Gaming
Gaming
The top stories from the StarCraft 2 WCS Finals
Missed your StarCraft 2 fix? We’re here to bring you up to speed with everything that happened during the 2017 WCS Global Finals at Blizzcon.
While it may not hold the same dominance over the esports world as it once did, crowds still flocked to the arena and online to catch the 2017 StarCraft 2 WCS Finals at Blizzcon. If there’s one thing the tournament showed us too, it’s that the granddaddy of the RTS genre still has some great stories to tell. If you missed all the action or just want a handy recap of events, these are the most important things that went down in Anaheim.
Innovation will only take you so far
Going into the WCS Finals, South Korea’s Lee Shin 'INnoVation' Hyung was one of the favourites to take the tournament. In the past he’s secured multiple GSL victories and collected enough prize money to place him within the game’s top-10 highest earners of all time, so no wonder expectations were high.
Long-regarded as one of the best Terran players in the world, he sat way up near the top of the Korean standings prior to the event and showed near perfect play in his group stage matches by taking down Bang 'TRUE' Tae Soo and Koh 'GuMiho' Byung Jae to finish as the number one seed. However, his run would come to a surprising end in the quarterfinals against Jun 'TY' Tae Yang, where he lost an extremely close series 2-3.
It was a disappointing finish for the Terran player, but it’s unlikely we’ve seen the last of him on the SC2 pro scene.
SpeCial tactics from foreign players
It was Alex 'Neeb' Sunderhaft who led the charge for foreign players heading into Blizzcon. In 2016, he’d already become the first American player to reach a WCS quarterfinal and it seemed like he was well on the way to repeating that success in 2017. A 2-1 win over Rogue in his first match of the group stages was a positive start, but two losses against Eo 'SoO' Yoon Su and in the rematch against Lee 'Rogue' Byung Ryul sent the Protoss player crashing out of the tournament in third.
Where one falls, however, another steps up. It was Mexican player Juan Carlos 'SpeCial' Tena Lopez who put on an impressive showing to reach the semi-finals. His play in the group stages was exemplary, as he convincingly defeated both Kim 'Stats' Dae Yeob and TY. Seeding meant he was forced to face the only other foreign player to make the playoff stages, Polish Zerg whizz Mikołaj 'Elazer' Ogonowski. He proved dominant in that series after a slip in game one, but couldn’t overcome his opponent in the next round, setting up an all-South Korean final.
Poor SoO, forever number two
While Rogue would go on to lift the trophy high in the air as a shower of confetti rained down on the stage, there was one person sat in the back, in the shadows, head in his hands. It was all going so well, though. He’d topped his qualification group, won a close series against GuMiho and even taken out the last remain foreign contingent in the tournament, Special. Still, it had happened again. SoO had finished in second place.
SoO’s repeated runner up appearances have become regular story throughout his StarCraft 2 career. His record-breaking six GSL final appearances have all ended with the South Korean in the silver medal position and many were waiting for him to break the curse at Blizzcon. Sadly, it wasn’t to be the case, as the final match against Rogue slowly slipped away from him and he suffered a 2-4 defeat.
Rogues do it with Broodlords
On the other hand, the 4-2 victory for Rogue and $280,000 [€241,250] in prize money catapulted him into the game’s top-10 highest earners. Before then, Rogue had only a few small victories and high podium finishes to his name, including a third-fourth place result at the 2015 WCS Global Finals. The loss to Kim 'sOs' Yoo Jin in that tournament’s semi-final was never going to be the last we’d see from Rogue.
It wasn’t smooth sailing for the Zerg player, though. A loss in his opening game of the group stages to Neeb left him with a lot of work to do in order to secure a playoff spot, although back-to-back 2-0 victories against Artur 'Nerchio' Bloch and Neeb again put those worries to rest. Wins in the early bracket versus Kim 'herO' Joon Ho and TY would then set up the Zerg vs Zerg final.
It began as a back-and-forth series, with both players trading wins over the opening four games. However, as the match progressed, Rogue found his rhythm.
In the final game, Rogue heavily invested into a well-upgraded army of Broodlords and Infestors – something SoO seemed to have an advantage over with his speedy Roaches constantly harassing Rogue’s bases over the map. Nevertheless, when Rogue committed to one massive push, he landed perfect Fungal Growths on SoO’s Corrupters while the Broodlord onslaught laid waste to everything in their path.
SoO was able to withstand the pressure, but Rogue perfectly responded to the increasing number of Corrupters by transitioning to more anti-air and spawning a huge army of Hydralisks. How SoO held on for so long is testament to his excellent play, yet Rogue’s superior economy kept the units flowing to force out the GG from SoO.
