[TSL] Ro8 Recap and Interviews

T1 Empire.Kas < Xel'Naga Caverns > Mill.Adelscott P7
Our only all-European duel of the RO8 kicks off on Xel’Naga Caverns between Kas and Adelscott. Nothing out of the ordinary in the first three minutes of the game until Kas is first to deviate by skipping the usual first marine to attach a tech lab for a reaper instead. The reaper thankfully does not have to match itself against a stalker, and is able to pick off a zealot + probe before it meets its time. Kas’s CC is miles ahead of Adelscott’s nexus, but with Adel’s 3 gate pressure delays the expansion, ultimately giving Adelscott a huge economic lead. With his spider senses tingling, Adelscott remove the stalkers from the front line to catch a drop, and that is exactly what he did. Seeing that he has delayed it long enough, Adelscott pulls back to his own natural. Kas hasn’t just been sitting in his base doing nothing, as a third CC finishes and is now heading to the gold.

Waiting any longer would allow Kas to shoot ahead in income, and Adelscott moves up the right side of the map. With force fields, Adelscott’s zealots maul through the front line, but Adel cannot overcome the food difference and is pushed back with minimal micro from Kas. A pylon sees that Kas is trying to expand to the 3 o’ clock base, and Kas takes the opportunity to stim in and blow up Adel’s gold base + natural, also getting a free colossus in the process. Adelscott is severely supply capped, and the battle at his natural has a 60 food difference in favor of Kas, and Kas stomps Adelscott in a dominating fashion in game 1 of our best of 5. [17:51]

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T12 Empire.Kas < Terminus RE > Mill.Adelscott P6
Players fast expand behind their first unit producing structure, as vertical positions on Terminus RE is one of the longest travel distances in the current tournament map pool. Adelscott makes the first move, looking to be aggressive off of 3 warp gates. He catches the bunker seconds before it goes up, and is able to force Kas to abandon his natural for the time being. Seeing that most of Adelscott’s units were at the front of his base, Kas loads up two medivacs heading south, dealing a fair amount of damage before Adel could successfully deflect the drop. Kas tests Adelscott’s ability to multitask, dropping both his main and the third, but Adel easily cleans up with an overwhelming amount of units. As soon as Adelscott moves out, Kas again moves in with 2 medivacs to his third, but Adel is committed to his 2-2 timing attack, sacrificing his third and going for a frontal bust. Kas does not have enough units to hold his front even with dozens of SCVs repairing, and Adelscott evens up the series one apiece. [16:11]

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T1 Empire.Kas < Crevasse > Mill.Adelscott P7
Kas stays true to his reaper into FE build, which is a wise choice for another cross positioned spawn against Adelscott. The distance between the opposing base allows both players to cut corners and tech up extremely fast, with Adelscott pumping out his third colossus and Kas lining up two drops and a third CC by the 10 minute mark. Adelscott catches glimpses of the drops and eliminates the threat, while moving towards the center of the map. Adel needs to slow down Kas’s third and grab his own, but Kas knows there is imminent danger and begins fortifying his third. Adel abuses the range on the colossi to damage Kas’s bunkers, but Kas is not one to feel pressured, answering with his own vikings to slowly drain the colossi’s shields. Adelscott indecisively moves back and forth before committing to an attack, losing a few zealot meatshields from MM volleys. While the colossus is slowly melting away Kas’s army, Adelscott lets his macro slip and simply cannot resupply fast enough given Kas’s defender’s advantage.

Adelscott’s third is awfully late, and thankfully for him, Kas is supply blocked for a good 30 seconds, giving him enough time to run back his gateway units. Adelscott always look to be on the offensive, but Kas breaks down the backdoor rocks to walk around him and straight to the heart of Adel’s main. Adelscott refuses to enter a base trade scenario and rushes back to defend his base. By the time Adel got back to his base, both of his fully functioning nexuses have been sniped, and Kas pulls back with minimal losses, with his fourth almost ready to go. Adelscott gears up for one final push. Kas sits comfortably at max with 2-2 upgrades, while Adel is limping around 160 food. Kas stims in and while force fields slow down the massacre, they cannot delay the inevitable and Adelscott’s army simply evaporates, ending the game. [23:05]

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T1 Empire.Kas < Tal'Darim Altar > Mill.Adelscott P5
No reason to change a winning formula as Kas fast expands once again, this time slightly behind Adelscott’s own second nexus. Adelscott forces bunkers from his early 3 gate aggression, expanding again behind it and already has a forge spinning away at those upgrades, with armor first in line. A lone medivac skirts along the edge of the map, but it does not get past Adelscott’s watchful eyes and is picked off, losing a full load of units. Although given ample time, Adelscott sticks to gateway units for a long period of time. Kas prepares a three-pronged attack, dropping both the main and the third while marching in front. Adelscott tries his best to bring things under control, but narrowly could not tidy up the medivac in his main base, forcing him to temporarily lay off his probes. Adelscott counterattacks, but his force field placement in turn puts him in a disadvantageous position. Kas brings his SCVs for a surround, and once again Adel’s dubious force fields limited the surface area for his zealots, plummeting his supply in the engagement. Kas swings forward and chase after Adel, and this time it is he who faces a flank, with +2 armored zealots dashing forward and slicing down Kas’s army.

Adelscott rounds the back to try and snipe Kas’s third base, but a sensor tower comes up just in time to warn Kas of the incoming attack, and Adelscott is denied. Adelscott marches into the natural instead, and catches the SCVs transferring over to the third base. The zealots waste their charge on the SCVs, and Adelscott does not have enough sentries to force field Kas’s maxed MMM army. Half of Adelscott’s army is fighting Kas’s, while the other half are removed from the fight, deciding to chew through the SCVs instead. While both players deal an enormous amount of damage to each other, Kas’s SCVs can be replenished with MULEs, but Adelscott’s deathball is looking very thin. Adelscott continuously plays cat and mouse with Kas’s army, but his army is slowly withering away. Adelscott parks the remnants of his army in the middle of his two running bases, in fear of an attack from either end. Kas storms into the third, snipes the nexus, and relentlessly chase after Adelscott’s weaker army. Stim after stim and even force field cannot stop Kas right now, as Kas’s giant army more than doubles Adel’s food, and after a feverish chase around the map, and with the very last stalkers of his disintegrated, Adelscott wishes Kas the best of luck in the TSL3 semifinals. [28:29]

P2 oGs.MC < Shakuras Plateau > Prae.ThorZaIN T7

The match begins with a bit of a bang. Thorzain builds a CC at his natural after a tech lab and 1 marine, while MC feigns something akin to 1gate expo. When the SCV in his base is killed, he immediately plops down a twilight counsel and then a nexus, signaling dark templars.

The first DT is met with marauder fire insantly as it tries to enter the natural, thanks to a turret in front. MC prepares a second wave by constructing a warp prism to get around the annoying detector. He warps several more into Thorzain's main directly, again unable to do any real damage but buying time to start his 3rd nexus. As the first force is cleared out, Thorzain moves out mid map and is pushed back when his army trades with the Protoss force.

He readies his own third command center and prepares for endgame with double upgrades from engineering bays, while MC builds up colossus numbers. The armies once again clash in the center, MC getting the worst of it and retreating after his colossus are all wiped away from viking fire. When Thorzain pushes into the bottom half of the map and kills the Protoss third, MC tries for a last stand flank to kill the army. His 1-0 units are quickly taken care of by the now 2-2 marauders-medivac force and he types out GG. [19:23]

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P9 oGs.MC < Metalopolis > Prae.ThorZaIN T6

Game 2 begins as non-standard as the first, with MC building a stargate immediately as the scouting worker is killed and Thorzain once again choosing CC after tech lab. The first voidray of MC stops a constructing barracks and allows him to warp in his second nexus. Showing only 1 void ray, he silently builds another 4 in the back of his base.

After Thorzain kills the first, he marches over to MC's base with his initial marine-marauder army to do some damage. He is met by 4 void rays and a handful of sentry-stalker, where he is able to stop the ground army but kills no void rays. MC decides to pressure this time, harassing over the cliff with void rays and pressuring the front with stalkers and sentries.

After trapping a number of marines to the edge of the ramp with forcefields, MC pulls back and starts to warp in a third nexus while making a templar archives. Thorzain follows suit and takes his third as well. The armies meet mid map, storm is unable to contain the now 2-2 marine-marauder force and game 2 ends similar to the last one: with Thorzain's upgraded army marching through MC's land forces for the GG. [19:33]

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P2 oGs.MC < Xel'Naga Caverns > Prae.ThorZaIN T7

Down 2 games, MC chooses an aggressive 3 gate opening, warping in a series of stalkers right into Thorzain's natural as he attempts a very fast banshee. 5 marines are not enough to stop his first force, and they march right on past the bunker and begin battling SCVs. Thorzain's banshee eventually finishes, and stops the bleeding but not before losing a large chunk of his worker forces. MC makes a nexus as he stops the attack and switches to macro-toss.

Thorzain attempts to get back into the game by harassing with 2 banshees, but is unable to kill any workers. Now down a base for several minutes, he attempts a strong midgame attack with 4 tanks, 4 banshees, marines, and a handful of SCVs to get back into the game. He kills MC's first army, but as he works on the expansion nexus an immortal finishes and a round of stalkers kill what he has and push him back. Thorzain taps out. [12:50]

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P5 oGs.MC < Tal'Darim Altar > Prae.ThorZaIN T11

Game 4 opens with MC choosing 15 nexus, while Thorzain once again makes a command center after marauder. MC ramps up to 4 gateways and prepares to go on the offensive with a forward pylon. Thanks to bunkers and pulling SCVs extremely early, Thorzain holds without many losses, MC starts a third nexus while he retreats.

Building 2 ebays, Thorzain gets his army to 1-1 before launching an assault on MC's natural from behind the cliffs, and succeeds in killing a pylon and assimilator. As he pulls back, MC finishes templar tech and begins warping in high templars. The armies dance around the center briefly as MC finishes both charge and blink, while Thorzain populates his newly finished third MC starts in on a 4th.

The first mid-map engagement goes to Thorzain slightly, as his now 2-2 marine-marauder-ghost army stops the 1-0 of MC, but just barely. He attempts to move to MC's 4th but is shut down, while MC pumps out a huge number of immortals from 3 robotics facilities. The armies continue to dance in the center, with MC getting a slight advantage from each scuffle.

As a PF is constructed at a 4th, Thorzain also takes the liberty of floating over to a 5th. MC pushes straight into the heart of Thorzain's space and takes his own 5th. When Thorzain attempts to sideswipe the Protoss army, the immortals cut through his primarily marauder force with ease. MC stops the Terran 5th from mining, and as Thorzain's army moves to clean up that expansion the main Protoss force destroys the PF where Terran's 4th is.
Back at home, MC is switching to colossus and meeting up with his main army.

Thorzain moves to the bottom of the map with marines and marauders that are now 3-3, and cleans up a sizable colossus-immortal-stalker ball that tries to flank. After killing the base there, he loads up his medivacs and goes to work on the Protoss main, where he is stopped by a swarm of stalkers and zealots.

Shortly thereafter, Thorzain cleans up the 5th base of MC's while MC in turn kills a base of Thorzain's, the one where his original main command center floated to. The armies then spend several minutes rallying into the center and trading, MC mixing in dark templars and Thorzain cloaking ghosts for EMP and sniping. After a dozen small clashes, MC is able to muster up several storms and a few colossus which turn the tide, and as he runs through the map to Thorzain's base he lays the GG. [36:36]

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P7 oGs.MC < Crossfire SE > Prae.ThorZaIN T2

The deciding game of the series opens with a safe gate-robo-gate from MC, making a nexus as he scouts Thorzain's base. Thorzain decides for a command center after factory, securing his base with a tank. MC continues with a stargate and a few phoenixes, while Thorzain looks to show people what he can do with mech as he builds a fast armory and begins his first thor.

When MC's phoenixes see the thors, he begins a third nexus on the bottom corner of the map. Thorzain builds a banshee and attempts to harass, to no avail as stalkers are warped in and phoenixes finish it off. MC scouts Thorzain landing a third command center, and tries to cut it off with his army but thors and hellions walk down in time to push the Protoss force away.

As the Thor, tanks, vikings, and hellions march down the map MC prepares for the assault. He brings high templars and begins to hallucinate what looks like a huge immortal army, but Thorzain spots the fakes with a scan as he readies his attack. Thorzain takes the battle with relative ease, thanks to an impressive 7 thors and scans to spot which units are real.

His first stop is at MC's third, where Protoss is unable to create enough stalkers and zealots to stop the mech units from killing his base, and then when it marches into his natural he is forced to type out. Thorzain marches into the semifinals thanks to an unstoppable series of thors. [19:30]

P9Dignitas.NaNiwa < Metalopolis > coL.CrunCher P6

The match starts with a proxy pylon from Cruncher in between the two possible spawn points from Naniwa. He builds 2 gateways, both on 10 and begins chrono-ing out zealots as soon as possible. Nani's scout probe finds them and responds by adding a second gateway oh his own, pulling probes from gas to prepare defense.

When the first 3 zealots arrive at Naniwa's base, he is forced to pull several probes to defend. Thanks to the workers, he is able to quickly equalize the numbers and from there it is a short road to victory with a superior probe count. [8:02]

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P11 Dignitas.NaNiwa < Shakuras Plateau > coL.CrunCher P5

Game 2 begins off-kilter as well, with a 3 gate-robotics opening from Naniwa and a stargate after 3 gates on Cruncher's side, which immediately begins producing phoenixes. Naniwa makes an extremely fast colossus, while Cruncher begins harassing with his fliers. After some poking and prodding, the initial phoenix force takes down the first colossus as Cruncher takes his natural.

This prompts an attack from Naniwa, which is met with cruncher's growing ground army and held back with ease. The MLG champion expands as well, but continued phoenix annoyances keep his probe count far below Cruncher's, who has a natural up and running. Knowing he is far ahead in workers, Cruncher builds double robo and switches into colossus production while taking the base at 12 o'clock.

When the two armies eventually meet, Cruncher has 9 colossus and it is a trivial matter for him to walk over Naniwa's forces. [20:51]

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P7 Dignitas.NaNiwa < Tal'Darim Altar > coL.CrunCher P5

The third game starts with a familiar PvP scene: 4 gate from Cruncher and blink stalkers from Naniwa. The players dance around in the center with their initial forces, with neither coming out ahead. While Nani continues to build up his blink stalker numbers, Cruncher opts to build a robo and a forge and dig in.

Cruncher builds 2 cannons at the entrance to his base, and Naniwa walks past them as they are warping forcing Cruncher to pull some probes. The blinking stalkers are coming out ahead slightly in the stalker micro battle, but when an immortal shows up Nani is forced to retreat and regroup.

The blink stalkers harass the front, eliminating both cannons without losses due to their ability to transcend space and time. As the armies continue to skirmish, Cruncher's non-blinking stalkers are eliminated one by one until the immortals are easily focused down and he is forced to GG. [12:02]

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P3 Dignitas.NaNiwa < Terminus RE > coL.CrunCher P6

Game 4 opens with 4 gate against 4 gate. The first battles see Nani come out on top slightly, eeking out a small advantage in stalker numbers. As Nani approaches the heart of Cruncher's base he pulls probes to drive back their advances.

Able to keep Cruncher on the back foot, Nani builds up a slight advantage in army and then builds a nexus. Cruncher, in turn, gets a robotics and heads towards clossus production. With his first colossus he moves out and establishes himself in the center of the map. When the second moseys out he approaches the front of Nani's forces and readies himself to push in, and right as the third lumbering giant gathers up to his army the attack begins.

3 colossus triumph over blink stalkers, and the series is off to a deciding game. [16:56]

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P7 Dignitas.NaNiwa < Xel'Naga Caverns > coL.CrunCher P2

Game 5 begins the same way: 4 gate vs 4 gate. The early skirmishes once again see Naniwa coming out slightly ahead, showing the incredible micro that won him MLG Dallas. His supply lead continues to mount as Cruncher warps in a robo, while Nani keeps making units.

Nani walks across the map and puts on some pressure, where he is stopped at the ramp by several forcefields in succession. Eventually the forcefields stop, and the game is quickly won when Naniwa marches up the ramp and finds no immortal. [8:32]

P1 mouz.HasuObs < Crevasse > SlayerS_BoxeR T7
BoxeR makes a reaper to scout HasuObs’s base, but doesn’t get as much as he’d like out of the reaper. Both backdoor expansions are slowly kicking in, and BoxeR is pumping out units from 3 barracks (1 reactor/2 tech lab) while Hasu has three warp gates and a robo. As soon as his first medivac pops out, BoxeR sends a small force over to Hasu’s base, carefully scanning and picking off observers along the way. Hasu is ready for the drop and BoxeR pulls away as soon as the stalkers came into sight. Both players stay toe to toe in supply and feel confident enough to take a third. The armies are at adjacent Xel’Naga towers, and as soon as BoxeR moves his ground units up the ramp, Hasu immediately sieze the opporturnity to force field, cutting off BoxeR’s retreat path and begin thermal lancing the clumped up Terran ball. Boxer manages to land one EMP before all of his troops were melted down, but losing half of his army in exchange is somewhat costly. Hasu chases BoxeR back to BoxeR’s front natural, forcing the CC to lift and the SCVs mining at the base suffer civilian casualty as they try to escape . Vikings slowly work down the colossus number, and the angle favors BoxeR, forcing Hasu to pull back and regroup. BoxeR tries to sneak a CC up to start a fourth base, but Hasu is alerted and hops down the ramp to snipe the floating CC. BoxeR sees that Hasu is transferring probes to another base, but cannot foolishly engage as his scan reveals that Hasu has added high templars into the mix.

Once maxed, HasuObs moves his army up the ramp. Blinking back stalkers so the zealots can get in, storms begin to rain down on BoxeR’s army, and EMP could not cover every single templar. Hasu was able to push BoxeR back into his natural, but SCVs join the fray to soak up zealot damage, allowing BoxeR to hold for the second time this game. BoxeR tries to sneak a squad to the top left corner of the map to do some damage, but once again Hasu demonstrates the importance of Xel’Naga Towers and catches BoxeR red-handed. Now nearly double BoxeR’s supply, Hasu moves in with his heavy zealot/templar army, cleverly lining up the templars atop the cliff so they don’t get EMP’d. The sheer amount of units this time around is too much even for the Emperor, and Hasu breaks the natural the third time around to clinch the crucial game one. [24:29]

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P11 mouz.HasuObs < Tal'Darim Altar > SlayerS_BoxeR T1
BoxeR pressures early to slow down Hasu’s nexus, and capitalizes by getting his CC down much quicker. Yet minutes later, it is BoxeR’s passivity that allows Hasu to take his third earlier. BoxeR looks to deal some damage by setting up below Hasu’s natural, but Hasu already had units atop ready in position to deal with any sort of harassment. Both players are reluctant to engage until max, and BoxeR is keeping up with his upgrades a bit more consistently, with 2 engineering bays to Hasu’s one forge. Hasu moves into the position, taking advantage of BoxeR rearing his whole army to take out a pesky pylon. BoxeR sends in cloaked ghosts to get in range to EMP Hasu’s army, but to little effect as the formidable Protoss deathball is already chewing through BoxeR’s army. Not taking the risk to end the game at this very second, Hasu pulls back to max out once again, giving BoxeR some breathing room to muster up another army of his own. Needing to clear up some supply, BoxeR rallies his SCVs towards Hasu, while Hasu trades in to the Aiur shop his zealots to purchase some new high templars.

The armies meet at the southern Xel’naga Tower, with BoxeR cloaking in and lands a vital EMP on all the high templars. Unfortunately, BoxeR could not make the most of his opportunity, losing out the big battle due to poor positioning. BoxeR sends all his sickly marauders to snipe the bottom left expansion of Hasu. Instead of trying to salvage his bases, Hasu heads the other way, opting for a base trade scenario instead. BoxeR chases Hasu after sniping two nexuses, dealing with Hasu’s lucrative income somewhat. Hasu has 4k/4k in the bank, and is sitting on top of BoxeR’s production facilities. All of BoxeR’s marauders are in the red, and are dying to single swipes from a stealthy dark templar. While BoxeR successfully nullifies all the high templars again, the weakened marauders cannot deal enough damage before they die. With all his buildings gone, BoxeR hangs on by the skin of his teeth, only to see Hasu once again max and mercilessly ravage through BoxeR’s final base, sending BoxeR to the brink of elimination. [36:27]

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P7 mouz.HasuObs < Xel'Naga Caverns > SlayerS_BoxeR T1
While BoxeR had made his second CC much quicker than Hasu’s nexus, his decision to tech up delayed it quite a bit, giving Hasu the economic advantage instead. BoxeR is constantly splitting up his forces to catch Hasu off-guard, and the relentless drops and diversion tactics slowly chip away Hasu, losing pylons and units everywhere. The sudden supply cap forces Hasu to move out, and BoxeR halts all mining at his gold to prevent any further damage. Keeping Hasu at bay, BoxeR sends half a dozen units down the right side of the map, and successfully snipes Hasu’s third nexus. Unfortunately, those units do not live to see another day. Hasu’s main objective is try to deny BoxeR his gold. From storming the mineral line to nonstop pokes with colossi, BoxeR has a hard time saturating his mineral line.

As Boxer moves down the map, Hasu wastes no time and instantly takes down the gold, while Boxer collects Hasu’s third unopposed. This time, it is Hasu who pulls back to defend, wedging in BoxeR’s army at that very same base. BoxeR’s ghosts save the day, rendering high templars useless with EMPs. BoxeR pushes Hasu back, but is falling behind economically, as Hasu has gotten his 9 o’ clock expansion running. BoxeR attempts to move in and attack, but the downpour of psionic storms is slowly eating through marauder health and medivac energy. Hasu loops around to take out Boxer’s natural and limits BoxeR’s income to a single mined out gold. BoxeR splits his army in half in order to minimize storm damage, but his army is simply no match for Hasu’s. The supply reads 168-58 in favor of Hasu. Hasu’s final assault on the gold K.Os SlayerS_BoxeR, eliminating the last Korean in the tournament and securing an All-European TSL Final Four. [27:37]