IEM Global Challenge
New York 2013

Life Wins IEM New York
Finals Recap


VODs on Twitch.TV


Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

by CosmicSpiral

Coming into this tournament, ST_Life garnered more recognition for the prestige he brought to the event rather than his chances to win it. He was no longer the unstoppable prodigy that won five premier tournaments in the winter of 2012, but a hobbled champion looking to recover his previous form. Even his Dreamhack Bucharest run seemed like a ghost of how he conquered MLG Fall and Code S. His ZvZ was rusty like a capsized boat, he looked uncertain and desperate against terran, and even foreigners were giving him a hard time.


Make no mistake: it’s premature to say that Life is back. The competition at New York was very strong but not comparable to what he will have to face in Code S. He lost two ZvZ series against HyuN and DRG earlier on in the tournament, and his crushing victory over Curious in the semi-finals can be partially attributed to the mindgames that teammates play. He did not play a single Terran over those 4 days so no one can tell whether he regained his confidence in the matchup.

If there’s anything to take away from his victory, it’s not that he has regained his top form, but he is on the road to getting there. With the exception of his ZvZ losses, he looked nothing like the bumbling fool who tripped over his own shoelaces to throw away games in the GSL and GSTL. When Life lost at IEM New York, it was in relatively close games; when he won, it was with crushing victories that make his opponents look completely outmatched. Expect Life to work on improving his consistency and become even stronger as he prepares for Dreamhack Winter, as well as his impending match against Super in Code A.

It was a bittersweet tournament for Alliance.NaNiwa, one of the few Western players who proves the Korean-foreigner dynamic is not a one-sided affair. Being an extremely intense competitor he is not the type of player who celebrates getting second place, and losing in the finals sure didn’t help his chances to reach Blizzcon either. Yet beyond the controversy of WCS points and the decision to replace ForGG with Revival (who is also on the edge of qualification), IEM New York was a success for Naniwa. He managed to beat Hack not once but twice to advance out of his group; he overthrew popular expectations that he would lose to San and Hyun. He demonstrated that he could recognize and punish the expectations of his opponents, securing a spot in the finals with a brilliant proxy 2 gate against Hyun. While he is still completely enamored with sOs-style void ray/HT, he is willing to adapt different builds according to the situation. And even though Naniwa ultimately failed against Life, only a few of those games were obvious victories for the Zerg prodigy. Several of NaNiwa's losses came down to minuscule mistakes like a misplaced zealot or a slightly late forcefield. The weight of public expectation was almost palpable during the final, let alone personal scrutiny, and he handled it with more composure than we’ve seen anyone do in a long time.

Grand Finals Recap

VODs on Youtube


Game 1 (Polar Night)

Perhaps the most action-packed game off the night, the first ten minutes were a mad scramble as both players fiercely tried to stall the other’s economy. Life initially seemed to have the advantage when he hatch blocked Naniwa’s natural and forced an additional cancel when Naniwa tried to secure his expansion. However Naniwa showcased great defensive and offensive responses, killing off Life’s third with a zealot/oracle squad while picking off queens and overlords with his phoenix follow-up. After the aggression from both sides ceased, Naniwa looked to be in an amazing position. He had taken his third base at the same time as Life, established HT/void ray production, and rebuffed a last-ditch roach/hydra push at his natural.

From there, Life slowly took back control of the game. He kept Naniwa on the back foot with constant roach attacks everywhere while transitioning into infestor/swarm host. The protoss player dealt with the attacks well yet could not replenish the workers melted by roaches, and subsequently fell behind in economy. More importantly, he lost the overwhelming advantage he once possessed in terms of unit composition. By the time Naniwa pushed out and killed Life’s third, swarm hosts were already in play and he was forced to retreat. Instead of continuing to move around the map he decided to wait at his third for a colossus switch and Life took full advantage of that passivity. The next two fights were completely one-sided in Life’s favor as he decimated the opponent’s army with fungal growth and never-ending waves of locusts. After losing all his archons and void rays in a ill-advised push up a ramp, Naniwa quickly GGed.

Game 2 (Akilon Wastes)

In contrast to the previous game, Naniwa looked completely helpless from the start. Once again Naniwa opened gateway first (and checked his natural for a proxy hatch) while Life chose hatch -> gas -> pool. After creating his gateway wall at the natural, Naniwa applied a little pressure at Life’s third with a few zealots + MSC while transitioning into stargate. However, he made his proxy pylon near the wrong base and Life overpowered the attack with pure zerglings. Once zergling speed kicked in Life never let up on the harassment. With +1 attack completed he bullied his way through the protoss’ defense, forcing multiple cancels on Naniwa’s third and picking off sentries and probes whenever possible. Meanwhile Naniwa’s oracle accomplished nothing on the other side of the screen and his void rays did little to stop the flood of speedlings. Life comfortably took a fourth and started to amass infestors while getting his hive.

With Naniwa struggling to establish his third and the ultralisk den completed, the game was essentially over. However the foreign hope refused to leave and forced Life to attack into his natural. Despite having a smaller army Naniwa managed to hold off the onslaught of ultralisks, queens, and infestors with immaculate HT control. However more speedlings decimated his third base while the main attack was occurring and Naniwa was left with a pitiful economy. A few minutes later Life arrived with more ultralisks and Naniwa could not find an adequate response.

Game 3 (Bel’Shir Vestige)

This time the roles were reversed: Naniwa opened nexus first while Life chose 14 pool. Once again Naniwa decided to assault Life’s third with some gateway units and the mothership core; once again Life pushed him back with good creep spread and minimal losses. Once again Life went for a speedling timing to kill Naniwa’s third…but this time it didn’t work out. Naniwa had set up his sim city too well and his sentry positioning made him impervious to assault. Naniwa even managed to cancel Life’s fourth with a wandering pack of void rays. After seeing this, Life decided to end the game before protoss could take his fourth. He assembled an incredible number of roaches, 10 queens, and 6 infestors for a nydus worm push that would smash through whatever meager forces Naniwa had. By the time it reached the protoss natural, Life had double the army supply of his opponent and storm was not finished. It seemed all but certain that Life would seize his third victory; he was so sure that he threw up some manner hatches right in Naniwa’s face.

However, the wall held without bending. Despite its intimidating size, Life’s army was not very cost-efficient and Naniwa exploited that fact to the fullest. He engaged small parts of it one at a time and waited for storm. Life was unable to kill off the high templar despite some good fungals and he failed to keep the queens and roaches together to fight off the void rays. By the time storm was finished, Naniwa had repelled the attack and evened out the supply. He subsequently killed Life’s fourth and fifth bases with zealot squads, putting Life in a very bad position. The zerg tried to force a second attack with a roach/hydra army but Naniwa’s immortals and HTs drove it back with terrible losses.

All those attacks came at the expense of tech and Life found himself stuck on roach/hydra. Reading the situation correctly, Naniwa elected to go for a debilitating blow before Life has the chance to recover. Unable to gather his swarm hosts in time to put up a solid defense, Life surrendered against the power of storms, zealots, and archons.

Game 4 (Whirlwind)

Naniwa went for his standard gateway expand while Life opened hatch first. Lucky spawning positions allowed Life’s overlord to spot a pylon at Naniwa’s natural, and he responded with a third hatchery at 3:00. Naniwa anticipated this and tried to punish Life with a DT rush. The plan almost worked except for one missed forcefield (or lack of energy?). Life exploited this and streamed zerglings into his opponent’s natural before the dark shrine could complete, and was forced to warp in DTs defensively just to avoid losing the game. Since his forward pylon was picked off at the same time, NaNiwa had no chance of slipping in a DT before Life had more than enough detection ready. Naniwa bailed out of his initial strategy, getting two stargates and taking his third.

It was a precarious move and quickly punished. Life swarmed Naniwa’s third and natural with roach/ling, killing the third and the wall to the natural. Seeing his huge economic advantage, he decided to gear up for a killing move. Like in Game 3 Life used all his larvae to build a huge roach/hydra force, backed up by mass queen and utilizing a nydus worm to bypass the map. And just like in Game 3 it failed. By the time Life reached his destination and queued up the manner hatches, Naniwa had 9 void rays and plenty of energy on his sentries. Naniwa slaughtered the zerg army and decided to go all-in with a counter push. Despite running out of minerals in his main, Naniwa’s final army (with some great control) looked like it might be strong enough to end the game.

Life conceded his third and scampered back to his natural to attempt a final hold. At the same time he sent a pack of roaches into Naniwa’s natural, killing off all the probes there and cutting off all of NaNiwa's income. Naniwa continued to superbly micro his void rays, but without an economy to back it up, his push eventually ran out of steam. A ragtag squad of hydralisks, drones, and infestors killed off his remaining void rays and Naniwa conceded the match.

Game 5 (Yeonsu)

Life went 14 pool -> hatch while Naniwa opened standard. Due to the architecture of the map Life decided to stay on two bases and went for double upgrades along with lair. This worked somewhat well against Naniwa’s stargate transition as Life’s mass queen follow-up was too much for the phoenixes to fight head-on. However, Naniwa still made his phoenix fleet useful and garnered 13 drone kills while taking his own third. Unlike his previous games Life did not try to stop this besides sending a few token zerglings for harassment. Instead he started producing swarm hosts and more queens.

This straight-to-swarm-hosts strategy did not work out as well as Life had planned. Naniwa was able to scout out Life's plan early and immediately threw down two robotics facilities. With some excellent zealot harassment Naniwa kept Life’s army occupied while he built up a sizable colossus count. This allowed him to snipe Life’s fourth and fifth bases while giving him the space to take his own fourth. By the time Life finished his greater spire, Naniwa had assembled the ultimate Protoss army and was itching for a fight. Naniwa seized his opportunity when Life moved his entire army forward to pressure the opponent’s fourth. Naniwa’s army cleaned house and Life was left with nothing to defend the counter-push. Naniwa promptly walked to Life’s fourth and forced the GG.

Game 6 (Frost)

With a chance to tie things up at 3-3, Naniwa went back to the tried-and-true DT build that walloped Hyun on the same map. Naniwa knew that Life hadn't been prepared for DTs back in Game 4 and wouldn’t have found out if he didn’t succeed with his big zergling runby. Sadly, Naniwa’s gambit was figured out before it even got into play. Due to the spawning positions Life snuck an overlord behind Naniwa’s natural and was able to scout the dark shrine finishing up. To make matters worse, Life’s zerglings found and killed the forward probe.

Once again in a tough spot, Naniwa selected to take a quick third and use his DTs to defend it. This appeared to be the proper decision as his DTs stalled the subsequent ling runbys long enough for the nexus to finish. However Naniwa immediately dropped two stargates afterward, and lacked the production to hold off the next wave of attacks. Life crushed the third with a massive number of zerglings and broke into the main base for some probe kills. By the time Naniwa cleaned up his main hydralisks are already being pumped out and rallied to his natural. The number of hydras proved too much for Naniwa’s scanty army to handle and he surrendered the championship to Life.

Writers: CosmicSpiral.
Photos: Kevin Florenzano, ESL.
Editor: Waxangel.