Live Coverage Thread

• Championship Losers Bracket
• Championship Winners Finals
• Grand Finals
• WCS USA Nationals
• Updates via @MLGSC2Scores

What's On Stream

Red: Just Ended: Alicia vs DongRaeGu
Blue: Just Ended: Alicia vs DongRaeGu
Premium 1: Done
Premium 2: Done

DongRaeGu Dominance

Although there are debates about various aspects of MLG's tournament format, one thing can not be denied. If you are consistently excellent, you will be rewarded. DongRaeGu put together one such performance this weekend.

From Friday to Sunday, he dropped only three games, and only one series (to the always-dangerous Socke). Out of eight series played, he won six of them by two games. He crushed otherwise immpressive players SaSe, MarineKing, and Alicia. Strategies that seemed so well tuned against other players were futile in the face of his varied play. There wasn't any one aspect that stuck out - it was just ridiculously solid play all around, both in the mind games and the execution.

There are those who will say that he was helped by taking the most direct route to the finals - seeded into a group, winning that group to go to the championship winner's bracket, then winning twice there to get to the grand final. It's important to note that they weren't just gifted to him. He earned those advantages, first performing well in the arenas to get to the groups, then winning his way to the finals.

There were others who took more indirect journies, yet deserve commendations for their play on Sunday nonetheless. SaSe beasted through the loser's bracket to be the last foreigner standing, taking out Stephano and his excellent ZvP. He almost made it to the loser's finals, only to fall in a base trade PvP against Alicia. For his part, Alicia was also impressive. Coming in with almost no expectations, he came in second in his group then surprised everyone by beating MarineKing to make it to the Grand Finals.

ViBE's WCS USA Nationals win should also be noted. Although America only jokingly claims true stars (Stephano, viOLet, and now Bisu) as their own, there were actually some really strong players in the tournament, and ViBE battled through the long double-tournament weekend to claim the national championship. This was ROOT's first big win after their reformation, and one well earned indeed.

This weekend might be best remembered for the events of Saturday night, when the KeSPA pros made their USA SC2 debuts. That doesn't diminish any of the Sunday accomlishments. ViBE became a national champion. SaSe put in yet another impressive tournament. Alicia took giant steps back to relevance. And DongRaeGu put forth impressive play to lock up the MLG Spring Championship.

Live Updates

00:49 GMT (+00:00): DongRaeGu 3-1 Alicia. On Tal'darim Altar cross spawns, DongRaeGu six pooled. Alicia was forge FEing, and didn't get a probe scout into DongRaeGu's main until the first six lings were already on their way. He placed a pylon by his main mineral line, putting out the fire for the moment, but did lose his forge. After DongRaeGu retreated to get his natural up, he attacked with a bunch more zerglings. He took down a few sentries before being forced to retreat again, teching to lair. Alicia moved out as DongRaeGu planted his third and fourth, then retreated as blink finished to take his third and go into colossi. DongRaeGu switched into mutas, trying a two-pronged attack in the main and third. Alicia split his units perfectly, deflecting both avenues of attack, then pushed out before DongRaeGu could finish his greater spire. With lots of colossi and aggressive blinks, Alicia broke through the wall of spine crawlers. DongRaeGu spawned a bunch of corruptors and utilized fungal after fungal to wear down Alicia's stalkers, chasing them off once his reincforcements arrived. Alicia regrouped and assaulted DongRaeGu's fourth, blinking and running away once the brood lords arrived. Alicia teched to dark shrine and stargate, but could never get his fourth up, and DongRaeGu just kept morphing in Brood Lords. Although Alicia fought hard to the end, DongRaeGu could not be denied his MLG Championship.

01:04 GMT (+00:00): DongRaeGu 2-1 Alicia. On Metropolis cross spawns, Alicia upgraded his shields for an immortal/sentry attack. He made it to DongRaeGu's third before the spine crawlers could finish, taking them out quickly. DongRaeGu did an excellent job of flanking and taking out forward pylons though, and eventually took out Alicia's army. After some army dancing on both sides, Alicia GGed, bringing DongRaegu to the brink of victory.

00:49 GMT (+00:00): Alicia 1-1 DongraeGu. On Cloud Kingdom, DongRaeGu's scouting overlord saw the void ray pop out. He defended well against it at the natural, but his queens were caught out of position as Alicia did some decen damage at the third and scouted the infestor tech. Each player took their next base, DongRaeGu extending his map control. Alicia built up four colossi and moved out, attacking DongRaeGu's third just before the greater spire finished. Coming in at the perfect angle, he avoided spine crawlers and force fielded lings away, and unable to make brood lords, DRG ceded the game.

00:31 GMT (+00:00): DongRaeGu 1-0 Alicia. On Daybreak, DongRaeGu got off to a great start. He scouted both gases at Alicia's natural, and got an excellent ling surround on the first stalker. He took his fourth when he couldn't easily break Alicia's third. DongRaeGu repeatedly probed for weaknesses at Alicia's three base, initially unsuccessful but later more successful. DRG sniped a pair of nexi (one surviving for a minute on 4hp), but suffered his own economic damage from a number of DTs. Barely mining, Alicia moved out, only to lose his army to a bunch of banelings. When DRG sniped his thir dnexus of the game, it was only a matter of time. The killing blow was a carpet of banelings rolling over everything in their path.

00:13 GMT (+00:00):"Good job Alicia. Now you can go home." - DongRaeGu

00:02 GMT (+00:00): As Clutch interviews Mike Morhaime, here's a reminder on the final format. It starts out as a Bo5. If DongRaeGu wins that, he's the champion. If Alicia wins it, it extends into a Bo9, and whoever wins that is the champion.

Day Three Update Log
+ Show Spoiler [Update Log] +

Championship Losers Bracket

• Game One: On close air metropolis, Polt opened gas first for quick cloaked banshee. aLive used a more conventional opening, but also ended up with cloaked banshee. However, when Polt's cloak research finished, aLive had no detection and almost no OC energy, and immediately GGed.
  
  
• Game Two: On Daybreak, Polt went cloaked banshee again. aLive was more prepared this time, but still couldn't protect everything he wanted and was forced to give up on his third. Polt used that economic advantage to get his bio upgrades faster than Polt, but couldn't break aLive's 3 base turtle. As both players spammed orbitals, aLive was never able to get a fourth, he went for a late game base trade, but he had to go through two planetaries - having none of his own - and came out on the wrong end of that exchange, and couldn't keep up on tank production afterwards.
  
  
• aLive 0 - 2 Polt

• Game One: GanZi bunker rushed Inori's 3gate robo expand on cross spawns Entombed, taking down the natural expansion before being chased off. Inori used his scouting probe to put down an expansion at the third, teching to robo. Inori moved out, trying to catch Inory before zealot charge finished, and Just barely had enough to wait out the force fields, kill Inori's army, and end the game.
  
  
• Game Two: On close air Metropolis, Ganzi went cloaked banshee into delayed 1-1-1 , even pulling tons of SCVs, but Inori defended it perfectly with phoenixes, immertals, and chargelots, sending the series to game three.
  
  
• Game Three: On Cloud Kingdom, GanZi failed a bunker rush, but it wasn't all in. He tried to take out Inori's third once his meviacs arrived, and though he got the nexus down to around 10% health, he was chased off by Inori's Immortals and Chargelots. Once blink tech finished, he couldn't keep pace with Inori's neinforccements, and was forced to GG.
  
  
• GanZi 1 - 2 Inori

• Game One: On Entombed Valley, Sase again went for the immortal play that he does so often, with Grubby’s gateway expand build just not quite able to keep up with Sase’s raw power, he was forced to tap out.
  
  
• Game Two: Cloud Kingdom. This time Sase opened with a quick twilight council, while Grubby decided on the quick robo. Sase went for his same little two gateway pressure that he usually follows with a robo, but this time went straight into dt. Despite seeing the immortal, Sase didn’t cancel his dark shrine and continued to commit with his two gate (now a delayed 4 gate) pressure. Sase’s decided to make 2 archons in Grubby’s base to try and make the best of his situation, but Grubby began attacking them immediately and easily held. Grubby made a fantastic decision to counter with a double immortal drop, sniping out a bunch of Sase’s pylons. Sase decided his only option was to go all in with his primarily zealot army and some probes, but two colossus with forcefields are really good against that, so Grubby took the win.
  
  
• Game Three: Shakuras Plateau. Sase did his standard 2 gate pressure, this time following up with a stargate and expansion. Grubby went straight into robo after gateway again. Grubby expanded as soon as he spotted Sase’s expand, and went up to 4 gates and got blink in responding to the phoenix. Sase went straight into double robo colossus after only building 2 phoenix, trying to catch Grubby off guard. Sase’s mass colossus army did exactly that, giving him the win despite Grubby’s well micro’d defense and warp prism counter.
  
  
• SaSe 2 - 1 Grubby

• Game One: On Cloud Kingdom, MC showed off his early game stargate control, continuing phoenix production for much longer than most other players do. Despite his nice control in the opening, Monster immediately countered once he had mutalisks out take out MC’s third base. MC had been teching straight to colossus, and wasn’t prepared for Monster’s muta/ling rally and was forced to tap out with only a few zealots and a couple phoenixes to defend.
  
  
• Game Two: Metropolis close air. MC opened with a standard fast expand, with a very quick +1 attack before warp gate. MC went for the 4 gate + void ray pressure, but Monster expertly denied it with 4 queens while teching to roaches just in time to completely shut down the attack. MC had the same exact follow up as last game, getting a ton of phoenixes while teching straight to colossus. MC held Monster’s roach ling follow up fairly successfully, not taking too much damage at his just finished third or his main base (but he lost his few key sentries in the process). Monster made the cool decision to bring his queens across map for anti-air, and without any sentries, his massive 3 base roach rally completely overwhelmed MC’s small and fragile colossus stalker army.
  
  
• MC 0 - 2 Monster

• Game One: Antiga. oZ threw down his nexus first and was able to safely scout Polt’s own 1 rax expand. Polt tried some bunker pressure that oZ was able to easily deny, so after grabbing a couple more barracks, Polt built a quick third base. Both players macro’d up, oZ going for a neat double upgraded immortal, zealot, high Templar force while polt went for your standard MMM fare. oZ shut down a big drop from Polt with some uncannily good feedbacks and then employed the magic that is forcefield + storm to take out Polt’s ghostless army for the win, finishing him off a couple minutes later after eventually shutting down one more big drop and getting colossus out. Polt did a remarkable job holding on for those last few minutes before the colossus kicked in though.
  
  
• Game Two: Daybreak. Both players fast expanded and then powered up for big two base aggression before grabbing thirds. After neither player could do damage with their two base pushes, they dropped eachother and grabbed their thirds at almost the same time. Polt’s drop managed to get a couple probe kills and a gateway while oZ’s got a couple of SCVs. Both players managed to secure their third bases, beginning the transition into the late game. Polt’s drop managed to kill oZ’s third base and forge before the upgrades finished. Polt barely used some fantastic micro to get around oZ’s army after sniping the third, putting him decidedly ahead as his ghosts finally caught up to his army. Polt landed the massive EMP’s on oZ’s army, absolutely demolishing it for the win.
  
  
• Game Three: Tal’Darim Altar bottom spawns. Polt easily denied oZ’s zealot scout while both players expanded. Polt’s marines proved to be enough to hold oZ’s little 4 gate pressure. oZ tried to recover with mass gateways and a double forge, but he barely fell to Polt’s constant MMM rally, forcing him to tap out.
  
  
• Polt 2 - 1 Oz

• Game One: Metropolis. Leenock went hatch first, even able to kill Sase’s probe to deny any kind of potential cannon pressure. Sase responded by being as greedy as possible, going Nexus then gateway, then forge. Sase went up to 8 gates with immortals while looking to expand. The army positioning at his thirdwas only meant to fake Leenock out, who did his best to delay Sase’s huge timing for his 12 mutalisks to pop out, but it wasn’t quite enough to hold Sase;s timing
  
  
• Game Two: Entombed Valley cross positions. Sase went for his trademark quick robo, this time using the immortal power to take a third. Leenock again responded to the robo play with a spire, and Sase went for the almost never seen triple stargate with +1 air weapons response. Leenock’s mutalisks were caught off guard by the phoenixes, but his economy didn’t care about that as he got out his infestor and hive tech. Sase landed some amazing forcefields to take out almost all of Leenock’s lings while he pushed cross map. Leenock did his best to hold Sase’s follow up immortal gateway timing, but didn’t quite have enough after losing all of those speedlings as he was gearing up for broodlords. Despite having to wait for blink, Sase’s army was big enough to take out the very late broodlords for the win. One small step for Sase, one giant leap for foreigners America
  
  
• SaSe 2 - 0 Leenock

• Game One: On Daybreak, Symbol expanded first to his third, and was barely able to hold it against a cannon rush from Inori. Inori's third was up and running around the same time as Symbol's, and his blink tech beat the spire. The mutas still did a decent job of keeping Inori contained, and Symbol went up to 128 droes at one point before adding a ton of spine crawlers.Inori bulled through those spine crawlers and Symbol's fourth and fifth with a ton of stalkers and immortals, and ended the game by exploiting the immobility of brood lords.
  
  
• Game Two: On Cloud Kingdom, Inori hid his DT tech in the far top left behind the minerals. Symbol had a relatively quick lair, and although he lost almost two dozen drones, he still had a decent economic advantage as he teched to infestors. Symbol planted his fourth and teched to brood lords, catching Inori somewhat off guard. He continued to keep his upgrades going, with the adrenal glands playing a huge role, and Symbol was able to equalize the series.
  
  
• Game Three: On cross spawns entombed, Inori went for a four gate. Symbol initially defended his natural well, but as Inori ran into the main and gained a great position, there was nothing Symbol could do. Inori took the game and the series.
  
  
• Symbol 1 - 2 Inori

• Game One: On Daybreak, the early game was fairly typical of PvZ. Monster then went for a big roach-ling drop in the main, doing a lot of economic damage. Alicia was able to chase it off when his blink tech finished, then defended nicely against a couple other attacks. Monster couldn't break Alicia's three base turtle, trying baneling drops, more drops in the main, and everything else he could think of, but it wasn't enough, and when Alicia finally moved out, it was GG.
  
  
• Game Two: On Cloud Kingdom, Monster focused on upgraded roaches again. His spire caught Alicia off guard, and with a big ling-muta-attack, he was able to snipe Alicia's third before storm or blink could do anything about it. He planted a ton of spine crawlers to tech to brood lords, and sniped Alicia's third again. Alicia sent his huge stalker army to attack Monster's natural, but there was just enough infestor energy to crush Alicia's army. Alicia's DTs did great work in crippling Monster's economy late game, but he couldn't keep a third nexus up at all, and was forced to cede the game.
  
  
• Game Three: On Antiga Shipyard, Alicia went stargate, building up three void rays and using high ground vision to warp in zealots to the main. Alicia did a ton of damage in the main, killing queens and 20 drones, and when Monster finally finished off the last void ray, he was in rough shape. Alicia built up a huge immortal-centric army, and with a warp prism reinforcing, took the series.
  
  
• Monster 1 - 2 Alicia

• Game One: Shakuras Plateau cross positions. Sase used his usual neat gas timings to fast expand, with two probes in both gases, while Polt went standard 1 rax FE. Sase followed up his quick expand with a twilight council, going straight into high Templar off of two gates, grabbing a very fast third and fourth gas as well. Sase rushed for the fastest storm I’ve seen in a long time, while powering out immortals and more gateways. Despite not having any ghosts, Polt used some jaw dropping bio spread to finish off Sase’s army while grabbing his third base. A smart counter delayed Polt’s reinforcements, buying Sase a little more time to rebuild his army. Sase lost what little he had scrapped together in the middle of the map, and Polt’s army was too strong, forcing him to gg.
  
  
• Game Two: Entombed valley not cross positions. Both players fast expanded, but Sase went for a Naniwa style quick gateway aggression follow up. Polt was woefully underprepared, having to pull a ton of SCVs just to have a hope to defend. The SCVs weren’t even enough, forcing Polt to gg out.
  
  
• Game Three: Daybreak. Sase decided to cannon rush Polt’s CC first opener, and he actually managed to pull it off with some great cannon positioning. Polt did his best to try and survive, managing to move out with a lot of marines from the barracks he floated down to the base just south of his main. Sase’s 4 gate follow up was enough to finish off polt for the win.
  
  
• SaSe 2 - 1 Polt

• Game One: On Cloud Kingdom, Inori almost snuck a pylon in Alicia's base, but after his probe was found, he went 1gate robo instead. Alicia moved out across the map, getting three stalkers in Inori's base, and nearly won the game outright until an Immortal popped out. Alicia headed for blink, and was able to crucially snipe Inori's observer. He continued to build up blink stalkers, and with excellent micro, was able to finish off the game.
  
  
• Game Two: On vertical spawns Entombed Valley, Alicia's stargate play was met by Inori's blink and fast expand. Alicia moved out with a bunch of sentries, easily taking down the natural nexus then backing out, taking his own expansion. Inori teched up to colossi, moving out when the first one arrived. Alicia looked like he should have been able to take out the colossus, but Inori's micro was superior so he won the engagement. The players entered a base trade, with Inori crucially not getting any probes out. Alicia snuck out two probes, and from there Alicia was simply able to kill all of Inori's buildings to win.
  
  
• Alicia 2 - 0 Inori

• Game One: On Daybreak, Alicia went ridiculously fast third base off only one gateway. PuMa was trying his own hand at 3 quick bases, and when Alicia came in with a bunch of gateway units, PuMa was caught by surprise and couldn't handle it. With his natural busted, he was forced to GG.
  
  
• Game Two: On vertical spawns Entombed Valley, PuMa moved out with around 10 marines, rallying four at a time behind them. Alicia botched the initial engagement, losing a number of sentries and probes. He rushed for colossi, as PuMa worked on bio upgrades and planted a third. Alicia assaulted PuMa's natural when he was at three colossi. PuMa was well prepared with vikings, bunkers, and a crucial flank, evening the series.
  
  
• Game Three: On Cloud Kingdom, PuMa teched for early siege off two bases. Alicia pressured off three gates, not even taking out a bunker before being chased off thanks to the first siege tank. PuMa then teched to ghosts while Alicia went for templar tech and gateway upgrades, fending off medivacs fairly easily. As Alicia maxed out on colossi, PuMa ramped up viking production. Ailicia laid down a cascade of storms, whittling down PuMa's army. PuMa was unable to reinforce due to excellent stalker harass on the fourth wrecking his economy, and was forced to GG.
  
  
• Alicia 2 - 1 PuMa

• Game One: Cloud Kingdom. Both players executed your standard FE goodness, with Sase grabbing a quick third and fourth gas. Sase did his trademark robo follow up, opting for the third base rather than the all in. Sase denied a small roach ling pressure while Stephano grabbed his fourth base into infestors and double upgrades. Sase again denied a powerful ling infestor timing with some immaculate forcefields, delaying for his colossus to come out. Stephano brilliantly delayed morphing his brood lords to demolish Sase’s colossus heavy army. After holding, stephano morphed his broods and went in with the counter attack to take the game.
  
  
• Game Two: Entombed Valley Cross Position. Stephano geared up for a massive three base baneling bust, luckily Sase built his standard quick two immortals. Sase was caught out of position, losing 14 probes, managed to hold the attack. Sase went straight into double robo colossus, counting on the delayed spire from Stephano. Stephano made the mistake of going into infestors, costing him the game against the mass colossus of Sase (despite some nice defense that almost actually won him the game).
  
  
• Game Three: Metropolis close air. Sase went for the same 8 gate immortal all in that he did against Leenock, faking the third base. Stephano wasn’t even scouting for the third base until after the fake was over, so the army positioning didn’t accomplish much. Despite an almost perfect surround and great general defense, Sase continued making this timing attack look overpowered as he demolished Stephano’s lings and roaches for the win.
  
  
• Stephano 1 - 2 SaSe

• Game One: On cross spawns Entombed, SaSe went blink stalkers and an observer against Alicia's stargate phoenixes, trying some early aggression and doing minor damage before the first immortal spawned. He sniped an immortal and the phoenixes, then continued his aggressive blinks. He was able to take down another Immortal, the pylon powering the robo, and eventually Alicia's remaining army to seal the victory.
  
  
• Game Two: On Daybreak, Alicia cut workers to get a fast robo, then planted a few forward pylons, including one in SaSe's base, to catch SaSe off guard. Alicia continued the pressure, forcing SaSe to pull probes and chrono an immortal. Each player lost probes in their main. When Alicia's blink finished, he jumped on top of SaSe's immortals, forcing the GG.
  
  
• Game Three: On Cloud Kingdom, SaSe tried quick robo again, and had the worker lead again, and Alicia bulled up the main ramp again. Alicia retreated until his blink tech finished, and though SaSe had a few more gateways this time, he erred in making a colossus and trying to leave his base. He got his already small army split in half, and when Alicia's blink tech finished, the colossus was soon sniped. SaSe halted his colossus production for a while, then sniped Alicia's observer. After Alicia expanded, SaSe chased Alicia's army around the map for a bit. SaSe went for the base race, each side pulling their probes to safety. SaSe built his new nexus at the middle left fourth, Alicia in the bottom right. SaSe almost trapped Alicia with a force field, but Alicia was able to blink away. When Alicia found SaSe's base, he sniped half of SaSe's probes and resumed mining himself. Alicia sniped SaSe's observer, and then SaSe found himself unable to save his nexus. With SaSe down to just two pylons, Alicia put down a dark shrine. Sase made some favorable trades, but he had no answer for the DTs and it was the end of his incredible tournament run.
  
  
• Alicia 2 - 1 SaSe

• Game One: Entombed cross positions. MKP opened with a CC first while Alicia fast expanded himself, neither player got a scout off of each others openings though. Alicia followed up with the super quick three gate pressure after expand that I first saw Naniwa do successfully. Alicia showed how well timed his build was, dropping three simultaneous chrono boosts as the gateways finished. MKP held with only one bunker, showing the strength of his own timings. Alicia followed up by moving into a zealot templar midgame while MKP completely stabilized. MKP poked out to check for Alicia’s third while grabbing his own and appeared to have a small lead. MKP proved unprepared for Alicia’s storm though, and barely got out safely after engaging Alicia. Alicia landed some perfect forcefields, trapping MKP’s army against his zealots and storms by MKPs third base. Alicia sniped out MKPs third base after the engagement, and looked to be seconds away from taking game one, but MKP used some amazing tactics and positioning to hold back Alicia’s army with two depot walls. MKP stayed on top of his amazing macro, getting out a massive army ready to strike at the heart of Alicia. MKP used some absolutely top tier control to stay alive, fighting colossus without Vikings and Templar without ghosts. Alicia’s tech finally proved to be too much for MKP, whose awesome micro couldn’t overcome huge colossus and storm numbers, forcing him to finally tap out. All in all, MKP never really recovered from the huge engagement by his third.
  
  
• Game Two: Tal’darim Altar top spawns. MKP went for the reactor hellion maurader timing. Alicia responded, nervously going up to four gateways with blink. Eventually, MKP ignored the stalkers and got 7 probes kills before rallying around his bunker to try and hold Alicia’s counter. Alicia barely managed to kill the bunker, putting MKP in a terrible position to try and defend with SCVs. MKP micro’d on two fronts, holding the attack at his front while having a single marauder do way more damage than it should have at Alicia’s base. After the pressure was over, both players expanded, Alicia slightly ahead, while Alicia decided to tech to dark Templar. MKP sneaked some hellions around the map, and pulled off a ton of probe kills (catching his economy back up) while barely building an ebay in time to hold the dt before taking too much damage. Alicia forced MKP into a base trade, catching him as he moved out with his force. MKP immediately floated his CC’s, but Alicia was able to blink under both of them, and without any detection, MKP lost his army to Alicia’s dts, forcing him to gg.
  
  
• MarineKing 0 - 2 Alicia

Championship Winners Finals

• Game One: Cloud Kingdom. Woahhh intense smack talking! “Get out DRG!” MKP and DRG both demonstrated the current top meta game TvZ, grabbing very fast third bases while going hellion and queens respectively. DRG was able to secure a very fast fourth base, using lings and creep to maintain map control. Seriously, creep was approaching MKP’s base by the 12 minute mark. Despite his creep spread, DRG spotted MKP’s army rather late, scrapping together an army after losing his fourth base. DRG was smart to sacrifice his base though, making an army that easily flanked and demolished MKP’s forces. MKP’s macro was out of control, already sending another sizeable army cross map. MKP thought he was killing DRG’s fourth base, but DRG had a backup on the left hand side. MKP grabbed a fourth base himself, showing off just how strong his macro is. DRG hit a smart counter, killing the fourth of MKP who had just a few too little units to hold it. DRG again traded armies, putting him ahead. MKP barely hit while the brood lords were out of position, giving him a huge win against DRG’s army, finally giving him a chance to re-establish his fourth base. MKP was caught out of position, giving DRG a huge win with his baneling ultra infestor army and taking out MKP’s only mining base. DRG’s follow up attack proved too powerful, forcing MKP to gg. Seriously that creep spread from DRG was insane, I think Ravens are going to become a must have if every zerg starts getting so insane with it, and that was one of the best TvZ’s I’ve seen. It reminded me of the old SC vs. Nestea series in terms of intensity.
  
  
• Game Two: Antiga. MKP did his best to sneak an SCV for a proxy barracks, but DRG got a perfect scout of it to take it out with a drone. DRG took out MKP’s combat shield researching while gearing up for a massive ling baneling timing that zergs love on this map. To make things even worse, MKP’s tankless army was caught out in the middle of the map and DRG’s army demolished MKP’s for the win.
  
  
• MarineKing 0 - 2 DongRaeGu

Grand Finals

• Game One: On Daybreak, DongRaeGu got off to a great start. He scouted both gases at Alicia's natural, and got an excellent ling surround on the first stalker. He took his fourth when he couldn't easily break Alicia's third. DongRaeGu repeatedly probed for weaknesses at Alicia's three base, initially unsuccessful but later more successful. DRG sniped a pair of nexi (one surviving for a minute on 4hp), but suffered his own economic damage from a number of DTs. Barely mining, Alicia moved out, only to lose his army to a bunch of banelings. When DRG sniped his thir dnexus of the game, it was only a matter of time. The killing blow was a carpet of banelings rolling over everything in their path.
  
  
• Game Two: On Cloud Kingdom, DongRaeGu's scouting overlord saw the void ray pop out. He defended well against it at the natural, but his queens were caught out of position as Alicia did some decen damage at the third and scouted the infestor tech. Each player took their next base, DongRaeGu extending his map control. Alicia built up four colossi and moved out, attacking DongRaeGu's third just before the greater spire finished. Coming in at the perfect angle, he avoided spine crawlers and force fielded lings away, and unable to make brood lords, DRG ceded the game.
  
  
• Game Three: On Metropolis cross spawns, Alicia upgraded his shields for an immortal/sentry attack. He made it to DongRaeGu's third before the spine crawlers could finish, taking them out quickly. DongRaeGu did an excellent job of flanking and taking out forward pylons though, and eventually took out Alicia's army. After some army dancing on both sides, Alicia GGed, bringing DongRaegu to the brink of victory.
  
  
• Game Four: On Tal'darim Altar cross spawns, DongRaeGu six pooled. Alicia was forge FEing, and didn't get a probe scout into DongRaeGu's main until the first six lings were already on their way. He placed a pylon by his main mineral line, putting out the fire for the moment, but did lose his forge. After DongRaeGu retreated to get his natural up, he attacked with a bunch more zerglings. He took down a few sentries before being forced to retreat again, teching to lair. Alicia moved out as DongRaeGu planted his third and fourth, then retreated as blink finished to take his third and go into colossi. DongRaeGu switched into mutas, trying a two-pronged attack in the main and third. Alicia split his units perfectly, deflecting both avenues of attack, then pushed out before DongRaeGu could finish his greater spire. With lots of colossi and aggressive blinks, Alicia broke through the wall of spine crawlers. DongRaeGu spawned a bunch of corruptors and utilized fungal after fungal to wear down Alicia's stalkers, chasing them off once his reincforcements arrived. Alicia regrouped and assaulted DongRaeGu's fourth, blinking and running away once the brood lords arrived. Alicia teched to dark shrine and stargate, but could never get his fourth up, and DongRaeGu just kept morphing in Brood Lords. Although Alicia fought hard to the end, DongRaeGu could not be denied his MLG Championship.
  
  
• DongRaeGu 3 - 1 Alicia

USA Nationals

• Game One: On Ohana, daisuki went pool-hatch as ViBE expanded after starting speed. ViBE ran a few lings into daisuki's main and spotted the baneling nest, starting his own shortly after. ViBE took advantage of some poor baneling control by daisuki to kill a decent amount of drones, then started working on roach upgrades. Each player tok his third, ViBE staying ahead on upgrades and planting his infestation pit sooner. He got ahead with agreat engagement at daisuki's third, and once the infestors arrived he was able to overcome some poor concaves to take the game.
  
  
• Game Two: On Daybreak, ViBE got his expansion down sooner, then teched to mutas and popped out a round. They didn't do a ton of damage, picking off miscellaneous overlords. Both players got their thirds up and worked on their infestor tech, with daisuki's earlier infestors catching ViBE's mutas by surprise and excellent transfuses keeping them alive. A small group of infestors sniped ViBE's third to bring it to three base vs three base, and in a battle in the middle of the map, daisuki's hydra-supported army was not quite enough to break through. ViBe surprise unburrowed a bunch of roaches on daisuki's army, but was unable to defend his fourth due to a lack of infestor energy. daisuki was always trading unfavorably, and ran out of army. ViBE won 2-0 to become the USA national champion!
  
  
• ViBE 2 - 0 daisuki