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The Bronze Final

Socke vs Darkcell

Socke’s 7-gate rush in the first set hit a stone wall with teeth right after he walked out of his base as all his sentries got surrounded by lings and cleaned up by DarkCell’s mutas. But despite the big early loss, Socke managed to quite evenly match the mobility war against zerg’s everflying mutalisks, being constantly on the watch and repositioning his stalkers with the perfect precision. However, by the 30th minute mark, Socke started losing ground as DarkCell was finding more and more cracks in the protoss defence that he could abuse with his multitasking style. As a big army of mutas and lings breached into Socke’s main, the protoss had to GG.

To get back into the game, Socke took the initiative to teach DarkCell some important lessons about PvZ. The hard way. Socke’s first lecture is why you cannot stay passive and don’t opt for an army trade while amassing hydras, hoping to defeat a huge storm-centric army. The second was an example of how devastating blink timings are when your infestor tech is nowhere close to finished. That lost DarkCell both the games on Shakuras and Metalopolis so he had to try harder in set 4 on Shattered Temple.

Socke opened with a stargate/expand and waited until he had two voidrays until flying towards DarkCell’s main. Although he had three queens out, the combined power of the void rays plus the reinforcing phoenixes were too much and DarkCell was left with a damaged macro capabilities and a tech tree pushed towards hydralisk den. And there came the final lesson of Socke for the day. Taking advantage of DarkCell overproducing hydras to deal with the air threat (and hanging to that tech long past the aggression was over), Socke finished the game with a classic transition to colossi, ending the series with indisputable advantage.

The Grand Final

Grubby vs Nerchio

What better way to end our Razer GosuCup tournament with two of the most beloved European players in a tight conflict for the €900 first place prize. Grubby’s and Nerchio’s excellent performances throughout the course of the event were but a slight teaser to the full 7-game fiesta they created in the Grand Final.

Grubby opened the series with a 7-gate stargate all-in off of two base and for some moments Nerchio was under heavy pressure. Reinforced by deadly void rays, Grubby’s army kept pushing further and further but could never effectively damage the marked target - Nerchio’s third base. Sitting on much healthier economy, Nerchio defended wave after wave of gateway units until Grubby fell victim to the attrition state he had put himself in - his two bases could no longer keep the rush going and he had to tap out.

Realizing his mistake in game 1, Grubby approached the next two games with incredible patience, punishing every mistake by Nerchio, who both in set 2 and 3 insisted to stay on roach-based army despite it being highly inefficient when put against Grubby’s army. On Shattered Temple, Grubby turtled up until he reached a disgusting immortal count at which point his death ball just ploughed through Nerchio’s roaches. Similar was the outcome on Metalopolis - Nerchio did not tune his tech at all despite continuously being forcefielded and blazed down by Grubby’s colossi. Nerchio’s frustration escalated as he kept losing battle after battle (even typing “nice joke” at one point) and as Grubby arrived at his fourth with his tier 3 army, the zerg just left the game.



A small mistake by Grubby put strength back into Nerchio’s grasp as six of his lings found a crack in his wall-off and dealt sharp bits of pain to the protoss economy. That allowed Nerchio to go up to three bases unchallenged and soon his macro was off the hook. Grubby tried to go for a crippling move by transitioning to double stargate but Nerchio’s mutalisks were there to clean it all up and as the smoke cleared, Nerchio was even more ahead - 5 bases to 3. By that time Nerchio could afford everything - infestors, brood lords, corruptors, everything he needed to induce suffering in Grubby’s army.

That brough the series to a fifth set with neither player having a definite advantage over the other, be it in terms of sets or skills. Noted, people might have been slightly disappointed by Nerchio’s play in sets 2 and 3 but the one on Terminus was like specially tailored to make amends to his fans. Nerchio went for the massive infestor play - a build that has brought him so many successes in the past. By the time Grubby managed to get his third up and going (around the 15th minute), Nerchio was already maxed marching in for the victory despite all the storms Grubby threw at him.



It was all down to the last couple of sets and although the pressure was constantly on the rise, the sixth set was a bit anticlimactic as Nerchio’s 7-pool build backfired horribly, especially when he decided to go for a roach warren instead of a lair as his follow-up. Needless to say, this increased Grubby’s void rays potency to unreachable levels. Nerchio left the game, setting the score to a 3-3.

If you have to pick one game out of all play-off matches let it be the final set of the final series! Seriously, I mean it. It might not be an epic 1-hour-long PvZ but was a perfect example of how to recover from a tough economic situation. Such dark times fell upon Grubby as an early roach attack and then a ling run-by cost him to lose his second nexus twice, an unfortunate turn of events for every protoss. But being the smart player he is, Grubby knew that Nerchio had lost the majority of his army during those attacks and so he rushed forward to catch the zerg off guard and equalize the economies, killing more than 20 drones by maneuvering around Nerchio’s forces with the help of perfect forcefields. All Grubby had to do now was repeat his manner of play from the previous sets - be patient, macro up your death ball and wait for Nerchio to step on a loose stone. And so he did, foolishly engaging in a tight choke, losing every single bit of high tech he had in his position under colossus lasers and painful psi-storms. Knowing that all hope was lost, Nerchio typed a “rotfl” and surrendered the series.



Concluding verbiage

I have to admit I am more than satisfied by the way the Razer GosuCup play-offs turned out. And not just because it is our tournament, but because I was honestly entertained while watching the replays with a beer by my side and pen in my hand.

I have to pay huge curtsey to DarkCell who, in my opinion, was the player that deserves to be looked upon with expectation of future conquers. His play against Kas was remarkable and so was the opening game against Socke. The way that DarkCell threw two of the best players in Europe around with just a handful of zerglings was anything but boring and if he fixes some visible flaws in his play he can very well climb up to being regarded as a top-tier player.

I also strongly encourage you to check out the VODs for the grand final. Not only did it feature all seven games but it encompassed everything that a self-respecting final series needs - big macro play, cheeses, ever-changing leads, e-Drama and a final set worthy of its status quo.

If my embarrassingly long recap has not succeeded into mediating all the excitement from the play-offs (which might very well be the case), go grab all the replays for your collection and throw an eye to our interview with the winner - Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen who will bring home €900 and the title of being the first Razer GosuCup champion.

Razer StarCraft 2 GosuCup Standings
1st Manuel Grubby Schenkhuizen, €900
2nd Artur Nerchio Bloch, €450
3rd Giacomo Socke Thüs, €150