Starcraft 2 Lotv Price

EGG-one school, the leading Starcraft 2 coaching website! Become a better gamer with private lessons on Starcraft 2.We have gathered the best coaches to improve your skill and boost your elo. Mission 2 - The Growing Shadow Mission 3 - The Spear of Adun Mission 4 - Amon's Reach Mission 5 - Last Stand Mission 6 - Forbidden Weapon Mission 7 - Sky Shield Mission 8 - Brothers in Arms Mission 9 - Temple of Unification Mission 10 - The Infinite Cycle Mission 11 - Harbinger of Oblivion Mission 12 - Steps of the Rite Mission 13 - Rak'Shir.

The eight invitees to this week's StarCraft II tournament at Intel Extreme Masters Taipei are among the top players in the world. Though we've had glimpses, we've yet to see what their former successes will truly mean for their Legacy of the Void tournament play. On Monday, a long-missed Zerg hero takes on Captain America, last year's BlizzCon champ battles the Boss Toss, and we excitedly (or angrily) consult our ESL Fantasy lineup to see how our own games play out. Let's take a look at the players individually.

Kim 'sOs' Yoo Jin

When sOs propelled himself to his second BlizzCon win and finished out Heart of the Swarm on top, he made it clear he's still nothing to mess with. His most recent GSL Code A games against fellow Protoss Dear, though, saw him eliminated as he dropped three maps, just clocking one map win. Though we know sOs is the undisputed HotS king, and that, despite his loss to Dear, he's well fit for mirror matches with his creative play style, he isn't predictably the winner in any line up. On Monday he faces off with MC - an uncommon opponent for the Jin Air Green Wings Toss.

Jang 'MC' Min Chul

The retired MC is one of the only players headed to IEM Taipei who we know for sure has LotV tournament chops. After winning not one, but two, archon mode championships with partner HuK, MC has continued to stream and has accepted his invite to Taipei to fend off the HotS Global Champion himself, sOs. MC is a top earner in esports, and with his ever-growing array of in-game tactics and his persistent attitude, he's one StarCraft II player who is known for showing up, sometimes when we have least expected him to.

Though his record isn't what sOs boasts, the amount of practice MC gets, and the way he analyzes his opponent's play during a series, may give him an edge. Will the Boss Toss be the surprise star of IEM Taipei and bank another big hit with the lion's share of the $25,000 prize pool?

Choi 'Polt' Seong Hun

What will we see out of Captain America at Taipei? It's anyone's guess. He's yet to play in an official LAN for Legacy of the Void, so results are tough to point to, but we know the Terran's play had started to suffer toward the back half of 2015. Despite that, Polt definitely isn't out of the running for the Taipei win. He's been streaming like crazy, so we know his practice is on point, and he's as tactically aware as ever. Coming up against Soulkey ought to be a challenge: Polt lost four of five maps on which they met in HotS, and the might of the Zerg, fresh off the back of a long break, is strong.

Kim 'Soulkey' Min Chul

Whenever a champion from the past returns, we don't know quite what to expect. Soulkey is no exception. His most recent LotV results don't help us get a clear picture, either: an 0-2 loss to fellow Zerg Solar and a 2-0 win over Protoss Toss during SSL Season 1 show we're not sure exactly where he stands after his hiatus, especially with Terran.

But we're willing to bet Soulkey has had some time to think about his strategies - and he's not known for being a slouch against Terran as a rule. His history with Polt, too, indicates there might be some success for the Zerg as he comes out of the shadows. If Soulkey proves he's still got it here, it could be a good omen for the rest of his LotV play in 2016.

Kim 'herO' Joon Ho

When it comes to Intel Extreme Masters StarCraft, herO lives up to his moniker. A three-time IEM tournament winner, he also finished in second at the 2014 World Championship. Thinking about how he's historically performed at this event might encourage you to put him on your fantasy roster, and we can't blame you. herO at IEM is a god; herO in 2015 was a god. But 2016 is here, and with it, Legacy of the Void. The CJ Entus Protoss has dropped two best of threes to fellow Protoss Patience and Hurricane in SSL this month, leading to questions about how he is handling the new units and meta.

Still, PvP was also his toughest matchup in HotS, and he's facing Snute first - not a Toss, but a familiar IEM opponent. herO fell to Snute at IEM Season IX Toronto, but beat him at San Jose in the same season, where he also took home the trophy. Will herO prove he's still number one at Intel Extreme Masters, or will his recent SSL results prove a pattern, rather than an anomaly?

Jens 'Snute' Aasgaard

Snute is known as one of the best non-Korean players in the world, and his many wins against top Korean Protoss like Classic and Rain prove the hype is real. But the Liquid Zerg often struggles after reaching the quarterfinals. Will the fact that he'll start IEM already in the top eight help him beat herO - again?

The most recent LotV results we can point to for Snute don't reveal too much about how he might perform: He beat Terran Kelazhur but was knocked out by fellow Zerg TLO at DreamHack Open: Leipzig last week in an exciting final map that saw Snute winning plenty of battles in the late-game but ultimately losing the war.

But Snute also gave us a glimpse into how successful his LotV play can be during HomeStory Cup XII in December, where he nailed a semifinals spot before losing to FireCake in a best of five, and he's the first tournament winner of LotV after taking it all at the GPL 2015 International Challenge in November. Snute is no bug to be stepped on, and despite going up against one of the most notorious IEM champions around in three-time winner herO, this Zerg has a solid shot of powering through to the semifinals.

Starcraft 2 Lotv Price Guide

David 'Lilbow' Moschetto

After an absolutely unbelievable run in Seasons 2 and 3 of WCS in 2015, Lilbow was the only foreigner to hit BlizzCon, and he went into it with fan support that matched the momentum. But as he fell to Life 3-0, the foreign hope was extinguished. To the dismay of many fans, Lilbow let everyone know he was working on his LotV play. But 2016 is just getting started, and the Millenium Protoss from France still has a chance to show the practice was all worth it. He's already started, taking 3rd at GPL - where Snute won.

He lost, though, to TLO at the DreamHack LotV Championship, and though he started out strong at DreamHack: Leipzig, beating Nerchio 3-1, Lilbow then fell to ShoWTimE, a fellow Protoss, by the same numbers.

Historically, Lilbow had a middle ground record against Terran in HotS - but times have changed. Even if LotV weren't a new game, the fact that his first opponent ByuN's worst matchup in HotS was TvP should give Lilbow some hope. Will he be able to overcome the newly-returned Terran and move toward at least a top 4 finish at IEM? In this case, whether 'practice makes winner' or not remains to be seen.

'ByuN' Hyun Woo

ByuN has had a rough go of it. To quote ESPN blogger Stephen Chiu, ByuN's 'soul got broken by Ahn ‘Seed' Sang Won four years ago' when the Terran choked, losing a deciding GSL match. Writes Chiu: 'He then plummeted in skill, exiled himself from tournaments, then the Prime house, and finally society.' While ByuN has been relatively quiet since the loss, he hasn't been entirely absent from the StarCraft II scene. He participated in Heart of the Swarm in Challenger League in 2013, as well as qualifiers for IEM San Paolo, but after that he really did disappear from professional StarCraft tournaments. In April 2015 he returned, winning OlimoLeague #28.

After announcing that he'd joined X-Team, the Terran qualified for SSL, his first premier tournament appearance in two plus years. On January 7th, he played the legend soO - and won 2-0. Is Legacy of the Void ByuN's real time to shine? Will we see a comeback at this Intel Extreme Masters that the StarCraft II world will talk about for years to come?

Tune in here on Monday to find out how Intel Extreme Masters Taipei go down - and don't forget to sign up for the ESL Fantasy challenge! Follow IEM on Facebook and Twitter for further updates during the event.

Many StarCraft II players are still busy getting through Legacy of the Void. But developer Blizzard Entertainment is already looking toward the future.

StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void (out now on PC and Mac) wraps up a story that began in 1998 with the release of the original StarCraft. But that doesn't mean it's the end of the long-running real-time strategy series. At last week's BlizzCon fan convention, Blizzard revealed that the sci-fi story would live on in Mission Packs, which will have levels and objectives based around different StarCraft characters.

The first Mission Pack, Nova Covert Ops, comes out next spring. It's about the deadly sniper Nova, a fan-favorite, and her elite black ops team. These extra story campaigns are part of a new 'micro-content' strategy Blizzard is using for StarCraft II. This plan also includes new multiplayer skins for individual battlefield units, new voice packs, and more missions for Legacy of the Void's cooperative multiplayer mode.

It's safe to say that Blizzard is far from being done with the franchise.

I met with lead producer Tim Morten at BlizzCon to find out more about the company's commitment to expanding StarCraft II. According to Morten, the majority of people who play the game play it for the story campaigns, so it was only natural for the development team to continue working on that kind of content.

'We feel like there's so many potential stories to be told in the StarCraft universe,' he said.

Here's a detailed breakdown of what Blizzard has in store for both Nova Covert Ops and future Mission Packs.

Starcraft 2 Lotv Price

What's going on with Nova, anyway?

Nova Covert Ops takes place a few years after the ending from Legacy of the Void. During a BlizzCon panel about the future of StarCraft II, writer Valerie Watrous dropped a few details about what the universe is like in that time. The Dominion (the governing body of humankind, or Terrans in StarCraft parlance) consists of a war-torn people. Over the years, they've been through different battles, both against each other and against the bug-like Zergs. They just want peace.

Emperor Valerian Mengsk is a much more progressive ruler than his father Arcturus, who perished in Heart of the Swarm (the second StarCraft II expansion). He grants his people civil liberties (like freedom of the press) that they never had before. But this leaves him open to attacks in the media from his critics. Valerian worries that his outspoken enemies are forming secret alliances to try to oust him from power.

One of those alliances is the Defenders of Man. On the surface, it vows to protect the world from future alien invasions, which makes the Defenders of Man popular among the people. But something weird is going on. In the teaser trailer for Nova Covert Ops that debuted last week, Nova wakes up in a mysterious place — this facility actually belongs to the alliance.

She doesn't know how she got there, but through the course of her adventure, she'll find out what the Defenders of Man is really up to. Like the main campaigns, Nova Covert Ops will have cutscenes that help tell the story.

Free online os. Above: Blizzard showed off what Nova's black ops units will look like.

Nova Covert Ops will come out in three chunks

Nova Covert Ops is a standalone story arc told over the course of nine different missions. But Blizzard isn't going to release all of them at once. They'll come out in three different sets, with each set containing three missions. After Blizzard releases the first set, some time will pass, and then they'll release the next one, and so on. It's a different schedule from what the StarCraft team is used to.

In the past, it made expansions that were two or more years apart from release. The first chapter of the StarCraft II trilogy, Wings of Liberty, came out in 2010, and Heart of the Swarm appeared on store shelves in 2013.

'It's sort of changing the way we approach releasing content,' said Morten. 'The work that we're doing is commensurate to what we would do when we make a full [expansion like Legacy of the Void]. But instead of waiting two years, we're delivering work as we complete it.'

I asked Morten if the staggered schedule has anything to do with the growing trend of episodic games (as popularized by Telltale Games's work with licensed properties).

'We definitely looked at that and we also looked just upstairs at the [Heroes of the Storm] team and the wonderful content cadence that they've accomplished in terms of releasing new heroes, new map content,' he said. 'I think that audience responds so well to the continuity of it that we want to try to provide that for StarCraft.'

Blizzard is still figuring out how it'll price these Mission Packs, but Morten said they're going to try to make them a 'great value' for players.

Above: A rough mock-up of Nova's loadout screen. You can give her new weapons and equipment.

Mission Packs could explore multiple timelines and characters

While Nova Covert Ops takes place after Legacy of the Void, Blizzard is open to exploring different timelines. We might see flashbacks or tales that take place concurrently with the events from the StarCraft II trilogy. Just don't count on seeing any of the major characters returning.

'I think all options are on the table in the future, but we really have tried to resolve the story around Raynor, Kerrigan, and Artanis,' said Morten. 'So there's a reluctance on our part to open new plot lines for those characters. We don't want to stray into that territory of making people feel like ‘to be continued' should be at the end of Legacy of the Void. Legacy of the Void really is meant to tie up their story.'

However, other characters that players are familiar with from the campaigns will show up in Nova Covert Ops. It's these side characters that makes Blizzard so excited for the Mission Packs. Morten said it feels like they have 'so much fertile ground to explore.'

'Characters we touched on lightly over the course of the campaign or characters we never met before — I think there's a lot of opportunity to get creative with what we have post-launch,' he added.

Above: Lead designer Jason Huck promised players that they'll be able to 'nuke the crap' out of their enemies.

Is StarCraft III still a possibility?

Whether Blizzard continues making these one-off stories or begins working on another big entry in the franchise depends on how fans respond to the Mission Packs.

'If the feedback is they'd like to see more of this type of content, we're certainly excited to build it,' said Morten. 'If the feedback we get is they want to see entire new games, than that's something we'll consider as well.'

It's a fascinating evolution for the 17 year-old series. The micro-content plans puts StarCraft II more in line with other Blizzard games like Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm, both of which receive a steady stream of updates throughout the year.

'You look back on StarCraft 1 — Brood War is really what everyone remembers about StarCraft 1, even though it was an expansion of the base product. I think Legacy of the Void is that to StarCraft II,' said Morten. 'Our hope is that this is the pinnacle of StarCraft II development from a feature and content perspective, and that players enjoy it so much that this is the memory that they carry forward with them about StarCraft II.'

GamesBeat

• Newsletters, such as DeanBeat
• The wonderful, educational, and fun speakers at our events
• Networking opportunities
• Special members-only interviews, chats, and 'open office' events with GamesBeat staff
• Chatting with community members, GamesBeat staff, and other guests in our Discord
• And maybe even a fun prize or two
• Introductions to like-minded parties