EPTThe winners bracket finals came down to NoMicroWin, the last protoss player, and Nebbish, the last terran player. Up to this point, Nebbish hadn't dropped a single game to anyone. The first game of the series was on MLG Shattered Temple. Nebbish spawned at the 3 o'clock position and NoMicroWin at the 9 o'clock. NMW opened with a single gate followed by an expansion, but Nebbish opened 1/1/1 and got out hellions for scouting and harassment.
It became very obvious that Nebbish was going to go for a push around the 9:30 mark, and by the time he made it to NMW's natural, there was a small force of gateway units plus a pair of immortals. While those immortals did well working on the tanks, the stalkers and sentries were firing on marines and SCVs when they should've been taking out the pair of banshees. Those banshees were able to avenge their tanks' deaths by killing the immortals, and with a probe pull the attack was repelled momentarily.
NMW followed this up with a warp prism and was able to warp in stalkers and zealots in Nebbish's main, but unfortunately an SCV going to build a supply depot found this before NMW was ready to attack. Nebbish responded, and NMW committed even more units to the attack, but sustained very heavy losses. Nebbish countered with a push using ravens using point defense drones to counter NMW's stalkers, and was able to take the first win of the series.
MLG Tal'Darim Altar was chosen for game two, with NMW spawning at the 2 o'clock position and Nebbish at the 7 o'clock. Nebbish once again went for a hellion very early on, racking up a surprising 14 probe kills, and escaping before being killed. NMW's army was not near his natural, and was unable to repel the attack. While retreating said army, NMW unintentionally walked what little army he had directly though Nebbish's army and lost many of his units.
Nebbish pushed NMW's natural with siege tanks, and NMW got a warp prism into Nebbish's main like in the previous game, and warped in zealots to get some SCV kills. NMW kept trying to pick off units at his natural while keeping the pressure on Nebbish's main and natural with zealots. Eventually, he was down 25 SCVs and had to bring some back from his contain on NMW. Using a warp prism with an immortal in it along with a single collossus, NMW was able to break the contain by dropping the immortal in the back of the contain to cut through the tanks, and the collossus up front with the rest of his army took care of everything else.
NMW followed up with a counter attack at Nebbish's natural but was unable to do enough damage to force Nebbish to concede. NMW typed out and Nebbish secured his spot in the grand finals.
NoMicroWin didn't lose any of his matches after dropping to the losers bracket and, not surprisingly, continued on to the losers bracket finals. His opponent was sKsDhalism, a zerg who dropped to the losers bracket after his game in the second round of the winners bracket. He rampaged through the losers bracket, showing everyone that he isn't a walkover. (I also had the honor of being trounced by Dhalism.)
Game one Dhalism spawned at the 2 o'clock position and his opponent, NoMicroWin spawned at the 7 o'clock. NMW went for a forge fast expand while Dhalism built a pool before expanding. Early forge upgrades indicated that some attack upgrades were important for NMW's strategy, while Dhalism was working up a sizeable roach ling army.
With his forge working on +2 attack and blink being researched, NMW took a third, but Dhalism pressured and was able to force a cancel on the nexus. Then attacked into NMW's natural, but was held back by good force fields. Poor micro cost Dhalism roaches. Pushed back, he started making hydra to deal with the blink stalkers. NMW, despite not yet having any collossi was able to hold back a massive attack by Dhalism with some absolutely gorgeous force field placement, and was able to hold on long enough to counter attack and take the win.
MLG Tal'Darim Altar was chosen for game two, and NMW opened with the expected forge fast expand while Dhalism opted to go pool first and worked his way up to infestors. NMW was able to employ DTs to some effect, but unfortunately fungals were pivotal in holding said DTs off.
One pivotal engagement at NMW's third was won decisively because of great fungal usage. Entire groups of zealots became immobilized, destroying the effectiveness of NMW's army, securing Dhalism his first win of the series.
GSL Daybreak was chosen for game three with NMW spawning at the 1 o'clock position and Dhalism spawning at the 7 o'clock. Dhalism again opened pool before hatch, and NMW heartbreakingly blocked his attempted FFE with his initial pylon, setting him back significantly. He had to cut probes to get his expansion out as quickly as possible, but Dhalism was able to get lings by his single cannon and into NMW's main where they were able to kill about a half dozen probes.
The remainder of the game was difficult to watch, as the outcome was almost certainly decided, but it became clear that NMW was in an unwinable situation after Dhalism's muta harass.
Game four was on MLG Shattered Temple with NMW spawning at the 6 o'clock position and Dhalism spawning at the 12 o'clock position. NMW was able to delay Dhalism's expansion with a cannon, but Dhalism countered with a speedling run by. After taking some damage, Dhalism attack with roach ling and NMW was unable to hold it.
With that series done, sKsDhalism moved on to the grand finals to face Nebbish, the winner of the winners bracket. Nebbish started the grand finals series up one game in a best of five. Dhalism didn't need to win two series in a row to take first place because of this rule.
Game one was on GSL Antiga Shipyard. Dhalism spawned at the 5 o'clock position and went hatch first at his natural, while Nebbish spawned at the 11 o'clock position and went for an early second gas, and expanded quickly behind a factory.
Nebbish got hellions out, but Dhalism had built a nice wall at his natural which helped to deny any harassment. In a small engagement near Dhalism's third, Nebbish didn't micro his army at all and lost all of it to some nice baneling hits. Moments later, Dhalism was the one not microing, and ended up losing a lot of banelings to tanks on high ground that were on move command to the wrong location and simply sat there being shot.
Dhalism took both the north and south middle expansion, but Nebbish pushed them back, destroying the north base. He set up a nice tank line on the high ground in the middle of the map with the watch tower, but Dhalism was able to flank it and completely destroy it. He then began making scary amounts of ultralisks and lings. He then dropped a nydus in the back of Nebbish's main, which wasn't stopped. In a big blunder, though, Dhalism sent a second group of ultraling to Nebbish's fourth but it was just outside of the expansion, and didn't actually attack it.
Nebbish moved his army toward his opponent's main, and set up a contain, presumably to wait for reinforcements before pushing for the counter. Dhalism took the army that should've been killing the terran's fourth and a round of reinforcements from his natural and then pincered the contain and put himself well in the lead. Dhalism went on to tie the series 1-1.
Game two was on GSL Daybreak. Dhalism spawned at the 7 o'clock position and his opponent at the 2 o'clock. Dhalism opened speedling into an expansion, and Nebbish opened with a single rax and then expanded. In a relatively short, uneventful game, it turned into infestor ling against bio, and Nebbish took the win, bringing the series up to 2-1 in favor of Nebbish.
Moving on to game three is important for Nebbish as he only needs one more win to take first place in the tournament. Dhalism would have needed to win two more.
For game three, Ohana LE was chosen for the first time on the stream the entire day. Nebbish spawned at the 5 o'clock and Dhalism at the 11 o'clock. Not surprisingly, Nebbish opened hellion again and Dhalism opened speedling. The early game was somewhat uneventful, but as Nebbish went to take his third he chose to take the base directly north of his main rather than what would be the logical, natural third to the west of his main. Dhalism repeatedly denied Nebbish's choice of a third location by never allowing it to build into a planetary fortress. When Nebbish would attempt to defend it, Dhalism would use banelings and lings (sometimes hiding said banelings in the tall grass) to fight it off and then deny the third again and force the CC to lift.
Eventually Nebbish finally gave up and took his actual third, although that was also denied by Dhalism at least once. A while later both the third and fourth were up for Nebbish, and the places seemed to alternate attacking and defending, almost as if it were a boxing match trading jabs.
Nebbish made a crucial decision to push Dhalism's fourth, hiding tanks on high ground and baiting the zerg army into firing range. He eventually forced an engagemeny after taking out Dhalism's fourth, and those tanks were pivotal in reducing the zerg army enough to ensure victory. Dhalism had no other choice but to type out.
Nebbish was victorious having only dropped two games all day. He is now qualified for the grand finals which are tentatively scheduled for the middle of May and he gets the first place prize of $140.
Thus concludes the third qualifier tournament in season three, and the fourth qualifier tournament should be in about a month.
Before this report is concluded, there are a lot of thanks to go out:
First, to the sponsors for helping the league out along the way: Kingston HyperX, Cooler Master, Left-Tees, NZXT, and Megahertz Computers.
Second, to the players, as without people playing in a tournament, the tournament itself doesn't exist.
Third, to the production team for making the production very high quality. I want to single out M155G33k for making sure that games start on time and bugging people to set their status to "Busy."
Finally, a special thank you goes to Drogith. Without all of your time, effort, and money, this league wouldn't exist at all.
