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The TG-Intel StarCraft II Open Season1 is coming soon and will be streamed live at GomTV.net. Top StarCraft II players from all over the world will be competing in the first open tournament of the official Global StarCraft II league -- the first of three GSL open tournaments that will be held through November.

Signups are now open for the BlizzCon 2010 Costume and Dance contests! Eligible entrants are invited to strut their stuff live on stage, with the festivities being hosted by our master of ceremonies, comedian Jay Mohr. You have until October 4 to sign up for the live contests, and you must sign up online if you want to participate. With over $25,000 in prizes for our Friday night contests, this is one you don't want to miss.

Welcome to the sixth edition of Comm-Link Online, your one-stop resource for the latest and greatest from the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty community. Check out last week's report if you missed it. This week we take another look at the latest player rankings from around the world, bring you more vital information across a broad range of topics, and dig into a slew of new multiplayer discussions. We'll even finish things off with a fun poll. Let's skip the chit chat and jump in to another round.

In our previous articles, In the Vernacular: Learning the Language of StarCraft (Part 1 and Part 2), we highlighted a small portion of the vocabulary that makes up the lingo StarCraft players use to discuss the game. Two of these terms, micro and macro, are among the most used yet they remain mysterious to many newer players. Your ability to execute macro and micro within a match can be the difference between a crushing defeat and a glorious victory on the battlefields of the Koprulu sector.

While it was good, ole' Jimmy Raynor who kicked the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty campaign into overdrive, his revolution certainly wouldn't have been as epic if not for the rich and diverse cast of supporting characters at his side.

From the grizzled Tychus Findlay to the fiercely loyal Matt Horner, we're able to learn more about these characters by playing through their missions in the single-player campaign. Each supporting mission storyline is unique and immersive in its own way, but which one did you enjoy playing through the most?

Within its first month of release, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty has already gone on to sell more than 3 million copies. We want to thank everyone who's already picked up the game for helping us achieve this incredible milestone and for bringing the thunder to Battle.net. Read the full announcement here.

It's good strategy to use your forces to destroy the most immediate threat to your victory, but that's not what we're here to talk about today. In fact, we're not going to talk about sound strategy at all!  

There are certain successes in gaming that are so exhilarating and satisfying that they can only be described as an "epic win."

Epic wins can take on many forms. Occasionally, an epic win will follow a long string of defeats; after fighting what seems to be an impossible battle, you’re able to come from behind and claim a last-minute victory for yourself or your team. Other times, an epic win is the culmination of several perfect in-game actions: your APM is high, your build orders are precision-timed, your micro and macro are flawless—everything falls into place as if predestined, and when you come out victorious, you sort of just want to sit back, put your hands behind your head, and say to yourself "yeah, that was awesome."

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty has a talented and robust mapmaking community, and every day the number of published maps hitting Battle.net continues to grow. To better highlight some of these great creative works, we'll be featuring new player-made maps each week and placing them at the top of the custom games list in the game client for you to download and play.

Check out this week's featured custom maps to see what's available!

One question is often asked by the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty community regarding our new leagues and ladder system: “Who are the best players on the ladder?” We have plans to one day have the best players, based on their current rankings, compete against each other. In the meantime, we can pull some internal numbers, do a little math, and come up with a list of the best players in each region. Here are the top 200 players in North America. We'll update this list approximately every week until it's time to have them compete.

Balance. It's the hot topic, and if you haven't already seen the patch 1.1 situation report we recommend you take a look.  For this blog we want to focus some of the discussion that's been ongoing since the sitrep was posted and give you a place to put your thoughts on the changes, specifically as they relate to zerg. Are reapers looking less like death? Will you no longer rage against siege tanks? Will your ultralisk miss bumping its head against buildings?