Heralded as the best player in the world for months, STX_INnoVation finally won the trophy he needed to seal the deal. Just a week after his disastrous GSL finals experience against Soulkey, where he let a 3 - 0 lead slip out of his hands, Innovation crushed Soulkey's teammate sOs 4 - 0 in the WCS Season 1 Grand Finals. After dispatching Mvp in a close semi-final series, Innovation headed into his second final the span of a week fully understanding the stakes and knowing how slim the margin was between victory and defeat. This time, he made sure his opponent would get no second chances. The nervous sOs, who entered his first finals in his young career, stood no chance against the battle-hardened and utterly ruthless Innovation.
The first game set the tone for the series with Innovation playing his usual ultra-aggressive style, flying around the map with medivacs loaded with hellbats. At first, sOs' defense seemed to be rock solid, but with multi-prong attack spreading him thin, cracks started to appear and eventually Innovation was able to exploit them. Taking an economic lead with his drops, Innovation didn't stop with the pressure, whizzing across the map with even more hellbat drops and taking out sOs' feeble attempts to hold with zealots. Down nearly forty army supply, there wasn't much left for sOs to do but wait for his ultimate demise, and he GG'd out when Innovation came marching in with his superior force.
Hoping to tie things up, sOs went for one of his signature tricky builds on the second map, opting to proxy a stargate in hopes of getting a leg up with an early oracle. Wanting to replicate Innovation's success with his aerial play on the first map, sOs' oracles seemed to do the trick early on, killing off a number of workers and putting Innovation on the back foot. Warping in stalkers and zealots to keep up the pressure, it appeared to be just a matter of time until sOs choked out Innovation and tied up the series.
Unfortunately for sOs, he misjudged the situation and hastily pushed his stalkers up into Innovation's base in an attempt to end the game quickly, rather than try to play out his advantage slowly and methodically. sOs paid the price for his recklessness, as his troops were surrounded by SCVs and gunned down by marines. Having thrown away his advantage, sOs found himself massively behind for the second straight game, not even having a nexus at his natural expansion while Innovation already had a second orbital command center ready to float down. Just as in game one, Innovation pushed his econ lead, massed up his army, and eventually went to kill the helpless sOs.
Put down into a 2 - 0 hole, the first time finalist already seemed to be crumbling. Soulkey had noted in a prior interview that if sOs was able to take the first game, he would have been in a good mental position to take the series. But being down two games to the top Terran in the world was too deep a hole for a player already noted to have nervousness issues in high pressure games to climb out of.
The series continued to play out by the same script in game three, with Innovation confirming that sOs' defense wasn't strong enough to defend his drops. The game started out even, as both players built up to around 100 supply on even bases. But then - just like the first game - the drops were too much for sOs, and all the holes in his static defense were exploited, giving Innovation a large army advantage. In his panic, sOs even built an accidental second templar archives as Innovation pulled further and further ahead.
To sOs' credit, he managed regain his composure, and put up a good fight toward the end, pulling off perfect feedbacks against drops to give him a small window of opportunity. Closing the gap in supply and having the stronger army composition, it looked like he might be able to steal a victory if he could get enough blink stalkers to support a colossus based army, but his composition just never came together in time to stop Innovation's overwhelming army. Down 0 - 3, sOs had to put on his best GGPlay and Soulkey impression if he wanted to take the championship and place Innovation in a club that even MarineKing didn't belong to.
Deciding that standard play or conventional cheeses like proxy oracles wouldn't work against Innovation, sOs pulled out possibly the most out of left field strategy we've ever seen in a major final. Wanting to play the ultimate turtle game, sOs put all his chips down on the tempest. The hope was that if he could get enough high templars and tempests, Innovation would never be able to attack him straight up, while constant zealot harassment would be able to wear him down.
Right out of the gate, the strategy looked to be an embarrassment, Innovation finding about the tempests early and being able to put up three starports in retaliation. The entire linchpin of the build came down to being able to hold the fourth base - the center gold base on Planet S - using the tempests and high templars to stop any incoming attacks to try and take it out. Innovation didn't let sOs set up in turtling position, rushing in the first chance he had with his speedy bio army, sniping down the base and moving out with minimal losses.
This dance would continue for most of the mid-game, sOs building tempests, hoping to get into an ultra late-game situation, and playing turret defense with his gold base. Innovation would continually rush in with his medivacs and bio army, take heavy losses from storms and the shock blasts from the tempests, but be able to take out the gold base in the end, giving him the large economic advantage.
Finally, after going through the same cycle for most of the game, sOs got the army that he wanted. With 10+ tempest on the map, he was able to do his zealot run-bys, kill off a large amount of Innovation's workers, and even move around the map with his air force and target down the extra bases that Innovation was trying to secure. Evening out the army supplies and taking a slight edge in economy, the crazy strategy built around the overlooked long rage Protoss air unit was starting to look more and more genius.
The climactic battle came at the gold base, Innovation rushing in with his marines and vikings, wanting to take out as many tempests as possible. Both sides took heavy losses in the exchange, still at around the same supply by the time it was over, but Innovation gained the huge advantage by breaking the critical mass of the expensive, slow-building tempests. With his opponent's core army composition broken, Innovation had free reign to run around sacking sOs's before he replenished his tempest numbers.
The biggest factor in why sOs eventually lost the game was the upgrades. With a 0/2 army against 3/3 bio, sOs had no chance against Innovation's infantry, losing engagements that he would have normally won if the upgrades were even. In a world where his upgrades were better, sOs would have actually come out with the victory in this crazy game, maybe even creating a new PvT paradigm by with his tempest centered army. Unfortunately, he overlooked the upgrades to try and get a high tech army, investing all his money into the tempest/templar combination.
Down 100 supply after losing all of his ground army to Innovation's upgraded forces, sOs tried to hold on one more time with his remaining air fleet. With not enough storms to blow up the ground forces, the marines were able to get under the tempests, take them out, and secure a 4 - 0 victory for Innovation.
I dont know if it was just a timezone or the fact that I couldn't get 480 to not lag (normally can do 1080 ez)....but this tournament was not interesting at all
Shame about sOs though. Even though my head was telling me it wasn't going to happen, I was really hoping for another protoss champion. Still, innovation thoroughly deserved the win. Congrats.
The fact that MVP almost beat this guy shows that MVP is still a very strong contender for the title of best Terran. That's actually what I was most excited about this tournament. The fact that MVP is still as strong as ever is really cool.
To me it was an excellent event; the best production quality I've seen in a long time. I missed out on the whole Brood War scene but seeing the WCS finals last night made me feel like I was witnessing something pretty amazing; I am excited for where professional SC2 will go in the future. Gratz Innovation, and well done sOs, Soulkey, and Mvp as well; I was particularly impressed with Mvp's play.
Personally, thinking on the effort the guys put into the game, and all that, $ 40K for the first place seems really low. Another thing not specifically related to the match-up, but again, about these tournaments is the fact that I really feel shameful when I'm trying to get my friends into the game, we are watching the streams of WCS, and 100% of all three, Korean, America and Europe, all had technical issues at some point.
On some it was Kaelaris muting the mics of both casters, computers stopping to response, lag or other technical issue that lead into a re-make. Same goes in America, and GSL/WCS Korea, even ProLeague. I mean, can't they afford to buy 4 computers with i7 quad core processors and decent GPU+RAM combos? When those things happen I want to dig a hole in the ground and bur my head in shame...
This is supposed to be like the Soccer World Cup, you don't see this sort of stuff that often in other sports...
Just my 2 cents. Anyways, I think INnoVation totally deserved getting it, amazing games, and Blizzard, please nerf the hellbats and medivacs... xD
On June 10 2013 06:06 Derez wrote: Innovation pretty damn good but its no GSL title.
40 k and more wcs points this title is better than gsl and it was as hard to achieve, not to mention that he was so close to getting both titles, but well haters gonna hate.
It was Terran vs Protoss. We all KNEW it was going to happen.
This is a two race game and in the surprising event that a Protoss actually manages to squeeze into the final, we witness massacre.
Ban me by all means, but if it's taboo to call the elephant in the room by his name, then nothing will ever improve, and all we have is a climate of fear where everyone is afraid to acknowledge that the Emperor has no clothes.
Well here I am saying it. The Emperor has no clothes. It's a two race game at the moment that works in Terran's favour.
On June 10 2013 06:20 Bumpkin wrote: It was Terran vs Protoss. We all KNEW it was going to happen.
This is a two race game and in the surprising event that a Protoss actually manages to squeeze into the final, we witness massacre.
Ban me by all means, but if it's taboo to call the elephant in the room by his name, then nothing will ever improve, and all we have is a climate of fear where everyone is afraid to acknowledge that the Emperor has no clothes.
Well here I am saying it. The Emperor has no clothes. It's a two race game at the moment that works in Terran's favour.
User was banned for this post.
Kinda hard squeezing in 3 races into single finals
appreciated write up, since i fell asleep last night T_T
PS: i think there is a typo in "Evening out the army supplies and taking a slight edge in economy, the crazy strategy built around the overlooked long rage Protoss air unit was starting to look more and more genius." range?
For those of us that watched the GSL stream of the semi between Mvp and Innovation, all know that the only reason Mvp didn't win WCS finals was because he got cursed.
The WCS finals were fantastic. The only part that was disappointing was the quarters. The OGN stream was hilarious though, a big shoutout to Chobra for being an awesome translator
On June 10 2013 07:23 T0MORR0W wrote: Mvp was really impressive. While watching I felt like he would have pulled it out if only hellbat drops weren't quite so good.
Yeah too bad he didn't know how good hellbats were and didn't use them himself. Maybe next time.
These finals were pretty terrible to be honest. sOs was so nervous he was getting supply blocked every 2 minutes in each game and kept misclicking everything even accidentally killing his own units at some point. Both semifinal series were much better than the finals imo, with Mvp games being some of the best in Hots so far.
On June 10 2013 06:06 Derez wrote: Innovation pretty damn good but its no GSL title.
40 k and more wcs points this title is better than gsl and it was as hard to achieve, not to mention that he was so close to getting both titles, but well haters gonna hate.
It's more money, but it's clearly not as hard as a GSL title. Weaker competition, less games, less time to prepare increases the luck factor, etc.
sOs never had a chance. Whether balance or mechanics, Innovation was always 25 supply ahead by the 9 minute mark even after losing several drops without much damage, and would never let sOs leave his base. I liked sOs's idea to go for the Oracle cheese, because it was obvious from the first game where sOs played pretty much perfectly and still never had a snowball's chance in hell at engaging Innovation (until Innovation finally a-moved into his base) to the point where he'd have to take a risk and hope he could end it early.
I also liked his idea in game 4 to just straight up turtle with tempests with the idea that if early game cheese won't work, he might be able to go for an unstoppable late game protoss deathball. Unfortunately tempests are just a little bit too slow to be everywhere sOs needed them to be and honestly not cost effective vs 3-3 marines.
I liked Innovation's aggressive expansions. He had the top left and bottom right mining and if sOs wanted to take it out, he'd have to commit his very slow army leaving himself exposed elsewhere. It seems like if sOs had built a backup 4th Nexus in mid lower right instead of betting the game on keeping that gold over and over, he might've been ok. 400 minerals really isn't that big of a deal when you're on 3 bases. Innovation kept taking un cost effective engagements to stop that gold 4th and if sOs had been mining at the same rate as Innovation, he would've been ahead. Innovation was always behind in units lost, but always ahead in supply due to his expansion timings.
It was actually A LOT closer than everyone thinks..
If things weren't as bad - sOs might've started with a 3:1 in those first 4 games..
G1 was a ridiculous doom drop that no matter how many units are shooting at the Terran - they can just stim and focus Nexus down which made me angry a lot, that was so gay.. sOs was playing better in G1 by faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar up until that Nexus snipe.. AND yes - it was really unfortunate cause like literally the damn last Marauder shell caused it to shatter.. And made me really ridiculously hate Terran (at least for a while) --> because all it took was ONE damn drop to succeed to win the game, didn't matter that Terran had like 5 failed Hellbat drops before that.. Didn't matter at all.. Looked like all it takes is ONE successful shot to kill Protoss which is really frustrating.. really..
G2 was like smacked down and beaten up and battered down Innovation with like 20 less workers and half of his base on fire, but yah - sOs went for the kill.. Well - now we officially know that you can't outright kill Terran.. Even if they went super greedy opening and losing a sh*t ton to a proxy Star-Gate.. But damn - sOs threw that game away.. :/
Then I guess my b*tching session came up so I didn't watch G3..
But G4 man - that thing - that was awesome.. Was like watching White-Ra play a game vs Terran in Beta.. But yah - even if Innovation faced up a strat that he 100% hasn't had the chance to prepare for - nevermind - doesn't matter if I don't know a sh*t to do against that - you're a Terran, and you do Marines, and then go for the kill..
IDK about you guys, but I'm really pissed by the fact that NO stargate unit is good vs Marines.. Sucks bad..
Were good finals though - not saying that sOs could've won this - not a damn chance, but deffinitely looked like some other "mystical force" broke him.. In all the games (well didn't watch the G3) he was in a good position/ahead and ended up eventually losing them..
Was gona ask about the spoiler thingy aswell. Then saw the first reply and a few other responses aswell regarding the matter. I have never ever experiencd this before. getting the grand final results beeing spoild for me the same day it was played here on tl. Was just gona do a quick glimpse at what streams were on, while watching thru the entire finals since i have been away. Since i alwaysd felt it was safe to go at tl even if not up to date on the results of a major tourney. Its been my experience you guys have always waited to post results like that. But today i was watching ro16, was gona watch final set of ro16. Then boom i see the grand final results...
Now i see what u guys hinted at, sighing at people complaining since theres actualy an option to "hide spoilers" I havent seen that before for some reason. Maybe its new?!
But then may i ask why would you choose to post results like that, that close to the live event ending. And not set that hide spoiler check box as default. Alsow for some1 to find and click that check box to prevent beeing spoild. They would had to get either realy lucky not having that one picture baner popup during the time frame they needed inbetween locating that check mark (which is just below that actual large spoiler banner) Or one would -most likly- like me just see that banner and its result spoiler as soon as one enters the site. Without any chance to actualy click the check box before getting spoild.
I can only see one reason for not having spoilers hidden as default. And that would be something like to show that teamliquid is uptodate?! I cant see that beeing a worthy reason. Since most people know tl is the best site on the net anyways.
I know this prob got realy offtopic and alsow probably have a more proper place. But im not sure where. Feel free to move or remove it. i just wanted to vent and see if anyone could share some light on this to me.
On June 10 2013 08:13 GolemMadness wrote: sOs wasn't ahead until the nexus snipe. He was down by about 20 supply and lost very quickly afterwards.
Correct, which is an even larger indictment on the state of the game considering sOs had just deflected a number of hellbat drops about as well as can be expected.
On June 10 2013 06:06 Derez wrote: Innovation pretty damn good but its no GSL title.
40 k and more wcs points this title is better than gsl and it was as hard to achieve, not to mention that he was so close to getting both titles, but well haters gonna hate.
That's sort of silly to say. The two opponents that Innovation would have faced in GSL were the exact same. It's just that sOs beat Soulkey this time around, which must (CLEARLY) mean that Soulkey is worse than sOs despite winning a GSL, right? A tournament win is a tournament win. People value it too much. I think it has to do with the money or something like that.
Also, Innovation didn't play superb. sOs just played really stupidly. His last game was his best game. I swear, sOs should have won at least 2 of those games if not for his poor decision making. Game 2? That shit was won, but instead he decided to rambo stalkers into Innovation's main and NOT take an expansion until forever despite having 800 minerals lying around. He even had 34 workers and still decided to just keep attacking. (Can someone please explain the reasoning behind that?)
Arghhhh.... not the whole spoiler discussion again. While I don't care either way personally (I usually just look at liquipedia the following day to check out the results) I do think being a little more subtle with it might be alright. Some people (evidently) really care about it. How many people really care to see that Innovation won 4-0 on the main page after having watched the series themselves?
Cool fact: The upcoming WCS KR (Season 2) will contain 14 zergs, 10 protoss, 8 terrans. It looks like there has been 14 zergs in the Ro32 for the past 3 Code S.
On June 10 2013 06:20 Bumpkin wrote: It was Terran vs Protoss. We all KNEW it was going to happen.
This is a two race game and in the surprising event that a Protoss actually manages to squeeze into the final, we witness massacre.
Ban me by all means, but if it's taboo to call the elephant in the room by his name, then nothing will ever improve, and all we have is a climate of fear where everyone is afraid to acknowledge that the Emperor has no clothes.
Well here I am saying it. The Emperor has no clothes. It's a two race game at the moment that works in Terran's favour.
User was banned for this post.
There were, what, 8 zergs in the ro16? They're doing fine. Also, most people expected Soulkey, a zerg, in the finals.
I really would loved to watch a soulkey vs Innovation finals , i'm so frustrated about the cannon rush . I don't know why does that spot (where u can block the probe with two pylons) in Bel'shir Vestige. I think soulkey vs Inno would have been a much more entertaining and hyped finals.
On June 10 2013 06:06 Derez wrote: Innovation pretty damn good but its no GSL title.
40 k and more wcs points this title is better than gsl and it was as hard to achieve, not to mention that he was so close to getting both titles, but well haters gonna hate.
the crazy strategy built around the overlooked long rage Protoss air unit was starting to look more and more genius.
Should obviously be 'range'.
This is working as intended.
Congrats to Innovation, but I kinda feel sorry for sOs, he outplayed Innovation in parts of each game, but just couldn't get himself into a lead. I thought the first game was looking very one-sided in sOs' favour, with how bad he stomped Innovation's drops without actually losing anything, but then in the final engagement he just got crushed. Obviously his build decisions weren't quite right, but I'd love to look at the replays and discover just how exactly sOs managed to lose a few of those games.
IDK about you guys, but I'm really pissed by the fact that NO stargate unit is good vs Marines.. Sucks bad..
.
You realize that oracles are very good against marines? Being good against a unit does not mean that you can kill it with vastly inferior supply. one oracle isn't going to kill 20 marines (20 supply vs 3 supply). sorry. That doesn't mean oracles aren't good against marines though.
Game 1 really had me scratching my head. sOs defending brilliantly against the hellbat drops only to be defeated by a doom drop. Ugh.
Game 4 was definitely the best game but I think Carriers would've been a better choice or at least mix a few Carriers in with the Tempests. That said, still very exciting to watch.
Many congrats to Innovation for a well-deserved win and sOs has just cemented himself as one of my favorite players to watch for his innovations in Protoss play.
Any Protoss try to mix in phoenix pairs to cover your two sides? Seems there needs to be a way to effectively shutdown the medivac before it gets two suicide hellbats on your probes.
WCS was soooo good. I say the Innovation MVP series was the best, but Innovation sOs was also really good. Even though it was a 4-0 victory, it was pretty hard fought.
On June 10 2013 12:27 Sufinsil wrote: Any Protoss try to mix in phoenix pairs to cover your two sides? Seems there needs to be a way to effectively shutdown the medivac before it gets two suicide hellbats on your probes.
Watch the first Jangbi - Flash game in the recent Khan-KT PL match. Jangbi executed the best stargate build (utilizing Phoenixes to shut down early drops and then to be annoying) I've ever seen.
It's a shame that the end result was 4-0. sOs is definitely better than that and the games weren't one sided. I thought Innovation's vP was a bit weak (on reflection I'm not sure why), but boy was I wrong.
I'm a Terran player and a big Bogus fan, sHy probably choked a little but damn this finals sure made the match-up look lopsided and imbalanced. Now that Protosses get their mass zealot warp-ins (that gave them their late-game dominance on WoL) destroyed by hellbats it really seems like PvT has become a hard puzzle to solve. Design, design.
Grats to Bogus, monster mechanics again. There was an FPVOD of him on OGN2 at some point, fucking crazy.
Watch the first Jangbi - Flash game in the recent Khan-KT PL match. Jangbi executed the best stargate build (utilizing Phoenixes to shut down early drops and then to be annoying) I've ever seen.
As i was watching the game i was thinking why toss dont do phoenix thing more often
On June 09 2013 19:09 juicyjames wrote: If your VODs have no sound just refresh a few times or remove the timestamp and go through the VODs manually. It's a TwitchTV bug.
IDK about you guys, but I'm really pissed by the fact that NO stargate unit is good vs Marines.. Sucks bad..
.
You realize that oracles are very good against marines? Being good against a unit does not mean that you can kill it with vastly inferior supply. one oracle isn't going to kill 20 marines (20 supply vs 3 supply). sorry. That doesn't mean oracles aren't good against marines though.
Oracles are terrible against marines with stim. Stimmed Marines eat oracles alive.
On June 10 2013 21:23 Figgy wrote: Oracles are terrible against marines with stim. Stimmed Marines eat oracles alive.
Well, yes, almost every unit in the game is pretty terrible against stimmed marines. At least without support. And it's kinda hard getting support units for your early oracles, especially when the stargate is killed.
The finals were a one-sided roflstomp for the major part, except for game 4, where I feel Innovation was toying with sOs a bit. The really good games were the semifinals imho, specially Innovation vs MVP it was a blast of a series.
GG Innovation, he finally got the title he deserved!
SoS can play better than this but this finals really seemed more of a mental fortitude fight. SoS looked so nervous making so many mistakes (game 4 shooting his own tempests, and killing his own templar). SoS really needs more time on the big stage.
That said though Innovation was just in top forum. Even if SoS wasn't nervous he would be hard pressed to take down Innovation.
On June 11 2013 10:31 Jaded. wrote: SoS can play better than this but this finals really seemed more of a mental fortitude fight. SoS looked so nervous making so many mistakes (game 4 shooting his own tempests, and killing his own templar). SoS really needs more time on the big stage.
That said though Innovation was just in top forum. Even if SoS wasn't nervous he would be hard pressed to take down Innovation.
It's progress though; last time he completely melted down in the Ro4 =p. This time he played pretty clutch against SoulKey.
This finals would be a lot better if it was MVP vs sOs or Innovation vs Soulkey. The moment MVP lost in semi, I expected a rofl-stomp finals. I'll probably end up remembering MVP vs Innovation as the finals since it was so exciting.
Wouldn't have watched finals at all if there wasn't all the buzz about the final game with Temp + High Temp + Cannon turtle. The last game was entertaining. Even though I didn't feel a personal bias, I really wanted sOs to win that one just so he wouldn't be left with a 0-4 as his first major finals. That must hurt
I did NOT know that sOs was sitting a 0-2 upgrades. Was he really at 0-2 for the entire game past mid-game?
Good series. Some of the games were close, SoS was just so obviously nervous, I was watching Artoses's stream "Meta" on the show SeleCT ROOT. Theognis and Mouz. Illusion noted that SoS was building eztra buildings, and killing some of his own units.
That was something the casters were pointing out during the series as well. It was pretty funny listening to them agonize while watching SoS warp in matching Twilight Council's side by side (although he did catch that at the last minue).
I wonder if the upgrades thing was more of the same, because he ended that game with a ton of gas (granted he was realy mineral starved) and was constantly missing pylons.
EPT
STX_INnoVation finally won the trophy he needed to seal the deal. Just a week after his disastrous GSL finals experience against Soulkey, where he let a 3 - 0 lead slip out of his hands, Innovation crushed Soulkey's teammate 
sOs 4 - 0 in the WCS Season 1 Grand Finals. After dispatching Mvp in a close semi-final series, Innovation headed into his second final the span of a week fully understanding the stakes and knowing how slim the margin was between victory and defeat. This time, he made sure his opponent would get no second chances. The nervous sOs, who entered his first finals in his young career, stood no chance against the battle-hardened and utterly ruthless Innovation.
Bogus is dead :D
SoS
