Impressions

• The studio is hilariously modest within a high school (and sort of out in the middle of nowhere)… but it makes sense, as most people who play Starcraft II in Korea, minus the professionals, are in high school or younger. The high school that the games are hosted in was no fancier than my high school back in California. Hell, I had to walk through a basketball court to get to the studio. Here are directions on how to get to the studio if you’re in Seoul.
• The public seating is free, and maxes out at about 40 people.
• Half the people there were foreigners (ie: not Korean).
• There are 4 booths total so that 2 players can play their matches while the other two setup, allowing match sets to be played back-to-back.
• The player’s booths and light setup is pretty epic given how modest the studio size is.
• They give you thunder sticks for free and you can make the silly signs there for free as well. If you make a sign, you WILL get camera time at some point during the broadcast.
• There’s always a window of opportunity to take photos with your favorite pro players if they’re nice enough to chill in the lobby for a bit after their match set.
• Tasteless & Artosis (the english casters) are really nice guys and you can tell they get a lot of foreign fans coming in each season. They’re willing to stick around after the matches and chat a bit with the nerds lurking around. I said hello, got a photo, and asked one favor of Artosis: to please never stop asking Tasteless what happens when he gets on the ladder… fucking hilarious every time.
• Unfortunately for foreigners who do not know Korean, actually watching the matches live kind of sucks. You cannot hear the english commentary by Tasteless & Artosis the entire time (I wish I could channel them into some headset or something)… you can only hear piercing screaming from the 3 Korean commentators that are projected onto loudspeaker in the studio. The two guys commentating will feverishly make observations and analysis of the game, while the female caster in the middle repeatedly exclaims 내! (“nae” = yes/ok) in acknowledgement. I much prefer just watching the matches online.

Front and center seat right before the match of IMLosira (on screen) vs. SlayerS_Alicia. Screen shows Losira’s (Zerg) win record vs. Protoss players.

Dual player booths on each side. Left Booth: sCfOu (playing). Right Booth: SlayerS_Alicia (preparing)

Photo (albeit blurry) with Artosis (left) and Tasteless (right).

Despite the laundry list of drawbacks, I’m really glad I went. If you’re in Seoul and a Starcraft II fan, you should definitely check out the GSL live.

General Tip: If you’re a North American or European account-holding Starcraft II player visiting Korea, you cannot goto the PC방’s (PC room/cafe) to play Starcraft II unless you either bring your own computer or do some gnarly region-lock circumvention mentioned around the teamliquid forums (and of course, you cannot LAN either because battle.net is required). In order to play on the Korean servers at all, you must have a valid Korean Social Security Number and also purchase another license for the game specific to Korea! I sadly learned this the first time I sat down in a PC망 here.

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Also, on an equally important note: Gmoonz and I (as of tonight) just got into 2v2 Diamond League in Starcraft II. Gmoonz himself wasn’t available for a direct interview but he could offer monospectra an exclusive public reaction to his victory–

I’m the best fucking mouse player on the west coast. Fuck you. –Gmoonz

Recently checked out the newest Mogwai album. If you’re into God is an Astronaut, then you’d dig this album which is just full of emotional post-rock instrumentals. The album name alone sold me to check it out.