by: Kollin


The first series of the eSF week would be a battle between giants, as the young Protoss Creator would face up against the seasoned veteran, Nestea. While Creator's achievements so far are nothing to scoff at, they are dwarfed by Nestea's multiple GSL titles. However, the IM Zerg has fallen off in the past year, whereas Creator only seems to be getting better and better. A match between the two would promised to be an interesting clash of the old versus the new, the rising star versus the fallen great. Sadly, it's hard to say this series managed to deliver.

The opening game started fairly normally, Nestea going for 3 quick bases and Creator forge fast expanding. Creator teched towards oracles and added on gateways, opting for a gateway oracle timing push. Nestea tried to make roach-hydra from three bases, but heavily over-droned before going into troop production and was just crushed by Creator's sizable, well controlled army.

The second game was a lot more interesting, Creator going for a fast third base while harassing with phoenixes, and Nestea responding by producing...mutalisks. Now this may seem odd, but in hindsight Nestea had 8 gases and could produce a lot more mutalisks than Creator could produce phoenixes. Or so Nestea must have though, but despite not knowing about Nestea's spire the Protoss player added on two more stargates, bringing him up to three, as well as adding a fleet beacon. Even though he scouted Nestea's large amount of mutalisks, Creator produced as few phoenixes as he could stay safe with. He must have gotten the memo about void rays, as he built up a large force of them to supplement his decently sized ground army and hammered through Nestea's tiny amount of zerglings and excess of mutalisks.

In the final game of the series, Nestea chose to channel the spirit of his teammate Mvp, all-ining when it mattered most. However, Nestea couldn't get the desired result, and transitioned into a macro game after killing just a single pylon. Creator wouldn't allow Nestea to get back in the game, all ining himself of 7 gateways using blink stalkers and +1. For a moment it looked like Nestea could hold, especially with burrow seconds away from finishing. Unfortunately for Nestea, his burrow was researching at the hatchery that Creator had decided to attack first, and he picked it off before the vital upgrade completed. With that, Nestea was forced to give up an MLG spot to a player almost fifteen years his junior.




The second series of the week featured another multiple GSL champion from LG-IM, and ended in yet another 3 - 0 scoreline. However, this time around, the challenger was on the receiving end of the beating, with LG-IM's Mvp successfully defending his pride after a poor Code S campaign.

Game one showed off nearly every single new unit HotS brings, as well as every single improved unit from both races. Mvp opened with reapers, oddly enough building a tech lab on his barracks first, showing he wasn't fully accustomed to HotS. Nevertheless, Mvp managed to pick off a queen and set up a contain on Curious, using widow mines and reapers. Curious eventually broke the contain and both players transitioned to the midgame, Curious choosing a composition of roaches and hydralisks while also giving the viper its debut in the MLG Winter Showdowns. In the meantime Mvp massed an enormous mech army of over thirty tanks with hellbats to support. Curious added some ultralisks into the mix, and went for a big 4 base 200 food attack while Mvp was unsieged. Despite getting off some fantastic blinding clouds, Mvp controlled his tank-mode tanks perfectly and easily won the fight. With the Game Genie's counter attack looming on the horizon, Curious was forced into making mass mutalisks as a hasty defensive solution. Curious had to give up some bases and infrastructure, but eventually Mvp's anti airless army was cleaned up. From there, Curious transitioned into brood lords, while doing some light harass with the mutalisks. Mvp took economic damage, but held on despite having only one fully mining base. Forced into attacking, the LG-IM Terran chose to split up his army, sending the bulk of the thors as well as most of the tanks towards Curious's fourth, while sending a smaller squad of tanks to the other side of the map. This tactic proved to be devastating, as Mvp annihilated Curious's army while killing both bases, taking game number one.

The next game was a much simpler affair as Mvp turned on the pressure early on. It is best to mention now that these games were played before the recent hellbat nerf, with four hellbats still fitting into a single medivac and coming quite early. Needless to say, carnage ensued and while Curious tried his very best to defend, Curious' drone line - and chances of advancing - went up in flames. The third game also featured hellions very heavily, though this time in their native form. Curious decided he would try and metagame Mvp by going mutalisks to counter his opponent's usual lack of air. But, as has been proved time and time again no one metagames Mvp. Double factory blue flame hellions were the order of the day, and they proved to be the direct counter to Curious's speedling based army. As the drones burned, Mvp celebrated his chance to regain glory at MLG Dallas.




This series was between two players who had both won GSL titles, only to be criticized for their lack of further success. Seed fell off almost immediately after his victory, dropping down to the hellishness uncertainty that is Code B. Sniper on the other hand placed top 4 at the Blizzard Cup, before promptly getting knocked down to Code A in the GSL. This inconsistency made it hard to judge which player had the advantage. While in WoL most people would agree that Sniper is superior, Seed had a lot more time to practice HotS, even placing his name at the very top of the beta ladder rankings.

The first game in the series showcased that Seed had indeed been practicing HotS enough to realise that oracles are pretty good. A stargate expand from the Protoss inflicted devastating damage in Sniper's mineral line, scoring double digit drone kills. Sniper was put behind but was by no means out, at least until Seed's colossus stalker timing arrived at his front door and destroyed his third. Left with no army and no economy, Sniper was forced to tap out.

Having conceded game one, Sniper knew he had to exact revenge. A fast lair into a roach hydra timing wasn't as effective as it could have been as his opponent was well prepared with immortals and storm. Nevertheless Sniper took a fourth base behind it and delayed Seed's three base 3-3 timing attack long enough for him to get vipers out. Blinding cloud rendered a stalker heavy push useless and Sniper cleaned it up with ease. Sniper then began discarding his army in preparation for a huge switch into over 10 ultralisks. While the first wave wasn't enough to break Seed, constant production of the ultras combined with using the viper's abduct ability on the immortals eventually evened the series up, 1-1.

Seed chose to go for the quick win in game three, using the one gate expand he seemed to prefer into a powerful gateway push. Sniper once again opted for a fast lair which came back to bite him in the hindside, as he only had a few slow zerglings and roaches to stave off the inevitable. The final game was decided by a flash of lasers. A lot of flashes actually, and all different colours. Seed did an unorthodox forge fast expand into double proxy stargate, and after producing around 6 oracles went and absolutely annihalated the drones at Sniper's third. While Sniper eventually drove him away with hydralisks, the damage had been done and a follow up colossus push just sealed the deal. With that, Seed had qualified for another foreign tournament and won a chance to put himself back on the radar.




A clash of the Terran titans ensued, as the two micro managing masterminds lined up to face each other. While both of these players are among the best of their race, they have been plagued by inconsistency throughout their careers, often looking brilliant one minute and then terrible the next. Again, this match was played before the hellbat nerfs, with the devastating 4-hellbat drops making the games even more chaotic.

Game one indeed showed the power of hellbat drops, as Marineking proxied a starport to make sure it hit even quicker. Gumiho favoured a reaper into banshee opening, and despite scouting the hellbat drop was powerless to stop it. His SCV's melted away, and even though he had killed all of Marineking's SCV's with a banshee it wasn't enough, as the complete lack of anti air from Gumiho prevented him from killing the medivac. He tapped out knowing a comeback was impossible.

The second game actually saw no hellbats, as Marineking chose another proxy opening. This time it was in the form of the 8 supply depot, 8 barracks reaper opening that is slowly becoming more popular. Unfortunately for the Prime Terran, Gumiho was opening with a more economical reaper build and had more than enough to defend without taking any significant damage. Marineking's lack of vision around his base then cost him the game, as a proxy factory produced hellions which destroyed all of his unprotected SCV's.

The next game was another hellbat drop from Marineking, which Gumiho once again could not defend. Despite producing tanks and marines, he just didn't have the numbers and GGed in the quickest game in the MLG Winter Showdowns up to that point. In the final game Gumiho mixed it up with a proxy marauder opening, with Marineking getting a bunker up just in time to defend. From there the game devolved into a manic drop and counter drop situation, as Marineking slowly whittled down Gumiho's economy with hellbats, while Gumiho did his best with marauder drops. Eventually the marine-hellbat force became just too much for Gumiho's marauders to fight, booking the newly crowned HellbatKing a flight to Dallas.




Two players who had claim to the title of best TvZ/ZvT player in the past faced up against each other to see who would qualify for Dallas. Since winning his GSL, jjakji fell off the face of the planet in terms of results. He quickly fell to Code B, and despite carrying his team in team leagues, did not produce any results of note. He looked to be outmatched by DRG, a player who has been dominant with his his distinctive mutalisk zergling baneling style for over a year. DRG's ZvT with that style has always been top tier, though his inability to fully embrace the infestor-brood lord style cost him in the latter half of 2012. With buffs to mutalisks in HotS, DongRaeGu looked poised to make return to GSL championship winning form.

In game one, DongRaeGu's mastery of the new mutalisks wasn't shown to us as jjakji wanted to end the game early. If you thought marauder hellion all-ins were powerful in WoL, you should be even more scared of them when hellbats are mixed into the fray (luckily for Zergs, the recent hellbat nerfs have made this timing impossible). DRG's late third base resulted in him not even nearly having the roaches needed to repel the onslaught, and he tapped out of a quick game.

The second game also saw an aggressive opening from jjakji, this time in the form of proxy reapers. The MVP Zerg defended it without too much trouble, and followed it up with some roach pressure while taking his third. He did moderate economic damage before backing off, and the game stabilised as both players macroed up and got the upgrades they needed. Throughout this, DRG was pressuring jjakji with his roach hydra ball, eventually adding vipers in. Several engagements went extremely favorably to DRG, and eventually he overwhelmed jjakji with his roach hydra viper ultralisk composition.

Game three showed off a new version of the 10 roach aggression Zergs such as Hyun like to put on Terran players. DRG combined it with burrow, which can now be researched on hatchery tech, and despite making an enormous blunder by accidentally cancelling it when it was close to finished, the attack still did huge amounts of damage. Jjakji eventually stabilised and harassed DRG with hellion drops, killing off a decent number of drones. However it was not enough, and while jjakji tried to break DRG's roach hydra army with a large marauder based force, DRG had no trouble in holding it off and put himself a single game away from qualifying.

Jjakji was not to be outdone in the early aggression department and opted for an 11/11 build the next game. While he didn't do much damage, he forced a large amount of zerglings which slowed DRG's tech and economy down significantly. Jjakji took his natural off the back of this and walled off with four barracks, intending to hit a combat shield timing attack. It did huge amounts of damage, killing off DRG's third right as it completed, and from there jjakji went for the safe option, going home and taking a third of his own. DRG was forced to go all-in to try and recover, making a massive amount of banelings to try and bust through the wall. However, multiple bunkers and siege tanks were too much and the series went to match point for both players.

In the final game, DRG finally got a chance to use his beloved mutalisks. After opening with a 10 pool and delaying Jjakji's mining, he went for an extremely quick spire off two bases. Jjakji was intending to hit the same timing he had in game one, but having scouted the spire changed his mind. He produced enough marines and widow mines to drive back the mutalisks, and DRG responded with the only logical answer: More mutalisks (?). Jjakji was stretched to the limit trying desperately to fend off DRG's harassment, which seemed to hit nearly all his bases all the time. Jjakji finally got the defense he needed to keep the mutalisks and zerglings away and pushed out with a maxed marine tank force. To this, DRG had no answer and despite throwing wave after wave of muta ling bane at the NSHoseo Terran, jjakji's control was too good and DRG was forced out of the game. Jjakji had qualified for his first foreign event in a long time, and if this series is anything to go by he has a good shot at getting deep in MLG Dallas.