Check out the the NASL Grand Finals on Liquipedia

Grand Finals Results
Match recaps

Semi-final Results
Match recaps

Quarter-final Results
Match recaps

Grand Finals (Bo7)

Front page photos by Silverfire

Brackets @ Liquipedia

Mill.Stephano (4 - 0) SlayerS_Alicia

Game One – Ohana

Alicia invited Stephano to play a macro game with him in game one, but it ended up being an invitation for disaster. Stephano comfortably built up on four bases and then crushed Alicia's first push forward with infestors, roaches and lings (off-target force-fields didn't help). DT harass from Alicia allowed him to stay in the game for a bit longer, but Stephano's easy transition into a perfect hive composition meant that his fate was already sealed. Without even a mothership or templar tech, Alicia went down in a heap.

Stephano 1 - 0 Alicia
Game Two – Shakuras Plateau

Alicia opened up with a cannon rush to destroy Stephano's natural in game two, but it was hard to say it was a success. Stephano simply took even more hatcheries at other bases, seemingly more than happy to give up his natural when it was costing his opponent two pylons and three cannons to kill it.

In the end, everything played out ideally for Stephano, as he built up a powerhouse economy despite the cannon rush, and also completely thwarted Alicia's stargate + warp prism follow-up. Having done virtually nothing to hamper Stephano, Alicia fell meekly once more when Stephano decided to attack.

Stephano 2 - 0 Alicia
Game Three – Antiga Shipyard

Alicia's second attempt to play a macro game started off poorly, as Stephano's roach-ling pressure blew up a large number of Protoss units when Alicia tried to take his third base. Still, Alicia managed to take his third successfully and was able to find a window to attack with stalkers and colossi. Phoenixes picked off some errant infestors that Stephano needed on defense, and it looked for a second that Stephano could be in danger. However, Stephano turned out to be perfectly alright, making sure to destroy all of Alicia's colossi with his first wave of units and then reloading with zerglings to defend with ease. Alicia didn't have enough left to stop the counter-attack, and had to concede a three game lead to Stephano.

Stephano 3 - 0 Alicia
Game Four – Daybreak

The final card for Alicia was a desperation 8-gate all-in, but even that wasn't enough to earn him at least one win in the series. Stephano swatted aside the all-in with almost comical ease, concluding the 4 - 0 sweep.

Stephano 4 - 0 Alicia

Semi-Finals (Bo7)

Match recaps

Match Two – Liquid`Ret (2 - 4) SlayerS_Alicia

Game One – Antiga Shipyard

Alicia opened up with a typical FE-stargate build with a mind to take a quick third, but made a fatal mistake when he allowed some probing speedlings to wipe out the key sentries he needed on defense. Put in a very difficult situation, Alicia decided to switch gears to going for a two base all-in instead, but that attack was easily stopped by Ret's roach + infestor composition.

Ret 1 - 0 Alicia
Game Two – Ohana

Ret changed it up in game two, going for a muta-ling style to look for holes in Alicia's three base defense. Initially, Alicia had a handle on the probing mutalisks and speedlings, but eventually he made one crucial positioning mistake that allowed speedlings to tear down his third nexus. It was all downhill for Alicia from there on out. He massed his troops for one big attack on Ret, was thwarted, and then fell to Ret's stream of units.

Ret 2 - 0 Alicia
Game Three – Shakuras Plateau

Ret looked like he was far, far ahead after thwarting Alicia's sentry drop and droning up massively. However, Alicia didn't squander his one shot to win, barging his way up Ret's ramp with his army and force-fielding Ret's troops out of his own main. This allowed him to overcome what was at one point a 90 supply difference, earning him a lifeline in the series.

Alicia 1 - 2 Ret
Game Four – Daybreak

Alicia's game against Ret on Daybreak played out much like his teammate Puzzle's earlier in the day. After both players secured a strong economic base on their respective sides of the map, the fireworks began. Again, it was ultimately Ret's inability to deal with his opponents harassment that lost him the game, as the constant disruption to his economy meant that once his first brood lord - infestor force was gone, he was in serious trouble trying to replace it. It went even easier for Alicia than Puzzle in a way, as he landed the big vortex that his teammate couldn't quite get. After wiping out Ret's first big army, all Alicia had to do was pick up the pieces.

Alicia 2 - 2 Ret
Game Five – Dual Sight

Though he executed a successful defense against Puzzle's void ray + gateway units all-in on the very same map, Ret ended up falling to a similar strategy from Alicia. Unaware of Alicia's plan and with his army terribly out of place, Ret was forced to give up his third hatchery entirely for free. The two players continued to build up from that state, Alicia adding immortals and blink upgrade to his army, while Ret was forced to stay largely on roaches. The outcome of the ensuing clash was an inevitable Protoss victory.

Alicia 3 - 2 Ret
Game Six – Bel'Shir Beach

Alicia finished off the series with the new Protoss standard, the two immortal push. Good force-fields rendered Ret's roaches powerless, and Alicia completed the 4 - 0 comeback after going down 0 - 2 to start.

Alicia 4 - 2 Ret

Match One – SK_MC (2 - 4) Mill.Stephano

Game One – Antiga Shipyard

Game one was the straight up duel everyone had been waiting for, with MC going for standard three base play while Stephano went for his famous roach-ling pressure. After a period of extended fighting, MC was able to secure his third base for good and got to work building an army to try and finish Stephano before he reached hive.

Stephano ended up having to fight one major battle with just lair units before his greater spire could finally finish, and it looked for a moment as if MC's mastery of timings was going to win him yet another game. But with good use of infestors and positioning, Stephano was able to get just enough breathing room to get his crucial brood lords out.

Without a mothership or a templar archives, MC was immediately put on the back foot. Though he did his best to fight Stephano with blink stalkers and colossi, Stephano's end game composition was just too strong and efficient to overcome. Slowly but surely, Stephano wore away at MC's forces until he earned the GG.

Stephano 1 - 0 MC
Game Two – Cloud Kingdom

After another typical three-base vs three-base build up, Stephano decided to throw a curve-ball in MC's direction. Instead of the relentless roach-ling attacks he became famous for, Stephano instead went for surprise mutalisks, rendering MC's robotics tech useless. Though he only did a moderate amount of economic damage with his mutalisks, Stephano was able to tie MC up while he secured more bases and teched safely up to hive.

MC ended up unable to exploit any kind of timing against Stephano, and the brood lords came out almost entirely unopposed. At the same time, MC wasn't able to get the tech to fight the brood lords properly either, and he was once again chipped to death by the brood lord + infestor combination.

Stephano 2 - 0 MC
Game Three – Cloud Kingdom

MC continued to hold back from using his famous all-in plays, going for fast three bases once more on Daybreak. Stephano tried the popular roach pressure into drops to try and hurt MC before his defenses were set, but good army positioning from MC allowed him to hold on all fronts.

With his attack thwarted, the onus then shifted onto Stephano to defend his own fourth base while he rushed up to hive. However, there wasn't any clutch defense from Stephano as MC was able to bulldoze through with a colossus supported army. Particularly notable was his use of the phoenixes he had preserved from his opener, which flew in to lift up all of Stephano's crucial infestors before the final fight.

MC 1 - 2 Stephano
Game Four – Bel'Shir Beach

The first MC all-in came on Bel'Shir beach, as he followed up a standard 4-gate pressure build with dark templars. At first it looked as if MC's strategy was going to be a brilliant success, as three DTs went to work on hacking down Stephano's lair. However, Stephano used drone-clipping to force the DT's off the lair, saving it just in time. Though MC was able to kill the lair later with two more dark templars, at that point his DTs had ceased to be cost effective.

Having spent so much money on largely ineffective DT tech, MC had only the option to follow-up and try to win with a blink-stalker attack. That attack, too, was easily handled by Stephano who took an even larger lead. When MC tried to take his third base after, Stephano rolled him over with roaches and infestors to take the 3 - 1 lead.

Stephano 3 - 1 MC
Game Five – Ohana

It wouldn't be an MC series without a successful two base attack. MC found a way to get his stargate + gateway units all-in to work, exploiting Stephano's late roaches to get an easy victory.

MC 2 - 3 Stephano
Game Six – Shakuras Plateau

After some unsuccessful early pressure, MC put down a third nexus and took on the intimidating task of defending two unconnected entrances on Shakuras Plateau. Stephano started pumping pure ling-roach, determined to break through the defenses. A feint at one of MC's bases opened up a weakness in the defenses at the other, allowing roaches and lings to stream in. MC attempted to plug the hole, but the dam had already been breached. Stephano continued to send his troops MC's way, earning the final GG in the end.

Stephano 4 - 2 MC

Quarter-finals (Bo5)

Match recaps

Match Four – EG.HuK (0 - 3) SlayerS_Alicia

Game One – Cloud Kingdom

Alicia took a small lead early, using his stalkers to pick off some of HuK's units while HuK rushed to robotics facility. Other than that, the game developed fairly evenly as both players ended up making immortals and blink-stalkers on one base.

The turning point in the game came when Alicia snuck four stalkers into HuK's main while HuK's main force was far out on the map, and the lack of an effective defensive warp-in from HuK led him to take a large amount of economic damage. Already down on economy, HuK made a poor decision to blink forward into immortals when the two main forces clashed in the center of map, and he GG'd out soon after.

Alicia 1 - 0 HuK
Game Two – Shakuras Plateau

Alicia decided to go two-gate into expansion on Shakuras while HuK stayed on one base and tried to apply some pressure off of three gates. However, his plan did not work out well at all, as Alicia was able to easily destroy HuK's attacking force with good use of force-fields. HuK decided that it was too late to catch up in expansions, and rushed towards getting archons for an all-in, one base push. However, Alicia's defense was more than good enough once more, and HuK conceded the second set.

Alicia 2 - 0 HuK
Game Three – Ohana

As is common on Ohana, both Protoss players fast expanded and passively built up armies. With two colossi, HuK decided it was time to attack, but Alicia had four colossi of his own on defense, allowing him to come up with a significant supply lead after the battle. Alicia secured his third base, built up his army some more, and went in for the kill.

Alicia 3 - 0 HuK

Match Three – Liquid`Ret (3 - 1) SlayerS_Puzzle

Game One – Cloud Kingdom

Puzzle opened up with a 4-gate + 1 pressure into 7-gate blink all-in to make his Canadian debut. However, imperfect micro from Puzzle and a great surround from Ret caused the all-in to fail miserably, putting Ret massively ahead.

Although Puzzle tried to salvage the game by taking his third base, he was eventually forced to GG out after getting continuously pummeled by Ret's attacks.

Ret 1 - 0 Puzzle
Game Two – Daybreak

The game played out in fairly standard Daybreak fashion, and both players ended up mining their fill of resources as they split control of the map down the middle. Around the critical juncture where Ret transitioned into brood lords, Puzzle began to use warp-prisms for zealot harassment. Ret was unable to deal with the harassment well, but was able to clean it up well enough to gather his brood lords and infestors for a big attack.

Puzzle seemed to be in trouble as Ret's slow army cut a path into his territory, but he was eventually able to hold the line with a mothership. The attack was almost worth it for Ret, but he made the crucial mistake of leaving a red HP nexus alive to continue mining for Puzzle. At the same time, Puzzle was continuing to use his warp-prisms to damage Ret's economy, and Puzzle soon had a superior economy. Puzzle quickly put together an overwhelming army to end the game.

Puzzle 1 - 1 Ret
Game Three – Dual Sight

Not surprisingly, Puzzle opted for an all-in on Dual Sight, going for a void ray assisted gateway attack. However, Ret's defense proved to be more than solid enough to thwart Puzzle's plan, and he overran him with roaches to retake the lead in the series.

Ret 2 - 1 Puzzle
Game Four – Ohana

With his tournament life on the line, Puzzle gambled and lost. He attempted to go for two-stargates after taking his natural, only to be scouted out by Ret's overlord. To Puzzle's credit, that wasn't the end of the game right there, as he managed to do a small amount of damage with his stargate units while transitioning into a normal game plan.

However, Puzzle didn't have an answer ready in time for Ret's eventual brood lord + infestor composition. A blink-forward was able to take out all the brood lords, but the supporting infestor – roach forces were able to clean up the rest of Puzzle's forces and end the series.

Ret 3 - 1 Puzzle

Match Two – Liquid`HerO (1 - 3) Mill.Stephano

Game One – Cloud Kingdom

Stephano opened up with his standard three base build while HerO elected to go for a forge FE – Stargate – fast third nexus build. Needing excellent micro to hold such a quick third base, HerO instead reacted horribly late to Stephano's roach-ling pressure. The lings destroyed several sentries before any force-fields went up, allowing Stephano to funnel in roaches and lings until HerO was forced to GG.

Stephano 1 - 0 HerO
Game Two – Daybreak

After losing game one due to inattentiveness, HerO showed what he could do when things went more to plan. Starting with another FE-Stargate open, HerO was able to defend against roach-ling perfectly with force-fields and took his third base. HerO then quickly built up a dangerous blink stalker + colossus army, catching Stephano before hive with only a weak roach-infestor army. Stephano couldn't hold off the attack and was forced to concede the set.

HerO 1 - 1 Stephano
Game Three – Antiga Shipyard

HerO decided to break out some of his cheesier tactics in game three, offensive cannoning Stephano's third base to destroy it. However, HerO spent a fair amount of minerals on cannons and pylons, and Stephano didn't look to be particularly behind as he transitioned to zerglings and infestors off of two bases. After Stephano successfully held against HerO's follow-up voidray + 6-gate attack, the game settled at a surprisingly even state, sixteen minutes in.

Both Stephano and HerO built up strong end-game compositions off of three bases, and with mains mining out, the key point of the game shifted to who could take and keep a fourth base.

Tthe pivotal battle was sparked when Stephano started to lay siege to HerO's newly built fourth base, forcing an engagement from the mothership supported Protoss army. Good spreading from brood lords meant that the effect of vortex was kept to a minimum, and Stephano was able to win a crushing victory to take the 2 – 1 lead.

Stephano 2 - 1 HerO
Game Four – Shakuras Plateau

Facing elimination, HerO went for the build that has been the ace in the hole for many a Protoss player, the two base immortal all-in. However, after getting soundly beaten by that build at DreamHack Summer, Stephano had no intention of repeating his mistakes, and soundly crushed HerO's attack with good surrounds.

It looked all but over for HerO, but somehow he managed to hold out. Stephano was content to take take a fourth base and continued to send roaches HerO's way to trade, but in the process he ended up trading poorly too many times. This allowed HerO one single timing where he massed up a large group of stalkers, immortals, and colossi for a large attack.

Unfortunately for HerO, Stephano's roach-infestor defense was just barely enough for him to hang on. In the end, he was able to buy enough time for brood lords, and that was the end of the road for the Liquid Protoss.

Stephano 3 - 1 HerO

Match One – SK_MC (3 - 0) EG.PuMa

Game One – Cloud Kingdom

Though there was a little bit of light pressure from PuMa early on as MC went for a very fast third base, the game opened up as basically a straight build-up to 200/200 for both players. Around sixteen minutes in the two players met for the first and last major engagement of the game, where high templars dropped from a warp prism were able to completely annihilate PuMa's army.

MC 1 - 0 PuMa
Game Two – Antiga Shipyard

With PuMa going for a standard fast expansion opening, MC decided to try for the two base blink stalker + warp prisms /w sentries build he attempted multiple times against TaeJa just a few days ago. Unlike TaeJa, however, PuMa was not expecting the strategy and allowed MC to successfully blink stalkers into his main while sentries force-fielded off the ramp.

PuMa was able to fend off the stalkers after taking heavy damage, but was left with almost nothing left for the follow-up attack of dark templars. Seeing the cloaked assassins warping in his main, PuMa GG'd out.

MC 2 - 0 PuMa
Game Three – Shakuras Plateau

Drawing horizontal positions on Antiga Shipyard, MC opted to go for a risky one base blink stalker + observer build to exploit the backdoor corridor on the map. His gambit ended up paying off, as his harassment did enough damage to more than make up for PuMa's faster expansion. MC moved on to take his own expansion, while adding in DT tech to continue to make PuMa's life difficult.

Having taken quite a bit of damage from MC's Stalker and DT attacks, PuMa decided he needed to make something happen or else he would just be overwhelmed by MC's superior economy in the near future. He gathered his marines, marauders, and medivacs for one last ditch push, but MC's zealots, stalkers and archons were more than enough to earn the final GG.

MC 3 - 0 PuMa