ASUS Rog GD Invitational Round Up!

[Includes spoilers from ASUS Rog GD Invitational]

So over the weekend I spent a pretty fair amount of time watching Starcraft, not an excessive amount but more than I have been able to watch in quite a while. Although I caught a few games from the WCS Asia Finals, I had no really interest in following it properly as it was pretty PvP and PvZ heavy and so I followed it mostly on Liquipedia.

What I did spend my time watching was the ASUS Rog GD Invitational - a small European 8 man invitational with a $10,000 prize pool. Going into it I think it was probably fair to say that Thorzain, Lucifron and Mana were the names people were really looking at to come out of this with the first place prize.

Well, the whole tournament wasn't full of upsets but there was definitely a few surprises; many of those welcome at that. In Group A Thorzain got off to a flying start to the weekend  going 3-0 and showing some fantastic decision making and mind games against Ret with his uses of 11/11 raxing. Nightend and Lucifron also came out of the group, leaving Ret to finish in last place going 0-3 and being one of two players who would not get to play on day two.

It was unfortunate - while many would have expected it to be a toss up between Nightend and Ret to have dropped out due to Lucifrons recent WCS dominance and Thorzains reputation as a top foreigner it was actually a lot closer than it might sound. Ret lost 2-1 in all of his games, and looked very solid throughout, unfortunately losing out after having some large leads in certain games. Sometimes Ret is a top end player and sometimes he doesn't show anything this special. This weekend he was an unfortunate top end player.

Group B was where the upsets really started to come. Fresh out of Korea Mana was ready to show off his new learned skills from spending over a month away practicing. A few hours later and he had gone 0-3 in his group. Again, he lost every series 2-1, but after being fresh out of Korea I think many people would have expected something a little bit more spectacular against the likes of Kas, Elfi and TLO. At least the TLO people remembered.

TLO turned up and gave us some of the most innovative Zerg strategies we have seen for a long while. I myself despise the endless repetition and staleness of ZvP - the choice of 2 base all ins or mass macro from both sides doesn't catch my interest. But TLO showed us something special this weekend. Some games he just made perfect reads, scouting Kas taking late gas and punishing it with a Baneling Bust to end the game before the greed kicked in. Others he just gave us things we never expected to see.

TLO with Innovative and Refreshing ZvP strategies

As you can see above, he really did pull out all of the stops. Using Nydus Worms in particular he was able to fend off Manas Immortal/Sentry timing as well as take out Elfi's front. When casting his games Thorzain stated everyone was scared of TLO - and who wouldn't be? This guy wasn't afraid to use new strategies that others wouldn't be comfortable dealing with and that is probably why he went 3-0 in his group, dropping only 1 map to Mana.

This concluded the first day, but before we talk about the second day I'll just mention how awesome this tournament was in terms of production. Now honestly, I don't usually care so much about production. If there's an advert screen on then I don't care, I can find other things to fill my time for a few minutes. As long as I can watch the game with decent audio and video quality I'm usually happy.

But this tournament took the extra step and made full uses of its situation. Between series switches were filled with numerous interviews with players - which was perfect. Too often I find that time-fillers are forced and unnecesary, literally just trying to tick the box of not having an "Ads In Progress" screen. Player interviews are the perfect way to get around this and I was glad to see the GD Crew taking advantage of the format of their tournament in this way.

So onto day two! There isn't as much I want to say about day two really - Kas and Nightend played out a pretty good TvP series (especially Game 3) in the quarter finals and Thorzain went on to take out Kas in some very beautifully played TvT Marine-Tank wars. The real story was in the lower half of the bracket - not only did Elfi 2-0 Lucifron but he also got revenge on TLO and took him down 3-1 in the semi-finals, abusing his hatch-first centric play with cannon rushes in two games.

Elfi is a player who was renowned for his PvP for a long time - I remember one IEM MrBitter describing him as "jumping in joy" when he got put up against JYP in the RO16 - something only a madman would do when other foreigners were mixed in. People view him as a relatively cheesey player - but this weekend he started to tell the haters that they were wrong, as he showed us some great macro games against Lucifron.

Then he got into the finals and sort of kicked all that to the side and resorted back to his good old ways of all ins. Two worked, but only two as he ended up losing 3-2 to Thorzain. A bit of an anti-climatic finals, even though it went to all five games, and personally I would say (although it is probably biased) that the better player won at the end of the day - though a big congratulations to Elfi who definitely made a point this weekend.

In conclusion this weekend had everything - interviews, upsets, break throughs, innovation and pretty much anything else you could have asked for. Hopefully this was only the first of many GD Invitationals!

NASL Season 4 - Drama and Upsets

[Includes spoilers of games from Week 1-4 of NASL S4]

Yesterday Reddit exploded when this thread containing a Tweet from Naniwa about NASLs scheduling hit the front page. Pitchforks were out in full force in outrage that NASL were "incompetent " at scheduling games and letting players know about reschedules.

It all began when SelecT took a walk over against Naniwa when Naniwa didn't show up for his game - even though the NASL admin had told him the game had been postponed. The complete story is long and slightly complex so I won't get into it, but it can be found in the Reddit thread. What truly made this drama interesting was that when Xeris replied on behalf of NASL, people didn't suddenly go "Ohh that's why" and drop the matter - no. The response was full of faults and contradictions and didn't turn the spotlight away from NASL - if anything it was confirming the fault of NASL and saying that they were not going to take responsibility.

NASL is a fantastic league - 4 games a night for 5 nights a week with a combination of the best players in the world and the freshest up and comers makes for a great viewing experience and I often find it being my stream of choice as I fall asleep when I'm having a late night in the EU. Walk overs have always been an issue, anticipated matches being cancelled / postponed is never ideal, but in a league which works the way NASL does it is sometimes necessary to talk the hit and award a walk over.

Recently however it seems more and more players are not showing up for games and more postponements are being made than ever. Last night was the first day of week 5 and already there have been 6 walk-overs and 10 games that are yet to be played that should have been played by now (from Liquipedia at time of writing). Thats 20% of all games this season that have been delayed or will not happen. Some of these are due to completely legitimate reasons - players are travelling around the world to attend tournaments after all - but when it is a singular BO3 that needs to be played you would think NASL would get onto trying to keep this number a lot lower than it is.

They can of course not do anything about a player not turning up when the game was scheduled - but even discounting the given Walkovers that is still over 10% of games which have not been played this season due to rescheduling. NASL is a fantastic league - but is it really exciting and thrilling to watch and follow your favourite players if they are frequently not actually playing? I'll leave that question for you guys to decide.

To end on a lighter note however NASL definitely brings us viewing time of some of the greatest new up and coming talent in Starcraft 2 - which also makes for some fantastic upsets. Admittedly cross-server play is never the best to make judgements from, but in Week 2 ROOTs Terran player Masa took out aLive 2-1 - something more or less everybody did not see coming.

Leagues which promote these newer players are always great  - a breath of fresh air is always welcomed - and the format of NASL gives any new player who qualifies a lot of viewing time over many weeks - exactly what you want to give your team and yourself when building your SC2 profile.

GSL Semi-final Day!

[This post includes OSL semi-final spoilers]

So today it's the RO4 of the GSL and there are two awesome Best of 5s incoming!

First up Rain against MVP - a match that could have easily been the finals had they been on opposite sides of the brackets. Rain has been dominating lately and the only time he has really looked a bit shaky was in his OSL semi final just yesterday coming back from 3-0 down to beat Last 4-3. Last dominated with early and mid-game plays, before Rain came back in style in strong macro games.

This gives MVP a great upper hand - he's just had 7 fresh games of Rain's PvTs to study to find gaps, weaknesses and timings. If anyone is going to be able to take down Rain in this Season's GSL it'll be a player such as MVP - one who will not be afraid to change up his styles of play while always executing his strategies at the highest of standards. I really think MVP will be dictating the pace and styles of these games and anyone who has the time to watch it should not be missing it!

Then there is TaeJa vs Life - a TvZ between one of the most dominant Terran players in recent months and a Zerg who has quirky and aggressive strategies - and is not afraid to use them. Now let's remember Life just went 3-1 against MarineKing in a series where Life punished MarineKing for being too aggressive multiple times - something TaeJa should have been able to picked up on if he has really studied the games.

TaeJa is going to have to play safe - Life's inclusion of all-ins are frequent and if TaeJa lets himself get too greedy and unawares then Life is going to be able to take one or two easy and fast games. TaeJa will probably be looking to open Hellion Banshee - what else is really standard and repeatable in TvZ these days? - and will change his style up, moving between Marine-Tank and Mech. So Life will be in control in the early game and it'll be down to TaeJa to battle through and drag it (as crazy as it seems) to the mid-late game, where I really think he has the strongest chance against Life.

Four players in two amazing BO5s - only two can go through to the final. Will Rain keep up the hopes of  dual OSL and GSL win? Will MVP be aiming for his second GSL title this year? Maybe TaeJa is finally going to go all the way now he has finally made it out of RO8 - or maybe Life is going to show why he has been the up and coming Zerg to pay attention to. It all starts in just under an hour - good luck to all!

Lucifron vs Select in the Poker Strategy League

So it's time for my first post actually related to Starcraft! Hopefully this will give you guys a bit of an idea on what there is to come from this blog and whether you actually want to spend time following it! Todays post is going to have spoilers from the PokerStrategy League Select vs Lucifron games, so do not read on if you do not want it to be spoilt!

As mentioned, today I'm going to talk about a fantastic set of ten games I got to cast between Lucifron and Select a week or so ago for the PokerStrategy League. The final score was 7-3 to Lucifron after going on a 6 win-streak to come back from being 1-3 down after the initial games on the NA Server. If you want to check out the games then you can watch the VODs by SCVRush.

Proxied Factory by Select

The series is full of exciting games and definitely worth giving a watch, even if you only have time to watch one or two of them. There are numerous hyper-aggressive Terran styles displayed by Select, varying between gas first and 13 gas openings primarily but using these for a huge variety of builds, with everything from Cloaked Banshees through to proxied Factories. A couple of games also included a more macro orientated style, but it was mostly Lucifron going for economy with Select looking to do early damage.



Lucifron pulled out the largest variety of builds, variations of CC first and early expand builds and gas openings were mixed frequently to give him a large advantage when it came to being unpredictable and unreadable, something Select didn't quite have with him on the day. When you use a gas opening for 7 or 8 out of ten games apart from on the larger maps such as Whirlwind your opponent is going to catch on pretty quickly what is going on and Lucifron definitely used this to his advantage, rarely being surprised or caught off guard by the agression of Select as the series went on.

Select opening with an aggressive gas-first build

So why was Select so predictable with his aggression? The importance of having the ability to mix up your strategies and styles has been discussed hundreds of times with players such as TaeJa, MVP and MKP always coming out with extremely strong macro play mixed in with deadly all-ins executed to near perfection. When MVP won his GSL title this year he was able to go from a style involving a heavy amount of Battlecruisers into a proxy 2 rax in the space of a game. This potential to change between the highest tech and the simplest, cheapest units and workers is what makes these players great.

Obviously Select loves his aggressive play, he uses 2 rax play in TvZ frequently, but in a ten game series there has to be a reason to favour an aggressive style even when your opponent shows that he is able to hold off and defend these styles. Yet Select refuses to open with gasless play game after game. One could suggest that it's for safety, not wanting to lose by being caught off guard by a 1 base play from his opponent, however I feel this isn't the reason. It's a ten game series - in such a multitude of games you can't play safe all the time, you need to take some risks and try out different styles.

Lucifron and Select open with mirror builds

Select even showed that he is capable of pulling off well executed Macro builds such as on Whirlwind, where both players opened with a mirror build of CC first into gas. So why did Select refrain from using more macro orientated builds if he has them in his arsenal and his aggressive builds weren't working? Well the answer really shines true in the exact game I just mentioned, on Whirlwind. Lucifron just straight up out-macroed Select and denied his expansions with beautiful army positioning and movement.

Lucifron was taking advantage of the map, taking a lot of CCs and expanding aggressively, while still keeping ahead of Select on army in terms of numbers and upgrades. This was a theme than rang true throughout the entire of the series - Lucifron always seemed to be going into the mid game with some sort of lead - with better upgrades, a faster third base or just generally with more units and production. Often times this lead was gained from the brilliant defence against Selects early aggression, but even on Whirlwind with mirror builds Lucifron found himself to be ahead on upgrades and with his third base mining a lot sooner even though Select had his built earlier.

It was this story throughout the series that made the series so fascinating to me - the way that Lucifron seemed to just be scaring Select into early aggression builds for fear of going into the late macro game with him. Select was definitely not confident enough to step away from his favoured style and it really felt as though it cost him this series.

Lucifron deals the killing blow to Select on Whirlwind with superior upgrades and positioning - always one step ahead

So here are my three personal favourite points of the series so that you can maybe have some help in picking out which games to catch!

At number three is the tenth game of the series due to Lucifron's cloaked Banshee coming in and killing almost everything in the main base of Select while taking damage to his own mineral line at home. Lucifron's great decision making to move across the map with his marines and wait for a viking to clear up Select's Banshee really decided the game as once the marines joined up with the Banshee in the main of Select there was nothing left to do but for Select to try and run away before throwing out the gg!

Lucifron's Cloakshee and Marines chase last few units of Select out of Select's own base!

Next up involves Select's proxy factories! But it isn't the game from Daybreak in which Select easily shut down Lucifron's early greedy play, it is actually the second time he tried this on Cloud Kingdom in map number 6. It was a very similar situation with Lucifron once again going for a Command Centre first and Select going for a proxy Factory and Starport into siege tank push. What made this moment so special was the way in which Lucifron just adapted his previous response and executed slightly better to hold the same push. Lucifron would go on to win this map after the huge lead from this point.

Lucifron adjusts his strategy to break free of Select's siege-tank all in

My favourite play of the entire series was by Select in game number two on ESVMuspelheim. Select opened with a proxy marauder play which did not work out too well and got even worse for him when Lucifron's counter attack with Hellion-Marine-Medivac did a lot of damage to Select's economy. Select was always behind however he made great attempts to claw his way back into the game and especially with one move where in a split second he spotted Lucifron's army, moved his tanks up to the high ground and out of vision and sieged before watching Lucifron lose a massive chunk of marines to numerous tank volleys. Sadly this wasn't enough for Select to come fully back into the game, but the split second decision making was a beautiful site to see.

Select with great split-second decision making and positioning takes out a huge amount of marines

So that's it for my first blog post! I hope you enjoyed the read. Not every post will be this long, there will be other posts which are shorter with less pictures and more just about my thoughts! So please do keep coming back and checking in on what I've been up to in Starcraft! Until then good luck + have fun!

Starting Up!

Hello!

For those of you who don't know me I am Wardi and this is my new blog! Dedicated to the world of Starcraft 2 I will use this blog to bring attention to new strategies, great games and helpful tips all through a mixture of my own insight from streamed games or my own ladder matches!

Since creating the practice group and channel SC2Improve around 9 months ago I began working avidly to bring content to players to inspire them to both play and improve. Through this time I have learned how to stream, casted professional games as well as reaching my own personal goal of being promoted into Masters.

I'm really excited to get this new blog thing going so I'm going to take a couple of days to set up and make sure everything is looking nice and then I'll be straight onto making sure this is a blog you'll want to keep on returning to!

So until Monday or so good luck + have fun!