[CSL+] The Final Prelude

With UCSD’s ace Zerg player unexpectedly dropping the first set, Xeris_Xeris should have been, by all rights, wracked by nerves and the all-too-heavy weight of his team’s expectations. But Xeris_Xeris was a man with a name to live up to – a double burden of team and personal pride. More importantly, Xeris_Xeris was a man with a plan.



UC Irvine’s Novella unwittingly played exactly into Xeris’s hand, sending the majority of his troops to threaten the Protoss ridge expansion. Like every other Terran that Xeris met and proceeded to thrash on ICCUP, Novella left his natural expansion wide open to the Protoss army.

 

At this point, Novella is 2 bases to 6, and had no choice but to GG. UCSD ties up the match, 1-1.

Fira[UCI], rumored to be the favorite of the match, opens with 2 gate range expand. Xeris_Cheese, on the other hand, opens with 2 gate no-dragoon-range-for-the-duration-of-the-game, followed by a robotics and a third gateway.



Cheese (yellow Protoss) pushes FirA’s (red Protoss) natural in the finite timing window that he has, pounding at the front door with a reaver and a group of dragoons. Unfortunately, Cheese loses his shuttle and the micro war to FirA’s superior control (and range).



Despite Cheese’s valiant reaver drops, FirA’s natural expansion is fully functional for a good two minutes before Cheese even thinks about expanding. FirA, with a solid economic lead and an advantageous unit composition, easily brings the score to 2-1, UCI.

UCSD is down a set once again at 1-2, and Team Xeris anxiously watches from the sidelines as their favorite cheesy player faces Polar[UCI] on Ride of Valkyries. Polar opens with a 2 fact speed vulture into mech build, but unfortunately for the Anteaters (zot zot zot!), randomKr spots the build early on.



RandomKr, as a serious connoisseur of cheese, has this to say in response:







Meanwhile, Polar lays down mines and transitions into goliath-tank, in anticipation of randomKr’s mutalisks. While randomKr delays the command center and natural expo several times with mutalisks, his hydralisks choose instead to bumble around on the map.



Polar pushes out after securing his natural expansion and threatens the Zerg natural expansion, but in the meantime, randomKr airdrops a few early Christmas presents into the Terran main.




At first, things look grim for both players, but randomKr pulls off a well-positioned flank on the encroaching metal army. But UCSD manages to execute another brilliant trade off: one Terran main in exchange for a couple of hydralisks.



UCSD ties the match up again, bringing the score to 2-2.

Foreword: Ace matches are historically the arena for epic battles, for the best players to represent their team, and show off their skill. This Ace match, in particular, exceeded all expectations in terms of its quality and epic-ness. Interestingly enough, it was a rematch from Set 1: Darrenc[uci] vs. Xeris_Jaeyun. Darren had shown off his incredible skill with an amazingly successful sair reaver on Outsider, while Jaeyun had struggled to stay in the game. Overall, it was a decent game, although Darren had dominated throughout most of it. This Ace match would decide which of the two teams would advance to represent the Western Conference in the CSL finals.

So both players came out and played their best.



Darren opens 1 gate tech into stargate, getting his core before his first zealot. He promptly goes fast scout. He promptly goes fast scout. Scout:



Return of the BM. He couldn’t fast tech to carriers so he got a scout. Anyway, the scout proceeds to wreak havoc on Jaeyun’s economy, killing a whopping 2 drones and 1 overlord. Definitely worth the 275/125.



Jaeyun plays it cool and gets mutas to return the favor, although in a much larger way:

Awesome probe saturation after the mutalisk attack. From there, or actually, from the moment Darren got a scout and didn’t do damage, it was only a matter of time before Darren would gg. But first, he went all-in with his six or so dragoons.



And GG. What a great ending to the series.

The first set, a PvP on Outsider, featured Princeton's Mike Chen versus Waterloo's Master, both of whom had taken games against players with much higher reputations. Both players opened with nearly identical builds, going 1 gate zealot before range. The mirror play deviated soon afterwards, with Mike Chen opting for an earlier expansion as Master placed his robotics facility and observatory.



After a few probing incursions into Master's choke, Mike Chen pushes in with his slightly larger dragoon force and somehow emerges victorious, slaughtering probes left and right before forcing his way up Master's ramp. Master GG's soon after.

The end result was a bit surprising - the game looked to be about dead even, with the slightly smaller dragoon force of Master's supposedly mitigated by his short reinforcement route. Unbeknownst to most of the crowd, however...




Master had only put two probes on gas for much of the game, leaving him choked for gas to make dragoons AND observers. Talk about a critical mistake.

In this game, Peter 'Daisy' Liu decided to forgo the standard FE opening and instead opt for a 1-base reaver build, while his opponent responded with 3-hatch mutalisk. Tensions were high as Liu dropped his reaver behind his opponent's mineral lines. Would he be able to succeed where Thomas did not?




Peter Liu's drop failed to do significant damage, and was soon forced on the defensive, losing a number of dragoons and probes to a muta/ling combo. In a move of desperation, he threw all of his units at his opponent's natural, but John Lee cleared up his forces easily by drawing back his mutalisks. GG coming from Princeton.

Game 4 was a critical match for both sides, with victory so close for Waterloo, while Princeton saw their last chance at salvation. Mark 'DarthThienAn' Ha opened with a standard forge fast-expand, while his opponent Adam 'Gerbil' Venis went for a 3-hatch mutalisk build, with his 3rd hatch in his main. With excellent mutalisk/scourge control (and some mismacro on his opponent's part), Venis was able to keep his opponent contained long enough to take a 3rd base and switch to hydras. Forced to make Archons against so many mutalisks, Ha soon found himself a few storms short of victory...