The battle for top spot between the undefeated monster team of sas and the formidable polish team, with only a single loss, in Netwars was hoped to be an epic and it did not disappoint. Game one opens with Netwars' Bonyth, the Terran slayer, against sas' Bizzy who had returned to the line up. The game opened on Fighting Spirit with a 1 gate reaver from Bonyth vs Bizzy's fact expand build. With some nice dragoon micro, Bonyth was able to defuse all the mines except one which proved to be Bizzy's savior as the reaver, which could've ended the game right there, landed upon it and exploded. The game takes off into macro mode with Bizzy out expanding Bonyth 3 to 2 bases, and even scanning Bonyth's 2base 2stargate build. With a little bit of strange decision making (and some intense lack of SCV production) Bizzy appeared to miss time his attack and Bonyth seizes the game rather easily despite the Terran's economic advantage.

Game 2 was a match on Heartbreak Ridge between NW's Pike and sas' Michael. Pike opens 12hatch and Michael with a 12pool. Michael, feeling behind, opts to produce drones and a sunken at his expansion to try to catch up, but unfortunately he is overwhelmed in one attack to Pike's massive ling advantage, Netwars takes the score up 2-0.

Game three was a confrontation between sas.Skzlime and Netwars' Trutacz on Tau Cross. Trutaz opted for a strange build in where he opened lurker into slow drop, and then revealed it by dropping on the natural expansion ledge of Skzlime in attempt to shut down the gas. An unfortunately planned strategy as it didn't do much other than illuminate that Trutacz had drop, which he didn't utilize for the remainder of the game. Skzlime began to control the map and expanded when he saw fit, eventually taking the game relatively comfortably, despite Trutacz's following effort after his opening.

Game 4 was fast and furious, with dark templars replacing Vin Diesel, as Locdog opened dark templars vs Mazur's 2 gate ob-less expand on Eye of the Storm and everyone knows how this tale ended.

Netwars then sent Southpark to PvP against Dewalt of sas. The game was on Polaris Rhapsody and once again sas' Protoss went for dark templar against an ob-less build for Southpark. See previous reference, if you are fighting dark templars and don't build observers, generally the game will end in defeat. The next match should've proved to be the end to the clan war as Netwars' sixth player was AMLAcZ against the monster himself Sziky, in a ZvP no less. AMLAcZ opens 3 gate dt which did absolutely nothing. Sziky then decided to take his third base while AMLAcZ barely secured his natural and tried to rergain some composue. Sziky followed up with some mutalisks which did quite a good deal of damage, and even passed the Protoss by a decent supply margin for the match-up. Then, for whatever reason, Sziky followed up with a series of errors which resulted in a window of opportunity which AMLAcZ seized and took the game right out of Sziky's hands. In an epic upset, Netwars managed to tie the series and send it to an ace match which would be played on Neo Jade.

The ace match, a proper way to play out the clash of first and second places, sending players Trutacz and Sziky to the stand was no better way to finish this story. Trutacz opens with a significant advantage in where he had the build order win, 12hatch vs 12pool, and scouted Sziky first while Sziky didn't. Sziky redeems himself as he played flawlessly and outmicroed Trutacz through-out the intense match and ends up able to overcome the disadvantage and secure sas' top spot. sas has been sent to the ace match three times, and Sziky has proved to be the ace king as he took all three games.






FR vs SJ had a recipe for an excellent clan war, both not quite hitting their potential yet and had a lot to prove. The clan war squares off with SJ's Terror against FR.Werdi @ Fighting Spirit. Werdi opens with a 2 gate goon build, whereas Terror opted for an FD. The game is fully standard and went into macro mode where Werdi just couldn't keep up. Terror managed to keep the map relatively controlled and finished it with a monster push from three bases, GG 1-0 for SJ.

Game 2 was Dima from FR and SJ.Whistler @ Heartbreak Ridge. Both players opened in strange fashion. Dima, with the 8rax built at the natural as to follow up with an expansion, and Whistler, with the 1 hatch lair. Whistler followed this up with 2 hatch mutas and Dima was not really prepared. The game turned into a relative normal macro game after these openings but Whistler managed to keep Dima in check as he looked to be in control the entire game afterwards, SJ took up the score 2-0.

Game 3 started on Tau Cross between the Protoss player SJ.m0b and Terran FR)Mgndan. M0b started of with a 10-15 gate build and Mgndan went for a 2 factory build. With some ill-advised over aggression from m0b, trying to finish the game, he pushed into Mgndan's main and ended up losing all his initial dragoon force. This gave Mgndan an opportunity to push, which he did. M0b tried to expand behind this, but Mgndan's super aggressive push with turrets-galore managed to overwhelm m0b and give FR their first victory.

SJ then sent Napoleon to fight on Eye of the Storm against FR)Moro in what I expected to be a one sided affair. Moro proved me wrong as he was able to keep the game competitive for the most part, even managing to get four bases for a moment with some guardians. Unfortunately, Napoleon was too much in the end and finished off Moro.

The fifth game was on Polaris Rhapsody between FR)idegel and SJ.Terranboy. Idegel went for a gas steal and some zealot pressure which didn't deal much damage. The game followed up into a macro mold for both of these guys until Terranboy decided to bust out the bio tank push after idegel's third was established. While idegel managed to hold on, Terranboy completely owned the map control and set up some decent economy of his own, and later switched back into full mech. After the transition into late game, Terranboy's composition was just too strong for idegel to deal with, GG 4-1 for SJ!






The first game in the clan war between Fox and LRM took place on Fighting Spirit with the Zerg player for Fox, Shrinker, matched up against the Moustache Zerg, Bakuryu. Bakuryu carried this game with strong macro play and great positioning in engagements after an initial hydralisk attack, and he brought LRM to a quick 1–0 lead.

In the second game, we had the Protoss player dOTY for LRM matched up against Fox’s Zerg player, ihufa, on Heartbreak Ridge. The Zerg player went for a two-base hydra bust that was fully scouted by dOTY, who prepared accordingly with a multitude of defensive cannons at his natural. After he held off the inevitable Zerg attack, dOTY moved out with speedzeals and storm in order to win the game.

Down 2–0 in the series, Fox sent out their Protoss player, WandS, out against LRM’s Zerg player, iNF3cted. WandS brought Fox back into the series with disruptive corsair play against iNF3cted, crippling his economy and losing him the game.

The fourth game took place on Eye of the Storm, and it featured the Zerg player TechnicS for LRM matched up against mvp, who played Protoss in this game for Fox. TechnicS’ aggressive play, with quick zerglings and a switch to mutalisks, was too much for mvp to handle. mvp’s dragoons were never fully able to stave off the mutalisk threat, and they eliminated any chance for a Protoss counter attack to be successful. By the time the guardians were out on the map, the game was won, and LRM once again had a two-game lead over their opponent.

One game away from elimination, Fox sent out the Protoss player fold against LRM’s Game on Polaris Rhapsody. Game went for an aggressive two-factory style which favored higher tank numbers in the early stages before building up a vulture force. The initial Terran attack succeeded in breaking the Protoss defense and set up in a position of containment outside of the natural. However, a number of critical mine drags and other good defensive plays on the part of fold stopped the Terran attack, which had become an all-in by that stage of the game. fold then relied on recall to break the Terran’s position and win the game. Fox was now at 2–3 in the series.

In the final match of this series, the Protoss player Mewka was sent out against LRM’s Kolll, playing Zerg on the map Outsider. Against the twelve-hatchery play of Kolll, Mewka opted for a one-base dark templar strategy that simply did not anticipate the heavy reliance on mutalisks on the part of the Zerg player. With complete scouting information, Kolll was able to shut down the dark templar and his mutalisks won the game because where was no available answer to them in the end. LRM took the series with the final score of 4–2 in their favor.






Unfortunately, VOD for this clan war has been lost so you're gonna have to wait for replays to be released.

Fox continues their downward spiral towards last place this week facing none other than the top dog of Round 2, sas. With a mere six points from the past six weeks of play and only two more for Fox to go, the highest rank they could theoretically achieve is only sixth, well out of reach for playoffs. While last week may have been a bit early to say sas has clinched playoffs, they may be well on their way towards it after this week. Other teams vying for playoff contention need to pray Fox can take a game or two off sas to avoid them running away with the lead.

Prediction: sas wins 4-1



With a potential 18 additional points to be claimed in their next three weeks of play, FR and PaiN can theoretically attain second place, provided the top four teams not called sas (because they can’t even pass them at this point) win next to absolutely nothing. Their 4-1 loss to SJ last week definitely took some of the momentum FR had built up heading towards the final weeks of play. PaiN on the other hand had last week off hopefully to allow them additional practice. The road to playoffs is next to impossible for these two teams, but it would be a massive wonder if any of these two teams could pull it off.

Prediction: FR wins 4-1



Although they are tied with NW for second place in the point standings, iFU obtained the same amount of points with one less week of play than NW. With the Polish team off this week, iFU has a chance to pass NW and take the spot for second place. Cryoc has been a brilliant star for iFU this round, securing wins against tough opponents such as INF3CTED*, dewalt and dima. He has shown that he is extremely strong in all three matchups, and will be one of the top players iFU will need to rely on towards the playoffs. SJ on the other hand is the one team in the middle where playoff contention is a real possibility. Being just seven points shy of third place, one being their opponent this week, they have a very good chance this week to thin the gap between them and third place. A loss here will likely crush any possibilities. Whether or not they can take the playoff spot, heaven knows.
*not eOnzErG as I previously thought because they’re on the same team lol.

Prediction: iFU wins 4-3



Last but not least, LRM is one of the top four teams currently neck and neck with the others for the playoff spots. They face iwL, which despite being just two positions lower in the standings, are behind third place by 11 points compared to just two for LRM. Similar to SJ, this week is a chance for iwL to either close the gap in the standings with a decisive victory, or fall forever behind with a crushing defeat. While LRM is in fourth, they have an advantage over NW in that they also have three more weeks of play instead of two since they already took their bye in Week 1. A victory here may net them a playoff spot over the Polish team.

Prediction: LRM wins 4-2