Banners spanned the convention center showing that the NASL was here
It all started back in April with months of matches for 50 of the best and most well known StarCraft 2 players in the world and culminated this weekend at the Ontario Convention Center with a match-up between the world’s best Protoss and the Terran that made it to the finals through the open bracket. TSLPuma crushed through the best players in the world on the way to his victory, but it wasn’t easy.
oGsMC warming up on Day 2
More oGsMC warming up with...Zerg?
After two days of hard fought matches he had the President Protoss to get through, and while he took an early 2-0 lead with some solid play based around harassment, MC was not about to make it easy. As soon as MC won the 5th game taking it to a 3-2 edge in the favor of Puma, Puma was noticeably devastated, his head dropped into his hands, he was so close yet so far in his first live event with a foreign crowd no less.
TSL Puma reflects on his win with Anna Prosser
The electricity in the room could be felt by everyone there, people were really starting to get behind Puma, chants of PU-MA filled the air when Gretorp and IncontroL introduced him. The entirety of a long season culminated into one game, which showed probably some of the best micro of the entire tournament. Puma came out of the booth, tears in his eyes and fully embraced MC with probably one of the most touching and memorable moments in recent StarCraft history.
The big check!
The top 16 of the NASL Season 1 Finals assemble!This weekend really summed up the entire NASL in three short days, we had upsets, weird issues with the production side of things, but in the end most of that doesn’t matter because when you throw a giant prize pool into the mix, the players and the spectators come. For better or worse the NASL is here to stay. We got the best finals to a tournament, we got a good mix of casters, and awkward moments, questionable schedules, and in the end we have had one of the most up and down tournaments in recent history ending on an absurdly high note and the biggest prize pool given out in SC2 on North American soil. It seems fitting that the player who won it all didn’t even play in the league itself and got into the finals through the open bracket, then in his first match absolutely crushing the #1 seed of the entire tournament (LiquidRet) who played great for 3 months (8-1 in division 4) and was out of the tournament in less than 20 minutes.
A view from the press box.
Moletrap interview WhiteRaWhile I wasn’t able to attend on day 1 when many of the issues were had, I arrived on day 2 and everything was noticeably better. The screens were focused and clear, the observer screen was being used (props to Gunrun!), and the audio was good and clear. The players were accessible to the fans for most of the day (those that were not playing at least) and the seats filled up quickly when the matches started.
Select warming up with some Protoss
This weekend was the cross section of a lot of ambition, hype, promise, StarCraft and in the end it succeeded. The convention hall was full of eSports fans, the stream was one of the most watched in recent StarCraft 2 history and in the end we can say that the NASL was successful as a whole. Season 2 will be starting up in a month, and there are a lot of things the NASL can do better, but a lot it is doing right. We will see the addition of Heroes of Newarth and the loss of IncontroL as he moves on to focus on his career as a player.
Xeris, Sen, MC, and PumaWe can only hope that for eSports and StarCraft 2 the next season is even better, and provides some more epic games.
Thanks to the NASL for hosting such a great event and Gretorp, IncontroL, Tasteless, Day[9], and Artosis for the awesome casting this weekend!
We covered the event on Twitter all this weekend and have some pictures there as well, so make sure to check us out over there: http://www.twitter.com/gosugamers
Links
NASL.tv - VODs, schedules, and more
