WCS Global Finals Playoffs

What are the WCS Global Finals?

The WCS Global Finals Playoffs took place in Anaheim California at BlizzCon on November 1st, as the World Championship tournament for StarCraft 2, the best of the best battled it out all day long in Best of Five games with the Finals being Best of Seven. The Prize Pool was $700,000 split up between all 16 players across the group Stage and Playoffs.

Quarterfinals.

The quarter finals were relatively quick even with half of them going the full 5 games. They played out almost exactly as expected as well with the exception of one match.

• Serral vs soO ended in a 3-0 fashion with the Finnish Zerg and Defending Champion Serral coming out on top.
• Reynor vs Trap ended 3-2 with the Italian Zerg slipping by the Korean Protoss. Trap put up a great fight but ultimately fell.
• Classic vs Reynor was sort of a toss up but most expected Rogue to make it out, Classic won the series 3-2 in a small upset.
• Dark vs Maru showed us how dominant the Zerg players really are with Dark crushing Maru 3-0, hopefully we can see the Korean Terran shore up his weaknesses next year.

The quarter finals were a spectacle as they are every year, but they left us with a nonkorean being confirmed in the Finals with Reynor vs Serral being the Marquis matchup in the Semis.

Semifinals.

This year the Semifinals were more about who was going to make it between the two WCS Zergs that battled it out in three of the four WCS Finals Europe participated in. Dark vs Classic was a great match as well but most of us expected Dark to come out on top.

• Serral vs Reynor was a titan matchup for the ages, they traded maps with Reynor holding the tempo and closing out game 5 against the reigning World Champion.
• Dark manages to 3-0 Classic after a 3-0 against Maru. This ends Classic’s Pro Career for the foreseeable future as he goes on to his Korean Military duty. Dark has made it to the WCS Global Finals once before and hopes to shut down the 17 year old Italian Zerg in the Grand Finals.

Here, Here! For Classic, but now it is about the ZvZ matchup in our Final match for the year in the WCS. Good luck to both players in another toss up of a match.

Grand Finals

Another ZvZ for the ages as we go to crown the new WCS BlizzCon Champion. A very exciting series between Reynor and Dark kept everyone on the edge of their seats.

Game 1: Acropolis

Dark opted into the same Muta build we saw Reynor and Serral utilize but executed it a lot more strongly. 1 game can’t decide the series but Dark having this game in his pocket is a sigh of relief for Dark  and an angsty fidget for Reynor.

Game 2: Thunderbird

Dark moves into his Nydus/Swarm Host combo and eventually dissects Reynor from the inside out. Reynor stayed in the game because his army was fairly strong, but ultimately lost too much tech to carry out the game much longer.

Game 3: Winter’s Gate

Dark opens up with a Spine Crawler rush and Reynor should have regained some confidence in this series. Dark, overall, misclicked his drones in the rush and Reynor was able to capitalize on that mistake and do enough damage to the Drones that he came out on top.

Game 4: Disco Bloodbath

Dark brings back the Muta build and mixes it with his Nydus play, Reynor attempts to answer with Corruptor Roach/Ravager and a couple Vipers but overall the multi pronged attacks from Dark are too strong. Dark moves on 3-1.

Game 5: Triton

Dark hits an early economical lead and bashes Roaches and Ravagers through Reynors army, making him the 2019 WCS World Champion!

While many expected Serral to come out on top once again he was stopped short by probably the only player who could stop him, and Dark took it into his own hands to put the young prodigy in his place in a 4-1 fashion. Congratulations to Dark for this achievement and what a great event.