Life takes IEM New York, ends six-month goldless slump

Photo: Kevin Florenzano / ESL

After a long period of struggling that followed his last championship at MLG Winter, StarTale's Lee "life" Seung Hyun snatches his seventh gold in his career after beating Alliance's Johan "Naniwa" Lucchesi in six games.

Life came to New York as one of the players to watch despite his declining performance as of recently, eventual resulting in elimination from the upper cliques of WCS Korea. Although the renowned Korean did manage to triumph in RSL V in July, the lack of premier gold made many a fan doubtful towards his form. 

The young Zerg had a rough time going out of his IEM NY group and had to fight Zest twice in order to make it out. Once in the playoffs, however, Life's play felt completely revitalized and the grand final was reached without a single map being dropped. The foreign hope Naniwa was already on the line waiting and after a brief pause the closing series was given start.

Spawning on Polar Night for the first game, Life took the extra greedy approach and hatch-blocked Naniwa’s natural while going for three bases himself. Upon clearing the infestation at his base, Naniwa launched a zealot/oracle counter attack to take down at least one of Life’s hatcheries and somewhat equalize the two economies but the Zerg would not let that go unpunished.

Through constant ling raids, Life delayed both Naniwa’s natural and third significantly, teching in the meanwhile to a standard roach/hydra/swarm host composition. Although the Swede gathered some temporary momentum upon securing his third, his zealot/void ray/archon army was not enough to efficiently combat neither Life’s main force nor the buggery roach harassments back in his base.

Game two on Akilon Wastes came out a swaggering display of Life’s skill with zerglings. After clearing the early zealot/MSC threat of Naniwa, the young Zerg immediately went on the counter offensive and was rewarded with cracks in Naniwa’s front wall. In the following minutes, obscene amounts of damage were dealt to the Protoss, including cancelations of nexuses, sentry losses and probe kills. As a predator toying with his prey, Life continued to send low-tier units at Naniwa while teching to a 15th minute ultlisk/infestor switch, a move which eventually ended Naniwa’s life and put his down by a pair.

Feeling the surge of momentum, Life made his macro explode on Bel’Shir Vestige and using his trademark zergling attacks to pin Naniwa down, he quickly went up to five hatcheries. Coming up next was a 180-supply army of roaches, queens and infestors arriving at the 13th minute and Naniwa was against the ropes once again.

A miraculous hold, however, allowed the Swede to turn the game around. Taking zealot warp-ins to Life’s drone count – at the time a bit too low to saturate all of the hatcheries – Naniwa was able to equalize the scales and build towards a juggernaut army of immortals, archons and high templars. The series was back to a one-game difference.

An even more intimidating Naniwa returned on Whirlwind and almost brought along a repeat on the Bel’Shir Vestige scenario. Once again, the Protoss was barraged with multi-pronged attacks that denied his third and overwhelming hydra/roach/queen forces that stormed his natural but by microing his void rays outstandingly Naniwa was able to hold.

Still on two bases and with zerglings guarding every possible expansion, Naniwa went for the all-or-nothing attack. Bringing micromanagement to new heights, Alliance’s star advanced deeper and deeper into enemy territory, unmindful of Life’s hoards and the screams of exultation coming from the caster desk. It wasn’t until Life sent a handful of guerilla roaches to take down the economy at Naniwa’s natural that the Swede ran out of steam and put the Zerg on match point.

A second win for Naniwa was achieved on Yeonsu as the two grand finalists engaged in very much a standard ZvP. There were no manner hatcheries, no inappropriate bravado and no miraculous comebacks, just a solid phoenix opening, piercing zealot harassments and a tight colossus play to outmuscle the corruptor/infestor/swarm host army of Life. The StarTale ace was still on match point, but the series was suddenly much closer than he’d wish for. 

A déjà vu of the Akilon Wastes game arrived to close the series on Frost. Counting on his loyal zerglings to get all the work done, Life invested heavily into attacking units instead of building up his economy and that decision paid off with the death of Naniwa’s third nexus. Having spotted the dark shrine earlier and knowing every details of the Protoss base, Life confidently threw all he had at Naniwa’s front wall, broke it down, surrounded the few enemy units that dared stand in his way and put an end to Swede’s otherwise admirable run through IEM New York. Life stood champion $10,000 richer after half a year of no premier gold medals.