by in
Stats has taken out the Global Starcraft League Super Tournament with a hard-fought victory over Dark on Sunday, with the Korean star pocketing close to $12,000 USD for his troubles.
The tournament was a star-studded affair, with most of the top SC 2 players present, with the noted exception of TY. The format was a single-elimination series of best of fives (going from Ro16 to Ro8, to Ro4, and then finally the grand finals) and the tournament was spread over four days.
Innovation showed that the rumors of his demise were greatly exaggerated, as he easily took out reigning world champion Rogue in the Ro16.
Maru continued to show up in top form, eliminating perennial second-place finisher soO in the Ro16, but he, in turn, was beaten by Classic in the Ro8.
Stats and Solar had a great, closely contested Ro8 match, with an exciting game 1 where Solar managed to equalize despite losing a good fifty drones in the early/middle game, but Stats did eventually get the better of him, advancing to the Ro4.
herO managed to beat Innovation in the Ro8, before being defeated handily by Stats in the quarterfinals. For his part, Dark beat True and Classic to advance to the finals, with a 3-2 and 3-1 score respectively.
Grand final recap: Dark vs Stats
The finals came down to Dark vs Stats. The ultimate late game zerg vs the perfect defensive protoss.
Stats took game one proving that mass high templars do, in fact, trump roach ravager play.
In game two Dark opened up with a ton of zerglings, sacrificing economy in the hopes of catching his opponent off guard with a very early attack. While taking a circuitous route around the map in order to avoid Stats’ scouting adept, Dark discovered Stats’ proxied stargate.
The zerg player destroyed it before any air units could be made, but in doing so tipped his hand about the early aggression, enabling his opponent to erect a complete sim city defense. With both players’ early games plans thwarted they entered the middle game in a roughly even position. Stats tried some archon drop harass which failed to get any real damage done, and when Dark’s roaches moved across the map for a counterattack the Protoss was forced to tap out.
Game three was an incredibly exciting game. Dark proxied his third hatchery for an early queen/spore/ravager push on Stats’ natural. Stats managed to sneak out two oracles to eliminate Dark’s entire economy, but at the same time, Dark managed to eliminate the protoss natural and moved into his opponent’s main base. After a final climactic battle, a single ravager was all that remained, and Dark took a 2-1 lead.
Game four was a lopsided affair, with Dark’s +1 lings dealing game-ending damage early on, and suddenly the zerg player was on match point. Down two games, Stats began to rally, winning game five and six in the late game with carrier tech.
Tied up at 3-3 there was only one game left. Game seven came down to a massive chargelot / archon attack from Stats. Dark managed to hold off the attack, and with heavy losses on both sides the players had equalized and began to macro up.
Dark maxed out first, but his fourth base got taken out by a large attack, and while his burrowed roach harass kept Stats busy, Stats’ high tech immortal / archon/templar composition directly countered Dark’s roaches. Despite Dark’s excellent use of accelerated healing from burrow, eventually, Stats was able to power through and win the series.
