by: Kollin and Likeapen



MC showed once more that he is not a player to be trifled with. Despite aLive's recent mini-resurgence in the GSL, MC showed exactly why he was the top earner in international tournaments by taking a 3 - 1 victory over the teamless Terran and earning a spot at MLG Dallas.

In game one, the small things mounted to put MC at a big deficit. His investment in an early mothership core and stalker didn’t pay off as he couldn’t punish aLive’s Command Centre first build. Even the energy accumulated on the core was wasted as he dropped a photon overcharge when alive came to pressure with marines. He lost his oracle too early without doing enough damage, and his phoenixes proved useless in stopping drops. With MC's stargate tech rendered useless, aLive stimmed to the win with a 4 medivac drop ripping apart MC’s tech in his main base.

MC's comeback started in game two, which saw aLive fall behind early after a failed cloak banshee attack, followed up by a failed marine raven attack. MC, able to power up to blink stalkers before going templars, managed to force a lift on aLive’s third before adding in two collossi just as alive attempted another attack with ghosts. Content to play a base behind, MC showed off impressive storm control, and forced aLive to fall back whenever he tried an attack. Even when aLive took a minor victory, forcing MC back, the SK Protoss maintained the supply lead and rallied with his reinforcements. He then proceeded to stomp aLive with a maxed Protoss army.

Game three was a case of MC executing a blink stalker all in against an almost perfectly prepared aLive and somehow, some way, making it work. With a bunker on the high ground in his main and at the ramp or his natural, MC used time warp to great effect, slowing aLive’s reinforments and SCV pulls, allowing his stalkers to chip away at his opponent’s forces, before pulling back and allowing his shields to recharge. The final battle was made to look absurdly one sided, even though MC was facing many marauders, two bunkers and a bunch of SCVs. From the entire series, this was the most quintessential MC game.

In game four aLive couldn’t be blamed for thinking he had the win in the bag. His drops had done a ton of damage, delaying mining, killing structures, pulling MC this way and that. But MC, through sheer grit and stubbornness managed to hold on until he got up to storm off three bases. Even though he had five bases of his own, aLive couldn’t match MC’s lategame control, and the Boss Toss marched his way to the MLG live event.





Many were questioning whether Taeja, between all of current WoL commitments, would have had the time to practice with and against the new toys given to players in HoTS. Violet was assumed to be practiced in the arts, not playing in any of the remaining few WoL leagues. As it turned out, those who worried for Taeja needn’t have, and probably should have passed some of the concern along to Violet who looked severely outmatched by his Terran opponent. Taeja’s impressive multitasking abilities remained despite the talk about his ailing wrists, and his marine splitting was completely insane. Violet, on the other hand, looked a little shellshocked and out-gunned, with his consistent play not yielding the result he would have liked.

TaeJa opened up the first game with an old classic in the 2-barracks rush, applying some bunker pressure on Violet’s 15 hatch. While Violet fended it off, the absence of a spine crawler meant he did have to send his drones and lings all the way down the ramp on Ohana, causing a lot of lost mining time which put him at a small disadvantage. Continual marine pressure from Taeja meant that Violet’s third was further delayed, and by the time his spire was finished, Taeja was already ready to attack with marines and hellions, with a sprinkling of widow mines. The rest of the game was a huge back and forth battle, with Taeja continually applying pressure to the third while taking more bases adding more production on his side of the map. Violet was never able to muster a force capable of crushing the Terran army completely, and he never had any breathing room to expand. Taeja’s clever use of hellbats as baneling tankers, as well as his epic marine splitting eventually wore the Azubu Zerg down and forced out a GG.

Game two found Taeja going one barracks into expansion, following it up with two factories. He pumped hellions and widow mines, making things annoying for viOLet as both sides took bases and settled in for a macro game. The game would develop into one that was extremely back and forth, with both players attempting assaults on each others' forward fourth bases on Daybreak. Violet this time opted for Roach-Hydra-Viper, which worked exceptionally well for the whole game. He traded evenly with Taeja, offsetting the fact that he didn’t kill many tanks by picking off medivacs. viOLet looked to be getting the better end of things as the game went on, but the game swung on two, ill-fated attacks on Taeja’s fourth where viOLet ran into into sieged tanks, kiting marines and marauders, and a planetary fortress. Taeja smartly kept his bio quite far forward, baiting out blinding clouds which could not then be used on the tanks, and his constant kiting allowed him to take victories in these battles and counter for the win.

While game two was a game Violet thought he probably should have won, game three was Taeja’s one that got away. Taeja harassed Violet effectively throughout the early game with Reapers and Hellions. Again showing his preference for marine tank with a sprinkling of hellbats and widow mines, Taeja looked to push his advantage and take out Violet’s fourth base. Seeing the push, Violet had mustered enough mutas, lings and banelings to crush the force when he caught the tanks unsieged. This allowed him to roll on through Taeja’s non-existent defenses at home and take a much needed win.

Game four showed some nice adjustments from viOLet on Akilon Wastes, using a spore crawler and roach squad to clear Taeja’s widow mines and advance his creep, securing himself a third in the process. Violet was allowed to power up, this time to more ling-bane-muta play, but when the engagement finally came the Zerg player neglected to deal with a hellbat drop that ran amok in his third, then his main, then his natural. When the dust settled, both players had lost most of their armies, but Violet had lost a ton of drones as well. Taeja then showed great patience, staking out Violet’s third base, trading hellbats and some bio but minimizing his losses again with excellent marine micro. This slow push was not to be stopped, and the 17 minute Hive proved too late for Violet, and he was forced to tap out for good.





While Polt came into the series having already built up some notoriety in the HotS scene, there was little known of HerO's HotS prowess. As it turned out, the Liquid Protoss didn't bring any hidden skills to the table, and he lost 0 - 3 in a series that further enhanced Polt's reputation as possibly the best Terran in pre-release HotS.

Game one was a case in point, with Polt going for a somewhat strange gas, into expansion, into fast stim. HerO, either fearing a pressure play or out of a sense of experimentation, went oracle, a move that ended up setting him back greatly in the larger scope of the game. His natural expansion was late, as was his colossus tech, meaning that he couldn’t take his third in any timely manner. By the time HerO had set up a three base foundation, Polt had taken too much of an economic lead for HerO to do anything. Polt attacked with 2-2 marines, marauders and vikings and simply rolled the Liquid Protoss.

Both players began with passive play in game two, but as Polt moved to put on midgame aggression with his multitasking really caming to the fore. Despite HerO having a powerful colossi based army, Polt was able to split his infantry very effectively, using the open spaces on Ohana to threaten his opponent with surrounds at all times. This was enough to confine HerO to three bases for a long period, with Polt able to take four bases and set up a good defensive position at home. Even when HerO took an engagement at a planetary fortress outside Polt’s third base, the teamless Terran was able to recover, build back up and force HerO to defend both his main and his fourth at the same time. Losing his fourth base was the cue for HerO to attack in desperation, and he was forced to GG out after Polt crushed his much smaller army.

Game three saw a desperate HerO attempt a void ray all in. Despite the improvements to the void ray in the prismatic alignment ability, HerO was unable to make it work. Polt scouted the lack of an expansion with his reaper and was able to make two bunkers and pull his SCVs to hold in a close battle. After Polt’s hold, HerO’s late expansion was never going to be successfully defended, and the Liquid Protoss waved goodbye to a spot at the MLG Winter Championship, a spot Polt will no doubt be relishing.





In a clash between the two top 'SEAsians,' most people would have predicted Sen to have the upper hand, especially going into HotS, where ZvZ is heavily based around muta wars. However, Moonglade had been practicing his socks off when it comes to HotS, so it was unfair to count him out. With Sen having to practice for the WoL Taiwanese leagues, it at least gave mOOnGLaDe an advantage in play time.

The first game looked like your average WoL ZvZ, both players opening pool-hatch. Baneling nests were constructed and the familiar back and forth motions of ling baneling wars commenced. Moonglade was the aggressor in this circumstance, poking in with speedlings to try and do some damage. Despite going for an extremely quick lair, Sen held the pressure off without taking too many losses, and went on the offensive himself. The huge amount of ling-bane eventually overwhelmed Moonglade's own zergling army, and with Sen's much faster mutalisks on the way the Australian Zerg was forced to tap out.

Game two was nowhere near as uniform as the first. Sen went for a devastating roach baneling attack, one that he had been practicing a lot on the ladder. Moonglade had chosen the more standard mutalisks as his tech path, and with a large amount of spine crawlers held the push off. Sen was put even further behind as his undefended third went down to mutalisks, and he was forced into a last ditch effort in the form of a huge roach-queen-infestor attack. A base trade ensued, both players losing all but their naturals before Moonglade brought his mutalisks back to finally stave off his opponent. Sen feebly produced hydralisks trying to delay the end, but it was not enough and Moonglade tied up the series.

The following game was once again fairly unorthodox, as Moonglade very greedily got two fast evolution chambers while Sen got his spire tech up. Moonglade did a fantastic job of denying his opponent's third repeatedly with zerglings, but a momentary lapse allowed Sen to make up for it and more with a devastating muta-ling counter attack that slaughtered drones. The rest of the game was Moonglade playing catch up, and even though he won a large maxed battle against Sen, it didn't matter. Sen's superior economy meant that Moonglade could never quite break him, even in the pseudo base race that ensued. Both players were left with only infestors, and barely any minerals which forced them to produce even more infestors to use up their gas. Sen had a one base advantage on Moonglade, and eventually overwhelming amounts of infested terrans resulted in a victory.

Game four showed mutalisk wars reminiscent of Brood War ZvZ. Both players got up their spires relatively unhindered, but Moonglade's faster third and fourth base resulted in him having a significant gas advantage. Oddly, Sen chose to get attack upgrades before armor upgrades for his mutalisks, putting him even further behind. Despite coming close to crippling his opponent's economy, Sen just did not have the mutalisk numbers to follow through and the series went to match point.

The final game showed just how much Sen could punish a single mistake from a fellow Zerg. Both players went the same path as the previous game, going directly into the muta phase after early zerglings and banes. However, Sen got a very clutch denial off on Moonglade's third base with speedlings just before mutas popped out. Much like the fourth game, the gas advantage proved to be the decisive factor in the muta wars, making it impossible for MoonGlade to fight on even footing. Sen slowly tightened the noose around his opponent, before going in for the kill and securing him a spot in MLG Dallas.





To kick the North American qualifiers off, the LighT's eSports' Caliber would be playing against Millenium's goswser. While Caliber had few notable results in his WoL career, and the case was largely the same for goswser until the past few months. Toward the end of 2012, the American Zerg started kicking up a storm in tournaments such as Iron Squid II, taking down GSL winners such as Mvp and coming awfully close to beating Life in a ZvZ. You'd think because of this goswser would be the clear favorite in a series against a fellow NA player, but his victory in this series was in fact by the skin of his teeth.

The tempo of game one was dictated by Caliber, as he opened with a gateway expand. Upon scouting this, goswser delayed his third heavily in favor of zergling speed and a faster lair, in case any aggression came. His preparation for a ground attack proved to be unnecessary, but his fast lair and hydralisks allowed him to drive away Caliber's phoenix harass fairly easily. Caliber then took a third base and teched to colossi, and in response goswser took his fourth base and amassed a large roach hydralisk viper army. Goswser went in for the attack, but used the viper's abduct ability on the hallucinated colossi Caliber had cleverly used to trick his opponent. Despite winning many style points for his initial defense, Caliber couldn't hold when a follow up attack from goswser came minutes later to end the game.

Game two saw Caliber open with a version of the immortal sentry attack with a twist. The addition of void rays increased the firepower of the attack greatly, but the delay in timing meant that goswser was able to get up a wall of spines up at his natural, as well as a sizeable mutalisk force. Caliber backed off and successfully transitioned into a macro game, while goswser followed suit. At the end of a back and forth tug of war, goswser seemed to fall hopelessly behind after losing a roach-hydralisk-viper army in an extremely inefficient manner, and losing his hive and a large amount of tech buildings as the price. In a testament to his ability, goswser did manage to rebuild and mount an incredible near-comeback with a large swarm host army. However, with his expansions dropping left and right, Caliber got off the perfection engagements against the Zerg army and ripped it to pieces with colossi and archons. While a scrappy goswser actually managed to put Caliber on zero mining with further harassment, he has no answer for Caliber's superior army and was forced to tap out in the end.

The next game was a much shorter affair, with Caliber showing that sometimes the old ways work best. A classic four gate went unscouted by goswser until it was far too late, giving Caliber the easy win and putting him a single game away from a scoring an upset. With a chance to take the 3 - 1 win in game four, Caliber kept up the aggression, as he went for another immortal sentry push. However, goswser executed a good counter, and his two base roach hydralisk force pushed back Caliber's army. While Caliber was able to snipe the Zerg's third base during the following transition to swarm hosts, Gowswer simply expanded to a different location while adding vipers to his already superior army. Despite Caliber's desperate addition of high templars to his own composition, it was too little, too late as goswser ran over him with sheer numbers and tied up the series.

The final game of the series really showed off just how good goswser is at using swarm hosts effectively. Caliber chose to open with void ray aggression, but goswser's two base hydralisk build deflected it easily. Both players took third bases, and goswser teched to swarm hosts while taking a fourth as well. Caliber had storm and colossi tech by the time goswser laid siege with his swarm hosts, but he just didn't have enough firepower. Goswser set up a huge concave around Caliber's third base, and traded insanely efficiently with well supported swarm hosts. Caliber's army was slowly whittled down and as his third base fell so did his hopes, and he conceded the series to goswser. These games really showed off the power of the swarm host when used well, but Caliber was also able to remind us of their immobility and how it can be abused.

European Second Chance Tournament

Originally, DIMAGA had scored a 3 - 2 victory over Grubby to secure the final EU spot at the MLG Winter Championship. However, the Ukrainian Zerg was forced to cancel his participation due to unfortunate circumstances, leaving one spot up for grabs. MLG's solution? A six man, best of one tournament between the previous eliminated EU players for the final spot! (Nerchio declined to participate)

aTn.Socke vs. RoX.KIS.TitaN

The first match in the last chance qualifiers was between two of the leading Protosses from their respective countries in Socke and Titan. Socke opened with a robo expand, whereas Titan chose to put the pressure on with two gateways, expanding behind it himself. Socke held off the pressure without any major losses, and both players transitioned into a macro game. Socke got a single stargate, and upon scouting it, Titan chose to one up his opponent by building two stargates. After putting Socke behind with some well executed warp-prism harass and coming out ahead in a small ground skirmish, Titan followed with an attack combining his ground army and his superior phoenix force. Socke was hopelessly outgunned in the fight, and bowed out of the MLG Showdowns for good.

Liquid`Snute vs. Mill.Feast

The next game had another European Protoss in Feast going up against Liquid's newest recruit in Snute. The game started with Feast being quite greedy, taking a fast third behind some stalker pressure. Snute defended it easily, his four queens and excellent control more than enough to drive away Feast's forces. From there Snute added more and more queens on, going up to five bases and mixing in infestors. Feast's army was the retro 'laser toss' army from WoL reborn in HotS - a huge colossus-void ray ball with the added power of prismatic alignment. Snute's fantastically upgraded ground and air units looked like they might have had a chance, but the insane DPS of the void ray - colossus - archon army was too much, forcing Snute to retreat from the first major engagement. The Zerg player looked unsure of what to do from there, at first producing huge amounts of corruptors with his seemingly unending bank, before promptly throwing them away. Snute's hydralisk switch might have been unexpected by Feast, but he certainly must have welcomed them as colossi quickly incinerated the hydras into piles of ash. Snute GG'd out, leaving Feast to move on.

Grubby vs. RoX.KIS.TitaN

Titan opened with a very similar build to his previous game, going early two gate pressure. Despite Grubby making a huge blunder and losing his initial sentry, very little damage was sustained. Grubby had chosen to go DT's, which have the benefit of being much cheaper to tech to in HotS. He crippled Titan's economy while expanding behind his cloaked assassins, and teched up to immortals. Titan managed to stabilize, and just like his match against Socke, put down two stargates. Grubby scouted that move with an observer, and got two stargates of his own while heavily pressuring Titan, trying to force a mistake. Grubby got a significantly faster third than his opponent, and combined with a needless phoenix giveaway from Titan, it was good enough for the win.

mouz.MaNa vs. Mill.Feast

This game was short and sweet, as Feast went for the early kill on Mana and succeeded fairly easily. Despite Mana going for an extremely safe two gate robo build, Feast just didn't care. An unusual DT four gate did not do overwhelming damage to Mana's economy, but the follow up four gate push with archons was just too much, as Mana was caught out of position and out of luck. A quick game showed that PvP is still very volatile, and the smallest mistake can snowball out of control.

Grubby vs. Mill.Feast

In a fitting end to what had been mostly a PvP tournament, the finals to the EU consolation bracket was rather short. Grubby's proxy stargate build was scouted and he was forced to cancel. Grubby put down two more extremely delayed gateways back at home, but he didn't have a robo or any other form of detection. Feast once again chose a DT gateway build, and just devastated Grubby's economy. While Grubby put in a sterling effort to defend the follow up push, Feast just had too much of an advantage. With a valuable prize on the line, the student defeated the master and moved on to MLG Dallas.