Dreamhack Winter 2012 - EG vs. Liquid

At this Dreamhack as well as at other big European LANs, we've noticed something that we find quite interesting.

Whenever we spot a player from Liquid they are almost always surrounded by teammates/coaches/managers and so forth.

On the contrary the EG players always seem to be by themselves.

We do not know the reason behind this, and for all we know it might be a coincidence, but it certainly feels like the Liquid players at the european LANs have a greater sense of teamspirit surrounding them.

We realize that our experience might not reflect reality at all, and might be due to the Liquid team being bigger at these events, but it still feels rather odd to witness this difference.

Actually most of the pictures we took today of the players from the two teams, reflect our point pretty well.

Thorzain by himself after he was defeated by Ret

Ret watches replay from the last game he lost to NaNiWa with teammate Hero and manager Robin Nymann

Hero in action with supporters watching closely

Stephano battling and ending the day with a score of 2 wins and 2 losses

Group B, C and D of GSL Season 5 RO 32

Unfortunately we didn't have time to do a recap of this week's group B, C and D of the RO 32 of this GSL season.

We did however watch a lot of the games from the groups so here's our quick summary of how we experienced them

Group B (Symbol, Hack, RorO and Happy)

From what we saw of this group's games it seemed pretty one-sided in the sense that Symbol dominated   the group heavily.

Symbol defeated both RorO and Hack 2-0 and thus took first place in the group.

We got to see one set of each of these matches and in both of these sets Symbol looked clearly like the better player. It just felt like Symbol was better at dictating where the games ended up going, and that is generally something you see in a lot of Symbol's games, in our modest opinion.

We also got to see the entire last elimination series between Hack and RorO and that was actually a pretty close and cool series. Hack ended up taking it 2-1, but they were evenly matched and of this group's games, the sets between Hack and RorO definitely seemed the most enjoyable.

Symbol and Hack advanced to the RO 16

Group C (Curious, Soulkey, HerO and Maru)

Once again we experienced the group as being somewhat one-sided, with Curious this time being the one that was somewhat dominating. He defeated Maru 2-0 making it almost look easy and then took down HerO 2-1, in a much closer series though.

Generally what this group made us think the most about was that we felt sorry for HerO once again.

Maybe it's just because we've always liked his style, but it just feels like he's always so damn unlucky.

This time he started out by defeating Soulkey 2-0 in a series in which he clearly looked better. He then lost to Curious as mentioned, but the experienced zerg was on fire and Hero made a few strange mistakes so we were still optimistic about Hero's chances.

In the final elimination series Hero was then once again up again Soulkey.

The first set was on Daybreak and here he once again crushed Soulkey giving HerO the 1-0 lead and at this point we felt absolutely certain that he had it in the bag.

Then Broodlord/Infestor happened in set 2 and Soulkey ended up taking it after a long basetrade. But Hero had played fantastically all through the game until the basetrade. His harassment had been perfect and he had kept Soulkey on a few bases while expanding him self so all in all it reminded us a lot about his tragic loss to Leenock in the last season.

In the 3rd set Soulkey did a 6 pool that HerO didn't handle perfectly and this gave Soulkey a lead that eventually won him the game.

Curious and Soulkey advanced to the RO 16

Group D (YoDa, HyuN, GuMiho and Rain)

Before the group was played Rain naturally looked like the clear favorite coming directly from his OSL victory. Unfortunately for everyone Rain cancelled in the last minute due to him going to Dallas for the MLG championship instead.

So we suddenly had a group of three very lucky players.

We only watched a few of the sets and from what we saw we made the following conclusions.

Yoda is better than we thought, and HyuN is worse than we thought and GuMiho is just as unstable as we thought.

We watched one of the sets between Yoda and HyuN and in that set Yoda had HyuN's game totally figured out and was able to defeat him easily even though HyuN got up to Broodlord tech.

We also watched a few of the sets from the final series between HyuN and GuMiho and in those games neither player looked particularly good.

GuMiho made some strange decisions and HyuN made some very poor engagements and threw away units in weird ways a couple of times.

But Hyun was able to take the series in the final set and thus move on, but we fell pretty certain that he would have had a harder time if Rain had been present.

YoDa and HyuN advanced to the RO 16

GSL RO 8 - Rain vs. Hero and Mvp vs. Symbol - RECAP

Rain vs. Hero (Best of 5)

Set 1 - Entombed Valley (Rain in bottom right and Hero in top right)

Hero went for early DTs and was able to take out Rain's natural expansion while getting his own up. The game transitioned into a longer game where both players got up to three bases and went for Colossi tech with 2 robos each. Hero tried some more DT harass, but not with great success.

In general Rain's robos were faster though and his production slightly ahead of Hero's and when they finally engaged, Rain had 1 more Colossus and 3-4 more Immortals than Hero. 
In the engagement Rain simply positioned and controlled his army much better and by attacking from two angles he was able to comfortably win the engagement and take the set. 1 - 0

Set 2 - Abyssal City (Rain to the right and Hero to the left)

Both focused on blink Stalkers in the early game on and then transitioned into robo tech. Rain was able to blink into Hero's main and take out his robo once again gaining a lead in the robo production.
Eventually they both went up to double robo and three bases as well.
At some point Hero managed to take a small revenge and blink into Rain's main and take out one of his robos.

This game also went late game (two PvP macrogames in a row!!!) and they both got their fourth base up with Rain though being ahead on his, as well as on upgrades. After the game went a bit back and forth for a while the game in the end came down to a big final engagement around the 32-minute mark. This time Rain had 3 more Colossi and 1-2 more Immortals than Hero and once again Rain looked a lot better in the engagement, controlling his Immortals and Colossi fantastically and he took the set. 2 - 0

Set 3 - Daybreak (Rain in the top right and Hero in bottom left)

Hero went for some early 3-gate stalker pressure into robo whereas Rain went directly for early Robo meaning that his robo was once again ahead of Hero's.
Hero's 3-gate pressure was pretty much a failure as Rain trapped his stalkers with forcefields and took them out with his immortal supported army.

They both expanded and went for robotics support bay, but once again Rain was ahead on both things.
Around the 12-minute mark when Rain's first Colossus was finished he pushed out and Hero tried to defend by using immortal/warp prism micro, but it backfired as he lost the warp prism with an Immortal in it, and eventually Rain rolled him over and claimed the set as well as the series in dominating fashion. 3 - 0

General thoughts on Rain vs. Hero

All in all a really cool and unique PvP series that showed us that the best Protoss players in the world are finally figuring the matchup out. Especially the two first sets that gave us some heavy late-game PvP action.

The series was however pretty one-sided with Rain clearly looking better in all the engagements and with regards to the build orders as well.

Hero made some small mistakes here and there, which might have been due to his infamous nerve-issues, but in the end there was no doubt about who the better player was today.

Rain lived up the hype and he definitely has a good shot at becoming the next GSL champion!

Rain vs. Hero = 3 - 0

Mvp vs. Symbol (Best of 5)

Set 1 - Abyssal City (Mvp to the right and Symbol to the left)

Their opening builds were something like this:

Symbol: Hatch first > Pool > Gas > Zerglingspeed > 3rd Hatch > Roach Warren > Roach-production
Mvp: CC first> Rax > Factory > Starport > Techlab > Bunker > 3rd CC > Cloak > Banshee-production

Mvp tried different kinds of Banshee+Hellion harass some of which worked pretty well with him for instance killing Symbol's roach warren and around 10 drones.
The game transitioned into mid and late game with both of them taking additional bases and Mvp going heavy mech and Symbol aiming for a broodlord/infestor composition.
Meanwhile they both did different kinds of harass like Mvp killing overlords with vikings and Symbol doing effective zergling run-by into Mvp's third.

Eventually Mvp grabbed a fourth base and then pushed and took out Symbol's fifth. Symbol retook the fifth while Mvp took his sixth.
Symbol used burrowed Infestors to take out Mvp's sixth with infested terrans, but at the same time Mvp pushed and took out the fifth and fourth of Symbol.

Symbol tried to retake some bases, but Mvp denied all his attempts and eventually starved Symbol out forcing him to a final engagement just before the 30-minute mark. Symbol though had no way of breaking the scary fully upgraded mech army with his inferior remaining forces which consisted of mainly Infestors, so Mvp took the set. 1 - 0

Set 2 - Daybreak  (Mvp in top right and Symbol in bottom left)

Symbol went hatch first again and this time Mvp tried some bunker aggression at his natural. Symbol scouted it and pulled lots of drones though and denied the aggression, and from there both focused a bit on their economy. Symbol went up to three hatcheries and Mvp took his natural while getting a third CC in his main.

This game Mvp went for bio+hellions with double e-bay and Symbol geared up for a heavy early/mid-game all-in with Roaches/Banelings/Zerglings.
Around the 9-minute mark Mvp evacuated his natural after scouting Symbol's incoming attack. Mvp tried getting bunkers up in his main, but Symbol broke open the wall with banelings and eventually overran Mvp's main with zerglings and roaches winning Symbol the second set. 1 - 1

Set 3 - Antiga Shipyard (Mvp in bottom left and Symbol in top right)

Symbol went hatch first, zergling-speed, 3rd hatch and then a roach warren whereas Mvp went CC first and from there went for reactor'd hellions + banshees and eventually a 3rd CC as well.

They both tried harassing each other in different ways as the game transitioned into mid-game with Mvp trying a number drops, most of which were deflected immediately by Symbol, who on the other tried a few run-bys with zerglings which Mvp deflected as well.

Eventually Mvp pushed across the map with a Marine/Tank force, but Symbol defended well in the center with nice fungals followed by banelings. About a minute later though he threw away 4 Infestors for nothing when he tried to do a counter-attack.

Mvp then pulled of a quick and effective push that took out Symbol's third, while wisely adding 2 extra starports anticipating that Symbol was going for quick Broodlords.
Symbol took a fourth the top left corner and a fifth in the bottom right corner, but when Mvp finally pushed towards Symbol's main the poor Zerg player was far behind in supply and didn't really stand a chance.
He had a few broodlords and landed some good fungals, but that was nowhere near enough and Mvp took the set. 2 - 1

Set 4 - Ohana (Mvp in top left and Symbol in bottom right)

Symbol went for some semi early 2-base 9 roach aggression that could have potentially dealt a lot of damage as Mvp quickly had taken his natural as well as built a 3rd CC in his main. Mvp however scouted it just in time to lift up his natural and get a bunker down on top of the ramp to his main.
Symbol's roaches fried some of the repairing SCVs, but eventually got cleaned up.
A short while later Mvp went for a counterattack with around 7 hellions and he killed some drones, but neither of their initial attacks had done that much damage.

From there they both took their third bases with Mvp though clearly being in control of the game.
Mvp simply showed great macro skills and while they were both on three bases he quickly got ahead of Symbol in supply. Mvp also did some annoying drops while eventually pushing with Tanks/Marines and taking out Symbol's third. Symbol retook it, but in the meantime Mvp already had his fourth up and running.

In this game Symbol had once again gone for a pretty quick hive this time though going for a Infestor/Ulralisk composition. Once again Mvp denied Symbol's attempts to get a fourth or fifth base while Mvp himself got an insane amount of production facilities.
Symbol was eventually forced to do a big engagement in the center and he did clean up Mvp's forces, but Mvp already had a new army in production whereas Symbol himself could in no way keep up with the production.

In the end Mvp practically just kept sending units towards Symbol's base and Symbol could not withstand and was forced to GG. 3 - 1

General thoughts on Mvp vs. Symbol

In general this series was rather one-sided as well. And even though there were a lot of times were Mvp wasn't exactly dominating, you still never got the chance that Mvp was truly threatened. Especially since Symbol's only win came with his baneling bust.

Watching the series it was very apparent just how much more experienced Mvp is. At least in the sense that he just always looked so damn well-prepared when he plays the GSL, and that is pretty important in a tournament where players always have time to prepare.

In conclusion Mvp doesn't seem to be tired of winning and the semifinal between him and Rain will probably be the toughest series that has ever been played in SC2.

Mvp vs. Symbol = 3 - 1

Recommended games of the day:

Set 2 between Rain and Hero 

Set 1 between Mvp and Symbol



Finally for some light humor in the end.

Between the two series Artosis made the joke that he thought Matrix 2 was better than Matrix 1! Tasteless didn't get that it was a joke instantly and we'll leave you with the bewildered look on Tasteless' face as he for a second or two thought that his best friend was actually a complete retard...

GSL code S round of 8 predictions

Today the first two quarterfinals of season 4, GSL code S, will be played and they are potentially both some pretty epic matches.

The first one is SKtelecom_Rain vs. Liquid_Hero and the second one is LG-IM_Mvp vs. TSL_Symbol.

With regards to predictions, most people we've talked to (and teamliquid.net as well) expect Rain to win the first match and Mvp to win the second.

This is quite understandable since Rain without a doubt reigns as the most hyped korean right now with him so rapidly improving that it's actually insane.
And when it comes to Mvp, well he is just Mvp. And you never really feel like betting against him do you?

However, we at the The Starcraft Stalker are going to go with our hearts today and say that we think/hope that Hero and Symbol advances.

It will be hard for sure, but we dreamt that Hero were to become the champion of the next 7 GSLs so of course he will make it.
And Symbol?
Well he is just a symbol, and a symbol cannot be defeated. Go watch Batman if you don't believe us...

GSL Season 4 - RO 16 Group B - RECAP

So today's GSL Round of 16 group, was group B which consisted of coL_Heart, StarTale_Squirtle, Liquid_Hero and FXOLeenock.

Even though our average win rate prediction (see post below) suggested that Heart and Squirtle would advance from today's group, we have to admit that we ourselves were probably rooting more for the other three players.

Squirtle vs. Heart

First set was on Whirlwind with Squirtle spawning in the top right and Heart in the bottom left.

Heart did a greedy quick 3-base macro build and Squirtle eventually went up to 3 bases as well, but was behind in economy throughout most of the game.
Heart tried to break Squirtle's third base many times with his lead in army supply, but Squirtle won all the engagements while also doing very effective Zealot harass at Heart's third.
When Squirtle finally did a big counter push he crushed Heart's army and took the set.

Second set was on Antiga Shipyard with Heart in the top right and Squirtle in the bottom left.

This time they both went up to two bases both of them going for double upgrades.
Squirtle was a bit slower with his colossus tech than in set 1 and Heart tried hard to put on heavy aggression with his 2-base bioforce and he managed to do a very effective 4 medivac drop taking out Squirtle's main nexus.
Squirtle on the other hand won a big engagement in the center a short while later and from there they both went up to three bases.

Around the 16-minute mark Heart did a massive push that took out Squirtle's third just before Storm had finished. Squirtle though in the meanwhile harassed Heart's third and took out all his SCV's.
So in the end neither was practically mining and it came down to a final engagement where Squirtle stormed all Heart's vikings and afterwards melted Heart's remaining forces with Colossi and storms winning the Protoss the series.

Squirtle vs. Heart = 2-0

Hero vs. Leenock

First set was on daybreak.

Hero did a Forge-Fast expand and then tried a cannon rush at the third of Leenock.
Hero ended up investing heavily in it building 4 cannons and 2 pylons, but Leenock managed to safe his third so at this point Hero had wasted quite a lot of minerals.
Hero then went up to 7 gateways and tried a timing attack at Leenock's third where Leenock also had his macro hatch. Hero took out the macro hatch, but Leenock once again managed to save the original third.
Now Leenock was far ahead in economy and Hero quite late tried to take this third to catch up.
But Leenock produced a massive amount of roaches along with a few infestors and he just started sending waves towards the natural and third of Hero eventually outlasting him and with that Leenock took the set.

The second set was on Cloud Kingdom.

Leenock went for some 3-base mutalisk play, but hero did a warp prism zealot drop that took out Leenocks spire so his mutalisk count stayed at his initial 12.
But his mutalisk still gave him map control and he was able to take a fourth and fifth base while keeping Hero home on the defense.
Hero eventually pushed out and took out Leenock's fourth but in the meantime Leenock was going up to a infestor/broodlord composition.

When Leenock had around 12 broodlords Hero managed to do another successful warp prism harass that took out Leenock's greater spire, and at the same time he pushed and took out Leenock's fifth base.
Leenock then went for a big broodlord/infestor push at Hero's fourth, but Hero just barely managed to defend it.
Hero went up to five bases while denying Leenock's attempt to take a fifth. He also did a fantastic storm drop on the drones at Leenock's fourth and Leenock's economy was completely destroyed.
Leenock decided to go for a final big infestor/broodlord push at Hero's fourth and managed to take it out with Hero retreating.
Eventually though Hero reinforced and went back for an attack on Leenock's army and Hero managed to sandwich it and with good storms and blink-micro take out all of Leenock's army.
So at this point Leenock had no army or economy left and was forced to GG.

The third and deciding set was on Antiga Shipyard.

Hero went up to two bases and Leenock up to three bases without either getting bothered.
When Hero tried to take his third, Leenock pushed with a big bunch of roaches to deny it, but Hero controlled too well and managed to defend it.
Hero on the other hand pulled of a very successful warp prism zealot warp in at the main of Leenock and it killed a lot of drones.

Leenock tried different roach attacks, but Hero was on top of everything and Leenock just kept losing units.
Leenock tried to take his fourth in the top but Hero denied it with a warp prism. Instead Leenock took the center base instead, but hero denied this as well while Hero himself expanded in the bottom left.
Leenock then double expanded in the top right while going up to broodlords, but Hero once again took out both of Leenock's two new bases so he was still only on three bases, while Hero took his fifth.
Leenock once again tried to take a fourth base, but Hero denied it again while taking his own sixth base.

At this point Leenock had no mining, but a giant broodlord/infestor/queen army so he pushed towards Hero's base, knowing that he had to win the game with that army.
In the center he managed to neural Hero's mothership and throw down a perfect vortix on all of Hero's Colossi and then take them out when they spawned.
He then went towards Hero's main and with perfect army control he took out Hero's original main, natural and third base forcing Hero to retreat.
Hero still denied any attempts from Leenock to expand so Hero was still mining on three bases with Leenock not mining at all.
But Leenock just continued his push towards the new bases of Hero and in the end Hero never found an answer for Leenock's big army, and Hero was forced to GG in a cool game that he had dominated completely until Leenock's final push.

Leenock vs. Hero = 2-1

Squirtle vs. Leenock

First set was on Ohana with Leenock in the top and Squirtle in the bottom.

Leenock went for an early 10-pool attack and with that he managed to force a cancel on Squirtle's natural, but apart from that he couldn't do any damage as Squirtle got a cannon down in his main.
So the game transitioned into normal game with Leenock going up to three bases and Squirtle once again up to two.
Leenock took his fourth and Squirtle took his third (really delayed though because of a burrowed zergling).
Eventually Leenock pushed out with a max'd zergling/infestor/roach army and for a long while he just kept pushing at the natural and third constantly sending new units and he very effeciently managed to take out all the important units of Squirtle. 
When he followed up a couple of minutes later with broodlord/infestors Hero only had stalkers to defend and was therefore crushed.

The second set was on Cloud Kingdom with Squirtle spawning in the bottom left and Leenock in the top right.

Squirtle did a three base push with a good bunch of sentries that took out Leenock's fourth.
Squirtle then retreated and Leenock retook his fourth and also a fifth while going up to hive.
Squirtle took his fourth and geared up for a big timing before any of Leenock's dear broodlords could get out.
Leenock had a lot of spines at his fourth, but Squirtle's timing was perfect and his attack landed right before broodslords were done and he was able to take out the fourth and third of Leenock's. He then retreated as the broodlords came out and a short while later even managed to take out the original fifth of Leenock's exploiting the slow speed of the broodlords.

Hero took his fifth while Leenock retook his fourth and once again Leenock found himself down in bases and economy but in this game as well he still had a big infestor/broodlord army.
Leenock got a fifth base, but Squirtle denied his attempt to take a sixth, and a few minutes later also took out the fifth of Leenock with Archons.
So at this point Squirtle had 6000 minerals and 3000 gas and a really scary max'd out army.
Squirtle took his sixth, but when Leenock pushed out with his broodlord/infestor army he managed to take out the fourth base of Squirtle.
In the end it came down to a final big engagement and once again Leenock's Broodlord/Infestor/Queen couldn't be stopped. Both Squirtle and Hero (and every other protoss in the world) should be scratching their heads right now wondering how on earth that composition of Leenock's can be stopped.

Leenock vs. Squirtle = 2-0

Hero vs. Heart

The first set was on Ohana with Heart in the bottom and Hero in the top.

Hero expanded pretty quickly whereas Heart went for a somewhat fast 1-base marine/banshee/tank push (1-1-1 build).
Heart managed to catch a few of Hero's stalkers out on the map with Hero didn't have nowhere near enough to stop Heart from taking out his natural.
At this point Heart had Hero contained in the main and I think he considered leapfrogging in with the tanks, but he accidentally miss-clicked and killed one of his own tanks so instead he retreated.

He stayed on one base though and a couple of minutes later he went for a final all-in attack.
Hero had also stayed on 1 base though, and at this point he had a bunch of immortals and phoenixes out. Heart got a good siege up in reach of Hero's buildings, but Hero managed to engage perfectly with his immortals and phoenixes and he took out Heart's army and with that won the set.

The second set was on Antiga Shipyard with Hero in the top left and Heart in the bottom right.

Hero once again expanded relatively fast, whereas Heart went for a four hellion medivac drop. Hero scouted the drop though and defended perfectly in his main. At the same time Heart tried to get a bunker up by Hero's natural, but this was deflected as well.
So Heart's aggression didn't do anything at all, but he had built another CC in the meantime so the game seemed to transition into a longer game.

A few minutes later though Hero got his first Colossus out and he decided to go for a poke attack, that was in no way all-in as he was building twilight, and double forge behind it.
Heart didn't have stim and no real way of defending against the single Colossus and Hero just force fielded the ramp and he could easily take out the natural and Heart GG'd.
Hero won the one-sided game and series in very dominating fashion.

Hero vs. Heart = 2-0

Squirtle vs. Hero

First set was on Cloud Kingdom with Hero in the bottom and Squirtle in the top and actually turned out to be a pretty cool and weird game.

Squirtle did a 3 stalker into expand build whereas Hero went for a 1-base 3 gates and stargate play.
Hero pushed at the natural of Squirtle when he had about 4 Phoenixes and for almost 10 minutes it was just an insane macro game with the small engagements constantly going back and forth.
Hero upgraded +1 attack which must have been a mistake, especially since he only had two phoenixes left, but in the the micro of Hero was slightly better and eventually he was able to take out Squirtle's last units and with that the game.

The second set was on Entombed Valley with Hero in the top left and Squirtle in the bottom left.

Squirtle went for a phoenix build and Hero for a Blink stalker with observer build.
Hero went to pressure with the blink stalkers and with perfect micro he managed to take out quite a lot of Squirtle's units. After the while he decided to force field the ramp and trap Squirtle in his main, while Hero himself could safely expand.
Hero got his expansion up, but at the same time managed to blink into the main of Squirtle and take out important units like immortals.
Eventually Squirtle got a Colossus out, but Hero once again blinked in and took it out. So Squirtle had no real army and was on 1 base so that was GG with Hero definitely having chosen the best build in the match.

Hero vs. Squirtle = 2-0

So the player's that advanced from today's group were Leenock and Hero, meaning that the average match rate statistics this time proved absolutely useless.

Congratulations to Leenock and Hero on moving into the RO 8 which as you can see below looks absolutely horrible this season. Auch... you could cut yourself to death on that RO8.

Anyway, today we saw a lot of pretty one-sided games with 4 of the 5 series ending 2-0, but also a few pretty cool games.
If we had to recommend one series it would be the one between Hero and Leenock (especially set 2 and 3).

Dreamhack Valencia Quarterfinals Recap (Stephano vs. ForGG)

So all the quarterfinals turned out to be foreigner vs. korean series.

Of the four quarterfinals Stephano vs. ForGG was probably the one from which most people expected a foreigner to advance.

And in the first two quarterfinals there weren't really any surprises as they were both won by the korean.

TaeJa vs. SaSe = 2-0

TheStC vs. Vortix = 2-1

So it was all up to Stephano, but in the end his series against ForGG ended up being rather strange.

Stephano took the first set on Ohana in dominating fashion and at that point it looked like he would have no problems defeating ForGG.

The second set was on Metropolis.

Stephano went for a quick roach attack with around 7-8 roaches at the 7 minute mark and he managed to catch ForGG completely by surprise.
ForGG had gone for reactor'd helions and was building a banshee and when he finally took out Stephano last roach he only had about half the supply of Stephano.
Stephano also had 3 times as many workers as ForGG and the game should have probably been over at this point if Stephano just had played safe.

Stephano did not really play safe though and it actually looked like Stephano was just so certain that he had won the game that he had forgotten all about his usual perfect gamesense.
And when ForGG attacked with cloaked banshees and hellions Stephano defended miserably.

In the end it was almost surreal to watch how the hellions and banshees just kept killing more and more drones until in the end Stephano had nothing left and was forced to GG a game that he had actually already won 4 minutes earlier.

The third and deciding set wasn't quite as surreal but still weird in the sense that it never felt like Stephano was playing his usual confident play.
ForGG once again went for some hellion and cloaked banshee harass and although it didn't do devastating damage, it still felt like Stephano defended a bit carelessly.

Especially when ForGG attacked at Stephano's third around the 11 minute mark with both hellions and banshees. He took out far too many units and it did not look like a Stephano defense at all.

The game transitioned into a somewhat normal macro game after this, but it was always with Stephano playing from behind.
ForGG got the map control he wanted to get far ahead in bases and production.
For a while Stephano defended really well around the map with ultralisks and infestors and managed to win a lot of engagements.
But ForGG had the economy to constantly remax and eventually he got a good siege up at the ramp to Stephano's natural and when Stephano tried to break this he lost almost all he had left.
Shortly afterwards he was forced to GG and with that Stephano was out of the tournament.

So Stephano lost a series that he had practically had in his bag and whether you believe in EG curses or simply being punished for celebrating before the fat lady sings it was a pretty depressing series to watch. At least if you're a Stephano fan.
But you gotta hand it to ForGG. In that second game he just kept playing the game as if he didn't know he was behind and in the third game he actually really played well.

ForGG vs. Stephano = 2-1


Luckily for those people cheering for foreigners Targa managed to take a surprising win against Hero in the last quarterfinal. Hero won the first set but Targa showed some really cool nerve for a relatively new guy on the scene and pulled off an impressive comeback.

TargA vs. HerO = 2-1

Dreamhack Valencia Day 1 Summary

Today was day 1 of Dreamhack Valencia and oh my God did we see a lot of exciting games.

In the first group stage (RO 64) played early today there weren't really any big surprises.

Apart from LiquidRet missing out on the tournament because of a delayed plane or something, almost all the players we had expected to advanced also managed to do so.

The first group stage did result in a lot of good games and series though, and one of our favorite series was probably LiquidTaeJa vs. FnaticNightEnD.

After the first two sets the series was tied which meant they had to play a third an deciding set on Daybreak.

They both got up to three bases without getting harassed at all.
At this point TaeJa decided to go and poke at NightEnD's third with a small bio force + medivac.
This resulted in a nice little engagement where NightEnD threw down perfect forcefields to trap and kill some of TaeJa's units. TaeJa however managed to pick up some of his units beautifully and therefore avoid too big of a loss.

Around three minutes later TaeJa pushed again and this time with a a lot bigger bio army + multiple medivacs. TaeJa's army size was actually a bit bigger than NightEnD's, but NightEnD used good storms and feedback on the medivacs to get out of the engagement a tiny bit ahead.

TaeJa however showed extremely good macro skills and maxed out quicker than his opponent.
For some reason TaeJa at this point decided to pull practically ALL his SCVs for a final All-in push. This wasn't exactly a necessary all-in, but TaeJa had guessed that NightEnD at this point had started transitioning into Colossi tech, and this realisation had made TaeJa decide to try and break him before his colossi started popping out.

With this big push TaeJa managed to take out NightEnD's third easily.
From here TaeJa went towards NightEnD's natural taking out big chunks of NightEnD's army along the way.

Eventually though, NightEnD got a few Collossi out and was able to take a final stand at the ramp to his main. Here he actually managed to take out TaeJa's remaining forces, and having drawn almost all his SCV's TaeJa knew that he was too far behind and he was forced to GG.
So NightEnD was able to take a surprising and impressive win against the bad ass TaeJa

NightEnd vs. TaeJa = 2-1


In the second group stage of today (RO 32) it certainly got hotter with regards to some of the big boys having to work harder in order to qualify for the playoffs sunday.

There weren't exactly that many surprises here either though and once again almost all of the players we had expected to go through also managed to.
One of the biggest upsets was probably that Italian terran Cloud managed to 2-0 DeMusliM and with that knock the EG player out of the tournament.

Grubby was also knocked out of the tournament which in it self perhaps was a bit of a surprise. Unfortunately for him though he had landed in the same group as Stephano and TaeJa, making it the absolute hardest group. This proved too much for Grubby as he was defeated by both Stephano and TaeJa, against whom he did however manage to put up a valiant fight.

Our favourite series of the second group stage was Stephano vs. TaeJa.

They played one of the last series of the day and when they met they had both already qualified for the playoffs. This didn't mean that they weren't totally hooked on crushing their opponent though.

Besides getting the best seeds for the playoffs, there was also a lot of pride at stake in this matchup between the best foreigner in the world, and the korean with the best results in foreign tournaments over the summer.

The first two sets were really close and well-played, with one player each claiming a set.

The third and deciding set was on Metropolis and both player's seemed keen on making it an epic macro game from the start.

They both went up to three bases rather quickly.
Stephano invested alot in getting his creepspread going while TaeJa focused on hellions and banshees to get some map control.
Stephano was actually pretty good at engaging hellions with zerglings and managed to get a good surround on them a couple of times. So with his zerglings he actually prevented TaeJa from taking out too many creep tumors.

Instead TaeJa tried to deny Stephano's fourth with his banshee. Stephano however was on top of it before the banshee had practically landed a single shot. This alertness from Stephano was characteristic of Stephano's play in general as he never seemed to take any damage from drops and so forth through the series.

Around the the 15 minute mark TaeJa did his first big push but when they engaged they ended up taking out most of each other's armies leaving them at a pretty even supply afterwards.

For a very long time the game battled back and forth with Stephano at some point being able to push all the way to the doorsteps of TaeJa's base with broodlords and infestors.
TaeJa managed to defend though, partly because of good raven usage, and eventually he was able to push all the way back towards Stephanos main.
Here he got a goo siege up and at this point things started looking really tough for Stephano.

Stephano tried breaking TaeJa's siegeline a couple of times but to no prevail and eventually he was overrun by TaeJa's forces, and Stephano's 4500 banked minerals couldn't save him.
In fact a big part of his defeat in this set was due to a severe lack of gas in the beginning of the late late game which meant he at that point could no longer remax with important units after a couple of big engagements.

TaeJa vs. Stephano = 2-1

So tomorrow the 16 best players will battle in the playoffs and it's not impossible that we get to see a rematch between TaeJa and Stephano.
They certainly both have what it takes to win the tournament.
If neither of them end up taking it, then our money is on Violet or Hero.
But we'll se tomorrow