Real Time Strategy

Bracket Update 12:18AM EST

One last update for you guys. Since Blizzard is so slow at updating their brackets, I put one together real quick just so it is easier to read what has been going on.

Update 11:55EST

Looks like day one is over. Tomorrow we will get to see Savior vs NaDa, with the winner facing Zero. Due to the bracket system, I think Effort is going to take this tournament, as whoever he faces will have to beat him in two series, which will be hard. However, if there was anyone that could do it, I am still holding out for NaDa to make it to the Grand Finals, and hopefully he will give us a good series. Anyways, hope you guys have enjoyed my coverage, and I will definitely be back here in the morning to cover the rest of the tournament.

Update 11:41EST

Game three: Effort(Z) vs Zero(Z). Map: NeoMedusa.

Both players scouting in the wrong direction this time, so once again no scouting advantage for either player. Last game I just think Effort over-extended himself when he stayed in Zero’s base too long to kill off the last few Drones. Once he lost all of his Mutalisks, he gave control over to Zero and he just capitalized on that.

Both players doing identical builds, once again. This time both are going for fast expansions, followed by Pool/Extractor. I feel if the game comes down to Zergling micro Effort will win, but if it comes down to Mutalisk micro it will be interesting. Zero has really surprised me with his Muta micro this tournament. Spires go down nearly the exact same time once again. Looks like we will see mirrored units once again. Hopefully Effort does not make a mistake this time. Effort is fake rushing Zero here by running his Zerglings in and out, trying to trick Zero into setting up Sunkens. Zero has a ton of Zerglings somehow, I am not sure how he got such an advantage. Zero manages to kill a few Drones, but no huge advantage gained. Mutalisks are out for both players at the same time once again. Zero tried to snipe Effort’s Hatchery but failed, which may hurt him as he lost many Zerglings from it.

Mutalisk/Scourge micro battle going on, and just wow. Zero is looking incredible with his Mutalisk micro. Not being hit by a single Scourge yet again. I cannot believe this is happening, but it looks like Zero may actually take this game, and the whole series from Effort. Effort is not doing so great at multitasking right now as his Zerglings in Zero’s main were just attacking different buildings instead of Drones. Zero is massing a huge army of Mutalisks, and he may be looking to try and run over Effort soon. I think we just saw Effort land his very first Scourge of the entire series.

Scratch what I said! Effort is making a comeback now. He is constantly harassing Zero’s economy, and now pulling back at the right moment so he does not lose too many Mutalisks. WOW. Just in the blink of an eye, Effort sneaks in Zerglings right as Zero decided to push out. Zerglings wiped out Zero’s entire Drone force, and this time he was able to hold off Zero’s Mutalisks.

Zero GG’s, Effort moves on to the Grand Finals. Excellent series.

Update 11:27EST

Game two: Effort(Z) vs Zero(Z). Map: Heartbreak Ridge.

After Zero won his first two matches confidently on stage, this first loss had to be a huge hit to his confidence, and I am not sure if he will be able to recover from such a loss. Especially when Effort even built a Spore Colony inside Zero’s base. No advantages to be gained this time with scouting on this map, so it will be interesting to see what build these players opt for. Both players going for as close to identical of a build order as you can ask for with early Pool/Extractors. Both players going for Lair at the exact same time as well. Perfectly mirrored game so far. Looks like Effort has made a few more Zerglings, however, and he is looking to push first. Zero wins the first small battle between the Zerglings, but it appears to be nothing major. Both players putting up their Spires now.

Effort pushes in again with Zerglings and manages to break into Zero’s base, but only scores 1-2 Drone kills. Mutalisks coming out for both players now. This is going to be all about the Muta micro. Zero picks off a stray Overlord, small advantage but I dunno if it will really matter. Oh. My. God. Effort sneaks into Zero’s main once again with Mutalisks and manages to kill every single one of Zero’s Drones. Effort loses all of his Mutalisks in the process, but has Scourge at his base ready to fend off the counter from Zero. Despite being behind economically, Zero still has an army advantage as Effort is not rebuilding Mutalisks for some reason. Zero is knocking on Effort’s door, kills his Extractor. Looks like Zero may actually win this now. Effort’s Spire goes down. What an incredible come back from Zero, despite losing all of his Drones. I am not sure exactly why Effort did not rebuild anymore Mutalisks. Just bad missplay by Effort right there.

Effort GG’s, tied 1:1 now.

Update 11:21EST

Game one: Effort(Z) vs Zero(Z). Map: Outsider.

Effort scouts the right direction, Zero scouts the wrong. Should yield a slight advantage. Bost Tasteless and Artosis are predicting a win by Effort. I agree. Effort getting his Pool and Extractor slightly later than Zero, giving him a little economic advantage. Zero getting an EXTREMELY early Lair this time, looks like he is planning to try what he did against game one against Savior to try and get an early Mutalisk advantage. Effort opts for the fast expansion. Zero pushes first with his Zerglings, but Effort’s speed finishes and he chases Zero back. But Effort runs RIGHT past Zero’s Lings and races right up into his main which is very critical. Effort is pouring Zerglings into Zero’s base.

Effort TAKES OUT the Sunken Colony of Zero’s with some AMAZING Zergling micro. Holy shit, Effort just showed why he is clearly the superior Zerg in this matchup.

Zero GG’s. Crazy.

Update 11:15EST

Ok it looks like we are going to be seeing Effort vs Zero. Should be a great match.

Update 11:13EST

They just showed the brackets and it looks like NaDa>SkyHIgh, and Savior>Ret. So I am not sure if we will be watching Effort vs Zero, or Savior vs NaDa. Either way it should be exciting to watch. Looks like the stream just came back on, finally!

Update 10:55EST

Looks like we will be seeing Effort and Zero in the Upper Bracket finals here in a little bit. Now this should be a good ZvZ. Poor Savior is just too washed up. To be honest I had hardly even watched anything from Zero before this tournament, so it was shocking to me to see him winning so much. Oh well, hopefully I will get one prediction right as I fully expect Effort to take this one… Effortlessly, LOL. I’m so clever.

Game should be coming up in the next ~20 minutes.

Update 8:34EST

Game two: Savior(Z) vs Zero(Z). Map: Outsider

It will be interesting to see what Savior does this time. Zero definitely looked like the superior player in the previous game, his Mutalisk micro was perfect and he avoided nearly every single Scourge that Savior could throw at him. Game two starts off, Savior scouts the right direction this time, Zero goes the wrong way. It could possibly give Savior a bit of an advantage early game, but we will have to see if he is able to utilize it well. Savior is going fast Lair this time and it looks like he is doing exactly what Zero did last time. Interestingly enough, Zero is doing exactly what Savior did last game so far, but I am not sure if he is going for the early expansion. Savior is at Lair tech now and is putting up a Spire and a second Hatchery.

Looks like Zero is doing what Savior did last game. Slightly slower Lair than Savior, and an early expansion. Savior’s Mutalisks are coming out now and pushes back a few Zerglings that Zero was sending to do some harassment. Savior pulls a gutsy move to try and take out Zero’s Spore Colony, but loses nearly all of his Mutalisks to the Spore+Scourge, and then GG’s. Lol. Savior is looking horrible compared to what we have seen from him the past two years.

So retarded. A short, short series. And they are going back to WC3 now. This is so stupid, and I am debating even watching the rest of this stream. Starcraft is such an amazing game, and clearly has a larger fanbase than WC3, yet they still give more stage time to the horrible commentators of WC3. Speaking of Bunny and djWHEAT, of course. Oh well. I surely hope this not a preview of what is to come with SC2 and the e-sport scene here in the US.

Update 8:18EST

Game one: Savior(Z) vs Zero(Z). Map: NeoMedusa

Both player’s Overlord’s scout the right direction. Zero is going 9 Pool+Gas. Savior going slightly later Pool, no gas yet. Savior opts for an early expansion. Looks like Zero is going for a fast 1 Hatchery Mutalisk build, Zero sends 6 Lings to try and take out Savior’s expansion but Savior has an equal number of Lings+Drone and pushes Zero back. Zero is putting his Spire down really, really early. Savior has a large amount of Lings and is looking to punish Zero for going quick Mutalisks. Zero’s first few Mutalisks pop out and Savior is forced back, Savior has Spore Colonies out but Zero is able to get a few Drone kills. While Zero is harassing Savior, Savior attempts once again to push forward with his Lings and this time he runs into Zero’s base and basically suicide all of his Zerglings without killing any Drones. What a terrible mistake by Savior.

Small stand off in front of Savior’s expansion. Savior seems to not be playing at his best right now. He is still being harassed by Zero’s Mutalisks. Savior keeps trying to send small forces out to deal economic damage, but is failing miserably. Zero’s expansion is up and running and now he has the superior army, and will soon have the superior economy as well. Savior is losing a ridiculous amount of Drones to Mutalisk harassment, and this is slowly looking like the superior player. Savior was able to sneak some Mutalisks into Zero’s main and kill of a lot of Drones, but unfortunately Zero shows up with his Mutalisks and manages to kill every single one of Savior’s Mutalisks.

They are nearly even economically, but Zero is building up such a large army of Mutalisks, and Savior is failing miserably at using his Scourge to kill Zero’s Mutalisks. Savior’s main is looking fairly empty now as he keeps losing so many Drones to Mutalisk harassment. Looks like we will be seeing a GG from Savior soon. Still more Mutalisk harassment from Zero. His Mutalisk micro is looking like it could almost rival Jaedong’s Mutalisk micro. After one last harassment from Zero, Savior GGs. Zero goes up by one.

Update 8:14EST

Looks like Starcraft is finally back. Looks like we are going to see Savior vs. Zero! Should be an interesting game, I feel like Savior will come out on top though.

Update 7:58EST

Small rant here. It is absolutely ridiculous to me that there is so much downtime between matches. The last two Blizzcon’s were like this, and I had honestly hoped this one would finally change that, but, I was wrong. Stream still says 10 minutes until the next match. How stupid. The last WC3 match finished nearly 30 minutes ago. If Blizzard really wants to portray the message that they are trying to promote their games as “e-sports” they really need to make things much, much more fluid. Especially when they have such a huge event going on right now.

Update 6:12EST:

Scratch what I said before. I will not be covering the WC3 matches. Sorry!

Update 5:17EST:

Game three: SkyHigh(T) vs Zero(Z). Map: NeoMedusa

Both players are looking evenly skilled right now. The winner of this game will face the winner of the Savior/Beckham game(lol). Zero going for 12 Hatch again, while at the same time he is harassing SkyHigh with his Drone, preventing him from getting the CC up as early as he wanted. SkyHigh does get it down, but insane play from Zero as he sends 3 Drones out to try and kill SkyHigh’s SCV that is building the Barracks. He does get the Barracks out, and Zero’s Drone rush(lol) is forced back. Zero getting a really late Spawning pool as he went for a third Hatchery first. SkyHigh appears to be going for early Vultures, and Zero is going heavy Hydralisk build again. Zero is pushing across now going for a big Hydra/Ling push. SkyHigh gets Siege Mode just in time though and is able to force back the push. Spire coming down from Zero, and it appears he is planning to go mass Muta/Hydra.

Zero making a 4th Hatchery now and it looks as if he is ready to start pumping out a massive army. And just as I type that, Zero puts yet ANOTHER Hatchery down. He is definitely playing a macro heavy game. SkyHigh looking to push now with his Tanks/Goliaths. SkyHigh was streaming his army in and Zero is taking huge advantage of it. Picking off several Goliaths/Tanks that were lagging behind. SkyHigh is in big trouble now as his economy is getting decimated by Muta harass. Zero goes for a big push against SkyHigh with his Muta/Hydra’s and manages to take out all of SkyHigh’s Siege Tanks, but loses his army to the remaining Goliaths. SkyHigh is retaliating now with his Goliaths and he is looking to go for a quick finish here as he is not expanding. Zero just completely overruns SkyHigh’s army with a mass of Hydralisks. Zero looks like he is ready to finish SkyHigh off. The game appears to be over as Zero has far superior economy. I think it was a big mistake for SkyHigh to push forward instead trying to advance to late game with another expansion.

Zero still Mutalisk harassing and SkyHigh’s economy is really hurting now. SkyHigh appears to be preparing for one final push now with Goliaths/Siege Tanks/Vultures, but Zero has a much larger army, and I do not see how SkyHigh could possibly come out of this as the winner. Zero is taking out the Temples leading to SkyHigh’s base and looks to be pushing in soon. SkyHigh is making some good attempts at Vulture harassment and is killing a lot of Drones, but it does not seem to matter as Zero’s army is just so strong. SkyHigh pushing out of his base now, sieging up. Here it goes. A MASSIVE amount of Hydralisks just pouring out of his many bases, he walks over SkyHigh’s army.

SkyHigh GG’s. Zero advances. SkyHigh goes to the losers bracket.

Update 4:55EST:

Game two: SkyHigh(T) vs Zero(Z). Map: Heartbreak Ridge

SkyHigh is going for a 1rax/cc build. Zero is going for 12 Hatch. SkyHigh puts up a perfect anti-Zerg wall at his expansion, and it appears he is looking to go for a more common build of MnM. Zero is putting up a Hydralisk den early, we may see a Hydralisk rush here which would be bad since SkyHigh is not opting for a Mech build this time. Zero sends a couple Zerglings to scout out SkyHigh’s expansion, he sees the Firebats so now he knows what SkyHigh is going for and I imagine he will change up his build now.

SkyHigh is pushing out with a decent MnM army backed by Firebats. Could be a quick ending here as Zero is not entirely prepared for this. He does have Speedlings and a few Mutalisks out. Zero catches SkyHighs army split up at the perfect moment and manages to pick off a lot of SkyHigh’s infantry. SkyHigh’s remaining MnM build gets caught in a bad position and is taken out by the remaining Speedling/Mutalisk army. Zero has Lurkers now and is getting a third base. SkyHigh does not know about the Lurkers and has a huge army of Marines moving out, could see a potential trap here from Zero.

SkyHigh is massing a huge army of MnM. Zero failed at the trap as he did not have his Lurkers on hold, so SkyHigh saw them and was able to get the detect and push back the Lurkers. SkyHigh is pushing once again with his massive MnM force and right now SkyHigh is at a slight advantage as Zero is failing to keep his Lurkers together and he keeps getting small portions of his army picked off.

Zero has the Defiler Mound up now. Huge standoff going on right now as SkyHigh is slowly edging forward. HUGE surprise Dark Swarm from Zero and he manages to push out and get his Lurkers in position to kill all of SkyHigh’s Tanks. SkyHigh is forced to retreat a bit but his Science Vessel finally comes out with Irradiate and he manages to land one on the Defiler, but not before Zero gets a couple more critical Dark Swarms that forced SkyHigh back a bit. Very nice Scourge usage from Zero and he takes out 1-2 more Science Vessels. Perfectly placed Plague from Zero as well. Zero is pushing into SkyHigh’s base with Lurkers and really nice Dark Swarms, but SkyHigh has a good handful of Science Vessels and is able to push Zero’s army back.

More amazing Dark Swarms from Zero, but he walks a group of Lurkers right into a freshly placed group of Spider Mines and he loses all of them after SkyHigh pushes in with his MnM force. ANOTHER great Spider Mine as Zero walked right into it. Zero has 4 bases and SkyHigh only has 3, this is looking very grim for SkyHigh as he is getting out macro’d like crazy. Zero is losing so many Lurkers, but he is still pumping out units. And now a pivotal moment about to arrive as Zero is making the switch to Ultralisks. Both players decide to trade expansions, but SkyHigh manages to save his while taking out Zero’s 4th. Unfortunately Zero is just EVERYWHERE, and he has Zerglings killing SCVs all over the map. SkyHigh is not mining hardly anything and his army is dwindling.

GG from SkyHigh as he has no way to come back. Game 3 coming up!

Update 4:34EST:

Game one: SkyHigh(T) vs Zero(Z). Map: Coliseum.

The stream took forever to get started, and I was only able to tune in and we are well into the first game. SkyHigh started with Vultures for early harassment and was able to do a decent amount of economic damage which appeared to put him in the lead. Once the Mutalisks came out he switched to a heavy mech build with Valks/Goliaths. Zero is opting for an extremely unusual strategy. He started with a typical Mutalisk build(I think 3 Hatch, but I was not able to tune in in time to see the opening BO), then he switches to Queens, that’s right, Queens and upgrades to Hive and begins making Ultralisks/Defilers.

Zero seems to have a huge advantage as SkyHigh started to push with his Tanks/Valks/Goliaths, but he was caught off guard by the Queens with Broodlings and lost all of his tanks. Zero pushes SkyHigh back with his Ultralisks, and manages to deal massive economic damage to SkyHigh, but he manages to push the Ultralisks back with Vulture Mines and a massive army of +3 Siege Tanks.

SkyHigh is knocking on Zero’s door with a massive army of Siege Tanks/Vultures and Science Vessels to take care of the Queens. Zero seems to be in a bad spot as nearly all of his Ultralisks due to an amazing Vulture block from SkyHigh while his tanks just obliterate Zero’s entire army.

This game is so back and forth and it is hard to keep up with it. The game is fairly even right now as both players have several bases now, SkyHigh has a large army of Siege Tanks and Vultures, backed by Science Vessels and he looks to take down an expansion of Zero’s, but Zero pulls off an amazing flank with Zerglings coming from behind, while Ultralisks hold down the front line. Zero is able to push back, and secures his expansion. SkyHigh is doing a fantastic job of picking off Defilers and I think it is giving him an edge right now as he is keeping Zero on his toes. Another failed attempt by Skyhigh to take out an expansion of Zero’s, but he kills most of Zero’s army once again. Zero is losing countless numbers of Ultralisks thanks to Spider Mines, and Zero is really in a tight spot as Siege Tanks seem to always be knocking on the door of one of his expansions.

This game is insane. There are no more empty expansions left to take, both players have nearly even economies and it looks like Zero is continuing to make Cracklings/Defilers/Ultralisks, while SkyHigh is still making loads of Vultures/Siege Tanks. It is such an even game right now and I feel anyone could take this game right now. It is going to come down to a very awkward point as both players may completely mine out the whole map, and then it will be a do or die push from someone.

F this stream. The whole thing lags out, then when it comes back game 2 is about to start. SkyHigh won but I was not able to see what dealt the killing blow. I will say I am extremely disappointed in Blizzard for having such a huge event, yet having such horrible quality of streams.

Start: Just a real quick post here. I will be doing live blogging today, covering the matches from the Starcraft and Warcraft: III tournament today at Blizzcon! The Starcraft match will be played in about 30 minutes probably, and I am still trying to get the stream running but it appears to be flooded like crazy and right now I am unable to load the page. I fully expect us to see Savior in the first game casted, as he is the two-time defending champion of the Blizzcon Starcraft Invitational, and he usually gives exciting matches.

Hopefully the stream will be working soon and I can update you guys more on who will be playing first. With that said, I am really excited for the Tasteless/Artosis casting, and I imagine they will bring very entertaining coverage of the event.

Anyways, hopefully I will be able to update this soon once the stream gets up and the matches start!