It is very fortunate that this day turned out to be a holiday as I was able to visit the Glorietta 4 Activity Center to witness world class Starcraft 2 battles being waged.
Early in the day, it was a little bit slow as technical problems didn’t allow for the use of the two isolation booths set up on stage. The commentators and the hosts, international players alike, did very well to maintain the interest of the audience. The space that is the activity center was teeming with gamers and participants from all over Asia and of course our very own.
Here’s Moon from WeFox of Korea, one of those featured in the APK demonstration video done by Razer:
Most of the players had their own keyboard and mouse and headset / earphones so it is like a band setting up prior to the actual gameplay. The elimination is a best of 3 with secondary and/or tertiary map choice going to the losing player. During the latter part of the day, at around 7pm or so, the isolation chambers were finally ready and boy was it worth the wait!
Two full battles were waged over them, the first between Naniwa (Protoss) and Sen (Zerg) where Sen took the sweep with the first game doing a quick rush of Zerglings and a close proximity Hatchery taking him to the lead and eventually overpowering Naniwa. The second game between the two had a more stable pace but things got grim when Naniwa focused on attack and replenishment of his forces depleting his resources and giving Sen the lead once again.
The last game of the night was between Moon (Zerg) and Sase (Protoss) where Moon took the sweep through very good micromanagement and strategy. The fist game won by a pincer maneuver with two hordes of roaches in the late game, and the second won by a quick sortie of banelings destroying pylons left and right leaving the Protoss base unpowered and ripe for the picking.
I don’t really know how the leaderboard is looking at now but it sure promises tomorrow a lot of action and diverse tactics being laid out on the battlefield. The commentators even suggested skipping class/work to join them for the finals tomorrow and that might not be a bad idea after all… Games resume at 11am tomorrow at the same location!
I might just pick up SC2 after witnessing great players take the stage, truly an inspiration to professional gaming aspirants!
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