At long long last, the year is drawing to a close. Homestory Cup VI will be the final LAN tournament of the year. It's been an incredible year of starcraft and for Liquid. To cap it all out, what better a tournament than the most sweet and intimate of them all; the Homestory Cup. 32 players have gathered in TaKe's apartment in Krefeld, Germany to do battle. The top prize is $10,000, but the prize for us viewers is to see our favorite players in the intimate atmosphere, just having fun.

The Liquid delegation to HSC VI will be TLO and Ret. Both have had plenty of success this year, and it would be amazing to see either or both put together a run. Both will play their groups on the first day of competition, take a break for the second day, and then hopefully have something to play for on day three!





TLO is in Group B. He's had ZvZ troubles recently, and will be happy to see no zergs in his opening group. mouz.MaNa is his primary opponent, but TLO has often seemed to have MaNa's number. He holds a 4-2 record against the Polish protoss. Also in the group are aTn.ClouD and ToD. He has completely opposite records against these players; 2-0 vs ClouD and 0-2 against ToD. Either way, he simply hasn't played either enough to have much of a history. Given how he's played and placed in recent tournaments, TLO should feel quite good about this opening group.



Ret is in Group C. He too might like what he sees. His biggest name opponent is mouz.HasuObs, whom he has lost to only once, and to whom he has never dropped a series. But the lesser names might prove scarier. The Finnish terran Fuzer of Awesome Gaming has been terrorizing the EU ladder for a long time. He shares much in common with his countryman, elfi, in that both are low apm players who have managed to achieve a tremendous amount of success by being unpredictable and cheesy. Fuzer has a winning record against Ret. So too does FXOBabyKnight, who was one of the strongest and fastest improving protosses in the foreign scene heading into the BWC where he finished in the top 16. Since then, we haven't heard as much from him, and he's been streaming a lot of Dota 2, so it's unclear where his skill level is at the moment. We'll have to see. We'll also have to see where Ret's skill level is. The latter part of the year has been filled with disruptions. But if Ret comes to HSC focused, he'll have a solid opening group.



Don't miss a moment of the silliness, knowledge bombs, and camaraderie of the Homestory Cup! It's a four day event and should be a great watch. Remember, just because TLO and Ret are playing tomorrow doesn't mean they won't be casting the day after and throughout the tournament!

Liquid Fighting!