19:01 edt: MaNa has his eyes open, and uses force-fields well to completely thwart DIMAGA's bust.

19:00 edt: DIMAGA going for a big ling-bane bust after taking three bases, while Mana goes for robotics tech...

18:55 edt: Game two is on Cloud Kingdom.

18:49 edt MaNa 1 - 0 DIMAGA. MaNa continues to roll through with blink stalkers, taking the game.

18:48 edt: Archons are worthless, but blink stalkers prove to be rather useful as MaNa manages to kill off DIMAGA's third.

18:46 edt: MaNa does a two base archon-gateway unit timing, but gets all his sentries killed due to some really late force-fields allowing speedlings to get on top of them. MaNa now getting blink to continue the assault with archon-stalker-zealot.

18:45 edt: And fast templar archives, 6-gates, and +2 attack for MaNa. Interesting, indeed.

18:43 edt: Relatively fast roach warren and ling speed for DIMAGA, twilight council for MaNa.

18:38 edt: Game one starts on Ohana.

18:28 edt: Good god, it's finally going to start.

17:18 edt: DOTA2 is running long, so the SC2 finals will be delayed some.

15:57 edt: Grand finals are scheduled for 23:15 CEST on DreamHack's website. So go grab a drink, some food, or complain about balance on your Starcraft II community site of choice.

15:49 edt DIMAGA 2 - 1 Fraer. DIMAGA moves on! The finals will be a rematch of DIMAGA vs MaNa at Assembly Winter 2011, an epic battle that ended 3 - 2 in DIMAGA's favor.

15:48 edt: Fourteen infestors pop for DIMAGA, and now Fraer is pretty much dead.

15:46 edt: Blink stalkers are good, but they aren't good enough. The archons, on the other hand, prove to be mostly worthless.

15:43 edt: The warp prism drop manages to distract DIMAGA while Fraer all-ins with stalkers, immortals, and archons....

15:41 edt: Fraer's follow-up after that failed pressure is "warp prism harass into prayer."

15:39 edt: Oh right, banelings counter zealots (kinda), and DIMAGA likes to get banelings. No pay-off for Fraer, despite such a clever probe sneak.

15:38 edt: Fraer has memorized overlord scout timings on this map. He sneaks out a probe with some amazing precision to complete hsi forward pylon for some +1, 4 gate zealot pressure after exp.

15:34 edt: Game three begins on Daybreak!

15:31 edt Fraer 1 - 1 DIMAGA. DIMAGA tries to defend at his natural with roaches, lings, and banes. The forcefields aren't the best from Fraer, but they get the job done.

15:30 edt: Fraer goes for a weird in-between timing where he attacks while +2 and blink are half done, but it's effectively nonetheless as DIMAGA totally did not see this coming. His third goes down.

15:28 edt: It appears to be 5 gate +1, into 7 gate from +2 blink all-in for Fraer. This time, he's kept his forward pylon.

15:23 edt: Game two begins on Cloud Kingdom!

15:20 edt DIMAGA 1 - 0 Fraer. Last ditch attack from Fraer, but DIMAGA just dumps lings and infestors at it until it dies.

15:19 edt: Fraer manages to clear the zerg troops out of his natural, but he's already lost this game, barring any colossal mistakes from DIMAGA.

15:18 edt: DIMAGA wrecks Fraer's army and forces the cancel on the third. He might go in for the kill.

15:16 edt: Fraer just going to take his third and play it slow. DIMAGA is rearing to strike the third with his lings and baneling bombs.

15:15 edt: DIMAGA going into his mass ling + baneling drop style off three bases again, while Fraer gets blink upgrade and adds immortals to his army. Some warp prism harass is deflected easily.

15:12 edt: Fraer goes for the +1, 4-gate pressure timing after expanding, but has his forward pylons scouted and denied. Further attempts to pressure are thwarted by roaches.

15:08 edt: And it has begun! Fraer vs DIMAGA begins on Ohana.

14:50 edt: Fraer vs DIMAGA coming up.

14:43 edt MaNa 2 - 0 Stephano. Zerg OP.

14:42 edt: MaNa: "hahah" As immortals wreck Stephano's stuff.

14:39 edt: Since it worked once, why not once more? MaNa goes for the immortal timing again.

14:32 edt: Game two begins on Daybreak!

14:30 edt MaNa 1 - 0 Stephano. Stephano tries to stop MaNa at his natural, but the immortals and stalkers rip apart drones and roaches alike.

14:29 edt: Mana: "Sup"

Stephano: "Haha"

14:28 edt: MaNa kills off Stephano's third base, goes in the for kill at the natural as well.

14:27 edt: It's two base immortal time!

14:25 edt: Mana vs Stephano begins on Metropolis, for real this time.

14:21 edt DIMAGA 2 - 1 NaNiwa. NaNiwa makes another army, and loses a big battle on creep. DIMAGA goes forward with roach-ling and overtakes NaNiwa at his fourth as he is trying to muster another force.

14:15 edt: DIMAGA drops all of his banelings on top of stalkers, instead of the 4 colossus in NaNiwa's army. NaNiwa cleans it up easily and rolls on through the Zerg bases, takes out the natural and third before being stopped by lings, roaches, and corruptors.

14:12 edt: DIMAGA doing the same ling-baneling stuff from last game, while NaNiwa is readying colossus from 2 robos while taking a third.

14:07 edt: Stephano vs MaNa starting on Stream 1, on Metropolis.

14:04 edt: Game three starting on Cloud Kingdom, NaNiwa @ 7 and DIMAGA @ 2.

14:00 edt DIMAGA 1 - 1 NaNiwa. DIMAGA attacks the fourth, having finished his broodlord-infestor army. A good blink puts his stalkers right under the infestors and destroys the army, but NaNiwa got overconfident and marched across the map right into DIMAGA's newly re-maxed army, NaNiwa is forced to tap out when his force dies off to the swarm.

13:57 edt: DIMAGA went in for an attack at the third, still with pure ling-baneling while heading towards infestors. NaNiwa held the base just barely and DIMAGA takes his fourth while preparing a ling-infestor army and teching towards broodlords.

13:54 edt: DIMAGA opted for drops, with huge ling baneling attack. NaNiwa's army got caught out in the center and destroyed by falling bombs.

13:49 edt: Game proceeded early as normal, forge expand against a 3 base Zerg. NaNiwa looking to take his third before attacking, off a robotics and blink.

13:44 edt: Game two begins on Ohana!

13:37 edt NaNiwa 1 - 0 DIMAGA. DIMAGA held off NaNiwa's early pressure easily and followed it with a dangerous looking baneling follow-up of his own, but NaNiwa's defense in turn was very clutch. NaNiwa attacked later after adding colossi to his army and took the game.

13:28 edt Fraer 2 - 0 SaSe. Blink attack for SaSe is no good against Fraer's robo defense. Fraer even manages to sneak in a few zealots from a forward pylon to kill off SaSe's probes in the meanwhile.

13:27 edt: DIMAGA vs NaNiwa starts on Daybreak.

13:24 edt: SaSe vs Fraer game two is on Cloud Kingdom.

13:23 edt Fraer 1 - 0 SaSe. SaSe eventually runs out of steam and GG's out.

13:18 edt: SaSe has somehow been all-in off one base for about ten minutes now, after his initial immortal drop failed against Fraer's fast expand.

13:17 edt: MaNa 2 - 1 HerO. At the end of a hectic game that saw both MaNa and HerO deny each other's naturals and mine out their mains, MaNa's combined blink-stalker DT force triumped over HerO's immortals and colossi with the help of some timely observer snipes.

13:14 edt: Fraer takes a fast expansion and holds it against SaSe's immortal drops without much trouble at all.

13:13 edt: SaSe vs Fraer began, btw.

13:02 edt: And we move to Daybreak for MaNa vs HerO, game three.

12:53 edt: Stephano 2 - 0 Nerchio. Nerchio had roaches faster, but Stephano had better roaches. Having gone for lair faster, Stephano ends up with speed roaches with superior upgrades, and overpowers Nerchio in the field.

12:52 edt: HerO 1 - 1 MaNa. MaNa tries to attack into HerO's natural with his colossi ball, but he has inferior positioning and ends up getting beaten badly, GGing out immediately after.

12:50 edt: HerO looked like he had a bad start, but he's taken his natural and is locked into a typical colossus arms race with MaNa.

12:48 edt: Both Nerchio and Stephano pick at each other with ling-bane, but they both end up safely taking their thirds - whoops, spoke too soon. Nerchio transitions to roaches faster and manages to kill off Stephano's third.

12:45 edt: HerO's phoenixes hardly do anything, and he transitions into robo tech for colossi. MaNa contains HerO with his blink stalkers while he takes his natural, also teching up to colossi.

12:42 edt: Nerchio vs Stephano game two begins on Ohana.

12:41 edt: Stargate from HerO, citadel and robo from MaNa.

12:38 edt: Stephano 1 - 0 Nerchio. It just so turns out roach-infestor with ultras beats roach-infestor without ultras. Stephano crushes Nerchio in a major battle, and forces the GG. Meawhile, HerO vs MaNa game two starts up on Cloud Kingdom.

12:36 edt: Nerchio vs Stephano has been surprisingly even, despite the fact that Stephano has been playing down a base for a good five minutes or more. He's finally taking his fourth now. He's teched up to ultralisks, while Nerchio has stayed on lair.

12:34 edt: MaNa 1 - 0 HerO. MaNa rolls that early advantage into an even bigger one, hitting with blink stalkers and immortals as HerO tries to expand. With the same composition but simply more numbers, MaNa is able to take game one.

12:32 edt: MaNa jumps ahead when his blink upgrade completes, allowing him to kill some of HerO's stalkers that stuck around pressuring for a bit too long.

12:30 edt: Nerchio finally does what he sought out to do with mutas in the first place, delaying Stephano's expansion while he takes his own earlier. Now he's transitioned into mass roaches, attacking Stephano's third while he takes his fourth.

12:29 edt: In HerO vs MaNa, we have blink-robo vs blink-robo.

12:27 edt: Nerchio and Stephano constantly have their armies in different places, so they end up cancelling each others' third bases quite a few times in succession. The nice thing for Stephano is that he's able to tie up Nerchio's mutas while he belatedly gets his infestors out.

12:25 edt: Nerchio goes straight up to spire off two base while Stephano goes for a later lair while trying to take his third eariler... only to have his expansion attempt delayed by Nerchios lings and banes. Nerchio takes his third once his mutas are out.

12:23 edt: Naturals, lings, banes for both Nerchio and Stephano. Waiting for things to blow up.

12:20 edt: Nerchio vs Stephano begins on Daybreak. Crowd is getting seated for HerO vs MaNa.

12:15 edt: Quarter-finals coming up in... I dunno, no countdown timer

12:01 edt: Fraer 2 - 1 Harstem, SaSe 2 - 1 Ret. Both Dutchmen GG out at nearly the same time. Harstem loses as he has less lasers, and Ret loses to yet more immortals and stalkers after rebuilding his third.

11:59 edt: Infinite laser show going on in Fraer vs Harstem as there are mass colossi on both sides, and even void rays joining the fray.

11:58 edt: Hmm, does losing your third base to a handful of zealots warped in from a forward pylon count as a massive mistake?

11:56 edt: Ret holds off SaSe's two-base immortal timing, and looks to have the game in the bag barring any massive mistakes.

11:52 edt: Fraer attacks with his colossi but overextends, giving up the lead in colossi count.

11:50 edt: Harstem fails to do much with his immortal drops, and Fraer's economic advantage kicks in. In fact, he even starts colossi production earlier than Harstem, as Harstem spent time building two immortals and a prism.

11:48 edt: Cloud Kingdom is the final map vs Ret vs SaSe.

11:46 edt: Fraer going for robo expand, Harstem doing one base colossus two immortal drop on Cloud Kingdom.

11:44 edt: SaSe 1 - 1 Ret. SaSe attacks with a large number of immortals and stalkers, and Ret is stuck defending with just lair units. He attempts to counter with roach-ling while holding the fort with spines and infestors, but in the end he's just defeated on both fronts.

11:40 edt: SaSe goes for a quick third on Metro, and Ret probes for weaknesses with roaches and lings... but SaSe's defense is up to the task of holding them off.

11:39 edt: Fraer 1 - 1 Harstem. With robotics tech up, Fraer eventually gets an army that's strong enough to just straight up kill Harstem's.

11:37 edt: Harstem has pretty much everything proxied on Fraer's side of the map, but the magic of warp-gates means that he can still defend his main from Fraer's counter attack. This game is really, really strange.

11:34 edt: Fraer showed some sick composure to deal with a dangerous cannon rush, depowering two cannons hitting his nexus by destroying powering pylons with stalkers. In other news, Ret vs SaSe game two starts off on Metro.

11:31 edt: Harstem decides to continue the weirdness of his series against Fraer, starting game two with a cannon-zealot rush.

11:27 edt: Harstem 1 - 0 Fraer. At the end of the day, Harstem still had colossi and immortals to anchor his army, with Fraer was relying on trickery with DTs and blink stalkers. Harstem was able to leave behind enough troops to protect his remaining buildings while the rest of his army cleaned up whatever Fraer had left.

11:24 edt: Ret 1 - 0 SaSe. No comeback for SaSe as brood lords clean up.

11:21 edt: This game is pretty damn bizarre. After going up to two bases a piece after an initial base trade, Fraer and Harstem are base trading AGAIN.

11:20 edt: Infestors, spines, mutas, and lings clean up SaSe's attack, and now SaSe is looking rather dead as he's barely over 100 pop against a maxed-out zerg with brood lords on the way.

11:18 edt: SaSe not having the best time against Ret's constant harassment. Ret has over one hundred drones and starts to convert them into spines as SaSe moves out to attack now that he has templars.

11:16 edt: Meanwhile, in Ret vs SaSe, SaSe has gone up to three bases while Ret goes for muta-ling while taking his side of the map.

11:15 edt: Complicating factor: Fraer built his new nexus at the Harstem's old third, while Harstem built his new nexus in Fraer's old base, so Fraer has a lot more minerals remaining in his new base.

11:13 edt: More of Harstem's probes managed to escape, so the rebuilding will be in his advantage. Fraer tries to use blink tactics to harass Harstem, but he can't achieve much against the range of colossi and immortals.

11:11 edt: Harstem moves out with three immortals and a colossus, Fraer decides to base trade. Both players build a new nexus on opposite sides of the map.

11:10 edt: Apparently Harstem's plan was to go for colossus off one base, but the early pressure has slowed him down. Fraer is going for both blink and robo tech now.

11:08 edt: Harstem misses a FF against some really light early pressure and is put on the back foot. Also, SaSe vs Ret starts on Daybreak.

11:04 edt: Fraer vs Harstem begins on Ohana!

10:35 edt: DIMAGA 2 - 0 Protosser. Protosser transitions into a ground composition as well, but it's too late. DIMAGA just has too much more stuff, and overpowers Protosser with hydra-roach-infestor for the win.

10:33 edt: NaNiwa 2 - 0 Slivko. Slivko repeats his fate, and is burnt to a crisp by colossi lasers before he can get his brood lords out on the battlefield.

10:31 edt: Three base for NaNiwa as he builds up a strong army backed by colossi.. Slivko heading towards brood lords again. It's going to be another close timing for Slivko to hold this off until he has hive units out.

10:29 edt: DIMAGA gets into Protosser's base with roaches before mutalisks can pop, killing drones and tying up the mutalisks for a very long time. This gives Dima a pretty solid lead.

10:26 edt: DIMAGA and Protosser both taking three bases on Antiga. DIMAGA going infestors, Protosser preferring spire. As for NaNiwa and Slivko, the game is fairly standard and uneventful so far.

10:17 edt: DIMAGA 1 - 0 Protosser. You can only fight two base vs three base for so long. GG!

10:14 edt: NaNiwa 1 - 0 Slivko. With two colossi and four immortals, NaNiwa decides it's time to move out. He hits just around the greater spire completion timing, breaking through the Zerg lines just before brood lords come out.

10:11 edt: NaNiwa just decides to expand to his third while Slivko gets roaches and infestors.

In the ZvZ, both players switch into roaches, except that DIMAGA has three bases and Protosser only has two. Protosser does happen to have an upgrade advantage, but it looks like it's not going to be enough.

10:09 edt: Third hatch before six mins in a ZvZ? Why not, says DIMAGA. He will probably get away with it as well.

10:07 edt: DIMAGA opening hatch-gas-pool, super greedy compared to Protosser's pool-hatch. However, Protosser not making lings, so Dima will get away with it.

Meanwhile, NaNiwa goes for some pressure off four gates after an FE, but Slivko gets roaches in time to hold it off.

10:06 edt: Also, DIMAGA vs Protosser (who is not Protoss) begins.

10:02 edt: NaNiwa vs Slivko begins on Cloud Kingdom.

09:47 edt: With half the RO16 bracket over, Brat_OK vs Nerchio has been the most entertaining series. On a side note, HerO is now 20 - 0 in this tournament.

09:44 edt: HerO 2 - 0 TaeJa. The two-base colossus timing works perfectly for HerO, and TaeJa GG's.

09:40 edt: HerO going for what looks like a "Squirtle" colossus timing. Is it just me, or does TaeJa tend to lose every game to good Protoss players who go for early timing attacks?

09:30 edt: HerO 1 - 0 TaeJa. HerO uses an hallucinated phoenix + pylon to warp DTs into TaeJa's main. TaeJa spares himself the trouble of struggling to fend off DTs and dying in a 20 minute game after playing from a huge disadvantage and just GG's out.

09:28 edt: MaNa 2 - 0. The two-immortal timing claims yet another Zerg life as Cytoplasm just baaaarely fails to hold.

09:25 edt: HerO vs TaeJa starting up on Cloud Kingdom. Meanwhile, MaNa doing the two-immortal timing against a mutalisk build from Cyto.

09:21 edt: Game two of Mana vs Cytoplasm starts off on Daybreak!

09:16 edt: MaNa 1 - 0 Cytoplasm. And it is! Cytoplasm has no answer, GG.

09:13 edt: MaNa has managed to hide a pylon inside Cytoplasm's main, warps in sentries and zealots. Sentries block the ramp, Zealots destroy the main. This could be over real fast.

09:12 edt: Nerchio 2 - 1 Brat_OK. One hell of a battle between marauder-thor-viking vs brood lord-ultra-infestor. Nerchio ends up winning the battle while lings clean up Brat_OK's mining expansion. GG!

09:11 edt: Nerchio vs Brat_OK game three is looking a lot like game one, with Brat_OK's constant expansion denial and harassment keeping him in the game against a ridiculously powerful but immobile hive army. Nerchio now has mass ultralisks AND brood lords.

09:09 edt: Cytoplasm vs Mana game one begins on Metropolis!

09:06 edt: Speak of the devil, some nice drops and marine harassment tactics have brought Nerchio back down to three bases from five, and now Brat_OK is in a pretty nice position.

09:01 edt: Nerchio has delayed Brat_OK's third for quite a decent amount of time while he has safely taken five bases on his own side. With brood lords out soon, this is looking very grim for Brat_OK unless he can work his dropship magic again.

09:00: Stephano 2 - 1 Keen. Keen can't take the second wave and GG's out.

08:58 edt: Massive battle between Stephano and Keen when Keen pushes out to take his fourth base in the center of Daybreak. Keen just barely holds against brood lords, banes, and infestors, but loses most of his army while Stephano is easily able to max-out again.

08:55 edt: The two series resemble each other in a strange way, as now Brat_OK is now also going for two-factory blue-flame hellions on Ohana. However, Nerchio won't have roaches out in time like Stephano did - oh wait, he shoots queens and zerglings for long enough for roaches to pop out, without being able to kill a single drone.

08:53 edt: Looks like it wasn't mech for Keen, just a double-fact blue-flame hellion open that was countered by roaches. Bio switch now!

08:51 edt: Keen is going mech, but takes damage from a roach-ling attack that hits him while he's still on only hellions.

08:48 edt: Normal build up as we go to game three on Daybreak for Stephano vs Keen.

08:44 edt: Nerchio 1 - 1 Brat_OK. What was so different this time around? I'm not quite sure (watching two games AND typing is hard!), but brood lords squash Brat_OK before he can really get anything going.

08:42 edt: Keen 1 - 1 Stephano. Keen has been relentlessly pounding away at Stephano after taking the early lead, and Stephano managed to stay alive for a surprisingly long time. However, his legs had to give out eventually, and we're going to a third game.

08:37 edt: Owch. Keen's rather normal hellion-banshee play does a fairly abnormal amount of damage as Stephano's defense isn't at its best.

08:34 edt: We move on to Daybreak for game two of Nerchio vs Brat_OK!

08:32 edt: Stephano vs Keen game two is on Metropolis. The two start at diagonal spots, and this time Keen goes for a standard FE-hellion open.

08:29 edt: BraT_OK 1 - 0 Nerchio. Great use of Terran mobility from Brat_OK allows him to evade Nerchio's extremely slow brood lord force while he drops Nerchio everywhere and destroys his income, tech, and production. By mining at several bases spread across the map, Brat_OK is able to put together a force to finally take down the brood lords for good.

08:26 edt: Stephano 1 - 0 Keen. Looks like I spoke too soon! The combined Ultra-brood lord-infestor force is enough to crush through Keen's army and key expansion, forcing the GG.

08:23 edt: Playing it safe and slow, Keen pulls his way back into the game... to find himself totally unprepared to fight brood lords. He's done a good job denying Stephano's expansions though, so this is still anyone's game.

08:21 edt: Brat_OK and Nerchio erase key expansions for each other, but Nerchio is left with the scarier looking army of well supported brood lords. On the other hand, Brat_OK has done a better job hurting Nerchio's econ.

08:20 edt: Stephano has 3/3 ultra/ling against 2/1 bio. This will be ugly.

08:16 edt: Brat_OK and Nerchio are maxed out. Bio ball on one side, brood lord task force on the other. Neither side is committing to any game deciding engagement.

08:13 edt: Keen's pre-stim marine-hellion push is easily cleaned up by roaches. Any advantage he gained from the bunker rush is pretty much gone by now.

08:10 edt: Stephano survives a two rax bunker rush from Keen, but takes a fair amount of damage. However, he gets in a decent speedling counter attack, which helps him get back in the game.

Meanwhile, Nerchio and Brat_OK are both playing for a pretty passive, macro build-up.

08:05 EDT: At the same time we have brat_ok vs Nerchio going on on the main stream, Cloud Kingdom there. TvZ bonanza!

08:04 EDT: Keen vs Stephano game one started on the B stream. Ohana is the first map!

07:38 EDT: Sitting around, musing about the match-ups.

Stephano is favored against Keen, but Keen has shown he's absolutely cold blooded in a tournament setting. After taking down Squirtle with two consecutive 11/11 proxy rax rushes in Code S, he simply said "I thought he was better than me, so I gambled." Dangerous, dangerous guy.