The legend of odd-year INnoVation continued in 2019 as the Korean Terran player won his tenth major championship, defeating Finland's Serral 4-3 in the finals the World Electronic Sports Games. The victory signaled a triumphant return to championship form for INnoVation, whose poor 2018 campaign had seen him fail to qualify for the WCS Global Finals. The WESG victory also gave INnoVation his single largest prize-money haul of his career at $150,000, pushing him to third place in the all-time prize money rankings.
Serral had bested INnoVation twice in 2018, sweeping him in the quarterfinals of GSL vs. The World and winning 4-3 in the finals of HomeStory Cup 18. However, INnoVation had won their most recent clash in the IEM Katowice group stage, using his Ghost-Liberator style to outlast Serral in two marathon games (granted, the match had no competitive stakes due to group rankings already being determined).
The series from IEM may have been on both Serral and INnoVAtion's minds to begin the WESG finals, with the two players splitting the first four maps 2-2 with a succession of cheesy strategies including proxy-Hatcheries, proxy-Barracks, and Ravager busts.
INnoVation broke the tie in game five in vintage INnoVation fashion, slowly wearing Serral down with endless waves of Terran troops after seizing the early game advantage with an incisive Marine-Tank attack. However, Serral tied the series back up at 3-3 with a spectacular late-game victory on Cyber Forest, where his experiences from his IEM loss seemed to bear fruit. Drawing the defensive lines to include just a single extra mining base on his side of the map, Serral held out against a relentless barrage of tactical nukes to outlast INnoVation in a brutal match.
With the series and championship on the line, INnoVation opted for another powerful Marine-Tank attack, similar to the one that had won him game five. Once more, Serral took significant damage while defending, and once more, INnoVation ruthlessly snowballed his lead. After a final, last-ditch engagement, Serral gave up the last GG of the series, crowning INnoVation the WESG 2018 champion.
After a poor 2016 where he admitted to taking too much time off, INnoVation bounced back with an amazing WCS 2017 campaign that saw him win four major championships during the tournament cycle. StarCraft II fans will be eager to see if 2019 will be a repeat of the same story, with INnoVation reminding everyone that one fallow year means nothing to one of the game's greatest champions.
In the third place match, Maru overcame a 0-2 deficit against Scarlett to win in a reverse sweep, claiming the $20,000 3rd place prize (Scarlett won $10,000 for 4th place). Scarlett's game one victory was one of the bizarre highlights of the tournament, with Maru leaving an otherwise tie-able game due to being unaware of Terran's building float spots on the map. Though Scarlett was able to take a second game with a Nydus all-in, Maru rallied back to win the next three games.
Innovation's longevity has been insane - he's been playing at a high level since 2012, and still doesn't seem to be slowing down. He's still only 25, so he's not that old yet, and hasn't had a major injury that has limited his play (knocks on wood)
Meanwhile, we've seen so many legends drop off due to age / injuries: Mvp Nestea MMA MC Taeja ...
Fun fact: All three WESG finals so far have been a 4-3 close series, with a Korean Terran winning it all. I guess in order to get a good grand finals the entire tournament needs to suck first.
On March 18 2019 05:01 Bagration wrote: Innovation's longevity has been insane - he's been playing at a high level since 2012, and still doesn't seem to be slowing down. He's still only 25, so he's not that old yet, and hasn't had a major injury that has limited his play (knocks on wood)
Meanwhile, we've seen so many legends drop off due to age / injuries: Mvp Nestea MMA MC Taeja ...
Probably doesn't hurt that he's the "second laziest, after only scarlett" according to the chinese volunteer's blog posted on here just a bit back
On March 18 2019 05:01 Bagration wrote: Innovation's longevity has been insane - he's been playing at a high level since 2012, and still doesn't seem to be slowing down. He's still only 25, so he's not that old yet, and hasn't had a major injury that has limited his play (knocks on wood)
Meanwhile, we've seen so many legends drop off due to age / injuries: Mvp Nestea MMA MC Taeja ...
Probably doesn't hurt that he's the "second laziest, after only scarlett" according to the chinese volunteer's blog posted on here just a bit back
On March 18 2019 05:09 yht9657 wrote: Truly the war machine of Korea.
Fun fact: All three WESG finals so far have been a 4-3 close series, with a Korean Terran winning it all. I guess in order to get a good grand finals the entire tournament needs to suck first.
Maybe the grand final needs to be played on a separate day? Or just the final needs to involve T
Maru and Scarlett both forgetting about buildings being able to fly into corners is even more surreal than the explanations we were coming up with around the weird WESG rules about ties.
You MUST be capable of doing better in every aspects of your product!
Regardless of your apparent efforts and a lot of heavy duty and hard work the end result of your product was sub-par! Especially if your aim was to improve the prestige of the tournament.
- Sub-par streaming, to international audiences particularly. - Excellent grandiose facade without soul - Technical problems here and there, during whole tournament consistently - Severe issues in the representation via internet: total suckF schedule makes no good, but if it is combined with lack of accurate timers, lack of accurate brackets, lack of everything practically 'very basic' things that make a tournament something people wants to watch, follow... and hype... urgh! argh! - Nobody can build genuine hype if all above fails! - Money can buy what money can buy, but you cannot buy your audiences
It's management issue. Rank-and-file workers did their jobs very well.
On March 18 2019 05:14 BlazingGlory wrote: Couldnt watch. How were the games?
Pretty forgettable... Mostly decided by all-ins and timing attacks before the 8 minute mark. The one long macro game (nukes and all) was won by Serral, but he had a pretty big early advantage (even though he throw away most of it). The result/story is more interesting than the series itself
300K in the bank in Q1 - 2 players who didn't qualify for Blizzcon - thanks region lock. Inno is a complete monster - even though he lost it - he was unreal in game 6 - most impressive late game T I have seen in the modern age - was such a good series - surprised how aggro Serral was early on - maybe trying to be less predictable. Wish we had these tournaments every month!
On March 18 2019 05:01 Bagration wrote: Innovation's longevity has been insane - he's been playing at a high level since 2012, and still doesn't seem to be slowing down. He's still only 25, so he's not that old yet, and hasn't had a major injury that has limited his play (knocks on wood)
Meanwhile, we've seen so many legends drop off due to age / injuries: Mvp Nestea MMA MC Taeja ...
Probably doesn't hurt that he's the "second laziest, after only scarlett" according to the chinese volunteer's blog posted on here just a bit back
On March 18 2019 05:01 Bagration wrote: Innovation's longevity has been insane - he's been playing at a high level since 2012, and still doesn't seem to be slowing down. He's still only 25, so he's not that old yet, and hasn't had a major injury that has limited his play (knocks on wood)
Meanwhile, we've seen so many legends drop off due to age / injuries: Mvp Nestea MMA MC Taeja ...
Probably doesn't hurt that he's the "second laziest, after only scarlett" according to the chinese volunteer's blog posted on here just a bit back
EPT
INnoVation continued in 2019 as the Korean Terran player won his tenth major championship, defeating Finland's 
