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by Waxangel

Korea, Protoss, and PartinG crowned at WCS Finals

In the end it was a repeat of WCS Asia, as Korean Protosses dominated. A crop picked at WCS Korea in August, they looked to be dangerously near their expiration date as the Zerg winter approached. Yet, through a combination of sheer skill, and cynical pragmatism, they were able to overcome the recent trends regarding the Zerg race. First, second, and third place all went to Protoss.

The mantra seemed to be 'find what works, and do until it stops working,' and the two finalists embodied it thoroughly. For CreatorPrime, it meant never swaying from his three-base timing attacks, which were expertly designed to slay Zerg opponents before they could attain their brood lord and infestor combination. Up to September, Creator could be seen trying to send his PvZ games late, but with $100,000 on the line in Shanghai, he dispelled such lofty ideas from his head. He dispatched Acer.Nerchio and Acer.Scarlett easily in the group stage, and then K3.VortiX in the round of eight – though the Spanish Zerg's hardy defenses meant it was only by a slim, 3 – 2 margin.

His counterpart, and eventual champion ST_PartinG, had his own signature move as well. Coming into the tournament known for his famous 'soul'-powered immortal-sentry all-ins, PartinG didn't seem to think being predictable was a weakness as he used the technique three times in a row to dispatch the Taiwanese Zerg Gamania.Sen in the semi-finals. Overall, PartinG opted to be a little more multi-dimensional than Creator, but he seemed to have the same ultimate goal to not play a game longer than 18 minutes.

It was not all drudgery for the Protosses, though with Zergs making up nearly half the competitors in the tournament (and more than half of the credible title contenders), they spent most of the time getting their hands dirty. But there were some brief reprieves, where the luckless Quantic.Illusion became the victim of a cathartic, and destructive releases from the two players more known for their PvT than PvZ.

In the other semi-final, Creator narrowly defeated another PvZ 3-base timing specialist in By.Rain. Coincidentally, he used PvP's version of the ugly-but-effective-build in the 4-gate to take the deciding set, setting himself up to face his friend and countryman PartinG to see which Korean Protoss would take home the $100,000 grand prize.

After seeing both players play beat-the-clock mode StarCraft II for most of the tournament, it was intriguing to watch the key factors of the game shift to the build-order mind games of PvP. Both players tried their hands at risky, aggressive builds, and it won them a game a piece – a blink stalker all-in for PartinG, and a 4-gate rush from Creator. Such tactics also backfired, with PartinG losing a game after his proxy robotics bay was quickly scouted by Creator.

But when both players were able to get past the first few minutes and play out longer games, PartinG proved to have the deciding edge. With superior execution in battle, he was able to win the major engagements in key games, giving him the four wins he needed to take the championship. The final sequence of the tournament saw PartinG use his blink stalkers to delay Creator's forces for as long as possible until charge-upgrade and an archon could be brought to bear, followed by a short and furious engagement where PartinG's army won by a landslide.

The two friends hugged it out after the deciding game, Creator looking to be not terribly aggrieved as $40,000 was quite the consolation prize. PartinG's reaction to winning the championship was to be overwhelmed, and a little bit awkward, though not overwhelmingly awkward like some champions. The Korean flag was waved, the Gosu Trophy was lifted, and though PartinG trains in Incheon and not Seoul, there was some Gangnam Style to be had as well.



Glass Half Empty, or Half Full?
- A mixed performance from international players at the WCS finals

After the international players rallied to send a message on day one of "We will not give up the title so easily!", the Koreans struck back on day two with an "Oh, really?" Round by round, the foreign hopes dropped, and WCS looked a lot like the WCGs of the Brood War days, with Koreans taking all the spots on the podium.

While the end result was a serious let down after the optimism of day one, all-in-all the WCS finals was a fairly middle-of-the-road result for foreigners.

Of course, it was extremely disappointing to lose EG.Stephano.RC and Acer.Nerchio so early on day one. But even the best players can't always be in the title picture, and in their absence, other players did well to show the depth of the international scene.

The biggest takeaway was obviously the magnificent return of Gamania.Sen to the Western scene (despite the locale, this was very much a Western tournament) after a long absence. After slipping quietly through the groups on day one, Sen started things off with a bang on day two by destroying ST_Curious 3 - 0 in the round of sixteen. Better yet, Sen went on earn a dramatic victory against Liquid's HerO in the round of eight, making it two Code S regulars defeated in the same tournament. While Sen did lose 0 - 3 to PartinG and Rain, those losses were on the fairly 'acceptable' side, as one player won the entire tournament, and the other was the consensus best player coming in.

On the whole, foreigner defeats ran the gamut from "we're never, ever catching up" blow-outs like PartinG's 3 - 0 pounding of Acer.Scarlett and Rain's sweep of Sen, to series that suggested the gap was razor thin like EG.Suppy's 2 - 3 loss to PartinG, and especially K3.VortiX's 2 - 3 series against Creator. In the latter series, VortiX actually went 2 - 1 against Creator's famous 3-base timings, but lost the remaining two games by getting caught off guard by Creator's two-base all-in and failing an all-in of his own.

Combined with the great performances of FXOBabyKnight, RoX.KIS.TitaN, and EG.IdrA.RC on day one, it all seemed to re-affirm the state of things we had already known heading into the tournament: there are a lot of foreigners who can take games off Koreans, just not consistently. On a really good day, Stephano could have won it all, and on a really bad day, we could have seen 7/8 Koreans in the round of eight. It just turned out that Sunday was fairly ordinary.


List of things that deserve mentioning, but can't be written about at length since this article will become too long.

• Though barely anyone noticed him, d.KiLLeR did some serious representing for South America and placed in the top eight (he was mauled by Rain, but so was every other Zerg).
  
• EG.Suppy.RC was the highest placing American at the tournament, reaching the round of eight. He was also the only Zerg in the tournament to successfully stop PartinG's soul train immortal all-in, which is an immense moral victory in itself.
  
• LucifroN and VortiX had a match between brothers in the Ro16, where VortiX won 3 - 2. The brothers Day9 and Tasteless blessed the occassion by putting on a brotherly cast.
  
• The Korean community was quick to point out how Rain looked like the unhappiest winner of $16,000 in the 3rd/4th place matches against Sen. Perhaps he was still sore about the $24,000 4-gate from Creator that kept him from the finals.
  
• EG.IdrA.RC was the only Zerg to take a map off Rain in the entire touranment. IdrA stopped Rain's dizzying multi-prong harass with remarkable efficiency, taking a huge lead. He then did almost everything he could to blow his advantage, but managed to win despite himself.