23:07 edt: Leenock 3 - 1 aLive (extended series). Tal'Darim: 10 pool beats proxy 2-rax, as aLive painfully discovered.

23:02 edt: Killer 2 - 1 Oz. Daybreak: Killer opened with 4gate robo. Oz had already fast expanded but he scouted the 4gates, however missed the robotics facility. Oz canceled the nexus and caught the zealot drop in his mienral line with hold position workers. Oz survived and expanded again but he couldn't keep up with the macro of Killer and ended up narrowly losing to a bigger army as he started colossus production.

22:56 edt: Leenock 2 - 1 aLive. Entombed: Leenock put his cheesiness aside for a game, playing a straight up macro game with Leenock. It turned out he was pretty good at that, too, crushing aLive's pushes with ling-infestor, and then transitioning to ultralisks to top his group.

22:50 edt: Killer 1 - 1 Oz. Entombed: Again Killer opened with a stargate and Oz attempted to play safer with a higher sentry count. Killer took advantage of the low stalker number to lift his opponents sentries and the momentum never returned for Oz from there. Oz tried to make a low economy colossus push but with phoenix pelting his colossii across the map and in his natural, Oz left the game after a half hearted attempt to knock out Killer. 1-1

22:44 edt: viOLet 4 - 1 Stephano (Extended series). Entombed Valley: After Stephanos 6pool, Violet showed everyone how its done. Violet dropped an 8 pool, pulled all but two drones and zergling/spine rushed Stephano, cheesing him out of the final game with humorous chat and good form

22:39 edt: viOLet 3 - 1 Stephano (Extended series). Metropolis: Stephano went for an all drones pulled 6 pool against viOLet's hatch first, but viOLet managed to hold it off with good micro to win the game.

22:36 edt Leenock 1 - 1 aLive. Cloud Kingdom: Undaunted, Leenock went for early game pressure again, this time going for roaches and speedlings. This time he got the result he wanted, killing off a good amount of units and SCVs to take a decent advantage. aLive tried to counterwith a massive SCV train and marines all-in, but Leenock held it off to receive the GG.

22:33 edt: Oz 1 - 0 Killer. Cloud Kingdom: Oz set up a soft contain with his immortals and blink stalkers but Killer continued to harass and kill his opponents probes. Both players stabilized on two bases and engaged each other around the map. Killer wisely kept his phoenix alive and when Oz attacked, he lifted his opponents immortals and killed his colossii faster. Oz finally had enough and warped in HTs, landing feedbacks on the phoenix and changing into heavy archon zealot colossus. Finally at 29 minutes Oz decided it was time to end it and did so, taking game 1 as Killers third base crumbled.

22:31 edt: HuK 2 - 0 Illusion. Entombed: HuK went for heavy 3-gate pressure after expanding, a move Illusion suspected but didn't 100% confirm. He built several bunkers on defense but deployed his SCVs far too late, and he was forced to bow out of MLG Raleigh.

22:27 edt: HuK 1 - 0 Illusion. Antiga: HuK skimped on robotics tech after expanding, but Illusion was unable to exploit this fact with direct attacks or drops. Soon, HuK had masses of speedlots and archons ready, and Illusion was ill-equipped to fight. HuK charged into Illusion's base and tore it up while Illusion tried to counter with a drop. After HuK cleaned up the drop, Illusion GG'd out with nothing left to fight with.

22:25 edt: aLive 1 - 0 Leenock. Antiga: Leenock went for a pure ling-bane bust off two bases, but active hellions from aLive sniffed it out in time to prepare. By evacuating his SCVs to his main, aLive survived the bust taking only minimal damaging (easily replaced marines and bunkers). Leenock went for a follow-up bust with roaches in tow, but aLive had built even more bunkers in anticipation. Undaunted, Leenock went for a third bust (also stopped), which left him out of steam, leading to a slowroll from aLive in the next few minutes.

22:23 edt: HerO 4 - 3 Crank (Extended series). Tal'Darim: Since it was Tal'darim Altar and any other build is dumb, both players 3gated each other. As Crank was setting up his stalker attack, HerO snuck a probe into Cranks main base and warped in a pair of zealots that killed Cranks economy while HerO held off the aggression at his own base. Crank immediately gg'd and HerO won the series 4-3 to top his group.

Crank 3 - 3 HerO: Antiga: Both players opened identical to the last two games with phoenix for Crank and blink obs for HerO. HerO thought he had a moment and blinked into an immortal over and over. Crank easily held off HerOs blinks and went to town on HerOs mineral line. HerO slowly clawed his way back into the game but in the end it wasn't enough and Crank once again beat HerO with the same build.

22:00 edt: Crank 2 - 3 HerO (extended series). Daybreak: Again Crank opened with phoenix and used them with great success. He sniped several warp prisms and was able to hold off a soft contain by HerO thanks to the information gathered from his phoenix. HerO tried to make a blink into his opponents main base work but Crank was simply too fast for him. HerO managed to use blink to snipe several colossii but he still couldn't keep Crank from building a higher supply with zealot archon colossus and he couldn't match it with stalker colossus.

21:53 edt: (WCS) HuK 2 - 1 Suppy. Entombed: For the first time today, someone actually hit the "before brood lords" timing successfully to kill a Zerg. Congratulations HuK! HuK also wins the last spot to the WCS World Finals.

21:38 edt: (WCS) HuK 1 - 1 Suppy. Ohana: After expanding with immortals, HuK was able to force several engagements and rounds of not-brood lords from Suppy. Fighting stalker-immortal with roach-ling went on for too long for Suppy, who was overrun before he could reach his late game.

21:37 edt: Crank 1 - 3 HerO (Extended series). Daybreak: Crank opened with phoenix and HerO opened with immortals (you read that right). HerO started faster colossus production but Crank took small victories with probe lifts, catching stalkers out of position and using as well as perserving his phoenix. Crank took a faster third and focused on chargelot archon with colossus instead of stalker colossus, which dominated HerOs more standard immortal sentry colossus composition.

21:28 edt: First 4 - 1 Daisy (Extended series). Antiga: Both players used the same blink observer build. First executed faster but Daisy sniped his observer. Then both tried to harass each others mineral lines but Daisy did more economic damage. First decided he was tired of the games and blinked on top of Daisys slightly smaller army and it was enough to win the Group D Final

21:23 edt: (WCS) Suppy 1 - 0 HuK. Cloud Kingdom: HuK's early gateway pressure was successful, able to take out Suppy's third base before defenses were ready. However, HuK overextended into Suppy's natural, expending a lot of resources while he was still cutting probes. When HuK pulled back to take his third, the game turned back into a typical ZvP, "rush before hive" game. HuK opted to use an archon heavy composition to try and hurt Suppy before he had brood lords out, but it just couldn't make it through all of his infestors. Once brood lords were out, HuK suffered the same terrible fate of all the other Protosses in WCS.

21:21 edt: HerO 3 - 0 Crank (extended series). Metropolis: HerO quickly teched to blink and built a warp prism, using it to blink up and forcefielded Cranks own ramp against him. After a heated micro battle of stalkers against isolated immortals in Cranks main, HerO took game three.

21:19 edt: First 3 - 1 Daisy (Extended series). Metropolis: First went 4-gate while Daisy went 3-gate, except First had a hidden pylon in Daisy's main, the end.

21:09 edt: First 2 - 1 Daisy. G2 - Entombed: Neither player wanted to expand out of their main but it was First that took the plunge first. First used blink to contain Daisy until he built a colossus. Daisy took the lead in army composition for about 20 seconds until First blinked under the colossus, sniped it for free and Daisy gg'd out.

G3 - Daybreak: Daisy proxied a robo and it was immediately scouted. First killed the robo, then walked into Daisy's main and killed him.

20:50 edt: Daisy 1 - 0 First. Entombed Valley: First tried to open 1 gate robo but Daisy attacked immediately and once zealots entered the main of First, even his impromptu wall couldn't save him from losing the first game.

20:45 edt: Scarlett 2 - 0 ViBE. Scarlett wins WCS North America!.

Antiga: After both players took their naturals, the fighting occurred over third bases. Scarlett started on roach production first, putting pressure on ViBE as he tried to take his third base. ViBE lagged just a little bit behind in roach production, but unfortunately for him, that slim margin was all Scarlett needed to charge ahead. Taking her own third and continuing to pump out roaches, Scarlett was able to roll a small advantage into a large one, and then into a victory.

20:43 edt: Suppy 2 - 0 DDoro. Ohana: Things were going much better for DDoro the second time around, with his DT after forge FE taking down Suppy's natural hatchery, and his blink stalker follow-up a sure counter to the incoming mutalisk tech. However, Ddoro decided he would rather impale his stalkers on a wall of spine crawlers rather than consolidate his lead, allowing Suppy to destroy all his probes while his stalkers killed themselves.

20:37 edt: Crank 4 - 3 TaeJa (extended series). Shakuras: Taeja thought he'd be cute and bitbybit during the match point game. Crank sniffed it out, built cannons and sent Taeja home with his feelings bruised but his scvs intact. Taeja clawed his way back into the game and even threatened to take the lead but was caught with his army spread across the map and could not halt Cranks push from reaching his 4th. In a brutally funny moment, instead of lifting and saving an Orbital Command Taeja lifted every one of his 10+ barracks, costing him precious apm and concentration as Crank drove his own army into Taejas natural and finished the meaningful portion of the game. (Taeja clung onto life for an additional 3 minutes before acceptance started)

20:28 edt: Scarlett 1 - 0 ViBE. Daybreak: For the 23234th time in two days, two Zergs took three bases a piece on DayBreak. The balance of power stayed even for a while, and both players found the breathing room to add hydralisks to their roach-infestor armies as well. In the end, Scarlett was the one who found the better position to engage, annihilating ViBE's forces and taking the series lead.

20:27 edt: SeleCT 2 - 1 IceCream. Antiga: Ice Cream used some cute tank dropship micro but Select showed he knew how to BoxeR as well by using his medivac to elevator his army into Ice Creams main, putting Creamy out of business, 2-1.

20:25 edt: Suppy 1 - 0 Ddoro. Entombed: DDoro went against conventional wisdom, rushing three bases to hit a post brood-lord timing. It went about as well as expected, with colossi and stalkers getting mauled horribly by brood lords and infestors.

20:21 edt: IceCream 1 - 1 SeleCT. Entombed: Again both players focused on marine tank and tried to catch each other out of position or abuse each others economies. Ice Cream hit 3/3 faster and held off Selects attempts to circumvent his tank lines. Eventually after they walked into each others tanks enough, Ice Cream came out with a high enough lead to attack Selects 4th and 3rd, ending his opponents marine production and taking the game to a 1-1 tie.

20:18 edt: TaeJa 3 - 3 Crank (Extended series). Tal'Darim: Taeja missed scouting the correct main but corrected his mistake in time to burn all of Cranks probe with his hellion opener. Crank was unfortunately absent, going for a 4-gate all-in, one that did not turn out well with no income to back it.

20:09 edt: TaeJa 2 - 3 Crank (Extended series). Daybreak: It was a repeat of the previous game except Taeja's drop was not denied. Taeja forced a cancel on Cranks third and absolutely powered through Crank minutes later with a superior economy, army and some bitchin micromanagement that everyone expects to see. Taejas coup de grâce was taking down two colossii with bio medivac alone which left Crank unable to defend any of his mineral lines and forced him to gg.

20:00 edt: Crank 3 - 1 TaeJa (Extended series). Antiga Shipyard: Taeja and Crank both took safe expansions but it was Taeja that immediately started harassing his opponent. Although Taeja scouted well enough to fit his hype, his drop play left much to be desired. Crank comfortably stopped his doom drops and forced him to retreat mid map, costing Taeja too much and eventually chewing into his economy. Taeja clung on but Crank wouldn't let him climb back up, pushing through his weakened army with storms and colossii.

19:57 edt: MKP 2 - 0 DeMusliM. Daybreak: Despite some early hellion/banshee tricks from Demu, the game turned into a predictable 3 base, marine tank vs marine tank fight. As with the last game, the two players traded armies a few times before MKP engineered a favorable engagement after yanking at DeMuslim around a few times. Finding an angle to drop on open tanks, MKP won a decisive victory to close out the series.

19:47 edt: SeleCT 1 - 0 IceCream. Daybreak: The game started off with IceCream briefly sieging Select's natural with a 1/1/1, but after killing a few depots and forcing repair on a bunker, IceCream retreated to his natural and allowed the game to flow into a long, long macro game. After 30 minutes Select took advantage of his opponent sieging his 4th by continuously harassing IceCreams underprotected 3rd and 4th. Select killed the majority of Ice Creams scvs without losing his 4th and eventually outmaneuvered Ice Cream and killed him.

19:39 edt: MKP 1 - 0 DeMusliM. Entombed Valley: Both players safely took the three bases in their corners of the map and proceeded to stand-off until they had maxed out. After that point, the two clashed in a series of marine-tank engagements where neither player could gain the upper hand. After some more posturing and re-positioning, MKP found a way to force an engagement at Demu's fourth base, crushing his army and the expansion to bring out the GG.

19:15 edt: aLive 2 - 0 Alicia. Shakuras Plateau: Alive opened with a cute reaper marauder threat that took down a few probes without losing any of the units. Alicia stabilized but never became totally comfortable after losing the early momentum. Alive had precisely the amount of vikings he needed and impeccable upgrades on his bio and just kept attacking down the center of the map until Alicia lost his colosssii and without templar, couldn't hold him back any further, dropping the game and giving Alive a 2-0 victory

19:10 edt: Anda 2 - 1 Suppy. Cloud Kingdom: Anda took advantage of Suppys last two games being macro oriented and attacked as +1 and roach speed completed. Anda attacked into SUppys third, forcing an early engagement with more roaches on his side and continued to press his advantage into SUppys natural until he won teh game.

19:01 edt: aLive 1 - 0 Alicia. Entombed Valley: Alicia tried to pressure with 8 gateways after taking his third nexus but Alive snuck out a significant bio force that forced Alicia back to his own base. Alive took his own third and Alive, with more production and Alicia with no area of effect damage, was broken by Alives timely push.

18:57 edt: Leenock 2 - 0 PuMa. Cloud Kingdom: In a bizarre game, Leenock defeated PuMa by base-trading, then base-trading again. While PuMa played standard three base, Leenock stuck to his guns and stayed on muta-ling-bane for as long as possible. At 200/200 the only option for Leenock became a base trade, which reduced both players to tiny armies and just one remaining base. The two players built up again from there, and sensing that PuMa still had the upper hand, Leenock base traded again. The backstabbing route worked out much better for Leenock the second time around, and PuMa's indecision allowed him to win the game.

18:55 edt: Anda 1 - 1 Suppy. Antiga Shipyard: Neither player committed to attacking in the early or mid game but neither player left each other totally alone. Anda weirdly researched overlord drops and speed then used it like a shuttle with high templar instead of for offensive infestor drops. Suppy held an upgrade advantage throughout the game but was caught out of position and lost his army and in two painful blows. Andy kept the heat on and sniped Suppys third then slowly took an attrition victory to tie it 1-1

18:49 edt: HerO 2 - 0 Crank. Entombed Valley: In an early 3-gate vs 3-gate battle, HerO narrowly averted disaster when he managed to destroy his opponent's offensive pylon by the slimmest margin. The two players' plans diverged from there, HerO going 4-gate blink all-in while Crank went for robo tech. Crank couldn't FF his ramp enough times to hold off HerO's attack and GG'd out.

18:39 edt: HerO 1 - 0 Crank. Cloud Kingdom: Crank got ahead early as HerO mis-engaged with his first handful of units, which would have meant certain doom had Crank been on any thing more than 2 gates. In any case, HerO survived to play from behind, and was able to pull back with great blink stalker harassment that thinned Crank's probe count greatly. He added DTs afterward, killing more probes and allowing him to transition to chargelots and colossi. Eventually the two armies clashed, but HerO had pulled way far ahead and won the battle easily.

18:37 edt: viOLet 2 - 1 TheStC. Daybreak: STC 2-rax rushed Violet but it doesn't really work out for him. STC double expanded behind it and the game stabilized into a late game on STCs side. STC sieged and bagged Violets 4th and it looked dangerous for the zerg player, but ultralisks hatched and rolled through the Terran army. STC was unprepared and unable to transition afterwards, first losing his third to a counter attack then losing it again to the entire Zerg army. Violet snagged victory from STC and took the series 2-1

18:33 edt: Suppy 1 - 0 Anda. Daybreak: Both players tested each others' defenses but did not commit to the early game. Both players took a quick lair and went to roach hydra infestor and danced around each other until Suppy drew an attack on his 4th, defended it with superior fungals and attacked Andas vulnerable 4th before he could recover.

18:29 edt: Leenock 1 - 0 PuMa. Antiga Shipyard: PuMa went for some hellion-marine-marauder pressure after expanding, but didn't end up achieving very much. Leenock countered with a big ling-bane-muta attack of his own, but he, too, did not get that much done. Instead of transitioning to hive, Leenock decided he would keep on pumping lair units, and crashed into PuMa's defensive line against once he had built up another force. While he did not succeed in breaking PuMa complete, he succeeded in pinning him in. Leenock continued to stay on lair tech, making even more mutas with seemingly no intention of going to hive. It was a strategic decision that ended up paying off, as the cloud of mutas slowly picked apart PuMa who had trouble covering all of his territory at once. Leenock effectively starved out PuMa in the end, as PuMa could not leave his base nor defend forever.

18:15 edt: viOLet 1 - 1 TheStC. Entombed Valley: For the second game running Violet lost drones in the double digits to hellions in his main. Then STC went passive and let Violet recover. Later, Violet caught STCs entire tank line unsieged, tilting the game heavily in his favor. Although TheStC hung on for a bit, Violet hit hive and remaxed with ultralisks in addition to his infestors, zerglings and banelings. A few more minutes later, Violet blanketed the Terran army with fungals and ultra ling had their way with the remainder. Violet ties the series 1-1

18:04 edt: Daisy 2 - 0 Sasquatch. Cloud Kingdom: Daisy committed heavily to some early warp-prism + gateway pressure, but Sasquatch held it off very well and took a significant supply lead. It didn't really matter in the end, though, as Daisy pushed with immortals and sentries to erase roaches and take the series.

18:01 edt: TheStC 1 - 0 viOLet. Metropolis: Violet took a fast third but was hit with blue flame runby from 2011. After recovering from losing 17 drones at the start of the game Violet put serious pressure on STC with nydus and roach attacks but couldn't finish it off. Violet failed to tech switch after STC adapted to the roaches and finished off Violet.

17:51 edt: Daisy 1 - 0 Sasquatch. Daybreak: Daisy went for a two base immortal timing after messing around with a warp-prism, which Sasquatch responded to by preparing a big ling-bane backdoor during the attack. However, his banes ended up being used fairly inefficiently against buildings, with not enough troops left to really cause damage to Daisy. On the other hand, Daisy did some decent damage to Sasquatch, and then ran back at the sight of a sunken wall. Daisy ended up with the advantage, but played it so slowly that he almost lost it, but in the end he overpowered Sasquatch for the win.

17:47 edt: Leenock 2 - 0 Binski. Daybreak: Leenock opened again with double expanded before pool. Binski took map control with hellions but eventually lost them in an attempt to kill drones at Leenocks third. Leenock, with his economic advantage, went straight back into ling bling muta and swayed between Binskis natural and third until he reached max and crashed through the third, killing the Terran economy and taking the series 2-0

17:43 edt: PuMa 2 - 0 Eifer. Antiga Shipyard: PuMa brought a strange hellion-drop 1/1/1 into expand build that ended up working rather well, dealing some economic damage while allowing PuMa to expand safely. Eifer tried to go for a big immortal + gateway units counter-attack off two bases, but it was the wrong idea as PuMa already had enough defenses by the time Eifer hit. PuMa then rolled out with a ton of marines, marauders, and medivacs to take the series 2 - 0.

17:33 edt: Leenock 1 - 0 Binski. Cloud Kingdom: Binski opened with hellion CC and sat on hellions until ten minutes in when he unleashed a big blue flame attack with marine marauder backing it up. Leenock took a severe blow to his economy but Binski, with no followup push, left Leenock to recover. Minutes later, armed with ling bling muta, Leenock tore Binski a new one for the attack and annihilated his third, forcing the gg and taking victory in game 1.

17:28 edt: PuMa 1 - 0 Eifer. Entombed Valley: PuMa went old school on his opponent, using his 2-rax marauder-marine push to punish and destroy a fast nexus. Eifer opted to go for an all-in counter attack, striking with immortals and a mass of gateway units. However, PuMa already had stim and medivacs out by the time of the attack, and was able to clear out the force and receive the GG.

17:25 edt: viOLet 2 - 1 Stephano. Cloud Kingdom: In a repeat of Game 1, Violet took to mutalisks as Stephano built infestors. In a further repeat of game 1, Violet took down the economy of Stephano with mutalisks and a zergling runby. Stephano did a better job temporarily denying the third of his opponent but with a delayed third of his own the damage had been done. Violet maxed much faster and overwhelmed Stephano, winning the series 2-1

17:09 edt: Sasquatch 2 - 1 IdrA. Antiga Shipyard: Breaking the mold from the previous two games, IdrA started the hostilities early, going for a pre-lair roach + baneling attack off two bases. Unfortunately for IdrA he was unable to do any damage to his opponent, and Sasquatch pulled ahead with his superior tech and upgrades. Sasquatch kept attacking, and eventually broke through to take the game.

17:06 edt: Stephano 1 - 1 viOLet. Daybreak: Both players shredded the gentlemens agreement and went for the throat right after the start of the game. Stephano opened with an 8 pool, attacked, retreated, held and countered again with an important queen kill. Violet was noticably shaken by the attack and made an unforced error error as he started lair instead of zergling speed. Stephano attacked again with banelings and again cleaned up Violets queens. He couldn't kill the economy but he crippled the production. Violet deterred the next attack from Stephano with mutalisks but by that time Stephano had doubled the supply of Violet with three bases to Violets 2. Stephano maxed out on roach hydra and showed excellent composure and control as he eliminated the mutalisks then microed hydralisks off creep against banelings and constantly repositioned into the best possible attack formation. Stephano cleanly took Game 2 and the tie.

16:54 edt: IdrA 1 - 1 Sasquatch. Cloud Kingdom: In a near repeat of the previous game, both players took three bases and massed up on roach-infestor. This time, IdrA didn't get into any bad engagements, and managed to turn his superior macro into a win.

16:49 edt: viOLet 1 - 0 Stephano. Antiga Shipyard: Both players accepted a passive opening without any shennanigans. Stephano opted for fast infestors and upgrades while Violet went straight into mutalisks which paid dividends for him. After killing off ten workers, a few overlords and denying mining time, Violet forced a cancel on Stephanos third and compounded his lead by saturating his own. Stephano tried to stabilize but Violet returned immediately to attack with roaches and infestors of his own and slowly absorbed fungals then overwhelmed Stephano with his higher economy and supply.

16:46 edt: Alicia 2 - 1 PuMa. Entombed Valley: Puma opened identical to game 1 with cloaked banshees off 1 base and a hidden expo. Alicia wised up and had an observer prepared this time, but opted not to punish him to hard let it slide into the late game. 21 minutes into the game Puma tried to eliminate Alicias 4th and was sandwiched between storms, cannons and colossii. As he tried to remax, Alicia snuck a warp prism into PuMa's main and started killing tech with DTs. Puma was forced to fight on Alicias terms and walked into storms and colossii, losing his army and the game.

16:42 edt: Sasquatch 1 - 0 IdrA. Daybreak: A standard 3 base vs 3 base ZvZ game on Daybreak saw IdrA pull ahead with superior production and a better composition of lair units, but it was all turned around with one good engagement from Sasquatch that forced the GG from IdrA.

16:25 edt: Alicia 1- 1 PuMa. Tal'Darim Altar: Alicia 4gated and lucked out that Puma had opened with two hellions. Although Puma was able to wall off and build bunkers, two marines versus twelve stalkers is a bad deal no matter how many bunkers they have. The hellions tried counter attack but found a pylon wall and by the time they had returned to help Puma hold his main most of the scvs were dead. Alicia ties it up 1-1

16:17 edt: PuMa 1 - 0 Alicia. Cloud Kingdom: Alicia got wind of Pumas 1 base banshee opener and nearly broke the ramp before cloak finished but that was the last time momentum was on the Protoss side. Throughout the game Puma was active on the map, manipulating Alicia to react as he sharked between the third and the natural. Puma waited until his ghosts arrived and EMP bombed Alicias army then pushed through for a well earned victory at the end of a long game.

16:13 edt: TheStC 2 - 0 Grubby. Cloud Kingdom: Grubby tried his best to play safe and standard, but TheStC gave him no room to breath. From the get go, TheStC attacked wherever he could find openings, chipping away and Grubby and slowing him down while safely building up his own infrastructure. The damage mounted up over time, and eventually TheStC had enough troops to just run over Grubby.

16:11 edt: Crank 2 - 0 Revival. Daybreak: Crank opened with a voidray and phoenix and fortunately for him, Revival massively overreacted to defend it with spores and queens. Revival tried to end it in the mid game with a medley of roaches, zerglings, corruptors and infestors but Crank held with stellar forcefields and upgrades. Afterward as Crank counterpushed, Revival traded bases for time but brood lords couldn't save him after losing his entire economy.

16:06 edt: IdrA 2 - 1 First. Metropolis: IdrA decided to take an early stab at First, striking at the forge-FE with roaches and speedlings. The attack paid big dividends, as IdrA was able to kill off over two dozen probes before First barely stabilized. First was able to recoup some of his losses with his stargate play, but he was left undeniably behind as both players headed to the late game. Once IdrA had brood lords and infestors out, First decided that a base trade was his only option. Try as he did to eliminate his opponent, IdrA was simply too well established across five bases, and First GG'd out.

15:58 edt: TheStC 1 - 0 Grubby. Entombed Valley: In a fairly straight forward game, TheStC powered hard to 200/200 and wiped Grubby's 150/200 army from the face of the planet.

15:51 edt: Crank 1 - 0 Revival. Entombed Valley: After both players took standard fast expands, Crank tried harass throughout the game but was stopped cold each time. Everything went badly for Crank (including some sloppy sentry losses) until he drew Revival back to his base to defend a warp prism and Crank was able to advance from his base with a well upgraded army. As Alicia did against Leenock, Crank simply beat his opponent on upgrades and when the Zerg started the Hive transition, Crank walked over and killed him.

15:44 edt: First 1 - 1 IdrA. Antiga Shipyard: Seeing his opponent try to go safely up to three bases, IdrA planned a big hydralisk-roach attack. To no one's surprise, the hydralisks ended up being totally worthless against force-fields, and IdrA GG'd out in record time.

15:39 edt: IdrA 1 - 0 First. Daybreak: First decided to apply some gateway pressure after expanding on Daybreak, but it only delayed the inevitable half map split situation. IdrA played well, not giving his opponent any timing to attack before hive, even finding the space to attack with his own roach-infestor mix. IdrA looked like he would win comfortably with his greater spire nearly complete, but an immortal drop to take it out bought First some valuable time. However, IdrA just dumped his brood lord money into roaches and infestors instead, dealing a harsh blow to First while he re-teched to brood lords. Once the brood lords were out, IdrA proceeded with the delayed bulldozing.

15:24 edt: Alicia 2 - 1 Leenock. Shakuras Platea: Alicia opened with a stargate again but committed with void rays and was rewarded for it. Leenock underestimated the additional void rays and after taking severe damage he was forced into hydralisks. Alicia, ahead economically and in tech, hit a timing with gateway and stargate units, and took Leenock to school 2-0.

15:10 edt: Leenock 1 - 1 Alicia. Cloud Kingdom: Alicia opened with phoenixis to great effect, sniping picking off more than their worth in overlords and queens. Leenock kept Alicia from taking his third with zergling runbys but Alicia geared to end the game with a colossus push. He successfully denied a 4th and killed Leenocks third but missed an additional mining base. His miscalculation spiraled out of control with a late mothership and an infestor brood lord army he couldn't stop. Alicia hesitated as Leenock attacked his third and tried to base trade but only ended up losing his main and army at the same time. With that, Leenock tied the series 1-1

15:06 edt: Crank 2 - 1 TaeJa. Metropolis: After a complicated early-mid game that saw TaeJa go for hellion drops, lift his CC to a counter attack, and somehow destroy Crank's natural with a marine-tank push, the game settled into the 200 vs 200 fight you'd expect from Metropolis. One might have expected Crank to get crushed in this scenario, like many more illustrious Protoss players before him, but he defied the odds and ended up routing TaeJa instead. Having lost the critical engagement and being several dozen supply behind, TaeJa bowed out of the series.

14:56 edt: Alicia 1 - 0 Leenock. Daybreak: Leenock held an economic advantage through the game and repeatedly tried to stall or break Alicias army from leaving the natural. Somehow, Alicia used his sixth sense and guessed the moment Leenock stopped reinforcing and transitioned to hive. With a tremendous offensive blink, Alicia sent Leenock running and pushed into Leenocks natural. Leenock desparately tried to repel Alicia but without the time to build his brood lord army he fell against Alicia.

14:49 edt: TaeJa 1 - 1 Crank. Entombed Valley: Crank went for a 5-gate attack off one base, but TaeJa sniffed out the attack and held it off to tie up the series.

14:45 edt: IdrA 2 - 0 IceCream. Daybreak: IceCream opened up with blue flame hellions, but it didn't really affect the game heading towards the usual half-map split on Daybreak. As he had previously in the tournament, IdrA opted to play muta-bane-ling for an extended period in the mid-game before teching up to hive. Whatever his reasoning, it worked out for IdrA as he was able to establish his economy, tech to brood lords, and crush his opponent later.

14:42 edt: Crank 1 - 0 TaeJa. Cloud Kingdom: TaeJa opened up with a hellion drop + marine opener, putting some light pressure on Crank's expansion. It looked like TaeJa had taken a minor lead when he managed to roast a couple of Crank's early hellions, but the two players' fortunes were almost immediately reversed when Crank's warpgate upgrade completed. TaeJa had opted to go triple orbitals behind his light pressure, and wasn't prepared at all to deal with Crank's stalker warp-ins. With his ramp broken and enemies pouring in, TaeJA GG'd out.

14:25 edt: IdrA 1 - 0 IceCream. Antiga Shipyard: IceCream decided to go for marine-hellion-marauder attacks off two bases, but IdrA held it off fairly well to enter the mid-game on roughly even terms. As IceCream tried to secure three bases, IdrA went for the standard Antiga lair-phase bust, dealing a fair amount of damage with his muta-bane-lings. IceCream withdrew inside his shell until he had a force that could move out, but IdrA just backstabbed to buy more time until he had brood lords out on the field. IceCream didn't have enough anti-brood lord forces, and was eventually choked out of the game.

14:05 edt: Leenock 2 - 0 HuK. Cloud Kingdom: Both players rushed to the late game and secured 4th bases. Leenock quickly maxed on brood lord infestor and Huk utilized two warp prisms to constantly harass Leenocks main and expansions. Huk stalled for time to push out his final upgrades but Leenock, with 18 brood lords and 17 infestors, gave Huk a fight for his life. Huk narrowly survived at the cost of his bank and with no opportunity to counter attack. Leenock returned a minute later with a new group of brood lords and caught the mothership out of position with an infestor. After wasting the only vortex Huk had, Leenock took the second game and the series, 2-0.

13:49 edt: IceCream 2 - 1 Anda. Cloud Kingdom: Pressure was the answer for IceCream once again, this time going for medivac-marine-hellion pressure to keep Anda on his toes. Anda was forced to stay on lair tech for an extended period as IceCream kept going for the throat. Anda tried to hang on, but eventually his strength gave out, forcing him to GG.

13:47 edt: Trimaster 2 - 0 MKP. Cloud Kingdom: MKP opened with a marine-hellion pressure build that caught Trimaster off-guard, forcing him to pull SCVs and lose some in defense. However, Trimaster quickly pulled back once he had cloaked banshees out. MKP's banshee defense was surprisingly lacking, considering he had scouted Trimaster's tech choice and had gone starport as well. In any case, he allowed most of his SCVs to die to a single banshee while his main force dived into a death trap at Trimaster's choke. Trimaster then built up some troops, attacked, and won the game.

13:43 edt: Heart 2 - 0 Killer. Cloud Kingdom: Both players took fast expansions and immediately focused on teching up in contrast to the game before. Both players macroed and with a slight supply lead, Heart attacked at Killers third base, prespreading units into a perfect defensive concave. Killer made a head first attack into the bio army, forcefielded his zealots on the wrong side of the bio and let Hearts vikings dismantle his colossii. With no zealots to buffer and no colossus to do area damage, Heart rolled through the remaining gateway units and clenched a 2-0 victory.

13:36 edt: Trimaster 1 - 0 MKP. Metropolis: MKP initially tried to play with a hidden proxy barracks to apply early pressure to Trimaster, but was scouted out and had to change his plans. Going for fast banshee against a fast expansion from his opponent, MKP ended up achieving very little. He tried to follow-up with a marine-tank push soon after, but his no-upgrade marines were torn up by trimaster's medivac backed stim-shield marines. This gave Trimaster a decisive advantage, allowing him to take his own third while punishing MKP harshly for trying to take his own. Trimaster snowballed this lead into an easy win a few minutes later.

13:34 edt: IceCream 1 - 1 Anda. Antiga Shipyard: IceCream took a different approach to game two, taking his expansion and following it up with a big heavy marine-marauder-hellion attack. Anda looked like he was going to fall to the constant waves of Terran troops, but somehow he managed to hold off until he had infestors, though he took a fair amount of economic damage in the process. Anda played well to fight back from his disadvantageous position, but couldn't stop IceCream's textbook play of pushing out to the middle while denying Zerg expansions, and had to GG out in the end.

13:31 edt: Leenock 1 - 0 HuK. Antiga Shipyard: A sign said cannon rush or go home and Huk abided, cannon rushing Leenocks third with style. Huk followed up with a dark shrine and continued to deny Leenocks third with dark templar but Leenock forced Huk back with roaches. Leenock constantly brought the fight to Huk and Huk consistently held until at last Leenock secured enough infestors to swarm over Huk with infested terrans and roaches.

13:22 edt: Heart 1 - 0 Killer. Entombed Valley: Killer fast expanded and tried to play a standard game but Heart would have none of it. Heart executed a delayed 1-1-1, and very narrowly knocked out Killer in Game 1.

13:07 edt: Anda 1 - 0 IceCream. Daybreak: After both players allowed each other to freely take expansions on their respective sides, all out chaos ensued. Time and time again, Terran and Zerg forces would clash, leaving much blood on the battlefield but no clear victor. The battles continued as Anda teched up to hive, but even ultralisks couldn't swing things in his favor. Eventually, Anda was able to make the switch to brood lords, which were the edge he needed to take the game.

12:53 edt: Leenock 2 - 1 Ranged. For the third game in a row Ranged blocked Leenocks natural but made no effort to prevent Leenock from immediately taking his third. After no early pressure, Leenock focused on roach upgrades and fast maxed on roach ling. Ranged tried to push out with sentry immortal off of three bases but Leenock pulled apart the army with simultaneous attacks at the natural and third. Ranged lost his third while trying to protect his natural and lost his army trying to reclaim it, giving the series to Leenock, 2-1.

12:45 edt: IdrA 2 - 0 Suppy. Antiga Shipyard: Again both players took the game to three bases without a significant engagement and again Suppy focused on faster upgrades while IdrA went for faster infestors. IdrA augmented his roach infestor army with hydralisks and both players traded evenly until key fungals snagged Suppys infestors, leaving him unable to continue to make even exchanges. A few minutes later IdrA rolled through his teammate with a superior gas army and won the series 2-0.

12:35 edt: HuK 2 - 0 NadaViking. Daybreak: After greedy starts on both sides, NadaViking started the hostilities once he had medivacs and stim upgrade. While he forced HuK to be active and trade units, in the end he didn't get that much done. Victory came oddly easily for HuK, who only had to warp in mass-speedlots once his infrastructure was set in order to win the game.

12:31 edt: Ranged 1 - 1 Leenock, Metropolis: Leenock duplicated his approach game one with a fast third and safety roaches at 8 minutes but it was not enough to hold off his opponents well controlled blink stalker attack. Leenock was caught unprepared and couldn't manage to stall the stalkers or stop the attack, first losing his natural and then the game.

12:26 edt: IdrA 1 - 0 Suppy. Daybreak: For the 223489th time on Daybreak, both Zerg players skipped early game antics and took their thirds while teching to lair. Suppy took an early upgrade lead but IdrA continually outmacroed his opponent, always seeming to just have more stuff. Suppy had great fungals and an upgrade advantage in a key engagement, but IdrA was able to replace his lost units faster and eventually wore down Suppy to win game 1.

12:20 edt: Leenock 1 - 0 Ranged. Daybreak: Both players rushed to three bases and started powering through their tech choices. Leenock focused on fast zergling upgrades and pumped infestor/ling as Ranged tried to match styles with zealot archon. After a failed infested terran bust, Leenock started his greater spire at 15 minutes and quickly followed up with banelings, brood lords and fully upgraded zerglings. Ranged held off Leenock for a time, but had a late mothership and repeatedly lost his fourth base, leading into an Leenock victory.

12:15 edt: HuK 1 - 0 NadaViking. Antiga Shipyard: HuK went for a fast expansion into DTs, catching NadaViking totally off-guard without an engineering bay or saved up scans. While killing several SCVs, buildings, and forcing a lift on the natural, HuK teched up and powered his economy. After barely stabilizing, NadaViking pushed out to see if HuK had skimped on defense, but it was to no avail. HuK followed up with mass chargelots for an easy victory.

11:56 edt: ViBE 2 - 1 IdrA. Antiga Shipyard: Vibe went for fast ling-bane all-in type build off one base, putting IdrA's hatch-first expansion in serious danger. With some very good defense, IdrA was able to hold without taking fatal damage, putting the game on somewhat even terms. After taking his expand, ViBE was quick to put on the pressure again, and this time IdrA's defense wasn't as great, losing a large amount of drones. For the first time in the tournament, IdrA showed one of his trademark "IdrA GG" timings, choosing to surrender rather than play out the game from a disadvantage.

11:46 edt: asd 2 - 0 SeleCT. Daybreak: Select happily fast expanded and ASD happily denied scouting while proxying a factory and starport. Select couldn't find the proxied production but predicted banshees. Although he had enough marines and turrets he didn't deal with the banshee quickly enough and was completely unprepared for the followup marine tank push. ASD easily took the second game and the series, 2-0.

11:42 edt: ViBE 1 - 1 IdrA. Cloud Kingdom: In an oddly retro move, both players opted to go for pool-before-hatchery expansion builds. IdrA went for some bane aggression, but only succeeded in allowing ViBE to get away with a significantly faster lair. This let ViBE control the map with mutas and secure his own third, while IdrA was forced to wait until his infestor tech completed before expanding again. The resource advantage was enough for ViBE to put together an overwhelming roach-infestor army before IdrA was ready, forcing the GG and evening the series.

11:34 edt: asd 1 - 0 SeleCT. Shakuras Plateau (wait, what?): Both players opted to open with surprise attacks. Select brought a reaper into ASDs base at the same time hellions and marines dropped into his own. Select couldn't avoid damage and lost half of his economy without hurting his opponent. ASD took advantage of this quickly by low ground sieging his opponents main. Although he couldn't immediately kill SelecT, he nurtured his lead into the late game and overwhelmed his opponent with better upgrades and a larger army.

11:31 edt: Crank 2 - 0 TubbyTheFat. Metropolis: Crank went for a no nonsense 3-gate rush and caught TTF without warpgate completed and an immortal only half way out, immediately winning the game with proper control and a healthy flip of the coin.

11:30 edt: TT1 2 - 0 Hwangsin. Antiga Shipyard: TT1 went for a risky 1-gate expansion, which Hwangsin responded to by going for a colossus all-in off of one base. Thankfully for TT1, Hwangsin's timing wasn't all that dangerous, and he held off the attack with relative ease. The remainder of the game was just TT1 cleaning-up, Hwangsin unable to compete at all from his massive resource disadvantage.

11:27 edt: IdrA 1 - 0 ViBE. Daybreak: The game followed the common Daybreak ZvZ pattern of both players taking three bases and maxing out on a lair army. In this game, IdrA added hydras to his roach-infestor mix before Vibe, giving him the firepower advantage needed to win the major confrontation, and thus, the game.

11:21 edt: Crank 1 - 0 TubbyTheFat. Entombed Valley: The newcomer TTF played a stargate build against Crank's standard robo expand. Both players expanded quickly, then took thirds while massing colossii. TTF lost his group of phoenix to feedbacks (there's a rarity) and added a fleet beacon (another rarity). However before a mothership could come out Crank attacked into TTFs third with superior upgrades and annihilated TTFs army, ending the game.

11:16 edt: IdrA vs Vibe Begins!

11:15 edt: TT1 1 - 0 Hwangsin. Entombed Valley: In a shocking turn of events for people who stopped watching Starcraft in 2011, both players managed to take their naturals in this game. TT1's robo tech into immortals ended up giving him an advantage, as Hwangsin was unable to get much done with his blink stalkers. When TT1's big stalker-immortal army came knocking, Hwangsin could do nothing but concede his natural. Massively behind on economy, Hwangsin couldn't find the decisive move he needed to get back in the game. Instead, he let TT1's economic advantage compound, and GG'd out when superior army came to end the game.

11:08 edt: Oh hey, games started

10:40 edt: Sup!