Nation Wars Group Stage Complete: Now for the Semis!
The group stage has finished and the 4 Strongest Starcraft Nations in the SEA/ANZ region have been decided.
Group Seeds
#1 Taiwan (11-4 MAPS)
#1 China (11-4 MAPS)
#2 Australia (10-5 MAPS)
#2 Singapore (8-7 MAPS)
As for those Nations no longer in the competition, we would like to thank you for your participation and great games displayed, we certainly hope to see you again in Season 3! Lets cheer on our neighbouring countries now! For more information on the Semi Finals which Starts this Saturday, go here
For those who have missed the action, no worries, you can check out the recaps and replays for each week below!
The final week of Nation Wars started with Group A with China vs Singapore and casting by mezza and Guest Pros sheepy, and dementia. China had been looking less then dominant with two narrow 3-2 victories over Malaysia and Thailand so many people were looking forward to this matchup. However, this time Singapore chose to field a fresher lineup with new talents mera, escapist, jaff and "King of Kembangan" Dementia having a run out. Things didn't go so good for Singapore but their Fei fei Wanton Noodle King Dementia managed to take the only map in Singapore's 0-5 (1-10) defeat. Meaning while Thailand beat Malaysia convincingly. It was yet again Malaysia's star Cobo who managed to get the sole point for Malaysia. Cobo managed to help Malaysia win all their matches vs China, Singapore and Malaysia and bows out as Malaysia's undisputed MVP this season.
There were no surprises in Group B as tournament favourites Australia beat Philippines convincingly 4-1. Philippines star player and TGX winner who will be representing them in the TGX expo in Singapore, "Ender" took out recent City Hunter Sydney Lan Champion MaFia 2-1 to give Philippines their only game. In the other match of Group B, Taiwan once again showcased their dominance with a 4-1 victory over New Zealand. The best female Starcraft player in the world, luway aka slayer of glade, surprisingly lost her match against NZ zerg Flaunt to give New Zealand their only victory.
Singapore vs Malaysia started off week two of the Neolution Nation Wars. EveJaff started the night on a high for the Singaporean squad, beating greenwood 2-0 on Xel’Naga Caverns. Malaysia were quick to even the score however as Nirvana, being the kind person he is, decided that both teams deserve to win a game. Not sharing the same mindset as their team mate, SG zerg players Revenant and ice quickly dispatched oneplus and ryper (2-0 in both games) before Renson forfeited the final game, leaving the final score at 4:1 Singapore’s way.
After a few short delays, China and Thailand played off in a series that went down to the very last game. Indy took the first game for Team Thailand, before Va.YHY and iG.CoMM reclaimed the lead for China. A walkover proceeded to even the series up for a second time. An ace match between Tyloo.Uhen and Strafe went 2-1 to Uhen giving China their second win, and leaving Malaysia currently winless.
A clash spanning the Tasman Sea was the theme for the week’s third match. As Australia and New Zealand like to compete at pretty much anything, be it Starcraft, drinking games or sheering sheep, things were bound to get interesting fast.
Australia got off to a flying start, and never really slowed down. Tgun, Azz and Rossi all took down their opponents (Haze, Kowi and Master, respectively) without dropping a single game. It was not until the fourth match when New Zealand’s JazBas finally claimed a win for their side, edging out Edge (lame, I know) 2-1. Unfortunately for the New Zealand side, they had already lost the match at this point. In the final game, Light defeated Another 2-0, giving Australia their first win in this season’s Nation Wars.
Although Australia was indeed the favorite, the final results were surprisingly one sided (contrary to what some Australian players will tell you, only dropping a total of two games was, in fact, a surprise)
A protoss heavy team from Taiwan proved to be to strong for the zerg heavy Philippines. Blazing through the four sets while only dropping a single game, Taiwan looked nearly unstoppable until EnDerr managed to shut down Bai 2-0, putting the Philippines on the board. But it was too little, too late for the island nation.
The second edition of SEA’s nation wars kicked off its first week on Saturday with New Zealand coming off a solid 3rd place finish in the previous nation wars coming up against the Philippines who are looking to make a bigger splash then there previous 6th place finish. Following this match heavy weights of the tournament China, expected winners played off against Malaysia, the team that had to go through the qualifiers to even make it into the pool play, even though China have some unknown players with the strength they showed during the Starwars tournament and there ability to dominate any video game they play Malaysia was in for a fight. On Sunday Thailand went up against the much favoured Singapore; with an improved line up from there 2nd place finish last season leaving Thailand needing more then just there ace RedArchon to perform. The highlight of this round was between the two favourites to take out the top two spots in group B Australia and Taiwan. Taiwan entering this tournament for the first time brings players that have been playing in a professional team environment in the TeSL that can only be rivalled by the likes of Korea, along with there superstar ace Sen. Australia themselves are no push over with a first place finish in nation wars 1 and top players like Moonglade the match was bound to come down to the wire.
New Zealand vs the Philippines started off on a bad note with master and reppa’s game disconnecting moving onto Jazbas vs Enderr but because Ender hadn’t arrived yet the first game started between Kowi and blazer. Kowi got New Zealand off to a strong lead with an easy 2-0 over Blazer with some creative warp prism immortal sentries’ drop, force fielding the ramp and destroying the main. Another got a solid 2:1 win over Fate, and then Finest in very poor form with sloppy play got destroyed 2:0 by Jabito. Master coming back from his computer lagging out against Reppa went into there series again crushing Reppa and about to go 1-0 up when he lagged out forcing Crimson to substitute leaving the Philippines with a shot at a come back, but strong macro play helped Crimson win 2-1 giving New Zealand the win at 3-1, then Jazbas putting the icing on the cake with a win against Enderr 2-1 for a convincing 4-1 win for New Zealand.
The next game Malaysia vs China was a match between the favourite to win the tournament and the underdogs who had to go through the qualifiers to get into the tournament. The match started off strongly with oneplus having a large lead in a base race game, but he threw away his advantage and then did a scv, banshee, tank all in the next game to give his opponent tyloo a 2-0. Malaysia bit back the next game with renson having a back and forth series with vayhy but claiming the win with a proxy 2 gate on crevasse to secure 2-1 and evening the series making China look very mortal. FXOBoss replacing fooddealer then lost to syc easily leaving new FXO trainer partner Timber needing to save Malaysia from defeat but after two well executed gateway attacks from Xiaot, China cruised to a 3-1 lead ensuring victory. Cobo did play very well in the rubber match to make it 3-2 in the end showing Malaysia has a chance to upset some stronger teams.
On Sunday Thailand played Singapore. RedArchon and Oxygen’s game had been played the day before cause of timing issues resulting in a 2:0 for RedArchon. Giving Thailand the 1-0 lead but it was all down hill from there with Singapore taking the next 4 games giving them an easy 4-1 win.
On to the final match of the round Australia vs Taiwan. A disappointing started to the match with Sen pulling out of the leaving GamaniaSlam as a replacement followed by Azz being replaced by iaguz. Iaguz showed his strong macro play in a 2-1 series win with solid marine tank play. Next game, the superstar of Australia, SEA’s greatest player Moonglade was up against Luway a female protoss player. As calls from the commentators of a free win for Moonglade a quick WTF followed as the greatest of SEA players got rolled by a girl 2-0. Deth got cleaned up 2-0 by HRU, but Edge cleaned up Dus 2-0 bringing the score to 2-2. With the scores all locked up it all came down to the ace match between YoonJY and Softball, with a display of the new mech style softball set up the victory for Taiwan with a 2-0 leaving the final score at 3-2 to Taiwan.
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