NASL Season 3 Week 4

Scrimmage Report

In a rather dull Week 4 for Division 1, BratOK is the only one that stood out as a deliverer of a damn funny play, if not too extraordinary. Despite winning just one map in the entire series, the Russian terran's daring lift off and transmigration of his entire base was hilarious enough to feel good for him and cause Puma enough confusion so that he loses the game. In the other matches of less interest, Stephano, Hwangsin and Zenio arrived with the tractors of stompage and raised Cloud, Haypro and Nightend to the ground. At the end of the night it was nothing if not baffling how the best ten minutes of W4D1 came at the hands of a division drop-out.

The winners kept winning in Division 2. And while no one had even the slightest doubt that a Code S semi-finalist in the face of Hero would easily disintegrate a low-performing Sjow, it was DeMusliM who continued to attract all the attention. The Brit who often reaps mediocre results in every other tournament, faced and outplayed SlayerS' Ryung with the only map won for the Korean being after a banshee/hellion/marine all-in. When the final set on Daybreak developed into a proper TvT, Ryung could not do anything but die after losing every trade and every positional maneuver. And not too often do we see a SlayerS terran being outsmarted in such matter.

To their luck, CrazyMoving and Dimaga got easy 2-0 wins against Nony and DarkForce, allowing them to keep afloat in the mid section of the division. For the German zerg in particular this meant the of his hopes for a higher placement as with a -7 points he's almost certain to finish last in Division 2.



Division 3 saw underdogs bare teeth as TLO and Vibe jumped forth to bite two of division's leaders in Strelok and Ganzi. The German zerg used roaches to crush Strelok's main in game one and knocked him down with a critical speedling timing on Shakuras right before stim kicked in for the terran. In the other TvZ of the night, Ganzi tasted both Vibe's roach/bane bust and ultalisk/fungal compositions to go down 1-2, taking but a single map off of a luckily unscouted proxy rax in Vibe's main.

SEn and Mana too played an interesting series, although it was mostly the Taiwanese that stole the applauds at the expense of Mana's life, dignity and protoss honour. A double roach/hydra drop bypassed Mana's colossus deathball to bring SEn the lead. The 1-0 score developed into a full-grown victory after an execution of the "If your opponents tries to be funny with DTs, just go f****ng kill him" principle in game two.

The fun continued with Division 4 as well with Alicia opening agaist Select in a series that will be later used in all those "late game protoss is OP" discussions and will help Flash decide if it is a good idea to switch races. Alicia was ruthless against Select and by the power of storms and colossi and archons, he put "laughter" into "slaughter" while dismembering the terran.

The two zergs that played that night had something to teach their opponents, too. Ret's student was Cruncher--a protoss whose return to the scene has not been of the glorious ones--and he got to find out what a maxed out Ret does to a person. This included facing mass mutas that made him storm spine crawlers, his own army and empty ground, as well as being bashed down with the metaphorical boot of too many roaches.

Yet if those results were expected to some degree, who would have thought that Division's Cinderella Lowely would continue to be undefeated. Although much can be argued about his methods, who would let an opportunity to punish a 1-rax/triple orbital with 12 pool banelings just slide like that?

Unfortunately, the PvZs of Division 5--Morrow/WhiteRa and Sheth/Puzzle--were well below the treshold of quality entertainment and were nothing more than two straightforward series that deserve very little attention.

In full contrast, however, QXC and Polt cooked an entertaining meal if only for the peculiar pleasure to watch QXC lift his barracks before stim was done and go the entire first set without it while still being head-to-head with the Korean. Of course, it would eventually be a loss for Complexity's terran but who in the whole wide world waits till the 20th minute mark to start the most important terran upgrade in the game?

Also, props go to Targa for the bold and borderline reckless idea of going hydra/nydus build against hellions and tanks. As no people have actually succeeded in killing a rhino with a dandelion, Targa had to wash out his shame in set three where he took zerg's hive tech and stretched it to megalomanic proportions. Because when other zergs use roaches or banelings and lings as meet shield for brood lords, Targa forgoes these cheap-ass methods and goes for ultra/infestor. Casually.

Divisions Overview and Standings

DIVISION 1: 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.

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DIVISION 2: Comfort is what Hero and Demuslim are feeling after week four, leading the division with a whole lap before the trio of third places, not to mention that DeMuslim is a match short compared to HasuObs. Few things will change for the leaders after week five: Dimaga is not playing and Ryung is meeting Hasu, meaning that only one will get closer to the top two.

In the lower part, Crazymoving and Nony are the only ones with a real possibility, although "real" might be somewhat of a stretch. The protoss still has to face both Hero and Demuslim and Crazymoving has EG's terran and Dimaga ahead of him.

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DIVISION 3: This is so close that it burns my intestines. Eight of nine people in the division are within five points of each other and three of those eight are with a match less.

The last part is more important for HuK than for anyone else. After a loss in week one, the Canadian superhero has been doing nothing but with NASL games and is in the very real position to claim the top spot by the end of the group stage cycle.

Put together, Ganzi, TLO, Mana, Vibe and Axslav are the meaty middle part of the group. The American are dead even in matches played and points and the next week will be of utter importance. Vibe can breathe more easily knowing that his opponents is division's worst in Rain, but Axslav is facing Ganzi and you can never underestimate an ex-SlayerS terran. Ever.

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DIVISION 4: Three zergs and a terran are in a death race for the hot spots in division 4. And while this is another way of saying that nobody can play protoss outside of Korea and is the newly popular and common "thing" on the scene, how about speaking a word or two about Lowely.

Before this season of NASL, Lowely was nobody. A Go4SC2 win here, a Zotac win there, etc., a classic example of the minor player. In NASL 2, he had but one real victory against WhiteRa (if we exclude the walkover vs Fenix, which we unquestionably must), thus remaining a player that was out of everybody's radar.

Now, the Belarusian is undefeated in division 4 with DH champion Thorzain and group runner-up Ret among his victims. Every week, NASL viewers expect to tune in to see his fall but he never fails.

Both Ret and Lowely, however, share a commong future in NASL as the arduos Idra/Alicia/Alive triathlon is ahead of them and that should proclaim the winner.

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DIVISION 5: As we mentioned, if anyone knows how to play protoss, it's the Koreans and division 5 confirms it. Although there aren't big points discrepancies as in divisions 1 and 2 and Morrow and Polt still technically have a chance, it's a fools hope for them and MC and Puzzle are likely to keep being where they are.

For Puzzle, it's essential to win the direct match against MC in week 5 as if the SK player suffers defeat, it's a highway to top 1 for Puzzle, knowing that all that remain are Jinro, WhiteRa and Targa.

Personally, I don't see Puzzle losing any more games in the group stages. Do you?

Next on NASL: Week 5, May 9-13

Week 5 is soon over so just this time we will not engage in predictions but instead take a look of the matches that we'll be recapping shortly.