Gaming
As Blizzard’s tournament returns, we recap last year's greatest StarCraft and Hearthstone matches.
‘Tis the season, folks! No not Halloween, or Christmas, regardless of what the shop window displays say. It is, of course, time to pay homage to the great Blizzard, giver of StarCraft, bringer of Hearthstone, creator of the World (of Warcraft).
The annual celebration of all things Blizz starts next week on November 7 and the weekend’s festivities will include the Grand Finals of both the StarCraft World Championship Series (WCS) and Hearthstone. It’s still a little early to look ahead to what next weekend holds in store, but it’s never too late to look back at what last year provided. So here’s a quick run down of the best matches from BlizzCon 2013.
The main event of any BlizzCon is the WCS finals, when every StarCraft 2 fan rallies behind their favourite player – or failing that, their favourite faction. Last year’s line-up was heavily weighted against the Zerg, with only two players making it into the top 16 of the WCS table rankings. However, what a pair to make the grade. Kim "Soulkey" Min Chul and Lee "Jaedong" Jae Dong finished the season first and third in the table respectively, and despite an early exit for Soulkey against Red Bull’s Choi “Bomber” Ji Sung, Jaedong proved the strength of the Zerg by fighting his way to the final against Kim “sOs” Yoo Jin.
Along that path he came up against Cho “Maru” Sung Choo, whose Terran army did their best to throw multiple medevac spanners into the works. Though eventually taking the series 3-1, Jaedong had several close shaves as Maru waited patiently for him to make mistakes – and ruthlessly exploited them when he did. But a blistering amount of map awareness kept the Zerg just ahead allowing him to advance to the finals. Though the entire series is an incredible watch, the cat-and-mouse antics of the final game, match 4, are not to be missed.
The inaugural Innkeeper’s Invitational marked the arrival of Hearthstone at last year’s event, even during the game’s closed beta. As such, the competitor pool was somewhat limited and manually chosen by Blizzard themselves.
This year’s competition has been far more diverse, as each game region has put forward their best four qualifiers for a group stage and knockout tournament in Anaheim, California. But despite the small start last year, there was plenty of action. After seven years competing and seemingly giving up on his dream to become StarCraft world champion in 2011, Dan “Artosis” Stemkoski poured everything into casting, and then, when invited to help beta test Blizzard’s next game, threw himself headlong into Hearthstone.
The results of which you can see for yourself, as he pulled out a hefty set of combos in the final game at 2-2 against Hearthstone’s golden boy Octavian "Kripparrian" Moroșan.
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