Today will be a big day for players and fans alike. After three months of unending StarCraft 2 action, the second season of the North American StarLeague approaches its end. The top sixteen are ready to fight tooth and nail for the juicy $100,000 prize pool but it will be nothing short of climbing the Golgotha hill at night during a freezing blizzard.
As every other tournament, NASL brings out stories. Thanks to the format (which, by the way, I absolutely adore) those stories are more inner-personal than those born at other events. With eight-player divisions, three months of group stage, two open tournaments and one semi-open tournament, the holes in the NASL sift are diminutive at best. There are no fancy straight-to-playoffs seeds, there are no invitations. All that NASL brings to the table is a ruthless battle from start to finish. Sometimes even before the start. So when I say the players' stories are inner-personal I mean that the accent of old rivalries is left a bit behind and the sheer joy of making it through thanks to persistance, or skill, or determination or even sheer luck comes to the forefront. I don't want to spit eSports pathos in your face but if you have followed the league all along from the very first matches you will get the drill.
December 2nd is the day where the best sixteen in the league will go against each others' throats. Every player comes to Orlando highly motivated, bearing his proud determination slogan that is to keep himself standing throughout the exhausting weekend of challenges aplenty.
The "Like a boss"
Every group stage of every tournament of every sport has a favorite. NASL makes no exception yet only a third of the players can say with absolute confidence that they had it all under control.
Division 1 is the freakiest example in all NASL. For eight straight weeks, HerO and DemusliM occupied the two spots so unshakably that other high-prestige players like Sheth and WhiteRa could not even come close. The latter, in fact, dug so deep that he ended up being second to last only to the disqualified Fenix. Poor WhiteRa, this tournament has been very, very rough on him.
But enough sadness! Let's talk winners. Winners take it all. Winners are loved by many and glamorous winners are loved by all! I am, of course, referring to Liquid`HerO who comes as the most recent StarCraft 2 title holder, returning from Sweden with the DreamHack Winter 2011 cup. HerO's been on the ascend for some time now (mostly since he joined team Liquid) but the Korean protoss was quick to make it to the very biggest of stages. HerO made a name of himself with the unique style he approaches PvZ with and his unchallenged expertise in mirrors, surpassing even world renown masters such as ex-teammate MC and EG's HuK. HerO hold the disgusting 77% win ration in PvP , which is funny because his first two games at the NASL play-offs will be against Hwangsin in the Ro16 and either HuK or Hasu in the quarter finals. So funny, I am chuckling even as I type.
HerO after his DreamHack victoryPhoto by: GosuGamers.net
DeMuslim, on the other hand, was the honest suprise to my own self. Not because he is bad by any stretch of the imaginaion, but because he managed to execute a near-flawless run through the group stage, dropping only a walkover to division leader HerO. DeMuslim has been laying low for many a past months and has been sitting in the shadows of his team-mates Idra, HuK and Puma so his NASL feat has drawn a lot of attention back to the EG terran. Yet, I am not at all convinced that Benjamin will do well in Ontario. In the Ro16 he is up against Thorzain, a very good TvTer indeed, and even if he lives through there are his monstrous team-mates - who know him, train with him and are, frankly speaking, blatanly better than him - peeking behind his back.
Morrow's and Strelok's experiences are strikingly similar. Everybody knows their names yet for a long time they have been off the radar. Strelok made apperances at IEM New York and Guangzhou but his best run was a top eight in North America. Morrow was dead to the eSports world since Assembly Summer but recently reemerged with him flying to the HoSeo house in Korea to live and practice specifically for NASL among other events. Both Europeans had mimicking division runs, starting with a third place but climbing to the top two and holding it for seven straight weeks. Something tells me though that their play-off plunge may not be a very deep one as they are facing some of the guys to make it to my personal top four. But more on that later.
I am leaving the EG boys for last, mostly because they have had their fair share of 15 minutes of fame. HuK and Idra come from a relatively disappointing DreamHack Summer, at least as far as fan expectations are concerned. Can't blame them, however, having in mind that they had to pass the EG team-kill group to reach the play-offs. HuK did it and Idra failed, although HuK's rejoice was not too long as he fell to the tournament underdog Seiplo 0-2. Not an occurrence most people expected yet it is as it is.
Photo by: GosuGamers.net
Finally, there is one person that no one should forget about. That's Thorzain, the open tournament winner who also bears this slogan proudly. Thorzain did not steal viewers' breath with division games worthy of remembrance as he never made an appearance there, but the Swede has the unique chance to shock the audience at the NASL finals and, possibly, repeat Puma's feat from the last season. If he is to snatch the NASL 2 gold underneath the nose of heavy tournament favorites, the young terran can write the next chapter of NASL history, being the second open tournament seed that walks out with the fat check.
It's not like he can't do it. Remember TSL.
The "I can't believe I made it"
Any one that's looking at how the divisions developed during those three months and then seein the end result are probably shaking heads in quandary at the sight of a name or two and most notably - HasuObs.
HasuObs was placed in a relatively easy group, the only two other big pretenders being Puma and Dimaga in terms of sheer consistency. Of course, everybody knows TT1 and qxc and TLO in-depth as well, but let's be frank to ourselves and admit that they never had a real shot at the top two. Yet after scoring his first win in week one, Hasu dropped down to the very middle of the division and stayed there for longer than it is actually healthy. Dimaga was crushing the group and in everyone's eyes he will be the proud representative of Eastern European zergs. Yet in the last three weeks, Hasu sprung back, defeating qxc, Puma and Moman to find himself sitting comfortably in second place, probably sighing in relief even in this very moment. What is even more amazing is how nail-biting close was him not making it through. Three 2-0 victories was his only chance to finish top two and he did it with the precision and cold-bloodedness of a neurosurgeon. A tough feat especially when you are facing EG's goddamn Puma!
But what does Hasu's playoff future hold for him? Well, not entirely good news to be honest. His first game is against HuK who is and remains a PvP beast and should he win he will most certainly face HerO... It's all very grim, indeed, so I am going to come out strong and say Hasu will not make it to top four.
BratOK is bearing a similar slogan. The bright terran star (possibly Russia's brightest one) has displayed performance incosistency throughout the group stage. Fourth, than second, that fourth for a while again, than barely top three until he finally makes it to the top position (?!). BratOK's NASL experiences was like an exaggerated and very loopy roller-coaster like the ones you drop your keys in the middle of the ride only to find them falling back to your lap at the end of the line. This makes his playoff run extremely hard to predict since SEn, Dimaga and TT1 are all on his side of the bracket and he will need more than fluctuating instability to make it through. He does enjoy a 62% TvZ win-rate but looking all the way back to compare his, SEn's and Dimaga's records I would favor the zergs any given day.
Photo by: ESL.eu
The "We are not going anywhere"
You know those players who may not play to your highest expectations every single game yet you still know they will do very, very well only by reading their IDs? Puma and SEn are such progamers and have been, respectively, the new face of SC2 terran and life-long traditions and thick roots on the eSports stage.
Puma has made it to more major top eights this year than any other pro-gamer off the top of my head and most recently he returned from Sweden with a 2nd place at DreamHack Winter. His NASL run may not have been among the smoothest of such (although he never left the top three of Division V) but no one doubted for even a second that the reigning NASL champion will make it back to where his buzz started. Now Puma will have to face one of the toughest contenders in his half of the bracket - Sheth, so his trampoline point will not be a walk in the park, compared to others'. His games against Idra at DreamHack were close and tense and Sheth is by no means a lesser zerg than Greg. The kitty might just be tamed come the NASL playoffs.
SEn is a player you can talk a whole day about and still not get over how awesome he is. For new and old fans alike, SEn has always been an emblem of StarCraft, a status achieved during his long years of crushing people left and right and becoming one of the most dreaded zergs west of Korea. SEn made it to the playoff through a constant ascend withing his division, dropping only a single series at the beginning of the season. Furthermore, his chances in the bracket are looking extremely favorable. Meeting TT1 in the Ro16 means an almost certain top eight finish and then comes either Dimaga or BratOK - a bit tougher opponents but very beatable nonetheless. Which sends shivers down my spine as I would kill a puppy to see SEn vs HerO or SEn vs HuK semi-final.
Or any SEN vs Whoever match, actually.
Photo by: DuskBin.com
The "Thank God for second chances"
These are all the players that come from the division playoffs. Their stories are motley and full of hard fighting or last minute martyrdom. They fell but they reached for the hand of the savior, grasped it with their last remaining strength and pulled themselves back to the grand final bracket.
Dimaga is the guy who had his dreams shattered for a while. He held the top two position in Division V for seven straight weeks before HasuObs came along and spat in his face (with courtesy, of course, Hasu is nothing if not mannered). Dimaga had an easy run through the small playoffs, beating SeleCT 2-0 in the final and so he is back in action, yet I can only imagine how frustrated he must have felt after being dethroned from the division he so skillfully reigned for so long.
TT1 is the guy no one can quite figure out how did he make it to the top sixteen. His performance in the groups was unconvincing, his tournament record for 2011 is, virtually, inexistent, was until very recently teamless and had to play Ret in the playoff final. Payam remains the big shiny question mark in the NASL line-up and an enigma of his own. Let's see if he can beat
Sheth and Mana had the misfortune of drawing a hard division lot. They fought hard and bravely but could never hold a stable top position. Yet every time I am astounded by the amount of skill those two possess and the way they approach the game. They might not hold gold medals in the double-digit range or strike fear wherever they go but I am utterly convinced that on any given day they can defeat anybody. Anybody!
Hwangsin is basically the Korean version of TT1. His country flag made people pay special attention to him for a while but after seeing his questionable (at best) performance in the group stage, they all started losing interest in that guy. Funnily enough, HwangSin had to fight his compatriot with similar NASL story Rain, so his tale is almost complete in its entirity. I presume it will end very shortly in the Ro16 under the unrelenting bashing of HerO's mighty fists but I applaud HwangSin for even making it that far.
The big picture
Enough of personal slogans! StarCraft 2 tournament may be mostly about the players participating but they are always an interesting vista when you zoom out.
One of the striking characteristics of NASL is the gentle equilibrium in terms of race distribution. Six tosses, five terrans and five zergs make up the face of the play-offs, shutting the mouths of the part of the community ever crying about balance. What is more astounding is that this state of equality comes after three months of games spread over so many different stage formats. In its entirity, the NASL playoffs truly are a miracle.
Switching glimpses between both sides of the bracket we see another possible story in the making. HerO and Puma are as far away from each other as possible and this meal starts to smell much like a DH Winter rematch. Having witnessed the excitement at this very final from inside DreamArena, I can say with certain that one cannot wish for a better final. And, yes, I am aware this is a blatant display of bias. And I don't care.
NASL will be bringing another recurring story - the one of team-mates killing each other. The lower part of the playoff bracket has hosted three EG members and there is strong chance that most of them will make it through to the Ro8. Is it possible that NASL saw how thrilling was the EG team-kill group at DH Winter so they've decided to mimic it once again in Ontario? Doubtfully, but you cannot deny how striking this coincidence is. Come on, don't hold your grin!
So $100,000 prize purse, huh? Yes, you better sit and watch; such amount of money always leads to unforgettable moments.
