Shakuras: First changed it up with a gate-first build, but followed it up with a fast expand instead of anything tricky. First went for phoenix play after expanding, but Leenock sniffed it out and had defenses in place. First then tried to go for some ground + phoenix pressure, but a backstab from Leenock kept First in check. After that, Leenock went for hive in what seemed like the first time in ages, but not before throwing in a some ling-infestor pressure at lair for good measure. First opted to try and fight Leenock at hive, instead of go for any timing beforehand. It didn't really work out the way he hoped, as his crucial vortex ended up whiffing, and Leenock's brood lord/infestor annihilated everything. First stuck around for a while, but after his second mothership was neuralled he knew that it was time to GG out and be happy with second place.
19:49 edt: First 1 - 3 Leenock. Metropolis: Leenock decided to bring some more unorthodox strategies, going for a hyper fast nydus worm for speedlings. However, his execution wasn't the greatest. Instead of slowly bringing in his overlord for vision when he needed it, he left it lingering suspiciously at the edges of First's main, drawing suspicion. First scouted out Leenock's plan to go Nydus, and Leenock decided to just GG out instantly instead of play it out once he was caught.
19:37 edt: Leenock 3 - 0 First. Cloud Kingdom: Leenock took a calculated risk against First's forge-FE, pumping out a large number of slowlings early. Knowing that most Protoss players move out with their first zealot and stalker, Leenock waited until he confirmed that First was doing precisely that before running his zerglings right past First's wall. It was meta-gaming at its finest, and Leenock received a quick GG from the defenseless First.
19:20 edt: Leenock 2 - 0 First. Antiga: Half-way through his semi-final series with TheStC, Leenock must have changed his game plan to "no hive unless absolutely impossible to avoid." For the second straight game, Leenock went for heavy muta-ling, though this time he prefaced it by going infestor-ling briefly. As for First, he went for a fairly standard immortal tech into third base, and actually held off Leenock's initial infestor-ling attack fairly well. However, he fell apart completely after that, unable to keep up with the muta-ling Leenock sent his way. First committed several micro errors (such as losing three colossi needlessly), leading one to think that he was getting crushed under the pressure of playing in the finals. In any case, Leenock overran First completely, taking a 2 - 0 lead.
19:08 edt: Leenock 1 - 0 First. Daybreak: First went for some mostly useless, borderline self-damaging warp-prism harass, followed by a similarly ineffective two base immortal push. Leenock made a ton of spine crawlers at his three bases while he teched up to muta-ling and First took a much belated third. Leenock used muta-ling to destroy First's third base while expanding more himself, after which he finished First off with overwhelming numbers.
18:24 edt: Leenock 4 - 3 TheStC. Shakuras Plateau: After both players settled into a comfortable three base economy Leenock decided it was time to end the game. Leenock made a control group of mutalisks and shot up to 120 zerglings, morphing a third into banes. STC with a great economy but delayed tank production was unprepared for the massive maxed attack by Leenock and had his third bases scv line vaporized along with most of his tanks and marines. Additional lings streamed in and STC tried to stem the tide with bunkers but with creep touching the ramp of his third, Leenock had near instant reinforcement time, and STC could only hold off so many banelings before he was finally overwhelmed.
18:05 edt: Leenock 3 - 3 TheStC. Daybreak: TheStC looked for an easy win in game six with an in-base proxy barracks, but Leenock scouted it out and forced him to abruptly switch track. TheStC went the exact opposite route, going for a very greedy CC-before-barracks build into reactor hellions. Leenock decided to go for a simple roach-speedling attack, which was enough to kill TheStC's puny army force a seventh game.
17:57 edt: Leenock 2 - 3 TheStC. Metropolis: Leenock went for a fast mutalisk build in anticipation of banshees from TheStC, but instead TheStC did a greedy build that focused on pumping out a lot of upgraded marines. That worked out well for Leenock, as he decided to go for a two-base muta-ling-bane all-in, to which the lack of tanks was a very big favor. Two busts later, TheStC was dead and moving on to game six.
17:45 edt: TheStC 3 - 1 Leenock. Entombed: Possibly out of things to do, TheStC brought an ancient hellion-marauder all-in for the fourth game. As is sometimes the case with builds that have long been out of fashion, it caught his opponent totally off-guard. Leenock had several queens but not much else on defense, and TheStC barreled through to reach match point.
17:32 edt: TheStC 2 - 1 Leenock (forces extended series). Cloud Kingdom: Both Leenock and TheStC opened with strong economy and Leeonck went blind into ling bling muta before realizing StC was committing to an Mvp-style mech build. StC completely dominated the mid game, picking off creep and drones while forcing Leenock to make zerglings to survive. As StC maxed, he walked out with 7 thors in addition to banshees, hellions and tanks. Leenock channeled the ghost of a crazy person and rocketed his mutalisk count up to 28, then did what looked impossible and just barely killed the thors with zerglings and mutalisks. StC consoled himself by killing off Leenocks 4th and remaxed with additional thors and vikings. Leenock transitioned into infestors, then ultralisks then even brood lords in quick transition but StC held off each wave flawlessly with an unbeatable upgrade advantage and unit positioning. After Leenock lost his remaining mining bases and gave one last futile push against StC with his ultralisks, he typed gg and StC won his second game in the extended series.
17:08 edt: Leenock 1 - 1 TheStC: Antiga: After both players took their naturals they mirrored each other with fast air attacks. Leenock wrecked STCs natural with mutalisks as STC murdered Leenocks drone count with a banshee. Both players stabilized and Leenock powered up to a muta baneling bust, but couldn't make the bust work due to poor army coordination. As STC tried to counter, Leenock just picked apart the push, catching tanks out of position and connecting banelings to marines.
Both players, still neck and neck, transitioned to three base economy. Leenock, focusing on mutalisk production and upgrades, continually picked small squads of marines by themselves. After a beautiful burrowed baneling trap and a dozen micro engagements across the map Leenock took the supply lead... only to immediately suicide his banelings into a thor and find himself unable to stop STC from taking out his economy with the remaining marines. Suddenly for a second time STC walked across a baneling land mine and half his marines disappeared along with his lead. Over the next 7 minutes Leenock showed phenomenal ling bling muta micro, constantly boucning between mineral lines and exposed medivacs or tanks. After ravaging STCs economy and eliminating every orbital command on the map, Leenock took Game 2 with non stop action and style.
16:59 edt: First 2 - 0 TaeJa: Entombed. Despite an unsuccessful hellion/marine drop opener from TaeJa, the game played out in typical Entombed Valley style with both players sitting on three bases and cranking out massive armies. In the decisive battle, TaeJa couldn't bring enough viking firepower to bear on First's colossi, and the combination of lasers + force fields incinerated TaeJa's army, forcing the GG.
16:42 edt: First 1 - 0 TaeJa: Antiga: As expected, both players took their first three bases and waited until they were maxed out to really begin the hostilities. First almost played it like a TvZ on Antiga, allowing TaeJa to take three bases, but making sure he denied him a fourth. TaeJa was unable to display his famed ghost micro in this game, and he was tentative of committing to a conclusive engagement with First's well-managed deathball. This led to TaeJa running out of steam in the end, and he GG'd out after it was clear he didn't have the income to keep fighting against First.
16:39 edt: TheStC 1 - 0 Leenock: Tal'Darim Altar: STC spawned cross from Leenock but tried to bunker rush anyway. It was denied and STC turned up the heat by pulling the majority of his workers. Leenock killed the workers but lost his natural and was forced to baneling bust bunkers to reclaim his own natural. STC took his own natural and started streaming blue flame hellions into Leenocks base but after an amazing hold, Leenock showed that hellions could not kill him either. STC took a third base and after 20 minutes finally sent a lethal marine tank push that finished Leenock off.
16:13 edt: TaeJa 2 - 1 HerO. Entombed: Taeja opened with a reaper expand but HerO carefully denied scouting information on his main. HerO 4gated and in a magic moment Taeja scouted the pylon with his reaper, holding the 4gate easily with a bunker. HerO expanded behind it but Taeja immediately put the pressure in with fast medivacs and stim, never letting up and never letting HerO stabilize. HerO held as long as he could but after gaining the early advantage in addition to fast stim and medivacs, Taeja took down HerO to win the series 2-1
15:57 edt: TaeJa 1 - 1 HerO. Antiga: Taeja put HerO up against the wall from the very start until the last moment of Game 2. With a banshee hellion opener and a tank followup that never materialized, Taeja kept even in economy with HerO despite amazing storm drops and HerO adeptly controlling zealot archon. As HerO storm dropped Taejas natural, he gifted two free colossii to Taejas army and in a ludicrously well controlled battle of feedback and EMP, Taeja negated HerOs AOE and gained the upper hand.
15:48 edt: TheStC 2 - 0 viOLet. Tal'Darim Altar: With a retro choice of Tal'Darim Altar as the second map, the game took on a retro feel itself. Low econ was the name of the game as viOLet went for roach-ling pressure off two bases, while TheStC went for marine-hellion-marauder off of his natural. viOLet managed to hide a third base at some point, but he was effectively playing two base lair for the whole game, while TheStC also continued to squeeze out what bio + tanks he could off of two bases. In the end, this was a better scenario for TheStC, and reminded us of why Zerg try to play greedily and rush hive in the first place, as viOLet could not fight on even term for long. TheStC gained an edge every battle, eventually getting a big enough troop advantage to take the series.
15:31 edt: HerO 1 - 0 TaeJa. Cloud Kingdom: Both teammates waged economic wars with fast expands into fast thirds. Taeja took to the map first and paid for it by losing a crucial early force to a forcefield trap. HerO followed up with a massive blink stalker attack, and in the blink of an eye (or stalker) HerO turned on the heat, driving into his opponents natural and knocking Taeja out of the first game.
15:30 edt: TheStC 1 - 0 viOLet: Entombed Valley: Determined to beat his previous best MLG finish of 3rd place, TheStC double proxy-barracks bunker rushed viOLet for a fast win in game one.
15:07 edt: TaeJa 2 - 0 Revival: Cloud Kingdom: Taeja opened with a relaxed 12/14 2 rax while double expanding behind it. Neither player took to aggression during the mid game and neither player could surpass each other in supply or economy. As Revival started Hive, Taeja became active on the map and slowly pushed towards Revivals 4th. In contrast to the previous game, Revival took advantage of Taejas spread out army and overwhelmed Taeja with key fungals and zergling surrounds. The game stalled out as both players maxed out for minutes until Taeja took the attack to Revivals main and Revival turned it into a base trade. Revival struggled to break into the natural while Taeja stalled in Revivals main and despite both players being completely even in supply, Revival added last minute brood lords to take control of the game. Then he tossed it away by move commanding them into marines.. In a terrible fight, Revivals ultralisks were caught between the tightly spaced barracks and he could only watch as his army was shredded by marines. Revival, without any remaining tech and without an army, gg'd out after a shocking reversal of fortune.
15:06 edt: TheStC 2 - 0 Heart. Daybreak: Heart opened with a cute hellion drop build, but the end result was both players taking their naturals on more or less even terms. TheStC tried to use his faster bio tech to harass with stim drops, but Heart fended it off fairly easily as he went up to three bases. TheStC declined to match with his own third base immediately, instead going for a big bio+tank push into Heart's third base. This ended up working well, as he traded for the better, destroying the expansion and killing a fair amount of troops. From this position TheStC just slowly played out his lead, consolidating his own expansion and making sure Heart never got ahead in resources or troops for the 2-0 win.
14:48 edt: TheStC 1 - 0 Heart. Entombed: The game saw both players get aggressive with marine tank, taking and giving back leads due to overextension on both sides. After a few momentum swings, TheStC found a way back into the lead as he started to reap the benefits of a hidden expansion, and won a few key engagements in a row. Afterward, he rolled forward and sieged up at Heart's bases, forcing the GG.
14:40 edt: TaeJa 1 - 0 Revival. Entombed Valley: Both players pursued an early three base economy and after brief harass with banshee hellion, Taeja settled into marine tank pushes. Taeja sent wave after wave of marine tank pushes and continued to attack before Revival could build a sustainable brood lord infestor composition. Taeja lost push after push but without allowing his opponent the critical mass of infestors, Revival could never become cost effective with his units and with an endless stream of units, Taeja pushed Revival further and further out of the game until marines went unanswered and Revival was forced out of the game.
14:06 edt: First 2 - 1 HerO. Daybreak: With little harm done to each other early on, the game skipped on ahead to the colossus laser show. Neither player seemed very eager to engage, so they sat on three bases and tried to annoy each other with warp-prism harassment. At this, First was far more successful, sacrificing zealot warp-ins to keep HerO pinned in while he took bases #4 and #5, as well as teching up to mothership. HerO remained indecisive through all this, and only decided he had to force a fight only after First had taken a huge resource advantage. First crushed HerO handily in the battle, winning the series and heading to the winners semis.
14:04 edt: Heart 2 - 1 Crank. Daybreak: Crank boldly opened nex first and left Heart at an economic disadvantage. So Heart immediately ninja expanded again at another base. Crank, in a stroke of luck, found the expansion almost immediately and shut down Hearts chance at taking an economic lead. Crank started double upgrades and attacked at the same time, ensuring he could only scare the crap out of Heart. After a midgame of mostly Heart sharking around and keeping Crank in his base, Heart sniped Cranks colossus production. Heart went to full on ghost production and a few short minutes later dodged a few storms and manhandled Crank out of the game.
13:59 edt: TaeJa 2 - 0 aLive. Entombed: Predictably, the two players ended up in a position where they were comfortably pumping marine-tank off of Entombed Valley's easily taken three bases. TaeJa ended up taking the intiative first, getting a good engagement and then setting up a siege line outside of aLive's bases. Spreading aLive's defenses between the third and natural, TaeJa was able to strike surgically at aLive's army, whittling it down and taking teh game.
13:46 edt: Revival 2 - 0 Stephano. Daybreak: Stephano tried again to inflict early damage with banelings but was easily dismissed by a spine and queens. Revival immediately took to lair and built a spire while Stephano took a faster third and melee/carapace upgrades. Stephano continually denied his opponents third but lost the economic advantage to a baneling rollby into his mineral line. Revival used his mutalisks to prevent a third from Stephano and took a solid supply lead. Revival tried to immediately break Stephano but with reinforcements and a hell of a lot of effort, Stephano clung on for several more minutes before finally being outnumbered and beaten, 2-0.
13:45 edt: Heart 1 - 1 Crank. Cloud Kingdom: Heart opened with a reaper expand and denied some vision, killed some probes and transitioned into the mid game. The game was quite even until Crank missed a double drop heading for his main and Heart with perfect micro, killed 26 workers and took an unstoppable lead. Crank understood his position and tried to counter attack/all in but Heart held off the attack and with some choice words about balance, Crank ended with gg and tied the series 1-1
13:42 edt: TaeJa 1 - 0 aLive. Daybreak: A half-map split on Daybreak had both players jostling for position with no real advantage on either side until aLive decided it was time to begin the sky-terran transition. Unfortunately for aLive it was a losing move, as his BattleCruiser transition was far too naive and countered easily by TaeJa's decision to go mass vikings. TaeJa swatted aLive's air force in a key engagement, and then rode on to victory in game one.
13:38 edt: HerO 1 - 1 First. Cloud Kingdom: HerO found a gap in First's early defenses as the LG-IM Protoss tried to rush for DTs. After dealing decent damage in First's main, HerO managed to just barely get an observer out in time to stop the DT counter attack, forced to FF his ramp several times and build a pylon wall. Even so, HerO was at an advantage after dealing early damage, and was content to build up off two bases alongside First. Eventually HerO decided to attack with a big army of blink stalkers, where his superior numbers and micro saw him through.
13:36 edt: Revival 1 - 0 Stephano. Antiga: After both players opened hatch first, Stephano attacked with banelings and was completely stopped cold. Revival became complacent however and a followup attack knocked out his third, putting Stephano up 3 bases to 2. Stephano became overeager again and shut down some of Revivals mining but lost his army, allowing Revival back into the game again. As both players slugged each other in the middle of the map, Revival landed critical fungals and drove through his opponent. Revival patiently waited for reinforcements and used his local superiority to chip away Stephano until the French Zerg gave up in game 1.
13:33 edt: Crank 1 - 0 Heart. Entombed: Neither player tried any aggressive antics until Heart moved out with a marine squad at the 6 minute mark to pressure Cranks natural. Crank severed the marines with forcefields and immediately took a third after the convincing engagement. Heart duplicated his opponent then swung momentum in his favor with a deadly double drop while pushing into his opponents natural. Both players traded blows throughout the mid game but it was Crank with an immaculate blink, trapping his opponent and letting the zealot archon colossus compostion shred through the bio, finally giving Crank game 1.
13:22 edt: First 1 - 0 HerO. Entombed: First went for a 4-gate + colossus attack while HerO went for immortal drops with a speed prism. This worked out in First's favor, as he was able to attack while HerO's prism was in mid-flight. HerO was forced to return to defend his base, but great force-field use from First allowed him to annihilate HerO's forces for the game one win.
13:05 edt: TaeJa 2 - 1 Losira. Antiga: Losira decided than a ling-bane all-in was in order, but TaeJa held it off with remarkable ease. Losira truly was "all-in" as he lost almost immediately after.
13:04 edt: Revival 2 - 1 Sasquatch. Antiga: In a complete repeat of the second game, Revival went directly to mutalisks and denied his opponent a third while defending his natural with spines. After taking an economic and production lead over Sasquatch, Revival maxed out 50 supply ahead of his opponent and fungaled his way to victory, 2-1.
12:57 edt: Losira 1 - 1 TaeJa. Entombed: After some typical greedy Entombed opens, TaeJa got a little too aggressive with hellion-marine pressure and lost several units needlessly. Losira didn't miss a beat, capitalizing on the situation to pump out speedlings and slow-banes for a win at an unusual timing.
12:55 edt: Heart 2 - 1 Alicia. Metropolis: Alicia opened with a fast nexus in the face of Hearts 2 rax with a reaper. Heart faked an expansion and committed to a 2-1-1 all in. Alicia contained Heart momentarily, discovering his all in then retreated as Heart pulled his scvs. Alicia dropped a dark shrine and as he was preparing to defend the 2-1-1 marine siege medivac attack, he was caught by siege tanks with his army separated. Heart killed Alicias expansion and a considerable portion of his economy but was forced back by Dts. Heart briefly returned to his main to meet his raven then returned to finish off Alicia.
12:50 edt: Leenock 2 - 0 viOLet. Cloud Kingdom: Leenock went for some early ling-bane aggression and transitioned into mutalisks. viOLet seemed to have infestors on time, but good speedling/mutalisk tactics delayed viOLet's third base nonetheless. Leenock then transitioned into roaches with an advantage, and was able to overpower viOLet with brute force.
12:48 edt: Revival 1 - 1 Sasquatch. Cloud Kingdom: Sasquatch took a fast pool and started streaming lings to his opponents base but couldn't cause any damage. Revival turned his faster economy into 2 base muta. Revival denied the third of his opponent while taking his own and knocking out overlords. Sasquatch decided it was too late to take a third and moved out with his his army and even his queens. However Sasquatch couldn't prevent mutalisks from sniping his infestors and as he tried to move up the ramp was fungaled, convincing him to immediately gg.
12:45 edt: TaeJa 1 - 0 Losira. Cloud Kingdom: TaeJa opened with a two rax bunker rush, and Losira went for his usual style of giving the hatchery up, making speedlings, and re-expanding later. However, TaeJa had a trick up his sleeve, setting marines to backdoor Losira's main while his speedling were trying to counter-attack. This move put Losira seriously behind, and without any real mistakes on TaeJa's end, the Terran player rolled to a victory after a few minutes.
12:42 edt: Heart 1 - 1 Alicia. Entombed: Both players expanded to their naturals in a standard, passive game. Heart invested into a large mid game attack before Alicia finished thermal lance. Heart came close but could not break Alicias army and was forced to fall back and expand again. Alicia, tricked by the expansion, moved out on to the map and Heart attacked with a premade concave and overpowered the Protoss ball, convincingly taking the second game.
12:32 edt: Leenock 1 - 0 viOLet. Daybreak: The two Zergs played a retro-ZvZ straight from the Brood War days, going for a straight up mutalisk battle (despite the fact neither of them was a BW pro). Leenock overpowered viOLet through some exploitation of mutalisk-bounce chaos theory, though his zerglings killing drones deserve some credit as well. viOLet GG'd out, sending it to game two.
12:31 edt: Sasquatch 1 - 0 Revival. Daybreak: Sasquatch opened with the underused +1 armor build and caused serious mayhem with his zerglings, causing repeated cancels on the third, picking off separated roaches and keeping Revival from harassing his own economy. Sasquatch quickly maxed out and Revival tried to delay but Sasquatch held advantage in tech, supply and economy. After a few minutes of desperation, Sasquatch finally made it to Revivals base and crushed the smaller, weaker roach force.
12:27 edt: Alicia 1 - 0 Heart. Daybreak: Heart opened with hellion medivac and was surprised by Alicias phoenix opening. Although he scored economic damage against the one base Protoss, Alicia countered across the map and used his phoenixes lift to great effect. Heart barely held but fell behind after Alicias partially successful bust. Alicia preserved his phoenixes while keeping Heart at home to defend and capitalized with a fast third. Alicia, with complete control of the game, built a colossus based deathball and easily beat Hearts smaller bio tank army.
12:20 edt: Losira 2 - 1 Sheth: Cloud Kingdom: After two base openers, Losira took the lead by pushing out mutalisks a little faster than Sheth expected, killing drones and severely delaying Sheth's third. With infestors out, Sheth looked to make his way back into the game, but he couldn't deal with Losira's roach transition well enough. Losira bounced back and forth between Sheth's natural and third, with Sheth unable to partition his defenses well enough to stop the dizzying attacks. After losing a few dozen drones, Sheth GG'd out.
12:07 edt: Ryung 2 - 0 PuMa. Daybreak: After the marathon game on Entombed, victory came surprisingly quick for Ryung. Building up a mech army from three bases, he crushed through PuMa's bio forces with ease and closed out the series.
12:02 edt: Sheth 1 - 1 Losira. Daybreak: Losira tried to break the Daybreak mold with two-base pressure that made Sheth fight to take his third, but he couldn't fight the inevitable as the game broke down into a half-map split battle. Unlike many other ZvZ's at Raleigh, a victor could not be determined at the lair phase, and both players teched up to hive to add brood lords to their armies. Despite losing his main to a sneaky attack from Losira, Sheth managed the big picture better, shutting down his opponent's expansions while keeping up mining on his side. Eventually Losira ran out of steam, conceding the tying game to Sheth.
11:58 edt: Revival 2 - 1 MKP. Cloud Kingdom: MKP tried the same harassment with banshees and hellions as he did in the previous game with terrible results, losing the banshee and some hellions without causing any economic damage. Revival became complacent and when MKP returned with the same push less than a minute later, lost 25 workers and fell behind MKP in worker count. Revival immediately threw himself back in the game with a buttery zergling runby that put him ahead in the worker count. Revival, tired of macro games, hit a +2 melee timing by going up to 45 banelings and crashed into MKPs natural. MKP tried to micro against it but with 1.5 banelings for every marine it was too much and Revival took the series 2-1
11:56 edt: Ryung 1 - 0 PuMa: Entombed: A marathon game one consisted of several phases that could be considered separate, individual games on their own. The first 20~25 games was a standard marine-tank TvT, where both players mined their fill and threw armies around with no regard to spending. Then, the game entered a stalemate phase as neither player wanted to risk committing to an attack, stockpiling resources and toying with transitions to air (but ultimately declining to). The end phase of the game saw the players mine out their more easily taken expansions, and they were forced to make decisive, sometimes painful moves to secure the remaining bases on the map. At the end of countless tactical movements and skirmishes, Ryung was the player who carried the day. With no banks left to sustain army production, Ryung managed to cut off PuMa's final mining bases and defeat his opponent's armies in the process.
11:49 edt: Heart 2 - 0 asd. Entombed: In a sexy turn on positionally based TvT, Heart took the fight to ASD with siege tank drops in his main and continuously outflanking his opponent. After nearly 25 minutes of taking small victories, ASD was locked down trying to protect his natural and Heart used his larger army to crush the third while ASD helplessly watched. With no mining and a smaller marine tank army, ASD tapped out and gave the series to Heart, 2-0.
11:46 edt: Revival 1 - 1 MKP: Antiga: Both players took to economic openers in contrast to the previous game. MKP tried to pressure throughout the mid game but could not land any blows against Revivals calculated defenses. As the composition and time trickled into the late game things looked great for MKP with Revival lacking hive tech and relying on mid game units with maxed upgrades. However MKP could not put away the game before Revival finally started ultralisk production and after a weird back and forth brawl over the center of the map, Revival finally punched through and knocked out the majority of MKPs mining. Without the ability to remake lost units, MKP was shut down by Revivals unwavering ultra ling bling infestor composition.
11:32 edt: Losira 1 - 0 Sheth. Entombed: After two base opens on both sides, Losira tried to surprise Sheth with an early roach-ling attack. Sheth realized what was up in time to survive, but was left behind. Losira reloaded with roaches and banelings for another attack, and Sheth was unable to hold the second time around.
11:30 edt: Heart 1 - 0 asd. Antiga: asd opened by rushing out two cloaked banshees behind an expansion. They did alright for him but Hearts faster expansion and quicker tank production as well as a clutch raven helped Heart into an early lead. Heart sieged his opponents main from the low ground then elevatored into the main, provoking ASD to run by and siege Hearts third. Although ASD had an economic lead he couldn't unseat the tanks slowly chipping away his main and was caught off guard in the center of the map as he tried to stabilize, losing his army and never managing to unseat Heart from the corner of his main base. Heart took a challenging game 1.
11:12 edt: MKP 1 - 0 Revival. Entombed: MKP went full bitbybit style with a 3rax rush and almost all of his scvs pulled. Revival scouted it too late and managed to stall the deadly rush with four queens but lost too many drones and was unable to hold off the second wave.
10:49 edt: Sheth 2 - 0 Grubby. Entombed: Sheth completed the 2 - 0 sweep through of LR3, defeating Grubby with brood lords on Entombed. Both players played greedy builds, mining to their heart's content and getting whatever units they needed. Grubby tried to hit the pre-brood lord timing, but Sheth bought valuable time by distracting Grubby with a fake/failed Zergling drop. Grubby didn't have enough anti brood-lord in time, and lost despite having successfully established four bases.
10:48 edt: asd 2 - 0 Hawk. Antiga: After a boring early and mid game without any serious exchanges or harassment, ASD maxed out and attacked Hawk as he tried to build ultralisks. Caught in transition for a second game in a row with no way to stop a maxed out marine tank push, Hawks mining bases disintegrated and by the time ultralisks hatched it was too late for them to make any impact on the game. ASD smoothly pocketed both games and the series.
10:45 edt: MKP 2 - 0 Killer. Cloud Kingdom: MKP punished Killers fast expand for the second game in a row with a marine marauder bunker rush. After saturating his own natural in safety and delaying Killer's. MKP taunted Killer through the mid game but refused to engage until he had vikings and enough ghosts to blanket EMP bomb the entire Protoss army. And he did. In two convincing late game engagements MKP beat Killer to the punch with EMPs and made it look easy, 2-0.
10:44 edt: Ryung 2 - 0 Caliber. Cloud Kingdom: Caliber went for what was essentially a 3-base templar rush, cutting harshly on robo tech units. Ryung went for some minor harassment, but didn't really try to punish Caliber, instead building up his own foundations. The two collided over control of Caliber's fourth base, where Ryung had good-enough EMPs to cruhs through Caliber's army for the victory.
10:31 edt: asd 1 - Hawk. Daybreak: Hawk and ASD both took super macro openings with 3h before pool and a reactionary 3rd OC. Hawk stayed one step ahead of ASD throughout the early-mid game with roaches and ling muta. Despite taking map control and pushing ASD around, Hawk committed too strongly to mid game units and critically delayed hive tech. The Zerg player tried to counter attack and did inflict damage on ASDs natural but had no way to answer the maxed out marine tank push, giving ASD the 1-0 lead.
10:28 edt: Ryung 1 - 0 Caliber. Antiga: Both players went for standard macro build-ups on Antiga, with Ryung getting ahead due to some good drop harass and whatever Korean players do to have more stuff at all times. Caliber tried to bridge his transition to templar with colossi, but Ryung struck before storm was complete and annihilated Caliber's army for the GG.
10:26 edt: Sheth 1 - 0 Grubby. Daybreak: The game progressed in a standard pattern, with Grubby going for a fast third base around 9:00 and Sheth choosing to strike at that timing with roaches and speedlings. Sheth managed to take down the third nexus, but at great cost to his army, causing Grubby to go on the counter-attack. However, Sheth had already reinforced himself sufficiently by then, and Grubby's attack became a large troop donation. After that, Sheth countered again and took the game.
10:22 edt: MKP 1 - 0 Killer. Antiga : MKP opened with hellion first with a marauder and Killer underestimated the power of six hellions. Killer politely let MKP into his base and let him completely destroy his economy. Killer stood no chance after losing over half his probes to MKPs first attack and gg'd out as the second wave overwhelmed him.
Game One - Daybreak: First went for some mostly useless, borderline self-damaging warp-prism harass, followed by a similarly ineffective two base immortal push. Leenock made a ton of spine crawlers at his three bases while he teched up to muta-ling and First took a much belated third. Leenock used muta-ling to destroy First's third base while expanding more himself, after which he finished First off with overwhelming numbers.
Game Two - Antiga: Half-way through his semi-final series with TheStC, Leenock must have changed his game plan to "no hive unless absolutely impossible to avoid." For the second straight game, Leenock went for heavy muta-ling, though this time he prefaced it by going infestor-ling briefly. As for First, he went for a fairly standard immortal tech into third base, and actually held off Leenock's initial infestor-ling attack fairly well. However, he fell apart completely after that, unable to keep up with the muta-ling Leenock sent his way. First committed several micro errors (such as losing three colossi needlessly), leading one to think that he was getting crushed under the pressure of playing in the finals. In any case, Leenock overran First completely, taking a 2 - 0 lead.
Game Three - Cloud Kingdom: Leenock took a calculated risk against First's forge-FE, pumping out a large number of slowlings early. Knowing that most Protoss players move out with their first zealot and stalker, Leenock waited until he confirmed that First was doing precisely that before running his zerglings right past First's wall. It was meta-gaming at its finest, and Leenock received a quick GG from the defenseless First.
Game Four - Metropolis: Leenock decided to bring some more unorthodox strategies, going for a hyper fast nydus worm for speedlings. However, his execution wasn't the greatest. Instead of slowly bringing in his overlord for vision at nydus completion timing, he left it lingering suspiciously at the edges of First's main. First scouted out Leenock's plan to go Nydus, and Leenock decided to just GG out instantly instead of play it out once he was caught.
Game Five - Shakuras: First changed it up with a gate-first build, but followed it up with a fast expand instead of anything tricky. First went for phoenix play after expanding, but Leenock sniffed it out and had defenses in place. First then tried to go for some ground + phoenix pressure, but a backstab from Leenock kept First in check. After that, Leenock went for hive in what seemed like the first time in ages, but not before throwing in a some ling-infestor pressure at lair for good measure. First opted to try and fight Leenock at hive, instead of go for any timing beforehand. It didn't really work out the way he hoped, as his crucial vortex ended up whiffing, and Leenock's brood lord/infestor annihilated everything. First stuck around for a while, but after his second mothership was neuralled he knew that it was time to GG out and be happy with second place.
Game One - Tal'Darim Altar: STC spawned cross from Leenock but tried to bunker rush anyway. It was denied and STC turned up the heat by pulling the majority of his workers. Leenock killed the workers but lost his natural and was forced to baneling bust bunkers to reclaim his own natural. STC took his own natural and started streaming blue flame hellions into Leenocks base but after an amazing hold, Leenock showed that hellions could not kill him either. STC took a third base and after 20 minutes finally sent a lethal marine tank push that finished Leenock off.
Game Two - Antiga: After both players took their naturals they mirrored each other with fast air attacks. Leenock wrecked STCs natural with mutalisks as STC murdered Leenocks drone count with a banshee. Both players stabilized and Leenock powered up to a muta baneling bust, but couldn't make the bust work due to poor army coordination. As STC tried to counter, Leenock just picked apart the push, catching tanks out of position and connecting banelings to marines.
Both players, still neck and neck, transitioned to three base economy. Leenock, focusing on mutalisk production and upgrades, continually picked small squads of marines by themselves. After a beautiful burrowed baneling trap and a dozen micro engagements across the map Leenock took the supply lead... only to immediately suicide his banelings into a thor and find himself unable to stop STC from taking out his economy with the remaining marines. Suddenly for a second time STC walked across a baneling land mine and half his marines disappeared along with his lead. Over the next 7 minutes Leenock showed phenomenal ling bling muta micro, constantly boucning between mineral lines and exposed medivacs or tanks. After ravaging STCs economy and eliminating every orbital command on the map, Leenock took Game 2 with non stop action and style.
Game Three - Cloud Kingdom: Both Leenock and TheStC opened with strong economy and Leeonck went blind into ling bling muta before realizing StC was committing to an Mvp-style mech build. StC completely dominated the mid game, picking off creep and drones while forcing Leenock to make zerglings to survive. As StC maxed, he walked out with 7 thors in addition to banshees, hellions and tanks. Leenock channeled the ghost of a crazy person and rocketed his mutalisk count up to 28, then did what looked impossible and just barely killed the thors with zerglings and mutalisks. StC consoled himself by killing off Leenocks 4th and remaxed with additional thors and vikings. Leenock transitioned into infestors, then ultralisks then even brood lords in quick transition but StC held off each wave flawlessly with an unbeatable upgrade advantage and unit positioning. After Leenock lost his remaining mining bases and gave one last futile push against StC with his ultralisks, he typed gg and StC won his second game in the extended series. TheStC forces extended series
Game Four - Entombed: Entombed: Possibly out of things to do, TheStC brought an ancient hellion-marauder all-in for the fourth game. As is sometimes the case with builds that have long been out of fashion, it caught his opponent totally off-guard. Leenock had several queens but not much else on defense, and TheStC barreled through to reach match point.
Game Five - Metropolis: Leenock went for a fast mutalisk build in anticipation of banshees from TheStC, but instead TheStC did a greedy build that focused on pumping out a lot of upgraded marines. That worked out well for Leenock, as he decided to go for a two-base muta-ling-bane all-in, to which the lack of tanks was a very big favor. Two busts later, TheStC was dead and moving on to game six.
Game Six - Daybreak: Daybreak: TheStC looked for an easy win in game six with an in-base proxy barracks, but Leenock scouted it out and forced him to abruptly switch track. TheStC went the exact opposite route, going for a very greedy CC-before-barracks build into reactor hellions. Leenock decided to go for a simple roach-speedling attack, which was enough to kill TheStC's puny army force a seventh game.
Game Seven - Shakuras Plateau: After both players settled into a comfortable three base economy Leenock decided it was time to end the game. Leenock made a control group of mutalisks and shot up to 120 zerglings, morphing a third into banes. STC with a great economy but delayed tank production was unprepared for the massive maxed attack by Leenock and had his third bases scv line vaporized along with most of his tanks and marines. Additional lings streamed in and STC tried to stem the tide with bunkers but with creep touching the ramp of his third, Leenock had near instant reinforcement time, and STC could only hold off so many banelings before he was finally overwhelmed.
TheStC 3 – 4 Leenock (Extended series, TheStC came from the losers bracket)
Game One - Antiga: As expected, both players took their first three bases and waited until they were maxed out to really begin the hostilities. First almost played it like a TvZ on Antiga, allowing TaeJa to take three bases, but making sure he denied him a fourth. TaeJa was unable to display his famed ghost micro in this game, and he was tentative of committing to a conclusive engagement with First's well-managed deathball. This led to TaeJa running out of steam in the end, and he GG'd out after it was clear he didn't have the income to keep fighting against First.
Game Two - Entombed. Despite an unsuccessful hellion/marine drop opener from TaeJa, the game played out in typical Entombed Valley style with both players sitting on three bases and cranking out massive armies. In the decisive battle, TaeJa couldn't bring enough viking firepower to bear on First's colossi, and the combination of lasers + force fields incinerated TaeJa's army, forcing the GG.
Game One - Entombed: First went for a 4-gate + colossus attack while HerO went for immortal drops with a speed prism. This worked out in First's favor, as he was able to attack while HerO's prism was in mid-flight. HerO was forced to return to defend his base, but great force-field use from First allowed him to annihilate HerO's forces for the game one win.
Game Two - Cloud Kingdom: HerO found a gap in First's early defenses as the LG-IM Protoss tried to rush for DTs. After dealing decent damage in First's main, HerO managed to just barely get an observer out in time to stop the DT counter attack, though he was forced to FF his ramp several times and build a pylon wall. Even so, HerO was at an advantage after dealing early damage, and was content to build up off two bases alongside First. Eventually HerO decided to attack with a big army of blink stalkers, where his superior numbers and micro saw him through.
Game Three - Daybreak: With little harm done early on, the game skipped on ahead to the colossus laser show. Neither player seemed very eager to engage, so they sat on three bases and tried to annoy each other with warp-prism harassment. At this, First was far more successful, sacrificing zealot warp-ins to keep HerO pinned in while he took bases #4 and #5, as well as teching up to mothership. HerO remained indecisive through all this, and only decided he had to force a fight only after First had taken a huge resource advantage. First crushed HerO handily in the battle, winning the series and heading to the winners semis.
Game One - Daybreak: The two Zergs played a retro-ZvZ straight from the Brood War days, going for a straight up mutalisk battle (despite the fact neither of them was a BW pro). Leenock overpowered viOLet through some exploitation of mutalisk-bounce chaos theory, though his zerglings killing drones deserve some credit as well. viOLet GG'd out, sending it to game two.
Game Two - Cloud Kingdom: Leenock went for some early ling-bane aggression and transitioned into mutalisks. viOLet seemed to have infestors on time, but good speedling/mutalisk tactics delayed viOLet's third base nonetheless. Leenock then transitioned into roaches with an advantage, and was able to overpower viOLet with brute force.
Game One - Cloud Kingdom: Both teammates waged economic wars with fast expands into fast thirds. Taeja took to the map first and paid for it by losing a crucial early force to a forcefield trap. HerO followed up with a massive blink stalker attack, and in the blink of an eye (or stalker) HerO turned on the heat, driving into his opponents natural and knocking Taeja out of the first game.
Game Two - Antiga: Taeja put HerO up against the wall from the very start until the last moment of Game 2. With a banshee hellion opener and a tank followup that never materialized, Taeja kept even in economy with HerO despite amazing storm drops and HerO adeptly controlling zealot archon. As HerO storm dropped Taejas natural, he gifted two free colossii to Taejas army and in a ludicrously well controlled battle of feedback and EMP, Taeja negated HerOs AOE and gained the upper hand.
Game Three - Entombed: Taeja opened with a reaper expand but HerO carefully denied scouting information on his main. HerO 4gated and in a magic moment Taeja scouted the pylon with his reaper, holding the 4gate easily with a bunker. HerO expanded behind it but Taeja immediately put the pressure in with fast medivacs and stim, never letting up and never letting HerO stabilize. HerO held as long as he could but after gaining the early advantage in addition to fast stim and medivacs, Taeja took down HerO to win the series 2-1
Game One - Entombed Valley: Determined to beat his previous best MLG finish of 3rd place, TheStC double proxy-barracks bunker rushed viOLet for a fast win in game one.
Game Two - Tal'Darim Altar: With a retro choice of Tal'Darim Altar as the second map, the game took on a retro feel itself. Low econ was the name of the game as viOLet went for roach-ling pressure off two bases, while TheStC went for marine-hellion-marauder off of his natural. viOLet managed to hide a third base at some point, but he was effectively playing two base lair for the whole game, while TheStC also continued to squeeze out what bio + tanks he could off of two bases. In the end, this was a better scenario for TheStC, and reminded us of why Zerg try to play greedily and rush hive in the first place, as viOLet could not fight on even term for long. TheStC gained an edge every battle, eventually getting a big enough troop advantage to take the series.
Game One - Both players pursued an early three base economy and after brief harass with banshee hellion, Taeja settled into marine tank pushes. Taeja sent wave after wave of marine tank pushes and continued to attack before Revival could build a sustainable brood lord infestor composition. Taeja lost push after push but without allowing his opponent the critical mass of infestors, Revival could never become cost effective with his units and with an endless stream of units, Taeja pushed Revival further and further out of the game until marines went unanswered and Revival was forced out of the game.
Game Two - Cloud Kingdom: Taeja opened with a relaxed 12/14 2 rax while double expanding behind it. Neither player took to aggression during the mid game and neither player could surpass each other in supply or economy. As Revival started Hive, Taeja became active on the map and slowly pushed towards Revivals 4th. In contrast to the previous game, Revival took advantage of Taejas spread out army and overwhelmed Taeja with key fungals and zergling surrounds. The game stalled out as both players maxed out for minutes until Taeja took the attack to Revivals main and Revival turned it into a base trade. Revival struggled to break into the natural while Taeja stalled in Revivals main and despite both players being completely even in supply, Revival added last minute brood lords to take control of the game. Then he tossed it away by move commanding them into marines.. In a terrible fight, Revivals ultralisks were caught between the tightly spaced barracks and he could only watch as his army was shredded by marines. Revival, without any remaining tech and without an army, gg'd out after a shocking reversal of fortune.
Game One - Entombed: The game saw both players get aggressive with marine tank, taking and giving back leads due to overextension on both sides. After a few momentum swings, TheStC found a way back into the lead as he started to reap the benefits of a hidden expansion, and won a few key engagements in a row. Afterward, he rolled forward and sieged up at Heart's bases, forcing the GG.
Game Two - Daybreak: Heart opened with a cute hellion drop build, but the end result was both players taking their naturals on more or less even terms. TheStC tried to use his faster bio tech to harass with stim drops, but Heart fended it off fairly easily as he went up to three bases. TheStC declined to match with his own third base immediately, instead going for a big bio+tank push into Heart's third base. This ended up working well, as he traded for the better, destroying the expansion and killing a fair amount of troops. From this position TheStC just slowly played out his lead, consolidating his own expansion and making sure Heart never got ahead in resources or troops for the 2-0 win.
Game One - Entombed: Neither player tried any aggressive antics until Heart moved out with a marine squad at the 6 minute mark to pressure Cranks natural. Crank severed the marines with forcefields and immediately took a third after the convincing engagement. Heart duplicated his opponent then swung momentum in his favor with a deadly double drop while pushing into his opponents natural. Both players traded blows throughout the mid game but it was Crank with an immaculate blink, trapping his opponent and letting the zealot archon colossus compostion shred through the bio, finally giving Crank game 1.
Game Two - Cloud Kingdom: Heart opened with a reaper expand and denied some vision, killed some probes and transitioned into the mid game. The game was quite even until Crank missed a double drop heading for his main and Heart with perfect micro, killed 26 workers and took an unstoppable lead. Crank understood his position and tried to counter attack/all in but Heart held off the attack and with some choice words about balance, Crank ended with gg and tied the series 1-1
Game Three - Daybreak: Crank boldly opened nex first and left Heart at an economic disadvantage. So Heart immediately ninja expanded again at another base. Crank, in a stroke of luck, found the expansion almost immediately and shut down Hearts chance at taking an economic lead. Crank started double upgrades and attacked at the same time, ensuring he could only scare the crap out of Heart. After a midgame of mostly Heart sharking around and keeping Crank in his base, Heart sniped Cranks colossus production. Heart went to full on ghost production and a few short minutes later dodged a few storms and manhandled Crank out of the game.
Game One - Daybreak: A half-map split on Daybreak had both players jostling for position with no real advantage on either side until aLive decided it was time to begin the sky-terran transition. Unfortunately for aLive it was a losing move, as his BattleCruiser transition was far too naive and countered easily by TaeJa's decision to go mass vikings. TaeJa swatted aLive's air force in a key engagement, and then rode on to victory in game one.
Game Two - Entombed: Predictably, the two players ended up in a position where they were comfortably pumping marine-tank off of Entombed Valley's easily taken three bases. TaeJa ended up taking the intiative first, getting a good engagement and then setting up a siege line outside of aLive's bases. Spreading aLive's defenses between the third and natural, TaeJa was able to strike surgically at aLive's army, whittling it down and taking teh game.
Game One - Antiga: After both players opened hatch first, Stephano attacked with banelings and was completely stopped cold. Revival became complacent however and a followup attack knocked out his third, putting Stephano up 3 bases to 2. Stephano became overeager again and shut down some of Revivals mining but lost his army, allowing Revival back into the game again. As both players slugged each other in the middle of the map, Revival landed critical fungals and drove through his opponent. Revival patiently waited for reinforcements and used his local superiority to chip away Stephano until the French Zerg gave up in game 1.
Game Two - Daybreak: Stephano tried again to inflict early damage with banelings but was easily dismissed by a spine and queens. Revival immediately took to lair and built a spire while Stephano took a faster third and melee/carapace upgrades. Stephano continually denied his opponents third but lost the economic advantage to a baneling rollby into his mineral line. Revival used his mutalisks to prevent a third from Stephano and took a solid supply lead. Revival tried to immediately break Stephano but with reinforcements and a hell of a lot of effort, Stephano clung on for several more minutes before finally being outnumbered and beaten, 2-0.
Game One - Cloud Kingdom: TaeJa opened with a two rax bunker rush, and Losira went for his usual style of giving the hatchery up, making speedlings, and re-expanding later. However, TaeJa had a trick up his sleeve, setting marines to backdoor Losira's main while his speedling were trying to counter-attack. This move put Losira seriously behind, and without any real mistakes on TaeJa's end, the Terran player rolled to a victory after a few minutes.
Game Two - Entombed: After some typical greedy Entombed opens, TaeJa got a little too aggressive with hellion-marine pressure and lost several units needlessly. Losira didn't miss a beat, capitalizing on the situation to pump out speedlings and slow-banes for a win at an unusual timing.
Game Three - Antiga: Losira decided than a ling-bane all-in was in order, but TaeJa held it off with remarkable ease. Losira truly was "all-in" as he lost almost immediately after.
Game One - Sasquatch opened with the underused +1 armor build and caused serious mayhem with his zerglings, causing repeated cancels on the third, picking off separated roaches and keeping Revival from harassing his own economy. Sasquatch quickly maxed out and Revival tried to delay but Sasquatch held advantage in tech, supply and economy. After a few minutes of desperation, Sasquatch finally made it to Revivals base and crushed the smaller, weaker roach force.
Game Two - Cloud Kingdom: Sasquatch took a fast pool and started streaming lings to his opponents base but couldn't cause any damage. Revival turned his faster economy into 2 base muta. Revival denied the third of his opponent while taking his own and knocking out overlords. Sasquatch decided it was too late to take a third and moved out with his his army and even his queens. However Sasquatch couldn't prevent mutalisks from sniping his infestors and as he tried to move up the ramp was fungaled, convincing him to immediately gg.
Game Three - Antiga: In a complete repeat of the second game, Revival went directly to mutalisks and denied his opponent a third while defending his natural with spines. After taking an economic and production lead over Sasquatch, Revival maxed out 50 supply ahead of his opponent and fungaled his way to victory, 2-1.
Game One - Daybreak: Heart opened with hellion medivac and was surprised by Alicias phoenix opening. Although he scored economic damage against the one base Protoss, Alicia countered across the map and used his phoenixes lift to great effect. Heart barely held but fell behind after Alicias partially successful bust. Alicia preserved his phoenixes while keeping Heart at home to defend and capitalized with a fast third. Alicia, with complete control of the game, built a colossus based deathball and easily beat Hearts smaller bio tank army.
Game Two - Entombed: Both players expanded to their naturals in a standard, passive game. Heart invested into a large mid game attack before Alicia finished thermal lance. Heart came close but could not break Alicias army and was forced to fall back and expand again. Alicia, tricked by the expansion, moved out on to the map and Heart attacked with a premade concave and overpowered the Protoss ball, convincingly taking the second game.
Game Three - Metropolis: Alicia opened with a fast nexus in the face of Hearts 2 rax with a reaper. Heart faked an expansion and committed to a 2-1-1 all in. Alicia contained Heart momentarily, discovering his all in then retreated as Heart pulled his scvs. Alicia dropped a dark shrine and as he was preparing to defend the 2-1-1 marine siege medivac attack, he was caught by siege tanks with his army separated. Heart killed Alicias expansion and a considerable portion of his economy but was forced back by Dts. Heart briefly returned to his main to meet his raven then returned to finish off Alicia.
Game One - Entombed: After two base opens on both sides, Losira tried to surprise Sheth with an early roach-ling attack. Sheth realized what was up in time to survive, but was left behind. Losira reloaded with roaches and banelings for another attack, and Sheth was unable to hold the second time around.
Game Two - Daybreak: Losira tried to break the Daybreak mold with two-base pressure that made Sheth fight to take his third, but he couldn't fight the inevitable as the game broke down into a half-map split battle. Unlike many other ZvZ's at Raleigh, a victor could not be determined at the lair phase, and both players teched up to hive to add brood lords to their armies. Despite losing his main to a sneaky attack from Losira, Sheth managed the big picture better, shutting down his opponent's expansions while keeping up mining on his side. Eventually Losira ran out of steam, conceding the tying game to Sheth.
Game Three - Cloud Kingdom: After two base openers, Losira took the lead by pushing out mutalisks a little faster than Sheth expected, killing drones and severely delaying Sheth's third. With infestors out, Sheth looked to make his way back into the game, but he couldn't deal with Losira's roach transition well enough. Losira bounced back and forth between Sheth's natural and third, with Sheth unable to partition his defenses well enough to stop the dizzying attacks. After losing a few dozen drones, Sheth GG'd out.
Game One - Antiga: asd opened by rushing out two cloaked banshees behind an expansion. They did alright for him but Hearts faster expansion and quicker tank production as well as a clutch raven helped Heart into an early lead. Heart sieged his opponents main from the low ground then elevatored into the main, provoking ASD to run by and siege Hearts third. Although ASD had an economic lead he couldn't unseat the tanks slowly chipping away his main and was caught off guard in the center of the map as he tried to stabilize, losing his army and never managing to unseat Heart from the corner of his main base. Heart took a challenging game 1.
Game Two - In a sexy turn on positionally based TvT, Heart took the fight to ASD with siege tank drops in his main and continuously outflanking his opponent. After nearly 25 minutes of taking small victories, ASD was locked down trying to protect his natural and Heart used his larger army to crush the third while ASD helplessly watched. With no mining and a smaller marine tank army, ASD tapped out and gave the series to Heart, 2-0.
Game One - Entombed: MKP went full bitbybit style with a 3rax rush and almost all of his scvs pulled. Revival scouted it too late and managed to stall the deadly rush with four queens but lost too many drones and was unable to hold off the second wave.
Game Two - Antiga: Both players took to economic openers in contrast to the previous game. MKP tried to pressure throughout the mid game but could not land any blows against Revivals calculated defenses. As the composition and time trickled into the late game things looked great for MKP with Revival lacking hive tech and relying on mid game units with maxed upgrades. However MKP could not put away the game before Revival finally started ultralisk production and after a weird back and forth brawl over the center of the map, Revival finally punched through and knocked out the majority of MKPs mining. Without the ability to remake lost units, MKP was shut down by Revivals unwavering ultra ling bling infestor composition.
Game Three - Cloud Kingdom: MKP tried the same harassment with banshees and hellions as he did in the previous game with terrible results, losing the banshee and some hellions without causing any economic damage. Revival became complacent and when MKP returned with the same push less than a minute later, lost 25 workers and fell behind MKP in worker count. Revival immediately threw himself back in the game with a buttery zergling runby that put him ahead in the worker count. Revival, tired of macro games, hit a +2 melee timing by going up to 45 banelings and crashed into MKPs natural. MKP tried to micro against it but with 1.5 banelings for every marine it was too much and Revival took the series 2-1
Game One - Entombed: A marathon game one consisted of several phases that could be considered separate, individual games on their own. The first 20~25 games was a standard marine-tank TvT, where both players mined their fill and threw armies around with no regard to spending. Then, the game entered a stalemate phase as neither player wanted to risk committing to an attack, stockpiling resources and toying with transitions to air (but ultimately declining to). The end phase of the game saw the players mine out their more easily taken expansions, and they were forced to make decisive, sometimes painful moves to secure the remaining bases on the map. At the end of countless tactical movements and skirmishes, Ryung was the player who carried the day. With no banks left to sustain army production, Ryung managed to cut off PuMa's final mining bases and defeat his opponent's armies in the process.
Game Two - Daybreak: After the marathon game on Entombed, victory came surprisingly quick for Ryung. Building up a mech army from three bases, he crushed through PuMa's bio forces with ease and closed out the series.
Game One - Antiga : MKP opened with hellion first with a marauder and Killer underestimated the power of six hellions. Killer politely let MKP into his base and let him completely destroy his economy. Killer stood no chance after losing over half his probes to MKPs first attack and gg'd out as the second wave overwhelmed him.
Game Two - Cloud Kingdom: MKP punished Killers fast expand for the second game in a row with a marine marauder bunker rush. After saturating his own natural in safety and delaying Killer's. MKP taunted Killer through the mid game but refused to engage until he had vikings and enough ghosts to blanket EMP bomb the entire Protoss army. And he did. In two convincing late game engagements MKP beat Killer to the punch with EMPs and made it look easy, 2-0.
Game One - Daybreak: The game progressed in a standard pattern, with Grubby going for a fast third base around 9:00 and Sheth choosing to strike at that timing with roaches and speedlings. Sheth managed to take down the third nexus, but at great cost to his army, causing Grubby to go on the counter-attack. However, Sheth had already reinforced himself sufficiently by then, and Grubby's attack became a large troop donation. After that, Sheth countered again and took the game.
Game Two - Entombed: Both players played greedy builds, mining to their heart's content and getting whatever units they needed. Grubby tried to hit the pre-brood lord timing, but Sheth bought valuable time by distracting Grubby with a fake/failed Zergling drop. Grubby didn't have enough anti brood-lord in time, and lost despite having successfully established four bases.
Game One - Daybreak: Hawk and ASD both took super macro openings with 3h before pool and a reactionary 3rd OC. Hawk stayed one step ahead of ASD throughout the early-mid game with roaches and ling muta. Despite taking map control and pushing ASD around, Hawk committed too strongly to mid game units and critically delayed hive tech. The Zerg player tried to counter attack and did inflict damage on ASDs natural but had no way to answer the maxed out marine tank push, giving ASD the 1-0 lead.
Game Two - Antiga: After a boring early and mid game without any serious exchanges or harassment, ASD maxed out and attacked Hawk as he tried to build ultralisks. Caught in transition for a second game in a row with no way to stop a maxed out marine tank push, Hawks mining bases disintegrated and by the time ultralisks hatched it was too late for them to make any impact on the game. ASD smoothly pocketed both games and the series.
Game One - Antiga: Both players went for standard macro build-ups on Antiga, with Ryung getting ahead due to some good drop harass and whatever Korean players do to have more stuff at all times. Caliber tried to bridge his transition to templar with colossi, but Ryung struck before storm was complete and annihilated Caliber's army for the GG.
Game Two - Cloud Kingdom: Caliber went for what was essentially a 3-base templar rush, cutting harshly on robo tech units. Ryung went for some minor harassment, but didn't really try to punish Caliber, instead building up his own foundations. The two collided over control of Caliber's fourth base, where Ryung had good-enough EMPs to cruhs through Caliber's army for the victory.
Caliber 0 – 2 Ryung
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Live Reports: Probe1 and Waxangel Graphics: Meko Editor: Waxangel
blacksheepwall China. August 26 2012 22:49. Posts 1039
On August 27 2012 03:34 CoR wrote: hacve to say, from all games i saw, the foreigns played worse then ever before expect a few unknown americans ... wtf is going on ?
Sheth, IdrA, and HuK all played better this tournament then former tournaments. Stephano played well, beating 4 Koreans in group play. Sasquatch had a very nice breakout performance.
Not sure what games you were watching.
It's just a tough tournament. Players such as MKP, Oz, and Rain were eliminated just as early as a handful of foreigners.
Advantageous United States. August 27 2012 04:07. Posts 279
I just wish, MLG would finally reform their tournament structure into something you can understand without a degree in astrophysics. Most of the time, it's very hard to tell, who is playing for what and how big his chances are.
Why not just make a k.o. tournament without things like losers bracket? If really needed, do a group stage before, but that's it. All regular sports run that way. It's just more interesting, more tense and alot easier to understand. You lose, you are out.
All the reasons they had for doing this monstrosity of system are gone. The probability of all favorites dying early in the tournament is non-existant.
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FATJESUSONABIKE August 27 2012 00:57. Posts 184
