EPTAt 11 AM on Sunday, April 17, 2011, many of the best StarCraft 2 players from all over the northeastern United States (and one from New York) gathered to do battle at the Grand Finals for Season One of the New England StarCraft 2 League. When I arrived four hours later, most of these games were over, and many people had left, or were leaving (sorry for missing your games, HP).
For obvious reasons, I can't report on the games I wasn't there to witness. Generally, some people won some games, some people lost some games, some people complained about force fields, and everyone made fun of LastShadow behind his back.
There are some games and series I want to cover, however. In the very first round, ducky took a game off of Ryan. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, ducky beat a Protoss player. A good one. Ducky then went on to lose 1-2 to HP, citing lag as a reason. (It's not Counter Strike.) Speaking of HP, he lost to DamnCats. No disrespect to either player, as this wasn't really an upset, but it was unexpected. HP, the only player not actually from the northeast won many of the tournaments held in the northeast, and I believe qualified in the first qualifier of the season way back in January.
As expected, both LastShadow and Ryan met once in the winner's bracket with LastShadow taking the series in a 2-0 victory, dropping Ryan to the loser's bracket. tGRanger then faced Ryan for the third place position, losing to Ryan 2-3. Ryan and LastShadow then fought a second time to decide who is in fact the best player in the northeast
Grand Finals VODs:
+ Show Spoiler [Game 1] +
+ Show Spoiler [Game 2] +
+ Show Spoiler [Game 3] +
+ Show Spoiler [Game 4] +
+ Show Spoiler [Game 5] +
+ Show Spoiler [Grand Finals Results] +
Ryan, knowing that LastShadow plays a heavy macro/harassment oriented playstyle, attempted to be aggressive early on, but ultimately ended up losing 1-3.
The full brackets are here.
The top three:
1. GGlastshadow (in the middle)
2. coLRyan (on the right)
3. tGRanger (on the left)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/iXL5H.jpg)
Credit for this photo and [url blocked] goes to neSix.
A nice shot of LastShadow's high APM:
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/ZYRmB.jpg)
Special thanks to:
Galaxy Gaming in Dover, NH for hosting many of the events this season.
Force (website; Facebook; Twitter; Tumblr; YouTube) for casting. (I like your hat.)
AskJoshy (Twitter; YouTube) for being the special guest caster for the finals.
Mana Potions and Megahertz Computers, the only sponsors for the first season.
Last, but certainly not least, an extra special thank you to Drogith (website; Twitter; YouTube; Ustream) for organizing the league itself. Without your efforts this event never would've happened.
I'm looking forward to season two, especially with the fancy new sponsors.
