by: Kollin and Likeapen



There was certainly no love lost in what was perhaps the most eagerly anticipated series in the North American showdowns, with Minigun and IdrA battling it out for a spot at MLG's main event in Dallas. Minigun certainly had IdrA distracted through the games. Whether it was because of warp prisms, DT’s or simply the disdain he held for his Protoss opponent, IdrA did not look like he was playing up to his best. And while the series was short, it was certainly sweet, and combined obvious angst and emotion with some wonderful gameplay. The series ended prematurely and somewhat controversially, but given the reputations of these two competitors, what else should we have expected?

Game one saw both players embark on relatively standard macro openings, with Minigun taking a fast third on the back of his single zealot, single stalker and mothership core pressure. IdrA attempted to punish this with a fast gas into zergling speed, but clever sim city from Minigun allowed him to get the Nexus up and defend it with photon overcharge. With IdrA still trying to catch up on economy, the game changer came when Minigun snuck two DTs into IdrA’s main and natural, which distracted the EG zerg for long enough to allow Minigun to set up a pylon and gain position on Idra’s third. His +2 blink stalkers, combined with good forcefields allowed Minigun to take a largely one-sided engagement from there.

More distraction tactics were on display in game two on Whirlwind, where again both players opened up standard. Minigun went for a different kind of 'standard' play however, opening up this time with a two base immortal push. However, when this failed and Minigun was forced to recall out after a good flank from IdrA, the Zerg with the faulty ‘g’ key looked to have the game in control. Minigun had transitioned to colossus during this time, and when he had built up to three of them he looked to press out for a final attack. Using a warp prism in the main to draw IdrA’s army out of position, he abused the choke at IdrA's third base to stomp his roach hydra force, earning an unlikely win after a failed immortal-sentry all-in.

Game three looked like a sure thing for IdrA, as both players went for his preferred macro game scenario. Despite Minigun’s best attempts to harass with warp prisms and counterattacks, IdrA seemed to have secured a strong enough economic lead to go into a big engagement, remax, and win from there. IdrA built up an impressive force of ultras, hydras, vipers and infestors to counter Minigun’s colossus, void ray, stalker, high templar mix, and selected Minigun's exposed, central base as the deciding battlefield. The final battle saw Minigun blanket IdrA's forces with psi storms as both sides lose most of their key units, with a handful of void rays surviving to clean up IdrA's force. With a bank of 2600 minerals and 1200 gas and behind by 128 to 146 supply, IdrA decided enough was enough and exited the game. It was another controversial exit from IdrA, showing once again that love him or loathe him, he’s a guy we all love to watch.







In a battle between two players who have stayed out the spotlight, Peruvian Terran player Fenix came up against the America's State. This series pitted Fenix’s crazy dropping against State’s methodical, storm based play. While Fenix showed some cool, HotS based innovations – particularly with his scouting reaper play and multi-pronged aggression – State’s defensive macro style eventually prevailed against the South American.

Game one on Daybreak saw Fenix open with a stim, combat shield and widow mine timing. State managed to hold off the aggression with sentries, and was able to snipe a medivac containing two widow mines with his blink stalkers. Despite some useful harass with zealots and stalkers from a pylon placed behind Fenix’s third, State’s decision to delay his third and his forges proved a game changer, and Fenix’s upgrade lead allowed his constant drops and backstabs to damage State’s economy while he built up to four bases of his own. This culminated in a doom drop in the main, which cued an ill-fated counter from State and a victory for the South American.

Game two saw Fenix perhaps fall victim to himself, as he persisted with the incessant dropping that was so successful the map before. This time, however, State was on top of it with blink stalkers and excellent observer coverage. By the time the final engagement arrived, Fenix had simply lost too many medivacs and units for not enough return, and State was able to roll through the Terran with good storms.

Fenix had favored a single reaper opening in games one and two, but in game three he decided to take this to the extreme. It turns out that mass reaper is still not that effective against Protoss, and State defended it stoutly, putting Fenix at a serious deficit. Both players went up to three bases but State’s tech path aligned much more neatly and he was able to press his advantage with warp prisms while defending drops, before finishing Fenix off with one big colossus push.



Game four can only be described as a disaster for Fenix, as he lost his scouting reaper and didn’t have enough marines to defend State’s zealot, stalker, mothership core pressure. He lost a bunch of SCVs early on, had his economy delayed by time warp (more of an insult than an actually damaging move), then lost a medivac when he moved out to pressure the Protoss. Losing four widow mines in a medivac was the final straw, and State simply teched up to storm off two bases and then let the pain rain down on Fenix. A quick victory secured State his place at Dallas.





ViBE and Illusion have been two of America’s best players in their respective races in the past year. ViBE won the WCS USA championship, and came close to becoming the North American champion as well before losing to Scarlett in the finals. Illusion, while he almost takes the best American Terran spot due to lack of competition, still provided some rare highlights for NA Terrans to watch in 2012, notably at IPL4. From what the pair demonstrated in their MLG series, they look to be two of the best at HoTS as well. While they may not be the biggest names on an international scale, this series was an excellent indicator of how good these two guys are.

Game one was a game of Starcraft you might use to convert some of your friends to esports. It was a rollicking affair, going from players being starved of resources, to suddenly being rich off two bases worth of income. Both Illusion and ViBE took advantage of the hard-to-take bases of their opponent on Neo Planet S, denying their opponents third and fourth over and over. Illusion showed his impressive multitasking ability, having medivacs full of bio attacking the north and south of the map simultaneously, forcing ViBE to make decisions about where to send his roach, viper hydra army. Similarly, ViBE would press his army advantages whenever he could and denied Illusions third and fourth multiple times. This culminated in both players being starved of resources, and once Illusion placed an orbital command at the gold base in the center, a final engagement could not be avoided. Despite having good viper control and a decent number of brood lords, a brilliant concave and flank from Illusion simply proved too much. His bio sprinted through the blinding clouds, not for the first time in the game, and cleaned up ViBE’s army forcing the GG.



Game two provided us with another back and forth spectacle. With Illusion putting the new and improved reapers to good use, ViBE was forced into some fancy drone micro to minimize his losses. This he executed with aplomb, and bought enough time for queens to come out and fend off the reapers. More harassment in the forms of reaper hellion, and later drop play came from Illusion, but ViBE managed to hold strong, using roaches initially, then a combination of viper abduct and hydralisks to pick off medivacs heaving with infantry. Through his constant dropship use, Illusion looked to be gaining an economic advantage, but ViBE had built up to brood lords and pushed Illusion all the way back to his side of the map. While Illusion had enough to clean up the brood lords, control of the game gradually slipped away from him. ViBE started to win engagements more and more convincingly, and when his vipers and hydras rolled over Illusion’s fifth, it was time for the mouz Terran to tap out.

You might call game three the swarm host game, where ViBE showed the world just how good these units can be against Terran. Again Illusion opened reapers and managed to pick off a pack of workers. But ViBE worked his way up to swarm hosts off three bases, and using the waves of locusts as high-powered support with roaches and hydras, slowly began to whittle away at Illusion. ViBE smartly retreated his units when the locusts died, and moved the swarm hosts before unleashing another deadly swell. This began to wear on Illusion, who pushed out, a move that cost him his all-important third base. From here the swarm host flock just grew too large, and Illusion was again forced to submit.

Game four saw ViBE pull out the cheese, as he attempted an early roach, burrow attack. Unfortunately for the ROOT Zerg, the Mouz Terran sniffed it out pretty quickly, and detecting something rather smelly, placed two bunkers at the ramp to his natural. From here, ViBE’s attack failed, and his attempt to take a third base was thwarted by a counter from Illusion. Some drops kept ViBE occupied while Illusion built up for the knockout punch, which was promptly delivered taking us into match point.

Game five again saw the cheese being whipped out, but this time it was Illusion’s turn. While his marauder hellion all in went mostly undetected, ViBE was smart enough to use what roaches he had to draw the Terran force into the centre of the map. This bought him time to produce more roaches and also baited stims out of Illusion. By the time all the SCVs had been pulled, Illusion’s push was weaker and ViBE’s defense was much stronger. Losing his third base didn’t matter for ViBE, and his roach numbers simply rolled the all in. A pre-prepared transition into swarm hosts finished off America’s Terran hope. This really was an extremely well-fought series. It was one of those times when you wish both guys could advance, but in the end ViBE was slightly more deserving.





While many of the earlier matches showcased what kind of strategic developments and innovations had been thought of during the beta, that was not the case for this match-up. Maker got trounced quickly in a 3 - 0 series, without either player having a chance to show us much in the way of Heart of the Swarm.

In the first game Maker opened with extremely fast armories, while containing Suppy on two bases and taking his third. The EG Zerg responded well, with a lair as well as roach upgrades. He dealt a huge economic blow to Maker with his 1 - 1 roach timing, crippling his opponent's economy. Vipers and then brood lords followed, and as Maker's natural was put under siege he tapped out. Game two saw Maker open aggressively with the ever popular proxy reaper build, which did decent damage to Suppy's economy. Despite following up by killing off Suppy's third and dealing further economic damage with drops, Maker overextended with his bio force and got crushed by a large roach hydra flank. The follow up push from Suppy only proved to seal the deal on a game that seemed won by Maker.



The last game once again showed that Suppy has an affinity for roaches, as he chose to open with a WoL early roach push. Maker held it off taking a medium amount of economic losses, and counter attacked with a hellion marauder force. Suppy had more than enough defence to hold it off, and a positional blunder resulted in Maker losing his entire army. The follow up speed roach push crashed through Maker's wall-less natural, and Suppy advanced to MLG Dallas in a dominating fashion.





HotS looks to have done a lot of good for these two players' games, at least from the perspective of a viewer. qxc used widow mines just as well as Korean Terrans YoDa and Mvp did at IEM, while Killer is showcased fantastic mutalisk and roach-hydralisk control. It turned out that Killer was just playing better on the day, and always looked to be in control of the games. While qxc showed some impressive plays, he was as outmatched as the 3 - 0 scoreline suggests.

The first game was a marathon, filled with lategame tech switching and new units aplenty. The Complexity Terran opened with hellion harass, transitioning into mech off the back of it. Killer deflected the hellions while taking some worker losses and got up four bases as well as a very fast hive. His opponent was going for a much more widow mine heavy style than other Terran's had chosen to go for in the MLG tournament, using them help his army control a wider amount of space.

Killer constantly denied qxc from taking a fourth, sacrificing parts of his army to do so but still massing a large viper brood lord army in the process. However, qxc was well prepared for the air units with ravens and engaged extremely effectively, crushing Killer's army. The ultralisk switch that followed did nothing more than deny qxc's fifth for a short while more. Despite being unable to get the better of qxc in a battle, Killer was still perfectly comfortable on his seven base economy. He decided to end the game by throwing wave after wave of brood lords at qxc, chipping away at his economically disadvantaged opponent. In true Heart of the Swarm style, qxc's army was eventually overrun by endless waves of Zerg.



The next game was another dominating showing from Killer, as he prevented qxc from rising above 150 supply for the entirety of the game. Killer started out with early roach aggression, to which qxc responded by counter attacking with his hellions. qxc followed up his hellion pressure with a marauder hellion attack, intending to take a third behind it. Killer responded extremely well, delaying the attack with spinecrawlers and severely crippling qxc's economy with mutalisks. qxc eventually pushed through the spines and destroyed Killer's natural, but the Clarity Gaming Zerg was not fazed at all, triple expanding as a response. Killer once again showed his HotS spirit, as his overwhelming numbers of roach hydra crashed through qxc's defences and took the game.

The final game once again saw Killer opt for early roach aggression, which qxc held off tidily. qxc transitioned into bio, littering the map with widow mines in an attempt to catch his opponent napping. Alas it did not work, and Killer once again used his mutalisks extremely effectively, picking off SCV's, marines and refineries whenever he could. During this harassment Killer had amassed large roach baneling army at home, and as soon as qxc moved out onto the map Killer swarmed over him and annihilated the meager bio army. Killer took a quick three games in a convincing fashion, and qualified himself for MLG Dallas where he will face Thorzain.





This series looked on paper to be a North American mismatch. HuK, one of the most accomplished non-Korean players ever, against Sasquatch, no doubt a quality player, but not one with Code S qualification or major championships to his name. Unfortunately the paper predicted right, and HuK’s class really showed.

In game one on Daybreak, Sasquatch decided upon a build that seems to be steadily gaining popularity in Heart of the Sward, taking an early gas and adding on zergling speed around the same time as his third base. This ended up paying off as Sasquatch sniped a stalker, as well as the probe that was attempting to build HuK’s fast third Nexus. Unfortunately the Complexity player was completely caught off guard by some off-beat gateway pressure from HuK which cost him his third base. HuK probably could have finished the game quickly, but chose to build up to two colossi and four bases, at which point he pushed out and rolled the zerg.

An early overlord loss for Sasquatch wasn’t a good way to start the second game, and it pretty much set the tone for a game where almost nothing went right. Sasquatch did manage to sneak a few lings in through the back door on Neo Bifrost, but his follow up aggression achieved nothing and cost him in drones. With no third base, Sasquatch was in quite a predicament. He had no cost efficient way of defending the counterattack from HuK, which cost him yet more drones. There was a glimmer of hope for Sasquatch when his mutas forced HuK to chase him around the map, but a two base zerg was never going to beat a three base protoss, and HuK won a big engagement at his third and took the game.

Game three was another ugly game for Sasquatch, and he lost his third base to a big double warp in of zealots. The zealots then marched into the natural and main of the zerg, dealing damage to his resource lines. Behind this, HuK was able to get up to three bases with +2 blink stalkers, but took a terrible engagement at the ramp to Sasquatch’s natural on Cloud Kingdom, giving Sasquatch a little glimmer of home. However, with eight high templars back at home building up energy as well as a fourth base, HuK still had things neatly wrapped up. HuK coated Sasquatch's army with mass storms, earning the final GG.