After two days of playoff antics, the end of NASL's seconds seasons is nigh. Today, HerO will step forth to face Puma in yet another grand final while SEn and Thorzain will cross claws for the third place finish.
As opposed to some Ro16 matches, the quarter and semi-finals went smoother than expected as the NASL viewers saw a lot of 3-0 sweep-ups and even a 4-0 at one of the Ro4 matches. Surprising results indeed, considering how we are talking about the best eight players in the entire league. But take my word for pristine truth when I am telling you that not a single victory was undeserved.
The quarter finals began with HerO facing HasuObs in what turned out to be a complete overrun. The Korean showed that his warp prism play is deadly not only in PvZ but in protoss mirrors as well and his impeccable micro (and some mistakes in Hasu's own control) scored the quick first point for the DreamHack champion.
Hasu was actually on par with HerO in the second game and even gave him enough troublesome moments by soft-containing him with an intimidating enough blink/colossus army. HerO's key to success was again his warp prism harass, that made HasuObs commit to an actual engagement. When the two armies clashed, the one of HerO proved to have the higher colossus count, ending the game there and then.
The third game saw HerO going for a fake 4-gate, tricking Hasu into thinking there will be continuous gateway pressure. Instead, Hero used this tech to cover up an expansion and an immortal tech which hard countered Hasu's one-base blink.
BratOK experienced the fury of the swarm at the hands of SEn right from the first set on Shattered Temple. SEn's horde of lings, banelings and infestors flooded the entire map and established full control of the battlefield, not allowing the terran to take a third for the entire game.
BratOK retaliated on Crevasse, going for a very slow but methodical marine/tank push and beatng SEn in head-on battle for the win. This was the only victory BratOK would win that day, however, as SEn quickly made the score 2-1 on Antiga with his favorite roach play, denying every marine push of BratOK there was. Complete victory for Sen was won on Dual Sight as the Taiwanese went up to quick four bases and used his mutas to prevent BratOK from saturating and utilizing his third. The finishing blow came when SEn caught the entire terran army unsieged and out of position - a perfect Christmas gift for his banelings.
Morrow and Thorzain were the first to bring us some real quarter final experience most reflected in their Shattered Temple game. It was a classic drawn-out ZvT: map split in half, high tier units at each others' throats, EMPs, fungals, nukes, drops, ultralisks chopping marines to pieces and all that jazz. No one was ever too much ahead in the economy war so the winner was decided with a flashy grand mosh when Morrow stormed with all his rage upon Thorzain's army but the terran kept his composure (but mostly his ghosts) to snipe the zerg swarm to shreds for the 1-0.
Thorzain doubled his lead on Metalopolis with just his double reactor hellion opening that dealt so much damage to Morrow's economy that the zerg could not overturn his 1:2 supply deficit.
The last two games were almost an identical copy of sets one and two. On Altar, the ZvT went on for a long time with Thorzain winning plenty of small victories thanks to his medivac drops but Morrow's frontal advance was too strong this time and as the chain fungals destroyed all the vikings, the brood lords had free reign over Thorzain's base. The final game was played on Crevasse and saw a repeat of the Metalopolis set with Thorzain double reactor hellioning his way to a 3-1.
Whatever confidence Idra had after day one was shattered by his team-mate Puma. The star terran of team EG knew just how to crush Idra before he could evolve in the scary late-game monster he is. The first two games ended with perfectly executed timing attacks (a marine/tank push on Temple and hellion/marauder attack on Altar) which struck before Idra could get his spire up. The third game was a bit longer but just as one sided, as Puma kept Idra to two bases with his hellions while at the same time he set up and saturated his own third. This advantage snow-balled out of control in the mid-game and Idra gg-ed out greatly displeased.
In the first semi-final, HerO exerted his supremacy over SEn, walking away with a 4-0 stomp-on. The first point for the protoss came on Antiga after a very equal match up to the point where SEn had to take a fourth. His natural choice was to go for the gold but that put him in dangerous proximity to HerO who had an easy way to poke the hatch with his colossi. Thus, SEn was forced into a direct engagement but HerO stood unshakable, using his phoenixes to lift all those precious infestors and destroy the zerg army.
SEn continued to be on the bad side of the barricade as his usual roach-heavy play was met with equal opposing deathball force on Dual Sight and so was his mutalisk tech on Crevasse. In both games there were moments aplenty where SEn would seem to be the winner but HerO kept finding way to turn things around either with impeccable micro or correct decisions of how, where or when to attack. The final strike came on Terminus as SEn returned to his roach/baneling composition but HerO would have none of that once again, employing a very solid immortal/blink/sentry army which was literally untouchable. The Liquid protoss made it to his second grand final within two weeks time.
The night ended with a long, six map TvT between Puma and Thorzain. Puma took the early lead after a tank attack at Thorzain's third forced the Swede to pull SCVs to defend (unfortunately, in vain).
However, the score was suddenly turned upside down as Thorzain scored two in a row, starting on Altar, where Puma and Thorzain opened with heavy marine play but the Swede managed to pull off the better concave during his attack and walk out with 20 supply advantage, which was of critical help in the last engagement where he succeeded in overpowering Puma's own tank/marine army. The second victory came on Temple as Thorzain's two-front push caught Puma's army (and mostly his unprotected and unsieged tanks) in all the wrong plances. When the smoke cleared, Thorzain was 60 supply ahead and the eventual GG was implied.
Puma's retaliation came in the form of complete and total air control on Dual Sight that helped his pure mech win every single engagement against Thorzain's marauder/tank. With the score now tied, Puma probably felt comfortable with bringing on his weird builds and opened the Terminus set with technically orchestrated reaper/hellion harass that delayed Thorzain's mining just enough for Puma to get his banshee out first and follow it with a viking. With no means to kill Puma's banshee and with his own one dead and decaying, Thorzain had to call it a game.
The series ended on Crevasse with Thorzain quickly taking control of the center south watch tower but being gently pealed apart by Puma's viking/banshee task force. Each minute, Thorzain lost another inch of his positioning and another chunk of his supply until he had to admit defeat and let Puma advance to the grand final.
| NASL 2 Playoff results | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Quarter finals | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
  HerO | 3-0 |  HasuObs | ||||||||||||||||||||||
  SEn | 3-1 |   BratOK | ||||||||||||||||||||||
 Morrow | 1-3 | Thorzain | ||||||||||||||||||||||
 Idra | 0-3 | Puma | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Semi Finals | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hero | 4-0 | SEn | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Puma | 4-2 | Thorzain | ||||||||||||||||||||||
So it comes to this again, huh? Puma and HerO meeting again not two weeks after their DreamHack Winter grand final. At DreamArena, HerO walked with the 4-3 victory but it remains to be seen if he can do it again and dethrone the reigning NASL king. It will be brutal. Stay tuned.
It's almost obligatory.
