T v T

My favorite moment from MLG Anaheim had to be the following. It wasn't any of the matchups, but rather this statement.

Mr. Bitter says to Husky while casting a game.

"I just looked up at the other screen to see what everyone was yelling about, and it's a T v T, and I'm so glad that we aren't casting it."

The Genius Terran

When I first started following Starcraft 2 last year, I would regularly vent about the gap between the legendary status of some players and the level of play that they would sometimes exhibit. For example, although Julyzerg is now my favorite player, the first games I saw him play didn't impress me. The same went for Fruitdealer who was a god in the first season of the GSL, but has since struggled.

One such player who did not impress when I first heard of his legend was oGsNada, the Genius Terran from Starcraft 1. Known as the most consistent progamer, a golden mouse winner and an all around nice guy. The legend didn't seem to manifest at first. This does not mean I didn't think he was a good player, but rather I found myself trying to discern what of him was real and what was hype.

Yesterday while I was watching the VODs for the North American Starleague which began this past week, I saw some of the greatness of Nada. He was playing against SixJaxDde, another Terran, and the series was split 1 - 1 heading into the final game. The final was on Metaloposis and while the game seemed close with similar builds (marines, siege tanks, one or two banshess and finally vikings and medivacs), dde pulled into a serious lead when Nada threw away the bulk of his forces while attempting to break the marines and siege line of dde. Dde, smelling his lead quickly struck back at Nada's third base, inflicting some serious damage and preventing him from mining. Nada, barely held on to hold the line, while dde expanded. When dde withdrew from Nada's third, the floating command center of Nada was landed in his high yield, and he moved his tanks over to attempt to defend it, cramming them into the high ground and the xel'naga towers. Dde with his tank and supply lead slowly pushed into Nada's high yield base. Nada, far behind on bases, money and production facilities, made a brilliant decision which eventually won him the game. While keeping his meager tank force around his high yield, he took almost his entire marine force and dropped them into the main of dde, where all of his production facilities were. The stimmed marines started destroying everything in sight: barracks, the starport, factories and eventually supply depots. Dde, decided to return to his base to deal with the massive drop, leaving the map to Nada, who quickly moved his siege line ahead, and stabilized his side of the map. Dde, tried to rebuild his production facilities in the grass in front of his natural.

It was almost as if a huge crack had appeared in the world. In just a few moments, everything was different. Nada had been losing quietly, sadly and slowly and suddenly he was on top and his victory was almost certain.

The incredible thing about watching Nada play was his macromanagement, something which is the mark of the greatest players. Dde had a much better economy than Nada and always had more money, and so some might see that has Dde playing a better game. But Nada's low money meant that he was managing his economy far better, never letting his money pile up, but always spending it constantly. That puts him in danger if he takes a huge hit to his economy or his army, since he doesn't have alot of money to bounce back right away. But it means that even when he is down, in the long run he can outlast his opponent. He is using his production facilities to their maximum advantage, not overbuilding anything, but only exactly what he needs.

GSL Finals

I have to admit, I was let down by finals of the GSL last weekend.

I was all excited and pumped up, I even decided to write about the GSL in my column in the Marianas Variety this week just to share even a faint engram of how excited I was. My brother's friend had GSL watching party, where we had pizza and endured the incredibly long and mind-numbing interludes between matches, only to watch TSL_Rain get completely outplayed by OGSMC. There wasn't really a lot of suspense, although there were some interesting plays.

I got the feeling that most people expected Rain to act like Bitbybit and simply all in rush every single game, but I felt like he was straining against that and trying to prove himself to be a bit more than that, and as a result a sort of cautiousness crept into his play. He made the unusual move of going siege tank against protoss in his first two games, as if to prove he wasn't one of those kaduku taisensia na all in freaks, he brought some siege, some marines and medivacs and would bunker like crazy just outside of MC's base. He wasn't rushing but trying to blockade. In both instances, his timing was a bit off. Although he had no way of actually knowing it, MC had already expanded in both games, the first to his protected natural, the second to a hidden base, and so the blockade didn't work since Rain was stuck on one base. In both cases he didn't press effectively, and so MC was allowed to come back.

This is not to say that Rain is not a great SC2 player. You don't get to the finals of the GSL by being lucky or super-cheesy. You have to have alot of skill just to play at that level. But you could definitely see Rain's newness in his play. He started off in a way that seemed to doubt himself and to doubt his style of play.

In the 3rd match, Rain was able to come back by playing with the mind of MC and tricking him into thinking he was going to go two barracks when in fact he was going for the infamous partial "Tasteless Build" to rush out cloak banshees.

In the 4th match, MC almost completely mindf-cked Rain by doing the cheesiest most despicable rush possible where you build your gateway in your opponent's main, pylon on 7, gateway on 8 and then just chronoboost out zealots to tear the base to shreds. The map was Steppes of War which is one of the smaller maps ideal for quick and brutal rushes and I like most people watching was anticipating a super fast Terran Rain rush, but MC shocked everyone (ko'lo'lo'na Si Rain) by rushing his attack before Rain had even built his supply depot.

The 5th game, was the final, although it was very close. Both players got attacks into each other's bases at the same time. Rain snuck blue flame hellions into MC's base and took out all his probes. Rain tried to defend off a zealot-immortals-stalkers-sentry force which invaded his main but could not. It was somewhat close, but ultimately Rain's command center could not escape as it was surrounded by sentries and stalkers picking it off.

OGSMC is a great player. The way he picked apart LiquidJinro in the round of four was so brutal it should have come with a warning for people watching. But I was disappointed that one of the more macro players did not make it to the final to make the last games more epic. It seemed that many players had practiced techniques to try to kill your opponent in that first timing window when they expand, or get them with some sort of blitz tinigong before they are even ready for aggression. I was glad that at least one of the final games (game 2) went to an epic level, with nearly all bases taken and so many things happening at once not even the commentators could keep up. I hope that in the next tournament however there is a good mixture, because the first layer of strategy, the mind games which take place at the very start can be fun to watch, but there is nothing more satisfying than a game which pushes the limits and endurance of both players and the audience by going far beyond what you could imagine at the game's start.