If you have not heard by now the Worldwide Invitational 2006 has come to an end and as most people predicted a Korean stood out on top. But, what people did not predict is that Nal_rA would be the winner.
After staying up until about 2:10 AM EST time just to watch the finals of
Nal_rA versus 
[NC]...YellOw, I watched 
rS.Tasteless[9] and djWheat argue over the dumbest things, but that is a different story. [NC]...YellOw won the last Blizzard event called BlizzCon. He defeated [Oops]Reach in the finals for the win. And to get into the finals of WWI he had go up against [Oops]Reach once again. Some people have said that [NC]...YellOw best match up is Zerg versus Protoss. He played [Oops]Reach in a very close series which did end in [NC]...YellOw's favor, 2-1.[NC]...YellOw's way through the tournamentRound 1: [NC]...YellOw>  LinYu)PjRound 2: [NC]...YellOw> [Oops]Reach |
Nal_rA who is [NC]...YellOw's teammate in the professional gaming team KTF MagicNs did go to BlizzCon, but did not fair as well as he lost to 
[ReD]NaDa in the winner's bracket and than [Oops]Reach in the loser's bracket. In WWI he did extremely well for himself. He got back at [ReD]NaDa in round 2 beating him 2-1. Although he was not one of the favorites to win, but he proved a lot of people wrong defeating [NC]...YellOw in the finals. But, things could have changed as his opening match versus 
FishEye could have been disastrous. FishEye almost took the series away from Nal_rA, and if that would have happened, who knows what than.Nal_rA's way through the tournamentRound 1: Nal_rA> FishEyeRound 2: Nal_rA> [ReD]NaDa |
The finals were something else, I will mention that. The feed was just about perfect, thanks to the folks at GGL.Com for that coverage.
rS.Tasteless[9] did a excellent job shoutcasting the match, he made the gamers a little more interesting, although they couldn't have got more interesting than they already were.Grand Finals @ WWI 2006 Nal_rA> [NC]...YellOw@  Into The Darkness Part II Nal_rA> [NC]...YellOw@ Nightlight |
In the first game [NC]...YellOw played very well, looked like he had the game won. But than he started to throw away units without thinking, which made him pay. He was being over aggressive and that’s what screwed him big time in the first game of two. Nal_rA came back and punished [NC]...YellOw for his mistakes and took game one.
In game two both players played very defensively. Eventually [NC]...YellOw made some very nice drops into Nal_rA's base, but the Korean protoss had too many high templars, and stopped any huge damage to the tech structures, but the main Nexus was destroyed in the scuffle. Eventually Nal_rA set out and just mutilated the economy of [NC]...YellOw down to nothing. In the end [NC]...YellOw could not keep up with the harassment and just quit out of extreme frustration. Game two went to Nal_rA who took home the first place prize!
After the games Nal_rA was paraded by cameras, and news people, while [NC]...YellOw left out the back with just a sad look on his face. Nal_rA won the first place prize of $10,000 USD, while the Korean zerg still took home $5,000 USD.
Overall I would have the say the event was a huge success for all of Blizzard's games. World of WarCraft got the promotion it wanted, so did StarCraft: Brood War and WarCraft III. StarCraft: Ghost was being tested by the public, and just everything went well. Although a lot of people seem to mention the Blizzard girls, and the WarCraft III shoutcaster,
Bunny. Good stuff.Also, look forward to GGL.Com releasing many videos from the WWI event!
Links
Battle.Net - Want More WWI News?
GGL.Com - Look Around For WWI Movies!
Battle.Net - Direct Link To ALL SC Replays!
