GLORY GLORY MAN UTD

For the third time in History, Manchester United was crowned the King of Europe after beating Chelsea in the thrilling Champions League final in Moscow, and thus completing the glorious double for Manchester United' 07/08 season. The final match is always entertaining to watch, with Man Utd and Chelsea switching domination in the first and second half, before the match is dragged into extra time and penalty shootout.
With this, they're closer on beating Liverpool as the best club in Europe, with just one Premier League title separating the difference between the two clubs. And with Sir Alex is expected to retire within 3 years time, I wonder who's going to succeed his managerial legacy.

GLORY GLORY MANCHESTER UNITED!

random weekend rant

The exam timetable has been released.... not so bad I suppose. About a week separating Biochem and Microbiology, and finally Physiology 3 days later. Now I need to get serious about the lectures....



And lulzy, Fantasy Premierleague ends with gameweek 38, and surprisingly I came out top in one random league I joined - WITHOUT a single transfers! This is...quite a feat lol :3 To make it even more interesting, I topped it in the very last day of the season, leading the 2nd place team by a mere 3 points, and further 3 points from the 3rd place. Meaning my team who scored 72 points in gameweek 38 outleap the previous first and second place team.
As for Ayam2 Adelaide, only got 3rd place though. But still, not a SINGLE transfer :3

SENNHEISER Prime Defending 10: Near to Conclusion

MYM continue with their tradition "so-called" the largest online tournament with the 10th edition of Prime Defending. The format is similar to the previous edition, with a slight change in the playoff round (best of 3 in winner bracket, best of 5 in Grand Final). In addition, XLBET is added for each match.

To be honest I have little interest with this edition of PD compared to PD 8 or 9, mainly because of the huge dramas involved in Prime Defending 9 (mainly the poor decision and unprofessional handling of the admin toward certain serious cases like maphack, backdoor and ringers), which heavily tainted the good name of this tournament. Kingsurf become the only Asian team to qualify into the playoff stage, where they were knocked out into the loser bracket by Denmark team MET right in the first round. Well it's not a problem, they can still bounce back from the loser bracket into the Grand Final. But there's an even more huge surprise - MYM was also beaten in a straight game in the first round by SGC-_-IR (who eventually end up winning 3rd place), and thus will face Kingsurf in the first round of loser bracket, best of 1. Some people says XLBET influenced the ourcome of their match (very large bet against SGC), but who knows.

And this is the point where one of the most entertaining match in this tournament happened - MYM vs Kingsurf. MYM has been know to be very strong with their notorious Shadow Priest-Bristleback strategy, this match is no exception. In a match against Indonesian team XcN in ESL Season 2 Group Stage prior to this match, Bristleback brinsg victory for MYM despite the heavy loss in term of kill (somewhere 25-50 score). But this time, Kingsurf made a very clever draft to counter this strategy - by picking Obsidian Destroyer. OD pure damage orb is still reduced by BB, but considering a farmed OD can deal EXTREMELY MASSIVE damage, this hero can still take down a farmed BB within seconds. Not to mention Zeus with static field also deals massive extra damages in teamfight.
more infos for this match:
-Matchticker
-MYM download page
-post-match article


back to tournament: MYM losing in 3 straight matches in this tournament, which knock them out of the tournament is surely one of the biggest upset in this tournament, considering they're the defending champion, plus their new addition of Fear and Ezy. Then there's another huge surprise - Virtus.Pro, another very strong team who won 3 straight Prime Defending (PD6, 7 and 8) was disqualified for using outsider in their match against x6. With this, 2 potential favorites were both knocked out of the tournament, leaving the door wide open for a new champion. People starts rooting for SK. Gaming or Wolker Gaming to reach the grand final, and indeed they did. The final match will be held today.

anyway, since the loss of Kingsurf to Mousesports in the loser bracket 3rd round, I kinda lost my interest in this tournament, not to mention some of the game were reloaded so there's not much good complete replay. The match against Mouz is...well how should I say it... terrible drafting phase. What's the purpose behind banning viper? Just a glimpse looking at the lineup I knew Mouz gonna take this game. Those lineup by Kingsurf is weak to compete with Mouz strong heroes synergy. Plus THD is not as good babysitter as warlock (who was still available for the 4th pick, can you believe it?) or shadow priest, and picking spectre for late game carry against those massive AOE opponents is not easy.

Asriel - Metamorphose

Artist: Asriel
Title: Metamorphose
Monochrome Factor OP

Romaji
Hai iro somatte iku sora iro aoide
Koko wa itsu doka to
Yami iro hirogatteku sora iro fusaide
Michi o tazu ne you

Kagami no naka utsushidasareta jibun ni obiete
Minufurishiteta hibi ni
SAYONARA shita ano hi no kimi o shinjiteirukara
Kotoba ni dekinai kedo-

Douka kanaimasu youni
Futatsu no tamashii o yobu koe ga kikoeteru
mune no oku sokode
Sashidashita te o tsukande yuku ima wa
Dachi domaru hima wa nai
MONOKURO na sekai no naka

Yoru iro tsuki ga ochite sora iro chiisana
Hikari kagayakeba
Yami iro kawatteiku sora iro mitsukete
Michi wa tsuduiteku

Hyaku no yoru o norikuetekita jibun o hokorou
Ugoki hajimeta hibi ni
SAYONARA shita ano hi no senaka furueru te no hira
Shizukana hohoemi to-

Douka mayowanai youni
Futatsu no tamashii o ayatsurishi haguruma ga dokokani arunara
Kizamu nagare ga tomaranuyou imamo
Mitsume tsudukete iyou
MONOKURO na jikan no naka

Kagami no naka utsushidasareta hontou no jibun ni
Minufurishiteta hibini
SAYONARA shita hashiridashita dareka o mamoritai
Kotoba ni dekinai kedo-

Douka kanaimasu youni
Futatsu no tamashii o yobu koe ga kikoeteru
mune no oku sokode
Sashidashita te o tsukande yuku ima wa
Dachi domaru hima wa nai
MONOKURO na sekai no naka

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this nice song is tainted by the fact that it is featured in a yaoi show.... dammit I'd surely continue with Monochrome Factor if Shirogane is somehow a girl = (

Anticipated Games!

After almost 2 years not playing any decent RPG games (last time I play a very nice rpg is VP: Silmeria), finally I got something to really look forward to - and again, none other than Tri-Ace's titles. Their games has always amazed me since I first play their release Star Ocean 2 back then in PS1. Then Valkyrie Profile was released, but I missed this title because it was released just when PS2 popularity was on rising phase. It's not until almost 5 years later, by the end of 2004 when I finally manage to get a copy of this game. Then to PS2 platform, they amazed me again, with Radiata Stories and my all time favorite RPG, Star Ocean 3 Till The End of Time and Valkyrie Profile 2 Silmeria. And finally VP: Lenneth was remade for PSP, which I of course can't miss, although I play it just to feel the newly replaced CGI scenes.

back to post. Tri-Ace will release 3 games for 3 different consoles; all of them are currently in development phase - Valkyrie Profile - The Cursed One (Nintendo-DS), Infinite Undiscovery (Xbox360), and Star Ocean 4 (suposedly PS3). I just can't stop expressing my excitement upon hearing the news about the development of these games. I've always been their big fan since VP series, and surely these games, especially SO4 would drive me to buy PS3. Not now, maybe somewhere in the end of this year. Well I'm not going back to Malaysia this year, so I guess my saving is more than enough to buy PS3 and the games.

DotA Allstars 6.52

Without I even realize, IceFrog has release DotA Allstars 6.52. I think it should be somewhere within the last 3 days as it's the last time I check getdota. Anyway, I still haven't got the time to test this new map (Curse Garena, if only I can use it right now T_T). Looking at the changelog, some notable changes for me to comment:

-Yet again, Bristleback has been hit by a nerfstick. During his imbaness, his bristleback ability was nerfed from 60% damage reduction to 40%. Then his strength gain per level has decreased from somewhere around 2.7 (iirc) to 2.2, making him a shitty tanker. But he is still considered as imbalanced, and now his side angle for bristleback ability is reduced, while autoquills need to tank 300 damage instead of 200 before the quill is activated.

-Magnataur AOE Ultimate. Before this his Reverse Polarity is a real game breaking ultimate, which often led MYM to ban him is many of their matches. Now the AOE has been reduced, I wonder how much will this affect Competitive Dota. Is he now worth to be banned? I would still say yes, since a good positioning of Reverse Polarity can be a real pain in the ass.

-Void strength gain is reduced after so many people complaining about his imbaness (although with good teamplay, it's not hard to keep him down). But note that his strength gain is nerfed from 2.2 to 1.4 - which is lower than Pugna's strength gain. I was like...omg he has been hit by a real big nerfstick. 1.4 strength gain is kinda joke, now he will have even harder early games with those smaller hp pool.

-Queen of Pain, just like Bristleback has been judged to be too imba and now got yet some more nerf in this version. Sonic Wave cooldown does no longer improved at level 2 and 3, unless using Scepter. And manacost for Scream stays the same at all level, which makes it a little hard for her early game harrasing.

-Sand King armor is lowered from 2.7 to nearly zero...uh is this a joke? He isn't THD or Alchemist or Tiny....

the rest is ok i suppose. Dragon Knight receive various buff, but how far will this make him a viable option in high level play. Slayers' attack animation is improved, from the notoriously horrible attack animation to little better projectiles, which is definitely a good thing. The creep hord sound is lowered, which is a good thing because before this, it was so loud. XL mode now can remove 4 heroes instead of 3, which means more heroes are prone to be banned in many tournament, especially the BIG 4 heroes (Beastmaster, Zeus, Warlock and Queen of Pain). Crow can no longer carry Aegis, thus it won't be possible to steal Roshan aegis from the enemy anymore =)