SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

Metalcore · Wed, 7th-Jan-2015, 11:16 AM

The Hairy Smash - A Casters Recap

Last Sunday, SEA held a massive tournament which was the Hairy Smash grand finals, the culmination of the Hairy Bash tournament circuit from 2014 with a massive $2000 AUD prize pool put up by HairyMuppet. Nine players qualified from the previous Hairy Bash tournaments and the rest of the bracket being made up by the highest ranking players by the OSC point rankings. The brackets were stacked with some of the best players in SEA and a few scary koreans to add some spice to things

The stakes were high and was the stage was set for players to start of their 2015 OSC run with a bang!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Matches

Round 1:

Iaguz vs

sWs

The first match casted was none other than the

Australian Terran Hope Iaguz going up against the protoss player sWs. A TvP to kick the day of showing a rare match up in the SEA scene which is renown for its ZvZ and lack of Terran in general. However never fear for Iaguz is here and he showed his stuff with exemplary Terran play as he took down sWs in a rather convincing fashion without dropping a map. Fun fact, this match actually started before the tournament was supposed to start cos these guys were so keen to get into it!

+ Show +

Round 2:

Iaguz vs

Crimson

Since the first round was held up by so many walkovers, we followed the journey of Iaguz on his quest to start 2015 with the Hairy Smash title. His next opponent would be Crimson, the

New Zealand Zerg player. one of the strongest players from New Zealand and a strong competitor in the OSC scene but going up against Iaguz would be a challenging match for him indeed. Iaguz showed his stuff and took out Crimson without dropping a map as Iaguz's TvZ was just to strong for Crimson and Iaguz sent another hopeful down to the lower bracket.

+ Show +

Round 3:

Spear vs

Pig

In round 3 we deviate from Iaguz's journey to watch another of SEA's powerhouse players try and work their way to the finals. We had none other than the NOTORIOUS PIG. arguably the best zerg in Australia. His opponent though is no slouch, the

Korean Terran renegade Spear, one of the few players in the Hairy Smash with a bounty on him for anyone who can beat him in a series. These 2 players have vsed each other before in OSC tournaments and the matches often end up being close and this series would not disappoint. The final result was a 2:1 in favour of Pig however and Pig would earn the bounty of $35 for defeating him in a series.

+ Show +

Round 4:

Arthur vs

Pig

With Pig adavancing onto the next round he would be facing one of the most notorious players in the OSC scene, the

Korean Protoss Arthur who is the highest ranking Protoss in the OSC scene. Going into this match, Pig had the momentum of going through tough opponents such as Demilove and Spear who are no slouches and seemed to be ready to take on any opponent. However Pig would have the misfortune to get #Protossed by Arthur and drop into the lower bracket with a 2:0 loss as Arthur took out Pig in typical Arthur fashion to allow Arthur to advance on to the winners bracket semi-finals

+ Show +

Round 5:

Arthur vs

Iaguz

The upper bracket semi finals is set up for an awesome showdown as we have the Terran Hope, Iaguz going up against Protoss terror Arthur! This series would prove to be Arthurs greatest challenge in the Hairy Smash as Iaguz is a renown Protoss killer (WCS AM anyone? :P). Going into this match Iaguz had still not dropped a single map and Arthur had only dropped a single map in a PvP against Frustration in round 1 so both these players were on form and gunning for the spot in the finals! There is one thing we can learn from this series however. Arthurs win rate on 2 base, 100%, but if he takes that third base Iaguz knows how to break him down and take the win in a macro game. Iaguz would loose this series to arthur 2:1 and Arthur would advance on to the finals to await his final opponent.

+ Show +

Round 6:

KingKong vs

Spear

With the first finalist of the double elimination Hairy Smash decided, we dropped to the lower bracket to see which hopeful would be able to fight their way back to take the final spot in the finals. This match is one hell of a way to start it of with two players who are considered to be some of the best in the OSC scene with the fearsome Zerg player, King Kong going up against the powerhouse Terran Spear. This was a close series which ended in 2:1 and very solid play was displayed by both players. Being a TvZ series with Spear playing, the proxy 2 rax was bound to happen and Spear did not disappoint in bringing it to the series but King Kong was able to shut down spears attempt to be cheesy. Spear however was able to overwhelm King Kong in Game 3 and destroy King Kong in order to advance on one round closer to the finals.

+ Show +

Round 7:

Pig vs

Spear
REMATCH

The next stage of the lower bracket features the first rematch in this double elimination tournament with Spear fighting his way back up to take on the very Zerg, Pig, who knocked him down into the lower bracket. This rematch series features the most epic match from the entire tournament with a massive macro slug fest on Deadwing, which pushed their skill in the late game to the limits. If there was one one match to watch from the entire tournament, this game on Deadwing is a must see! However you have to take the good with the bad in this series and it was heartbreaking for all the viewers rooting for their hometown hero Pig who fell victim to Spears proxy 2 rax in game 3 as he seemed to just crumble under the pressure and fall 2:1 to the renegade Terran Spear after putting on an amazing game 1. With Pig being knocked out, the last zerg in the tournament was eliminated leaving only Terran and Protoss left to compete for the 1st prize.

+ Show +

Round 8:

Iaguz vs

Spear

With Spear advancing on to lower bracket semi finals, we have a TvT to decide which Terran will advance on to face Arthur in a TvP finals! Will it be the homegrown Aussie Terran Iaguz? Or will it be the korean renegade Spear? In this TvT everything is on the line and in a mirror match up, only the best Terran will advance on to have a shot at Arthur in the finals.
Game 1: Spear and Iaguz had an intense back and forth match which either of them could of come out on top but the Aussie Terran Iaguz was able to pull through in the end and take a 1:0 lead in the series!
Game 2: Spear went on the offensive with excellent banshee control which he used to take an early lead against Iaguz by dealing significant damage to him. Smelling blood in the water Spear took this advantage and set up a contain on Iaguz and slowly but surely choke him out and the game was closed out when spear stopped Iaguz's attempt from breaking the contain and forcing the GG.
Game 3: Everything was on the line. Once again it was a close back and forth game between these two players but it all came down to a final base trade scenario where Iaguz was able to come out on top.
An intense TvT series which kept everyone on the edge of their seats until the very end. With this series concluded, Iaguz advances on to the finals to get a rematch against Arthur, the player who knocked him down to the lower bracket and Spear goes home in 3rd place with $200 AUD. Iaguz also managed to claim the bounty on Spear making it the second bounty claimed against Spear in this tournament.

+ Show +

FINALS!

Round 9:

Iaguz vs

Arthur
REMATCH

The finals of the Hairy Smash features a rematch between Iaguz and Arthur. Their last series was a close 2:1 which Arthur managed to edge out Iaguz and the first map of their rematch would take place on Merry go round.
Game 1: Arthur opened the series up with 1 base blink against Iaguz standard opening and iaguz was unable to get in and confirm the twilight council but was able to confirm the lack of an expansion past the 5 minute mark. Upon seeing the lack of natural expansion, Iaguz abandons his natural and bunkers his main, preparing for the incoming attack of Arthur. Arthur secures a soft contain against Iaguz's keeping him in his main while he expands back at home. Iaguz eventually breaks the contain and pushes out looking to try and kill Arthur with his counter attack but Arthur had switched into colossus back at home and with some force feilds Arthur was able to buy enough time to get a second colossus out and when Iaguz attack hit it was crushed by the superior army of Arthur and GG was called.
Game 2: Game 2 was played out on overgrowth and this was make or break. The final chance for Iaguz to bring himself back into the series and overcome Arthur. Iaguz sticks to what he knows and does his standard TvP build with his rax expand and Arthur opts to go for a 2 base build of of his own this time, 2 base colossus. Iaguz moves out at 10 minutes looking to go on the offensive but he runs right into the incoming attack of Arthur loosing a chunk of his units and back at home, with only one bunker up and no time to build additional bunkers Iaguz falls victim to the notorious Protoss we know as Arthur as the 2 base colossus attack with a handful of sentries to forcefeild of the bunker, preventing the mass repair was to much for Iaguz to stop.

+ Show +

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Recap of the Tournament

Overall, the Hairy Smash was indeed a huge Smash as the quality of games was consistently entertaining and featured a few fails and a few super epic games (looking at you Pig and Spear

). Iaguz provided the best performance from the local defenders and for a full list of results the brackets can be found here: Brackets. In the end Arthur went home with $600 AUD for first place, Iaguz took home $300 AUD for 2nd place and Spear received $200 for his 3rd place finish. From a streaming perspective, it was a huge hit in terms of viewership with the Tournament getting a peak of 1.5k concurrent viewers and averaging between 500-1000 viewers for most of the tournament thanks to the host from BaseTradeTV. Overall the Hairy Smash was an epic start to 2015 and if its an indicator of the year to come, then OSC will be sure to have it's most epic year yet.

We can't talk about the Hairy Smash without mentioning the man behind the curtain HairyMuppet. Be sure to check out his youtube channel for matches that were not cast live on stream and more SC2 action. http://www.youtube.com/xHairymuppetx