The 14th and 16th May were exciting days for the StarCraft 2 community. The HDH Invitational Semi Finals lived up to the expectations and gamers' hopes that the level of awesomeness will be beyond limits. And thus it was as we witnessed spectacular games featuring intense micro situations, amazing comebacks and tons of other surprises. Some people were expecting it, others were utterly speechless but all in all the results are such:
| HDH Invitational Semi Finas | ||
  WhiteRa | 3-2 |   TheLittleOne |
 Nony | 0-3 |  Idra |
There is much to be said and written about the games played and thus it shall be in the lines below, but to summarize the whole round we should say that it was as grand as it suits a Semi Final of such calibre. WhiteRa's magnificent comeback will be discussed long after HDH has concluded and so will be the ease with which IdrA crushed Nony, demonstrating that he can play other styles besides the furious macro game. But let us not generalize too much but take a look to the games and see what exactly happened.
WhiteRa vs TheLittleOneThe first game on Kulas began quite standardly with TLO going for 12 pool after two dual extractor tricks and then, scouting WhiteRa's 3-gate tech he stayed on one base for a while and teched to Roaches. Shortly after the Warren completed, TLO went to take his gold expo and from there on every single second was a show of itself. Amassing a huge force of speedlings (a bit over 50) and some Roaches to defend his main, TLO was in a strange position - his army mix seemed to have no chance against the gigantic 3-gate-robo push of Ra. With three Immortals, and lots of Sentries, Zealots and Stalkers, WhiteRa pushed forward for what it would seem to be the GG move. The small resistance of Roaches and Speedlings melted with little to no trouble but it was the mining drones and the last drops of Zerglings who managed to barely hold of the push, obliterating every single Protoss unit in a glorious sacrifice. TLO was down to his gold only but suddenly, WhiteRa understood that with that operational, he is far behind in economy compared to TLO, who ravenously pumped more Speedlings, charging through the destructible backdoor and sniping probes and denying harvest time. Finally, seeing a couple of roaches coming to reinforce, he typed GG. TLO's fans sighed in awe witnessing this comeback.
The second game on Scrap Station was no boring trip as well. Spawning as Zerg again, TLO opened with the standard build for the map - a fast expo. WhiteRa also decided to exploit the short flight distance and teched to Void Ray. Unfortunately, the playful Zerglings of TLO scouted the Stargate and the German began to prepare for the inevitable. Minutes later, the first Void Ray of Ra approached the enemy creep just to encounter... four Queens. Surprised to see those on the field, Ra sent his second Void to join the fight but thus time the number of Queens have increased to six. Baffled by this play, WhiteRa went for the most usual thing for the moment - proxying some Pylons and warping in Zealots to deal with the growing Speedlings/Queen army of TLO. However, his push was deflected with ease and frustrated, WhiteRa had to type GG again.
Game three in the series unveiled as a PvP on Metalopolis with WhiteRa and TLO getting left-to-right cross positions respectively. Both started with the standard 1-Gate/Cybernetics build but as Ra teched to Robo Facility, TLO grabbed the chance to go for Blink and grab the 12 o'clock minerals. Trying to be effective with his blinking Stalkers, TLO managed to do some minor damage, with the biggest of all being destroying Ra's Dark Shrine. That was, however, a bit late, as a couple of DTs just rained havoc on both of TLO's mineral lines, setting him far behind in economy. Having this advantage along with the more powerful army mix of Stalkers, Sentries, Archons and Immortals, WhiteRa decided to counter TLO's blink by punching him straight in the face. In a huge battle around the 12 o'clock expo, WhiteRa managed to come on top further crippling TLO's economy. Being behind in every term possible, the German was forced to surrender.
In contrast to the games so far, number four was a quick and painless PvP. Failing his 2-Gate rush on Steppes, TLO's Zealots were outnumbered two times by the time they arrived at Ra's base. With the ball in the Ukrainian field, TLO had to flee to his main, followed closely by enemy forces. Unfortunately, he didn't manage to push the counter attack back and with his Gateway pylon destroyed quickly he had to give the game to Ra.
The final face off commenced on Lost Temple in yet another PvP very, very similar to game three - WhiteRa going for 3-Gate/Robo and TLO teching to Blink. But again, several thousand eyebrows lifted in bedazzlement as TLO's Core started researching Hallucination - a completely illogical decision as there was just one Sentry in operation. In addition, even after completion of Hallucination, the Warp Gate mechanics wasn't started for a quite a lot of time, making everyone watching wonder if TLO had just made the biggest misclick mistake of all time. Meanwhile WhiteRa had the chance to amass enormous army supported by five Immortals and later some Colossi and once he denied TLO's attempts to fool around with Blink, he just went straight for the kill. Amazing comeback to say the least.
Idra vs NonyThe much anticipated TSL rematch between Nony and Idra began on Kulas Ravine with many people wondering how Greg was dealing with the nerf of his favourite Roaches. Unfortunately for Nony, Idra showed us just how much intuitive and adaptable he can be. Opening with a fast expo after Pool and researching Metabolic Boost, Idra's plan soon became clear - he was to completely skip Roaches in favour of Hydra/Speedlings composition. Fending off Nony's initial attack with a beautiful flank, against which even the perfect Force Fields did not help, Idra counter pushed to Protoss's natura. Pressing with Hydras from the one choke, he managed to slip quite a lot of Zerglings through Nony's defences and those became the heroes of the day. The irritating Zerglings managed to chase the probes off and, to a bigger surprise, also claimed the life of the main Nexus. Later came more of the same and even the desperate Colossus that popped up couldn't stop the invasion of the Hydras.
According to the map pool, the second game was played on Scrap Station and everyone was excited to see NonY's Phoenixes again. And such was the case as he quickly laid 1-Gate/Stargate build to oppose IdrA's typical 15-Pool, 15-Hatch. It was about the time that the first Phoenix popped out that Idra became aware of the the danger but luckily he already got his Lair on the way with Hydra Den placed right after competion. The Phoenixes did managed to snipe some overlords and a couple of Queen but overall it was not merely enough. Eager to do more damage and finish his opponent, Nony rallied his Zealot/Sentry ground army to Zerg's dominion but with so many Hydras there was hardly any chance. Despite, some really nice forcefields blocked the Hydras out, giving Nony the chance to do some damage to the main and possibly take down the Lair, but some bad micro cost the Protoss the games, as the Hydras just obliterated everything once they got their way free.
Metalopolis was Nony's last chance to get back to the game. Scouting for third time the 15-Pool, 15-Hatch he already knew what to get to deal with the deadly Hydralisk force - Colossi. Managing to macro way better than the previous games, Nony actually managed to acquire quite a scary force with four Colossi to melt the Hydras. Idra, however, had other plans. Researching Ventral Sacs and Overlord speed, waves of Hydras suddenly swarmed Nony's main sniping the Robo Support Bay and the currently researching Forge the first time and the Nexus itself the second. Knowing he had to declare his pulse, the Protoss took the base race game but his forces encountered more than enough Mutalisks and Speedlings to do any damage. Nony GGed out not managing to claim a single game in this series.
| HDH Grand Final Map Pool |
| 1) Lost Temple |
| 2) Blistering Sands |
| 3) Kulas Ravine |
| 4) Desert Oasis |
| 5) Metalopolis |
| 6) Steppes of War |
| 7) Lost Temple |
We shall provide you with on time information about stream dates and times as soon as possible so you won't miss the chance to see who will win the $2000 USD. In addition, you can follow the VOD link below in case you want to relive the matches with a beer and popcorns in hand.
Links
TeamLiquid.net - HDH Invitational thread
GosuGamers.net - HDH Invitational VODs
