beneficial about the compLexity Academy for you? What are you going to do in order to take full advantage of this? 

I think having more practice partners will be helpful (assuming people in it already want to practice with me, hehe). The terrans in the academy have many different playstyles so being able to experience all of those will definitely be a bonus. I think having more people criticizing errors in my play will definitely help as well (as I’m sure they are quite numerous still, much to my dismay). To take advantage of all this I plan on being present and on time to any events the academy holds as far as tournaments, scheduled practice sessions, etc. And of course keep playing a lot against as many people as I can, whether they are in the academy or not.

Results

We had three members of the compLexity Academy team attend MLG Anaheim 2011, two of the members won a tournament to make it, one of the members lived close and decided to attend.

Gensulitor

Gensulitor ended up getting the furthest. He lost his first match and made it to Round 5 in the losers bracket where he was defeated by the fan favorite White-Ra. We are extremely proud of him making it as far as he did and expect great things from him in future events.

Round 1 Winners: KingSpades  2 – 0 Gensulitor

Round 1 Losers: o-ism-o 0 – 2  Gensulitor 

Round 2 Losers: LovE-z33k 1 – 2 Gensulitor

Round 3 Losers Rickter 0 – 2  Gensulitor

Round 4 Losers xFiNaLEx 1 – 2 Gensulitor

Round 5 Losers White-Ra 2 – 0 Gensulitor

Lizzuma

Lizzuma was the winner of the last two compLexity Academy tournaments. His results at MLG Anaheim hardly tell what kind of player he is. He told me that he normally plays on a laptop and he is use to a mechanical keyboard. Coming to MLG and playing with a different keyboard really made the difference. He will be purchasing a new keyboard and practicing with that for the next event.

Round 1 Winners: Speece 1 – 2 Lizzuma

Round 2 Winners iNkA  2 – 0 Lizzuma

Round 2 Losers: NoctisSC 2 – 0 Lizzuma

Brobocop

Brobocop perhaps had the most impressive results taking a game off of the Korean Choya in winners round three. We are expecting great things from Brobocop in the future with the results he posted.

Round 1 Winners: Sung123  1 – 2 Brobocop

Round 2 Winners: Temprament  0 – 2 Brobocop

Round 3 Winners: Choya  2 –  1 Brobocop

Round 4 Losers: Ajtls 2 – 0 Brobocop

Thoughts

MLG Anaheim was the largest event I have ever attended. I attended WCG in New York three or so years back, but it was nothing like Anaheim. Before I get into the positives about MLG Anaheim I want to first point out a few small cons. On the first day of the event, the check-in line was absurd. Anyone with half a brain could have thought about the first day being bombarded with spectators checking in to watch. MLG should have most definitely added a second or third line for pre-purchases. I know their goal is probably to get people to go gold to “expedite” the line, but come on… we are already attending your event and pre-purchased.

The second thing that bothered me was the main stages were extremely close to eachother in such a small area. They had Starcraft in the middle with probably 1000 seats and one giant screen. The majority of people were watching Starcraft II and half were standing half were sitting either on the floor or in a chair. I am sure they just were not expecting the huge turnout, but for next time an adjustment I would like to see is separate Starcraft from the other main stages and add more seating.

The venue was awesome though. The player interaction was inevitable because of the setup; players had to walk in the open through the crowd. Most of them were completely ok with it, one person that I could tell did not want to talk to me was Idra… Maybe that was because I was wearing a compLexity jersey. After his completely unnecessary bad manners not shaking Crunchers hand, I threw away his autograph. It is an experience for any Starcraft or gaming lover because you get to interact with a ton of nerds and meet your favorite players.

The highlight of my trip was meeting the players; I talked with Catz, Lizzuma, Ryze, FireZerg, CrunCher, trimaster and Gensulitor. But the best part was shaking hands with the man himself, Jason “1” Lake. He was an awesome guy and shaking hands with him was like shaking hands with your childhood hero. Jason Lake to me is a guy who defines adversity. In the worst times he proved that if you continue to persevere through the hard times, good things will happen. Every person has someone who means something to them and for me it is Jason Lake because of how much gaming has meant to me growing up.

As of today, xxElitexx and OpticalRH are being released from the compLexity Academy. Both players joined the Academy with prior commitments and unfortunately were unable to fully devote themselves to Starcraft II and compLexity. We wish them the best of luck in their futures in and out of E-Sports.

We will be providing further details as to who will be replacing them in the coming days.

We are checking in with Lizzuma and Gensulitor after their first and second place finishes. They will both be attending MLG Anaheim and this is what they had to say.

Lizzuma

How does it feel to win two tournaments in a row for the compLexity Academy?

I feel alright. I wasn’t in that great of a condition for the 2nd tournament. Had to wake up early for work, and had only gotten 6 hours of sleep for 2 nights in a row. I tend to play phenomenally worse when I don’t have a full night’s sleep. So, I wish I could have performed better, but winning is still nice.

Do you feel that your game since you have joined has improved? Are you getting more practice in than you use to?

My TvZ has improved a lot, specifically thanks to Ryze. He is a really great practice partner, willing to pound out a lot of games in a row, and takes it seriously. He’s very analytical, and we discuss really specific things that can improve our play. I still haven’t gotten to practice as much as I’d like to with the other guys on the roster, but I haven’t been very proactive about it so hopefully that will change soon.

Do you have one player on the team that you have gravitated more towards than the others or are you all pretty equally connected?

Well naturally having my friend from down the street, Ke (Lagrangian) on the team is nice. So we’re pretty close. He actually let me come over to his house to use the internet for a week+ while mine was out because my roommate didn’t pay the bill. I hope to get some games in with Gensulitor soon though, since we’ll be rooming at Anaheim ^^.

What will you be doing to prepare for MLG Anaheim?

Basically practice all day, and get a lot of games in on the maps they will use. I’m really hoping to refine my mech play in TvT, as I felt it was necessary to start using it as the metagame has shifted very drastically in that matchup.

How difficult do you think the open bracket is going to be with players such as Alicia? What are your expectations for MLG?

As MLG gains popularity among foreigners and Koreans, it’s only going to get harder. Columbus was already scary enough, so I expect Anaheim to be very brutal. My expectations are to make it farther than I did at Columbus, where I made it to Open WR4 before losing a long series to Catz. So, basically, I want to make it on stage this time 🙂

Do you have any shout outs?

Yes, shout out to whoever made the custom game “Star Strikers.” That game is the shit. Thank you, sir.

Gensulitor

Firstly, we are quite curious as to where you got the name Gensulitor, could you inform us?

When I was a little kid on battle net 1.0 I saw all these people with ridiculous hard-to-figure-out-how-to-pronounce names and thought they were baller for mind-f***ing everyone (I was ten or so, mind you), so I looked up a Latin translator and plugged stuff in. “Gensulitor” ensued, and it stuck.  In retrospect its not very hard to pronounce.

Were you very disappointed that you finished second instead of first? Did you figure out what went wrong and where you need to improve?

I just finished building my own new computer last week. I don’t really need a new graphics card, and the trip to MLG is a much bigger deal anyways ;D.  As for my performance: I see and understand all of my serious mistakes.  Aside from many blatantly asinine micro mistakes and army positioning/decision making mistakes, I did realize some legitimate shortcomings in some of my builds.  Generally: the biggest issue with some of my more eccentric builds is that they are only effective in certain situations and they must be accompanied by more extensive scouting.  Otherwise I need to focus on earlier medivacs + stim marines in my tvt more often. I understand why I need them but I hate rushing to medivacs after expanding: it leaves me with a low army value during the early midgame where my unit control is most effective.

Sometimes I’ll make horrible decisions just for fun, even in tournament settings. I have a bit too much fun while playing Starcraft.  Also, an afterthought, I need to use Strike Cannon more, although it’s mainly a TvP thing.

What do you feel is your strongest matchup in Starcraft II?

My best match up is generally TvP although neither the ladder or complexity academy has matched me up with many protosses lately, so it’s slightly out of practice.  Unfortunately I haven’t been able to show my dirty TvP sty to the academy yet, like 1-1-1 into reactor medivacs on one base, or one base ghosts, or no gas for the first 9 minutes…. =D

 How are you going to be preparing for MLG Anaheim? Will it be any different than your normal practice routine?

As MLG comes closer I’ll be talking less and less on stream and focusing more on the game. Also, I’ll be playing almost non-stop, besides work, sleep, and a camping trip this weekend.  In addition I may be doing more custom games than ladders. I will spend downtime watching GSL, that always helps.

How difficult do you think the open bracket is going to be with players like Alicia? What are your expectations for MLG?

`SlayerS`Alicia would scare me, but he plays Protoss.  He’s an incredible player but once I’m in practice for MLG I really shouldn’t have trouble with any Protoss players.  As for other players of such caliber, It’s a little troublesome but I’ll cross my fingers for friendly brackets and make marines.

Do you have any shout outs?

I have to give a shout out to LosTZealoT for making my website, to my whole intercollegiate Starcraft team down at RPI, to all my stream viewers/supporters, and finally, last but not least, to Complexity Gaming for making it happen!

Thanks to both of you and we will be cheering you on as you make your way through the open bracket!

The first official compLexity Academy MLG Tournament is not complete and the top two players have earned their right to attend MLG Anaheim with a trip provided by coL. Lizzuma and Gensulitor have proved that they belong at the top of the class by batteling their way through the 10 man double elimination bracket.

1st – Lizzuma (PNY Video Card + Trip to MLG Anaheim)
2nd – Gensulitor (Trip MLG Anaheim )

Congratulations once again to the two winners, Lizzuma and Gensulitor. Look out for them to make a splash at MLG Anaheim which takes place between July 29th and the 31st.

Update: Due to time constraints, the tournament will continue Monday at 5PM EST.

This is compLexity Academy’s second ever tournament and is set to begin on July 7th at 7 pm EST. The top two winners from this tournament will receive an all expenses paid trip to go play at MLG Anaheim. The format of this tournament is double elimination and best of 5 for each game. 

Seed Determination:
Seeding is determined by the points gained from the initiation tournament. Future tournaments for the Academy will use the same format, so accumulating points will be important for all players. The points are given out on an opposite placing x2 scale. So, if you get 1st place you would get 10×2 = 20 points and if you get 10th place you would get 1×2= 2 points.

Player list and Seedings
1.   Lizzuma
2.   Gensulitor
3.   XxElitexX
4.   OpitcalRH
5.   Jedigamer
6.   Goswser
7.   Brobocop
8.   Strength
9.   Lagragian
10. Cheec[h]

Starting Map:
The starting map will be determined by veto’s. The higher seed veto’s first so the lower seed will get to choose between the last two maps. After the first map is played, all other maps will be playable for each game after and there will be no further vetoing.

Brackets:

The brackets can be found here.

Map Pool:
MLG Dual Sight
MLG Metalopolis
MLG Shakuras Plateau
MLG Shattered Temple
MLG Tal’Darim Altar
MLG Testbug
MLG Xel’Naga Caverns

View the tournament LIVE on our Justin.TV stream by clicking here.

The compLexity Academy website is officially LIVE. Here you’ll find up to the minute rankings of the soon-to-be determined top 10, as well as the latest news, forum threads, blogs and information about the compLexity Academy. To visit the sub-site, click here

Lizzuma

First off, congratulations to you for winning the first ever compLexity Academy Tournament. 

The first question I have for you is how does it feel to go 18-2 in this tournament and win so convincingly? It seems no one even came close to beating you.

Obviously, I am happy with taking 1st. However, I am a really competitive guy, and thus actually a little disappointed. I would have preferred to go 18-0, but that’s just the way I am. I want to win every game I play, regardless of if I win the tournament. I feel there is always room for improvement.

How hard did you prepare for this tournament and what did you do differently for this tournament than for tournaments in the past? Are you going to continue training hard now that you have made it into the academy? 

I didn’t prepare insanely hard for it, just kept up my usual practice regimen of playing customs with some friends and laddering. As I said in my interview, I haven’t really had good practice partners, if any in some cases, up to this point, aside from my fellow academy member lagrangian. So, to answer your 2nd querstion, I now plan on seriously ramping up my training efforts now that I’ll be able to play with the guys in coL. I want to start bringing out my potential and showing good results in bigger tournaments.

Who is your inspiration for your builds and style of play? Who is your favorite Starcraft II player to date?

Lately, like a lot of others I suspect, I have been drawing alot of my inspiration from MMA, especially in TvZ and TvT. He’s just got such great, well thought out builds combined with insane execution. My favorite player to date, and knowing the history, I’m probably going to get a lot of flak from some of you guys for saying this, has been Idra. Let me first say that I definitely don’t agree with how he bashes a lot of players for seemingly no reason. What I really like about him is his approach to the game. I love his macro oriented style, and no nonsense attitude toward the game. He takes it very seriously, practicing as hard as anyone, and really dedicates himself to winning and improving more than anything else. After leaving early against MMA and in various other games, I have started to lose a little respect for him, but I hope he can turn it around and return to form.

What is the most exciting thing about the compLexity Academy for you? 

For me, the opportunity to get to practice with a lot of great players. I think it’s really going to help me start improving. Even after a few games with Ryze, I’ve been able to work on new builds and analyze where I can do better in TvZ, where as before I would mainly just ladder over and over again. While that can be good, I’m really looking forward to consistent, structured practice focusing strongly on my weaker areas of play.

Looking at the rankings, there is only 1 protoss, 3 zerg and 6 terran. How is that going to effect your practice terran vs protoss? Do you wish that the team had more variety?

It’s not so bad, knowing that complexity has a lot of protoss players to practice with as well. It would be nice to see an even variety on the team, but at the same time these are the 10 players who made it in, so you’ve just got to work with what you have.

Finally, do you have any shoutouts?

Shoutout to my fellow academy member Ke Li (Lagrangian). He’s my buddy in Ann Arbor, so congrats to him and thank you for being my only real practice partner for the last couple weeks. Also I’d like to thank complexity for this opportunity. I’m really hoping to break through competitvely through the academy, and it wouldn’t be possible without you guys. There are definitely very few chances like this to get notices, so I’m very grateful.

Thank you for your time and once again congratulations for winning compLexity’s first ever Academy Tournament and good luck in your competitive future!

After two days of action, the top 10 for the compLexity Academy have finally been determined. Consisting of six terrans, 3 zergs and only one protoss player, the inaguaral class of the Academy will surely look to impress as they battle it out over the next few weeks to determine who will earn a spot on the official compLexity Gaming Starcraft II roster.

The results of the qualification tournament can be found below. Congratulations to Lizzuma for going undefeated throughout the event, only dropping a total of 3 maps. Lizzuma will be taking home $100 and the spot at the top of the ranks as the Academy kicks off.

1. Lizzuma
2. Gensulitor
3. XxElitexX
4. OpitcalRH
5. Jedigamer
6. Goswser
7. Brobocop
8. Strength
9. Lagragian
10. Cheec[h]

The official event brackets can be found by clicking here.