Soviet terror struck the European cup circuit once again as Brat_OK swept the competition this weekend in the Go4SC2 cup. Seeded seventh by ranking points, Brat_OK took out 10-seed Virus.Bly first in a fast 2-0. He went on to face LaLush, who handed the Russian his only defeat in a match on Terminus SE. LaLush mounted a superb defense against the Terran's aggressive tank push, using mutalisks to ravage Brat_OK's unprotected third base while the Terran was rolling across the map. LaLush gained a macro lead and took several bases, eventually crushing Brat_OK's army with Muta/Ling/Roach. In the other two games, LaLush opted to skip mutalisks for Infestor play. The series was intense but but LaLush was simply unable to deal with Brat_OK's endless drops and tank pushes.
Brat_OK continued his trademark all-over-the-place style throughout the tournament, edging out Happy in pair of epic come-from-behind victories. In game one, Happy gained an early lead by sieging Brat_OK's barracks from the low ground after Brat_OK failed an early banshee bust. Brat_OK pulled SCVs and defeated the attack suffering heavy casualties. He then lost his entire drop on a counter-drop at Happy's natural. Brat_OK responded by macroing mass marines (against tanks?) and then took his gold expansion. Happy expanded to his backdoor third, but lost to Brat_OK in a marine-on-marine engagement in the middle of the map. After that, Brat_OK's tank count exploded and he dropped Happy's production with a ton of tanks. Happy sieged up in his base to push out the tanks, but then, with a ridiculous number of marines and even more tanks, Brat_OK waltzed into Happy's indefensible third; Happy was forced to tap out.
In game two on Tal'Darim Altar, Happy again took the lead, after trading a few tanks here and there and both players macroing a large army, Brat_OK went for a sneaky double expand along the top part of the map. Happy caught on and outmaneuvered Brat_OK's main force, allowing Happy to siege one expansion and forcing a cancel on the second. Brat_OK countered Happy's main and was denied, but snuck around to Happy's exposed third and sieged a position there. Happy was taking other bases at the time but sacrificed a huge number of SCVs to the tanks to break the position. Showing his outstanding macro Brat_OK mustered another army almost immediately and broke into Happy's natural, where he overran the forces there and then rumbled in to camp Happy's production. It seemed that Empire.Happy was not happy at all as he was forced to type out from an early lead once again.
Brat_OK's games in the finals against Naama felt a bit more one-sided than the games against Happy. Naama had come from a somewhat less impressive side of the bracket, taking out ieS-Slider, Knutzi, and uniqueKalin on his path to the finals. In game one, Brat_OK sealed Naama's fate with a 10-kill banshee that also cost Naama a scan. He followed with a backdoor drop combined with siege tanks at the natural to seal the deal, and Naama simply didn't have the standing army to handle it.
In game two, Naama stepped up the pace, opening 4-hellion into banshee. Brat_OK kept on his toes and defended, but Naama scored plenty of SCV kills. To make matters worse Naama followed with an impossible to defend low ground seige of Brat_OK's natural; Brat_OK evacuated the base and floated it to the 12 o'clock position. Naama made a bold move and then attempted to press into the natural area with his tanks and found himself sandwiched by two large globs of Marines, putting Brat_OK back into the match. They both took expansions and traded tanks with each in the middle of the map, but Brat_OK arrived with another army and swept up the remainder of the tanks before Naama could reinforce. Brat_OK, in a mirror of his Tal'Darim match with Happy, pushed Naama's natural with a ridiculous army and swept away the forces there. Naama again tapped out.
Game three again appeared favored to Brat_OK's opponent. Naama fast expanded, blocked Brat_OK's hellions, and moved out at a scary timing. Brat_OK was on a much slower expansion, and could only confront his opponent's tank/marine/marauder army with a blob of Marines and Hellions, with a bit of medivac support. Brat_OK used the hellions to buy a bit of time, but in the end an engagement at Brat_OK's gold base sealed the deal. For whatever reason, Naama elected not to siege his tanks, and Brat_OK's slightly superior bio shredded his opponent. 3-0 to the Russian!
Notably absent from the tournament was top Ukrainian player Strelok, the player with the most ranking points and the first seed. Strelok was replaced by RG|Fury, who placed second in the previous Go4SC2 Sunday Cup.
| Go4SC2 May Finals Results | |
| 1st Place |   roxkisBrat_OK |
| 2nd Place |  Virus.Naama |
| 3rd/4th |   Unique.Kalin |
| 3rd/4th | Empire.Happy |
Links
ESL Go4SC2 Cup - Brackets and Replays
