Starcraft 2 news » WCS Global Finals - Day 1 Recap

The first two days of BlizzCon have already cemented it as one of the most memorable tournaments in recent memory, with upsets galore and expectations defied. The surprises continued unabated throughout the Round of 8. Elazer flexed his ZvP prowess as he dominated ShoWTime, while Dark cut down foreign hope Neeblet with merciless flourish. ByuN continued his inspirational journey as he bested TY and Stats barely edged out his friend and mentor Zest.

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In the first game on Frozen Temple, Elazer showed no fear in challenging his opponent to a macro game. Early on both players opted to poke and prod instead of committing to a full-on fight. Elazer came out ahead with his Overlord drops, and converted that into a strong Zergling/Baneling/Ravager army. ShowTimE attempted to knock the Zerg with a strong push composed of Zealots, Archons and Immortals, but was swamped by his enemy's production. With his faster units Elazer slowly ground his opponent down with Zergling runbys and better unit trades. Weary from the constant harassment and trading, ShoWTimE lacked the necessary resources to counter the Brood Lord switch.

On King Sejong Station, ShoWTimE elected to bring the pressure much earlier. He teched very quickly to Dark Templar and got an early Warp Prism for Archons. Much like the first game, Elazer deflected these sneaky attempts and came out in a secure economic position. In response he chose a very funky strategy: using the much-neglected Swarm Host, he bombarded ShoWTimE's natural with Locusts. His Protoss opponent was caught completely off-guard. By the time he composed himself for a counterattack, his army was too small to defeat Elazer's massive force. He was subsequently crushed and forced to tap out.

ShoWTimE decided he would take a different approach on Galactic Process. Subterfuge would have to do. Like the previous two games, he feigned a macro game with some early harassment. Instead, he went for a very powerful Adept timing attack as soon as his third Nexus finished. Elazer was fooled into thinking his opponent was going to be passive, and neglected to build Roaches nor Banelings. ShoWTimE crashed into Elazer's natural with overwhelming numbers and quickly secured his first win.

Dasan Station promised more opportunities for ShoWTimE's mind games, except Elazer went for shenanigans of his own. Taking the early gold as his natural, he chose to end the game early. The Polish Zerg amassed a huge swell of Zerglings and assaulted ShoWTimE's entrances in conjunction with a Queen drop. The German opponent could not handle being attacked in multiple locations and was forced to make some severe micro errors in his desperation. Elazer never relented in his attack and eventually ShoWTimE abdicated the game (and the series).

The former SKT Zerg entered the series as the unanimous favorite, but few viewers expected he would deliver such a vicious mauling. Out of respect for Neeblet's late-game strength or disdain, Dark wasted no time to establishing his dominance on Frozen Temple. Neeblet tried to set up a strong Adept push with fast Resonating Glaives, but Dark blindsided him with a fast roach bust. He took out the army, the natural Nexus, and most of Neeblet's tech before he was rebuffed. From that point onwards it was a matter of tightening the noose. Everything Neeblet tried to do to get back into the game, from Dark Templars to Adept runbys, failed to work and Dark eventually conquered with a stronger army and superior tech.

Things looked better for the American hope on New Gettysburg, as he easily secured his natural and third bases without much issue. Initially it looked like he was in control of the game as Dark didn't actively challenge his map control or Oracle harass. However, Dark had no intentions of letting the game go late. Once again he opted for an all-in play, this time with Speedlings, Banelings, and Queens in Overlords. He caught Neeblet's army at his third nexus before his production could kick in, decimating probes and army alike. Neeblet found himself with no units and no defenses against the encroaching horde, and had to gg out.

Down 0-2, Neeblet had to pull something out of the bag on King Sejong Station. His ploy here was a double Archon drop to exploit the architecture of the map. Dark impeccably defended his bases, only trading Zerglings, and Neeblet was unable to inflict much damage on the Zerg’s economy. Fortunately for Neeblet, Dark decided to fall back on his predilection for the lategame. This time the American Protoss got the opportunity to play the midgame unimpeded, and opted for the standard but strong Zealot/Archon/Immortal composition. Neither side made a decisive move until they were nearly maxed. Then Dark, boldly morphing 14 Lurkers in the middle of the map, rushed to Neeblet's fourth base and burrowed them right next to the Nexus. Caught without an Observer, Neeblet immediately lost half of his army and the base soon after. From there it was a short time until he conceded the match.

Starting from fairly standard openers, this game on Frozen Temple developed into a scrappy back-and-forth battle. At first TY seemed to be in the clear lead after ByuN botched a Tank drop, allowing TY to counterattack and cancel ByuN's third. However, ByuN gradually erased his disadvantage by outmaneuvering TY in the Viking and Tank wars. After fending off TY's attempt to ransack his third, both players resorted to patiently waiting for an opening in their opponent's armor. At one point, they ended up trading bases: critically, TY lost a huge portion of his army in taking out a Planetary Fortress. This allowed ByuN to constantly threaten TY's fourth with his main army while sending an expeditionary force to camp TY's production. Unable to make more units and unable to protect his last mining base, TY had to concede.

King Sejong Station opened in almost identical fashion. The main difference was that after ByuN's failed Tank drop, TY didn't get tugged around like a kite in the wind. ByuN managed to recover with a productive double drop and , but TY came out with the better trades. The fatal blow came when TY backstabbed ByuN while the latter was sieging TY's natural, killing the natural CC and a large number of SCVs. Desperately, ByuN shoved his entire army into TY's natural and tried to camp the production. Thanks to superior upgrades on his Marines and good Siege Tank positioning, TY rode out the rocky situation and gradually whittled his opponent's army into nothingness.

Both players seemed evenly matched going into Apotheosis, so ByuN chose to use his world-famous micro to exploit the map. He dismissed the possibility of playing another macro game for proxying 3 Barracks near TY's main. TY was completely surprised by the 3 Rax Reaper strategy and barely managed to cancel his natural Command Center in preparation for the defense. TY frantically used every unit at his disposal to hold off the attack, including Hellions and a single Viking. But ByuN's control was too crisp and TY couldn't trade efficiently enough to end the fight. Once he gathered 5 Reapers, the end was all but assured.

Galactic Process was the next, and ultimately final, map. For the first time in the series, TY elected to be the aggressor and tried to surprise ByuN with Cloaked Banshees off 1 base. It might have worked too if ByuN had sat back. Instead, he challenged TY's Reaper/Hellion squad with his own and ended up scouting the Starport as he bullied his way into the main. TY lost his initial advantage and 7 SCVs before killing the scouts. Seeing no other way to win, he pulled workers with his entire army for a 1 base all-in (oddly enough, with the Cyclone upgrade). Unfortunately, ByuN had used the opportunity to make Cloaked Banshees of his own. TY's army was snuffed out before it could even get up the ramp, and his SCVs back home had no detection to fend off the incoming Banshee.

The two former comrades started their deathmatch on New Gettysburg, with Stats opting for the faster nexus instead of the standard 2 Gateway opening. He used his economic advantage to set up a strong timing attack with Resonating Glaives, but his Adept/Stalker/Immortal army failed to do any significant damage. He failed to scout Zest's fast third in the process, leaving him in a grim situation. Fortunately for Stats, both players got into a base trade scenario. Zest had a slightly better army but Stats had better decision-making, and he picked off Zest's army piecemeal while it was ravaging his base. Zest gamely tried to stall the game out, yet he had only one-fourth of his opponent's army size and not enough minerals to build a single Pylon.

Galactic Process proved to be more charitable for Zest. Instead of dealing with the perils of a PvP macro game, he simply proxied a Twilight Council and Dark Shrine. Stats didn't bother scouting while he teched to Stargate, and he sadly sent his Oracle out to do the standard harassment. Without a Robotics Bay and his Oracle disastrously out of place, Stats had no choice but to surrender once he heard the fateful whoosh of the DT's scythe.

Zest's reservations over playing long games continued on King Sejong Station. Once again he tried to catch Stats with his pants down, this time with a proxy Stargate. However, Stats opted to open with defensive Stalkers instead of Adepts and the Oracle ended up doing little damage. Both players ignored decisive attacks in exchange for tenuous pokes with Blink Stalkers, electing to tech up instead. Zest tried to end the game with a powerful Stalker/Adept push, but arrived at Stats' base just as the latter started making Disruptors. Instead of hitting Stats at a weak moment, Zest was crushed by superior Blink micro and Disruptor shots. From that point onwards, Stats slowly cemented his advantage. He accumulated a larger force, destroyed Zest's third without suffering damage in return, and ended the game looking like the dominant player.

PvP being the matchup that it is, Stats only enjoyed his victory for a brief moment. He looked anything but a world-class Protoss on Frozen Temple, making some critical errors unfitting of a player of his caliber. He went for a Blink Stalker timing, only to discover that he had forgotten to research Blink. He tried to throw Zest off with multiple attacks in different places, only to lose one-third of his army in a rout. Meanwhile Zest played calm and collected. All his moves made sense and proved to be good decisions. While he lost a major battle in front of his third he sniped Stats' third in response, putting Stats in a tough position economically. The final blow came when Zest assaulted Stats' fourth, baiting his opponent into several Disruptor shots that effectively ended the game.

The final game of the night was on Dasan Station, where Elazer had already pulled off a rather odd yet daring rush to win his series. With everything on the line Zest chose to make the same gambit. Going for a very fast Robotics Bay, he flew out with Disruptors in a Warp Prism to assault Stats' gold expansion; from there, he tried to bum rush the natural with an Adept/Stalker all-in. Against a lesser opponent it would have probably worked. However Stats remained composed and waited for his Blink to finish, relying on Overcharge to soften up the main army. As soon as he saw Zest's Disruptors in a vulnerable position, he pounced and killed one of them. Combined with two Immortals, Stats cleaned up the opponent's army and immediately counterattacked. Outnumbered and outgunned, Zest had no choice but to gg.