After barely getting into the final tournament and performing two team kills, Liquid's HerO beat Azubu's ViOlet 4 - 2 to take the championship, his second in less than a month.
He has been crowned King of Winter: last year he debuted by winning Dreamhack Winter, and repeated that performance this November, when he beat his otherwise dominant teammate, Taeja, 4 - 0 to take the trophy. This year, he drove that point even further in by taking the NASL 4 championship trophy. This has been a good year for Liquid'HerO, and - with HSC VI just around the corner - it may get even better.
How did he win? PvZs nowadays are fixed in a predictable routine, but even so HerO manages to bring his own sense of swing into the Protoss arsenal of strategies. Two elements dominated his performance: a penchant for pre-Broodlord aggression, and maximization of Warp Prism potential, which is to say, strong timings and Warp Prism micro.
It wasn't all easy. Let's not shrug off his victory as a symptom of the current PvZ metagame. HerO started down 0 - 2, a failed Immortal/Sentry All In on Ohana taking him perilously close to an abyss only Rain has ever crawled out of. HerO followed his first two losses by winning four games in a row - mostly by refusing to play a symmetrical game. He didn't plan for long macro games, attempted to trick ViOlet or otherwise throw dust into his eyes. He relied on micro and the compartmentalized advantages of the Protoss army to overcome an opponent who had won (deservingly) as many championships as himself.
Patience and a sense of when to strike were key - and his unerring use of Warp Prisms - perhaps a single Prism reincarnated in each game. There is much to praise about HerO's use of Warp Prisms against ViOlet. Lifting and dropping not only Immortals but Stalkers, Zealots and High Templar, HerO gave much increased value to units which would have otherwise quickly fallen. The effect was that of an army which vanished and multiplied according to need. If anything, it is this that Protoss players will take away from the Grand Finals.
He has been crowned King of Winter: last year he debuted by winning Dreamhack Winter, and repeated that performance this November, when he beat his otherwise dominant teammate, Taeja, 4 - 0 to take the trophy. This year, he drove that point even further in by taking the NASL 4 championship trophy. This has been a good year for Liquid'HerO, and - with HSC VI just around the corner - it may get even better.
How did he win? PvZs nowadays are fixed in a predictable routine, but even so HerO manages to bring his own sense of swing into the Protoss arsenal of strategies. Two elements dominated his performance: a penchant for pre-Broodlord aggression, and maximization of Warp Prism potential, which is to say, strong timings and Warp Prism micro.
It wasn't all easy. Let's not shrug off his victory as a symptom of the current PvZ metagame. HerO started down 0 - 2, a failed Immortal/Sentry All In on Ohana taking him perilously close to an abyss only Rain has ever crawled out of. HerO followed his first two losses by winning four games in a row - mostly by refusing to play a symmetrical game. He didn't plan for long macro games, attempted to trick ViOlet or otherwise throw dust into his eyes. He relied on micro and the compartmentalized advantages of the Protoss army to overcome an opponent who had won (deservingly) as many championships as himself.
Patience and a sense of when to strike were key - and his unerring use of Warp Prisms - perhaps a single Prism reincarnated in each game. There is much to praise about HerO's use of Warp Prisms against ViOlet. Lifting and dropping not only Immortals but Stalkers, Zealots and High Templar, HerO gave much increased value to units which would have otherwise quickly fallen. The effect was that of an army which vanished and multiplied according to need. If anything, it is this that Protoss players will take away from the Grand Finals.
