NASL Grand Finals Quarter Finals Day 2 July vs Puma

Day 2 Match 5

I am unaware of this map pool, but i can be fairly certain Terminus will be apart of this. I love Terminus

Note maps are:
Taldarim Altar
Backwater Gulch
Xelnaga Caverns
Terminus RE(i knew it)

Game 1
The map is Taldarim Altar, and this starts the first Best of 5 Series for the day. Cross Positions are spawned, bottom left, July, Top Right, Puma. Typical and standard from both players, 15 Hatch, Puma going for a Factory early on and a Starport shortly there after. Helions in play and provide some harrasment, I assume they did some damage, as Artosis had a bit of a nerdgasm, but i could not see anything a the video stuttered while it happened. 6 Helions up as well as a Banshee and a Viking on its way as well. July going for Lair tech now, but still no clear sign of what unit composition hes going for as he is playing very defensively. More helion harras happens, but he loses them i think, video is really laggy, i cant seem to see what actually happens, just hearing whats going on from Tastetosis. 3 Base is going down for July, and Puma is going for the typical Tank and Marine mix while grabbind Medivacs and Banshees to buy him time. July opting in for Mutalisks, but there is not quite enough to do much at the 12 min mark. Puma tries a few drops and loses a few but nothing big that can turn the tide of the game, food count is July 160-126 Puma at the 15 min mark. July really has alot of Drones and Zerglings and is grabbing his 4th base while Puma is waiting to take his 3rd. Banelings are also in play and get a few good shots on some marines and Julys Zerglings charge in with Mutalisks right into Pumas main and defend against Pumas coutner at Julys on natural. Puma gg's and July will take game 1.

Game 2
The 2nd match will be on Backwater Gulch. July still has to win 2 more games to advance to the Grand Finals. Both players start off very similarly. Spawn points are bottom left and right. Puma even going early reactor on Helion again, but drops a second Facttory down to change it up. July still going Zerglings and grabbing his second gas at the 6 min mark. Double Factory with Reactors is now down and 4 Helions on thier way out, with 4 more already starting some harrassment. Puma expands behind this and a Lair is now coming out. 10 Helion s on the map and roasting any Zerglings in his way, He even takes out 2 Queens, and 35 workers. July only has 12 supply left to the 62 of Puma. July gg's and Puma takes game 2. we are now 1-1.

Game 3
Both players now have to win 2 more games each. Xelnaga Caverns is the map and we have Cross spawn positions(lolz). Puma at the bottom, July on top. Standard play again, 15 hatch, and now Puma puts a tech lab down instead of a reactor like hes done in the last 2 games. Puma throws his Command Center down and throws down 2 more Factories. Maybe the same unit comp, maybe something slightly different. A reaper is out, but doesn't do much damage. Blue Flame is being research, more helions as well. Blue flame arrives jsut as Helions arrive and roasts 17 Drones. Helion production continues as well as Tanks and Marines. Roaches are now in play and a 3rd factory on its way. Lots of mech play in this as siege mode is on its way in as well. Exciting play all before the 9 min mark. More helions come in and kill quite a few more drones. Macro Hatchery on its way in as well. Tanks Helions and Marines looks to be the unit comp, i cant remember but this could be the iEchoic build. 4th Hatchery going down at the 3rd and Puma is putting his 3rd Command center down. Economically, both players are about on par. Food counts are the same, but Puma is retaining map control. Helions continue to kill drones. 40 drones killed so far at the 15 min mark. Roaches are all July has to react to this. Stimpack, Weapons upgrade, and Combat shield gets upgrade as well, and Banelings are now in play. Puma's 3rd turns out to be the gold which means Puma is surging ahead. July really has to pull ahead some way as his only advantage lies in his numbers at this point, but that advantage will soon be lost, 184 for july and 168 for puma at the 16 min mark. Mass amounts of Banelings clean up the Marines of Puma, but July loses everything and July will go ahead and gg after this match. Puma takes the series 2-1.

Game 4
Terminus RE is the map and Jluy Spawns int he south, and Puma in the west. Puma goes for a 2 racks opening and July is going for fast Zerglings instead of a Hatchery first. Looks to be an early Bunker Rush and July miss micromanages  his units as the Bunker comes down and the zerglings are destroyed, but Puma makes a mistake, doesnt place the Bunker, and the SCV's are killed, but the Marines are still in play. 5 Marines are now attacking but mass amounts of Zerglings are forming, surrounding the Marines and allowing the Hatchery to finish. July gains map control and begins macroing up. Factory with Tech lab coming up, Puma is walled in so not much can happen. Puma is favoring Marines but Stimpack still is not out yet. July is going to grab alot of zerglings to try and push him back, and succeeds in surrounding those marines and picks them all off, Food counts are still even at the 11 min mark, 65-65. 3rd Hatchery on its way, as well as Banelings and an evo Chamber, but no Roaches can be seen, cant even tell if he has the Warren down. Spire is on its way though, and Mutalisks shortly thereafter. Puma favoring Tanks and Marines and Medivacs. Neither player still has an advantage. Puma moves out, loses half his marines to Banelings, and some siege tanks, but also kills the Mutalisks so another even exchange and niether player seems to be in the lead. Puma puts down his third now, and both players continuing to stick with this unit comp. Puma makes a drop and gets a few drone kills, but loses the drop and trys to charge in from the main way, loses his army but destroys the army of July and reinforcements come in, and help out Puma. He keeps on the pressure and eventually July gives in and gg's. Puma 3-1 July and is now in the finals! COMPLETE SURPISE! Congratz Puma!!!

NASL Grand Finals Day 1 Alive vs Darkforce

Match 6
Alive vs Darkforce

Game 1

Well its not a Protoss match, but its not a mirror matchup either. Terran vs Zerg always offer interesting play. Alive opens up with a 2 Barracks into a Bunker Rush, and Darkforce holds it off with no loss to economy or timings. This rush didn't even effect him. Alive is gearing up to expand with Siege mode and Darkforce begins droning up and favoring mass Zergling and expanding to his 3rd. Alive brings a drop in and attacks his 3rd as its coming up and severely delays Darkforces economy. He continues the two pronged attacks and eventually forces Darkforce to gg.

Game 2

This game opens up the same way as before, but Alive positions his Bunker Rush much better and Darkforce handles the situation poorly. Darkforce loses more Zerglings than need be, but still holds it off and is allowed to continue to macro up. Unit Compositions right now are Marines vs Zerglings with Alive looking to take the advantage in power, but no altercations occur as the two players begin to tech up. Siege mode is on its way so more Tanks are on their way as well as Spires, Roaches, and Banelings. Alive attempts a few drops, but no two pronged attacks as before, so the drops do very little, but DarkForce lucks out as Alive is caught unprepared for speed banelings and Darkforce jumps ahead. Both players continue to engage and build their unit comp up. Neither player is gaining a clear advantage as they both jump ahead and fall behind in the food count. Eventually Darkforce starts creeping ahead as he picks off several drops with his Mutalisks. Both players continue to macro up and Mutalisk harassment never ceases. Broodlords are on their way in and Infestors are spread across the map. An engagement happens at Alives Gold but nothing definte happens, he loses the gold, but both players are still at 200/200. Another big battle happens and some great Fungal Growths go off and Alive loses half his force, but Darkforce loses his Broodlords so both players end up in a Draw for that battle. However Darkforce's economy is far better and is back up close to 200 while Terrans are still at 134. Darkforce rushes in, but loses his economic advantage when a two pronged attack comes at both his expansions. But Alive is mined out and is not generating any resources. But Darkforce still does not have a clear lead until Darkforce pushes with his air force and begins clearing up Alives forces. Alive gg's later on to take the series 1-1.

Game 3

This game plays out very interesting as Alive goes for some fast Helions. And its not jsut 4 but 12 Helions coming in. Darkforce has some trouble but eventually holds it off and continues to tech up with Roaches. Darkforce makes a push and delays the mineral gathering, but still, same as the previous games, no clear advantage is being taken. Alive attempts some drops but nothing that works effectively. He transitions into Siege tanks and Thors, while Darkforce goes for his standard Baneling, Mutalisk, Roach, Zergling. Both players continue to macro up and poke and prod at each other to find a weakness. But finally Darkforce catches Alive out of position, takes out his tanks, banelings his Marines, and Fungal growths the remaining troops. Darkforce leaps ahead and starts taking full advantage of his well, advantage., He is getting his 5 saturated at the time Alive is getting his 4th. Darkforce finally uses a Nydus worm in Alives base to draw them out, but nothing happens with it. Both players are now maxed with alot of resources banked for each player. Darkforce let Alive jump back ahead by not applying any pressure. He uses a Corrupter and Broodlord Mix to break the Defensive Tank line of Alive and keeps pushing in gradually and falling back. Hes not committing to anything and both players continue to rebuild. Darkforce decides to do something drastic and morphs quite a few Broodlords into the game. Continues to apply pressure, whirling his opponent down. Darkforce played extremely safe and dragged this game out, but played so well. Alive GG's, a great series, Darkforce takes it 2-1!

Congratz Dark Force!

NASL Grand Finals Day 1 Morrow vs July

Match 3
Morrow vs July

As a big surprise, Morrow is actually playing as Terran so Match 3 will be a TvZ.

Game 1

Both players are going for early expansions and Morrow is wanting to grab some early Helions for some harassment with the only way for July to react is with Zerglings. He pushes the Helions back with some carefully controlled Zerglings, and then chooses to try to apply some pressure by sending his Zerglings down to make Morrow nervous. He eventually catches the Helions out of position and picks them off. July creates some Mutalisks for some mineral line harassment while Morrow continues along the line of Tanks and Marines. July begins taking his 3rd, and shortly after his 4th at the Gold. July continues to tech up by grabbing a Baneling nest and Morrow continues to up his Tank and Marine count with a few Thors to help out against the Mutas. July pushes in with his Banelings and takes out the tanks and most of the Marines. Several minutes later he does it again as Morrow attempts to take his gold, it quickly goes down as Morrow is delayed economically with that loss. July then pushes toward Morrows Natural and clears up the mineral line. But Morrow, with his bigger army, attempts to push out and begin applying pressure, but July already has 5 bases while Morrow is still on 2.

July begins grabbing some broodlords as he Baneling Busts Morrows new Gold base and takes it down. Broodlords are out and forcing Morrow to retreat. Morrows economy is shot to shit and July is moving to to finish off this game. Morrow eliminates the ground army of July and finishes off the Broodlords. But July is quick to rebuild and takes out the 3rd attempt of Morrow to take his Gold and Morrow GG's.

Game 2

The Match starts up pretty normal, July goes for a quick Baneling Bust and sneaks in quite a few Banelings to eliminate the Mineral line of Morrow. This delays him and he is forced to play very defensively. July's Speedlings are helping him maintain map control as he begins taking his third and starts transitioning into Mutalisks. He uses them for harrasment as Morrow transitions into Tanks and Marines. Morrows Defensive line is holding despite the Zergling, Baneling, Mutalisk Pressure being provided by July. Morrow is trying to grab some detection from Ravens but now burrowed Banelings are few and far between as Broodlords are getting morphed in and moved into position. Food count is 127 for Morrow and 186 for July as the next encounter takes place. The ground army is removed but the Broodlords are taken out and July takes the series again 2-0.

Great Job July!

North American Star League Results Division 2, Day 2

This post is all about the match results for Day 2 of the North American Star League! Day 2 features 10 players from all over the world competing for the $100k prize pool.

I want to start out by saying I am sorry for not giving all of the info for the first Day the NASL. There was quite a lot of videos to watch and I just did not have enough time to watch them all! I can however give the results for the matches.

Day 1

Artosis vs Sheth

I did watch some of this match and to be honest, so no extraordinary play from Artosis. Sheth went on to beat him 2-0.

Fenix vs KiwiKaki
Fenix beat out KiwiKaki 2-0.

Morrow vs Rainbow

Morrow beat Rainbow 2-0.

Now on to Day 2! Here is the Map Pool that will be used:

NASL Division 2, Day 2's Map Pool, Crossfire, Backwater gulch, and Taldarim Altar

As you can see, the same maps from Day 1 except Terminus has been taken out, and Taldarim Altar was added in. The first match to be broadcasted will be QXC vs MoMaN!

NASL Division 2 QXC vs MoMaN

Match: (T) vs (Z)

This map favors some unique
play with far positions and not
so easily defendable expos

Game 1

Map: Crossfire

Match 1 proved to be very exciting with a few close calls and excellent timing pushes from both opponents. QXC opens with Tank Marine and gets ready to push, but Moman gets 10 Mutalisks out just in time to take out the Tanks. QXC does however damage the Hatchery to just 40 hit points. This loss just puts QXC at a disadvantage and MoMaN takes the first win.

Backwater gulch offers an easily
defendable expansion but large
 open areas in the middle.

Game 2

Map: Backwater Gulch

In this match, players spawn in cross positions at the Top Right and Bottom Left positions. QXC uses a great new tactic. He mixed Reapers with speed with Medivacs healing. The Medivac acted as a scout up on ramps and the Reapers were able to poke up, shoot and jump back down to prevent taking any damage. However, MoMaN takes advantage of QXC's immobile army and darts in and out of QXC's base several times doing moderate damage to his economy. This caused QXC to fall permanently behind with Banelings and Mutalisks darting in, taking out units, and darting back out, denying any expansion attempt by QXC. MoMaN takes the game and the series, 2-0.

NASL Division 2 Cruncher vs Darkforce

Match: (P) vs (Z)

Game 1

Map: Crossfire

Cruncher opens up with a 3 gate Stargate and begins pumping out Voidrays. He uses them for some inital harrassment but retreats with only 3 Queens to defend. Darkforce looks to be teching to Roaches while Cruncher begins picking up a few delayed Collossus to help supplement his army. Many many Corrupters are on the field and Cruncher attempts to push out with a Blink Stalker/Collossus/VoidRay mix but loses his Colossi to the huge amount of Corrupters on the map, however Cruncher succeeds in taking out the ground army of DarkForce and proceeds to continue the aggression and take the first game.

Game 2

Map: Backwater Gulch

Players spawn in cross positions. The builds appear to be very standard play until Cruncher places a Proxy Pylon, but it is scouted 1 minute before Warp Gate tech is researched. Cruncher decides to expand with only 2 Gateways and nearly loses it to some early Zergling pressure, but holds it with only 3 Zealots and a Sentry. He proceeds to place a Stargate down and begins to produce some Void Rays again. He begins some harrasment and map control with the Void Rays and Phoenixs and also proceeds to grab some Colossus while Darkforce is grabbing a Spire with a Roach/Hyrda army. However Darkforce is very low on gas and his 3rd base was delayed due to the Void Ray harass. Both players are playing very passively, just teching up at this point. Darkforce moves on to take 3 more bases and pushes in but is rebuffed and loses all his Corrupters and ground army and is now grabbing Infestors with Neural Parasite However Darkforce still has an advantage in numbers as well as excellent creep spread so he may be able to deal with this army effectively. However, Cruncher does begin teching to get a Mothership. Darkforce try's to keep Cruncher at bay with some Zergling harass, while rebuilding units he lost against that Stalker/Colossus/Void Ray combo. Another engagement with the Mothership/Colossus/Stalker/Void Ray mix means total defeat for the Zerg army, Cruncher begins taking out expansions and Darkforce concedes the match. Cruncher taking the series and the game to 2-0. Very great game and an excellent unit combo that isn't used enough!

NASL Division 2 TT1(P) vs Sjow(T)

Match: (P) vs (T)

Game 1

Map: Crossfire

This match featured some pretty standard play, TT1 opening up with some Gateway units and transitioning into Robotics play. Sjow choosing to go with Marine/Tank with a Raven, which works REALLY well against Protoss. More Terran players need to not only be incorporating it in a PvT matchup, but making it standard in every PvT match. Point Defense Drone works so well against our Stalkers. TT1 makes a mistake early on and attempt to pick off some Tanks, but loses his army in the process. Sjow then sets up outside TT1's expo and finishes him off with the help of some Banshees. Sjow takes the game 0-1.

Game 2

Map: Backwater Gulch

Both players are spawning on the Right sides of the map. Both players are going for an early expand. TT1 went for a 3 Warpgate with Sjow going for a 3 Barracks and with Banshees coming out. TT1 is going for Colossus again, and a Raven for Sjow coming out as well. Pretty much the same build from both players again, however TT1 favoring Zealots over Stalkers, in fact, not a single Stalker has been made by the 12 minute mark. He is probably trying to make that Raven useless as Point Defense Drone down not cancel out the Colossus's attack. He did try to destroy Sjows army, but the Tanks and  Marines are able to eliminate the 20+ Zealots that are without Charge with relative ease. Charge would most likely have done a lot more damage to Sjow if he had it. Having that many Zealots it would only make sense to upgrade them with Charge. Sjow takes the series 0-2.

NASL Division 2 InControl(P) vs Ensnare(T)

Match: (P) vs (T)

Game 1

Map:Crossfire

This match shows that its not the size of the unit that matters, its how you use it. both players open pretty standard, 3 gate expand and a Marine/Tank unit combo into an expansion. Incontrol buys his expansion some time by positioning some units and Sentries outside Ensnare's base to prevent him from moving out while Incontrol takes the economic lead. Incontrol then starts teching up to Colossus while Ensnare makes a push with his Marine/Tank Combo, gradually pushing Incontrols Stalker/Sentrys back, but the first Colossus does make it out just as Ensnares Marines get separated from the tank line. Wihtin a few seconds, all 25 Marines are dead, and the last of the Tanks are getting mopped up. Both armies however do end up building up into that deadly ball and Ensnare does a few drops and positions himself to have a very clear control over his half of the map, but Incontrol takes advantage of the immobility of the siege tanks and jsut completely sidesteps Ensnares army and goes right into his main. By using Ensnares own ramp against him, he is able to take out his army and claim Game 1.

Game 2

Map: Backwater Gulch

InControl attempts a Dark Templar Rush but does not realize Ensnare expanded very quickly and built a few Missile Turrets in time to stop the Dark Templar. Ensnare makes a very good timing push after Incontrol is attempting to expand twice, and crushes his defenses. Ensnare takes the series 1-1.

This is a very Macro oriented map with 2 close
expansions and very long distances between bases

Game 3

Map: Taldarim Altar

Last match of the day. The only match to make it to this map. I was looking forward to this map to see how a Protoss reacts to certain pushes. Players spawn in cross positions so this is going to be a very long macro oriented map. Ensnare takes a very early expansion while Incontrol begins building more units.  He is going to go for Colossus, while Ensnare is getting 8 Barracks for a heavy infantry only unit composition. Ensnare is in the lead with food, but a heavy Infantry well get torn apart by Incontrols 5 Colossus. When the engagement finally happens it does happen in Incontrols favor by having excellent Forcefield placement and a dozen Phoenix's to absorb the damage from the Vikings. He kept his Colossus safe and delivered a defeat to a Code S Korean. Congrats Incontrol!!!!

Spoiler Alert!

Results

White-Ra(0) vs July(2)

QXC(0) vs MoMaN(2)

DarkForce(0) vs CrunCher(2)

TT1(0) vs Sjow(2)

InControl(2) vs Ensnare(1)

MLG Dallas

So far the action has been incredible. The matches that were played have been some of the best and most entertaining I have ever seen, with the best match being QXC vs. Sen. A TvZ matchup with Sen quickly gaining a lead but QXC was able to match him blow for blow, sometimes making 3-4 drops in different areas at the same time. Unfortunately, the Zerg overwhelmed him with there ability to out macro any opponent in the late game.

Huk was eliminated this morning by his teammate TLO in a very creative match involving burrow and Baneling mines! TLO also 6 pooled on there second matchup and Huk held it off incredibly well, however the zergs ability to out macro his opponent again led to TLO taking the win and knocking Huk out of the tournament. No hard feelings though, they both shared a hug and Huk wished him good luck in the tournament.