Dreamhack Valencia Grand Final

Everyone who missed last night's grand final of Dreamhack Valencia actually missed a great and exciting series.

Especially when keeping in mind that finals often end up being somewhat anti-climatic, so it was extra nice to see a tense final series that didn't disappoint.

The final was a BO5 between the two korean terrans ForGG and TaeJa.

ForGG snatched the first two sets, but then TaeJa made an impressive comeback and tied up the score to 2-2

The fifth and deciding set was on Metropolis.

They both went up to two bases rather quickly with ForGG setting up for some mech play and TaeJa doing a hellion into bio build.
TaeJa sneaked a couple of hellions into the mineral line of ForGG's natural, right as ForGG had moved a bit out on the map. He killed some SCVs but not a whole lot.

Around the 10-minute mark ForGG did a nice tank/marine/viking push where he sieged up below TaeJa's main and then used his vikings to gain vision of the high ground. With this he was able to take out some of TaeJa's add-ons and force TaeJa's to move some of his production buildings. He also killed a good amount of TaeJa's units but couldn't push further as TaeJa also had sieged up tanks.

TaeJa eventually got stim and some more tanks and ForGG was forced to retreat while taking some losses on the retreat. While TaeJa pushed ForGG back he could safely take his third base.
A few minutes later though, ForGG once again pushed with a big viking/tank force. This time he couldn't get all the way to TaeJa's base and for a while their tanks battled in the center with ForGG having the vision advantage with his vikings but TaeJa on the other hand having a big bio force that constantly tried to catch ForGG's tanks unsieged.
While this was going on ForGG tried to take his own third.

ForGG moved back and sieged up between his natural and third and this caused TaeJa to try and use his mobility and sneak around from the north and snipe ForGG's third. TaeJa did manage to kill some SCVs and a few tanks that were unsieged but eventually ForGG pushed him up in a corner and took out the part of TaeJa's force that had been invested in the attack. Luckily for TaeJa, being the agressor had allowed him to take a fourth base as well so he was up one base.

ForGG decided to do a big push with his mech force as he was at max supply and once again TaeJa used his mobility advantage and this time was able to take out ForGG's third, but not without taking some heavy losses.
But at this point TaeJa was on 4 bases and ForGG only on two so all TaeJa needed to do was defend. ForGG had part of his army outside TaeJa's natural trying to get in while also moving around on the map with his hellions. Once again there were a lot of hellion vs. tank engagements in this set, as it was actually the case of the entire series.
I've never actually seen hellions take on tanks so many times and actually win as I did in this series.

ForGG could not really break TaeJa or move in and take out any of his bases as TaeJa had sieged up tanks in all the right places. At the same time TaeJa used small parts of his bio force to prevent ForGG from expanding again and therefore TaeJa kept being up two bases.

Eventually ForGG was forced to try a push that was never going to work as it happened completely on TaeJa's conditions and after that attack ForGG was down 40 supply and two bases so he GG'd and TaeJa claimed the victory and the championship.

TaeJa vs. ForGG = 3 - 2

All in all a fantastic tournament with norwegian zerg TarGa probably being the biggest positive surprise and the koreans once again being somewhat dominating.

Next stop on the Dreamhack tour is Bucharest, which will occur in the end of October.
We can't wait.

TLO showing some manlove and hugging teammate TaeJa after his victory

TaeJa celebrating by pouring champagne on a big crowd of cheering nerds

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 RO 16 Recap

Most of the favorites managed to advance from the RO 16, but there were still a few surprises in there. Vortix beat Violet 2-0 which I guess was a bit of an upset, but with the way Vortix has played ZvZ lately, it wasn't that big of a surprise.

Another small upset was perhaps that TargA knicked home-favorite Lucifron out of the tournament, but TargA has truly played fantastically in this tournament and he really did so in this series as well.


Our favorite series in the RO 16 was between SaSe and Moon and it was a really close series with each claiming one of the two first sets.

The third and deciding set was on Cloud Kingdom and a very back and forth game.

After both players had taken their third Moon put on a lot of pressure with roaches by poking at Sase's third and ramp to the natural.

Moon then did a massive roach drop in SaSe's natural while attacking at the third and even though SaSe controlled his units quite well he still took massive damage.
So SaSe lost a ton of probes but with regards to army Moon lost way more than Sase. And after Moon's huge aggression SaSe was far behind in economy and supply, but he still had a pretty powerful army.

Moon invested a lot (perhaps too much) in constantly continuing the aggression while taking two expansions. SaSe though kept defending really well with his army and practically surviving with all his army units in every engagement. Because Moon threw away a lot of army supply SaSe's army was suddenly a lot bigger.
Moon though still had a way better economy. So Moon tried to delay SaSe's army from moving out by doing run-bys and so forth. But SaSe's played perfectly by sending the right amount of units to different expansions while putting pressure on in the middle.

In the end Moon had absolutely no answer for SaSe's army, and was forced to GG.
So SaSe took a win in a really cool game and series overall and moved on to the RO 8.

SaSe vs. Moon = 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

Thoughts on Tasteless' casting

Let me start by saying that I am and have been a huge fan of Tasteless' casting ever since the first time I heard him cast. His great sense of humor combined with his relaxed style of analysis was a big part of what got me into watching Starcraft 2.

Lately though I haven't enjoyed his casting quite as much, and I've actually heard the same from a lot of other people.

In my opinion this is a terrible shame since I believe he has the exact skills needed in order to draw new viewers to SC2.

It's been obvious for some time that Tasteless' analytical knowledge of the game in many ways is quite inferior to that of Artosis, and many other casters.

In my opinion this is not the problem though, cause Tasteless has never seemed to be as analytical as for instance Artosis, but instead has had his own more casual style, which is also part of what makes them a great combo.

Lately though it has felt even more like Tasteless simply isn't keeping up with the constant strategic developments of the game, making his analysis often seem irrelevant or simplistic, at least to all us hardcore SC nerds.

At the same time though it feels like Tasteless has been somewhat aware of people's criticism against him not being analytical enough. In my opinion this has caused him to spend a lot of time stating useless strategic stuff or repeating Artosis' analysis when casting.

And this gets me to my main point.

Tasteless is in my opinion one of the absolute most grounded and interesting guys in the entire community (without knowing him in real life of course).

To me he actually seems to rest within himself A LOT more than many other prominent people (including players, casters, bloggers and so forth) in the community.

This is also a big part of what makes him seem like such an appealing caster and human being.

I also believe that this is why his jokes, analogies and stories have always seemed so funny in an original way that few people can copy without seeming extremely fake.

The skills that Tasteless possesses are in my opinion extremely valuable in a niche community like SC2, which it in a lot of ways still is.

In fact I believe he is one of the people that actually has what it takes to truly push the game towards becoming mainstream entertainment.

And the problem is that this entire discussion isn't adressed enough.

A lot of people and players often just criticize Tasteless of being a bit analytically incompetent, but I think the community, as well as Tasteless himself, needs to start realizing the necessity and beauty of just being entertaining when casting.

In my opinion Tasteless should just focus a lot less on complicated analysis and a lot more on entertaining the viewers.
On "Real Talk" Tasteless himself says that Artosis and him used a lot of energy on preparing jokes or comical stories when they started working for GomTV (Interview with Tasteless on Real Talk).

I think he should focus on this as he really is one of the few people that can do so without being a complete phony.
Which is partly due to him actually being able to make fun of himself and not always needing to seem "cool" when he is on camera.

If the Starcraft community is to keep expanding it's reach for non-playing Starcraft viewers, then the perfect style of casting would be one that truly incorporated both entertainment and the analytical side.
For instance by having one really analytical caster, and one really entertaining caster who could perhaps then also explain the game to noobs.

I know some people often compare Starcraft casters to casters of other established sports, and with this in mind state that SC casters must be serious and analytical in order for the scene to appear professional.

But the truth is that Starcraft is a lot different from most sports and also a lot more complicated to newcomers. Besides, most casters of other sports are in my opinion quite boring compared to most SC2 casters.

I believe the generation that watches SC2 in some ways are a lot more culturally developed, especially with regards to incorporating humor in everything they do.
Therefore SC 2 should of course also represent this when it comes to casting.

I could go on rambling about this forever but I won't.

The truth is that I have an insane amount of respect for Tasteless and I feel pretty sure that he will always cast in the way that he feels the most comfortable with.

But I just think it's a shame if people eventually grow tired of his casting simply because of his analytical flaws, when in truth, he might exactly have what is needed for this community to grow.

Tasteless should just allow this side of himself to flourish on camera simply by not holding himself back.
Perhaps he should even spend some more energy on preparing "jokes" or "analogies", since they actually often end up giving a healthy perspective to the game.

But that's just my opinion anyway...

General update

So this weekend the 2012 Dreamhack Open: Valencia will take place.

If you haven't seen it they did a pretty cool trailer for it a while ago: Dreamhack Valencia 2012 Trailer

64 great players (mostly europeans) will battle for the 22,000 $ prize pool along with the honor and seeds for the Dreamhack winter.

We feel that it's a bit sad that our local hero FXOBabyKnight wasn't invited to Valencia, even though he just finished in fifth place at the WCS Europe finals, but I guess there isn't a lot we can do about it.

Anyway, of the europeans competing, besides Stephano we would say that home favorites Vortix and Lucifron should probably be expected to go far.

But as usual the small bunch of koreans participating will make it hard for any of them.


Oh and btw don't forget to vote for BabyKnight here: GSL world championship - european poll

You can vote until sunday and he desperately needs your vote. Currently he isn't in the top 16 which he needs to be to qualify for the tournament, where the 16 players with the most votes will battle for the chance to represent the world against korea.


And if you didn't have a chance to go the WCS Europe Finals last weekend and experience what many people called the most awesome SC2 event so far, here are some cool pictures for you that our friend Jack Heinonen took at the event.

GSL Season 4 - Round of 16 - Group D

Well maybe yesterday's group was the RO16 group of death, but today's group was pretty damn sick as well.

IM_Seed (reigning GSL champion), StarTale_Life (best playing zerg in this season's GSL so far), IM_Happy (very deadly Terran who won his group easily in the RO32) and TSL_Symbol (one of the absolute most scary zergs throughout the last 6 months).

Seed and Symbol were probably the favorites but that didn't mean it would be an easy task for them.


The first series of the day was between Seed and Symbol.

First set was on Cloud Kingdom and Seed tried to do a big 2 base push with a voidray/sentry based army.
Symbol however was able to snipe Seed's single forward pylon and Seed decided to take his third instead. So it ended up going very late game, with Symbol eventually taking the victory after using neutral parasite on Seed's mothership. This enabled him to use a vortex on half of Seed's army and thus pick the two halves apart one at a time winning Symbol the set.

Second set was on entombed valley and Seed did a big push with a lot of blink stalkers and sentries and was able to take the game with superb blink micro and force fields.

Third and deciding set was on daybreak. Seed used good phoenix play to harras and eventually when they had a big engagement around the 20-minute mark Seed threw down perfect force fields and took care of Symbol's infestors with his phoenixes and from there on his army was much bigger and he took the game and the series.

Seed vs. Symbol = 2-1


Second series was between Happy and Life.

First set was on Abyssal city. On of the great things about Life's play is his movement on the map with zerglings and once again he constantly moved around with them always posing a threat with potential run-bys and so forth.
Around the 20 minute mark Life sneaked a big bunch of banelings into the mineral-line of Happy's third and took out almost all of the SCVs.

This on top of some other good harassment gave Life the lead he needed to get the perfect Broodlord/Infestor composition that he adores so much. When he finally attacked, Happy's army was crushed and Life thus took the first set.

Second set was on Entombed valley. In many ways it was a lot like the first set and Life once again controlled the map and was able to get up to his infestors and broodlords.
Once again he crushed Happy in the big engagements and was finally able to push up Happy's ramp with broodlords and banelings/zerglings streaming in, and Life thus took the series in dominating fashion.

Life vs. Happy = 2-0


The third series was between the winners Seed and Life.

First set was on Antiga Shipyard. They both got up to three bases and then Life decided to push at Seed's third, after having lured out a lot of forcefields first. This attack dealt some damage but was in no way devastating

Seed then went for a big counterpush not really having lost that many units. Having already taking his fourth in the center, Life felt he had to engage and defend at the center.
For this engagement Life had a lot of Infestors, but not enough support for them, and Seed's Colossi melted the infested Terrans and Seed took the game.

Second set was Abyssal City.
Life went up to three bases and Seed went for a stargate and some 2 base aggression. He placed a pylon below Life's main and then flew in with a voidray, which enabled him to spawn zealots and sentries on the high ground in Life's main.

It was a really cool move that could have almost killed Life if Seed had been effective with his forcefields on the ramp. It was certainly his plan to forcefield the ramp and prevent Life's reinforcements from helping out, but he missed them and Life's was able to bring queens and roaches from the natural and deny Seed's agression.
Life then went for a big counterpush, which Seed could not defend against having invested too much in the attack. Life thus took the set.

Third and deciding set was on Entombed valley. Seed went for some early two stalker agression  at Life's natural while expanding, and we've seen Seed take out a queen or drones with this before but it didn't really do any damage in this game and he was forced to return home

Generally Life just has a cool way of always putting lots of different kinds of pressure on and in this game he did a ton of overlord drops. Seed was ready with stalkers most of the time though.

Life really loves building spines while getting his perfect infestor/broodlord force. Around the 19-minute mark Seed pushed at the spines, but Life's finished enough broods in time to defend and Seed was forced to retreat. On top of that all the roach drops had bought Life time to recharge energy on his infestors which is a pretty cool style of delaying the opponents push.

Instead Seed invested a lot in some warp prism-drops but Life was on top of things with his infestors and the drops didn't do much damage.

Life however was able do some very cool infestor drops which was a lot more succesful, with the infested terrans taking out tons of probes.

Eventually the game went into a basetrade scenario in which they both did massive damage at each other's bases. But Life had tons of spines everywhere and Seed used quite a lot of army supply dealing with them.
Having cleaned up most of Seed's buildings, Life then returned home to his base with his superior army and took care of Seed's army.
So Life ended up taking first place in the group and OMG that kid is nasty good.
And he is born in 1997! Crazy shit...

Life vs. Seed = 2-1


Fourth series was between the losers of the first two games, Symbol and Happy, fighting to avoid elimination. We weren't able to watch this series but Symbol took the series as most people had probably expected he would.

Symbol vs. Happy = 2-1


Last series of the day was between two of the most promising new players this year, Seed and Symbol and it was a fucking epic series with both of them battling their hearts out to stay in code S.

First set was on entombed valley and wasn't actually that great a set, and at this point we actually felt pretty sure that Seed knew exactly what he needed to do in order to take out Symbol.
Especially after having taken the first series of the day against him.
Anyway Seed looked quite dominating in this first set and was able to control it throughout. He eventually pushed at the exact moment before Symbol got his Broodlords out and Seed thus won the game.

Second set was fucking insane and it was definitely the best game of the day in our opinion.
The game was on Daybreak and most players seemed keen on playing a long game from the start and they both got up to a good 4-base economy.
They both did try different kinds of harass though including a fantastic immortal drop by Seed that took out Symbol's greater spire (which was in the midst of an upgrade)

From here the game went into a classic split map situation. Seed tried engaging at different areas but was never really able to truly push on Symbol's infestor heavy army and was constantly forced to retreat again.

After having pushed Seed's army back a bit Symbol went for some big harassment with broodslords from the space attacking into Seed's main doing quite a lot of damage.

Seed then tried to counter harass by doing a really nice double warprism harass in Symbol's main which also did a lot of damage. (the double warp prisms were needed to get past Symbol's massive amounts of spores)

None of their harassment was game ending though and at this point Symbol had about 50 spines on the map. Seed decided to push at Symbol's base in the top left corner since Symbol only had around 9 spines there and Seed was able to snipe it. Symbol did retake it immediately afterwards though.

At some point Seed decided it was time for some real action and he pushed at Symbol's center base.

Symbol didn't like this at all so he decided to do a big counter attack with his brood lords once again into Seed's main.

Once again though their big attacks weren't gameending and both armies retreated after doing some damage. Around the 35- minute mark there was a constant threat of a big engagement between Symbol's infestor/broodlord army and Seed's carrier/mothership army, but none of them dared engaging entirely.

Instead Symbol went for another big push with broodslord into Seed's main, this time deciding to continue the attack and not retreat and he took out Seed's entire main easily.

Around the same time Seed decided to counter push with a big bunch of stalkers into Symbols' main which they were also able to take out rather easily.

Symbol had taken out Seed's main and headed for Seed's natural where Seed had been forced to return with his main army to try and defend.
This resulted in a really cool and big engagement that included a vortex that Symbol managed to avoid really well.

Symbol however, had placed a nydus in Seeds main and was therefore able to bring all of his infestors which allowed him to land superb chain fungals on Seeds army.

This meant Symbol came out on top of the engagement that left Seed with only two carriers while he himself still had around 15 broodlords.
This resulted in a small and cool broodlord chase by the two carriers.

They both had great economies though and Seed decided to to remax with voidrays/stalkers/zealots.
whereas Symbol remax'd with broodlord/corrupters and a TON of infestors.
When the final engagement finally arrived Symbol threw out an infinity of infested terrans that took out Seeds army completely and Symbol claimed an epic set that had been nearing the 50-minute mark.

The third and deciding set was on Cloud kingdom and a bit anticlimactic as it wasn't as exciting as the second, and included a few mistakes on both sides.
But at this point both players were probably somewhat exhausted.

Symbol did a big 3-base roach push at Seed's third while it was building. Seed had a lot of sentries and Symbol was able to take all of them and get Seed to cancel his third giving Symbol a big lead.

This allowed Symbol to take his fourth and get a lot of infestors out.
Seed retook his third and later as he tried securing a fourth he also went into a heavy carrier production.

He definitely must have wanted to show Blizzard that their choice to keep carriers in Heart of the Swarm after all isn't a bad idea.
At this point Symbol was at five bases and although Seed tried to deny symbols fifth with warp prisms he couldn't do it. Symbol controlled the map too well and when Seed instead tried to take his fifth Symbol denied it.
Symbol then went for a big broodlord push at Seeds natural, but Seed was able to chase away the broods with his carriers

From here they both got the exact composition they wanted, Symbol with a corrupter/broodlord/infestor army and Seed with a carrier/mothership/archon/templar army.
When they eventually engaged in one final battle Symbol just crushed Seed's army. Mainly because of a neural parasite on the mothership and chain fungals on all the carriers.
And with that Symbol had pulled off a massive comeback and knocked out the reigning GSL champion.

Symbol vs. Seed = 2-1

All in all an epic day with two zergs advancing, neither of whom will be stopped easily.
In fact we feel pretty sure that most players in the world would rather date Cthulhu for a year than face one of these two players right now.