WCS America Results (Group A)

WCS America's Group A is in the books and went exactly as predicted with Alicia and Oz moving on; Nestea's career continues to slide slowly toward's oblivion while desRow shows signs he might get back into Premier next season.  All the VODs can be found here.

 

Oz  2 Nestea  1

 

Oz was expected to win here and he did.  In game one both players opened economically, with Nestea going for proxy mutas--Oz scouted the proxy and snipped it before many were built; both players ravaged their opponents base, but Oz did more damage and was able to handle what few mutas remained.  Game two Nestea went for a hatch in Oz's base, which failed; Oz went phoenix as Nestea went for swarm hosts; the phoenix's did nothing and despite some good warp prism harass Oz got behind; a colossus push killed Nestea's third and fourth while the Zerg built mutas and took out Oz's main and attacked his natural; Nestea was forced to fight with his mutas, lost his natural, and went for a counter on Oz's third--the game should have ended there, but Oz suicided a large chunk of his army to kill the swarm hosts and that allowed Nestea to win a game he had no business winning.  In the final game Oz locked Nestea out of his base with pylons and cannons after Nestea put a hatchery in his natural; Nestea broke out, but the time it took allowed Oz to get out oracles, do critical damage and kill him before he could get very far into his two-base swarm host response.  Oz should have won the series 2-0, with Nestea stubbornly stuck with the same strategy the entire day (swarm hosts into mutas).

 

Alicia  2 desRow  0

 

An expected result, in the first game Alicia applied stalker pressure to take an expansion and got ahead of desRow economically; desRow lost a critical number of units while trying to apply pressure, putting him even further behind and Alicia simply rolled over his army for the win.  Game two desRow went for a proxy stargate, but Alicia scouted it immediately and killed the pylon before the oracle could get out; desRow went for DTs which surprised Alicia, but the Korean Protoss had made an observer to help his blink attack and the attempted base trade just didn't work out for desRow.  It wasn't a sharp series by desRow, who struggled with multitasking.

 

Alicia  2 Oz  0

 

More of a one-sided affair than imagined, but Alicia was expected to win.  Game one Oz went for a quick expand as Alicia went for DTs, with Oz's oracle coming out exactly when the DT arrived so it accomplished nothing, but a second DT did far more damage than the oracle; both players went for archon/immortal and Alicia won the first big fight and the game by simply having more units.  In the second game both players went for blink as Alicia faked DTs; four gates is more than three and that allowed Alicia to easily win the ensuing base trade.

 

Nestea 2  desRow  1

 

An expected result, but closer than the odds would make it.  In the first game desRow went phoenix and an early third nexus as Nestea went for swarm hosts; desRow responded with colossus/stalker with warp prism harass as Nestea transitioned into mass muta; the players went into a base trade which was in question for awhile, but eventually desRow had to tap out as he couldn't effectively deal with the mutas and kill Nestea.  Game two desRow went phoenix again and along with early pressure that killed the third, but Nestea evened things up with an effective roach run-by, allowing him to build swarm hosts and prepare for the inevitable muta switch--desRow continued to built phoenix's this time, which Nestea built corrupters to counter and with them picked off desRow's main, but lost all his corrupters in a bad engagement; the game dragged on for a long time as Nestea could not establish his fifth, but kept desRow from killing him with muta harass; eventually desRow was able to starve him out.  In the final game Nestea went three hatch before pool and desRow went four-gate zealot to pressure it, but it didn't do much damage; desRow tried a follow-up immortal-sentry push, but Nestea countered with a roach/ling attack and as desRow's attack failed against a wall of spine crawlers he lost all his probes and the game.  It was a good series from desRow, particularly winning a Zerg-favoured map like Habitation Station, but (like his games against Alicia) there were some multitasking issues which lead to the loss.

 

Oz  2 Nestea  1

 

Oz was expected to win and followed through.  Game one started very passively as Oz went for phoenix and Nestea for a roach/hydra/viper attack; Oz defended well and was prepared for the inevitable swarm host transition, killing Nestea as he tried to switch to brood lords.  In the final game Oz went for blink, which Nestea scouted early and shut it down hard; unlike NaNiwa (earlier in the day in WCS Europe), Oz wisely changed gears rather than forcing the attack; as Nestea sent a small force to counter attack he lost all his swarm hosts to Oz's main army and with his counter stuck by Oz's sim city and had to tap out.

 

Alicia and Oz were the expected winners here and the former in particular was excellent.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)