Original photo by: Blizzard.com
The Giants did it against the Bills in the Super Bowl XXV in 1991, Liverpool FC did it against Milan in the Champions League final in Istanbul 2005, NEXGenius did it against Loner at BlizzCon 2010 - A historical comeback.
ROUND OF 16
BlizzCon 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Round of 16 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
  mTwDeMusliM | 0-2 |   Luffy SelecT1-2 |   NEXGenius Fenix2-0 |  Softball White-Ra2-0 |  ice HuK2-0 |  RedArchon Capoch0-2 | Loner mTwDIMAGA1-2 | MakaPrime TLAF-Liquid'TLO0-2 | SEN | |||||||||||||||
DeMusliM vs Fluffy
The first game on Scrap Station was a classic Terran vs Zerg with a harassment drop from DeMusliM. It was quite effective, but when the mutalisks came it was all cleaned up, and Fluffy could start harassing. Fluffy, who got his expansion up much earlier than DeMusliM could later run over the British Terran with banelings and mutalisks.
The second game, with cross positions on Delta Quadrant turned out to be very similar to the first one. DeMusliM started out with doing some harassment dropping four marauders, but expanding too late again made him lose to Fluffy's massive forces of mutalisks and banelings, so 2-0 for the Chinese. DeMusliM did manage to take down SeleCT in the first round of the loser brackets, but in the next round against Maka the story was over for him.
SeleCT vs NEXGenius
The first game was on Metalopolis with close positions with SeleCT at the 2'O clock position and NEXGenius at six. The Korean went for an early Dark Templar build, while SeleCT made a two-rax into expansion build. The Dark Templars failed, one being killed by scan, one retreating, and SeleCT was quick to have a turret up in his expansion. Clever as the American is, he knew this was a crucial point of the game to counter attack the Korean who obviously had a lower unit count due to the Dark Templar tech, and SeleCT with no flaws in his microing took down the Korean.
The second game was a pretty even game on Lost Temple when it comes to income and unit count, but NEXGenius proved his micro to be the stronger of the two, and equalized the set to 1-1.
Like in the first and the second game, SeleCT started out with two barracks, one with tech lab and one reactor. Unlike the other two games, NEXGenius was the first to expand this time. NEXGenius caught SeleCT off-guard a few times, killing off a decent amount of units, giving him a lead all game from there on. SeleCT didn't have any vikings, and had just made medivaks when NEXGenius already had three Colossus and basically ran him over with nice force field usage and Colossus range. SeleCT tried a drop during this attack, and even though it wouldn't have done much as NEXGenius already had killed all of the American's army, it's a nice detail that NEXGenius actually was prepared for a drop this game, learning from the other games, and had a photon cannon ready in his main mineral line. 2-1 for the South Korean.
Fenix vs SoftBall
Paying too much attention on his own banshee harassment, SoftBall lost way too many SCVs to Fenix's banshee harassment and got behind with more than 10 SCVs, and Fenix eventually ran over him in the first game on Metalopolis.
Things seemed brighter for the Taiwanese Terran after Fenix's first push failed in the second game on Delta Quadrant. Fenix went for a tech build with tanks, while SoftBall went for three barracks and an earlier expansion. Even if he had both the first and the second expansion up much earlier than Fenix, SoftBall still managed to be outplayed when Fenix first started pushing for real, the micro and Fenix's number of siege tanks being the key factor to why the Peruvian could take the second win and move on to the round of eight.
White-Ra vs ice
The first game on Xel'Naga Caverns was a macro oriented game, with the action starting out first when they both had a lot of units. White-Ra got his third expansion up earlier than ice however, and ice lost too many roaches to White-Ra's two Immortals. 1-0 for the married Ukrainian grandpa toss.
The second game was on Lost Temple with White-Ra spawning at the top mid position, and ice at six, bottom mid. White-Ra managed to put down a pylon at ice's natural preventing him from expanding there, which he also did in the first game. ice's response this time was to expand at the 3'O clock natural instead, but White-Ra was suspecting something as the spawning pool was late and scouted the expansion and could easily win the second game as well, basically before ice even had more than five roaches.
HuK vs RedArchon
HuK tried to finish the game early with some pretty good Stalker micro, but did not manage to do enough damage for RedArchon to give up yet, but he did however get a few SCV kills as RedArchon had to bring them into the fight at one point, giving HuK an income advantage. RedArchon did though put up a very good fight against the Canadian Protoss HuK, who at times was even behind the Terran player from Thailand, and there was surely no clear winner until the end after HuK had brought down a few brilliant storms and won the first game on Xel'Naga Caverns.
It seemed like HuK did not want to go to late game in the second match on Metalopolis with close positions - HuK pressured RedArchon from the beginning with Zealots, got countered by a group of marauders and marines but held it off with stalkers. A very nice contain from HuK won him this game as he had a group of stalkers and sentries kept outside the Terran base, preventing him from expanding, and when he first tried to move out with all his marauders, the Canadian put up one nice force filed after another and slowly parted and killed RedArchon's army while HuK already had expanded. 2-0 for HuK.
Capoch vs Loner
Capoch got hurt much more than he should have from Loner's marine/marauder drop on Scrap Station, and even though he put down some nice force fields when Loner's main push came it just wasn't enough, and Loner could confidently take the first win.
There's not too much to say about the second game on Steppes of War either. Loner made a tank/marauder/bunker contain in the middle, got his expansion up much earlier than Capoch, Capoch got impatient and tried to take out the contain with his gateway army and a couple of colossus instead of walking around and try to come up with something else. He lost too much and Loner won 2-0.
Dimaga vs MakaPrime
MakaPrime started out by trying for a bunkerrush on Dimaga's early expansion, but the Ukrainian always-smiling Zerg player managed to cope with it and put on some good early pressure with zerglings and roaches until he had to flee from the banshees. The game was very intensive from there on, and it was very hard to tell who would win the very action packed game. In the end though, Dimaga pulled the longest straw and won the first game.
In the second game on Delta Quadrant Maka was lucky with the positions, scouting Dimaga right away, putting down an Engineering Bay at the natual, delaying the bay, and followed that with a successful bunker rush and killed the hatchery. Dimaga tried to counter attack with roaches, but the Korean was able to hold it off by repairing his wall until a banshee was out. Day[9] has been mentioning how players often overreact to banshees by making too many spores and queens, and in this game that was the case. Five queens and a spore crawler made Dimaga helpless when Maka pushed out with his marines and marauders, 1-1.
In the third and final game on Scrap Station, Dimaga was again delayed by the engineering bay, but no bunker rush occurred due to the long distance between the players. This turned out to be an exciting match like the first one, but a little shorter. A nice hellion drop gave Maka a little advantage, though Dimaga expanded much earlier than the Korean. It went in Maka's favor this time, who with more drop harassment and some good micro managed to take down the Ukrainian who wished the Korean good luck in the tournament.
TheLittleOne vs SEN
TheLittleOne had to throw in the towel early as he lost to SEN in the first round 2-0 in a Zerg vs Zerg. It seemed for a while that he would take the second game on Xel'Naga Caverns, but the game turned very quickly and SEN sealed the deal and moved on to the round of eight. The games were quite entertaining, and not like the classical ZvZs with banelings and zerglings, but rather some nice use of infestors and fungal growth and large roach wars. TheLittleOne, unluckily, had to meet up with Dimaga in the loser brackets, another Zerg vs Zerg and was out of the BlizzCon tournament after losing to Dimaga as well.
ROUND OF EIGHT
BlizzCon 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Round of 8 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| NEXGenius | 2-0 | Luffy | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fenix | 0-2 | White-Ra HuK| 0-2 | Loner MakaPrime1-2 | SEN | ||||||||||||||||||||
NEXGenius vs Luffy
Luffy was actually ahead for a long time in the first game on Blistering Sands after a heavy zergling pressure build which made NEXGenius bringing up his probes to the entrance at one point. However, the fact that Luffy committed too much to roaches and got the hydralisks way too late made him lose too much to the immortals in the end and NEXGenius continued his killing spree.
The second game on Metalopolis was the shortest game in the tournament so far. NEXGenius made a gas tricking the Chinese Zerg player into believing he was going for a tech build, but soon thereafter made a forge. Blocking the entrance of Fluffy with two pylons, followed by a photon cannon and a zealot for support, NEXGenius was now looking for a spot in the semi finals.
Fenix vs White-Ra
The first match between White-Ra and Fenix was also a short Metalopolis game. Two assimilators might have tricked Fenix into thinking that White-Ra would go for some higher tech and made the Peruvian do an early push. While this happened, the grandpa toss with his probe still alive scouted Fenix expanding, put down a pylon nearby and quickly warped in four stalkers that immediately made Fenix retreat his push. However, White-Ra kept on pushing and managed to take the game right there.
The second game on Scrap Station was just as short. Fenix scouted White-Ra's very early robotics, pushed early with five marines and one marauder, but White-Ra managed to hold it off. Now, you may ask yourself why Fenix decided to expand instead of bunkering up by his mineral line, because he did see the warp prism of the Ukrainian who shortly after dropped four zealots and warped in four more and forced Fenix to GG. 2-0 for White-Ra.
HuK vs Loner
Starting out with an early decent banshee harassment followed by a marine drop started out the series between Loner and HuK. HuK tried to keep up the temperature by pressuring Loner every now and then, breaking the rocks between them but never succeeded to do any damage other than to himself. A massive marine/marauder army along with point defense drones later made a Protoss BBQ, and it was 1-0 for the Chinese.
After the hidden pylon warped in a few zealots and stalkers in Loner's base HuK got ahead income-wise and even put down an expansion, only the unit count was lower. Though, due to some very smart banshee harassment - Loner started out by killing two probes in HuK's main, pulled it back until HuK had left with his stalkers, returned, killed more probes, and did the same thing two more times, he was suddenly ahead in the workers count, but he did not have the expansion up yet. At this point, HuK put on some pressure and attacked Loner's expansion, delaying it even further, and it seemed he had learned from his mistakes in the first game and killed off the point defense drone right away.
However, the defense done by Loner here really proves how strong the Ravens are in Terran vs Protoss, using both auto-turrets and point defense drone forcing HuK to pull back with a much lower unit count than what he had when he first got there. He was still ahead though, but another big blunder by the Protoss trying to attack and get a fast win instead of keeping his advantage made the game a bit more shaky. At the point HuK started making colossus, Loner did a very well-timed push battling a few colossus left with almost no gateway army, which led to Loner basically dominating that battle and moved on to the semis.
MakaPrime vs SEN
The first game on Delta Quadrant started out like Maka's earlier games in this tournament, him bunker rushing the Zerg's expansion. SEN was though able to hold it off without any harm. A banshee later also failed to do any major damage, and when Maka decided it was time to really bring up the big guns, SEN countered and managed to hold off the push, making SEN win the first game.
The second game took place on Xel'Naga Caverns with SEN in the bottom and Maka in the top position. It was a pretty long and exciting game with a lot of action, no one really having the upper-hand for a longer period of the match. Drop harassment from Maka and banelnig drops from SEN made the game definitely worth the watch. A very macro oriented match which Maka managed to win in the end. 1-1.
The third and final match was played on Scrap Station and Maka started to pressure the Taiwanese former Brood War star early with hellions killing a couple of queens, but not a lot of drones. Maka continued to go for drop harassment, but SEN was more than prepared this time and put on a really nice fungal growth on the medivaks including thor, marines and marauders - a nice meal for the Zerg. Maka knew something had to be done soon and started pushing the long way around the rocks. SEN responded by taking down the rocks, saving him some time for the push as Maka had to retreat to prevent SEN from attacking his main. A smart move by SEN, who gained himself an even bigger advantage having secured the golden expansion and his second natural. As Maka took his third base, SEN started pushing, losing a lot of units, but his macro allowed him to reproduce very quickly and overwhelmed a very mannered Maka - "qq wp" from the Korean.
SEMI FINALS
BlizzCon 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Semi finals (winner brackets) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| NEXGenius | 2-1 | White-Ra | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Loner | 2-0 | SEN | ||||||||||||||||||||||
NEXGenius vs White-Ra
The first Protoss vs Protoss in the winner brackets was between NEXGenius and WhiteRa. Both players played very similar on Metalopolis, one base, three-gate robotics build from both, and it came down to the micro to settle a winner, which the Korean got the best of. 1-0 for NEXGenius.
In the second game on Lost Temple, WhiteRa 12'O clock, NEXGenius 3'O clock, WhiteRa again showed the very nice warp prism usage of his, and could after around 9 minutes secure the victory in the second game by doing tons of damage to NEXGenius' economy.
Xel'Naga Caverns was the arena that settled the series between the two highly intelligent Protosses, and it started out with NEXGenius committing a lot into an early stalker push with blink. It was actually a very good response to White-Ra's build who went for early colossus, having only zealots and sentries protecting his ramp, thinking he was safe with force field which is why the blink came as a big surprise for him. When NEXGenius started the attack he was behind by around 7-8 probes, but when he decided to retreat White-Ra had lost a lot of probes who tried to heroically help out their zealot and sentry companions until the colossus arrived. The game was on hold a while after that, with White-Ra actually getting the upper-hand by expanding first, but after some minutes of some minor stalker+blink harassment NEXGenius again proved his superior micro, got a nice surround on White-Ra's army and moved on to the winner brackets final.
Loner vs SEN
No offense to Loner, but SEN took down TheLittleOne and Maka on his way to the semi finals, and I would lie if I called him anything else but the favorite of this match. The first game was on Metalopolis, SEN at the 8'O clock- and Loner at the 6'O clock position.
Loner fired up the game with a banshee getting five drones, followed by a viking killing one overlord, and forcing the other overlords to give up on their map control. Pushing each other back and forth eventually lead to a victory for the Chinese Terran.
The second game on Xel'Naga Caverns was shorter and a little different from the previous one, having Loner making first one reaper to get intel and do some harassment, then sending another one when the first one was made a meal for the Zerg. Another difference from Loner was that he relied only on barracks this game, marauders specifically, which was a smart choice to counter SEN's heavy roach play from the earlier games, not only of this series but the others as well.
It caught the Taiwanese helpless, and even though he managed to hold off the push he realized he lost too much and GG'd out.
THE FINALS
BlizzCon 2010 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Winner brackets final | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| NEXGenius | 1-2 | Loner| Grand final - round 1 | NEXGenius2-0 | LonerGrand final - round 2 | NEXGenius2-0 | Loner | ||||||||||||||||||
LONER VS NEXGENIUS
Winner brackets final
The first game was very one-sided on Xel'Naga Caverns. Loner tried a timing attack when NEXGenius had just expanded, but his 6-7 marines and one marauder failed to do the job properly and the drop shortly afterwards only got to kill one pylon before the lady in the medivak had to announce to her companions that the ship was going down. 1-0 for NEXGenius.
The second game on Metalopolis showed us that NEXGenius feels confident with a lot of different styles, this time going for void rays. He didn't get to do that much damage, but did get his expansion up first in the meanwhile. After they both macroed up to a unit count around 140 each NEXGenius who had just finished his third expansion overextended himself, maybe getting a bit too excited, went for an attack instead of just containing his lead and keep on expanding and lost everything to the huge Terran army of Loner, making the winner brackets go to a third game.
Lost Temple, close positions with Loner at six and NEXGenius at three. Loner did his usual two-rax one tech one reactor openings. With a well timed push when NEXGenius had his nexus at his expansion finished Loner sent marauders and marines, and even a couple of SCVs for bunkers just to be entirely sure he would win the winner brackets final - and he did. 2-1 for Loner, and very close to taking the first place at BlizzCon 2010.
THE GRAND FINAL
Round one
NEXGenius had an enormous task ahead of him as he managed to come back into the fight after taking down White-Ra again in the loser brackets final, just to meet the Chinese Terran who kicked him out of the winner brackets - Loner.
If NEXGenius somehow could win the best of three that awaited him after the very tough mental situation meeting Loner again, he would still have to win another best of three since he came from the loser brackets.
The first game was on Scrap Station, and the long rush distance and the fact that NEXGenius went for a robotics before he expanded prevented Loner from doing that early push he likes so much. Instead it turned out to be an extremely exciting and even match where only NEXGenius' Psi storms made a difference, and NEXGenius had started his historical comeback.
Game two, well, the first game was long, this one was even longer, taking place on Xel'Naga Caverns. Banshee harassment from the start and the early push from Loner exemplifies how this game would be for the next 30 minutes or so - stressful, action filled and exciting. NEXGenius managed to clean up the contain Loner had built up outside his expansion fairly easy with some new use of a warp prism, giving the Korean ahead by far. It didn't matter much though as he wasted much of his army trying to counter Loner's already tank/bunker defended expansion. And it went on like that for a long time, trading units with each other with the one gaining an advantage losing it just as fast.
They expanded at the same time, and it seemed like there was nothing differing these two players in skill level, the match was just so insanely even. In the end though, it was again NEXGenius' psi storms that settled the deal, and another best of three was a fact as NEXGenius won the first round 2-0.
Round two
The first game of round two started out on Lost Temple with close positions, NEXGenius and Loner on respective nine and twelve. Loner realized his two barracks/tech lab/reactor build did not give him a victory anymore as NEXGenius obviously found a counter for it, and now tried a factory build into banshee harass. Unlike the other matches, this one became pretty one sided with only one major attack from NEXGenius who had now turned the game completely around, just one match from winning the BlizzCon 2010 tournament, which brings us to the second game on Metalopolis.
Loner spawned at six, NEXGenius at three. Loner fired the first shot once again, doing some very early pressuring with a couple of marauders, and it seemed pretty good to begin, doing some damage, taking down some units, but he did eventually have to say good bye to his marauders.
With an observer in Loner's base, NEXGenius could without worries expand knowing everything that went on in the Terran base, even though Loner made another barracks and a factory, and was looking to finish the game early. A major push came from Loner doing some serious damage to the nexus at the expansion, but NEXGenius felt very confident with his micro, brought out his probes to the fight and the immortal, the stalkers and the sentries took care of it, though he suffered a huge loss in probes.
Loner was now ahead in income, but NEXGenius had more tech and colossuses were popping out. Loner getting impatient, attacked with a bunch of marauders and some medivaks, but lost a bunch to the force fields and colossus and basically threw away the minor lead he had. It didn't take long before Loner had to bring his workers to the fight, held it off, but could only relax for one minute or so until NEXGenius was back with another enormous army - the army that won him BlizzCon 2010!
Links
Blizzard.com - Brackets
