Bearing DreamHack's signature of approval, this small Valencia invitational featured eight championship-level players and was jam-packed with great matches. As an e-Sports writer and veteran of fighting game events and LANs for ten+ years, I really enjoyed watching the event and revelled in all the little touches and details that the DreamHack production crew (and their partners Carnales Corprivatos) put into organizing it. I thought I'd pay them a few compliments for running a shiny and spotless event before we got down to the nitty gritty; here's a few things you might not have caught on to:

Sick Venue
Veles e Vents, also known as the America's Cup Building, is a wonder of modern architecture. Seriously it's a sick building in a location on Spain's beautiful beaches, basically squares stacked on top of each other. It was designed by master architect David Chipperfield, who I've never heard of but apparently he's the man to talk to if you want something built. Check out this sweet video:


The only downside of this venue is that the actual event hall could only fit about what looked like eighty spectators, which seemed awful small compared to the enormity of the talent gathered there.

Great Casters
When I first came upon TotalBiscuit and dApollo, I wasn't as impressed as I should have been. It's an interesting duo; one sounds like a professional football commentator, and the other talks as if he were explaining the action to a small child. At Valencia they appeared to have reached a higher plateau of synergy. Most of Apollo's predictions were spot on, and TB has continuously improved on already exciting play-by-plays and expanded his reactive vocabulary. The pair made a great casting team and came well-prepared for the event.

Cute Girl Host + Eyebrows Guy
I didn't catch the guy's name but Hailey Bright is SUPER CUTE. I love brunettes. She's also the host of Coin-Op TV, and seems to balance knowing a reasonable amount about video games with an attractive personality and good looks, so I think she was a great addition to the event staff.



Eyebrows I think thought he was a bit funnier than he actually was, but he was still a great host and did well enough interacting with the live audience, bagging on TotalBiscuit, and flirting with Haley to keep the show exciting.

Championship Invitees
Of the eight players spotlighted, seven were storied tournament finalists and champions. Even Lucifron, a bit under-qualified next to his peers, was the local hero and Warcraft III legend of Spain, so I can’t find any faults there. What’s more, all of the matches were very even; there were no facerolls (well, one), cheese was kept to a minimum, and all the races represented themselves well in great games.

As I went over possible topics over this article, there were at least ten story lines that immediately came to mind. IdrA's story follows him around; always a great player but struggles to beat the best of the best, and doesn't gg to anyone less. Huk has been a center of attention since the beginning of time as the only foreigner and one of the only remaining Protoss in Code S. He also recently transferred to Liquid's rival team EG on a huge contract, but seems to be slumping; has that affected his mentality? Naniwa and ThorZain are like little European twinsies; they've been to like every tournament together since the TSL finals, what's the deal with that? Rain stirred up a bee's nest when he ditched a Code S spot to go bully foreigner tournaments, but he's yet to win a major title. Hero has taken up Liquid's Protoss mantle in Korea. Terran IMBA. Zerg questionably IMBA or non-IMBA. Protoss severely underpowered! (guess what race I play?) Local hero gets thrown to the wolves... er, Zerglings. Korea vs. the world, again. What title should I pick for this recap?

At the end of the day though, the same stories we’ve been hearing shone through. Training outside of Korea simply doesn't produce the results that the training in Korea produces - at least not currently. TvP is still very inflexible due to the rigid defense required to combat 1/1/1. And DRG murders Terrans like Kobayashi murders hot dogs.

One Criticism
Well, there was a lot of downtime on the stream. I support the commercials and their support of eSports, via advertising rather than subscriptions. However, excluding them, there were twenty minutes of bracket display and warming up between each match. And on the whole, not a lot of matches played; 6 Bo3's and a Bo5 final. Solution? Next time I feel like there should be at least a 16-player lineup, which would add a full eight more matches and double the amount of Starcraft played and broadcast. You could potentially run a second stream if needed. To have only eight players depletes a lot of the epicness that comes with a DreamHack global-scale major tournament. I realize its expensive to fly out so many players, so maybe it would be possible to add in some showmatches or just a few fun fillers into that space to improve the live production. It was DreamHack, after all, that started the high standard of having a million high quality streams to watch at any given time. That criticism aside, great event! On to the matches!


The Fall of the EG
EG's old and EG’s new both met their demise in the round of eight, though one went down a lot harder than the other; if you love to hate IdrA, watch him vs. Hero. EG.IdrA's games against the Liquid recruit looked great for IdrA up until the engagements began. In game one, IdrA got his third base rolling, and then Hero hit a great timing off of a Forge FE w/ Voidrays, transitioning very quickly into a Warp Prism sentry drop into IdrA's main. IdrA's reaction was too slow and he got himself forcefielded in the mouth.


Hero's ground army ravaged the air defenses, and a few well-looked-after Void Rays remained uncontested when the dust cleared. IdrA's main was forfeit - IdrA has left the game.

Game two saw IdrA scout DTs incoming, and he set up basic detection then rushed to gather bases. Able to deny Hero's DT/Blink timing, IdrA seemed to be gaining a macro edge and moving into his comfort zone, but by the same sword he couldn't contest Hero's third - for fear of those same DTs. And then...


Hero flexed his Korean muscle. Again the Warp Prism came, this time off of three bases and coupled with guerrilla zealot, high-ground blinks and HT warp-ins. Splitting IdrA's army between his tech-heavy main and four bases would've been mighty annoying for IdrA, but instead of dispatching medium-sided groups to handle the attacks cost-effectively, IdrA simply 1a'd his entire army back and forth across the length of Metalopolis, throwing away mountains of supply, tech structures, drones and bases. To summarize the game, HerO multi-tasked IdrA to death; no small feat.

Huk on the other hand came out swinging and showed three exciting games. TvP right now is known for getting Protoss players knocked out of important tournaments via all-in, and the strength of 1-base Terran is significantly influencing the way the matchup is played. ThorZain is known for timings, finesse, and control, reminding me a bit of a calmer, less risky qxc. Huk is known for putting in work, both in game and out of game. He’s always one of the biggest threats in any tournament.

The first game was an old fashioned battle of the fast expands. Thorzain relied on traditional heavy marauder/medivac, while Huk opted for his most common PvT: early blink into a mixed gateway/colossus composition, with both players focused on upgrades. The game swayed back and forth with Huk ecking out a few small advantages and cleaning up one battle outside of his main with a good supply advantage. Thorzain soon caught up with some saucy macro, however, and both remaxxed and expanded again.

Protoss players get your tears ready; after Thorzain's fourth landed, he brutally punished Huk's reliance on Colossi with a ton of Vikings and then murdered Huk's zealots and stalkers in a choke, losing mostly Vikings. He took a whopping eighty supply lead and soon remaxxed while rolling over Huk’s next warp-in and sealing the game.


Having lost in a macro game, Huk was now forced to make cuts to get ahead, or risk losing to a similar build. This made him vulnerable to the recently prominent 1/1/1 all-ins, which destroy any builds that don’t properly take it into account. Thorzain opted for a Thor/Marine with repair semi-all in, and took out Huk's fast Nexus, equalizing the bases (a generally advantaged situation for Terran), and maintained map control for quite some time afterward by setting up a contain with a few tanks and plenty of Marines.

Huk then turned on the gas, busting out the Top 3 control and racking up dozens of free potshots with stalkers, saving a 10HP Immortal and punishing anything over-extended or spread too far. Without medivacs, ThorZain appeared very vulnerable to pew-pew, and Huk ran his army ragged without taking damage on his Stalkers. Still though, ThorZain was able to expand and contain Huk for some time, and would have easily won if it were not for Huk’s brilliant Stalker play, and the foresight to leave a Probe out on the map. Huk was able to deny scouting and secure an expansion while pressuring non-stop. He teched to DTs, and in the end, it was the DTs, incessant Stalker harass, and the threat of a flank that gave Huk the edge he needed to crack the contain and take back a game that ThorZain should have certainly won.

Game three saw another popular breed of KR-style Terran timings; the two-base Ghost rush. Having proven himself against 1-base Terran in the previous game, Huk opted for a greedy variant of the 1-gate expand into colossus tech. Thorzain followed suit with an expansion, and built up a sizable force of upgraded marines and marauders with a sprinkling of ghosts. Huk teched to colossus off of two base, spending most of his gas on the tech route and not much on sentries or stalkers; he needed to rely on trapping with forcefields and Zealots to hold back the timing. Thorzain wasn't about to wait though for those Colossi to pop, and moved out before the first Colossus finished (wasting the entire investment). A few clean EMPs prevented a some forcefields, and the sheer volume of ThorZain’s upgraded infantry mopped up the remaining forces and Huk called GG.



Twinsies! Thorzain and Naniwa
Naniwa, the second hope for foreign Protoss, has been showing lackluster results lately, despite performing well against stiff competition. His series against Rain nearly mirrored Huk’s; his Colossus push on Shakuras was scouted by a drop and met by a swarm of Vikings, but he took a win against Rain’s 4-rax marine assault as Rain over-committed and got picked apart by forcefields. Nani kept up the pressure for an easy win.

Naniwa returned the early pressure in the final game with a Blink rush off of one base, likely expecting Rain to 1/1/1 all-in or expand. He found an expansion and was able to take out the bunker and many SCVs, but Rain kept producing and stemmed the tide while adding onto his Tech.

Nani at this point had a few options; keep pushing, expand (or double expand) off a Blink Stalker contain, or tech to DTs, and I think he made the wrong choice by teching to DTs. Having already shown Twilight tech via blink, Rain would be expecting an expansion after the pressure let up, and any scan would reveal it lacking and essentially give away Naniwa’s tech choice based on his position. Rain also had double orbital, and Naniwa would be unable to delay an overwhelming bio push after the DTs were revealed. If Rain did not scan and ALSO did not assume DTs, Naniwa would win, but this seemed unlikely to me - at least as an observer sitting in the clouds. Heedless of my spectator-empowered warnings, Naniwa pushed his chips all-in and made the Dark Shrine.

But Rain did suspect the DTs, and responded. Naniwa was able to delay a push, but off of one base each DT he made cut his home army size, and no DT did any damage. No amount of gateways, cannons or blink micro could save Naniwa when Rain arrived in his base.

A great strategic series from both players, and Rain moved on to play DongRaeGu - but we’ll get to that in a second.

DongRaeGu - the Easy-Peasy Terran Killer
DRG opened up against the Spanish qualifier winner Lucifron... which is not OK and was not a nice thing to do to poor Lucifron. Not much to say here, but every time Terran left his base, he got surrounded and slaughtered before he could siege.

Rain in the semi-finals had some moderate success, but was still unable to take a game from the mighty DRGvT. He at least got his tanks into position and made some good exchanges, but DRG was able to shut down his drops and rely on Muta/Ling/Bane and Muta/Roach/Bane to take apart the former GSL finalist. Exciting, but fairly straightforward games left only one Terran left remaining that could take down the Korean progamer beast.




Finals - DRGvT vs. Spoon Terran ThorZain

I’ve never been a fan of the nickname Spoon Terran, as ThorZain’s games are always entertaining and I think the nickname I think sounds like he’s a boring player. He’s certainly not. DongRaeGu so far had spent the majority of the tournament picking apart Terran players for being greedy and punishing their mistakes, but ThorZain’s patience should serve him well. ThorZain was fresh off of wins from top tier Protosses Huk and Hero.

Game One: Shakuras Plateau
DRG went for a fast roach bust against ThorZain’s triple command center, and things went bad very quickly for greedy ThorZain.

Barely able to hold two bases with his three command centers, he lost SCVs and Tanks non-stop to constant harassment. ThorZain couldn’t catch up at all or secure a third. All the while DongRaeGu’s fingers were flying and he found himself up to four bases with plenty of funding. After some writhing and some ill-fated push-outs, ThorZain was forced to tap out.

Game Two: Tal'Darim Altar
Game Two was a tense match for ThorZain, as going down 0-2 to DRG would almost certainly spell defeat against the Terran killer. Spawning close with the natural positions favored to Terran, Thorzain opened fast expansion with a cute 1-marine, 1-SCV fake bunker rush. DRG had his own quick expo and opted for a fast lair, which ThorZain punished with a hellion-marine elevator timing, killing plenty of lings and a queen and taking a significant worker lead. Both players took their third bases and ThorZain started to work his way across the map in his methodical way while DRG teched to Mutas.

DongRaeGu’s control again came into play, using his Mutas to pick off tanks, marines, turrets and everything else while ThorZain slowly pushed across the map and eliminated creep with a spread-out Marine/Tank force. Watching the push on the minimap was a bit like watching the Windows progress bar while trying to transfer a file; it got about a quarter of the way there, paused for a while, shot forward and jumped back a bit, did a few calculations and eventually kind of secured a good spot at about 68% of the way there. Even with excellent control, DRG’s harvester disadvantage was too much for him to eventually recover from, and being forced into non-stop units didn’t help. Eventually the muta-cloud could no longer do battle with 3/3 marines and ThorZain took the game.

Game Three: Terminus
In the middle set, drone heavy DongRaeGu get caught out by another Hellion elevator. ThorZain seems to figure that Marine-Medivac with Hellions to slay unlimited numbers of lings is a good combination...


DRG seemed a bit behind, but had workers aplenty remaining, despite losing most of his ling forces and about a dozen drones. He equalized again as mutas popped to contain ThorZain, and rapidly grew to eighty drones spread over five bases, putting him firmly in the lead.

This game, ThorZain added plenty of his namesake Thors, but delayed his fourth and any pushes to do so. This allowed DongRaeGu to max on Ultra/Muta/Infestor, which I heard was a pretty good composition, and gave him the 2-1 lead in the series.


Game Four: Antiga Shipyard
The two players had a brawl on Antiga Shipyard, a map which has been producing some really great games as of late. ThorZain again went for some two-base pressure, this time with siegeless tanks, hellions and marines. He took out a good amount of creep, then retreated as his Siege mode wasn’t quite done. DRG again opted for a quick spire off of two bases, also making a macro hatch, and popped seven mutalisks as it completed.

ThorZain’s second push was timed with DRG’s third, and DRG failed in busting the contain because he was lacking in baneling speed and had no Zergling support. This cost him a fair amount of damage to his third hatchery and forced a lot more units, but he cleaned up all of the tanks and Marines on the second try with pure ling/muta.

DRG then went into Muta-mode for just a moment, sniping a tank, and then instead of droning and basing off of a contain, he opted to break ThorZain’s depot wall with a baneling bust. ThorZain was severely behind on units, but he managed to hold losing just a few depots, marines and tanks; a great trade for Terran.

DRG retained map control with the mutalisks remaining, however and both players took the back-to-back golds in the middle of the map. DRG upped the tempo in order to secure his bases and deny ThorZain’s, continually cleaning up the center watchtower with mutas and then going for a pincer ling/baneling attack on ThorZain’s gold SCVs. And then this happened...


DRG failed to detonate a half-dozen banes on top of a packed group of SCVs and mules - a huge miscontrol. ThorZain cleaned up the push and while a drop finished off DRG’s heavily damaged third.

From there ThorZain took a unit lead and started unleashing marines to DRG’s bases, sniping more drones and hatcheries, and DRG had a difficult time reacting.


DRG continued to battle, but was mining out on his natural and having his fourth and fifth denied. ThorZain solidified his position, took a fourth and pressed his lead into a victory, having tied the series at 2-2.

Game Five: Metalopolis
Suspense continued to build, as ThorZain had shown his ability to macro marines and tanks patiently through DRG in two macro games, and only losing on the Zerg-favored Terminus. DRG however, had gotten a clean glimpse of ThorZain’s style; Marine-Hellion pushes into almost pure Marine-tank, and would be very prepared for it in game five. The pressure was on for both players, and they both opened carefully on Metalopalis. Each player secured safe second bases and started scouting. ThorZain again pressured with hellions, but only really poked around and used them for map control, and DRG poked around with lings and secured a third, but ThorZain wasn’t about to let that go uncontested.

This first action seemed a decisive victory for ThorZain, as he pushed out before Mutas could pop, again with siegeless tanks, and took out DRG’s exposed third before creep could populate the area and make it defensible. But DRG doesn’t let bases go for free; he caught the unsieged army on its way home outside of ThorZain’s gold with a flood of lings and Mutas and took out the tanks, but traded his ground force to the marines. DongRaeGu rebuilt his army a bit and double expanded, taking the top half of the map. ThorZain pushed out with a scary midgame army.



ThorZain sieged in a strong position below DRG’s third and took out the creep, but somehow felt uncomfortable and began to unsiege moments later. DRG immediately capitalized on the weakness and rushed in with newly morphed banes, taking out the entire force.


ThorZain however, was a true man, and didn’t mind going straight for the gold after losing a big chunk of his army. DRG countered with a sneaky baneling attack through ThorZain’s unoccupied third and took out more than a dozen SCVs while populating his four bases, and the game settled with 4-base Zerg to square off against 3-base w/ Gold Terran, DRG with a large supply lead transitioning into Infestors and Hive. He couldn’t contest a sieged up planetary fortress at the gold without Tier 3, but his Muta-cloud could certainly deny the fourth base and ravage missile turrets. Thorzain appeared to be on the back foot, and attempted a big drop into DRG’s newly acquired fifth.

Though he successfully sniped the fifth hatchery, he lost a dozen marines and two medivacs and DRG was already maxed. While ThorZain had bought enough time through distractions to start setting up a desperate fourth base, DRG amassed a deadly force outside of the watchtower...


ThorZain didn’t have nearly enough marines to contest the Mutalisks and no Thors to hold the base. The attacking banes went straight into the SCVs that would be needed to repair the planetary, the tanks folded instantly and it was a fair time for ThorZain to GG.