The North American Starleague playoffs kicked in last night with the Ro16 matches, featuring both one-sided stomps as well as tense back-and-forth series, undecided till the very end.
The evening began with HerO losing the first map to HwangSin which made his fans worry a bit. Hwangsin came on with a strong 2-base immortal push that made HerO type out. The reigning DreamHack champion responded by tying the score on Shattered Temple with a clutch Dark Templar play and later taking the overall score to 3-1 in his favor, sealing the deal by fighting off HwangSin's phoenix build with blink stalkers.
In the second protoss mirror, HuK and HasuObs went neck-and-neck through the entire series, which began with HuK snatching game one with a one-base DT build that hit HasuObs a bit too hard that even his observer could not save his skin. The German retaliated on Antiga Shipyard, going for a very passive 2-base colossus build as opposed to HuK blink/archon strat. HuK was the first to go for a deep engagement but a fatal micro mistake got his archons stuck in the back, giving Hasu's colossi and immortals enough time to clean the enemy army and make the score 1-1.
The protoss tango continued its back-and-forth motion. On Shattered Temple, HuK surrounded some stranded stalkers to take the set advantage once again and was extremely close to winning the fourth game as well, but a bold probe all-in attack by Hasu led to a small miracle for the German player as HuK could not find the most efficient way to battle both Hasu's colossus army and the probe/zealot force marching relentlessly at his own colossi.
The series ended with a 25-minute epic war of the worlds action on Dual Sight. HasuObs managed to secure a forward position on the map thanks to his double robo build and soft-contain HuK while getting up and saturating a third base. That gave HasuObs the necessary income surge to go into a colossus army of immeasurable size and straight-on overpower the Canadian for the 3-2.
Dimaga and BratOK engaged in long and tiresome ZvT struggle that stretched across all five sets before the winner could be decided. BratOK took game on in a very straightforward fashion but the game on Dual Sight was a whole other cup of tea. BratOK's marine/tank attack caught Dimaga just in the middle of brood lord tech and without his high-tier fliers, Dimaga had to sacrifice more or less all of his bases, while furiously rebuilding his tech at the center right hatchery. While BratOK was cleaning zerg remains, Dimaga was given enough time to get ten brood lords up and actually push the terran back by winning the next couple of battles. With no vikings on the field, BratOK had no way to fight the zerg army directly and soon all his bases but one were dead. The terran, however, managed to hold on to his last remaining planetary force and live until he could get some vikings up. With the proper counter to the monstrous brood lords, BratOK found the strength to snatch the second game and put Dimaga just one set away from elimination.
Fortunately for all the fans of TvZ, the game was far from over. Dimaga sprung back in the third game, winning it with highly mobile pure muta/speedling composition that did not allow BratOK to take and hold a third. The fourth game saw BratOK's attempt to close the series with a 2-port banshee/scv all-in, which was easily thwarted by Dimaga's massive queen count.
Sadly, the entire series came to a very anticlimactic end when BratOK opened Terminus with a hellion/thor build, the timing of which caught Dimaga barefooted without a single battle unit to defend against it. Dimaga tried to throw down some evo chambers to wall-off hi front until he could spawn some roaches but the terran mech was hitting hard and mercilessly. BratOK would advance with a 3-2.
The fourth Bo5 in the round of sixteen saw ex-Fnatic team-mates SEn and TT1 going against each other in a bid one-sided PvZ. In game one, SEn stayed on a roach-centric army to establish map control and force multiple cancels on TT1's third. Around the 17th minute, SEn threw in some mutalisks in the mix and moved forward to apply even greater pressure until TT1 was broken. The protoss, though, returned the slap on Antiga by going 2-base colossus and catching SEn's roaches in a bad position and winning the game in a blazing glory.
But that was all the mistakes SEn made in this series and his roach armies were unbeatable in the third and fourth game. The zerg pulled off amazing surrounds and surgical pressures to send him former team-mate packing.
The second part of the bracket saw much more one-sided series, beginning with the dismemberment of Mana. Morrow handled the macro-intensive ZvP with his signature cool composure, which was of biggest help in the first set on Crevasse as he and Mana played one of the best playoff games thus far. Viewers were treated with colossal army clashes from lower tier infestor/roach compositions, through brood lords vs deathball battles all the way to mothership vortexes. It took Morrow nearly thirty minutes to wane down Mana's army and pull ahead in the series.
Mana did not have it any easier in the following sets. After losing game two to a roach/ling aggression, Mana experienced a roach run-by during one of his pushed in game three. After being down to practically zero mining bases, Mana pulled all his probes for a final attack but could not get past Morrow's spine crawler wall. The Polish protoss had to end his NASL experience in the Ro16.
DeMuslim also suffered a bitter 0-3 defeat at the hands of Thorzain. Thorzain displayed better sense of when and where to expand and handled his marine/tank army with all the more precision and control to snatch an easy first win.
Game two was decided when DeMuslim, in a moment of absent-mindedness lost three of his hellions which were a crucial part of holding Thorzain's 1-base marine/tank push. Although the Swede could not finish the set at that exact moment, the soft contain that he set up allowed him to sprint up to three bases and crush DeMuslim in the mid-game, despite the attempts of the latter to transition to BCs.
In the final game, Thorzain once again showed off his pristine army positioning, suffocating DeMuslim's options of moving around the map. As the British found himself under low-ground siege, he knew that it was all over.
Idra came to the NASL playoffs as one of the division leaders and was quick to prove how ruthless his playstyle still is. The person who had the difficult task to stop Idra's advance to the Ro8 was Strelok and he found that job close to unbearable. The first game ended quickly at the hands of a baneling/mutalisk attack that ravished Strelok's base for the 1-0.
The following set was on Shattered Temple and saw Strelok open with a reactor factory into thor/hellion composition in the mid game. Idra chose to stay on mutas and lings but that was all he needed to hold Strelok's advance. After defending the first wave of mech units, Idra flew to Strelok's main to muta down his SCVs and all he had to do next was stand his ground against the final push of the terran. Once it was deflected, Idra was just one game away of advancing.
The series was closed on Antiga Shipyard as Idra quickly set up a total map control with his mutalisks, forcing Strelok to stay on three bases. Knowing that he does not have too much options, Strelok geared up to move across and thanks to his intimidating army size he managed to arrive at Idra's doorstep safe and sound. This was where his advance became hardest, however, as Idra's defenses were too tough to break and Strelok could never reach zerg's fourth. With Idra's macro unfaltering, Strelok had to face waves after waves of zerg units until finally he bent the knee for the 0-3 loss.
After such an exciting day of StarCraft, it was only appropriate for the evening to finish with a kick-ass series. The last match was to be played between Puma and Sheth. The terran took game one with an unstoppable marine/tank push through the center but was in for a treat come game two. Sheth used a very unorthodox style of zerg (reminding somewhat of Stephano's trademark), staying on lings and infestors and sprinting towards hive real quick and waiting until after the 15th minute mark to get his spire up. Skipping mutas altogether, Sheth teched straight to brood lords to overpower Puma who could never get and secure a fourth base.
To get himself back in the lead, Puma opened Dual Sight with double reactor factory into a menacing hellion/thor composition. Terran's macro was off the charts and for the better part of the game he was way ahead of Sheth, while simultaneously keeping the zerg low on bases. Puma tried to pull off a thor-centric play on Belshir Beach as well but this time Sheth did not give him space to breathe and his constant ling/roach pressure eventually brought Puma down to his knees.
In the final game, Sheth died a blue death as Puma went for heavy preigniter play. The hellion harass was never ending, putting the drone deaths number over 100 by the end of the game. Being forced to constantly replenish his worker count, Sheth had no means at all to stop Puma metal centipede of tanks and thors.
| NASL 2 playoffs | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Round of 16 results | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
  HerO | 3-1 | HwangSin | ||||||||||||||||||||||
 HuK | 2-3 |  HasuObs | ||||||||||||||||||||||
  BratOK | 3-2 |   Dimaga | ||||||||||||||||||||||
 SEn | 3-1 | TT1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
 Morrow | 3-0 |  Mana | ||||||||||||||||||||||
 DeMuslim | 0-3 | Thorzain | ||||||||||||||||||||||
 Idra | 3-0 | Strelok | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Puma | 3-2 | Sheth | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Quarter final matches | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HerO | VS | HasuObs | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| SEn | VS | BratOK | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Morrow | VS | Thorzain | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Idra | VS | Puma | ||||||||||||||||||||||
The Ro8 matches will be played on December 3rd and will some incredibly interesting stories to follow from HerO's PvP crusade, through the Sweden vs Sweden battle of Morrow and Thorzain all the way to the Puma-Idra team kill. Stay tuned to the NASL streams for ever increasing levels of awesomeness.
