WCS AM Season 2 Finals

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

by stuchiu

PigBaby completed walking his royal road on Championship Sunday. It was a day of exciting games that opened up with a rare TvT between Bomber and Heart and a PvZ between PigBaby and Hyun. Despite Bomber winning 3-1, it was a set of very close games between the two players as they battled through different scenarios that ranged from early aggression, mid game battles to late game base trades. In the end Bomber's experience won out over Heart as he became the first player to make it to the finals. Pigbaby's win, on the other hand, was much clearer despite a similar score. After losing his Soul Train on map 1, he quickly rallied back with three different 2 base attacks to knock out Hyun and reach his very first Premier Tournament finals.

Then, the magic started. No one quite knew what to expect going into the finals as both Bomber and PigBaby were extremely stylistic players. But the end result was a surprising finals and quite easily the best WCS Season 2 Finals in all three regions. Bomber and Pigbaby rallied games back and forth and often found themselves in unique and insane situations. It was a series that could not have been prepared for, and it pushed both players to the very limits of their skill. And it all started on Waystation.



There PigBaby tried to prove that pigs do indeed fly. To the shock of everyone, (with the possible exception of sOs) Pigbaby went for a 2 base carrier build on short spawn Waystation. Not to be deterred, Bomber opted for a quick bio attack that killed 14 probes and slowed down Pigbaby enough that Pigbaby's 2 Carrier base All-in was hampered enough for Bomber to win a straight engagement. Despite a loss in the opening map, it showed that Pigbaby was not content to win like any other Protoss; if Pigbaby was going to win, he would do it his way.

Undeterred, Pigbaby continued to play aggressively with two fast all-ins. He busted Bomber on Merry Go Round with 2 base blink play, but his Soul Train was stopped dead in its tracks on Overgrowth.

In the fourth game on King Sejong Station, PigBaby once again changed tactics, choosing a proxy oracle opener to catch Bomber off guard. Well known for not scouting, Bomber was caught off guard and lost several SCVs and a lot of mining time at his natural. Pigbaby followed up this success with three quick bases, forcing Bomber to find a way to get back into the game. A move out in the middle of the map by his bio gave Pigbaby the idea of executing a large flank with his gateway units and storm, but a clutch SCV pull blocked the flank and allowed Bomber to engage only one part of the Protoss army. Now close to even, both players' armies missed the other's as they set to attack each other. This led Bomber to migrate his buildings to Pigbaby's old natural leaving Pigbaby no choice but to try to bust Bomber with his zealot stalker archon force. It failed as Bomber was able to get multiple bunkers up in time leaving the score 3-1 in Bomber's favor.

And there he was. Just 1 map win away from the championship. 1 win away from taking it all against a player he seemed to be out playing. It was the perfect setup for the law. And then the series descended into chaos. On Frost both players once again opted for a base trade as their armies completely missed each other. This time however, PigBaby had the superior army and was able to re-expand to Bomber's third in the ensuing skirmish. Bomber, realizing that PigBaby would almost certainly win the game if he got to mine more, sacrificed all of his units to kill PigBaby's last nexus. With less than 400 minerals and no gas, PigBaby had no choice but to hunt down all of Bomber's floating buildings across the map. It was an intense moment as PigBaby was just barely able to find a spot to shoot both the cc and the rax in the dead space on the left side of the map. In a twist of kismet that we can only interpret as the Law, if Bomber had swapped the floating positions of his rax and cc, he could have indeed forced a draw.

The sixth game started much slower than the rest of the series as they spawned cross spots on Alterzim. This time Bomber opted for a fast 3 cc build as he planned to do a MMMM parade push to break PigBaby's third. PigBaby played more defensively as he sat on a solid immortal HT gateway composition. He then used warp prism harass to backstab Bomber as he moved out. The backstab turned into an all out massacre as he gutted Bomber's entire economy forcing Bomber to all-in with his army. Unfortunately for the Red Bull Terran, with storm, archons, immortals and collosus on the field, he was unable to break PigBaby, forcing the series to move on to the last game.

The final game was the culmination of everything. If PigBaby won the game, he would have walked the royal road reminiscent to what Duckdeok did in WCS EU last year. If Bomber won, he would be the second Terran player this year to win a Premier tournament. The first Terran to have won WCS this season. And most importantly, he would have beaten the law once again after over a year in shackles. And their fates were decided on Habitation Station.

And there, Bomber proved that Terran could fly as he lifted his cc to the gold to use the Gangnam Terran style. He had chosen to use a build he had displayed against Alicia, a 1base marine tank push that looked almost unstoppable. And in a move eerily reminiscent to game 1, PigBaby once more decided to prove that Pigs could fly as he went for a fleet beacon off two bases. But instead of carriers, his unit of choice with everything on the line was the tempest. It was Bomber's desperate offense against PigBaby's innovation. And this time PigBaby pulled through as he flew to his first ever Championship in SC2.

And yet the story of WCS NA Season 2 Finals is not PigBaby's alone. This WCS NA Finals was the best show done in WCS NA by far. From the superb casting of Rotterdam and Nathanias, to the guest casting of players such as ToD, Polt and QXC, the manstache of the ref, the QXC player introductions, the exciting matchups we saw in the ro8 onwards, and the insanely infectious and raucous crowd attending, every element created a perfect stage for the players to shine and create one of the most memorable weekends of the entire WCS system this year.

At the beginning of the season, Pigbaby was just another Kespa outcast looking to make a name for himself. No one predicted that he could have gone this far, that he could have gone toe-to-toe against some of the best players on the planet. He has traveled from well worn booths of Proleague to the bright lights of California, from the familiar to the unknown, where he's accomplished what many thought impossible. And now we know for sure, that Pigbabies can fly.

Writers: stuchiu.
Graphics: ESL.
Editor: lichter.