DreamHack
Winter 2013

Brackets and standings on
Liquipedia

by Waxangel

Summer of TaeJa? After DreamHack Winter, "Year of TaeJa" may be the more accurate phrase. Liquid's Terran ace went on a blistering run through DreamHack's year-end tournament, winning nine consecutive series to capture the championship. His finals opponent was the only other player in the tournament to go nearly undefeated in Startale's Life. TaeJa had defeated Life on day two to send him down to the losers bracket, but Life made short work of the upstart Patience to earn a chance at revenge in the grand finals. However, TaeJa proved to be Life's better once more, defeating him 4 - 2 to seize the title.

DreamHack Winter is TaeJa's fifth major title on the year, and it is also his most impressive. His wins at HomeStory Cup and ASUS ROG had been criticized as being too easy, not having enough of the top tier Koreans to be impressive. At DreamHack Winter, TaeJa took out a veritable who's who of modern StarCraft, including sOs, HerO, INnoVation, MMA, and the aforementioned Life. He ended the tournament undefeated in series, having gone 8 - 0 in the tournament.

TaeJa also achieved a personal goal of finally winning a $20,000+ finals grand prize (the exact sum was 200,000 Swedish Kronor). Despite having won seven tournaments prior, none of them offered the kind of big money of DreamHack's annual grand finale.

In a year where few players have been able hold onto the seat of "best in the world" for long, TaeJa has at least taken a temporary spot on that seat. With the 2013 tournament year wrapping up, it seems likely that he will keep that title until the arrival of a new year and new tournaments.


Game One - Frost: The first game saw both players agree to a straight up duel, securing expansions and gearing up for a fight in the mid-late game. For a while it seemed like Life could take advantage of the far apart, diagonal starting positions with his trademark counter-attacks, but TaeJA make sure to keep his backdoor locked and bases secure. Life soon found himself in danger as TaeJa started marching across the map during the transition to a hive army. While Life did manage to survive to produce ultralisks, brood lords, and infestors, he was unable to accumulate them in significant numbers before the Terran infantry came charging in. TaeJa's army stomped over the motley array of hive units to take the first game.

Game Two - Polar Night: After losing to TaeJa in a standard match in game one, Life hit back in game two by winning in the strangest and most improvisational of games. Neither player bothered to scout as they went for a proxy 2 rax and proxy hatchery respectively, and the situation quickly broke down into Life going for offensive spine crawlers while TaeJa turtled up and teched to tanks.

While TaeJa successfully cranked out enough tanks to defend the attack and clear out the offensive hatchery, Life ended up ahead nonetheless after buying plenty of time and delaying TaeJa's natural with heaps of creep. Deciding there was no use to dragging the game out, TaeJa pulled his marines and tanks across the map for an all-in attack, but GG'd out after Life defended handily with roaches and zerglings.

Game Three - Yeonsu: The third game played out in yet another different way, this time with TaeJa playing standard macro while Life went for hyper-aggression. A two-hatch mutalisk rush was followed by mass muta-ling baneling busts, but TaeJa held fast against Life's attacks while slowly accumulating an upgrade advantage from his two engineering bays.

It seemed all but over for Life once he let Taeja hit 2/2 infantry upgrades without having done any meaningful damage with his attacks, but in typical Life fashion, he worked miracles with constant backdoor attacks to keep himself in the game. Unfortunately for Life, his brilliant play only amounted to an a delaying action. TaeJa cleverly set up a mass widow-mine trap at one of his expansions, waiting for Life's mutalisks to bite. When Life inevitably did, losing a giant chunk of his mutalisk flock, it only took one final parade-push for TaeJa to end the game.


Game Four - Derelict Watcher: TaeJa and Life decided to go at it in another macro-duel for the fourth game, playing fairly standard openers as they geared up for a late game fight. Life was able to work his magic with backdoor attacks once more, using speedlings to hamper TaeJa's economic growth, all the while surging ahead on upgrades with fast double evolution chambers. When it came time for the pivotal marine-mine vs. muta-ling engagement, Life's 2/2 army was able to decisively crush TaeJa's 1/1 troops to take the game.

Game Five - Whirlwind: Not surprisingly, the expansive and wide open Whirlwind saw both players go for a straight up macro duel yet again. Life looked to repeat the pattern from the previous game, getting fast evolution chambers and pulling ahead on harvesters with some effective zergling runbys. However, he found himself caught off guard once TaeJa started rallying his troops toward Life's base, hitting before mutalisks or zergling speed. A few highly efficient skirmishes from TaeJa allowed him to destroy Life's fourth base, but he didn't let up the pressure there. A constant stream of marines and widow mines marched toward Life's territory, taking yet more efficient engagements. Eventually, Life was simply worn down by the constant pressure, and GG'd out.

Game Six - Bel'Shir Vestige: With his tournament life on the line, Life opted to play straight up, and TaeJa was more than happy to oblige him.

Using his reaper-hellion-banshee opener to take a small advantage, TaeJa was able to capitalize by bringing out a powerful bio force to destroy Life's fourth base before the StarTale Zerg was ready to defend. Life seemed to be in deep trouble as he was on equal bases with a Terran, but adversity once again brought out the best in him. Some lowered supply depots here and some out of position marines there were all Life needed to spring his counter attacks, taking chunks out of TaeJa's SCV line and buying himself invaluable time.

Yet, TaeJa never became flustered as Life threatened to claw his way back into the series, and kept his focus on the main objectives. He slowly secured his defenses, all the while making sure Life could not take that all-important fourth base. Slowly but surely, Life started to run out of steam economically, while finding less holes in TaeJa's defense to exploit. TaeJa slowly rolled his economy and upgrade advantages in unstoppable push, which Life engaged in a desperation engagement before surrendering the championship to TaeJa.

Writers: Waxangel.
Screens: DreamHack
Editor: Waxangel.