EPTWE.IGE.Sweet vs NiP)GoStop @ WEG III
Context : This match is the final of the third edition of the World Esports Games, a major tournament with a prize of 20 000 USD for the winner.
This final featured 2 Undead players who have had very different paths to get there.
![[image loading]](http://www.gosugamers.net/warcraft/images/people/gostop_new.jpg)
GoStop : He is one of the korean undead players on the rise. He used to be in the shadows of FoV, Lucifer and Sweet, but he has been rising and is starting to overcome them as the leader of the undead korean squad. He finished second, behind Moon at the WEG II, but this time he has beaten Moon in a big upset. Finally, he has overcome Elakeduck's strongest match-up (Orc vs Undead) in the semi-finals.
![[image loading]](http://img.thzhost.com/i/uj/200804261010117721.jpg)
Sweet : At the beginning of The Frozen Throne, he used to be the korean star, getting high rankings in many tournaments, without winning one though, but at the time of these WEG 3, it is not the case anymore. At the first edition of the WEG, he lost in the group stages, and has been in a slump ever since. However, his path to this final has shown that he is looking for redemption, not losing a single serie, with a bracket arguably easier than the one of GoStop though. However, he had to face Lucifer in the semi-finals which he won in a very close Undead mirror, which shows his skill in this matchup that he will have to apply again during this final.
The Match : The match is a Best Of 5, first player with 3 maps wins, and it seems like we are going to look at a very one-sided boring mirror match as GoStop wins the first 2 maps. The third map is started, and with his 2:0 lead, GoStop now only needs one map to be the champion and claim the title that Moon had taken over him in the last edition.
The third map is Maelstrom and you can look at the 4 part VOD of this match in the spoilers below. Under the spoilers, I propose to you a commentary of the game aimed at people who have never followed the professional Warcraft 3 scene, with some explanations of the different decisions, and micro which are both absolutely brilliant in this match.
+ Show Spoiler [Part 1] +
+ Show Spoiler [Part 2] +
+ Show Spoiler [Part 3] +
+ Show Spoiler [Part 4] +
Part 1 : The game itself starts at 04:00, Sweet is in violet, at 7 o'clock, and GoStop in light green at 11 o'clock, and both players go for the same build, doing a cemetary first in order to go for very fast fiends (a spider-like ranged creature). They also both choose the same starting hero : the Death Knight (who has a spell to heal one of his units). In Warcraft 3 maps there are neutral monsters called creeps, players kill them to gain XP on their hero, and this is what most of the early game is about. At 8:55, GoStop starts pushing Sweet's base and forces him to use his Town Portal scroll to go back to his base and defend (which costs 350 gold), but the push is easily defended, and the creeping can continue while both players tech.
Part 2 : This part starts with GoStop achieving a creepjack (to attack a player while he is fighting neutral monsters), but Sweet has more fiends as he has teched later and he is able to handle the situation without losing units. Both players are having a lich as their second hero, but GoStop is creating Meat Wagons from his slaughterhouse, which are catapults with a very long range, but very unusual in this matchup. At 1:00 both players are pushing each other, but Sweet has a larger army, and GoStop decides to retreat to defend while he is starting to lose buildings. Here GoStop shows a great crisis management as he kills 2 fiends at 1:50, one of them being burrowed (just like in SC2) and he revealed it right away using a scroll he had bought in advance. Sweet is not giving up though as his army is getting reinforced by statues (which restore the HPs or the Mana of the army).
With the army difference getting bigger, Sweet is getting the upper hand in this fight, but GoStop sends a zeppelin at 3:15 with his 2 meatwagons inside and a gargoyle in the direction of Sweet's base. At 3:55 they are unloaded behind Sweet's goldmine, and start firing at the trees to create a hole where they would be closer to the goldmine. And GoStop executes his tricky plan, as he starts firing at Sweet's gold mine, and it goes down at 4:40. Undead players do not get any income when they don't have a building on top of the gold mine ("haunted goldmine"), and Sweet has to build gargoyles to handle those hidden catapults before he can do anything. He starts hesitating, falls back and attacks again, and finally falls back and starts creeping again at 6:16 as he can't break GoStop's defense. He sets up 3 gargoyles to intercept any zeppelin from GoStop which would go for the same trick again, but he moves them at 6:40 right as the zeppelin was flying to his base, and misses it! And this time, GoStop has added 3 fiends to protect the meat wagons from the gargoyles, and they are able to break the gold mine once again at 7:50. GoStop's meat wagons change their spot, and keep on wreaking havoc on Sweet's base while he is building an army in his main.
Part 3 : GoStop is still creeping and adding a 3rd hero to his army : the Scarab Lord. When their armies meet at 3:00 GoStop has an army twice as big as Sweet's, better equipped (with an orb on the lich, a very powerful item) and Sweet is forced to escape while losing 2 fiends, and a third one burrowing just in time. GoStop uses 2 flairs to scout Sweet's forces, and sees that it is time to turn this advantage into a win and end this final here, and at 4:10 he attacks. In the meantime, Sweet has sent 2 meatwagons behind GoStop's base, and they start shooting at his goldmine, repeating the exact same trick GoStop had used earlier. But GoStop doen't look back, he destroys the production buildings of Sweet, and picks his units one by one. And as he destroys all the defenses of Sweet, his base is getting destroyed by the 2 meat wagons, and his main goes down at 8:10. Just like in SC2, if you don't have any buildings you are eliminated, and those 2 catapults are becoming too much of a threat so GoStop is forced to go back and deal with them. At the same time, Sweet decides to buy another zeppelin at 9:00, but GoStop had left a ghoul at the shop, and buys it just before, forcing Sweet to wait for the cooldown.
Part 4 : Sweet uses this zeppelin to drop his (small) army in GoStop's base, but just before at 0:15, GoStop teleports his lich to his base. This very unfortunate timing allows Sweet to kill GoStop's lich at a critical moment where he is not able to build any new unit (having no more economy). GoStop builds a new mine at 0:50 to be safe from elimination, and both players meet in the middle of the map and start an intense micro war as no one can afford to lose any unit, and Sweet is able to pick one statue. Sweet finds the goldmine and kills the last workers from GoStop, but at the same time his own base is under attack, and his last worker tries to flee, and is saved at very low hp by a dramatic heal from the death knight. Some more micro battles occur, involving burrows and heals, and Sweet shows some superior control as he kills both statues from GoStop. Those intense battles keep going on, in which Sweet seems to be always one step ahead of GoStop, predicting every one of his moves, when he finally kills the last spider of GoStop (using an item to reveal it as it was burrowed) just before the heal was going to hit it, GoStop ggs and Sweet wins the game.
Conclusion : After this game, the momentum of the series switched sides entirely. The confidence of Sweet went through the roof while GoStop was tilting, and Sweet worked his way in the last 2 maps to a 3:2 win, and his first major title. After that, he decided to postpone his army obligations in order to continue his career as a pro gamer, and went on to win the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Seoul a few months later, beating Grubby in the finals.
Link with SC2 : As a sidenote, it is interesting to look at the list of players who were participating in the World Esports Games III Warcraft 3 tournament in 2005 and are playing SC2 competitively nowadays :
- SaSe
- xiaOt
- Moon
- Wolf
I hope you enjoyed it !
