Individual tournaments are the flagship of the StarCraft 2 scene but for once we want to take a look at the teams that showed prowess as a unit rather than lone wolves. For our nominations we took into consideration the gravity and prestige of team league performances as well as the strength of the overall roster.
Whenever awards are handed out, you usually find yourself with a number of favorites that stand above the rest. This time, however, we thought about it long enough to claim defeat when we couldn't decide on who is the most likely to win in this category.
FXOpenIf we were to go by sheer team league victories alone, FXO would probably be the most obvious choice to take this award home. Huddled around their star player Leenock, himself with an IPL and an MLG title under his belt in 2012, you have a group of players that managed to come through for the team in its most precarious situations time and time again this year. The dedication and skill that the likes of GuMiho, Lucky and Tear displayed in the three seasons of GSTL are nothing short of amazing, leaving FXOpen with 2 championships and one semifinal finish, the last of which only set to a halt by the then dominant Prime team. Unforgotten is GuMiho’s all-kill in the GSTL Season 2 final as well as his three man take-down in the last season.
Alongside that we have a strong third place finish in the NASTL, where they also fell to the eventual winners of the tournament, Team Liquid, and a fourth place at the IPL Team Arena Challenge. Let’s not ignore the European FXOpen squad either, which, with the help of all-kills from Brat_OK and Strelok, managed to finish on top of the Incredible Panic Team League.
Incredible MiracleWe could rely on superlatives when talking about how “this team needs no introduction,” or how they’re “the best of the best.” But everyone already knows that they are, and everyone has known for the past two years. What’s far more interesting is that the team has managed to stay a benchmark for all things StarCraft 2 over that period. While the team league finishes are a bit lackluster for a team of that caliber, the single players have dominated the scene all year. Granted, LG-IM was off to a good start in 2012 by taking second at the IPTL Season 1, it wasn’t until IPL’s Team Arena Challenge 3 that they could gather their first gold for the team.
In the meantime, however, NesTea took third at both IPL 4 and Iron Squid. Seed won himself a GSL trophy and so did Mvp. “Of course,” one is almost obliged to say, considering his recurring victories in the majority of tournaments he enters, such as IEM Cologne, where he took the first place, too. That is why we think LG-IM’s strong roster alone deserves a spot on this list.
Team LiquidAdmittedly, two players stand out amongst the circle of fan favorites that is Team Liquid. It’s the two Korean powerhouses HerO and TaeJa. With two DreamHack titles, an MLG Arena title, an NASL title, an Assembly title, two third places in the GSL and a third place at an MLG Championship event shared amongst them, you can safely say that this was the year of Liquid everyone had hoped for.
While the team had to take one step back to admire the domination of the duo, everyone came together in the team leagues to fight for one cause. What came about was a win at NASTL and a second place at the IPL Team Arenca Challenge 3, which TaeJa finished not only with a total of two all-kills, but also with a staggering 23-3 win record. Team Liquid promised us to be rising in its feature film-length documentary earlier this year, and there’s no denying that rise it did.
StarTaleStarTale is undoubtedly the rising Korean team in 2012. Heading off to a great start into the year by winning the first season of the IGN Pro Team League, as well as being the runner-up in the first seasons of the GSTL and the KSL Team League respectively, you could feel the focus of the team shifting towards individual tournaments. A perfectly reasonable decision, as it turns out, since the months that led up to StarTale’s elimination in the GSTL Season 3 semifinals were spiced with victories for its players all across the board.
In a single month, PartinG shot to the top of this year’s prize money earners by coming out ahead in arguably the most prestigious tournament of the year, the Battle.net World Championship as well as the World Cyber Games. We also have the wonderkid Life, who joined the team due to the merger with ZeNEX, who could not only technically be NesTea’s son, but also has the ambition and skill set to take over his legacy. That he showed by becoming the youngest ever GSL champion and only second youngest to win any major South Korean StarCraft tournament, only beaten by BroodWar prodigy Flash. Squirtle, however, has proven less lucky, as he fell to Mvp in one of the greatest GSL finals of all time.
PrimeThe first semester of the year in terms of team leagues was clearly in the hands of Team Prime. They managed to plow through both the January edition and Season 1 of the KSL Team League, IPL Team Arena Challenge and GSTL by June alone. While all that happened, MarineKing racked up wins in the MLG Winter Arena and its following Championship, creating a fierce rivalry between him and DongRaeGu which proceeded until the Spring season of said tournament. This time around he got the shorter end of the stick in, once again, both the Arena as well as the Championship, ending his reign as the supposedly best Terran in the world as abruptly as it started.
But as one champion fell, another arose as Creator stepped out of the fray to take over as the key player for Team Prime. The Protoss youngling marched through the WCS Korean Nationals, which entitled him for a spot at the overall finals where he took a very impressive second place later this year. In between that he towered over the also 15 year old player Life to crown himself as the TSL 4 victor.
