Starcraft 2 news » WCS - Chile Nationals Recap

Last month, SC2LA.com concluded their eight-phase online qualifier tournaments. After many epic battles with hundreds of players, eight slots were earned by the best players that participated in the World Championship Series: Chile Nationals.

This past weekend, the Chilean Nationals took place at the O’Higgins Park in the city of Santiago. It was first for the Chilean community: a dedicated, day-long, StarCraft II event! It would prove to be an explosive set of matches that the community will always remember.

It Begins!

The event began at 10:00am and, for the next 10 hours, the most amazing StarCraft II matches in Chile took place including players from well known teams such as Felipe “dignitas.KiLLer” Zuñiga, Alejandro “Isurus.SenDoh” Villaseca, Gaspar “xLs.Cruza” Rossel and Diego “Nrg.Darkness” Garces.

The crowds included Peruvian and Argentinean spectators that flew to Chile to enjoy the tournament, or root for their teammates. Excited fans held signs with the names of their favorite players, rooting for them during their matches.

“We even had a Human-Horse spectator! Something we don’t get to see every day.”

 Memorable Moments

One of the most emotional moments of the tournament occurred when NrG.Darkness defeated RoH.Kieds in the loser bracket and his mother came onto the stage to congratulate him for being able to win a paid trip to Brazil at such a young age.

Down in the loser’s bracket, the action was heating up when NrG.Darkness suffered a wrist injury. Fortunately, the medical team fixed him up, and he promptly decided to continue playing. Once again, he made the crowd go crazy with his awesome blink stalker micro and defeated xLs.Cruza allowing him to play against dignitas.KiLLeR in the finals.

The Finals

When the final matchup began, dignitas.KiLLeR went up against the now very popular NrG.Darkness. The first game was an easy win for dignitas.KiLLeR after NrG.Darkness decided to put two forward pylons to port zealots and rush into the zerg base while expanding, but this greedy opening didn’t work well for him and during the mid-game, dignitas.KiLLeR’s roach ling army overwhelmed his stalkers.

The second and final match began, and the unexpected happened, NrG.Darkness produced a mothership! 200/200 supply armies clashed all over the map, with a combination of blink-stalkers, colossi, zealots, archons and a mothership battled corruptors, infestors, broodlords and zerglings; however, KiLLeR managed to take map control and command his army very well, while Darkness decided not to rebuild a third mothership, which ultimately handed KiLLeR the tournament undefeated.

We want to congratulate dignitas.KiLLeR, NrG.Darkness and xLs Cruza who will share the $2,000.00 USD prize pool and won their tickets to the South American Finals.

After the tournament concluded, we had a chance to interview the 3 players that won their ticket to the  World Championship Series: South America Finals. This is what they had to say:

Felipe “dKiLLeR” Zúñiga

Where are you from?

I am from Antofagasta, Chile

How did you get into StarCraft II?

I got into StarCraft II after playing the original StarCraft for many years, after my last StarCraft tournament (Pan-American WCG 2010) I started to dedicate my time into StarCraft II.

What did you think of the Nationals?

The nationals were a lot better than I thought, I was really surprised, it’s easy to see the growth that we have been having in Chile and the amount of people that come and support these types of events, also there are new players that became well known lately and that is very good for competition.

Anything you’d like to say to people in your home country cheering you on?

Thanks to all the people that went to support me and will keep supporting me during the south American finals, I promise to give my best and obviously I hope to win so I can represent us in the Global Championship in Asia.

Diego “Darkness” Garcés

Where are you from?

I am from Talca, Chile

How did you get into StarCraft II?

I joined the iCCup in December of 2008 to play team matches with my school friends and they got bored of the game during summer vacations, I was alone so I started to play 1v1 and there I knew some people that introduced me to the competitive StarCraft scene with a replay of Stork vs Jaedong.

How do you plan to practice for the finals?

I think that Wednesday I can take off the cast according to what the doctor said, so from that day on I will use all my free time out of school to practice and study replays.

What did you think of the Nationals?

The nationals were very fun and I liked the event a lot despite my injury, I met a lot of people and we had a very good time, it was amazing!

Anything you’d like to say to people in your home country cheering you on?

Greet them all and thank them a lot for their support and for all the cheering messages I’ve been receiving and I hope they show their support during the continental finals.

Gaspar “cRuZa” Rossel

Where are you from?

I am from Santiago, Chile

How did you get into StarCraft II?

Since I was a kid I was amazed by StarCraft so I dedicated to play it, then StarCraft II came out and of course I started to play it too.

 How do you plan to practice for the finals?

Train hard versus players that are better than me, because the only way to learn is losing and losing games.

 What did you think of the Nationals?

I found it amazing; there was very good organization by the SC2LA.com staff, the only problem was the internet connection at the event, sadly I lost some games because my micro didn’t work with the lag spikes from time to time.

Anything you’d like to say to people in your home country cheering you on?

Thanks to all the people that have been supporting me in this process, without the support of those wonderful people I wouldn’t be able to achieve this, I hope they will keep supporting me and from my side I will try not to disappoint them in Brazil.