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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