Location: Machine Room

Solution to Imba

by Andrew Spann

Answer: FUNDAY MONDAY

Each paragraph describes a real professional StarCraft game, except the player's names have been changed. The pool of letters forming the puzzle names of a pair of players consist of the letter bank of an actual game's players plus two additional letters. One additional letter is in the winner's name and the other additional letter is always in the loser's name. Any additional copies of the extra letter occur entirely in the same puzzle name to avoid ambiguity.

To rephrase this, the players names have been changed according to the following formula:
Puzzle name of Player 1: (Subset of letters from real Player 1's name + Subset of letters from real Player 2's name + Extra letter) anagrammed.
Puzzle name of Player 2: (Complementary subset of letters from real Player 1's name + Complementary subset of letters from real Player 2's name + Extra letter) anagrammed.

The goal of the puzzle is to identify the games played to get the name of the real players to determine the added letters. Sorting the professional games in the order by date played gives

This gives the letters

SE / ND / AR / EP / LA / YW / HE / RE / YO / UB / UI / LD / CA / RR / IE / RS

Upon calling in SEND A REPLAY WHERE YOU BUILD CARRIERS, teams are instructed to build a replay with carriers - either with Brood War or StarCraft 2, or as a creative re-enactment in a medium of choice. Teams are then give the answer FUNDAY MONDAY. (According to Idra's ragequit comments from a famous game, building carriers is a "Very useful talent toi have." Day9 has a popular show in which he shows replays of games with players having to play under certain constraints, like having to build carriers.)