[Baldie]

ACL Online Round 3 Wrap Up
By Baldie

Season 2 kicked into gear with 71 players competing in Online Round 3 on the 19th of May. After all the hype of ACL Brisbane there was no doubt players were out for blood to capture those precious points to seed into ACL Melbourne. For the most part the day went as expected with all but one of the top 8 seeds making it to the winner bracket round of 8. The fallen one being Exile 5 PiG who was, for many, surprisingly beaten by Auxiliary Tigey 2-1 in the round of 16. PiG commented, in jest, about the set on his twitter:

PiG then fought through the higher end of the losers bracket before having to forfeit due to family commitments, finishing in a respectable 5th position.

Another big talking point was Terran powerhouse Frenetic Array Iaguz one again being forced to play the zerg powerhouse Xeria Gaming KingKong. It seems both these players find it difficult avoiding each other in brackets having now played each other five times over the four ACL tournaments this year. Never have these two failed to impress with their gameplay and Online Round 3 was no different with three exceptional matches resulting in a 2-1 victory to Iaguz. For those of you wondering the set score sits at 4-1 in favour of Iaguz with all sets going to the third map. Iaguz placed 6th overall with KingKong lower at 9th.

Immunity Light continued to impress with his solid Protoss play proving to SEA that Protoss does have a home in SEA winning 67% of his maps and advancing to the winner bracket finals. Being narrowly defeated by Ninja 2-1, Light's second chance was to beat lower bracket winner Frenetic Array Petraeus, another Zerg. Unfortunately unable to take out Petraeus either Light was forced to settle as the highest non Zerg with a stellar 3rd.

With over 1,000 people watching live on twitch - the highest of any ACL SC2 tournament to date excluding WCS - the grand finalists in Frenetic Array Ninja and team-mate Petraeus needed to bring the action. Petraeus coming from the losers bracket had to win two best of threes to claim victory - something few players achieve. Petraeus showed he was in for business in game one on Bel'Shir Vestige taking the game in 7 minutes with an amazing baneling flank to trap all of Ninja's zerglings. With solid micro and decision making, Petraeus looked like he was on a mission for revenge having lost to Ninja in the winner bracket semi finals. Ninja tried to mix things up on Daybreak for game two incorporating some Roaches into the mix in a Wings of Liberty-esque play. Unable to do the damage he needed to, Petraeus with a sizeable mutalisk ball was able to punish Ninja and eventually starve him out forcing the second best of three.

Game one of the second set on Bel'Shir Vestige turned into a 20 minute macro game consisting of what is considered the standard Heart of the Swarm ZvZ composition, mutalisks and zerglings. With the superior macro and decision making, Petraeus forced the tap out from Ninja and moved one map from victory. In game two on Daybreak Petraeus mixed things up with a zergling and baneling timing attack which was able to break through Ninja's defenses and force the final gg.

You can watch the rebroadcast of the entire tournament on our Twitch.tv page here, direct links here. Congratulations again to Petraeus winning back to back best of threes in the final. Of course a valiant effort from Ninja and Light finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively. Below are the top 4 final placing of the tournament, with the rest of the results accessible from here.

1st: Frenetic Array Petraeus
2nd: Frenetic Array Ninja
3rd: Immunity Light
4th: Frenetic Array Fenner

Fun Facts

• Frenetic Array Petraeus had the highest map win rate with 15 wins and 3 losses ending him with a 83% converstion
• Although coming through the winners bracket, Frenetic Array Ninja played the most amount of games with a total of 19, winning 12 of them ending with a 63% conversion
• Top 32 distribution was 19 Zerg, 8 Protoss and 5 Terran

For more information on Online Round 3 click here!