Scrimmage report
Puma 2-1 BratOK
Game 1 on Belshir Beach /// Game 2 on Antiga Shipyard /// Game 3 on Dual Sight
Sandwiched between a loss after a marine tank push and a mundane base race was the BratOK's only win in this series. But what a win that was. On Antiga, the Russian was put against the ropes as the 1/1/1 of Puma started working on his front, eventually breaking in and shelling his production facilities. In this moment, as if only to make fun of the casters that proclaimed him dead, BratOK flew away with all his buildings, reset his three orbitals and threw the joke back to Puma who was still on half a mining base with no CC in sight.
Hwangsin 2-0 Haypro
Game 1 on Belshir Beach /// Game 2 on Ohana
Often is Hwangsin persistent in his determination to master that sentry/prism build of Hero that is always the death of high-level zergs but just like in the match against Zenio in week 2, the Korean had to evacuate his units pretty soon as Haypro would have none of it. Mid-game DTs got Hwangsin back on track, however, and after disrupting Haypro's economy he was able to march into zerg lines and clean it all up in a very protoss fashion.
Second game had Haypro being caught in the middle of a muta switch and dying too fast to answer why was he going for such an expensive tech switch without map control or a single spine crawler.
Polt 2-0 Morrow [Week 3, Division 5 match]
Game 1 on Daybreak /// Game 2 on Tal'Darim Altar
Certainly you want to hear about Morrow's brave battles against the Korean terran, fights that went on for days, the thunder cracking the earth, shattering trees to splinters and waking sloths from their peaceful slumber. Well, that'll have to wait until after a different battle. In this one, Polt did a push, killed Morrow's third on Daybreak and won. Then, he did a push, killed Morrow's third on Tal'Darim and won.
Zenio 2-1 NightEnd
Game 1 on Belshir Beach /// Game 2 on Daybreak /// Game 3 on Antiga Shipyard
Belshir Beach saw NightEnd being NightEnd, playing as safe as possible and pushing towards the solid late-game compositions of protoss that Zenio could not withstand. The sun smiled to NightEnd on Daybreak also as a blink stalker attack brought death to Zenio's third but as the roach numbers grew bigger and as infestors made it to play, NightEnd's stalkers hit a brick wall. With the score tied, Zenio went for a 2-base baneling bust on Antiga, blowing up NightEnd before the Belshir Beach scenario would be repeated.
Cloud vs Stephano was postponed
The elusive man
Watching so many NASL games--and not just from this season--brings the painful realization that the best games are often delivered by the players who statistically perform the worst. In previous weeks we gave praise to Axslav and Nony and now the person of interest is none other than BratOK: a player that is 0-4 in series with elimination as certain as my social life's death past May 15th.
Few terrans can stay alive for too long when Puma goes all "Operation Typhoon" on them but BratOK's perseverence stood as proof that he is, in fact, a real Russian. For the WW II nerds Antiga Shipyard was the Battle for Moscow redux with its effect spreading beyond the triumph of Mother Russia: it made people forget that BratOK was down 0-1 against Puma, made the world too bright and motley for game three to matter, had me post that Lenny Kravitz video and gave BratOK well deserved fifteen minutes of fame.
Flying away and not being caught was the best thing that happened to the slippery Russian in all NASL 3.
Division overview and standings
| Division 1 after week four | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
  Puma | 4-0 | +7 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
  Stephano | 3-1 | +4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Zenio | 3-1 | +2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
  TT1 | 2-1 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
 Cloud | 2-2 | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
 NightEnd | 1-2 | -2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hwangsin | 1-2 | -2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
 Haypro | 0-3 | -4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
 Bratok | 0-4 | -6 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
The leaders are taking shape by the minute. Puma is already untouchable at +7 and with his unstreamed victory against Cloud (match will be recapped in later battle reports) Stephano is a close second at +4. In other words - everything develops according to predictions.
Zenio continues to beat people and thus gets closer to the top with each passing week. Next week the Korean is playing TT1 in the match for the third place in the group and needless to say this is a vital step for both of them.
The flying Russian is sinking deeper into division's quicksands he is not to be alone in there as Liquid`s Haypro is in no better shape. Winning the match against Hwangsin was paramount and falling 0-2 cut the strings of Haypro's hopes for good.
Barely clairvoyant: Week 5 on May 9th
| Division 1 Week 5 matches | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| NightEnd | VS | Hwangsin | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| TT1 | VS | Zenio | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| BratOK | VS | Cloud | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Haypro | VS | Puma | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Stephano is hitting the bench the next week which will give Puma the opportunity to increase his lead even more. The Korean is playing the eighth in the division Haypro in what promises to be a short and uneventful win for the former.
NightEnd/Hwangsin and Zenio/TT1 are two matches between evenly performing players. NightEnd might have had troubles standing up for his stay in Korea but Hwangsin has had it hard defending the Korean overall. We can go on and on about trying to predict this one but it's a PvP so why bother.
The ZvP for the night has it in it to cause a slight detour in Zenio's ascension but it's likely that it won't happen as beating zergs has never been TT1's brightest characteristic.
Finally, Cloud will try to use the drown BratOK as a trampoline towards better placement. This is the first TvT the Italian is to play in the division but fortunately he has the Puma/BratOK game from today to analyze and prepare.
