In the RO64, he faced KangJiYoung, whose strategy consisted of hellion drops and cranking out a few surprise battlecruisers for an easy win. Following some light exchanges, both players decided to go for a base-trade. Despite having superior air, KangJiYoung squandered his advantage by allowing Nestea’s spire to go up, along with multiple spine and spore crawlers. Parking his battlecruisers within range of Nestea’s two spore crawlers did nothing to help his case, either. In an anticlimactic game 2, more bad decisions were in order, as KangJiYoung , despite being scouted, opted to lead his pure marine force into a dead end to break some destructible rocks. After swiftly losing all of his units in the ensuing exchange, he transitioned to—more marines. By the end, Nestea’s lead was so drastic that he had only to attack move into KangJiYoung’s base, taking down all of his marines, and a command center as a bonus.
The RO32 proved a bit more evenly-matched, as Nestea faced off against oGsMC. In game 1, Nestea’s choice to make a preemptive overseer nullified an early dark templar attack, allowing him to rally back with a massive roach army to end the game shortly thereafter. In game 2, Nestea dealt well with MC’s early harass, and was able to repel the later attack with an extra damage boost from two nearby spine crawlers. Having negated the threat of attack, and ahead in economy, Nestea would go on to macro up a critical mass of mutalisks, winning the series 2-0. Although originally considered an underdog in this series, Nestea showed that he was anything but, defending and countering MC’s harassed-based play.
Interestingly, Nestea’s immediate section of the bracket would feature an inevitable ZvZ in both the RO16 and the RO8, as every player was Zerg. With several strong players in Idra, Zenio, TheWind and Nestea, these two rounds would be a crash course in ZvZ styles and a rare chance to see so many Zerg mirrors played within such a short time-span. In Nestea’s first RO16 game, he confidently went hatchery first, while his opponent TheWind went for a zergling/baneling rush. The rush worked, but even after having his mineral line mangled, Nestea still managed to come back and take the game, because of the added strength of being on 2-base. Game 2 was shorter, and early on looked fairly even, but the difference proved to be Nestea’s excellent roach control.
In the RO8, he was matched against Zenio, who was still flying high from his wins over Idra in his previous series. Nestea would prove impossible to break though, defeating him convincingly with unexpected maneuvers, such a lair tech in game 2 with six defensive spine crawlers, granting him a huge advantage in air dominance, with his mutalisks roaming unopposed.
And finally, the RO4, which was played against none other than SlayerS_Boxer, who had defeated NaDa in the previous round. Thought to be Nestea’s toughest matchup so far, SlayerS_Boxer would end up unable to take even one game. Nestea varied his play style and stayed aggressive, all the while avoiding over committing, to prevent losing hold of his lead.
Now entering the grand finals against Boxer, Nestea comes ready to play aggressively, patiently, or surprisingly, and with the distinction of being the only player thus far to make it to the finals with losing a single game.
