The inaugural VB Open kicked off on Sunday 12th February. It was a single elimination tournament that was open to all VB members and they were allowed to invite people to join in the fun, this week we used the newly annouced Season 6 Map pool. The VB Open is looking to be played weekly, and the next tournament will be on Sunday 19th February. Anyone interested in join in should visit vbclan.net for more information.
Early Rounds
The tournament started out with 19 players, forcing 3 unlucky pairs into playing an extra round. The opening rounds featured what appeared to be many mismatches as all but 2 sets before the semifinals had to loser winning no matches. Fortunately that's where things got interesting, where for the rest of the tournament, each set went the full distance.
First Semifinal
The first semifinal was between two of VB's best and most successful players of VB's Tier 4 SEAL team: The first of these two was HpK (known as xHpKisHerEx on Bnet), having beaten two other T4 SEAL players 2-0 to reach the semis. He was playing as Protoss having recently switched from Terran. HpK is also a former BSG Open winner (I've heard, I wasn't part of VB when that happened :P). Against him was VBBoony, the most consistant performer for VB this season in SEAL T4.
Game 1
They would start their Bo3 on Cloud Kingdom LE (the blizzard version, no flying sharks ) Both opened fairly standard until HpK decided to steal Boony's 2nd gas after taking his own 2nd. Boony responded by 4 gating, and unfortunately for HpK, who hasn't got the builds down pat after his race change, proceded to waltz up HpKs ramp with his first zealot and stalker while building a pylon on the low and high ground, and proceding to kill HpK with the first warp ins.
Game 2
Having lost to what I call a build order failure (not chrononing his 1 gate, not teching fast enough to justify getting his 2nd gas), HpK decided to pick TDA for the next map, throwing build orders out the window and just forcing the game into a 4 gate vs 4 gate, Boony obliged and HpK showed his superior micro even if his 4 gate wasn't perfected and easily gained advantages with his stalker control to even the score at 1-1.
Game 3
The final game was played on metalopolis where Boony could put his prefered PvP strat of chargelot/archon/immortal into play, rather than playing 4 gate vs 4 gate micro wars. HpK again showed a lack of understanding of what to build, and as both opened 3 gate robo, HpK got stuck attempting blink/obs, with a large number of non blink stalkers, and ended up just turtling in his base, looking confused about what to do. In the Boony cam, he proceded to tech to chargelot/archon, after making himself safe with 3 gate robo. Once Boony was convinced he was safe, he moved out and layed a nexus behind. But as this happened, HpK randomly moved out, and being metalopolis, they chose to run down different paths at the same time, and a base race occered. Both bases were destroyed without much fuss, HpK got FFed out a little by a couple of sentries Boony warped in a home, but a number of blink stalkers and a couple of observers cleaned that up eventually. What was left was Boony with not enough for a nexus and a probe with his army, and HpK with no money at all, and only 1 proxy pylon. HpK also failed to destory all of Boony's buildings (he got the nexus though) as he got delayed by the sentries and was forced to move back to defend against Boony's army, marching toward his pylon. As the armies fought, it became apparent that HpK's army was just bigger, even though the composition was a bit iffy, and he tore through Boony's army. But unfortunately as that happened, Boony used his last 300 minerals to warp 3 zealots in his main and run to HpK's last pylon and kill it, ending the game, and sending Boony to the finals!
Second Semifinal
The other semifinal was between the insane, ace of VB's T5 SEAL team and the Muldeh, part of VB's T4 SEAL team. Insane has shown the ability to 7 gate +2 blink his way to wins against master protosses offracing as zerg (who has a diamond zerg account), causing them to break their headset (I wonder who that was ). Muldeh on the other hand improved a lot from practice before the first rounds of SEAL, before going on holiday, so he had done well to get to the semis.
Game 1
The first game on Cloud Kingdom LE unfortunately showed the effect of not being familiar with the maps, as I don't think Cloud Kingdom is in the T5 SEAL map pool, and isn't yet on ladder. With that said, Insane FFE, walling off the ramp with the rocks and Muldeh ran the other way and killed him.
Game 2
For the next game, Insane decided to pick a map he was very comfortable FFE on, which was Shakuras Plateau. Unfortunately for him, a cannon rush on the natural failed Muldeh pulled the correct amount of drones, and transitioned into 3 base vs FFE. But from there, Insane better practice in recent times came into play, as he pushed out with 2 zealots and forced Muldeh into overreacting as he built a ton of lings to defend, which would put him behind in the required drone count as Insanes +2 7 Gate blink came, and proceeded to overrun him.
Game 3
The final game would be played on Antiga Shipyard. Insane would again go for his FFE, attempting to wall the ramp, rather than at the nexus. This would prove to be costly as Muldeh opened with a lot of speedlings and insane's wall had a 2 square gap that would have been blocked by a pylon, and 8 speedlings managed to wreck havoc in insanes main killing upwards of 12 probes and the 2 zealots that came to defend. From here Muldeh was way ahead and proced to take 3 base, and then baneling bust the helpless insane, booking his ticket to face Boony in the Finals.
The Finals
The first finals of the VB Open era would between the VBBoony and VBMuldeh, casted by myself (VBRhuubarb) and JinxXx, it would be a Bo5 starting on the season 6 ladder map Korhal Compound. The cast can be found at http://www.twitch.tv/jiiiiinxxx/b/308327218 (finals start at 1:40:00 ish)
Game 1
After having success in the previous rounds with early attacks against FFE, Muldeh would attempt the same against Boony who FFE with the wall to his nexus. Muldeh was able to get speedlings in Boony's base like he did in the semis, but unfortunately, Boony responded a lot better and pulled the hurt probes to the natural where they were protected by a cannon and easily cleaned up the lings that could have been utilized a bit more. Muldeh in the mean time had decided that he weas going to all-in, and that the baneling bust was his all-in of choice his time. Unfortunately this left him on 13 drones to Boony's worker count of 40. Good FFs and a decent walling made quick work of the Baneling bust and Boony took the game in the next few minutes as he walked over to a zerg that had been on not many drones for 10 minutes and killed Muldeh.
Game 2
After the steamroll that was game 1, people were unfortunately starting to think, oh no, PvZ, Diamond vs Gold, etc. But what happened next was the best game I've casted (not the most skilled game, but definately the most enjoyable). Because of this, I'm going to spoiler it and link you the VOD, it's 8 minutes long and definately worth your time: http://www.twitch.tv/jiiiiinxxx/b/308334518
For those who didn't watch that for some reason here is the text report:
It's cross positions Metalopolis, Boony goes for the FFE and Muldeh does a suspicious early drone scout which is rallied to a Mensk statue near the ramp to Boony's 3rd. I (being the prophet I am) state that he might be going for some proxy hatch into spine attack, and lo and behold, I'm right! In the meantime, Boony's scouting probe is very confused after pyloning the natural, seeing a late pool, and encountering some very aggro drones, of which about 5 of them chase him to the gold before running back into the fog. Unfortunately for Boony, it doesn't click that there might be a proxy hatch, at least not outside his base and procedes normally. Those 5 aggro drones did not return to base, and walked around the other path of metalopolis to sneekily make their way to the proxied hatchery where they start morphing into spines. Boony realises the creep too late and 1 spine gets in range of the nexus out of range of cannons and the other spines stop boony from making closer cannons. In the confusion, Boony's cybercore and WG are later than usual, and when Muldeh decides to go "all-in" (watch the VOD ffs) he is overrun by lings with his wall broken and spines (and creep) starting to seep into his main. From there Boony loses his core before WG is done and it's GG!
Game 3
With the awesome that was Game 2, I can't even remember what happened Game 3, so I'm watching the replay as I write this :P. Boony picked Shakuras where it would be easiler for him to FFE. Muldeh decided to play a roach/ling based macro game on 2 bases against Boony's FFE and decided to try and nydus his was in before Boony's production came up. Unfortunately for him, his first nydus attempt was blocked by good reactions from Boonyy, pulling his probes to kill the worm before it sprouted and Muldeh missed his timing. Boony moved out and Muldeh managed to get a worm into the natural of Boony, but Boony overran Muldeh's base while FFE muldeh out of the main and won fairly easily.
Game 4
Game 4 was then played on Antiga with Muldeh spawn at the top right and Boony at the bottom right (not cross position cause of ladder version). Boony went for a FFE, walling his nexus while Muldeh opened 7RR into expand. Muldeh tried his best to prevent scouting from the first probe, but unfortunately it ran past his patrolling lings into the main and bumped shoulders with 7 roaches before they spat acid in it's face. From the caster point of view, we were ready to call the tournament. But unlike us, and the rest of the stream, Boony wasn't watching the probe, and hadn't noticed the roaches! Even with double cannon coverage (they were split though), Boony was unable to hold off the roaches as they sniped single cannons, building cannons, probes and zealots. Muldeh's control was very good, and then at the exact right moment, as some cannons were coming up that he couldn't snipe. He made a dash for it, and got 4-5 roaches up the ramp into the main, where he proceded to ravage the probes which were order to fight! Back at Muldeh's home, he had been droning and roaching, and when the roaches were finally dealt with by a couple of stalkers, Muldeh was on 3 base with about 60 supply to Boony's 2 base with 20 supply, only about 14 of that being workers. Eventually Muldeh made hydras and killed Boony.
Game 5
Finally, we had reached the last game, which made me as the organiser of my first tournament very happy (that it had gone the distance, with good games). It was to be played on Cloud Kingdom with Boony FFE to the choke at the natural. Muldeh decided that all-ining was the play again, and when for a baneling bust. But unfortunately, may have been unfamiliar with the map and rallied a TONNE of lings near a watchtower, which a zealot casually grabbed and reported back to Boony, who proceeded to make a billion cannons (5) and when the bust came, sentries had been chronoed out, and the Muldeh got FFed out of Boony's base while getting owned by a tonne of cannons. From there they proceded to play a 2 base vs 2 base game, where Muldeh started behind in workers (but Boony's tech and production was very delayed to make way for the sentries and cannons). Unfortunately for Muldeh he went blind ling/hyrda and was eventually crushed by a deathball making VBBoony the first ever champion of the VB Open!
Conclusion
I had a lot of fun with the tournament, even though I wasn't playing, and it's one of a few events I've been running for clan VB. Anyone interested (but not sure) in joining VB is welcome to join in future VB Opens. If so, head to vbclan.net and apply to VB, it's not a painful process (I promise :P), we are a very social clan and have don't put restrictions on people or expect them to do anything but be active when possible and not be a douche :P.
Shout Outs
Thanks to everyone who participated, hope you had fun.
Thanks to the casters, JinxXx (http://www.twitch.tv/jiiiiinxxx) and the Zeffrin/Dranath duo (http://www.twitch.tv/zeffrin). If you are looking for more games from the VB Open #1, check those streams out, they should be scattered around the video tabs.
Finally, thanks to VBclan.net for hosting the content and being an awesome clan.
I think that's it, enjoy!
Rhuubarb,
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[VB] Rhuubarb.120(SEA) / [VBSEA] Rhuubarb.634(NA) | | My Stream
Awesome tournament organised by Barbie Hopefully we get a few extra people in the next one from outside the clan to help us grow! Masters come join so we can de-throne Boony!
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