Writing witty intros might be my favorite part of these articles. But since the Core's Report Card is long enough without an intro, I'm going to sacrifice my pleasure for your sanity.

Don't make me regret it by going insane, anyway.

Starter's Draft

Round 1 (#5): Eric "General E Live" Earley (Forza)
Round 2 (#11): Hoang "sOnNy" Tran (Source)
Round 3 (#17): Mark "Masternook" Torrez (Source)
Round 4 (#23): Andrew "Anomaly" Brock (FIFA)
Round 5 (#29): Kat "Mystik" Gunn (DoA F)

Taxi Draft

1. Corey "kaM" Hane…  More

I want to run a friendly contest. Let's see who among us has the worst ISP. We'll measure this by two factors: connection speed, and highest offered speed.

I'll start us off.

Highest offered connection speed: 1.5 Mbps

Actual Connection speed at 9:00-ish Pacific Time, with no download clients running, no internet browsers running, and no programs updating:



Yes, that's right, apparently my ISP can't even crack triple digits on some nights.

Game, set, match.
…  More

One of my favorite things about eSports is the honesty and accessibility of the people involved. The sport is still small enough that players, managers, and officials can generally answer fan mail, or talk candidly about the league and their teams without issuing overused platitudes like "both teams played hard".

I don't think I've seen a better example than Alex "Jax" Conroy's post-draft chat on the Dallas Venom's website. The talk lasted for about two hours, which was crazy. Most importantly, t…  More

Of all the drafts, Kat Hunter's most resembles a lit fuse with a boat full of dynamite at the end.

That doesn't mean they're on a one-way trip to destruction. Any number of things could defuse the situation. But once the season's over, we're going to look back at the draft and think "wow, look at all the shrapnel that pick caused", or they're going to sail off into the sunset. There isn't a middle option.

To be honest, I think she was t…  More

If humanity made a car fueled by personal attacks, the eSports community would be the new OPEC. Even politicians would eat our flaming, irrational dust.

And just like oil companies probe the oceans for new reserves, I often sift through the dark seas commonly called "forums", hoping to hit the mother lode. I don't make as much money on my discoveries, but they do bring me immense pleasure.

There's only one condition: they need to be special. Run-of-the-mill flames don't do anything for me because…  More

I was wandering the Internet, once again looking for love in all the wrong places, when I came across a poll on the Birmingham Salvo's website. I'm not sure how long it'll be up so I'll include a screenshot of the results, as well.

Basically, the poll asks which Region 1 GM had the best draft strategy at the recently-completed Combine in Austin, Texas.

Mind you, this is different than asking who had the best draft. They just want to know who had the best strategy.

There's one thing that's been bugging me about the CGS Combine. I've had dozens of conversations about the draft with eSports analysts, players, and fans, both during and after the action in Austin. Every so often, whispers of sandbagging come up.

Ugh.

For anybody not familiar with the term, sandbagging basically means intentionally playing under or misrepresenting your skill level. I'm familiar with the term through golf; a sandbagger is somebody that artificially inflates their handicap,…  More

One benefit of having a blog is there aren't many rules. There's no "SPORTS" or "MARKETPLACE" in big, bold letters at the top of my section dictating what genre I have to cover. I need to write about gaming most of the time for both professional reasons (which are obvious) and for personal ones (I might give myself a stroke if I don't vent emotions through text), but there are no hard barriers. The lines that keep me on topic can be wiped away by a whim.

Tonight, I'm feeling a bit whimsic…  More

Megan "belle" Ceder's skill level has to be the most talked-about subject in the aftermath of the CGS Combine. Suffice it to say that most of the talk has been along the lines of "Lake should be fired" and "belle sucks". If this comes as a revelation to you, perhaps you'd also like to know that people are attaching funny captions to cat pictures.

The flame fests rarely grab my interest, but the other side has been steadily reelin…  More

What's a perfect draft? Is it looking back ten years from now, when all the players have reached their potential, and realizing you would have made the same choices? Or is it easier than that - is a perfect draft just making the best choices at the time, because nobody can possibly predict the career paths of fifty gamers?

To be honest, I'm not sure. I don't know if that question even has a rational answer. But right now, my gut tells me that 3D came damn close to having a perfect draft.

N…  More