WCS Season 3 Finals

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

by Waxangel

To the deafening roars of a passionate Toronto crowd, Soul_Dear scored a 4 – 0 sweep against Woongjin_Soulkey to win the WCS Season 3 championship. Though Soulkey put up a stronger resistance than was reflected in the scoreline, there was no doubt who was the better player as Dear clinically dissected Soulkey in four different ways. From base races to all-out late game engagements, Dear proved he had the full, championship caliber PvZ skill-set.

Even as Dear came in as the defending champion of the notoriously difficult WCS Korea region, some still wondered about how he would perform against some of the more illustrious, battle-hardened players coming to Canada. A loss to Oz in the group stage of the tournament was worrisome early on, but a 3 – 0 against MC, 3 – 1 against Maru, and finally a 4 – 0 against Soulkey dispelled all of the doubts. While Dear only ventured as far as to say he was the best player in the world for one day, many viewers at home will be saying he is the best in the world, period.

Grand Finals Recap

Game One - Derelict Watcher: Dear took game one with solid aggressive play, pestering Soulkey from the start and keeping him off balance. After an early zealot-stalker-msc attack took out several of Soulkey's drones, Dear settled back to take a fast third before plotting his next move. Going with a largely blink-stalker army against Soulkey's roach-hydra, Dear found a way to outmaneuver Soulkey and snipe his vital fourth base before teleporting out with his mothership core. Dear then followed almost immediately after with a warp prism full of zealots into Dear's main, dealing even more damage while deftly holding off Soulkey's counter-attack with good micro.

After building up from an advantageous 3-base vs. 3-base situation, Dear finally went for the death blow with a large army of blink stalkers, colossi, and hallucinated colossi. Even with vipers on the battlefield, Soulkey was unable to deal with the sheer power of mass +3 blink stalkers and surrendered the first game.

Game Two - Whirlwind: Dear went for more aggression to start the second game, sending in more early gateway units to harass Soulkey's expansion and following with an oracle. However, Soulkey's defense was much better this time around, and he built up a solid 3-base economy while Dear was stuck on two bases for quite some time.

Colossus tech allowed Dear to take his third against Soulkey's roach-hydra army, but at that point it seemed like Soulkey was more than ready for the late game on his four base economy. Things seemed to get even worse when Dear tried to raze one of Soulkey's bases, with Soulkey more than happy to sack Dear's third in a 1 for 1 trade.

Soulkey's swarm-host transition threatened Dear with a slow and painful death, but Dear managed to stay in the game. Sending zealots and warp-prisms to harass Soulkey and keep him occupied, he built up a powerful deathball of stalkers, colossi, templar, and void rays.

One brilliant engagement was all Dear needed to conclusively swing the game, goading Soulkey's swarm host-hydra-corruptor-infestor army into a head on fight. With perfect use of spells, Dear melted Soulkey's late game army into a bloody puddle, forcing yet another GG.

Game Three - Frost: After dropping two games where he lost in head on ground battles, Soulkey opted for a different approach in game three with mutalisk tech. Things appeared to be going well for the Woongjin Zerg as his spire went long unscouted despite a phoenix opener from Dear, who almost started producing colossi before he discovered Soulkey's plan to go for air.

Dear decided to attack with a large number of zealot and stalkers before Soulkey could get his mutalisk harass going, and successfully cut through Soulkey's mutalisk and zergling numbers with an efficient engagement. Adding in more troops from a forward pylon, Dear continued to push forward, triggering Soulkey to go for the base trade instead.

Unfortunately for Soulkey, Dear was very well prepared for this scenario, putting up a large number of cannons at his natural while mutalisks and lings ransacked his third base. Meanwhile, Soulkey was far less prepared on his end and took catastrophic damage while his mutalisks were being stalled. When it became clear that the base trade had gone horribly wrong, Soulkey GG'd out once more.

Game Four - Akilon Wastes: To close out the series, Dear got some help from a tactic that had contributed greatly to his WCS Korea victory as well. A very ordinary zealot-phoenix attack ended up getting some extraordinary results, as Soulkey missed the very same forward pylon that Dear had snuck in to defeat soO back in Korea. Two rounds of zealots supported by air ravaged Soulkey's third base, sending the Woongjin Zerg reeling.

Though Soulkey managed to work his way back into semi-decent shape with a roach-hydra-viper army, he was still outmatched by Dear's colossus-stalker deathball when it came knocking. After a bloody final engagement, Soulkey gave the final GG to crown Dear the WCS Season 3 champion.

Writers: Waxangel
Photos: silverfire.
Editor: Waxangel.