The Teamliquid Invitational tournament brought some of the best gamers in North America together for a no-holds barred brawl for $300 and status as a top player on the US server. Our two finalists, CauthonLuck and Slush, both battled through difficult opponents to meet in a great set of final games. CauthonLuck started his run off with a W/O over Tasteless, who unfortunately ran into technical problems before the tournament. He then proceeded to take a series off of both LzGamer in the quarterfinals and Huk in the semis to arrive in the finals undefeated. Slush, on the other hand, went through Incontrol and advanced after a controversial series with Artosis to face the rampaging Louder in the semifinals. Battle tested and ready to rock, the two warriors met on the high tech futurescape of Metalopolis, with CauthonLuck's command center located at the 6 position while Slush spawned at 2 o'clock. Cauthon elected to open with reactor hellions for some early harass but was repelled by some early roaches and spine crawlers after minimal damage.
Game One - Cauthon draws first blood
Behind this harass he transitioned into a fast expansion and a five barracks ground army of marines and marauders. Slush opted for an early burrowed roach attack that did moderate damage but was mopped up fairly quickly by Cauthon's reinforcements thanks to a nice SCV surround.
Surprise!
Cauthon added some medivacs and applied some pressure soon after, but his attack was overwhelmed by Slush's large roach and hydra force as Slush simultaneously got an expansion at the 12 o'clock main online.
You've got some fungal growth on your face, yeah right there...
Slush took the left gold expansion quickly after that and, despite having lower supply, managed to crush Cauthon's next attack handily, leaving him well ahead in both army count and economy. CauthonLuck executed some small drop harass while also taking out Slush's natural expansion hatchery but, unable to secure his own third and almost completely mined out, succumbed to Slush's final attack of hydras and burrowed roaches. He tapped out, bewildered and wondering out-loud how Slush was able to defeat his attacks so easily.
I've seen the replay, and I'm not sure either
The Lost Temple has been found! Can you be the one to destroy your opponents and secure it? This challenge was issued as the game began on this Brood War throwback, with CauthonLuck getting the 3 o'clock position and Slush apparating at 12. Cauthon opened with a standard barracks tech lab build, opting to get two reapers and a bunker at Slush's morphing hatchery placed in his natural expansion. The reapers managed to kill a couple of zerglings and levy a fair amount of damage on the hatchery, but unfortunately for Cauthon, Slush had elected to get an early roach warren, and had roaches out in time to take care of the pesky bunker and it's D-8 demolition charges.
Have at you!
After the initial action ended, Cauthon expanded and transitioned into a three barracks starport build while Slush went for a fast lair, placing his spire behind his natural minerals. Cauthon missed the spire with his scans, and the newly spawned mutalisks soared into Slush's base to find a single viking and extremely marauder heavy army. The glaive wurms rained down on the defenseless SCV lines and Cauthon was forced to GG.
I'm tellin' ya Frank, it was a massacre out there...
We move on to game three, which took place on the tight quarters of Steppes of War. Both players opened fairly standard, with Slush taking an early expansion after his spawning pool while CauthonLuck went for his factory reactor build again. A spine crawler, some roaches and a queen held off the hellion's daring attempt at harassment, but back at home Cauthon was preparing a little surprise. Banshees!
Ah nuts.
The first of these powerful heliplanes flew towards Slush's natural just as Slush sacrificed an overlord to get a look inside the terran's base. The banshee sniped a queen at the natural before retreating back home for a little repair action. Slush threw down a few spore crawlers, thinking he was safe from the airborne hellraisers, but he was unprepared when Cauthon returned with three banshees. They made short work of a forward spore as well as both queens before destroying the natural hatchery. Slush attempted to immediately rebuild it, thinking his newly arrived spore would protect it, but Cauthon quickly razed it before it was cancelled. The banshees then took their leave, but the damage was done. Slush was left to rebuild his expansion as Cauthon's expansion came to life and five barracks poured marines and marauders out onto the battlefield. Slush tried to make use of burrow, but Cauthon was having none of it, easily squishing the hydra roach counter before continuing on to win soon after. Our fourth battle takes place on the lush, fertile world of Kulas Ravine. The valiant terrans gently awaken to find themselves at the top right of the map, while the hard partying zergs jolt out of their stupor, dizzied and at bottom left. Both races collect themselves and proceed into fairly standard openings, with Slush opting for a typical FE after pool, while Cauthon opened with his factory reactor build again, this time electing to get two barracks with tech labs also. In an unfortunate turn of events for Cauthon, two of Slush's scouting zerglings charged into his main as the building switch was happening, giving Slush unfettered access to the base and Cauthon's plan. This was no simple harass build, Cauthon was going to put real pressure on with a mixture of hellions and marauders. When he arrived at Slush's front door, he found some of the spine crawlers out of place and quickly ran behind the natural expansion's minerals, hammering away at the drones before the roach army arrived to engage.
Those spine crawlers, always fashionably late
Despite killing off this initial attack, Slush was forced to place down more spine crawlers as Cauthon showed signs of keeping up the aggression, rallying hellions and marauders to just outside the range of Slush's base. Cauthon, seeing this increased defense, pulled back and expanded to his natural while Slush teched up to mutas and took the left side gold. Slush's mutas attempted to deal some damage, but were easily handled by Cauthon's mixture of marines, vikings and turrets, and he was forced to try to escape.
I'm tellin' ya Frank, it was a massacre out there...
Meanwhile, though, Slush's Zerg had shed its hangover and was fully charged, pumping out a mass of hydras complimented by infestors. Cauthon engaged and took out the infestors before any fungal growths could be cast, but the hydras overwhelmed the marauder heavy army.
Uh, Sarge, that's a lot of hydras
Slush laid a hatchery at bottom right and pushed into Cauthon. Knowing he couldn't hold and was defeated, CauthonLuck tapped his GG and the series was decided, Slush was the champ!
And the victor is...
I managed to grab Slush for a few minutes after the tournament had ended and briefly got some of his thoughts.
TL: You played very well in the finals, taking home a 3-1 victory over CauthonLuck. Did you expect to win like you did?
Slush: Well I know pretty well the game style of cauthonluck, so I was pretty confident, he did suprise me though the 3rd game with his banshees, so I had to adjust a bit in the 4th game.
TL: At the end of the metalopolis game, Cauthon seemed just both impressed and exasperated by the sheer amount of units you produced. Do you think that was a result of mistakes by him or just very strong macro by you?
Slush: I got ahead by a base mid game that gave me the win. I think I was ahead too in the upgrades so I just had to keep pumping units and have a good position when I was attacking.
TL: Were you suprised at how unprepared he was for your mutas on LT?
Sluth: Well I made my lair and my spire at my expansion hoping he wouldnt see it, and I think he didnt scan my expo so he had no defense what so ever. I was pretty shocked though he didn't think I had lair at that point.
TL: Do you think any of the recent patch changes played a big part in your games today?
Slush: I don't think so. The corruptors new ability didnt help that much. I cant deny planetary fortress but the 20% buff is only great vs colossus maybe.
TL: Is there anything you'd like to say in addressing the issues with artosis and the disconnect game?
Slush: In ANY sport, the call is up to the referee to make, not the player. I just stood by the ref call. I had a small chance to comeback and he was the one to disconnect. Yes, he had the advantage, but you never know. I respect Artosis a lot and he has done a lot for the community. Cheers to him, he'll get his chance next tournament i'm pretty sure. The game isnt even released yet...
In our third place match, the prodigious protoss HuK battled wits with our resident terran terror Louder. Louder took game one with two starport banshees backed up by marines into mass ground, despite some nice blink usage by Huk. After that, though, it was all HuK, who took nice games on Lost Temple, Metalopolis and Scrap Station to claim the third place position.
Unfortunately for Louder, medivacs can't attack
From everyone at Teamliquid, thanks for reading and watching! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. VODs will be up shortly, so don't worry if you missed out on the action! Also, please keep comments regarding the Slush/Artosis issue in the appropriate thread.
This post was made by the Team Liquid Starcraft 2 Coverage Team. For more of TL's coverage, please visit the Team Liquid Starcraft 2 Beta Page.
Great recap. It is interesting to hear Slush's thoughts on the topic. Obviously congrats go out to all players who participated - if they weren't already talented then they would not have been invited. Thank you to everyone who participated - casters, admins, players, writers - for helping to make this event awesome.
? TT1 you won craftcup, gj, but that's the first thing you've done since the beta came out... maybe you'll be invited to the next one... i didn't get invited either, we need to become more popular, yes, but that's only up to us.
Very nice to read, and VERY VERY nice to watch, with the three commentators Day9, ChillS and djWheat. They did a very nice job and it was truely entertaining. I look forward to TLI#3!!
On May 10 2010 04:29 iG.CatZ wrote: ? TT1 you won craftcup, gj, but that's the first thing you've done since the beta came out... maybe you'll be invited to the next one... i didn't get invited either, we need to become more popular, yes, but that's only up to us.
thats the first thing ive done because ive been playing since 3 weeks while everyone else has been playing for almost 3 months, also half of the players in this tourney got invited because of their clantag.. they havnt done shit either, its kinda gay when you see people getting invited to tourneys because of their connections
On May 10 2010 04:29 iG.CatZ wrote: ? TT1 you won craftcup, gj, but that's the first thing you've done since the beta came out... maybe you'll be invited to the next one... i didn't get invited either, we need to become more popular, yes, but that's only up to us.
thats the first thing ive done because ive been playing since 3 weeks while everyone else has been playing for almost 3 months, also half of the players in this tourney got invited because of their clantag.. they havnt done shit either, its kinda gay when you see people getting invited to tourneys because of their connections
I think it's funny that within the very post where you explain your complaint you answer the WHY.
You've played for 3 weeks. Won a single tourney with proxy gates and other nice all ins.
Everyone else has been playing for 3 months and winning more than one tourney and getting their face around.
Scapegoating on the clan tag doesn't really function as a complaint when you wear the fnatic tag, perhaps the most recognizable tag in esports.
I think you are a good player and you will certainly be around for future invites but bitching that you weren't invited to this one after 3 weeks of faceless gaming THEN complaining that people were invited on name alone (ironic, since that would be the ONLY way you'd get invited at this point) is bad.
I honestly believe, that in the hands of really really really good macro players, Zerg is going to be considered imbalanced. This is only a guess. But, when it comes time for Pro-Players in Korea and hopefully elsewhere- if there hasn't been a nerf to Zerg macro (Larva spawn time, energy, total larva limit or something) there will be shortly after. When its done right, I have seen Zerg do insane insane macro that doesn't seem right. I could be wrong of course, but this is my guess.
I loved the games I had a great time watching Slush play very exciting player and also big big shoutout to Louder who played amazing games that were really fun to watch. More from those two please :D
I honestly think that now the game is a little more balanced forcing terran to put new units into the mix. The change to the tank has been very good, the splash damage rape small/middle sized units like hydras marauders, etc.
If cauthon added some tanks into that mix he would have raped that army with the same army size or less.
A little clarification on my disbelief in the first game. From my recent set against Slush in MLG It was woefully obvious that I could not match him in a long macro game. Normally I am very comfortable in macro TvZ games but I was soundly defeated using that style just a couple days prior to the TLI, so I came into this game with a different goal.
In the first game I wanted to do some minor economic harassment and try to force him to make as many sunkens as possible since I was doing a fast expand build with only small amounts of harassment units to contain him. I also know he likes to take an early third so I planned to get my natural up and running quickly, throw down an absolute ton of raxes without any thought of a 3rd base or late game tech, then hit with an extremely strong timing attack right before he reaps the benefit of his third.
The game went exactly how I wanted, I managed to do some economic damage and force at least 3 sunkens while being light on units and getting my own economy up quickly and completely unhindered. I then held off his first push while pumping non stop from 5-6 raxes, getting all the infantry upgrades and +1 weapons and attacked right about as his 3rd was getting up with a 15-20 food advantage, just as I had hoped for. That timing attack was soundly defeated, leaving me so shocked at the outcome that I continued playing for another 5-10 minutes even though my build was semi-all in and I really had no chance of winning once that timing attack was defeated.
The comments in the end were in reference to that attack where I thought I was in a great position but was still easily held off while he was at his weakest point.
I don't think I could have made that timing attack any stronger, using a couple tanks would actually have worked against me as good use of burrowed roaches will cause tanks to blast apart your infantry ball unless you tech strongly to tanks and ravens at the same time, or slowwwly push with turret hopping. Those strategies are perfectly fine, but would have greatly detracted from the strength of a massive infantry timing attack as he took his third, which was the plan for that game.
Perhaps I've been playing TvZ all wrong lately, only a couple of the games I lost to slush over the MLG/ITL series even seemed close. He outplayed me so completely that I started doing old gimmicky 1 base builds that I hadn't used in a long time out of desperation, and they worked better than any of my "solid" strategies. I really felt like I had an inferior economy and army at nearly every point when I tried to butt heads in straight up ground macro battles. Maybe I should revert to my old style of harassing constantly with banshees, thor/hellion drops etc, since Terran have many strong harassment options, they may just not be meant to settle down into a steady macro battle of "standard" armies until a lot of damage has been done.
On May 10 2010 04:29 iG.CatZ wrote: ? TT1 you won craftcup, gj, but that's the first thing you've done since the beta came out... maybe you'll be invited to the next one... i didn't get invited either, we need to become more popular, yes, but that's only up to us.
lol, including yourself in the same category as TT1 hilarious
On May 10 2010 14:56 CauthonLuck wrote: A little clarification on my disbelief in the first game. From my recent set against Slush in MLG It was woefully obvious that I could not match him in a long macro game. Normally I am very comfortable in macro TvZ games but I was soundly defeated using that style just a couple days prior to the TLI, so I came into this game with a different goal.
In the first game I wanted to do some minor economic harassment and try to force him to make as many sunkens as possible since I was doing a fast expand build with only small amounts of harassment units to contain him. I also know he likes to take an early third so I planned to get my natural up and running quickly, throw down an absolute ton of raxes without any thought of a 3rd base or late game tech, then hit with an extremely strong timing attack right before he reaps the benefit of his third.
The game went exactly how I wanted, I managed to do some economic damage and force at least 3 sunkens while being light on units and getting my own economy up quickly and completely unhindered. I then held off his first push while pumping non stop from 5-6 raxes, getting all the infantry upgrades and +1 weapons and attacked right about as his 3rd was getting up with a 15-20 food advantage, just as I had hoped for. That timing attack was soundly defeated, leaving me so shocked at the outcome that I continued playing for another 5-10 minutes even though my build was semi-all in and I really had no chance of winning once that timing attack was defeated.
The comments in the end were in reference to that attack where I thought I was in a great position but was still easily held off while he was at his weakest point.
I don't think I could have made that timing attack any stronger, using a couple tanks would actually have worked against me as good use of burrowed roaches will cause tanks to blast apart your infantry ball unless you tech strongly to tanks and ravens at the same time, or slowwwly push with turret hopping. Those strategies are perfectly fine, but would have greatly detracted from the strength of a massive infantry timing attack as he took his third, which was the plan for that game.
Perhaps I've been playing TvZ all wrong lately, only a couple of the games I lost to slush over the MLG/ITL series even seemed close. He outplayed me so completely that I started doing old gimmicky 1 base builds that I hadn't used in a long time out of desperation, and they worked better than any of my "solid" strategies. I really felt like I had an inferior economy and army at nearly every point when I tried to butt heads in straight up ground macro battles. Maybe I should revert to my old style of harassing constantly with banshees, thor/hellion drops etc, since Terran have many strong harassment options, they may just not be meant to settle down into a steady macro battle of "standard" armies until a lot of damage has been done.
This map really advantage me as zerg, i could get a 3rd that is so far away that it's hard for you to kill it. i found out that hdyras and infestor are REALLY good against a marauders heavy infantry which i know u like the burrow roach forces you to go raven instead of tanks and can kill any decent terran ground army if unnoticed. I'm a macro zerg so if you want to defeat me u have to be agressive early game. Watch the showmatch vs Demuslim (they will be up soon i guess) u'll see how agressive he is and how bad he raped me some games
On May 10 2010 14:56 CauthonLuck wrote: A little clarification on my disbelief in the first game. From my recent set against Slush in MLG It was woefully obvious that I could not match him in a long macro game. Normally I am very comfortable in macro TvZ games but I was soundly defeated using that style just a couple days prior to the TLI, so I came into this game with a different goal.
In the first game I wanted to do some minor economic harassment and try to force him to make as many sunkens as possible since I was doing a fast expand build with only small amounts of harassment units to contain him. I also know he likes to take an early third so I planned to get my natural up and running quickly, throw down an absolute ton of raxes without any thought of a 3rd base or late game tech, then hit with an extremely strong timing attack right before he reaps the benefit of his third.
The game went exactly how I wanted, I managed to do some economic damage and force at least 3 sunkens while being light on units and getting my own economy up quickly and completely unhindered. I then held off his first push while pumping non stop from 5-6 raxes, getting all the infantry upgrades and +1 weapons and attacked right about as his 3rd was getting up with a 15-20 food advantage, just as I had hoped for. That timing attack was soundly defeated, leaving me so shocked at the outcome that I continued playing for another 5-10 minutes even though my build was semi-all in and I really had no chance of winning once that timing attack was defeated.
The comments in the end were in reference to that attack where I thought I was in a great position but was still easily held off while he was at his weakest point.
I don't think I could have made that timing attack any stronger, using a couple tanks would actually have worked against me as good use of burrowed roaches will cause tanks to blast apart your infantry ball unless you tech strongly to tanks and ravens at the same time, or slowwwly push with turret hopping. Those strategies are perfectly fine, but would have greatly detracted from the strength of a massive infantry timing attack as he took his third, which was the plan for that game.
Perhaps I've been playing TvZ all wrong lately, only a couple of the games I lost to slush over the MLG/ITL series even seemed close. He outplayed me so completely that I started doing old gimmicky 1 base builds that I hadn't used in a long time out of desperation, and they worked better than any of my "solid" strategies. I really felt like I had an inferior economy and army at nearly every point when I tried to butt heads in straight up ground macro battles. Maybe I should revert to my old style of harassing constantly with banshees, thor/hellion drops etc, since Terran have many strong harassment options, they may just not be meant to settle down into a steady macro battle of "standard" armies until a lot of damage has been done.
I feel the same way. I play my brother who is Zerg and I play Terran. And all we do is 1v1 each other for like 2 hours straight until we take a break then play again... and at first I could beat him soundly... but nowadays, it doesn't matter when I push. I do an early 1 base +1 weapons +combat shields push with marine/marauder, I get destroyed by roaches. I FE and he does a quick 3rd, I try to deny when my second tank comes out, he destroys me. At no point in the game do I have a army or economical advantage... and I don't know why.
Obviously we aren't at your level... but we are both fairly good/intelligent (top in our gold divisions having only installed a week ago). At first I felt really strong.. but now I just don't see a chance to attack. The only way for me to beat him is to do cheese/rush/all-ins... and even those rarely work. I honestly dont kow what to do at this point agasint him.
who would've known doing the same terran strategy over and over again through out the whole tournament (while deviating very little(OOHH BANSHEES !!)) wouldve landed him this far... but really? was I the only one watching those games or did the T just not learn from the earlier games in the series...
foreigners are gonna get dominated so hard when the koreans are unleashed, I can't wait!!!!
But. shouts to TL and their amazingness! Too bad they didn't host this many tournaments with just original BW.. I hope they keep it up cause it's going to take a fantastic community like this one right here to keep a game like this going...
I wanted Louther to win cause his name is the win, but like Slush said the game hasnt even been released yet.. :D:D
After watching all the slush/cauthonluck replays I fully attribute locks losses to a lack fo medivacs. Each battle he had between 3-4 vacs that slush focus the second the battle began. MM v roach/hydra/ling/infestor is noting without the 3rd M
On May 10 2010 04:29 iG.CatZ wrote: ? TT1 you won craftcup, gj, but that's the first thing you've done since the beta came out... maybe you'll be invited to the next one... i didn't get invited either, we need to become more popular, yes, but that's only up to us.
lol, including yourself in the same category as TT1 hilarious
TheAntZ I am not comparing myself to TT1, you're always flaming for some reason, i don't even know who you are, I am making a statement, and in an effort to explain to TT1 for whom i have much respect as a player and a person, I added myself as another example, i could've used someone, or rather anyone else. But it'd seem as if i were whining about them not being invited to the event, and I was trying to do the exact opposite.
In any other way you can possibly look at this, i've only played TT1 a couple times, if memory serves me right, i won with my zerg and lost with my random (T), if you must know, and to make this simple without offending anyone ; If you combined all of the players invited and added up their individual wins // loses against me, i'd be up without a doubt, so yes, using myself as an example seemed the way to go when addressing TT1 about this tour, not you or anyone else, him. I do apologize though, next time i'll make sure to say "TheAntZ wasnt invited either bro, its a'll good"
and the Jay-Z song was on and the Jay-Z song was on and the Jay-Z song was on
so i put my hands up, they playin my song the butterflies fly fly away noddin my head like yeah movin my hips like yeah got my hands up, they playin my song i know im gonna be ok yehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh its a party in the USA yehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh its a party in the USA yehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh its a party in the USA
Not to sound like a broken record but reading through this I am so impressed with the writeup, very descriptive but not too long and boring, great pictures to accompany the descriptions. I just wish there was somewhere to download a replay pack I'd love to see some of these matches.
Slush is good, I'd love to see more of his games, seems a tad arrogant though.
Ye was thinking same...would really like to watch those replays. Though I have to admit the vods for this tournaments are dire, I mean allright quality etc...is good but without a commentry you can just watch the replay which is much better because you can actualy check stuff out while these vods dont entertain and take away all the interactivity since they aint replays.
Where are the VODs (or replays)! I'm really anxoius to see this, have been on nevakes youtube channel checking every day for the last week and still only half of r08 up there.
We need another one of these soon. But, i also suggest having a huge qualifier for a couple spots instead of having it completely invitational, because (no offense to ANYONE out there) But alot of random pubs who are simply "undiscovered" are quite a bit better than some of the people whom get invited to tournaments like these, but they just aren't all "hyped up" about quite yet, and qualifying for a huge event like this would surely help that out.
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/funkie/sc2invitational.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/BroOd/Cauthon_Slush_1.jpg)
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![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/BroOd/Cauthon_Slush_4.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/BroOd/Cauthon_Slush_g2_1.jpg)
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![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/BroOd/HuK_Louder1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/R1CH/TLIUSRo2.png)
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