Open Heat Recap

Brood War: Open Heat Recap

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If life seems jolly rotten there's something you've forgotten...

… and that's to laugh and smile and dance and write something about all the games we had in the past two weeks. If you have lived under a rock, were sunbathing on the beach or generally did something other than reading these forums: Brood War Open Heat finished last weekend. Three players are now richer, six more haven't won anything, one and a half casters commented and some more replays are available on Liquipedia. The only thing missing is some sort of inspiration to finally write a meaningful introduction.

Round Robin

About two weeks ago the first 'official' stage concluded – the Round Robin. Remember, from three qualifiers nine players qualified (Places 1 – 3), just to face each other in best of ones. These players were:

      (1)Scan, (2) ZZZero, (3) eOnzErG
      (4)Sziky, (5) KycT, (6) Wallace
      (7)Lancerx, (8)Dienmax, (9) Julia

Since it is always a futile effort to host a nine men group on one day, the Round Robin was spread over several weeks. Additionally, four casts were provided to show you the progress of the group. Please bear with the writer here, we will only briefly review everything that happened in a few words.

      Play Day 1

The first play day did not feature every player, as ZZZero, LancerX and Dienmax were missing. Instead a ton of seemingly 'unimportant' games took pace, just like the mirror match between Wallace and KycT. Actually, this game really wasn't all that great or had a big impact on the later stages, but that did not mean the unknown players would not have mattered at all, if it wasn't for KycT almost spoiling the results of the real upset of Day 1.

Let's focus on the most important match: Sziky vs. Scan. Any person, stupid or smart, knew this game was the decider and the most anticipated game of the Round Robin stage. Both players have a three year long rivalry and the duo is seen as the most skilled in the current foreigner scene. In the past there were flames, long macro games, off racing, risky build orders, excitment and what not. It partially lead to Scan being banned from the Western tournaments for his ill behaviour, it also helped Sziky a great deal to be painted as the hero the foreigners love. A perfect show down right at the beginning.

However, it wasn't as exciting as it could have been. The game took place at Outsider, the three player map with many expansions blocked by minerals. It isn't that nice to face a Terran for a Zerg in the middle early on, nor does it help to fight a versatile opponent, one to not only have the knowledge, but also the ability to perform any opening. This was a lesson Sziky learned here. Scan opened with a Zergling tight wall-in and transitioned into a double Port Wraith strategy. Sziky couldn't really do much other than to defend against the harassment. For about ten minutes it looked as if Sziky wouldn't lose nearly as bad as most of Scan's opponent. Scan took down several Overlords and picked up a few stray Drones, but couldn't end the game in the early stages. Sziky on the other hand couldn't expand and was forced to rely on his Mutalisk management for long. Consequently, the game was a back and forth stale mate of flying units trying to find weak spots. Eventually, Sziky tried to take a third, which was denied by the Marine/Medic combination Scan slowly transitioned into. Over long Scan's better economy paired with almost flawless micromanagement ended the game without much highlights along the way.

Equally unintersting, yet more important was the game between Scan and KycT. The Ukrainian Protoss faced the Semi-Korean Terran on Andromeda. It was clear from the beginning, that KycT would not be able to really fight off Scan, at least for all experts and the audience. KycT didn't know that and built a Templar Archives hidden from Scan's scouting SCV. And that worked, the upcoming Dark Templar drop broke the monster's neck. Skzlime and Artosis might have something to say about that, hm?

The third game chosen from Day 1 features a Zerg mirror between Sziky and eOnzErG. eOn was seen as the player to most likely make the third place overall, whereas Sziky is Sziky. E/N: I'm sorry, I do not understand (nor want to) ZvZ. Their game took place on Bloody Ridge and featured Zerglings, Mutalisks and the occasional Scourge. It was really ZvZ-esque, as this was basically everything happening until eOn did indeed defeat Sziky. Sziky now had two losses, while eOn had none. The champions occured to be weak!

      Play Day 2

The second play day featured overly manly players, namely LancerX, Wallace and Dienmax, as well as the rest of the Round Robin participants minus ZZZero. If you do not understand the grammatical massacre, ZZZero still did not play.

This second play day featured even more stale games, as some ZvZ slapping happened and Scan literally waltzed over Protoss. However, there were silver linings. First off, Dienmax and Wallace played, two names not known so much. The Protoss mirror was, compared to others, not that bad and actually worth watching. Dienmax started with strong harassment on Outsider and Wallace had a hard time to not lose Probes and Dragoons against the Zealot opening. Once the Bulgarian was safe, he had to realize Dienmax already took his natural, while he himself had nothing to show for. Anyhow, Wallace did a good fight, faced several harassment drops and made a good job rendering his temporary economical disadvantage useless for Dienmax. In the last minutes before the game ended Dienmax attacked with a larger ground force, while expanding twice (one time hidden); and almost overdid it. Wallace defended and came out on top with almost two control groups left alive. His immediate counter was really, really scary. Dienmax had to manually target clumps with his Reaver and tremendously outmicroed Wallace from a position of weakness. This was key and too much for the Bulgarian too handle. Dienmax won.

The other more interesting game was between the mojo-Protoss Lancerx and eOnzErG on Andromeda. In the hype Lancerx was described as standard player, in this game, he showed how wrong the hype was. He opened with a one base build and tried to pressure the Spaniard with Zealots. This worked so-so, he neither lost nor gained anything from that. The following Mutalisk switch from eOn wasn't paying off either – no player had the upper hand for a longer time frame. Lancerx expanded to his island, while eOnzErG took another main base and one middle expansion, sealing off the entire right side of the map. Once eOn felt confident enough, he first tried to take Lancer's natural with brute force, but failed, then raised up a contain, which also failed. Since Lancerx pressured early on and Zerg only expanded late, the situation got more interesting. eOn's main base, natural and min only were almost depleted, his army was slightly behind in terms of upgrades and Lancerx pushed out. The Protoss destroyed nearly all new bases of Zerg, but suffered too many losses in the long run, as Protoss as well needed new expansions. Zerg could deny them and eventually won. It looked easier than it was.

      Play Day 3

At the start of Day 3 it looked as if eOn, Sziky and Scan were already advancing to the next stage, with KycT and Wallace having little to no hopes left; the newcomers simply already lost too many games to be close enough to the important forth place. However, there was still some room for Sziky and eOn to screw up, ZZZero had not played yet and generally, the play is only over once the main actor suffocated. Then again, the trio did not make any mistakes and showed their class by roflstomping their opponents.

The most interesting game was between KycT and Dienmax on Bloody Ridge. Theoretically speaking, KycT had a shot, he had won vs. Scan, but for Dienmax this was a must-win. If he lost, his chances were rather bad, he would need to defeat the rest of the great Zerg players: ZZZero and Julia.

As is tradition, the Peruvian opened with a strong build and tried to rush the Ukrainian. KycT on the other hand was prepared and in a position to fight off the initial Zealot harass. However, you can never totally prepare against the random things Peruvians do, so much ICCup ladder tought us. Dienmax added a pylon in a proxy position to KycT's natural and tried to raise a Shield Battery. KycT, temporarily confused, had to split his attention and a few Zealots slipped through his defense. From there on out, the game got even weirder. Action all over the map, harassment here, counter attacks there, back and forth play, really entertaining. In the end KycT showed that the better his opponents, the better his play – he won after 18 minutes with a larger attack.

      Play Day 4

To make it short, Dienmax' random loss against KycT was a decider. He now was in a direct battle with ZZZero and Julia, had to kill both, plus eOnzErG, plus Julia AND ZZZero screwing up against lesser opponents, who they wouldn't lose to usually.

At first it showed as if Dienmax was still in after beating ZZZero and ZZZero losing most of his games. Additionally, ZZZero vs. KycT did not happen. Meanwhile, Lancerx lost too many games as well, so he the outsider was definitely knocked out.

Eventually Julia qualified after losing to the leading trio and defeating his direct rival Dienmax already before the final play day. However, we got to see a funky match between the Peruvian and eOnzErG. eOn tried to bust Dienmax' choke, failed and failed again to anticipate the harassment oriented play by LaGFree's talent. He dropped Dark Templars constantly and killed a large number of Drones, thus crippling the Zerg's economy.

Please note that eOnzErG advanced as second place, because he defeated Sziky and only lost to Scan and Dienmax.

For any of you who participated in the Liquipedia Contest, here's the results I found. Next time post in the thread, so I don't miss it:

Gecko – 31
Floladriblere – 31
Fearthequeen – 28
DraW - 27

+ Show Spoiler [the Prize] +

*guessed the values

My dearest Floladriblere ,

An angel kissed a star which fell to Earth. Upon it was written what I am about to say to you now, and burned upon my heart was your precious name.

How my body sweats and trembles with desire, when my thoughts turn to drinking the sweet nectar from your full lips, which is sweeter then the honey dripping from the lips of the Goddess Aphrodite herself.

What human being would not appreciate your mysterious black eyes which swirl like whirlpools and flash like lightning whenever I say something silly to you.

Your multi-coloured hair is even more astounding then your beautiful eyes. I love the way the different colours compliment each other like each colour band in the rainbow. And just like the real thing, you make me smile after the rain has gone. I know the streets smell kinda funny after the rain has gone, but you don't smelly funny darling.

Words alone cannot express how unique my love is for you. I love you, and you only, I swear that to you my love ....well OK, I guess I also love my TV which I think its great that you can switch it on and theres all these cool shows about cheese, shoes and monkeys, etc. I remember I watched this show about how monkeys do it, and it even showed their facial expressions but thats besides the point. My point is that I love you and my love for you is unique (isn't it weird how the word 'unique' and 'eunuch' sound the same? The word Unix also sounds similar, but 'Chimpanzee' doesn't)

I have to tell you one thing though. I really do love your bum. I think that is the most amazing part of you, and is the most amazing thing on this planet! God, I wish I could do nothing but stare at your beautiful bum all day (besides eating, drinking and sleeping of course). That would be pure heaven for me!

My love, you know what would look hot and vibrant on that beautiful body of yours? Leapord Skin underwear! Oh God, if I saw you wearing those I would simply explode into a heap of sparks with joy! (By the way that was a figure of speech, cos I wouldn't ACTUALLY spontaneously combust, otherwise I wouldn't be able to appreciate your lovely body in Leapord Skin underwear).

You always remain in my thoughts, helping me keep alive with visions of your sweet lips to help fire up my aching heart!

Eternally loving you, with flames of desire,

skzlime

xxooxxooxx

Play Offs

For religious reasons the opener between Sziky and Julia are left out, even though not all sets were Muta vs. Muta. Sziky obviously won and nobody was surprised by that.

In the winner bracket, we had eOnzErG vs. Scan, the spammer of Defiler vs. the King of China. Well. It really doesn't feel good to say the games were one sided, but they were. In the first set on Fighting Spirit we got to learn that Scan now plays a 640*480 game on a 27'' iMac, and can ignore Zerg. Honestly, eOn usually doesn't waste units, nor did he throw away his units, but it really did not matter what he was doing, Scan just walked over it. The next game on Outsider Scan built two Barracks and used his few Marines and SCVs to walk over Zerg's Natural.

The Game for place three was something in the lines of Zerglings, Scourge, Zergling, Mutalisks, Sziky 2 – 0 eOnzErG. Julia fourth, eOnzErG third.

The finals of the Double Elimination bracket started without the winner advantage, which would usually be in place: 0-0. These games weren't as bad as the first impression from Play Day 1. Sziky defended Scan's initial attacks with relative ease, at least compared to the other Zerg's manuvers. However, Scan's training showed. The game was long somewhat equal, until Scan decided he could just win the game. To be fair, Sziky screwed up only once. Once. He went out with a Defiler, did not do damage right away and Scan tore down two of Sziky's expansion within sixty seconds. The first set went to the Terran without him needing to use his factories.

The second set was a lot better, Sziky didn't screw up. He used his Mutalisks to kill the first Marine attack, but wasn't able to defend his early third. Instead, he tried to backstab, failed and took a third for the second time. Sziky was able to tech to Hive and Defiler/Dark Swarm once more. It looked as if Sziky really did have a shot to take it to a thirty minute nail baiter for long. Scan's attacks weren't as sick as before and Zerg slowly added economy, spent money on tech and neutralized most of Terran's army well in time. Out of a sudden, Vultures appeared on the map and ate Drones everywhere. Sziky had a hard time to cast a Dark Swarm in time, lost a Drone here, one there, and now was in a bad position. The Vulture harass was just a cover up though, shortly after the relentless raids a larger Vulture/Tank army knocked on Sziky's Natural Expansion – where Mutalisks greeted them just in time. Yet, Dropships were all over the Zerg's mineral lines and there wasn't much the Hungarian star could do. Scan 2 – 0.

The third set was Scan offracing, something we haven't seen so far. Sziky was better, 2-1. Sadly, the fourth set on Outsider was a repetition of what happened in the second set against eOnzErG – Marine/SCV Rush into GG. It seems nobody can keep up with Scan's impeccable micromanagement.

The Sponsors

Don't forget to thank our sponsors - THEBgh.com, Greg_J, Titan[eMg], DiMiaN and Starspawn.cc.

I have no idea about VODs, go poke 2pac. Again, no official write-up!

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