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I've very much enjoyed watching far too much SC2 over the holiday season, and given this has been a particularly busy week for it I thought it might be fun to recap things slightly! It's been kind of fun doing it, so if anyone stumbling in here to read enjoys things then I might try do something like this regularly.
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Maka.prime vs TSL_Pretty:: Gisado my all stars koth - game 2 (bo3) of the set on metalopolis
VoD's can be viewed at: http://ch.gomtv.com/4555/28119/402617
What do you do when you've got yourself a 1-0 lead and are playing in a lighthearted tournament with nothing at stake bar bragging rights? That's right, you do some absolutely off the wall shit that you'd never really expect to see in a competitive match where there's a lot more on the line.
From the moment Maka dropped a techlab on his starport and started upgrades for his Raven viewers figured they'd be in for something interesting; by the time he was swinging 7 of them in to decimate Pretty's mineral lines with mass auto turrets they were amused, when he came to the defence of one of his expansions with a perfect HSM into the middle of a muta clump they were cheering behind their desks, as he shifted into mass battlecruisers to rampage around the map with they began wondering what kind of parallel universe they'd slipped into, and when he finally transitioned into full on showboating he used his masses of orbital commands to drop manner mules into Pretty's mineral patches to help long distance mine him out. It wouldn't surprise me if the response to that would have qualified as the online equivalent of a standing ovation.
Perhaps I oversell it, but by the end of it that was unquestionably one of the most entertaining games of Starcraft I've watched.
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oGsMC
Despite being upset by oGsTOP in the Kaspersky finals, MC had an absolutely phenomenal week when all was done and dusted. For most players making the finals of a tournament like the Kaspersky Invitational would be an awesome achivement, for MC it was the lowlight of his week. Earlier that morning he had already taken the very competitive YGosu tournament in an epic Bo7 vs ST_Bomber, a final where he lived on the edge having to drag himself back from 3-1 down to reel off 3 straight victories to clinch the win.
Comebacks continued to be the theme of the week for MC in the Gisado all stars KotH challenge, where he twice pulled his team back from 1-4 deficits to secure two series victories for his team, defeating notable players like fruitdealer, nestea, mvp, and marineking along the way. Top showed he might be beatable, but the rest of the week showed that it's going to be damn hard.
You can find links to VoD's from ygosu here and Gisado here. You can also get replay packs from the Kaspersky event right here
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Meat(Z) vs Ddoro(P) :: Sat Night US Craft Cup
You could almost hear the wails of a thousand anguished zerg players as Ddoro dropped his forge and they sensed some kind of cannon rush...what they and Ddoro didn't count on was that Meat is in posession of Fruitdealer sized balls. With a probe lurking around his base, he'd already slapped down an in your face proxy hatch at Ddoro's natural.
When the double pylon wall in and first photon cannons came Ddoro must have been feeling pretty confident, but little did he know there was an even scarier proposition outside his own main. After clearing out Ddoro's probe in his main, Meat's hatchery finally gets scouted but not before he's got a queen and a spinecrawler up. Using his overlord for sight he's able to take out the highground cannons being set up for defence while a second SC pops up to help. With his early investment in the cannon rush Ddoro only has one Zealot out at his main which is swiftly dealt with, and his counter pressure with 3 stalkers is squashed by a spinecrawler and 2 queens at Meat's main. Meanwhile Meat is up to 5 spinecrawlers and another 2 queens at his proxy and has spread creep far enough that he can perform some good old Giraffe Migration into Ddoro's main. With only a sentry, stalker, and immortal for defence, Meat is able to quickly overwhelm his protoss foe and collect a well deserved and very creative victory. Great stuff!
Replay: http://www.bitsperbeat.com/ussc2/?site=match-details&ID=56684
An Honorable Mention goes to Nerchio:
Up until almost the very last minute when Meat stole the show, this one had been going to Nerchio for his fantastic Queen control in the EU craft cup light. A great balance of transfusion, and overlord drop micro allowed his Queens to somehow provide the anti-air cover he needed in a drop on his protoss opponents base. An impressive example of using units creatively as well as effectively.
Replay: http://www.bitsperbeat.com/sc2/?site=match-details&ID=55363
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oGsTOP
oGsTOP is undoubtedly a fantastic player, but going into his bo7 finals at the Kaspersky invitational there weren't many who thought we'd see anything other than another win for Protoss hero oGsMC and his devastating PvT. TOP clearly had other ideas though, as he proceeded to best everything that MC could throw at him and ran out a convincing 4-0 winner.
Whether it was staving off early aggression, being aggressive himself, exhibiting exceptional macro, or some supremely clutch emp micro, TOP had it all in those finals. A very impressive performance against the best PvT player around.
Watch the replays here: 1 2
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Rine vs AFFluKer :: Eu craft cup light
I can't find a replay for this, and I forgot to note anything after watching so this one is prone to being somewhat inaccurate...but having not noted anything else that amusing that's not already in use elsewhere in this recap I ran with it anyway =p
If there's one thing you can be fairly sure of in PvP, it's that there's going to be some very mature cheddar not too far away. In this match we got some classic double cheese action with Affluker looking to open with 2x proxygates while Rine proxied a forge and tried to cannon rush. Rine made the decision to double pylon wall off the bottom of Affluker's ramp and attack the mineral line with a cannon from the bottom, but upon seeing this Affluker responded by pulling his probes to try break the wall. Rine then cunningly cancelled one of the pylons building, and filled with joy Affluker rushed out to take care of the cannon before it could do any damage...only for Rine to rewall behind him leaving his probes trapped impotently outside his main. Sadly for Rine the proxygates had already begun spitting Zealots into his main and his base was being decimated so he had to GG out, but oh for a few moments the hilarity that multi-cheese in PvP can present was quite evident.
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ST_Bomber
At 3-1 up in the YGosu finals, ST_Bomber looked odds on to be the man to shatter MC's domination over the TvP match up. Sadly for him MC wasn't about to go down without a fight just yet, but in a tournament that saw Bomber come out on top of a group with Taeja, MC, and NesTea in it, defeat former GSL champ Fruitdealer in the 1/4s, crush Hannibal 3-0 in the semis, and then acquit himself so well in the finals, there can be no doubt that he is an incredible player.
Sadly we won't be seeing him in the GSL just yet, but I'd be very surprised if he doesn't make his way there if he wants it. I'm not sure what kind of coverage there will be of the big Gainward sc2 tournament ($9k prize money) but he has made it through the massive online qualification for the offline 32 man finals so there may be a chance to see him action vs great competition there.
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And that about wraps things up for what I had to ramble on, if I do future ones I'll try and more directly source relevant VoDs and so on (+ format more consistantly). My week ends on a Saturday night for 2 reasons, firstly it seemed fitting not to run into the new GSL season with it, and secondly because I've got a terribly dull family function to attend tomorrow =(
Anyway, if you made it this far, I hope it was worth it!
