EPTNEXGenius Wins Blizzcon 2010!
![[image loading]](http://www.thegameover.eu/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/blizzcon-logo-large.jpg)
Min-Soo “NEXGenius” Jung, the Protoss player from Korea earlier today won the Blizzcon 2010 finals, winning $25,000. After breezing through the winners bracket, NEXGenius faced Loner in the winners finals.
Loner, arguably the best player from China, was undefeated through the winners bracket. Playing as Terran, he flew over
NEXGenius wins game 1 on Xel’Naga Caverns after Loner got trapped in his base by a large Collosus/Warpgate army. With Loner’s army trapped in a corner, NEXGenius’ Collosi tore through it for an easy GG.
Loner took game 2 on Metalopolis, tying up the series. After opening with Void Rays, NEXGenius switched to a collosus/warpgate army, but the pre-existance of vikings made it very easy for Loner to take out the collosi, and then roll over the rest of the army after a lot of tension, to win the game.
Game 3 took place on Lost Temple in close ground positions, NEXGenius opened with a fast expansion, and denied Loner scouting for a long time. However, Loner, with no vision, pushed forward with his 2-rax marine/maruader army and built a bunker while battling NEXGenius’ army. With the bunker, Loner was able to destroy NEXGenius’ expansion. With no expansion, the protoss player was set far behind, and delayed as much as possible with force fields before gg’ing out.
Off-stream, NEXGenius battled against Oleksiy ‘White-Ra’ Krupnykin the Lowers Finals. White-Ra, known for his string of first place finishes in numerous online tournaments, is one of the older Starcraft 2 players and so also, an experienced veteran.
In the Protoss vs Protoss matchup, NEXGenius came out on top, winning the series 2-1, and going on to the championship finals where he would once again face Loner.
In this matchup, NEXGenius would have to win 2 best-of-3 series in order to win, while Loner would only have to win one, to reflect his earlier win in the winners finals.
Game 1 took place on Scrap Station. NEXGenius opened playing very safe, with a 2 gate-robo, to allow for early scouting. Both players expand, with Loner starting to build more vikings to counter NEXGenius’ mass collosus play. In order to survive, Loner would need to keep picking off collosi in order to keep their numbers down. After two big conflicts at the bottom Xel’Naga, both players expand a second time, and NEXGenius transitions into High Templar to help deal with the large bio-force forming. Unknown to Loner, NEXGenius expanded to the gold minerals also, and bounced forward in terms of income. After more exchanges in the middle, NEXGenius overpowered terran to take the first game.
Xel’Naga Caverns was the map for Game 2. Loner opened up with a 1-1-1 build for a fast Banshee followed up with aggressive tank and marine play with bunkers. With great warp prism/immortal play, NEXGenius was able to push out of the contain and counter attack, which was held off by Loner’s turtling siege tanks. Following almost continuous sparring, and with his army being destroyed, NEXGenius was forced to fall back and defend his third expansion. Loner gave up his air advantage by landing his vikings and NEXGenius was able to defend to once more bounce back. Following several more army trades, NEXGenius edged a 25 food advantage. Loner attacked an empty expansion and was flanked by the superior Protoss army. With psi-storms added in, NexGenius was able to barely take Game 2 and took the first of two series for the Championship finals 2-0.
![[image loading]](http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k64/Arcanewinds/LonerNEXGenius.jpg)
Game 1 of the second series took place on Lost Temple, previously won by Loner. Spawning in close positions, both players expanded relatively quickly. After a relatively somewhat game, with both armies dancing around the middle of the map, Loner pushed forward with unsieged tanks, which were quickly taken out. This allowed for the rest of his army to be easily cleaned up by collosus and warpgate units, and allowing NEXGenius to take his 3rd win in a row. Loner appeared visably uncomfortable at this point, having given up his series lead, and lost the first game of the deciding series. He would have to win 2 games to come back and win the championship at this point.
Game 2 of the series took place on Metalopolis in close ground positions. Early agression from Loner took out alot of NEXGenius’ probes, but he was able to defend, barely saving his natural expo-nexus. Dropship play from Loner looked to keep up some harrassment on NEXGenius, however some mis-micro from Loner allowed stalkers to shoot down the full dropship, and so allow Genius to bring himself back into the game. Loner moving over to a marauder-viking army, became very fragile to heavy zealot play, and Genius’ was able to overwhelm his army with a large count of the melee unit. Loner desperately began pulling SCVs off mining, which were easily destroyed by Genius’ army, and the remaining marauders were completely overwhelmed. Loner typed out 'GG' to end the game.
NEXGenius takes the second game to win the Championship Finals, as well as pocketing a smooth $25,000. Later interviewed, Min-soo 'NEXGenius' Jung goes on to say "It was really hard, but I thought first place was definitely possible." [Corrected Translation]
Loner goes home with $10,000 and second place. Loner was not the favourite to win the tournament, or even widely predicted to place highly, but no doubt his fans are happy with his somewhat 'surprise' second place finish. Both players will be returning to Korea to continue competing in the GSL Tournament, where the prize fund stands at $170,000, and both players are still in the round of 32.
Final Standings for Blizzcon 2010:
1st.
![[image loading]](http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k64/Arcanewinds/Korea.jpg)
2nd.
![[image loading]](http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k64/Arcanewinds/China.jpg)
3rd.
![[image loading]](http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k64/Arcanewinds/Ukraine.jpg)
4th.
You can download ALL of the tournament replays here.
Written by Tim ‘Arcanewinds’ Seabrook
Written for Team Adversity (To be posted)
didn't think it through.. <3
