WCS AM - iaguz: "I would need a minor miracle"

http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/2014_WCS_Season_3_America/Premier

Another day, another surprise. Actually, make that two surprises as both foreigners in Group B advanced ahead of their more accomplished Korean opponents. Though Alicia and NesTea had been steady competitors in WCS AM, they were felled by Australia's (T)

iaguz and China's (P)

Jim. The Gimli Terran is slowly making a name for himself as his country's next star, while Jim continued his strong form from IEM Shenzhen.

Out last in the group was the disappointing Alicia. The Axiom Protoss had shown strong PvT in WCS America in the Ro8 of the past two seasons, beating Bomber 3-2 in Season 1 then narrowly losing 2-3 to the same Redbull Terran in Season 2. However, in the first match of the night the Axiom Protoss looked sloppy at best. After winning game 1 on Overgrowth, he lost the succeeding game to a straight up SCV pull by iaguz after playing greedily on two bases. The third game saw iaguz pull out a very uncharacteristic proxy reaper, and Alicia's last second zealot cancel allowed the reaper harass to rack up seven worker kills before all was said and done. Once again, iaguz powered up, this time going for a third before getting three ghosts and pulling the boys. Alicia was caught between his natural and his third, and the Gimli Terran's overwhelming army rolled over the protoss for the first surprise of the evening.

Anyone who has seen Jim play PvZ knows that he likes his two base timings. However Nestea might have prepared for that, what he certainly did not prepare for was what ended up coming his way. Jim opted to go for the ever-despised cannon rush in both games. The first game presented us with the rare occasion with seeing five cannons on the production tab at once, and a gateway near the end of the rush to protect the last few buildings. Despite the massive investment by Jim, Nestea was reduced to a measly eight workers and a two base 8 gate follow up crushed him in no time. Game two lasted much longer than expected, if game one were anything to go off of, seeing both players get up to three bases. However, it was not without cannons, as Jim cannon rushed both of Nestea's two hatcheries before spawning pool. Only Nestea's natural fell, however, and the game stabilized. Nestea went in to swarm hosts, but chose a muta swtich to spend his gas bank. Jim looked a bit flustered initially, but some poor decision-making and control with the mutas cost Nestea his harassment tool. The disadvantage ultimately led to Nestea's inability to defend Jim's push at the front door with a strong anti-swarm host/spine army, and he too was sent to the losers' match.

For many, the ensuing face off in the losers' match was a surprise. Alicia had been doing well in WCS AM this year and NesTea has this completely random ability to win enough games to advance. Unfortunately for fans of both players, they looked clearly the poorer player in their opening sets. They failed to acquit themselves as they desperately tried to hold on to the Ro16, though, as their match failed to highlight their strengths. A good opening in game 1 allowed NesTea to punish Alicia's greed, while burrow sealed the deal to stop Alicia's attempts to strike back. Game 2 was a classic NesTea game as he obliterated Alicia's army with slow banelings. It didn't look good, but it got the job done, and Alicia was out dead last in a group that looked his for the taking.

The winner of the group was now down to either iaguz or Jim. After defeating Alicia in his first set, iaguz had momentum and the matchup on his side. He didn't let the opportunity pass as he swept aside Jimcredible 2-0. In game 1, he was able to hold off Jim's blink play with intelligent movement and positioning. The Chinese Protoss was able to score a decent amount of kills with his DTs, but it was not enough to diminish the incoming terran assault. With another SCV pull, iaguz was able to overwhelm the protoss despite the odd timing, though a lack of focus fire on vikings did help. Perhaps deciding that there was no reason to fix what was 'broken', iaguz elected to use another SCV pull on Overgrowth supplemented by an early ghost academy. It looked like it could have been the wrong decision as Jim was on colossus tech, but another poor engagement with stalkers and a dallying colossus gave (T)

iaguz enough of an opening to seal the deal.

This meant that fan favorites NesTea and Jim would have to meet in a rematch. Unfortunately for the man once known as the creator of the Universe, Jim once again proved to be the superior player. In game one on Merry Go Round, NesTea accomplished some early economic damage with a zergling runby while Jim opened with phoenixes. NesTea transitioned into a composition of roaches, hydras, and corruptors and attempted to break Jim as the Protoss took his third base, but Jim was able to hold on to his bases. Jim counter attacked while NesTea attempted to transition into swarm hosts, but it was not fast enough as he was caught between compositions. Jim's colossus, void ray, and stalker army was the exact recipe to defeat anything NesTea could muster, and that was game 1 in the bag for the Chinese Protoss. He would secure his Ro16 berth on Overgrowth with the tried and true Soul Train. NesTea was caught trying to get out hydralisks and was woefully unprepared for Jim's well executed attack. NesTea lost his third and was forced to tap out, giving (P)

Jim the 2-0 victory and the second spot in the round of 16.

WCS America Premier League Ro16 Players (2/16)

Jim

HyuN

Neeb,

iaguz

Next: WCS AM Premier League Ro32 Group C
Monday, Aug 04 10:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00)

Polt vs

MacSed

Oz vs

Jaedong

iaguz Chops Down Two Top Protoss

Foreigners continued to impress in WCS America Season 3 when iaguz ousted both Alicia and Jim to reach the Ro16. Both players were tipped for a strong performance this season, and the Gimli Terran slaughtered them both. Despite his weariness from an eventful early workday, he agreed to share his thoughts on his best Premier tournament performance to date.

TL: Hey how are you doing, and congratulations!

iaguz: Good, just tired now the games are over the adrenaline's wearing off and all the sleep I didn't get is catching up.

TL: What were your thoughts when you saw your group draw for the round of 32? What were your expectations going in?

iaguz: That I would need a minor miracle to advance. Alicia is a solid consistent Protoss, Jim murders Terrans (like 2-0 vs Taeja recently wtf) and I lost to Nestea last season and pretty much all the time I hit him on ladder. I felt going 0-4 wasn't too unlikely.

TL: Well instead you managed to go 4-1 and win the group! You managed to play spectacularly in TvP today, did you prepare specifically for your opening TvP against Alicia?

iaguz: I planned to beat Nestea and Jim and not Alicia so my preparation against him was just trying to remember as best I could his series against Bomber last season which was pretty recent. Other than that it was mostly my standard TvP in both series.

TL: You utilized several SCV pulls in your TvP series. Do you believe that is the best style currently in the matchup?

iaguz: It's what I prefer to do against Protoss though I don't think I'm an authority on what the best TvP style is. Maybe going drop crazy like Polt or Maru, perhaps fast second ebay for ghost/viking like Taeja, maybe it's mech and we're all fools, who knows? Just pick a strategy you like and do it. I prefer scv pulling simply because I find lategame to be unfavourable and prefer to end it before Protoss gets 3/3 with storms everywhere.

TL: You mention a few top terran players here. Who do you take inspiration from as a terran players/are there any players that you particularly like stylistically?

iaguz: Stylistically probably most similar to Bomber but I watch a lot of the top Terrans for inspiration and to see if they do anything particularly interesting. Whenever it seems Terran is weak and useless I find watching INnoVation or Maru microing marauders cheers me right up.

TL: I won't ask you to go too in depth on this because I know you gave your input on the balance changes before the patch went live for TL (read here!), but how do you feel the new balance patch has affected play thus far? Do you think it does enough to fix issues, or has it done too much?

iaguz: Against Zerg it's great. I think that, when playing bio, it's harder for Zerg to halt the Terrans momentum in the midgame, we get more chances to make an attack work. And the new thors are much more effective against mutalisks which encourages them to go hive for ultras and even broodlords. So that's fun.

Against Protoss I don't think it does too much since not much changed there. Mines were already a good unit you just didn't see them too much since a Protoss that is turtling with mostly stalker colossus isn't one that's going to be vulnerable to mines. The role of mines in the previous metagame is either to cheekily kill some probes early and to discourage almost all chargelot/templar midgames from happening. And they still do this prety well. The time warp nerf is nifty but doesn't open up new strategies.

The main purpose of the patch is to increase Terran win %'s a bit and I reckon it's gonna do that. Too much? Idk, hard to say until we start seeing TvT finals all the time. And what a glorious time that will be!

TL: So now that you have made it to the Round of 16, what is your mindset? How far do you think you can go?

iaguz: I've already surpassed my expectations for this one so I'm not really going to pressure myself too much. If I 0-4 the next group, ah well, no worries. And I reckon I'm gonna need an even bigger miracle to win the next group unless it turns out Terran is OP as hell now

I don't see myself winning the next group but I didn't see myself winning this one so idk. Just try me best and see what happens.

TL: You are only the second Australian player to reach Premier League in WCS America, and the SEA region as a whole is fairly underrepresented in WCS. Who else do you think has the skill to make Premier League and how difficult is it for players in your region to qualify?

iaguz: Thanks to the head of Blizzard ANZ, a one PJ Russel (an absolute bloody legend), SEA gets 2 Challenger slots for WCS NA and qualifying for that is probably a lot easier then the other Challenger slots, particularly since PiG off in Europe having a Dreamhack sojourn and Moonglade has traded in having to work for a living for shiny caster dollars. It's pretty much a toss up between Kingkong and whoever gets second to Kingkong, either Petraeus or myself.

As for qualifying for Premier, well, it kinda depends on who you get. I got a bit lucky and dodged players like Jaedong, poor KingKong didn't. I definitely think Pig and Petraeus have at least as much a shot as I do to make Premier next season. I just managed to get it this time. And one day KingKong will show the world just how incredibly good he is. Only a matter of time.

TL: Ok so I think this interview has gone on for a little while and we have discussed some serious stuff. One last question. Your nickname is the Gimli Terran, so I have to ask, if you had to take the ring to Mordor to destroy it, which other (eSports) individuals would be in your fellowship?

iaguz: We'd need a few people who are good at fighting. Perhaps Slivko, TargA and incontrol, they're all huge so they'd probably do well. At the very least I can hide behind them when the arrows start falling. Life already has a sword so he's in. Whitera's handy with a gun so he can provide ranged support. Artosis sounds like a wizard and you need one of those and he's pretty smart so he's in too. And Petraeus is tiny, he can do all the sneaking around.

TL: Alright thanks so much for taking the time to speak to us! Would you like to give any shoutouts, sponsor plugs, etc.?

iaguz: Yea why not. Shoutouts to ROOT Gaming (twitch, Tt esports, V3 gaming) for having me and to everyone for supporting and cheering for me. See all you in ro16!

WCS AM - iaguz: "I would need a minor miracle"

iaguz Chops Down Two Top Protoss

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