Battle Report by Akrid
On Saturday, May 21st, the NA server ZOTAC Cup #2 ran its course. Those of you following the tournament should know that the very first cup happened last Saturday, and that the winner was ROOT.Drewbie. However, yesterday's edition proceeded quite differently, with Drewbie making an early exit after losing to chanwoo in the second round.
This time around saw a totally new semi-finals and finals bracket, with different players staking their claim for glory. None of the previous cup's top three made it into this one's finals. The semi-finals saw dkiller take on col.RSVP, and Freshshock battle GosuGamers' very own GGLastShadow.
The semi-finals ended with a score of 2:0 for both RSVP and GGLastShadow, and thus the finals was played out by these two players in a best of 5 series.
| ZOTAC Cup NA #2 Grand Final Report | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
  GGLastShadow | vs. |  coL.RSVP | ||||||||||||||||||||||
The first game started out on Shakuras Plateau with Terran player GGLastShadow opening with his 1-rax techlab into Reaper harass plus expand. The Protoss player col.RSVP countered with some Stalker and Zealot attacks of his own, but as both players lost only a few workers, the game remained even. GGLastShadow then transitioned into the mech play he has been favoring against Protoss opponents, and after amassing a force of tanks and hellions, pushed out to his opponent's base. There he was able to seize control of the enemy ramp and set up a contain with a few bunkers and siege tanks. Additionally, he got a few kills and sniped off a pylon to restrict col.RSVP's supply. The Protoss player stayed calm, however, and waited for his Immortal+Colossus combination to pick up in numbers. When his army was large enough, he broke free of the contain and marched straight into the Terran base, forcing a “gg” out of GGLastShadow and putting up the first point of the match.
| ZOTAC Cup NA #2 Grand Final Game 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GGLastShadow | 0 : 1 | coL.RSVP | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Game 2 was on Tal’Darim Altar, and GGLastShadow did the exact same mass tank and hellion build, with a push to establish a contain on the Protoss player, and this time successfully destroyed col.RSVP’s Nexus at the natural expansion. With a late thermal lance upgrade due to opting for a 3gate robo into expo build, col.RSVP was unable to engage the Terran army at the bottom of his natural expansion’s cliff. Both players spent a few minutes macroing up, with GGLastShadow adding a few Vikings to the mix to deal with the Colossus. Col.RSVP was once again able to break the contain, but sacrificed too many probes in the process to the hellion run-by in both his main base and his expansion's mineral lines. Unable to rebuild his army quickly enough to face the incoming mass of tanks, hellions, Vikings and a single Thor, col.RSVP was forced to GG out, tying the score up at 1:1.
| ZOTAC Cup NA #2 Grand Final Game 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GGLastShadow | 1 : 1 | coL.RSVP | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Game 3 was on Shattered Temple. This game witnessed the first real change in build order from GGLastShadow, who went for a bio ball instead of mech build. col.RSVP decided to change up his play as well, and went for very fast Dark Templar. Although they didn’t quite reap the economic advantage the Protoss player was looking for due to fast turrets and scans by GGLastShadow, their tech-route did enable him to make High Templar, which proved key in the deciding battle where they decimated the Terran bio ball and claimed RSVP's second victory of the match.
| ZOTAC Cup NA #2 Grand Final Game 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GGLastShadow | 1 : 2 | coL.RSVP | ||||||||||||||||||||||
In game 4 on Crevasse, col.RSVP played a very greed build and went for a super early Nexus, while GGLastShadow went back to his Reaper harassing ways, but without the mech followup. The Terran player added marauders while expanding, and researched fast concussive shells followed by stim. A few small battles and drops occurred at the Protoss expansions, but none were big enough to be game-changing until GGLastShadow decided to add a few Ghosts into the mix. A big engagement came at one of the expansions, and with a few very well placed EMPs, LastShadow was able to break up the Protoss unit-ball. And while col.RSVP had enough zealots with charge to push LastShadow back and delay a subsequent push, he was unable to hold the second off and had to throw in the towel, once again tying the series up at 2:2.
| ZOTAC Cup NA #2 Grand Final Game 4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GGLastShadow | 2 : 2 | coL.RSVP | ||||||||||||||||||||||
The fifth and final game was on ICCup Testbug, and GGLastShadow once again opted for a 1-rax expo build. A few small fights occurred at either base, both players just poking around to see what the other was up to. col.RSVP meanwhile went for the 2gate robo into expand build, but LastShadow decided to switch his strategy up a bit and pushed out with quite a few marines into the Protoss’s natural expansion, setting up a few bunkers and effectively shutting down the Protoss' hopes for an early expo. Being the deciding game of the match, col.RSVP was not willing to give up so easily, and began to macro up as best he could off of one base, adding in a warp prism with the hope of doing some harassment. After a failed Zealot drop in the Terran base, RSVP pushed out with whatever units he could muster, but was effectively repelled. With a massive bio ball, once the final push came from the Terran, the game was over. Score 3:2 GGLastShadow, who takes the second Zotac Cup NA and the $100 prize.
| ZOTAC Cup NA #2 Grand Final Game 5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| GGLastShadow | 3 : 2 | coL.RSVP | ||||||||||||||||||||||
GG.net caught up with GGLastShadow for a short interview.
First off congratulations on winning the Zotac, who did you think was your hardest opponent?
GGLastShadow: Thanks :D, and definitely coL.rsvp who I was told was actually cruncher playing on the account by another coL member. Can't always be 100% sure, but either way he was the hardest series. :D.
It was a close 3-2 match in that series, at any point did you think you could have lost?
GGLastShadow: Was pretty sure I lost in the crevasse game, but apparently either his macro slipped or his reinforcing composition was a bit all-in, and relying on me to miss emp's, eitherway I was really surprised I won that game.
Speaking of matches, I noticed that the tournament begins with several rounds of Bo1. Do you have any tips or advice on how to survive Bo1 brackets to make it deep into tournaments?
GGLastShadow: Play your best and safest builds, and abuse the maps to the fullest, that's really all you need to do in bo1's. If you know a specific players style, then you can also adjust to that if you know he's incapable of doing anything else.
Alright thanks for your time! :)
GGLastShadow: yep thanks
GGLastShadow: Thanks :D, and definitely coL.rsvp who I was told was actually cruncher playing on the account by another coL member. Can't always be 100% sure, but either way he was the hardest series. :D.
It was a close 3-2 match in that series, at any point did you think you could have lost?
GGLastShadow: Was pretty sure I lost in the crevasse game, but apparently either his macro slipped or his reinforcing composition was a bit all-in, and relying on me to miss emp's, eitherway I was really surprised I won that game.
Speaking of matches, I noticed that the tournament begins with several rounds of Bo1. Do you have any tips or advice on how to survive Bo1 brackets to make it deep into tournaments?
GGLastShadow: Play your best and safest builds, and abuse the maps to the fullest, that's really all you need to do in bo1's. If you know a specific players style, then you can also adjust to that if you know he's incapable of doing anything else.
Alright thanks for your time! :)
GGLastShadow: yep thanks
Links
ZOTAC CUP - Source
