Best Starcraft 2 Streams
1. DeMusliM
Benjaman "DeMusliM" Baker aka the Devil Terran is the best Starcraft 2 live streamer in the business. Born in the UK, the rare, foreigner super-talent streams live out of the team Evil Geniuses house.
He doesn't just play silently like your average streamer. He walks you through his mind process in nearly every game as he plays, explaining his plan, his build, what his opponent might be doing, how he could have fended off a loss he incurred, etc. It's a constant education from this top ten grandmaster. In fact he is the only ladder warrior to hit top ten grandmaster in two regions - North America & Europe.
I won't go on too much because I've already talked about him in my Top Ten Starcraft 2 Personalities post.
Of course here he is on his stream:
2. SelecT
Ryoo "SeleCT" Kyung Hyun, out of South Korea, has a lot of personality and was a solid longtime grandmaster to watch. He maintained a high profile winning the North American Battle.net Invitational and getting an invite to Blizzcon. He also played in GSL and MLG.
He took a break to play DotA 2. But now he's back. Hopefully he can return to his excellent form. He has great tag lines such as "¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Sup Son!"
SelecT's stream:
3. WhiteRa
Aleksey "White-Ra" Krupnyk, aka Duckload, aka Special Tactics, is a very innovative, foreigner grand master from the Ukraine.
White-Ra has a huge fan base. He's the first I've seen doing something like warp prism flying around an opponent's base, dropping and picking up a colossus. He is extremely well-mannered and one of the older pro players being over the age of 30.
WhiteRa's Special Tactics stream:
http://www.twitch.tv/whitera
"More kill, more GG"
4. IdrA
Greg "IdrA" Fields is one of the most [in]famous names in Starcraft. He is one of the few American born pros to compete at the highest levels (hitting grandmaster on the korean ladder under the name Cale). Originating out of Michigan, he is well-known for raging in chat and rage quitting from games including from high profile tournaments (hallucinated voidrays anyone?).
He has won several premium tournaments against the aforementioned SelecT 2-0ing him at 2010 MLG D.C. and then 4-2ing SelecT at the ASUS ROG Stars Invite. He also won the IEM VI - Guangzhou, the first season of the IGN proleague, as well as the 2011 MLG North American Invitational.
Playing under the team house of Evil Geniuses, his endless rage got the better of him again. He turned on the largest online SC2 community, team liquid, calling them "a bunch of f**ks" on their forum and he eventually got let go.
It looks like he will try his hand at casting now. He is very knowledgeable and could potentially a good caster.
He's someone who you either love to hate, or you just hate. Some of his antics are well summarized in the video below.
Here is his live stream:
http://www.twitch.tv/idrajit
5. Stephano
Ilyes "Stephano" Satouri is a french SC2 grand master. He currently is the 4th biggest sc2 prize earner in the world at $233,305.
His top five accomplishments in order of prize winnings are: 1st at North American Star League Season 3, 1st at IGN ProLeague Season 3, 1st at Electronic Sports World Cup 2011, 1st at 2012 World Championship Series: Europe, and 2nd at 2013 WCS Season 1 Europe.
The first three he won under Team Millennium before he ended up switching to Evil Geniuses. There was a bit of controversy involving his membership. Team CompLexity had announced they had recruited Stephano after Millenium's contract was up. It was alleged that Stephano lied to CompLexity saying Millennium was offering counter-offers to get Stephano to remain with them. Team EG's CEO stepped in to help solve the issues around him; and he was able to recruit Stephano after he paid a fine to be released from the contract he signed with CompLexity.
Trouble didn't stop following him there, Stephano was arrested during the Dreamhack Summer 2012 TwitchTV afterparty for being too intoxicated, also he was suspended briefly for joking about sexual comments made about an underage girl.
Nonetheless he is the best foreigner yet to play Starcraft 2 and he held the highest number of stream viewers last April.
You can find his stream here:
http://www.twitch.tv/egstephano
Stephano VS ForGG Widow Mine Reactions
6. Grubby
Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen is a dutch sc2 protoss grandmaster and a six time warcraft 3 world champion as well. He has the second most amount of viewers as far as SC2 streams go. He enjoys not only laddering, working on his mechanics, but playing along with his subscribers; interacting more with his viewers whether it be monobattles or a sc2 arcade game.
Grubby met his wife at a tournament. Four years later he proposed on stage at Blizzcon 2009 after the awards ceremony.
For more that is Grubby, you can follow him here:
http://www.twitch.tv/followgrubby
7. InControL
Geoff "iNcontroL" Robinson, in addition to being a top tier Starcraft player out of Washington, is a respected part of the SC2 community. He is one of the hosts on the State of the Game show and has been a caster at NASL and Dreamhack. He played Zerg in Broodwar but switched to Protoss for SC2. Part of team EG he helped start Gosu Coaching along with his EG teammates.
He has played in a lot of the major tournaments but never really placed well. He has been offered full time casting gigs and continues to turn them down because he really wants to be a successful pro gamer.
His stream popularity is pretty high with over a couple thousand unique viewers. You can watch him at:
http://www.twitch.tv/incontroltv
Play like the pros.
Streamers and Pro-gamers alike use Mechanical Keyboards. If you ask someone with a mechanical keyboard, "would you switch back to a regular rubber dome type keyboard", 99% of them will say no.
Mechanical Keyboards make the experience more pleasurable. The switches (mechanisms under the key) make typing better than those rubber dome switches. With rubber domes you have to press all the way down to get contact causing fatigue. Mechanical switches relieve the pressure off your fingers.
Mechanical keyboards are generally more expensive but they tend to be of much higher quality. If you are interested, there are four mainstream cherry mx switches are red, blue, brown, and black switches.
- Cherry MX Red switches are the lightest taking 45 grams of actuation force. The action is a smooth transition the entire way through (no bumps or clicks). Takes 2mm to actuate. Best for regular typing and FPS for strafing.
- Cherry MX Blue are one of the most common types. Lots of tactic feedback. 50 grams of actuation force. Nice to type on if you like audible feedback with the tactile bump.
- Cherry MX Brown is the best RTS switch type. Also new mechanical keyboard users are recommended to start here. It has the 45 grams of actuation force. It isn't as loud but you can feel the actuation point.
- Cherry MX Black is the heaviest switch type at 60 grams of force needed. Recommended for racing type games and fps games for the returning force of the keys. Lengthy amounts of typing isn't recommended because of the weight which might cause fatigue.
Here are the recommended keyboard models (according to the TL community) per switch type:
MX Blue for Value/Quality: Das Model S (Professional or Ultimate)
MX Brown for Value/Quality & Quality overall: Ducky 9008G2
MX Black for Value/Quality: Thermaltake Meka G1
MX Red for Value/Quality: Leopold Linear Touch
Value over all: Coolermaster Quickfire Rapid TKL, MX Brown (available in each color)
If you are looking for gaming mouse, you can read my reviews of the best 5 gaming mice of 2013.
That was a bit long winded about the keyboards. =) I hope you enjoyed my list of favorite Starcraft 2 live streams. Is there anyone you would add?