EPTMy team, Classic eSports, just finished up playing in the 3rd season of the Indie Starcraft Team League (ISTL). I did a write-up for it on our website, but since the formatting is a little wonky on there right now, you can read it here. I'd love any feedback about this, I tried to be unbiased and for it to be an interesting read.
Classic eSports in ISTL Season 3
Classic eSports Starcraft II A-team just finished up a great run in the 3rd Season of the Indie Starcraft Team League. Despite being the underdogs in a majority of our matches, our players came through under pressure and we were able to pull off a number of big upsets. Here's the the full recap.
Regular Season:
The first match of the season was against community-based team RIPZeez. With a strong roster consisting of several high-level Terrans and Grandmaster Protoss Zugzwang, they were definitely a serious threat on the first day. They jumped out to an early two game lead thanks to the powerful mech play of JJH, but CCalms' took him out after a long but dominant macro game. Zeez sent out another Terran player on Antiga Shipyard, who then fell to a blink observer all-in by CCalms. With the series standing at 3-2 in our favor, Zeez had to send out their ace player Zugzwang to keep their hopes alive. Zugzwang delivered a win for his team on Entombed Valley, killing CCalms' army and natural expansion after going for a 2-gate blink expand of his own. Tied at 3-3 in this best of 7 format, Classic sent out RemarK on Shakuras for the ace match. Both players opened with blink observer builds into relatively quick expansions, but RemarK pulled ahead with his mechanics and after ZugzWang's 2-base Colossus push failed to kill RemarK's 3rd, he GG'd out and Classic was victorious!
The next match of the season was against Team OpTiK. OpTiK's Coyote took the first game in a ZvT against Juro, but our friend Swarmwas able to take him out in a standard macro ZvZ and tie things up at 1-1. OpTiK sent out another Zerg, Scary, but once again Swarm's ZvZ was too strong and Classic was now up 2-1. Feeling the pressure, OpTiK sent out their ace player HyperDesi, a WCS North America qualifier who placed top 16 in the Canadian event. Once again, Swarm dominated the match from start to end and defeated him thanks to smart usage of mutalisks to secure a mid-game advantage. OpTiK's best player defeated, they sent out a masters Terran who attempted to bunker rush Swarm on Shakuras, which failed. Classic eSports wins 4-1, and Swarm picked up the second all-kill of the ISTL season!
Our 3rd match of the season was against European team prOperty, who have a roster consisting of many rising stars on the European ladder. prOpBuffy took a quick win against Juro in a fairly one-sided ZvT for game 1. The next game was a little bittersweet for us - Mahv was playing an excellent ZvZ, but right after defending a big attack, Battle.net decided to drop Buffy from the game. Since the game wasn't technically over, the admins had to make a difficult decision to regame. In the regame, Buffy went for a roach-ling bust that did crippling damage, and prOperty went up 2-0. ClassicSwarm took out Buffy in a prolonged Mutalisk vs Mutalisk ZvZ, but failed a baneling bust against prOperty Terran Bobson in the next game, putting prOp up 3-1 and one game away from victory. CCalms came out as the ace player, but lost a hard-fought macro PvT on Whirlwind that ended with Bobson pulling all his workers and floating his buildings to make a death push that CCalms couldn't defend. prOperty wins the series 4-1.
Our last match of the regular season was against the reigning champions, the European powerhouse Western Wolves. Ziktomini opened for them, facing off against Mahv. Some well-timed roach pressure caught Mahv offguard, and just like that Western Wolves was up 1-0. We sent out Swarm next, who fought hard but was also taken out by Ziktomini. Down 2-0, we put RemarK out on Daybreak. He used one of his signature PvZ builds, taking a very fast 3rd base, to equalize the economy of Ziktomini. Teching to Mothership behind a string of warp prism harass, including heavy usage of hallucinated warp prisms to mislead Ziktomini, RemarK built up a powerful deathball of Stalkers and Archons faster than Ziktomini could handle, taking him out and giving Classic some breathing room in this series. The next player for Western Wolves was the young Zerg miniraser, playing on Metropolis. Not wanting to enter another late game PvZ scenario, RemarK opted to use another unique PvZ build, a 10-gate Zealot all-in, to kill miniraser. In an unexpected turn of events, Western Wolves was unable to produce a 3rd player, giving Classic a victory and securing our spot in the playoffs as a top 4 seed.
Playoffs:
In the round of 8, we were matched against the Korean / Italian team inferno dtG. Their Protoss player Sickness took out our Zerg Moosegills after defending baneling bomb aggression with an Archon and Immortal counter-attack. Given the number of Protosses on their lineup, we decided to send Mahv out to give them a taste of his Infestor / Broodlord lategame. Despite losing a hatchery to ninja cannons, he played a brilliant ZvP and managed to use a double evo chamber mid-game to enter the late game with a commanding upgrade advantage, killing his opponent with his final push. Next for dtG was GGandol, who was a Code A qualifier and played in the GSL. Nonetheless, Mahv's macro and army control proved too much for GGandol to handle, and Mahv won another game. Sending out another Protoss, Scar, Mahv showed that his ZvP was not a fluke and won a straightforward macro ZvP. The ace player for dtG was yet another Protoss (that's right, four in a row) - Madcow. Playing on Entombed Valley, Mahv was a little uncomfortable but he was able to survive numerous pressures to finally secure a win in a back and forth late game scenario. Classic advances to the round of 4, and Mahv scores our second all-kill of the tournament!
As fate would have it, we were given a chance to rematch against prOperty in the Semi-Finals. Both CCalms and Mahv were eager for revenge and the chance to play better games this time around, so we let Mahv play first and planned on using CCalms after him. Mahv took the first game vs Hobbe in a standard ZvZ - both players had mirror openings but Mahv simply pulled ahead due to better mechanics and understanding of the matchup. Playing next for prOp was Bobson, on Shakuras Plateua - a notoriously unpleasant map for Zergs in ZvT. Luckily, the game never even entered the mid-game; an error in Bobson's wall while going CC-first into fast 3rd let Mahv sneak his first Zerglings into the base, getting a perfect scout and forcing some lost mining time. The follow-up roach pressure by Mahv simply wiped out Bobson, giving us a 2-0 lead.
Down 2 games, prOp decided to show off their new pickup, Swedish Grandmaster Protoss Runa. Unfortunately for Mahv, Runa played a beautiful macro PvZ that culminated with him killing Mahv with a combination of Gateway units and Archons while securing a 4th base and teching to Mothership. As planned, we sent out CCalms next - although we weren't familiar with Runa, CCalms had experience playing him on ladder and was confident in his ability to exploit Runa's build. Playing on Ohana, everything went according to plan and CCalms' deceptive two gas 4-Gate bypassed Runa's 3 Stalker rush for a quick win. Down to their last player, prOp sent out Snuffe on Entombed Valley. After failing a 6-gate Zealot all-in against Snuffe's fast 3rd base, things looked bleak for CCalms. Taking a 3rd base and attempting to transition, Snuffe seemed to be getting farther and farther ahead. CCalms geared up for a big 3-base all-in with Colossus, immortals, blink Stalkers, and Sentries. Despite having brood lords, infestors, and a wall of spine crawlers, CCalms was able to break through and equalize the supply with great micro. Against all odds, CCalms was pushing Snuffe back. Snuffe's macro slipped and he was unable to produce enough units despite having a large bank, and CCalms crushed each progressively smaller wave of units that Snuffe could send out. Snuffe's reinforcements were too little, too late though, and Classic 4-1 victory and secured a spot in the grand finals!
Grand Finals:
After Western Wolves faced MYi and defeated them in the other round of 4 match, we knew we would have our work cut out for us in the finals. Unlike last time, we knew we wouldn't have the luxury of only having to defeat two players to get a series win. Western Wolves opted to send out Miniraser first, and we sent out Mahv. In a Cloud Kingdom ZvZ, Mahv had a slight advantage due to his hatch first opening but Miniraser exploited a weakness in Mahv's larva production to wipe out his economy with a zergling and baneling bust. Wanting to quickly take out Miniraser, our next player was ZvZ expert Swarm. Playing on Daybreak, both players droned while making a few defensive banelings to be safe and went into Lair and then Spire tech without any engages. The first bout occured as each player was trying to take their 3rd base - a small mistake in Swarm's Zergling and Baneling control gave Miniraser a small supply advantage and opportunity to deny Swarm's 3rd base. From there, Miniraser leveraged his faster 3rd base into a Mutalisk advantage and was able to overpower Swarm's air army for a second win.
Down two games without a win, we sent out our ace Terran player Drunkenboi on Shakuras Plateau. His hellion play with a marine drop looked like it was going to do damage, but Miniraser had a clutch defense with Queens and drones giving him a big advantage that he used to get to the late game. After cleaning up Drunkenboi's mech army with his Brood lords, DB had to tap out, leaving Miniraser poised to all-kill and Western Wolves up 3-0.
For our final player, we were torn between sending out RemarK, Moosegills, and CCalms. RemarK had a lot of practiced PvZ builds to use against Western Wolves, but was having internet issues that made him unreliable. Moosegills was playing very well, but wasn't feeling confident about having to win 3 ZvZ's in a row in order for us to win. CCalms, however, was both eager to play and had a variety of PvZ and PvP builds that he could use - our decision was made, and we sent out CCalms against Miniraser on Ohana.
In an attempt at showmanship, Miniraser sent one of his early drones to CCalm's base and left it there as a sacrifice. However, this backfired severely for him and after some warp prism with immortal harass sniped his main base, he was crippled and CCalms maxed and rolled over him on 4 mining bases before Miniraser could ever get a 4th base of his own mining.
Western Wolves, wanting to end the series quickly, sent out their ace player StarNaN, who was hot off of a 3rd place finish at DreamHack Open Bucharest on. Playing on Entombed Valley, CCalms opted for a Stargate build whereas StarNaN went for a fast expand with a Robotics Facility. Drawing StarNaN's forces into his main base using Phoenixes, CCalms was able to forcefield him into his main base and destroy StarNaN's Nexus. From there, CCalms expanded himself while setting up a contain on StarNaN. StarNaN went for a bold Warp Prism, which he used to sneak some units out of his main base and drive CCalms out. From there, CCalms had a large economy lead so he decided to go for a 2-base blink Stalker timing attack. Swooping in with his Phoenix and lifting all of StarNaN's Sentries before they could cast any forcefields, CCalms wiped out StarNaN's army and had brought the score to 2-3 in favor of Western Wolves. Would he able to pull off the reverse all-kill?
Western Wolves next player was Ziktomini, WCS UK's Champion, and an all-around fantastic Zerg player. Playing on Whirlwind, CCalms decided to play a little bit unorthodox, and went for a gasless Gateway Nexus expand build. From there, he went into a 4-gate pressure that killed Ziktomini's 3rd base, putting him at a fairly big advantage. From there, CCalms started gearing up for a 7-gate blink Stalker push to finish the kill. However, Ziktomini, in a stroke of genius, expanded to a different 3rd base instead of the one that CCalms had already taken out. Thrown off by this, CCalms pushed Ziktomini's natural instead of his 3rd base, and was sandwiched by roaches and zerglings. Some forcefields prolonged the ineveitable, but Ziktomini was able to clean up all of CCalm's force, prompting a "ggwp" and Western Wolves takes the finals!
Closing Thoughts:
Although we lost in the finals, we had a fantastic showing overall, and many of our players rose up to the occaison and delivered great performances under pressure. Congratulations to Western Wolves for playing some amazing games in the finals, and winning 1st place and the prize of $300. With our 2nd place finish, we netted ourselves $150. Be sure to look for us in the next season of ISTL, and cheer on our players who get nominated for the ISTL MVP All-Stars tournament as well! Thanks for reading!
