SC2 Weekend Recap: IEM, DHW & WCG

One of the common criticisms of Blizzard's revamped WCS system was that the WCS broadcast schedule crowded out other tournaments. This weekend seemed to show that these arguments have some validity to them, as Blizzard's content producing partners have hosted nearly as many major tournaments in the past two weeks as Starcraft fans saw during the WCS season in its entirety.

Having so many tournaments was bittersweet for many fans, sweet because it shows that the Starcraft scene is still a healthy and vital, but bitter because so much content meant that it was impossible for even the most die hard fan to watch everything. There's no need to worry about the matches you missed however, because I'm going to catch you up on everything you missed!

 

WCG 2013

The grandaddy of Starcraft tournaments, the Olympics of eSports, this prestigious tournament crowned the Starcraft World Champion for many years until Blizzard reclaimed that right, but WCG remains an elder statesmen of eSports, and provided fans with an exciting tournament.

Team Dignitas player BlinG played in WCG, and gave a strong accounting of himself in the group stage, dominating Socke and Timber 2-0, but losing to Ian, HasuObs, and unsurprisingly Soulkey. Soulkey went on to dominate the tournament dropping 2 maps two Jim in the semifinals and 1 to Sora in the grand finals. PartinG also played at WCG, and after his dominant victory over sOs in Redbull Battlegrounds many fans believed him when he claimed that “He was the true world champion.”

Sadly for fans of the Korean Protoss Parting was only able to claim third place. For most players this would be a happy ending, but for PartinG third and even second are not enough. Does WCG mark the end of PartinG's hopes for dominance or was it merely a hiccup on his road to becoming the next bonjwa? Only time will tell.

Samayan 'BlinG' Kay also shares his thoughts on the event:  "Even though it was obviously over shadowed by the other two events, it was still a great event. I would've liked to see more coverage though as a lot of games went unseen. Jim surprised me the most as I expected Soulkey to roll over him completely but he actually gave him a pretty damn close series going down to the final game after having a 2-1 advantage. "

 

Dreamhack Open 2013

DreamHack left the Twitch trolls at a loss for words. With Darude DJing, the “Sandstorm Darude” joke seemed to lose its potency. As always the production values at DreamHack we're excellent, and iNcontroL did an admirable job co-hosting with Smix, but enough about the production let's talk about the games. The player of the weekend was undoubtedly Azubu's Patience, he was truly the darkest of horses at DreamHack. He is a GSTL player with strong performances in that league, but he had no major tournament experience and is entirely absent from WCS both challenger and premiere.

After making it through a difficult group that included top players such as NaNiwa, Hyun, TLO, and Lucifron, the inexperienced Protoss fell to MMA. This left Patience matched against the reigning World Champion sOs, and he was essentially written off at this point, but the Azubu Protoss's brilliant and aggressive play paid off, and he was able to 2-0 the Blizzcon Champion.

Up next was the two time WCS America winner Polt. Once again it seemed that Patience was doomed, sOs was a brilliant but inconsistent player, surely Polt as one of the most experienced and solid Terrans would take him out, but again Patience won out with his now signature aggressive play style. Patience was now put up against the Acer Terran that had previously killed him, MMA. Before the match INnoVation commented that he would prefer to play Patience but he was sure that MMA would make it through as he believed MMA was the better player. Patience showed that his initial loss to MMA was due to nerves, taking the Acer Terran out in a dominant 2-0. INnoVation's wish was granted, but much like wishes granted by a genie the Acer Terran faced unforeseen consequences.

Patience again surprised the audience by dominating the Season 1 WCS Champion. Patience found himself staring at the finals, but ultimately fell to Life's brilliant micro oriented play. Perhaps it was nerves that ended this Protoss's run, or perhaps he had finally been outclassed, but Patience won the hearts and minds of an audience that was probably unaware that he existed. We wait eagerly to see what Patience does next.

Life moved onto the finals and lost 4-2 to Taeja, the Liquid Terran now has three Dreamhack Open championships to his name, and he had the honor of being the first to beat Life in a series longer than a Bo3.

 

BlinG said: "This was by far the most anticipated tournament out of the three and for obvious reasons. Taeja winning wasn't too much of a shock but I was definitely expecting Jaedong to make it a bit further than he did as DreamHacks are pretty much his tournament. As most people will agree, Patience was the stand out player as he pretty much came out of nowhere and destroyed some of the best pretty convincingly so I was definitely impressed by him."

 

IEM Singapore

This tournament was broadcasted at nearly unwatchable hours for Americans like myself, but never fear I spent the last of my Thanksgiving holiday watching the VODs to ensure you don't have to.

Scarlett was matched against Bomber twice, and she proved that her victory over him at Redbull Battlegrounds was not a fluke. She lost to him in the series of the group stage, but defeated him in the final series. The foreign hope went on to lose to Hydra in the quarter finals, but made a strong case for herself as the successor to Stephano in terms of strongest foreign Zerg.

The semifinals consisted of two ZvPs, and Zerg fans were dismayed as Hydra's seemingly impeccible micro intensive playstyle fell to San, and DongRaeGu who looked as if he had made a return to from fell to the eventual tournament champion CJ Entus herO.

The  CJ Entus Protoss player enjoyed his first major tournament win, and after his exceptional play style I look forward to seeing more of him!

Bling: "I didn't manage to watch too much of the IEM VoDs so far but from looking at the brackets etc, Hero completely took my by surprise. The fact that he won the whole tournament and seemed pretty dominant was quite a shock for me as I haven't really seen him play so solid."

 

This weekend was a wild ride, and I hope there's more like it, at least after I've had a chance to rest. Who was your favorite player of the weekend? Tweet your answer to me for a chance to win a Hearthstone beta key!