EPTTable of Contents
HONORABLE MENTIONS
The dumbest and weirdest games of the year
#40 TO #2
The Best Games of the Year!
NUMBER ONE
The Consensus #1
The Year in Games
Another year, another list. And more or less the same game. Heart of the Swarm experienced a lot of changes throughout the year, but Starcraft 2 kept churning out great games from January to December.
One of the most stable sources of excellent games was SK Telecom Proleague. Running for a majority of the year, it was the best source for interesting build orders, strange maps, and unknown players suddenly playing their hearts out. With a titanic matchup between the sport's best players almost ensured each week, the world's finest team league provided constant thrills.
Our emotions were naturally drawn to weekend tournaments, the best of which was IEM Cologne way back in February. That tournament alone contributed 6 entries to the Top 40, more than any other tournament. It was hailed as the best event of all time (game quality-wise) after it graced us, and not even the lack of an epic venue was able to dampen the event's momentum. Intel Extreme Masters became a beacon for brilliant battles, whether in Katowice, Toronto, or even in its qualifiers.
But it didn't seem to matter whether contests were played offline or online, in large stadiums or in small bars, as great competition continued to flood our list from all corners. SHOUTcraft Invitational became one of the year's highlights, and Homestory Cup matched its atmosphere with stellar play.
It seems like no matter how much drama fills our plate, no matter how much balance whine deafens our ears, or how much twitch chat makes us question humanity, the game just keeps chugging along, 1 great game after another.
Whenever I feel like the game's getting worse, that playstyles are starting to converge, or that players are no longer playing to entertain, a quick look at Best Games always picks up my spirits and renews my interest in Starcraft 2. After all, watching thousands of hours of Starcraft each year takes its toll, and eventually you expect everything to turn into an indistinguishable blur. Yet the game we all love still continues to surprise, still continues to astound, and still continues to make me shout at my screen like a lunatic 5 years later.
This will likely be the last year of Heart of the Swarm, and I'm certain that one year from now, when I'm tallying this list, writing these entries, and editing our work, the game will continue to surprise, continue to astound, and continue to make me throw things at my monitor when my player isn't winning. And I'm sure you'll all be there watching (and screaming) with me.
- Grand List Compiler, lichter
While we'd like to rank every game every played, it's natural that some great games just miss out on our list. Our initial tally included up to 100 games, and some of our personal favorites unfortunately missed the cut. However, there are some games that, even though they don't deserve to get on the main list, have to be included for posterity. So, before we get on to the actual list, we present to you the Stupidest Games of the Year and our Honorable Mentions.
The elfi vs. Life Honorable Mention Awards for Really
#5.
While the term “full foreigner” has become a meme at this point, it does accurately describe the tendency of some non-Korean players to give away games where they had initially secured an unlikely lead. However, the term is often misused on games where their lead is not absolute and their opponent has some potential advantage.
Against Jaedong, qxc went full foreigner.
Jaedong decided to skip roaches and extra queens to get a fast spire on three bases, a decision that proved near-fatal when qxc immediately attacked with a powerful hellbat/marauder composition. His paltry zergling/queen (with 1 spine crawler) defense was massacred, and Jaedong found himself sitting at half the supply of qxc with twelve drones, about eight mutalisks and a handful of zerglings. However, not all was lost as qxc would somehow managed to lose a game where he had every advantage. Turrets were cancelled and killed, widow mines killed marines as small groups of zerglings baited shots, marines shot overseers, marines were stimmed at the wrong moments, and tech and production were severely delayed while Jaedong kept qxc in his main and natural for an eternity to equalize the supply. It only took one big attack for Jaedong to put qxc in almost the same position he had been in just ten minutes ago, and there was no way Jaedong was going to throw away this game.
#4.
![[image loading]](/staff/lichter/BestGames2014/yearend/st04.jpg)
We’ve seen all sorts of dedicated cannon rushes originating from the deep realms of protoss depravity. Has is the most famous for doing so, with completely ridiculous tempest + cannon contains in PvT and mass pylon wall-offs in PvZ. These peculiar strategies have been surprisingly effective against players that should have known better despite making absolutely no sense.
In the deciding game of a Code A group, Ruin found himself facing a Zerg player on Daedalus Point. The relatively new map (at the time) had shown itself to be extremely zerg favored, as protoss had a difficult time walling off their natural expansion. Ruin, however, actually used the map to his advantage and proved that he was the next greatest cannon architect. He began by building an extremely bold wall from the start right outside Sleep’s main base. Sleep, unsure how to react, tried playing on one base, but Ruin built cannons and additional pylons behind his initial pylon/gate/forge, preventing the zerg player from ever leaving. By the time Sleep had a nydus network and enough roaches to break out of his main base, Ruin had built a force of blink stalkers and sentries off one base and easily crushed him.
#3.
They said that terran players were the one with the best ability to abuse gold bases. That orbital commands were the most dangerous town halls, closely followed by planetary nexuses. Protoss and Terran had the more dangerous proxies and the most annoying rushes with static defense.
Overgrowth dispelled all of these commonly accepted opinions and turned perfectly normal zerg mechanics into a protoss nightmare. CatZ, soO, TRUE, and Scarlett led a proxy hatchery movement that caused complete meltdowns in normally stable players as the creep-ridden horrors never seemed to go away, no matter how many probes were pulled, since one finishing could mean the end of the game. Gold bases were seized to fuel terrifying spine crawler rushes and horrifying 2-base plays. Alternatively, the zerg player could play completely normally with a gold base and possibly take an early lead or force their opponent to all in. If the protoss survived, what was their reward? Swarm hosts. Here's a bunch of screenshots to make your protoss friends cry:
![[image loading]](/staff/lichter/BestGames2014/yearend/st03.jpg)
#2.
That was like watching Revival cross the street and then a car is about to hit him. Then BAM, the car explodes, but the debris are flying everywhere, but Revival fucking dodges only to hit his head into a fire hydrant. He then gets up and is mugged by guys with guns and is about to get shot but then one of the thugs backstabs his friends and Revival gets the fuck out of there, but is then chased by a pack of ravenous dogs. He crashes through a butcher shop, throws the meat at the ravenous dogs to only have the butcher try to stab him, only to have the previous thugs start shooting up the butcher and the police coming in to shoot the thugs. After surviving all of that Revival walks home to only have a piano fall out of the sky and almost land on top of him until mutas swoop in from nowhere and die for him.
#1.
#5.
The thought of having an extra nexus for some reason besides taking a base is enough to bring most protoss players to tears of laughter. While having extra hatcheries or CCs for a heavy production or income boost is relatively common in longer games, one never sees an extra nexus or two sitting around for extra probes or chronoboosts. They can’t lift off, spread creep, or really do anything besides just sit there, so these 400 mineral investments are generally unnecessary beyond securing additional expansions.
Billowy, however, found another use for the protoss town hall. Against Symbol in Code A, he opened relatively normally on Waystation with a gateway expansion into phoenixes and a third base at the island. It felt like he was going to play a normal macro game as he started getting blink and colossi, but then he built a fourth nexus in a seemingly random spot near Symbol’s fourth base. As Symbol scouted the island base, he prepared to pressure Billowy’s two mainland bases while building a nydus network. However, as the zerg player moved across the map, Billowy’s army suddenly teleported next to Symbol’s fourth for a surprise attack. The colossus/blink stalker army Billowy had amassed on three bases proved to be too much for an out of position Symbol to deal with immediately, and a single nexus had changed a promising macro game into a clever, quick victory.
#4.
WCS America is great, and if these awards teach you anything, let it be this: we fucking love Chinese players. It's not that they're unique and bring fresh styles to the table (they do), but that they seem to make so little sense that when they end up winning (they do quite often), we're left with hilarity to look back on. What do I mean by that? I mean TOP vs viOLet. No, I'm not talking about games like this one. There is no game like this one. Maybe somewhere in platinum league but certainly not at the professional level. And most certainly not in the deciding game 5 of WCS America Challenger League.
The score tied at 2-2, TOP did what everyone predicted: a gateway expand into 4gate pressure. Rotterdam knew it, Mr.Bitter knew it, viOLet knew it, the observer knew it. Perhaps that's why all of them missed where the chaos of this game truly started. As his extra three gates were going up, TOP accidentally cancelled his natural nexus and nobody, neither casters nor the observer, noticed—only viOLet. The game is nothing but madness from here on out as viOLet tried his best to recover from making the right choice and TOP's accidental nexus cancel let him execute a 2base all in that lasted for an eternity, all to the late night entertainment program of Mr.Bitter desperately trying to navigate between urges to laugh, cry and rant his heart out, while his brother-from-another-race, Rotterdam, unsurprisingly mostly laughed.
Once upon a time, true protoss mentor Teoita in a fit of wisdom spoke the words that to this day depict a protoss lifestyle: "Protoss all ins are like a wok - you can throw whatever you want in there and it will turn out alright.". TOP proved himself a real wok-race warrior by producing seemingly random units at random times. There was an oracle whose mission was to single-handedly kill viOLet's third base, a few phoenixes that I guess helped some queens escape from zealots... unupgraded zealots. Since TOP had a stargate (don't ask me why he had a stargate) he naturally made void rays as any self-respecting protoss would and, to top it all off, he transitioned everything into the one true build - an immortal/sentry all in. I didn't learn much from this game (in fact I think I unlearned a lot), but one thing's for certain: third bases don't exist in China.
#3.
![[image loading]](/staff/lichter/BestGames2014/yearend/hm03.jpg)
When we think of the best games that Starcraft 2 has to offer, we think of macro wars and daring cheeses; we remember insane comebacks from the brink of defeat, and tense battles that are fought right to the bitter end. However, there are some games which require but a single moment; one singular event which elevates the whole match beyond the ordinary.
ZvZ rarely tops the list of people’s favourite matchups, and maxed out roach slugfests are even less appreciated. At the start of the year, though, Scarlett and Toodming played out a thoroughly entertaining match on Frost. Both players opened with practically mirrored roach builds, and Toodming drew first blood by forcing a cancel at the third with a large ling run by. From there, the two forces ping pong'd from one side of the map to the other. Armies were thrown away before being instantly replenished, and advantages were traded back and forth in a game that was impossible to call. I could go on to praise Toodming’s impressive army positioning and engagements throughout, or Scarlett’s harass and defence. But, frankly, there’s only one moment that matters.
#2.
I (stuchiu) have been watching this game since 2010 in the first GSL Open Season. Suffice to say, I have seen some shit. I saw Inca try dts 4 games in a row, San manner block his own expansion, Protoss 4 gate the wrong spawn on a 4 player map, BitByBit ascend to Proletariat Godhood, GSL try to set TT1 on fire, the first 1-1-1, the first soul train (fun fact, Avenge was its first conductor), Targa Banes, Morrow Banes, Snute Banes, Dimaga Banes, Losira dancing lings into losing, Ruin making an S into losing, Naniwa dancing zealots into losing, I have seen some shit.
So it is with very little doubt that I say that this was easily the craziest debut any player has ever had in a Premier Tournament. On one hand you had Jaedong, a player who had just come off getting to the finals of Blizzcon. A perennial fan favorite who faced utter humiliation at the hands of sOs. It was a beating so terrible that no Jaedong fan had thought it could ever be one-upped.
And then they met Has.
#1.
![[image loading]](/staff/lichter/BestGames2014/yearend/hm01.jpg)
This game was actually good. Like, really good. Yet, instead of the great play Ruin showed in his stubborn attempt to reach Code S in an era of Daedalus Point, we will forever remember him for being "The Architect". While his ballsy cannon contain on that nightmare of a map proved to be a stroke of demented genius, his "S" ceremony in-game ended up being an embarrassment. Confident of his victory, The Architect erected a monument to his impending Code S berth. Instead his hope wilted as Soulkey ran over his dreams with a bulldozer. Turns out S stood for "Soulkey."
The elfi vs. Life Honorable Mention Awards for Really Weird Stupid Games That Are Weird
#5. 
qxc vs 
Jaedong on Merry Go Round
Homestory Cup (November 14) - VOD
While the term “full foreigner” has become a meme at this point, it does accurately describe the tendency of some non-Korean players to give away games where they had initially secured an unlikely lead. However, the term is often misused on games where their lead is not absolute and their opponent has some potential advantage.
Against Jaedong, qxc went full foreigner.
Jaedong decided to skip roaches and extra queens to get a fast spire on three bases, a decision that proved near-fatal when qxc immediately attacked with a powerful hellbat/marauder composition. His paltry zergling/queen (with 1 spine crawler) defense was massacred, and Jaedong found himself sitting at half the supply of qxc with twelve drones, about eight mutalisks and a handful of zerglings. However, not all was lost as qxc would somehow managed to lose a game where he had every advantage. Turrets were cancelled and killed, widow mines killed marines as small groups of zerglings baited shots, marines shot overseers, marines were stimmed at the wrong moments, and tech and production were severely delayed while Jaedong kept qxc in his main and natural for an eternity to equalize the supply. It only took one big attack for Jaedong to put qxc in almost the same position he had been in just ten minutes ago, and there was no way Jaedong was going to throw away this game.
#4. 
Ruin vs Daedalus Point
Code A Season 1 (January 15) - VOD
We’ve seen all sorts of dedicated cannon rushes originating from the deep realms of protoss depravity. Has is the most famous for doing so, with completely ridiculous tempest + cannon contains in PvT and mass pylon wall-offs in PvZ. These peculiar strategies have been surprisingly effective against players that should have known better despite making absolutely no sense.
In the deciding game of a Code A group, Ruin found himself facing a Zerg player on Daedalus Point. The relatively new map (at the time) had shown itself to be extremely zerg favored, as protoss had a difficult time walling off their natural expansion. Ruin, however, actually used the map to his advantage and proved that he was the next greatest cannon architect. He began by building an extremely bold wall from the start right outside Sleep’s main base. Sleep, unsure how to react, tried playing on one base, but Ruin built cannons and additional pylons behind his initial pylon/gate/forge, preventing the zerg player from ever leaving. By the time Sleep had a nydus network and enough roaches to break out of his main base, Ruin had built a force of blink stalkers and sentries off one base and easily crushed him.
#3. 
Zerg vs 
Protoss on Overgrowth
They said that terran players were the one with the best ability to abuse gold bases. That orbital commands were the most dangerous town halls, closely followed by planetary nexuses. Protoss and Terran had the more dangerous proxies and the most annoying rushes with static defense.
Overgrowth dispelled all of these commonly accepted opinions and turned perfectly normal zerg mechanics into a protoss nightmare. CatZ, soO, TRUE, and Scarlett led a proxy hatchery movement that caused complete meltdowns in normally stable players as the creep-ridden horrors never seemed to go away, no matter how many probes were pulled, since one finishing could mean the end of the game. Gold bases were seized to fuel terrifying spine crawler rushes and horrifying 2-base plays. Alternatively, the zerg player could play completely normally with a gold base and possibly take an early lead or force their opponent to all in. If the protoss survived, what was their reward? Swarm hosts. Here's a bunch of screenshots to make your protoss friends cry:
#2. Revival vs ByuL on Yeonsu
WCS AM Ro32 Season 1 (February 25)
That was like watching Revival cross the street and then a car is about to hit him. Then BAM, the car explodes, but the debris are flying everywhere, but Revival fucking dodges only to hit his head into a fire hydrant. He then gets up and is mugged by guys with guns and is about to get shot but then one of the thugs backstabs his friends and Revival gets the fuck out of there, but is then chased by a pack of ravenous dogs. He crashes through a butcher shop, throws the meat at the ravenous dogs to only have the butcher try to stab him, only to have the previous thugs start shooting up the butcher and the police coming in to shoot the thugs. After surviving all of that Revival walks home to only have a piano fall out of the sky and almost land on top of him until mutas swoop in from nowhere and die for him.
#1. Billowy vs Flash on Yeonsu
Proleague Round 2 (March 30)
"And then Billowy said let there be a salvage. And God salvaged and it was good."
- Book of SwagHo 1:1
- Book of SwagHo 1:1
Honorable Mentions
#5. Billowy vs Symbol on Waystation
Code A Season 2 (April 18) - VOD
The thought of having an extra nexus for some reason besides taking a base is enough to bring most protoss players to tears of laughter. While having extra hatcheries or CCs for a heavy production or income boost is relatively common in longer games, one never sees an extra nexus or two sitting around for extra probes or chronoboosts. They can’t lift off, spread creep, or really do anything besides just sit there, so these 400 mineral investments are generally unnecessary beyond securing additional expansions.
Billowy, however, found another use for the protoss town hall. Against Symbol in Code A, he opened relatively normally on Waystation with a gateway expansion into phoenixes and a third base at the island. It felt like he was going to play a normal macro game as he started getting blink and colossi, but then he built a fourth nexus in a seemingly random spot near Symbol’s fourth base. As Symbol scouted the island base, he prepared to pressure Billowy’s two mainland bases while building a nydus network. However, as the zerg player moved across the map, Billowy’s army suddenly teleported next to Symbol’s fourth for a surprise attack. The colossus/blink stalker army Billowy had amassed on three bases proved to be too much for an out of position Symbol to deal with immediately, and a single nexus had changed a promising macro game into a clever, quick victory.
#4. Top vs viOLet on Heavy Rain
WCS AM Challenger S1 (January 21) - VOD
WCS America is great, and if these awards teach you anything, let it be this: we fucking love Chinese players. It's not that they're unique and bring fresh styles to the table (they do), but that they seem to make so little sense that when they end up winning (they do quite often), we're left with hilarity to look back on. What do I mean by that? I mean TOP vs viOLet. No, I'm not talking about games like this one. There is no game like this one. Maybe somewhere in platinum league but certainly not at the professional level. And most certainly not in the deciding game 5 of WCS America Challenger League.
The score tied at 2-2, TOP did what everyone predicted: a gateway expand into 4gate pressure. Rotterdam knew it, Mr.Bitter knew it, viOLet knew it, the observer knew it. Perhaps that's why all of them missed where the chaos of this game truly started. As his extra three gates were going up, TOP accidentally cancelled his natural nexus and nobody, neither casters nor the observer, noticed—only viOLet. The game is nothing but madness from here on out as viOLet tried his best to recover from making the right choice and TOP's accidental nexus cancel let him execute a 2base all in that lasted for an eternity, all to the late night entertainment program of Mr.Bitter desperately trying to navigate between urges to laugh, cry and rant his heart out, while his brother-from-another-race, Rotterdam, unsurprisingly mostly laughed.
Once upon a time, true protoss mentor Teoita in a fit of wisdom spoke the words that to this day depict a protoss lifestyle: "Protoss all ins are like a wok - you can throw whatever you want in there and it will turn out alright.". TOP proved himself a real wok-race warrior by producing seemingly random units at random times. There was an oracle whose mission was to single-handedly kill viOLet's third base, a few phoenixes that I guess helped some queens escape from zealots... unupgraded zealots. Since TOP had a stargate (don't ask me why he had a stargate) he naturally made void rays as any self-respecting protoss would and, to top it all off, he transitioned everything into the one true build - an immortal/sentry all in. I didn't learn much from this game (in fact I think I unlearned a lot), but one thing's for certain: third bases don't exist in China.
#3. Scarlett vs TooDming on Frost
WCS AM Ro32 Season 1 (February 19) - VOD
When we think of the best games that Starcraft 2 has to offer, we think of macro wars and daring cheeses; we remember insane comebacks from the brink of defeat, and tense battles that are fought right to the bitter end. However, there are some games which require but a single moment; one singular event which elevates the whole match beyond the ordinary.
ZvZ rarely tops the list of people’s favourite matchups, and maxed out roach slugfests are even less appreciated. At the start of the year, though, Scarlett and Toodming played out a thoroughly entertaining match on Frost. Both players opened with practically mirrored roach builds, and Toodming drew first blood by forcing a cancel at the third with a large ling run by. From there, the two forces ping pong'd from one side of the map to the other. Armies were thrown away before being instantly replenished, and advantages were traded back and forth in a game that was impossible to call. I could go on to praise Toodming’s impressive army positioning and engagements throughout, or Scarlett’s harass and defence. But, frankly, there’s only one moment that matters.
#2. Has vs Jaedong on Polar Night
WCS AM Ro32 Season 1 (February 26) - VOD
I (stuchiu) have been watching this game since 2010 in the first GSL Open Season. Suffice to say, I have seen some shit. I saw Inca try dts 4 games in a row, San manner block his own expansion, Protoss 4 gate the wrong spawn on a 4 player map, BitByBit ascend to Proletariat Godhood, GSL try to set TT1 on fire, the first 1-1-1, the first soul train (fun fact, Avenge was its first conductor), Targa Banes, Morrow Banes, Snute Banes, Dimaga Banes, Losira dancing lings into losing, Ruin making an S into losing, Naniwa dancing zealots into losing, I have seen some shit.
So it is with very little doubt that I say that this was easily the craziest debut any player has ever had in a Premier Tournament. On one hand you had Jaedong, a player who had just come off getting to the finals of Blizzcon. A perennial fan favorite who faced utter humiliation at the hands of sOs. It was a beating so terrible that no Jaedong fan had thought it could ever be one-upped.
And then they met Has.
#1. Ruin vs Soulkey on Frost
Code A Season 2 (April 11) - VOD
This game was actually good. Like, really good. Yet, instead of the great play Ruin showed in his stubborn attempt to reach Code S in an era of Daedalus Point, we will forever remember him for being "The Architect". While his ballsy cannon contain on that nightmare of a map proved to be a stroke of demented genius, his "S" ceremony in-game ended up being an embarrassment. Confident of his victory, The Architect erected a monument to his impending Code S berth. Instead his hope wilted as Soulkey ran over his dreams with a bulldozer. Turns out S stood for "Soulkey."
* Click the numbers below to browse between games
- 40
Ten-minute PvP games aren't supposed to be good. Whether it was fate, or that the two best Protosses in the world were in game 7 of the semfinals in the most stacked online tournament ever, or both, this ten-minute mirror was thrilling.
herO fell back on the opening for which he has since become the poster child. Luckily for Blink Man, Zest chose a proxy oracle build. herO took minimal damage, and in an attempt to compound his tech advantage, cancelled his safety robo. Behind the oracle, Zest transitioned into his own blink. Keenly catching the cancel, Zest added a dark shrine, a risk that could help him break even or outright win the game. But herO knew it was a possibility, and threw down a robo in Zest's natural as he knocked at the front door. In a critical blunder, Zest lost his mothership core, and was forced to cancel blink in favor of defensive dark templars, sending one to herO's main as well.
The observer from the proxy robo arrived just in time to save herO's stalkers, but the main base was forfeit. herO drafted all his probes and marched them across the map. Chaos ensued as they marched up the ramp. Zest's probes entered the fray as well, and between blinking, stutter stepping, and probe micro, Zest managed to pick off herO's observer with the oracle's Envision. More blinking, stutter stepping, and probes furiously tasing each other, and another observer popped out. Zest surrendered. - 39
Innovation is easy to appreciate on an abstract level, but by definition it rarely conforms to preexisting standards. New strategies are often perceived as imbalanced or completely nonviable before they can find their appropriate role. Alternatively, an ingenious plan can look completely stupid due to poor execution or a fortunate opposing strategy.
When terran players began lifting to the gold base on Habitation Station and executing the archaic 1/1/1 build, spectators initially watched in utter disbelief. Here was a strategy with roots which had been exploited and ridiculed for years, yet it was working against legitimate zerg and protoss players at a time when it was thought to be unusable. Despite initial protests, the discussion shifted from its perceived impossibility to how players could cope with such a transparent yet deadly strategy.
In the WCS America finals, Pigbaby found himself in a surprising grand finals against Bomber after defeating TaeJa and HyuN back-to-back. While the Jin Air Protoss had plenty of experience with seemingly ridiculous strategies—including a two base carrier rush from earlier in the finals that nearly worked—he was challenged to defend one of the craziest ones in the last game of the series. As you can no doubt guess this took place on Habitation Station, and Bomber chose to lift his starting command center to the gold base. Pigbaby had to think of a counter on the fly and tempests turned out to be his response. They proved to be the most startling innovation ever seen against this build. - 38
In a one on one game like Starcraft, the winner of the game should always be the player that played better. That sounds like a tautology, but there are rare instances of losers actually looking more impressive than the winner. While these ocassions are often isolated to matches that involve foreigner vs Korean or underdog vs favorite, once in a blue moon we get an impressive loser in tournaments with more even playing fields.
As the pinnacle of Starcraft 2 competition, GSL Code S only involves the best of the best. Players that make it this far have earned their right to play in the booth, and everyone should be of approximately similar skill levels. Then, we have players like Avenge who make their debut after years of struggling in Code A and Code B. Against the Samsung powerhouse Solar, Avenge knew that he had to do something atypical to crawl to a win. So, instead of playing standard, he did anything but.
He opened with two quick gasses against three hatch before pool and punished Solar for his greed. After taking his natural, he built three gateways and warped in as many stalkers as he could. Knowing that speed was likely to be late, he pressured the zerg's third base, zapping dozens of lings to their deaths. While he was unable to do any direct damage, it allowed him to take a third of his own. Solar rallied from that early setback by taking the gold, and he massed lings and roaches hoping to strike before Avenge could have AoE. But Avenge never planned to get AoE as he transitioned into double stargate voidray. It was a strategy straight out of the Rotti Playbook, and it paid off as he burst down the gold right before hydras could waddle to its defense. Solar was still in a good spot, however, and maxed out on three bases with roaches and hydras while retaking his gold. Realizing Avenge still had no AoE, Solar marched across the map with his army and gunned down the protoss third. No amount of micro could save it, but some clever focus fire with void rays and photon overcharge removed all of Solar's detection. Avenge warped in 12 DTs and shredded every hydra on his side of the map, but his economic disadvantage was irrecoverable. His reputation, however, had received a big boost for playing like it was 2011 and almost winning. - 37
Games with all ins are rarely any good. The outcome is usually decided well before the attack, leading to one-sided endings. But can too much of a bad thing add up to something good? If you ask MyuNgSiK and Symbol, the answer is probably maybe. If you pile enough of them on top of each other in a bewildering refusal to "Get more ahead", then maybe.
The funny thing about all ins is that players can actually end up being even. Though it isn't a common occurrence, the lack of worker production at home can easily be compensated by enough worker kills abroad. However, for 3, and perhaps even 4 all ins to end up even in a single game? Preposterous! It didn't matter what either player tried, they were still relatively close after 20 minutes of constant attacks on one base.
MyuNgSik was the first aggressor with his in-base proxy 2-gate, but Symbol immediately scouted it with his second overlord. Though he had some trouble holding due to overconfident drone production, he eventually held the attack. Instead of expanding, however, he decided to upgrade speed and launch his own attack. Somehow he had forgotten that MyuNgSiK still had 4 zealots trudging back to his base, and by the time Symbol was ready, the mothership core and more zealots were blocking the ramp. It appeared that MyuNgSiK was about to expand when he descended from his main to warp in a nexus, but it was just a fake out and a strange gateway + oracle all in was coming. Symbol had once again overdroned, and he was slapped close to death by some forcefields at his ramp and oracles zapping away from the skies. Symbol eventually held with his macro hatch, but it was at the cost of his natural. Both players finally mined out and were forced to expand, though honestly they wouldn't have if only this were Big Game Hunters. Of course Symbol would not wait long to take revenge, and his roach ling attack returned the favor of a dead natural. With his main mined out, MyuNgSik did what any respectable protoss would have done: an immortal sentry all in. This time, however, it was enough to break his opponent who had once again droned too heavily. 24 minutes, 5 all ins, and 1 winner. And it was neither MyuNgSiK nor Symbol. - 36
In this episode of Masterpiece Theater, we have a perfect positional chess game by sKyhigh against the venerable Flash. In his breakout performance in Hot6ix Cup, sKyHigh showed the world his elite TvT by beating Flash and Bbyong by a combined score of 5 to 1. This game on Overgrowth was his best, as it displayed a tactical mind capable of outwitting one of the great veterans of mech.
On this map, there are three key locations: 1.) the back of the third where the natural can be sieged; 2.) the field outside the natural between the two possible thirds; and 3.) below the main near the alternate third. sKyHigh took position 1 twice in order to deny Flash's natural, and took position 2 to seal his victory.
While both players opened with safe builds, it was the CJ terran that appeared to have a plan. After building his safety raven, he rushed two medivacs and two tanks with his viking+raven for support. Flash was busy dallying in the middle of the map with his gang of hellions as sKyHigh was boosting into his third, and without warning the KT Ace's natural was under siege. He was forced to lift and relocate, but the damage was done. Content with his advantage, sKyhigh moved straight into double armory mech, and set his sights once again for the third base location. Somehow he'd make it there unimpeded, and Flash was forced to defend a second time. Though the Ultimate Weapon had air control, sKyHigh's preparedness in building turrets ensured his artillery was secure. Flash had no choice but to expand in the opposite gold base, but he was now spread too far apart. Realizing this, sKyHigh inched his way closer to Flash's natural until he had the terran's forces in a vice grip. His army at home was enough to clear the thieving gold base, and the marooned reinforcements were not in time to save the third. Check and mate. - 35
One of the fascinating things about the meta-game is the constant adaptation of styles in order to counter popular builds or strategies. Protoss has always had difficulty handling drops, and the middle of 2014 saw many top protoss favoring early blink before their colossus. The build was designed to counter drop heavy play while applying pressure on the terran, and for a while it looked like the build was a resounding success.
And then, Cure just smashed it to bits with play that it was designed to stop.
It didn't matter how many observers Zest had to prepare his defense or how many stalkers were standing on the edges of his bases. It didn't matter if he had photon overcharge or cannons behind his mineral line. Cure dropped him anywhere and everywhere, and for the first time in a calendar year Zest looked at wit's end. It started so calmly for the KT protoss as his quick third base went unpunished, but Cure did not sit quietly for long. Delaying his own third for more units, Cure picked up all his units in 6 medivacs right beneath the vision of an observer, flew towards Zest's main, and dropped on top of 13 stalkers. Cure rearranged his medivacs so that 2 near-empty ones were leading the pack, and the drop could not be stopped despite the impeccable defense. As his marauders were making a mess of things, Cure also dropped a couple of mines midst the chaos, and they covered his retreat as stalkers blinked cluelessly into their missiles.
Cure attacked at the third and through the rocks into the natural, and Zest looked visibly exasperated as his mineral count climbed and his forces were spread thin. Every opportunity was taken with aplomb, and not even cannons and photon overcharge could stop Cure's devastating display of multitasking. Some surreptitious mines rang Zest's death knell to the sound of 13 dying probes, and the KT Ace charged in frustration. A great spread and a crucial focus fire on the reinforcing warp prism stranded Zest's colossus in the middle of the map, and Cure stimmed forward to chop them down. Zest floated an uncharacteristic 1200 minerals and scrambled to build anything that he could, but no amount of micro could save him. The build he had thought he'd perfected was torn apart by Cure in a single map. - 34
Even the most impervious walls eventually collapse. There are many ways to go about it. One could apply more pressure and force and topple it with brute strength. One could go around the wall with guile and strike the keystone. Or one could find a small crack on the surface and work on it, patiently waiting for the crack to turn into a fault, and for that fault to turn into a fissure. SK Telecom's one-time ace Rain is the very definition of defense. His probes see all and his mind is sharp; very few strategies can catch him off guard. But as Zest showed on Catallena, sometimes all that is necessary is patience.
The KT Protoss had every right to be frustrated after the first 10 minutes. It didn't matter what he tried, Rain deflected it with ease. His early blink was unable to score him any stray units, and his proxy stargate was scouted as soon as it finished. His patented blink + oracle tactic found no way to do damage, and Zest was forced relent and expand. The Kingslayer was not done, though, as he transitioned into templar tech and storm. That too, did not escape Rain's watchful eye as an observer spotted two high templar hanging out behind Zest's natural. With cannons at each base and wary glances at the minimap, Rain sheltered his probes from the initial storms.
It looked like no matter what Zest had planned, Rain was prepared. But much of his ability to defend was down to his concentration. Believing he had taken an advantage, Rain began posturing out on the map with his chargelots, immortals and archons. His third base secured, he traversed the map and headed straight for Zest's building third. Yet this was the opportunity the KT Protoss had been waiting for, as Rain's attention was now divided. Storm drops finally paid dividends, and his oracle from so long ago could now be active. Rain attempted to draw Zest's forces into the main with a large warp in of zealots, and he was able to take down the nexus despite the strategic recall of only zealots and stalkers from Zest. Rain believed this was his opportunity to strike, but archons and immortals camped at Zest's third held firm.
Out of nowhere, Zest was 30 supply ahead. Rain's army appeared to be superior with more archons and immortals, but his third was now barren from the oracle. Half the wall had crumbled behind him. Zest rallied his army across the map to meet the great wall head on, and reduced it to rubble at his feet. - 33
Despite being the highest earning Starcraft 2 professional gamer in history, MC took a remarkable amount of flak in 2014. He was accused of being past his prime, of plundering easier regions to maintain his image. Matched against the most revered hero of Brood War, in the best form of his career since the transition, it seemed to many that there could only be one outcome. It’s worth emphasizing just how dominant Flash’s August was. He played 24 series and won 22 of them. It was a staggering run through a gauntlet of the toughest players in the world. Of the two series he dropped all month, one would stick out in particular: his only loss in a LAN.
MC’s anachronistic gambit was a Wings of Liberty relic—a templar opening brought back to take advantage of Flash’s traditionally widow mine-light style. MC used zealot harass to deny the third of Flash; however, the terran responded with an immediate counter-attack, taking out MC’s main nexus. A series of skirmishes broke out across the map as pieces of MC’s army filtered back to defend. Flash’s multi-pronged harass appeared too much, but a beautiful set of engagements across all three of his bases allowed MC to stabilize.
Blows were traded back and forth. MC denied Flash’s third again, but Flash retaliated with a great engagement near the protoss natural. As EMPs rained down on the protoss army, it looked like Flash would not be denied his rightful victory. However, MC held strong yet again and crucially, Flash had made a critical error: he didn't spot MC's transition to colossi. With a token air force of three vikings, Flash had no answers as he watched his army go up in flames. The God of Starcraft would eventually emerge victorious from the trial of Toronto, but not before MC showed he could bleed. - 32
According to the basics of Starcraft 2, a zerg must be at least 1 base ahead of the protoss to be considered even. This has been one of the immutable laws of the metagame, and many matches can be predicted based on the number of bases mining for each player. Gold bases complicate that formula slightly, as they are worth about 1.5 bases but last a shorter period of time. So while a zerg on three bases vs a protoss on two sounds about equal, turning two of the zerg bases into golds means that it becomes four bases to two.
Not that it matters to Zest. In one of the weirdest yet cleverest mind games, DRG took Zest's gold base in response to a nexus first, while taking his own gold base as his natural. The KT protoss declined to apply pressure, and it took but 7 minutes for the creep to reach his doorstep. DRG was christened by Artosis as the Michael Phelps zerg for his love of golds, and his super charged economy should have been enough to overwhelm any protoss on two bases. Yet it didn't make a difference to Zest, who played it cool and built colossus on two bases before systematically shredding every army that the MVP zerg threw at him on 5 equivalent bases. It was almost like Leonidas and the Spartans at Thermopylae, except in this version of the story Xerxes runs out of money and fails to pay his mortgage. Zest casually took his third as both gold bases mined out, and one last zerg attack proved as futile as the many before it. - 31
For as long as we can remember, Bomber's identity has been that of a macro player. It's how he likes to play the game, and it's how he's become one of the most accomplished players in the game. Unfortunately, he has also become associated with stubbornness. He falters when he can't get into his comfort zone, and well planned counter builds punish his single-minded approach to strategy.
Heart decided to exploit this traditional weakness of Bomber via proxy marauder. After gaining an 8 SCV lead due to his early harassment, Heart pulled back to consolidate his economy with a 2nd CC.This was the sort of situation that Bomber would have lost from in his early days, but in 2014 he showed a renewed tenacity in fighting from deficits. He showed that he was a changed man by taking small advantages: a drop here, a banshee there, a lone unit here, a couple of SCVs there. While this was not enough to draw him close to even, it did buy Bomber the time he needed to amass a comparable force. With great precision, Bomber repeatedly maneuvered his army to the exact spot where Heart was the most vulnerable. He took sizable chunks of Heart's army, economy or infrastructure at each turn, but Bomber continuously deflected every attempt to push him back. The onslaught finally enabled Bomber to equalize in supply, and one crazy base trade later he was in firm control of the game. And unlike Heart, he wouldn't let go.
This game proved that Bomber had evolved as a player. His macro was just as ferocious as it had ever been, but he had added more cunning and cleverness to his arsenal. He was no longer a one dimensional player that relied solely on the size of his army, and it showed us that you really can teach an old player new tricks. - 30
A game could be played at the highest level possible, but we won't waste a thought on it ever again if it didn't capture our emotions. HerO's IEM Cologne semifinal clash with Jaedong is on this list because it did. It triggered all the joy, frustration, speechlessness, anger, amazement and disgust that makes watching this game a pleasure and keeps us coming back for more.
Tied at 2-2 in the semifinals of the most incredible tournament we've ever seen in SCII, HerO opted for a strategy feared by zergs, especially on Yeonsu. An immortal-sentry all-in was his build of choice to eliminate the Tyrant. Everything was put into one attack—and Jaedong somehow held it. Defending at his third, then at his natural, with all his army and his drones thrown into the fight, he barely held. But HerO wasn't done just yet. He saved two immortals and his warp prism, picked off a few adventurous roaches and geared up for another attack, one last attack.
You can argue all you want. "Immortal/sentry is broken on Yeonsu", "Jaedong threw the game hard", "HerO had fantastic prism micro and forcefield control","protoss is completely bullshit". This game triggered a plethora of emotions, but what it really seemed to come down to was two players' wills to win bashed against each other. HerO and Jaedong went at one another with everything they had, drones in one army and probes in the other. In the end, after 26 minutes of constantly dancing on the edge of elimination, HerO clawed his way to the finals with sheer power of will.
If he had wavered just once and stopped believing in the slightest possibility of winning, he would have lost. Others may have simply given up after the first attack was held. A lot of players often get stick for staying in seemingly lost games, HerO being one of them. But this game showcased why they do it, and HerO couldn't have picked a better time to believe. - 29
The fact this series hit Game 5 already made it a success. Barely 3 months after his 3rd place run at Dreamhack Winter, Patience was still regarded as a mid-tier protoss player with some very good pressure builds. Critics charged that his performance there was a fluke, only possible because anonymity discouraged opponents from studying his style. There was no verifiable uptick in his results against Korean opponents either. While he still excelled in small tournaments with mostly European opponents, Patience ran into problems against his brethren at IEM World Championship and Assembly Winter. He didn't seem prepared to defeat Jaedong who, despite having a marked weakness against Protoss, still retained considerable respect. - 28
There are moments in important series when you know one player has won even though the series has yet to be decided. Sometimes, it's because one player has perfectly figured out the other. Sometimes, it's because an overwhelming advantage has been attained. And sometimes, it's because one player has been broken beyond recovery. Game 6 of the Code S Finals Season 1 was when soO visibly broke in half. After trading wins with Zest and leading 3-2, the SKT Zerg looked superior to his counterpart in 4 of the 5 games. Only a heroic defense from Zest had denied soO victory on Yeonsu, but it seemed that the muta corruptor composition was nearly unbeatable in the hands of soO. Then, on the biggest map in the pool, spawning on opposite corners, Zest leisurely defeated a zerg with a 10k/8k bank.
He made it look easy, too. After 5 back and forth games, the two players appeared to have developed a certain respect for each other and realized that no amount of early game hijinks would be able to get the best of their opponent. They sat back and built units while posturing on the map, and a thick air of unease drew the lines of battle on the edge of creep. Even though Zest opened with a stargate soO still chose to use his favorite composition, which kept his 5 bases safe from any protoss aggression. Zest remained patient, and slowly replaced his units with more expensive archons and high templar. When he took a 4th, soO took 2 more bases for a total of 7. As the mutas were shaved off one by one by phoenix, soO switched into ultras, brood lords, and infestors, and a clash of the most expensive armies possible seemed inevitable.
But Zest was wise to soO's plan. As the KT Protoss moved out with his mothership core providing camouflage, his two stargates back home were incrementally chronoboosting phoenixes. soO waited for the perfect moment to engage, and predictably switched back into mutas. To his dismay, his tech switch had been foreseen and his lack of corruptors was punished by Anion Pulse Crystals. With his army now unstoppable, Zest moved across the map with his archons, tempests, templar and immortals, and crushed 2 bases and 2 maxed armies before finally falling. The SKT Zerg had depleted his bank in order to stop Zest's charge, but his 50 supply advantage was an illusion: it was mostly corruptors and he had only a dozen drones left. Building one last army worth almost 80 supply more, soO lunged towards Zest's 5th base, but a field of cannons and two clutch immortals shredded all of soO's ultras. His useless corruptors floated aimlessly, and he was forced to concede the tie, and ultimately, the title. - 27
Over the course of 2014, TvT has irrevocably changed. The expanded array of weaponry that terran received in HotS has warped the mirror matchup from a delicate chess match to a no-holds-barred brawl. Gas first openings have become the routine. Widow mine drops. Hellion pushes. Cloaked banshees. The game has become a case of bigger; harder; stronger.
Which is why the first set of the WCS EU Season 3 Finals was so welcome. MMA and YoDa spawned in cross positions on one of the biggest maps in the game, and while both tried to deal damage with harass, the game would inevitably trickle towards the late game. A crucial scout on MMA’s fusion core tipped YoDa off to the Acer Terran’s plans, and both players would amass significant air armies. While MMA had chosen to open with bio, though, YoDa had committed fully to mech, and thus had a significant upgrade advantage when he began to push across the map. A game of carefully planned moves had turned into a full-on siege. YoDa spread out his tank line, and began constructing a wall of turrets to help zone out MMA’s air force. Ravens fired off seeker missiles on both sides as each player hoped to land a crucial crippling shot, and one mistake could have ended the game either way. MMA, though, had an ace up his sleeve. Sneaking out an SCV, he planted a hidden command center in the top right corner of the map. The income deficit began to take its toll on YoDa. Throughout the fight, MMA's infantry upgrades had been ticking over, and a sudden commitment to marauders caught YoDa by surprise as his tank line melted.
From there, MMA had full control, liberally expanding to 8 locations. The mobility of his marauder force allowed him to harass and deny YoDa’s fourth base, and his careful play with his raven squad slowly pushed YoDa further and further back. YoDa, pinned to his corner of the map, attempted one last desperate push with a maxed out army, but heavy seeker missile connections on his tanks and air army would prove too much. Out-thought and starved of resources, YoDa was forced to concede. - 26
How many times has a wall off 20 minutes into a game ever won a player a series? Sure, it might matter against a 6pool or early rush, but more often than not buildings at one's choke point end up being liabilities once the game goes long. After all, letting buildings catch fire from pot shots isn't exactly the best use for infrastructure. But once in a while, flying buildings actually make a difference. And I don't mean by annoying the opponent with a FanTaSy gg timing, but strategically landing to give an advantage.
Polt, that silly king of base trades, loves situations that require quick thinking. Rain, on the other hand, is more adept at planning out series and playing a stable, defensive style. Their strategic understanding is applied in different ways, but you will rarely find two players as evenly matched in their ability to wrestle away victories from the clutches of defeat.
Tied 1-1 at IEM Cologne, there was only one way their final game could have gone down: a base trade. It's a Polt game, of course it's a base trade. But it was Rain that acted as instigator all game long with his choice of 2-base chargelot immortal archon. Polt meanwhile was happily mining off 3 bases while causing trouble with his drops, and Rain soon became fed up and a-moved across the map. What followed was a 10 minute elimination race. Rain had no probes nor nexus, but his army was vastly superior. Polt had CCs in the air and SCVs playing hide and seek, but his army could be easily overwhelmed. Each player played his hand correctly. Rain split his army in groups that could not be picked off easily, while sending a zealot to scout the entire map. No CC nor depot could escape his sight for long, and Polt found it impossible to re-stabilize. The CM Storm Terran remained active with his units while waiting for the opportune moment, knowing all he had to do was start rebuilding once he had available supply. The game was tied, the series was tied, and their supplies were neck and neck. And all it took was a wall off to decide the game. - 25
This was it: Artosis’ macro game wet dream. This was the ultimate late-game back and forth featuring constant harassment, pinpoint battle micro and nonstop action. The game started off with both players attempting to out-greed each other until absolutely necessary. While there was some cute dancing between the two armies, things didn't look likely to to end as they postured more than they prodded. Then after 14 minutes of menacing glares while setting up the pieces just as he liked them, PartinG blinsided Soulkey with DTs. 29 workers died, but Soulkey was already switching into swarmhosts while feinting with mutas. Even though both players were deadlocked down the middle, their harassment never stopped. Soulkey razed two expansion to keep the protoss on 3 bases, but even more zealot and DT warp ins managed to kill over 70 drones. The zerg still had a healthy drone count of 70, however, and the protoss ball kept growing.
The Rascal Toss appeared to be getting the upper hand in the late game due to his frightening air armada, but all it took was one misstep to hand Soulkey a lifeline. A bad move out without recall allowed Soulkey to surround PartinG's fleet, and the Air force of Aiur was smashed to pieced by a massive corruptor arc. This left all of PartinG's exterior expansions undefended, and they too quickly feel. with no mining left PartinG used his entire bank on a desperate switch into void rays, and an unorthodox voidray zealot stalker army surprised the Iron Zerg who had no choice but to give up his last mining base. PartinG, believing his force unbeatable, proceeded to hunt the zerg who had fled back into his main. Every last bit of Soulkey's army had gathered to defend; queens, corruptors and mutas taking a last stand. Somehow, it was barely enough to win the fight and PartinG had to tap out with these immortal words:
"..."
"MY 100 000"
"GG" - 24
Modern day TvT is the equivalent of a quicksand pit, where one wrong step can leave you up to your neck in trouble. Compared to the stalwart, fastidious macro games that defined TvT prior to Heart of the Swarm, fast and sloppy victories are very common these days. Thanks to faster cloak, boosted medivacs, and cheap widow mines, the 5-10 minute mark is an excruciatingly tense period. Is my opponent planning a widow mine drop or does he want to hurl hellions at my workers? Will he curl around to the back of my base or attempt to brute force it up my ramp? Here both sides are placed under enormous pressure to execute. One mistake from either would be tantamount to suicide.
In the final game of this WCS semifinal, the series looked like it would be decided by such stratagems. Bomber punished Polt’s early CC by slinking a marine/hellion force around the right side of the map and elevating it into the main. Just as Polt drove that little squad out of his natural, the banshees started descending like vultures. Behind this relentless pressure Bomber was establishing a fearsome infrastructure back home, finishing his third CC as well as 3 more barracks. By the time Polt had enough vikings to push away the air harass, he looked like a dead man. Bomber was up 20 supply with one more OC, his stim upgrade had recently finished, and +1 attack was halfway done. Meanwhile Polt had only started his stim. And those pesky banshees were still coming.
This game ended exactly how the description sounds, so why is it here? Well, let’s just say there were some major detours towards that destination. Much of the blame can be placed at Bomber’s feet. Despite his enormous army advantage he refused to consolidate all his forces in one place and attack a single point, allowing Polt to max out freely. Meanwhile, Polt was invoking his personal Inverse Square Law: now that he was supposed to be dead, suddenly he started making all the right moves. For such a game, it would be insufficient to merely recite what happened. You must watch it yourself to see the genius and silliness. - 23
For the longest time, TvZ had a set of standards that players adhered to: 11/11 was an all in, CC first was a gamble, 1 rax expand was safe. By mid 2014, Maru decided he was going to change perception—the proxy 2rax was now a 'safe' build. Typically, when a proxy 2 rax is deflected, the terran is so irrecoverably behind that he just taps out straight away. In Maru's hands however, 11/11 stopped becoming a cheese and became a potent tool, capable of not only inflicting terrible punishment upon a greedy zerg, but also capable of transitioning into the mid game.
Solar was one of many victims of Maru's merry go round. However unlike other zergs before him, Solar actually managed to survive the early onslaught and made a game of it. Despite opening hatch first and failing to scout it, Solar didn't commit to any more greed and mustered the perfect defense, denying the bunker from going up in range of the hatch and protecting it with a spine. Most terrans from here would be in a terrible position; not Maru though.
Utilizing his excellent multi-tasking and micro, the marine prince was able to keep Solar's economy in check by killing queens and forcing more army to be made. While delaying Solar's 3rd via heavy pressure, Maru was able reach 3 CCs and double engineering bays in peace. Despite having perfect scouting of Maru's follow up, Solar still under-estimated Maru's ability to pressure and macro at the same time. Thus, despite pushing across the map at the 12 minute mark, Maru caught Solar off guard, without mutas and without baneling speed. This was Maru's cue to unleash all hell. He battered Solar mercilessly, using the cliffs for advantage, dropping everywhere, killing drones and mutas as they hatched. Apart from a single lapse in concentration that saw his entire 3rd mineral line gutted, Maru set up a clinic against Solar. The Samsung Zerg fought on valiantly despite losing his 4th, but soon crumbled under the relentless tide.
Maru showed terrans around the world that the 2rax doesn't have to be an all in, but no others dared to emulate him. And so zergs rejoiced that this was more a product of Maru's skill that was impossible to mimic, than a new twist on their most hated build. - 22
It almost looked like 2014 would be another all kill for the Koreans. Naniwa had retired and Scarlett was slumping, and every tournament that Koreans attended was won by one of their own. The gap in skill may have looked like it was narrowing, but the gap in titles won was now a grand canyon. Then, out of nowhere, Bunny managed to tap into a well of hidden powers and ascended to the role of foreign hope by defeating HyuN in the finals of Gfinity G3. He was no one hit wonder, however, as he tore through WCS on his way to the playoffs where his road was blocked by San. This was the point where most foreign players crumbled, but Bunny showed that he was not intimidated. Their clash on Catallena should go down as the best single game foreigner performance of 2014.
When both players opened standard and settled into the midgame, it appeared that Bunny was consigned to try his best and out play San in a standard game. While that sounded like a decent plan, it was one that had failed many a foreigner before him. Yet Bunny showed that there was something special about him. The Danish terran sent a dangerous squad of stimmed bio across the map while San inflitrated Bunny's main with a warp prism. This is where things usually fall apart for lesser terrans, but Bunny got the better end of the trade by killing a lot of piecemeal units and proves while cleaning up his main adequately. From that point on, Bunny never relented. He hopped from base to base of San with his medivacs and launched runbys in one of his three bases. San did his best to pay the Liquid Terran back, and he found some success with his own runbys, gutting Bunny's 3rd and storm dropping in the natural. But try as he might, San just couldn't deplete Bunny's well of energy, and he was put back on the defensive. Time after time Bunny flanked on so many angles that the observer couldn't capture the action even on a zoom-out, and Sans struggled to hold. His limp turned into a fracture when his third base was finally razed to the ground, and Bunny's spread of bio crawled into San's main like a case of terminal gangrene.
While Bunny would eventually lose the series, he showed the world that foreigners still had hope, and that Koreans were still very mortal to a well placed blow. - 21
The undefeated champion of TvP during the beginning of 2014, it seemed like Polt had finally met his match in Classic. The SKT Protoss had recently entered the limelight with an impressive GSL Ro16 run, and here he employed the same zealot/high templar style that earned him respect back in Korea. With a little help from 3 phoenixes, Classic rebuffed Polt’s typical drops in the midgame while building a monstrous army. The supplies may have looked even but Polt was in for a world of hurt. With +3 armor done and his robotics bay completing, Classic was prepared for a colossus switch that would roll Polt over…if he could find solid footing first.
The response was simple: Polt didn’t let him get comfortable. He dedicated his time to keeping Classic guessing, attacking at odd angles and backstabbing outlier bases whenever the protoss army headed out. Classic attempted to smash through Polt’s army on several occasions, but Polt held off each attempt with great spreads and usage of EMP. Meanwhile the terran was expanding like a zerg, taking his fourth and fifth bases while Classic was stuck on 3. Perhaps aware of his economic disadvantage or tired of Polt’s sharking, Classic threw everything he had at Polt’s natural in hopes of breaking the defense. At first he gamely pushed through despite losing all his archons to great EMPs; only when he started camping the production did he realize that he hadn’t tackled Polt’s entire army. Squads of reinforcements sent to Polt’s outer bases rushed in to pincer Classic’s army, and the SKT player’s hopes were snuffed out. Classic played a solid, controlled game up until that point but he was found wanting at the very end. Classic’s overall PvT would be judged and found insufficient as Polt eliminated him 2-3 to advance to the semifinals. - 20
To a spectator not particularly invested in their sport, it may seem like a contradiction that some of the best players in the world have never played each other. As the better players usually win in series, all possible matchups within a certain subset should eventually be explored; questions about how any two championship-level players would fare against each other must, in due course, be thoroughly answered. This isn't necessarily the case though. Two of the best players during 2014 only met for the first time near its conclusion. soO had sharpened his silver-worthy play to near perfection in Korea, while TaeJa added more trophies to his collection with trips around the world. Although they were on different corners of the earth, two players with as much success as they did had to meet eventually. Their inevitable clash took place at Blizzcon as they were seeded against each other in the first round. The entire series showcased some of the greatest play both players could muster, and their game on Nimbus proved to be the best game of the evening.
After a relatively normal start neither player found any way to make a dent in the other's armor, resulting in both maxing out with few problems. soO tried springing a trap by intelligently positioning his forces around the map, preparing to assault TaeJa from every angle. TaeJa surprised him by moving out and catching his army out of position, starting a dragged-out battle that did not stop for the next fifteen minutes. Every second where the players were not focusing on another engagement was spent deflecting harassment. In the end, TaeJa’s seemingly harmless drops proved to be soO’s undoing. The SKT Zerg was sufficiently distracted to the point that he didn't mine gas from his peripheral expansions. Eventually, soO was forced to reinforce his army with only zerglings (coupled with a few mutalisks and ultralisks), and TaeJa crushed the final zerg army to force the surrender. - 19
FanTaSy versus TRUE is possibly the only rivalry exclusively defined by the players' most notable characteristics. Most players find themselves fueled by a personal vendetta, either motivated to humiliate their rival or as seeing the foe as a proxy for something internal. Except for a single shoutout from TRUE to the SKT Terran for helping him practice, neither player has ever mentioned the other in an interview. Similarly they seem to be oblivious to the other's individual strengths and weaknesses while playing. Neither tried to adapt to their opponent's strengths, nor did they bother to force their opponent to change plans. This has strangely led to some extraordinarily unusual games.
This particular one was the 3rd game in a Proleague match between SKT and Jin Air. Tied 1-1, both players needed to win to give their team some respite from the pressure. The game began predictably enough. Although FanTaSy’s initial hellbat pressure was easily deflected, his strong defensive play allowed him to get back on even footing. Otherwise the game looked routine before both players started mixing in the explosive traits that we expected to see. TRUE tried to brute force his way to a victory, created a monstrously large number of banelings to destroy FanTaSy’s later expansions. In contrast FanTaSy expended a large number of forces to deny hive tech and killing bases so TRUE would have to stick on muta/ling/bane. Both stubbornly refused to consider end-game options as they sought to prevent the other from progressing any further.
It was nearly forty minutes of constant battering, explosions, and economic misery. An all-or-nothing confrontation at TRUE’s sixth base should have decided the game after TRUE came out on top, but FanTaSy remained true to his reputation and struggled on. TRUE looked like he had come out on top with a handful of mutalisks, banelings, and zerglings as well as a fully saturated sixth base remaining, but FanTaSy, famous for his refusal to let a game go, wasn't finished yet; TRUE didn't have the tech to immediately finish the game off of one base. From there, the game truly began as FanTaSy scraped up every unit he could spare in one last desperate and completely believable attempt to win the game. - 18
TaeJa vs Life is a rivalry forged in extremes. In terms of potential, they have maintained a parity since their days in ESV TV weeklies. But thanks to a combination of favored strategies, shifts in TvZ, and maps, they’ve never been equivalent in terms of wins. At first TaeJa dominated him for a year, going 12-1 in games and 6-0 in series; Life returned the favor in the GGLord era with 8-0 and 3-0; from the beginning of HotS to BlizzCon TaeJa returned to the top, accumulating a 13-4 record with 5 straight series wins; currently Life is on a 3 series win streak with a 8-4 W/L record.
This game at IEM Katowice was during the peak of TaeJa’s second reign, and it showcased why great players fear TaeJa to this day. When TaeJa runs on peak performance, he seems more like an inexorable force of nature than a highly talented SC2 player. If one started watching this game during TaeJa’s first major crusade towards Life’s fourth base, it would seem as if both sides started out on even footing. In fact it began terribly for the Liquid Terran. His 3 reaper opening proved fruitless, even losing 2 of them in exchange for a queen. A few minutes later his third was hit by a speedling runby, pulling his hellions back to base and forcing him to reveal his banshee. By sheer bad luck, said banshee was unable to stop Life’s fourth base from starting. Throughout all of this, Life had rushed his spire and gotten mutas faster than normal.
And yet when he began his parade push to Life’s fourth, TaeJa looked unfazed. Supplies were even, TaeJa’s upgrades were on time, and he quickly established a beachhead. Only a well-timed interception of reinforcements pulled TaeJa’s army back. The game continued with constant blows being exchanged, but it was always Life who struggled to hold his ground. Ling and muta counterattacks cleared out mineral lines and blew up CCs, yet the zerg could never hold a fifth base of his own. It didn’t matter how dazzling Life’s tactics were or how crippling TaeJa’s errors became; the Liquid Terran treated it like one more setback in a causal practice game. And once the base race started and the barracks started flying, the game was all but over. Holding himself up in the middle expansion with an unbreakable building barricade, TaeJa waited for Life to make his last doomed attack. It was a thrilling, bizarre way to cap off one of the scrappiest games of 2014. - 17
Polt earned himself the nickname "The nexus-sniper" at IEM Cologne. This game is why.
Editor's Note: This is Olli could say about this game. He probably cried watching it. That alone is a reason to watch this game. - 16
Swarm hosts and mech have rightfully earned a bad reputation for producing terrible games when they face each other. Once the terran player builds up an impressively large force of ravens combined with other miscellaneous units and the zerg chooses a suitable counter composition, the game can easily drag on for two or three times as long as any normal macro game. The extreme was a four hour game that was played where literally nothing happened for an hour while the zerg player slowly built up a bank while maxed out on two drones.
Even before mech versus swarm host became the monstrosity that occasionally rears its ugly head today, it was still often an undesirable type of late-game to spectate. However, this game between jjakji and Revival from IEM Katowice had the grand, end-game planning, macro, and fighting that a swarm host game could occasionally deliver, with a minimal amount of the drudgery it normally takes to get there. Jjakji opened with a heavy number of hellions and some banshees before sitting back and trying to harass whenever possible. Meanwhile, Revival aggressively expanded all around the map—including jjakji’s fifth base—and harassed from every angle, forcing jjakji to do his best to gain ground whenever possible.
As both players felt comfortable with the number of resources available to them, they were unafraid to aggressively attack each other. Vikings were frequently overextended as mutalisks were sacrificed to kill as many of jjakji’s air units as possible at any cost. While the two kept trading and remaking their air armies, jjakji constantly kept Revival busy with tank runbys and nukes all around the map. Constant mutalisk harassment and sacrifice meant that both players found themselves extremely poor and nearly mined out, and they both had to maneuver to mine from the last bases on the map. However, jjakji’s gas bank combined with MULEs meant that Revival had to make something happen before the terran army completely outvalued his, and unlike any other action occurring in a normal swarm host game, he had to do it immediately. - 15
Maru masterfully maneuvered a menagerie of marines, marauders, medivacs, and mines, making a determined Dear dig down deep to defend drops and deflect dozens of brutal battles back and forth between battered bases before finally being beaten by flawless flanks and floods of fresh firing forces. - 14
Polt and HerO put on a remarkable ending to IEM Cologne, a tournament that hardly struggled for highlights. Game 6 of their Grand Finals on Polar Night was arguably the best game of the entire tournament and it summed up their series perfectly. Polt sniped nexii, HerO murdered dozens of SCVs, the 'resources lost' tab was almost entirely equal for 40 minutes straight. Played at an extremely high strategical level, this game was everything you'd have wanted from a tournament decider. A long, scrappy game fought for tooth and nail by both players.
HerO and Polt went at each other with styles they'd perfected throughout the tournament and showed off all their strengths and weaknesses in this single game. After Polt's remarkable nexus snipes on Daedalus and HerO's clinical dissolving of Polt's mineral lines in every game, they'd do it all over again on Polar Night, for over 40 minutes straight, at some absurd time past midnight.
And we all stayed up to watch them. - 13
Down 2-1 in the Round of 16 of IEM Katowice, then two-time IEM champion herO faced double match point against a ZvP virtuoso in HyuN. On Polar Night, one of the maps that aided the revival of the Soul Train, herO elected to pull out his most refined PvZ build. He chrono boosted three immortals with the same robo timing as the infamous Won Won Won, but stopped at four gateways and added a twilight council. He moved out to take his third with +2, blink, and colossus tech going, which prompted HyuN to apply pressure with hydra ling. Caught in his only moment of vulnerability, herO faced a 30 supply deficit. Defending hydra ling with essentially the composition of an immortal allin, save three gateways' worth of buffer units, spelled a recipe for disaster. Initially, herO deflected the aggression with superb force fields, stutter stepping, and zoning. But then the real plundering began. Overwhelmed by the swarm, herO lost nigh every unit, including his first colossus, just barely salvaging the second and his third base.
Behind the attack, HyuN decided he was in more than a comfortable position to switch to mutalisks. Still on two base saturation, herO had no choice but to pre-empt the tech transition with some pressure of his own. He rallied one final probe to his army, and scrounged together a force of blink stalkers for a base trade as the Zerg forces ravaged his infrastructure. Eventually herO settled into HyuN's fourth base with his last nexus, while the Roccat Zerg planted a hatchery next to the rocks in the top right. Recognizing his mobility advantage, HyuN swooped in with the mutalisks to snipe the final Protoss building while he drew the army out of position with hydra ling. herO immediately retreated and saved the nexus.
The two continued to posture, poke, and prod, until herO had finally had enough. Confidently charging toward the watchtower, he threw all his chips onto the table. The casters sputtered British excitement over the mesmerizing micro. Emerging victorious with a meager six stalkers, an expression of blissful disbelief on his face, herO marched over to HyuN's final hatchery, five drones in all, and danced in celebration. - 12
Last year at the WCS Season 2 Finals, INnoVation and TaeJa gave us a TvT for the ages. For nearly an hour they battled it out over the grounds of Newkirk Precinct. It was a veritable smorgasbord of action – endless thrusts and ripostes, drops and run-bys, and when the carnage finally came to a halt, it was TaeJa who rose victorious. The game was so good that we named it the best game of 2013.
As is the tradition nowadays, people demanded a sequel to match the original, and the Blizzcon stage proved to be the perfect background for a continuation of their rivalry. TaeJa struck first, with his banshee opener doing significant damage to INnoVation, whose raven / viking defence was out of position. INnoVation replied with an even more effective hellbat drop. From there, the game slowed down, with INnoVation picking mech while TaeJa opted for bio.
The mobility of his composition allowed TaeJa to seize map control, and a delicate positional battle emerged as he attempted to deny INnoVation’s fourth expansion. Air control was his, and a fusion core signaled his intentions to retain that advantage. However, a maxed out INnoVation had tired of TaeJa’s shenanigans. While the Liquid Terran’s tanks were otherwise engaged on the other side of the map, INnoVation charged into TaeJa’s fourth and fifth bases simultaneously. TaeJa could not defend in time and lost both bases, and his own attack at INnoVation's fifth was repelled by the thinnest of margins. For a player often derided as merely a robotic machine, it was truly impressive to see INnoVation ignore standard operating procedure. Splitting up a mech army is often a fatal mistake, but the composition of each section of his army was judged to perfection.
TaeJa, down on workers, opted to double expand; however, INnoVation was in the ascendancy. TaeJa used his mobility to harass bases all over the map, but INnoVation’s positioning allowed him to always be in the right place at the right time with his superior army. A tank drop at TaeJa's final mining base crippled his weakened economy even further. In the end, the game was decided by the same move as in 2013—a late game transition to banshees with cloak. INnoVation’s air force reigned supreme as they rained death from the skies, and a final push brought TaeJa’s resistance to an end. - 11
While PvP improved tremendously in 2014, becoming a more stable and varied matchup, TvT regressed in comparison. The terran mirror became a game of chicken: will you build a banshee and be aggressive or build a raven and be defensive? Coupled with the dearth of terran during the blink era, TvT almost became a lost art. Games were now decided in the mid game, or decided by risky doom drops. While those had a their own appeal, many longed for the TvTs of yore. Flash vs TaeJa was one such game, a classic bio vs mech battle that went the distance.
TaeJa got the ball rolling early with a marine hellion attack. Flash however was diligent with his scouting and managed to deduce the peril that he was in. TaeJa tried his best to find holes in Flash's armor, but the Ultimate Weapon's defensive position was able to repel every attempt. From there, Flash managed to take a well timed 3rd base and protect it from TaeJa's siege lines, forcing the Liquid Terran back. It all looked grim for TaeJa as Flash assembled his mighty mech max and readied to march across the map. But TaeJa's cunning was not exhausted. He split up his forces; his first army lured Flash out of position while a counter attack sneaked in to assault the third. Flash was compelled to pull back, and in his haste his tanks were cherrypicked on the retreat.
TaeJa, despite falling further down in supply, had gained a strong foothold on the game by resetting the tank count. Without his siege units to hold space, Flash's expansion and infrastructure were now vulnerable to the squads of bio roaming the map. TaeJa launched flurries of attacks designed to pull the mechanical sinews apart, but despite the vespene bleed Flash survived the cuts. It appeared as though TaeJa had the advantage as both terrans took to the skies, and the Liquid Terran continued to ransack Flash's economy. It looked grim for the man called God, but his mastery over the sky proved superior. Flash denied TaeJa from ever taking a good position and repeatedly won small engagements. When the King of Summer finally had enough, Flash was ready. With a superior arc and thor support, his bloody haymaker knocked TaeJa's air force out of the sky. - 10
2014 was a landmark year for PvP when it finally shed its reputation as a coin flip matchup. Dozens of builds and every tech path were explored; a map that was once shrouded in fog suddenly revealed a flourishing landscape. Each strategy had its merits and disadvantages, but autowin scenarios suddenly became scarce. PvP had finally blossomed into a complex and tense matchup.
One of the definitions of a coinflip is that the result is always a heads or a tails. There's no way for the coin to land evens, and it's often a good description of how fights involving protoss (a race known for snowballing high tech units) usually end up. One side wins an overwhelming victory while the other is reduced to dust. But when two of the best protoss clashed in the Proleague Playoffs, the coin defied gravity and repeatedly landed on its side.
It didn't matter that their builds diverged—Zest with a twilight, sOs with a stargate—, the two players expanded at the same time and built their infrastructure at similar paces. Neither player was able to do damage with his opening, and they expanded to a third base (once unimaginable in PvP) on even supply. Eschewing the standard colossus based mid game, both players chose to rely on templar instead. But while Zest had researched storm, sOs decided to bulk his army up with archons. Their first clash occured on KT's side of the map, and after the chaos both players inexplicably drew even. With both their armies interred on Frost they transitioned to colossus and a 4th base and even built their Dark Shrines at exactly the same time. But sOs was not done changing his composition. He added another stargate and a fleet beacon for tempests hoping to catch Zest off guard by quickly taking the colossus advantage once they battled. The plan looked like a stroke of genius when they met a second time as Zest's army quickly evaporated in the flurry of lights, but Zest had his own trick up his sleeve: 10 DTs warped on top of an observer-less army. And once again, they were even, but not for long.
Zest finally took the lead with an uncontested fifth base, while sOs was unable to hold on to his own. Realizing that he was in dire straits, sOs charged for Zest's 5th base, and the KT protoss was forced to trade expansions. Both players were reduced to 3 bases, and though things looked even Zest's bank from his 5th allowed him to remax while sOs lingered at 150 supply. Confident in his advantage, the Kingslayer marched across the map with his zealots, archons, stalkers and colossus. But the tale of supplies was a lie—sOs had more colossus, more archons, and 4 tempests—and Zest was drawn into an ill fated attack that dissolved his lead to nothing. Yet the tech advantage was firmly in sOs' favor, and no amount of zealots and stalkers could overwhelm Jin Air's mighty army. Thrice even, twice behind, but still the winner. - 9
Base trades are the pinnacle of insanity. The lack of a stable economy makes each and every unit indispensable, and the cost-benefit ratio of trading away units becomes the key measure to victory. Both players usually try to avoid each other with their armies unless they see a clear advantage, and this generally leads to an elimination race or a draw. Occasionally, however, one player does find the slightest bit of economy to hold on to, which multiplies the pressure on his opponent to finish the game.
MC and TaeJa found themselves in a surprisingly high-intensity match at the HomeStory Cup group stage. After both players caused, at best, marginal damage with their aggressive openers, TaeJa continued to commit more and more units towards aggressively attacking the third and dropping the natural and main over and over. TaeJa’s insistence on picking fights everywhere whenever possible caused him to even lose medivacs to MC’s blink stalkers. His persistence, however, led to MC having almost no offensive opportunities for the first 25 minutes of the game. Even after a sloppy engagement, TaeJa continued to extend his area of influence, harassing wherever MC wasn’t completely defended. After a stray drop picked off MC’s fourth base, MC lost patience and went on the offensive. Even though his economy was in shambles, MC managed to crush TaeJa’s army and he made moves to destroy TaeJa’s infrastructure and economy. Even though he had been reduced to a single hidden base and almost no units, TaeJa used his main ramp as a funnel to even the odds before immediately counterattacking. His almost frantic counter-doom drop into MC’s main base proved to be the move which flipped the base trade switch.
MC destroyed TaeJa’s last mining base and marched into the main while ignoring any possible economic recovery, but had to somehow protect his last nexus and prevent TaeJa from mining enough to muster up another army at the same time. However, TaeJa managed to significantly delay the protoss death march. Although he temporarily lost control of his main base, TaeJa found the time and space to land production facilities there while mining elsewhere. By the time MC found TaeJa remaking units in his main base, TaeJa had successfully walled off part of his main ramp, and MC lost too many units trying to break TaeJa’s main to make a comeback in the game. - 8
Everything started normally on Frost. Heart's 3CC opening was slightly greedy, but instead of double engineering bays he elected to get a faster starport instead. XiGua also went up to 3 bases quickly, and it looked like this game would go long. Instead, the Watermelon Zerg's intentions were much more malicious. XiGua was preparing a massive ling bane attack and had hidden it well, and the first glimpse Heart had of the acidic wave was when it was already crashing through his front lines.
Despite the enormous waves of zerg pouring into his base, Heart barely managed to hold, taking full advantage of the architecture of the map, his base and one lone critical banshee. However when the dust settled, it became clear what he had lost. Heart was a whopping 55 supply down and hemorrhaged most of his SCVs—down to 10 against XiGua's 40 drones. In two minutes that worker gap would grow by 20 more as XiGua sent another wave that Heart barely held. The match looked grim, and the only chance Heart had was to channel the great spirits of Leonidas, Bruce Willis, or Mvp.
Even the most hardened competitors would have given up already, but not Heart, not yet. Slowly but surely, via careful drops, inhuman splits and great positioning, Heart dragged himself back into the game. Despite XiGua retaining the economic advantage for most of the game and throwing growing waves of banelings at him, Heart just split more, split faster, and more efficiently. With few mines available Heart displayed a mechanical magic show, a true moment of wonder. 20 minutes of ceaseless splits later, Heart had finally managed to gain a supply lead as XiGua's economy sputtered. As the Chinese zerg gg'd, you could imagine Heart lighting incense at the altar of Mvp and kissing his framed picture of John McClane. - 7
Comebacks exist in all forms. Due to the complexity of SC2, a player might find himself deficient in income, army value, tech, or other diverse variables compared to his opponent. In order to climb out of a hole that involves several of these, the disadvantaged player usually needs to rely on his adversary's errors that allow him to take the upper hand somewhere else. Heart versus XiGua, the game preceding this one, displayed Heart relying on a mistake in priorities from his opponent: XiGua focused too much on immediately winning the game to bother getting the necessary tech advantage to outlast the low-economy terran.
TaeJa versus Zest was a different beast. After both players tried aggressive builds—TaeJa attempted to pressure with concussive shells against Zest’s immortal bust—Zest slowly won a battle of attrition at TaeJa’s natural expansion and forced TaeJa to abandon ship. TaeJa seemed to fall irrevocably behind as Zest’s powerful army seized his economy and production, but he was far from lost. As his army was more mobile, TaeJa lifted his command centers to opposite sides of the map, picked up his army into medivacs, and went for the base trade.
Just like that, the situation completely changed. Soon Zest found his infrastructure reduced to one nexus at TaeJa’s former natural, and his powerful army composition had become a debilitating weakness. He could not risk splitting up his army without getting picked apart, and he could not roam the map without opening himself up to a backstab. He could only make mistakes as TaeJa was free to choose every right decision, abuse every single inch of terrain, and micro perfectly in order to completely neutralize Zest’s advantages. - 6
Dating back to the introduction of systematic macro ZvT by Nestea, ling/bane/muta play has emphasized speed in order to capitalize on mistakes. The composition lacks the raw ranged firepower of marines + support burst damage; charging directly into a terran army without greater numbers or better upgrades is generally considered suicide. Yet unlike tanks or widow mines, all unit subsets of the ling/bane/muta composition can instantly reposition itself in response to a perceived threat. The lack of a powerful ‘anchor’ unit leaves it with a lack of punch, but gives it unparalleled flexibility to use different tactics. Cutting off supply lines with minimal investment, doing complete flanks on opposing armies, and feigning retreat are all things we take for granted, but are extremely difficult for the other races to mimic.
Currently StarTale_Life understands these dynamics better than anyone else, and he needed to employ all of them to scrap back from a debilitating deficit. Most zergs would’ve been dismayed by a proxy hatchery that only broke even, an upgrade advantage that barely seemed to matter, and a muta flock that accomplished nothing during its initial dart into TaeJa’s natural. TaeJa had seamlessly held off said proxy natural with nary a shrug, employing some drops and a well-timed push to take a commanding lead. Down 30-40 army supply on equal bases and lacking a fourth Life was, in colloquial speech, stuck in some deep doo-doo.
In this grimmest of circumstances, Life refused to submit to conventional wisdom. If standard play could not salvage such a position, it was time to go full Subutai. With 20 seconds before TaeJa also got his 2/2, Life won his first major battle with a gigantic flank that bypassed his enemy’s minefield. When he returned for round 2 the Zerg refused to get in a direct engagement, sending almost all his army to strike at TaeJa’s bases and infrastructure. This move crippled TaeJa’s economy, leaving him with 6 workers but a substantially larger army. And still Life prevented him from leveraging that lead into anything significant. Every time TaeJa embarked on the great journey mutas entered his main; whenever TaeJa chased those away, a pack of zerglings sprinted by instead; when he finally established a beachhead at one of Life’s bases, his supply train was swallowed up by a counterattack. It was perfect play never explicated in a textbook, as no textbook could account for such a situation. Only the situational awareness and quick thinking of a champion, forged in innumerable comebacks and championship runs, made this comeback possible. - 5
Some games must be watched to be believed. Life vs First was one such game. Life is no stranger to unconventional games or situations that are impossible to predict, but even his track record was enriched by the game he played against First on Deadwing. Up 1-0 in the quarterfinals, Life was closing in on his first respectable tournament placing in quite a while. First's drought had been even longer, and it made sense that he fight for the chance of making an IEM semifinals with tooth and nail. Although the game looked relatively standard all the way past the fifteen minute mark (Life's queen-heavy style vs. First's void ray army was a throwback to Life's finals vs. Naniwa in New York), things eventually... spiraled out of control. Life employed nydus worms in the hopes of breaking First's wall. Instead of recalling, First decided he didn't need bases and flew across the map to kill Life's bases in return. He then changed his mind, recalled, pushed Life back with relative ease, and the next stage of the game began.
At this point, one might think that the Protoss with both the superior army and the superior economy would be on his way to winning the game, but First wanted to drive the point home. Instead of a push that could backfire, First fortified his bases with cannons and teched to carriers. Life's ultra/infestor/nydus all-in was easily repelled, and with First's increasingly powerful army overwhelming Life the game should have ended right then and there. If you want to know how a game goes from that situation to what you see in the screenshot above, watch this game. - 4
When Dreamhack Winter came, Life was the clear favorite to win it all. His performances at Blizzcon left no doubt in anyone's mind that he was the best player in the world at that time, and his run to the finals of Dreamhack Winter looked all too easy. There he would meet a player who had never reached the heights predicted from him; once heralded as the new King of Europe, ForGG failed to win a single tournament in his new continent. He was the first victim of The Summer of TaeJa, and he had failed to reach another final until now.
In their first meeting of the bracket stages, ForGG dismantled life with an unconventional mech composition that relied heavily on banshees and hellions. But Life survived the lower bracket in order to book a rematch on the same day, and many believed that the first result was but a fluke. Instead ForGG played the series of his life, one of the best finals of all time, to win his first title. Their match on Catallena will be remembered as the moment ForGG took control of the series.
Confident with his 2 game lead, ForGG opened with 2 cheeky reapers and a bunker at Life's natural. While he was able to do some damage, he overextended at the cost of his only units on the map. This gave Life the impetus to spice things up with 2-base muta and execute a bust. Fortunately for the Millenium Terran, he caught wind of the attack and deflected it with ease, taking nearly no damage. Then, ForGG did the unthinkable when he pushed across the map with a small viking banshee force aided by a thor. Small mech pushes are usually easy to punish before 150 supply, but the move caught Life completely off guard. The vikings took care of overseers, giving the banshees free rein to eliminate the third.
It appeared that the Blizzcon Champ was in an irrecoverable spot, but ForGG made the mistake of becoming too complacent. He gave Life the time to be greedy and rebuild, and by the time he chose to attack Life had enough swarm hosts and a good spread of creep. He miscalculated his strength and scattered his army on the move, and Life picked him apart. It was now the zerg's time to be aggressive with swarm hosts, and he put the terran on the backfoot as his economy was destabilized. After losing another mining base, ForGG had no choice but to attack. He pushed across the map and took a position on the ridge protecting the entrance to Life's newest base. Life overestimated his lead and threw wave after wave of units into the meat grinder thinking the next attack would be enough, but ForGG somehow kept the position fortified. By the time the StarTale zerg was able to clean it up, the damage was done: his two mining bases were wiped clean. During this time ForGG secured his own crucial expansion, injecting his army with new blood. Life desperately tried to mount a counterattack before he was overrun, but he was again baited into a position that no army on Shakuras could break.
This was a game where ForGG shattered expectations of both his skill and the capabilities of mech. He was mobile, aggressive and scrappy. He was alert, methodical, and clever. It was a series that we'd associate more with Mvp than any other terran, and ForGG demolished the Blizzcon winner to become a champion in his own right. - 3
This, my friends, was a thing of beauty. On the 24th of June, SalvatioN was inspired when few believed in him. With only 1 Proleague win to his name and a 6 match losing streak, Cure was supposed to demolish the little league terran. Instead, it was a match for the ages.
It started inconspicuously when the two players diverged in their builds. It looked like SalvatioN would fall into the trap of young players desperate for a win by over extending, but his quick marine-tank pressure was able to equalize the SCV count before being overrun by hellions. This led to an even mid game, and as most bio players know, SalvatioN was on the clock to stop the mech stampede.
He headed for the back rocks hoping to catch Cure off guard. Though SalvatioN sieged first, Cure's air control should have given him the advantage. But with some poor control he lost all his vikings to the bio below, and SalvatioN decided that this was the perfect time to begin his air switch. Now on 4 bases, SalvatioN kept Cure penned on his side of the map. The Jin Air man played it slow on three bases, and he consolidated his position with BW-esque turret lines and several sensor towers. Yet SalvatioN was not dissuaded to drop, and he squirmed his way around the rings to find and destroy the upgrading armory. But the mech ball kept rolling, and Cure carefully moved to bases within reach to deny SalvatioN some mining. With 10 command centers, however, SalvatioN was content to mine wherever he could, and his bank grew despite his constant runbys. Then, even as his air army was still in production, SalvatioN did the unthinkable: he built 3 (and then 4) ghost academies. While nukes have been used in positional warfare before, they often end up being wastes of resources where PDDs and seeker missiles could do the job. It was a trick that was easy to dispel in slow paced, stalemate games, and few terrans had made it look indispensable. Yet this was no standoff; it was a shootout.
Cure was not content to sit back idly as his forces grew. He continuously sent 4 to 5 tanks to the back ridge behind SalvatioN's 4th base, while thors and hellions plodded to the natural. With the middle of the map secure with tanks, vikings, and ravens, SalvatioN had to find another way. And it was every other way than down the middle. His BCs defended from tanks, his bio ran-by everywhere after 5 scans illuminated the entire minimap, and his ghosts cleared zones of turrets with nukes. Cure's 5th base was an uninhabitable radiation zone by the end of the game, as a warhead fell every few minutes.
Compelled to fight, Cure pushed from his middle base against a fanned out SalvatioN. But seeker missiles made the difference as a series of explosions made the sky glow, and somehow Cure's vikings were still alive. His tanks, however, were forfeit, and SalvatioN took this as the cue to revert to more bio. In a utterly beautiful maneuver, he nuked Cure's fifth base to force SCVs and tanks to retreat, and stimmed in perfect unison to reduce the base to rubble. Another world-wide scan revealed that the Jin Air terran was dawdling near his rebuilding fifth when another big bio force charged down the middle to take out another planetary, and Cure's economy was in tatters.
With no choice left he gathered his air force for a final assault, but SalvatioN's 180 degree spread surrounded him. Seeker missiles were cast and a nervous second collapsed into another gigantic fireworks display. But this time, the sky was clear, but the bio had survived. Cure had nothing left, and SalvatioN signed his name on a finished masterpiece. - 2
Towards the end of 2014, Cure's stock was on the rise. He was amassing an impressive kill count, and he was finally advancing further in tournaments such as the Ro4 in the GSL. Not only that, but Jin Air was now allowing him to travel to tournaments that he had qualified for. His adversary Trap, was every bit his match. The former STX man was entering the tournament red hot after a win at MLG Anaheim where he systematically took apart TvP specialist Polt for his first title.
While everything pointed towards the two players being evenly matched, no one could have anticipated just how close and just how desperate the their game on Catallena would be. Cure vs Trap was a cataclysmic clash, where every battle was a brutal fight for survival, where every unit mattered and every mistake could have potentially been the last.
There was little respite even in the early game: Cure's reaper aggressively hunted down probes while Trap's mothership core picked off isolated marines. Trap could have done even more damage with his stargate and oracle, but Cure was prepared and kept it at bay. Unable to gain an advantage Trap decided to transition into chargelot archon, a composition that had nearly gone extinct due to the widow mine shield damage buff. Things were about to go from bad to worse as Trap had failed to prioritize Blink, and he was forced to pull his entire army back into his main to deflect a small drop. This prompted Cure to rush in and chop down the natural nexus. Believing he had things done and dusted, Cure arrogantly ordered his entire 5-rax fueled army to march up the protoss ramp, but Trap did not crumble. Instead, the Jin Air Terran's army kept tumbling down the hill in bloody piles.
Trap knew that he could stave off his death by hunkering down at the ramp, and time after time the forces of Cure came battering down the protoss defenses. But the former IM protoss didn't flinch even in the face of a titanic supply disadvantage. His precise forcefields cut the armies in half, and his immortals and archons survived each encounter. His zealots gave their lives to shield his precious gas units while cutting down marines before retreating. And when the time was right Trap opened up the heavens for thunderous storms that scorched the earth before and behind the terran armies.
Trap pushed back, and he was slowly winning a desperate guerrilla war. For every blow Cure gave, Trap answered with a vicious counter attack. The lowly oracle that had been forgotten now had an impressive 24 kills, and Cure could not maintain mining at his third without being assaulted by zealots. Forced to stay at home to stabilize his third, Cure gave his opponent the breathing room to equalize in supplies, take a third base, and even move into colossus tech. A daring counter with zealots and templar scorched 19 SCVs and suddenly it looked like Cure was on the brink of collapse. But Trap, after having been confined to his own base for so long, grew too eager for victory. Sensing momentary weakness, he recklessly charged across the map and his entire core of units was surrounded and massacred. Cure on the other hand would not be lured by the same folly. He patiently rebuilt his army, secured a 4th, and finally had the income for ghosts. The Jin Air terran forced the deciding battle near Trap's indispensable 4th, and his ghosts robbed the templar of their powers to seal the win. After 20 minutes of interminable battle, one had finally fallen, but both had raised their name in lights. Both Cure and Trap were taxed to their breaking points, but their names will always be remembered, painted in the blood of bio and the ash of smoldering bases. - 1
There is this discrimination among watchers of Starcraft that only games played on big stages can be considered great. The myths that surround the games we remember the most—GuMiho vs MMA in the GSTL finals, Mvp vs Squirtle in the GSL Finals, TaeJa vs INnoVation in the WCS Season 2 Finals—often involve the circumstances in which they were played. The bigger the prize, the bigger the reason to watch, the more likely the games become part of our history. But much of the culture of Starcraft 2 occurs online—on TeamLiquid, on Battle.net, on r/Starcraft, in online qualifiers, online cups, and on ladder. Of course we remember the champions, the titles, the tournaments, the most, but sometimes a game can transcend all the limitations of a small budget to become one of the greatest games ever played.
TotalBiscuit must have been rolling in his MRI machine (gratz on being Cancer free, I hope we can joke about it now) when game after game in SHOUTcraft Invitational ended up being amazing. Two other games were included in the Top 40, making it the best online tournament of the year. The semi final between Flash vs Bbyong, however, will be remembered for Game 3 on Waystation, our unanimous game of the year.
One of the most interesting characteristics of Waystation was the fact that there were two spawning orientations possible: close spawns or long spawns. The former was often more conducive for timing attacks and all ins, while the latter welcomed long games. The idea of dual spawn types was a fresh idea that allowed maps to offer two types of games in one. Little did we know that you could literally play two games in one.
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Don't scroll past this point if you don't want the #1 game to be spoiled!
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Flash vs. Bbyong
SHOUTcraft Invitational, Waystation (June 6)
The two gladiators spawned close, with Bbyong in the upper right and Flash on the bottom left. It looked like the match was going to become a typical short distance Waystation game when Bbyong placed his gas before his barracks, but Flash's SCV scout spotted the factory timing, revealing Bbyong's intention to play with initiative. Bbyong sent his first handful of marines and hellions out towards the KT Ace's natural, and a small firefight ensued. Bbyong was unable to kill the SCV building the CC, but he keenly reduced the marine count for the approaching banshee. Unfortunately for Bbyong, his cloak was all for naught as Flash had already built turrets and vikings. Dismayed and down in supply due to his ineffective opening, Bbyong was forced to play catchup.
That plan was almost cut short when Flash sent his budding fleet towards Bbyong's main. He attempted to camp the starport to catch a few stray units, but Bbyong was only just beginning medivac production. Their fruitless tit for tat over, Flash decided to take a quick third to further extend his lead. But Bbyong would not sit still for long, and he moved out to deny Flash's expansion.
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Bbyong with his first big attack
Bbyong sieged first, but the hellbats were already close. The CJ terran did clean up a majority of Flash's defenses in order to force a lift off, but Flash simply floated to his island in response. With nothing left to do and hellbats jetting into his mineral lines, Bbyong retreated to take his third. Flash took this as his cue to turret his island and his other bases, and he even had the gall to take a fourth. Stretched out over Waystation's bottom left half, his vulnerable lines were abused by Bbyong who suddenly dropped in both the main and natural.
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A big drop in the main and natural forces Flash to drop inside his own base
That was not all, however, as Bbyong also had sights on the fourth base planetary. He stimmed straight in with Flash out of position, but some wizardly focus fire from Flash incinerated the marines, enabling him to quickly drop on top of the tanks. Though the planetary was done and dusted, Flash was able to take a supply lead with an excellent engagement.
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Tank drops on top of tanks
Tied on bases against his meching opponent, Bbyong knew that he had to make something happen in order to keep Flash at bay. And while it seemed callous and reckless, Bbyong boosted into the island for a kamikaze drop that allowed him to catch up in workers.
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Flash's island expansion being invaded
By now, Bbyong was transitioning to counter Flash's composition. He was almost entirely on marauders, but he was also beginning the switch to Sky Terran. The Ultimate Weapon was of course aware of this and was getting ravens of his own to protect his expensive army. He maxed out, and it was finally time to roll out. At the same time, Bbyong was in the middle of the map looking for an avenue to attack an auxiliary expansion, and as per usual, the two players completely missed each other once they were already inches from the other's natural.
Bbyong stimmed in and obliterated everything in his path, and it looked like Flash was doomed. His own army was inside Bbyong's natural and main, but the CJ Entus player still had 3 bases running. But Flash would not be defeated so easily, as he sent his air force home to defend. And, lo and behold, Bbyong had no anti-air for his mob of marauder.
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Marauders unable to fight in the shade
But Flash was still down on bases and had to find a way to draw things closer. His army was still superior, and he trudged to Bbyong's third and fourth base where the sky switch had finally started to occur. 50 supply down and with only a handful of SCVs left, Bbyong desperately tried to save his last mainland location. He was able to rule the skies, but Flash's tanks could not be stopped from reducing all of Bbyong's infrastructure to scrap metal.
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The first of many blurry air battles
By this point both players were cut down to under 100 supply, but Flash had more workers, more army, and a stable planetary at his third. Bbyong had almost 2000 minerals and CCs in the air, but he was almost completely wiped out from the mainland. It looked like Flash had somehow won the game, but Bbyong was not done yet. He secluded himself on his island, and spent the next 10 minutes trying to gain small advantages while rebuilding from scratch.
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Welcome once again to the KT Corral
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Landed viking ridge harass
Realizing what Bbyong was up to, Flash proceeded to hunt down the CJ fugitive. His attempts to secure a foothold on the main island were repeatedly denied, and Flash even sieged his island from his old main base.
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Bbyong's island under attack
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Bbyong sieged from his own main base
Yet Bbyong stubbornly refused to die as his vikings came to the rescue once more.
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Vikings killing ravens to deny vision
Slowly but surely, Bbyong began to rebuild, but Flash had the entire mainland to himself. He expanded to the base below his fourth and began adding factories, and he finally gave his opponent some respite believing that he was ahead on all accounts. But Bbyong had somehow caught up in supply due to his hidden 9 o'clock base, and Flash was only on a single full mining base at the 6. From a short spawn orientation, the game inexplicably restarted in what looked like long spawn positions.
Eventually, Bbyong felt ready to venture back into the mainland with his army. His covert barracks had been churning marauders for some time, and both players had risen back up to 150 supply. What was once an advantage for Flash—his uninterrupted fourth base location—eventually became a curse. While the fourth base and 6 o'clock base were in close proximity, there was no obvious succeeding expansion to take. The closest available set of resources was at the 5 o'clock natural, and it was far too distant to cover with his tanks. Recognizing the undesirable dispersion of units, Bbyong struck again.
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Another big stim somehow stopped by Flash
He dropped much of his army on top of unprotected tanks while stimming with the rest of his army, and it looked like Flash would be broken. Yet the KT Ace somehow recovered and preserved his last mining base. Bbyong on the other hand was back up to 4 bases, colonizing the upper left hand corner of the map. Eventually, both players maxed out after what seemed like an eternity, but now it was Flash who was on the clock.
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Flash's army being nicked at the edges
He marched to Bbyong's 3 o'clock base and wiped it clean in a matter of seconds. Bbyong tried his best to pick off what he could, knowing that all he had to do was delay Flash's army while he completed the air switch he had planned so long ago.
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And yet both players were up to 50 and 30 SCVs each
But Flash had had enough. His lone mining base was running out, and he knew that he had to make something happen. This was his last big army, and he had to make his move. He sieged the upper left main with his tanks and charged with his air fleet, but Bbyong was ready. They met in another climactic battle that, somehow, again drew even.
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The final air battle
Bbyong possessed air control, but he had once again ceded the ground. Flash's tanks razed Bbyong's airfield, and the vikings were compelled to land in desperation. And once again, they were the heroes. The base was saved, and Flash's economy had suffocated.
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Bbyong evacuating his deserted island
The KT Rolster Terran could only afford tanks and widow mines, and he sent his final army to the north. But when he realized that banshees outranged his mines, he reluctantly surrendered a game that almost seemed like it would never end.
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Outrange and outlast
And even though
Flash and Bbyong had no physical stage on which to bow, we'll always remember Waystation as the scene of the best game of 2014. 
It's why I like him: he often delivers phenomenal games against phenomenal players.
