[crAzerk]

Missed the SEACL Finals?
No worries.
We've got it covered.

+ [Click for full recaps and post-game interviews!] +

It was an intense few hours as the SEACL Finals drew to a close last night with the epic series between clan aLt and clan TA.
Which players shone and which players faltered? Cheesy all-ins and long, action-packed games? We got it all.

+ [Just tell me who won?!] +

TA beat aLt with a convincing score of 5-1!!

TARossi > aLtJimDiddy 1-0
TARossi > aLtnirvAnA 2-0
TARossi < aLtiAguZ 2-1
TAdeth > aLtiAguz 3-1
TAdeth > aLtoXygen 4-1
TAdeth > YoonYJ 5-1

Congrats TA for their resounding victory over aLt!

Games 1,3,5,7,9 by crAzerk, 2,4,6,8 by Lemminks. Enjoy!
(VODs may be done, thus replays aren't uploaded yet)

+ [Game 1] +

Game 1 - TARossi vs aLtJimDiddy on ESL The Shattered Temple
The SEACL Finals between TA and aLt kicked off with Rossi, a strong Terran player and JimDiddy, a top ranked Zerg GM!

Both players open standard, with JimDiddy going for a 15/15 hatch/pool, while Rossi did a reactor Hellion into a CC opening.


Rossi pokes in with 4 Hellions

This attack killed 6 Drones, which I think could have been avoided with just an additional spine at the bottom right. Regardless, JimDiddy droned right back up and went ahead by 10 Drones within a minute or two. The power of Zerg!

Rossi transitioned into a marine/tank composition while JimDiddy got some Roaches/Lings out before going for Lair tech and a Baneling Nest.
Like all good Terran, Rossi moves out to attempt a Stim timing push!


However, Jimdiddy had good creep spread which caused Rossi to hesitate and pull back. He doesn't want to be engaging on creep where Zerg has the advantage!

As JimDiddy waits on his Baneling Speed, Rossi begins to clear creep, and sieges up at the choke of Jim's base.

Slow push!

Jim needs to break this, but his Baneling speed isn't up yet! The tanks begin shelling away and take down the 2 Spine crawlers at Jimdiddy's entrance, as the marines threatened to march forward to clear out Drones and reinforcing units.


JimDiddy keeping his units tucked away while waiting for Baneling speed

Finally, after losing 2 Overlords to the Marines and getting supplyblocked, Baneling Speed finished, so JimDiddy engaged with his Zerg forces!




With the help of Creep and baneling speed, JimDiddy is able to break the contain

Jimdiddy establishes his 3rd on the 'island' expo while Rossi directly takes his gold. Jimdiddy had a sizable Drone lead at this point and continued massing up on sling/bling/mutas while Rossi sticks to a Marine/Tank army. Jimdiddy is very active with his Mutas and forced a few extra turrets from Rossi.

Then came a sequence of events that were occurred one after the other, almost simultaneously - I think most observers would miss at least one of them.


JimDiddy's flock of 20+ mutas flew into Rossi's main and decimated the turrets and mineral line. Rossi's entire army was already moving towards the middle so Rossi ignored this


Big engagement in the middle - Rossi's marines only barely managed to dart off creep before it began
Marines managed to clean this up, even with Jimdiddy's mutas coming to assist.

And what you probably missed:

Oh, sneaky Rossi. A drop on the 'island' expo!


Marines cleaning up all the drones and subsequently the Hatchery as well!

Jimdiddy was probably busy with:



Banelings hatched just in time to clean up the marines

JimDiddy seems to choose to ignore the marines taking out his island expo and went for a counterattack


While the Mutas cleaned up the marines (in not a very cost-effective trade), JimDiddy decided to pull back when Rossi dropped his marines onto his gold expo.

Both players now work to get their next base up, while Jimdiddy does some mutalisk harass on Rossi's main, killing quite a few supply depots! Marines do chase the Mutas away eventually though. Both players macroed up another army of the same combination as before, with Rossi adding in a Thor for good measure.

Another battle ensued:

With good magic boxing, Jimdiddy was able clear the Thor, but there were just too many Marines! (upgraded 3/1 too) Seriously, +3 Marines are Muta killers :S

Now both players were on roughly 2 base, and as we know that Zerg loses when they're on equal bases with Terran. Rossi's macro was tip-top as he rallies more and more marines/tanks, and was over 30 food above JimDiddy.
With a drop by Rossi to take out even more Drones:


and Rossi sniping Jim's gold expo, AND Jim mismicroing these infestors:

All 3 got 0 fungals off

JimDiddy is forced to GG out.

1-0 to TA!

+ [Game 2] +

Game 2 - TARossi vs aLtnirvAnA on Tal'Darim Altar

We’re here on Tal’darim Altar LE with TARossi against aLtnirvAnA. After a thrilling game 1 TA is up 1-0 on aLt.
aLtnirvAnA warps-in in the top right, while TARossi spawns in the top left.

nirvAnA goes Nexus first, getting it at 2:41, puts down a gateway afterwards and sends his scouting worker to the south. Meanwhile Rossi makes a clever moves and builds a supply depot at his wall-off, completely blocking it off, but stops the building SCV and sends him to scout to the right, scouting nirvAnA’s nexus and gateway.


nirvAnA then puts down an assimilator followed by a second gateway and starts saving up some chrono, throwing down a Cybernetics Core as soon as his first gateway is done. Rossi meanwhile throws down 2 more barracks, which is quickly followed by a 4th. His one marine at his ramp denies nirvAnA’s scouting worker.

nirvAnA chrono’s out a zealot and manages to kill Rossi’s scouting worker before sending his zealot to poke Rossi’s ramp and getting a second assimilator at his natural. However with 4 barrack constantly pumping marines Rossi scares the zealot away before pulling all but 4 of his SCV’s along with 9 marines and a little train behind them going for the marine/SCV all-in.


nirvAnA sees this with the probe and zealot at the watchtower. And sacrifices his zealot and throws down a pylon and gateway at his front. However he only has two stalkers out and wastes a chrono on a supply-blocked zealot, with his Warp Gate research only a quarter way done.

Rossi then says “choo choo”
poking a little fun at Mr. Choo (nirvAnA) as his train of death reaches nirvAnA’s ramp.

With some stutter-step Rossi reaches nirvAnA’s production facilities and scares away the stalkers with the SCVs.
He then proceeds to target the Artosis pylon, unpowering nirvAnA’s two gateways and stopping warp gate research as well as supply blocking nirvAnA. nirvAnA manages to get a zealot out and pulls his probes off at his natural, trying to go after the reinforcing marines.

Meanwhile he pulls his probes from his main and moves in,

however Rossi’s SCV’s form a wall ahead of his marines and nirvana is only able to kill 1 of them before losing everything but 1 stalker and he gg’s out.

TARossi takes another from aLt and TA is up 2-0.

+ [Game 3] +

Game 3 - aLtiAguZ vs TARossi on Shakuras Plateau

Rossi opens with 111, while iaguz goes for a 1 rax into CC opening. With 4 marines and a hellion, Rossi moves out into the middle of the map and catches iaguz' marines!


Rossi cleans up all of iaguz's marines after some dancing back and forth.

While iaguz pumps out marine/tanks, Rossi tries something sneaky, doing an elevator drop with marines/hellions:


By pulling SCVs and bringing his marines/tank over, iaguz was able to handle this attack with ease - and even manages to prevent Rossi from sniping his Tech Lab which had Stim researching. In fact, Stim finished about 2-3 seconds before the Tech Lab burnt down! Talk about close calls :/

Both players macro up, and iaguz managed to deny a medivac drop with a strategically-placed patrolling Viking. They finally engage after this incident just outside of iaguz's base.






iaguz eventually clears this push by Rossi up.

Both players proceeded to establish their tank-line in the middle of the map in typical TvT fashion, and it became a positioning + macro + who-can-multi-task-better game.
iaguz does multiple multi-prong drops, with Rossi cleaning them up nicely. Neither player seemed ahead at this point.
(btw this match was just FULL of action, drops everywhere, you should get the replay and watch it! Words will never do this justice)

The first bit of deviance from this standard TvT play was a move by iaGuz:

Battlecruisers!

Both players continued the positioning game with Siege tanks /scans and marines, WHILE doing drops

When iaguz finally had 2 BCs out, he showed them and took out quite a few of Rossi's tanks!


Rossi got tired of the deadlock, so he decided to storm in with his big ball of marines and tanks.

However, iaguz with his 2/1 BC and 3/3 marines overpowered Rossi's 2/2 marines and tanks!

Tha game continued to go back and forth, with drops playing a big part to denying Rossi further bases. iaguz's Battlecruisers also killed quite a fair bit of Rossi's tanks. However, iaguz had the upgrade advantage as Rossi got stuck at 3/2 marines.


Rossi engages with overstimmed marines, and the stronger upgrades of iaguz allowed him to clear up Rossi's army.

Iaguz followed this up with another big rally of marines and tanks, and finally this long 33 minute Terran see-saw ended with Rossi tapping out.

+ [Game 4] +

Game 4 of the SEACL Finals and the score is 2-1.

TA sends out TAdeth against Gimli, playing for aLtiaguz. The map is GSL Crossfire, with aLtiaguz spawning in the top right and TAdeth spawning in the bottom left.
Game 4 - TAdeth vs aLtiaguz on GSL Crossfire

Both players start with the exact same opening, including an SCV high five in the middle of the map. deth then loses his scouting worker to a marine, while iaguz manages to bring his back and secures a 1 worker advantage.

Both player then put down their factories, however iaguz puts down his second gas as well. He then gets a tech lab on it while deth get a hellion instead and both players start a starport for the Destiny’s Cloud Fist build. With his hellion out deth moves forward while getting a medevac from the starport, iaguz meanwhile preforms a switch-a-roo with his factory and starport, getting cloak and a banshee.

However deth is knocking on his front door with 6 marines and 2 hellions against iaguz’s 5 marines and hellion, forcing iaguz to pull back behind his supply depot wall. deth then starts an engineering bay as well as a Viking and his second gas, seemingly on top of iaguz’s banshee play. Iaguz meanwhile throws down a Command Center in his main and gets another banshee out, sending the other one the long way around to deth’s base. However deth has a missile turret in his mineral line already, and is saving energy on his Orbital.

deth then barges his way up iaguz’s ramp once his medivac arrives and easily destroys a depot since iaguz was building a reactor on his barracks and didn’t have enough units out, this also supply blocks iaguz, who pulls his banshee back from near the middle of the map. With medivac support and hellions deth easily kills all of iaguz’s marines, however the banshee arrives and cloaks on deth’s army. deth then immediately scans and kills the banshee with his 8 marines before destroying the rest of the wall’s depots. However iaguz has another cloaked banshee that just popped out of the starport and also has a siege tank out.

Then deth immediately scans, killing the banshee and prompting iaguz to pull all his SCVs

which causes deth to pick them up in his medivac, saving 5 marines and a hellion while killing two SCVs.

Meanwhile deth starts building an expo in his main and tries to drop the previous marines and hellions, however iaguz easily wards this off with his two tanks. deth then gets a raven followed by cloak and banshee of his own. Iaguz moves out to the middle while floating his orbital to his natural, however pulls back to kill a banshee in his main.

deth then sends a banshee to iaguz’s natural whilst securing his own natural. He manages to dodge the first scan, before killing the turret building SCV and forcing a cancel on the turret before the banshee goes down to another scan.

deth builds another barracks, resulting in two reactored racks and one with a tech lab. However iaguz starts his Stim earlier than deth, however has almost no marines and no medivac.

deth then starts building an expo at the gold while iaguz builds one next to his natural, virtually in the middle of nowhere. deth then tries a marine drop but iaguz with his superb game sense has three Vikings patrolling it’s path,

Fortunately, deth is able to save at least 4 of his marines before the medivac dies with his own quick reactions.

Because of starting stim early, iaguz is able to get marine shields up first while throwing down another barracks and factory. However deth already has 4 barracks, three of them with reactors, resulting in a food lead of 24 supply. deth then moves out while saturating his gold and getting a planetary fortress, with iaguz positioned at his watchtower. Deth takes a single tank shot before retreating back to his own watchtower and setting up a line there. Meanwhile iaguz floats his Command Center all the way across the map to the top left expo and morphs in a PF.

deth moves a small drop with only 4 marines up the left side and drops at the 3rd, however the PF prevents iaguz from losing any SCVs.

christ that is a painful death animation

However with 1 marine deth prevents any mining, even killing 1 SCV and making iaguz leave 4 guys in gas when he is cleaned up.

However with some of iaguz’s marines out of position, deth moves in from the side, running by some of iaguz’s tanks while taking some heavy damage. Despite this he still has a 20-food lead on iaguz.

A point defence drone distracts the Vikings while deth’s marines move towards the 3rd, with his tanks sieging near iaguz’s tanks. deth’s larger marine count is able to clear off a lot of iaguz’s marines. However with air control iaguz has one hero tank that begins to shell at deth’s tanks, killing 3 of them. Meanwhile deth loses his Raven and his overstimmed marines get sandwiched between a planetary and some siege tanks. Things don’t go well for them.

However he is able to pick up 16 of them. Who then kill off the two siege tanks with marine drops, as well some of iaguz’s reinforcing marines and two more tanks. iaguz returns the favour with his own marine bombs, taking out two of deth’s tanks.

deth then moves in through the middle.

However he gets outflanked and iaguz destroys his army.

Throughout all that both players have been staying on top of their macro, with iaguz throwing down several naked barracks while deth has 5 reactored Barracks and a 4th base. deth retreats back to his watchtower and iaguz expands to his own gold. deth then moves, catching iaguz’s marines out of position without all their tank support.

A mismicro causes deth a lot of his marines and he is forced to pull back. Deth tries to go with a double drop on the right side, but with iaguz sending a squad of marines to kill a idle marine and his two patrolling Vikings, iaguz decimated the drop.

Deth throws down 2 more Starports and a Fusion Core at his natural 3rd

then gets tech labs on 4 starports. iaguz builds his own his fusion core, but only has 1 starport with another under construction. Meanwhile deth, despite his losses, manages to get a double drop into iaguz’s main after clearing the right side. However, iaguz cleans it up easily and it becomes all quiet on the western front.

Except for the fact that deth has two Battlecruisers with yamato as well as the 25 starting energy, although a little mistimed.

deth moves out with his two BC’s supported by 11 vikings against iaguz’s 7 vikings. He hits iaguz’s siege line from the flank


iaguz scares them off with some marines, but runs them straight into deth’s siege line.

With no answer to deth’s now 3 BC’s, and his tanks getting decimated, iaguz gg’s out.

And with that TA takes another game, making the score 3-1.

+ [Game 5] +

aLtOxyGen vs TAdeth on Terminus SE

Oxygen opens with a 1 rax CC, while Deth goes standard 111. He seems to be wary of some kind of all-in by Oxygen, and puts up a bunker at his ramp.
Seeing no aggression coming, Deth moves out with some of his own.

Drops off Hellions + Marines into Oxygen's main!

Oxygen pulls all his SCVs to handle this, resulting in him losing 12 workers and falling behind in economy.He continues to make marine-medivac, while Deth goes for blueflame and cloaked Banshees!

Both players macro up, with Oxygen favoring an infantry army while Deth makes just hellions and tanks, and does an excellent job of harassing with his cloaked Banshees, pulling himself further ahead in the harvestor count.

He does a multiprong harass as well - A cloaked banshee at Oxygen's natural with :

Blue flame in the main!

Deth was now MORE THAN DOUBLE Oxygen's SCVs, also being about 50 food ahead. He methodically expanded, macroed up and massed up an army while doing all these. His unique mix of cloaked Banshees with mech was giving Oxygen problems.

Deth finally decides to move out when he was close to 200 food (Oxygen was about just over 100) with his big hellion tank army, and baited a few stims from Oxygen's MMM ball.


Hellions taking out a tank - not something you see every game

Oxygen does a neat maneuver to take out the big siege ball:

infantry drops ON TOP of the tanks!

This took out many of the tanks but Deth had reinforcements constantly streaming in. He also sneaked some blue flame hellions into Oxygen's base which took out most of his SCVs - it was 78-29 at that point.
Deth MULE drops him, and Oxygen is forced to tap out.

+ [Game 6] +

With the scores at 4-1 the Singapore based aLt clan is hanging by a thread, but will the possibly hung over Yoonyj, arguably the best terran in SEA, save them and carry his team to victory? The map is Metalopolis and they’re in close air on the right side of the map (which is actually the Central Business district seeing as how they have the shops and the other side doesn’t).

Game 6 - TAdeth VS YoonYJ on Metalopolis

Deth scouts close positions first, even though this is the GSL version meaning no close spawns. He reaches YYJ's base eventually and does see the tech lab on Yoon’s barracks. Yoon then gets a reaper out to clear the watchtower, and hides a command center to the north of his natural. Deth, meanwhile, goes 1/1/1 with a hellion from the factory.

YYJ then gets his second gas while building a factory on the tech lab and getting a reactor on his barracks. deth tries to preform a bit of elevator action into Yoon’s main, but Yoon, showcasing his fantastic game sense, positions some marine near the edge.

However with hellions and marines on the low ground deth is easily able to get by YYJ, who only has 4 marines and a tank. His hellions push toward the mineral line before getting picked up. However with two marines in his mineral line Yoon is able to just pick off the medivac before it escapes.

Deth gets a banshee out, however a missile turret in the main deters it away to the natural, where she is able to stop mining and proceeds to hide in the top right corner, rendezvousing with her equally hot sister. Yoon sends a Viking to chase her but he is just too low and misses them. The Banshees then go to harass but with a turret in the main and marine in the natural deth is unable to do much damage and loses one of them escaping.

Meanwhile deth has got his natural up and 2 more raxs then Yoon gets both shield and stim before Yoon. They both move out at the same time, but deth’s higher marine count plus medivac support forces Yoon to fall back.

Deth then sieges below the main base and elevators units into the main. Yoon is able to clear out the marines up top, however a scan allows deth to finish off all of yoon’s marines before losing all of his own and falling back.

Both players then start getting a third up. With more production facilities, deth takes the supply lead, and snipes two of Yoon’s tanks that were out of position.

He then elevators two tanks and 8 marines into the main from the same spot. Stimming the marines and sieging the tanks, he takes out the tech lab attached to one of Yoon’s factory.

Yoon moves in with 3 tanks and some marines, however they don’t have shields and deth’s marines have +1 attack. As a result Yoon’s army gets decimated.

deth then launches a 2prong attack to finish off Yoon- He sends 14 marines to Yoon’s natural:

while shelling Yoon's production in his main. deth destroys two barracks and a factory, forcing the orbital away. He also forces Yoon’s third to lift off with a single marine.

After losing the factory and being forced to float the starport away, Yoon pulls all of his SCV’s to clear the tanks up top.

Despite doing so he is miles behind and tries a desperation drop into deth’s main. However he is unable to do economic damage and deth clears it up, with Vikings destroying the last medivac, and with that Yoon loses all but two of the marines.

GET TO DA CHOPPA

Yoon pulls all his SCVs off, but with siege tanks on the low ground and more marines deth clears it up, and with a page right out of Yoon’s book, deth drops the manner mule and Yoon calls GG.

So there you have it. Terror Austalis’s deth completes his hat-trick and wins it for TA.

+ [Game 7] +

With the series already decided, crAzerk and Lemminks decide to duke it out in a deathmatch of Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock (as Zie mentioned on stream).
For a standard game of Rock Paper Scissors, each player has a 50% chance of winning (Yes, not 1/3, because draws are replayed and hence not taken into account).
In Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock, the odds go down to 25%! For more excitement and strategy!

Who will win? Find out in Game 8!

+ [Game 8] +

How do you play Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock? Watch this video to find out!

+ [Game 9] +

If you haven't watched the video in Game 8, check it out FIRST!
Because this video is the BLOOPERS for that video!

From 7:25 onwards!

Alright that's all for this nonsenseee. As you know, since the series was decided by Game 6, these 3 were just anti-spoilers.

+ [Post game interview with both teams] +

+ [Interview with aLtnirvAnA] +

Tell me abit about the line up - did you all already had that order in mind or was that something that was decided on the spot?
Well we more or less decided who was gonna play a few days before. In our customs and ladder results the top 2 players in aLt were iaguz and yoon, with oxy and jim closely behind. last spot was between me/pig/duckie/sheepy. As for my play I thought i had a good build on that map but turns out i didnt prepare for that 1 base attack! i blame oxy for not doing it to me haha!!

Everyone was expecting PiG to come up before YYJ - and we were all surprised with the choice of Oxygen. I suppose Oxygen is just in better form than PiG recently?
Yea well it was about the matchups. PiG is very strong in zvp, zvz. zvt not so much. oxy has been in super hot form recently and he had a special build prepared for this map. So he felt confident and i let him go for it. His build was based around the terran fast expanding since that was a big map.
but deth didnt expand and went the same build as the previous games, too bad oxy didnt see them he was eating lol (im blaming oxy again haha!)

Yea, the casters were commenting that it was odd since oxygen was supposedly known for his 1 base play or sth haha
yea thats a popular misconception.. oxy was a 1 base cheeser like 8 months ago. hes kinda low profile cause he doesn't play much in tournaments so pples perception of him hasn't changed yet. he can play very strong marcro games as well

From the pre-game interviews, it was clear that deth was one of the strongest players of TA. Did aLt have a plan for handling deth? He seemed to catch you guys with a strong 3-0 showing.
yea deth played really impressively in all the games. our problem was we had players strong vs Zerg/Protoss and noone on our team was very confident against terran

Regardless, your team put up a strong showing, the first two TvTs were waaay intense and close. So good job! any final words?
grats to TA, a victory well deserved And to our sponsor Mr Ray!!

+ [Interview with TAScarecrow] +

Lemminks: First and foremost, how do you feel about winning the first SEACL?

TAScarecrow: Absolutely stoked, it was a great competition and to come out on top really reflects the amount of work our top players have put in, particularly deth and rossi.

Lemminks: Was your lineout planned in anyway?

TAScarecrow: Yep, we were going to stick with what's been working for us, rossi first and edge anchoring. We had several snipers organised but didn’t end up using them, as I felt deth was our best option against iaguz, and the rest is history.

Lemminks: Did deth going 4-0 against a strong clan like aLt surprise you in anyway?

TAScarecrow: Not particularly, he's put a ton of work into training in the last few months on the Korean server and aLt's heavy terran lineup suited him. Of course anything can happen, I wouldn’t have been surprised at an iaguz or yyj 4 kill either tbh.

Lemminks: If you don't mind me asking, was rossi's marine/scv all-in in game 2 against Nirvana planned by the team, or did he just come up with it in a spur-of-the-moment type fashion?

TAScarecrow: It's what he does normally after seeing a nexus first on that map, he just found toss had a hard time holding it, so went with it here.

Lemminks: Do you have anything to say about aLt's lineup and the players they sent up against you? crAzerk: in other words was anythign a surprise?

TAScarecrow: jimdiddy first was a surprise but one we were happy with, we thought he'd be saved for cam (TAedge*). Also we expected pig at some point, but that never eventuated. iaguz impressed, both the tvt's were really entertaining. Other than that I’d just like to thank them for the war, some great games in there.

Lemminks: Lastly, any final thoughts on the series + any shoutouts? Or people you want to thank?

TAScarecrow: Great series, wish it was longer so more players from both teams could get involved. I'd like to thank Mr Ray for the amazing sponsorship, crAzerk and Frost for running it so smoothly, and SC2SEA for helping to run such an awesome tournament cheers oh and thanks for the interview!

Lemminks: No thank you for your time, enjoy the after party^^

TAScarecrow: Cheers, will do. raynors party most likely

We hope you enjoyed our coverage of the SEACL Finals! See you next time!

[LennX]

Thanks for the fast write up!

[syfMiley]

Ttttttttteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy yyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[JacziE]

you do awesome work, keep it up!

[Champi]

Rossi paper scissors lizard spock

[crAzerk]

so do you Zie! keep casting!

[TAEdgE]

so do you EdgE keep it up!

[deL]

Originally Posted by EdgE

so do you EdgE keep it up!

True! Wouldn't have been in the finals without EdgE's nerves of steel, can't forget that!

[TCPLemminks]

I think I wrote too much -_-