Just after having been crowned king of Dreamhack Winter 2014, ForGG flew to San José in California to attend to play the Intel Extreme Masters.
ForGG came for the win. After having gone through all the loser bracket to qualify for the main event, ForGG was placed in group C, with the zergs HyuN and Symbol, and the terran GuMiho. Note that these two latter qualified through the open bracket.
Everybody thought that ForGG would easily win his first match against Symbol, having beaten Life convincingly (and twice !) at DreamHack Winter. But things don’t always happen as expected, especially when they involve Symbol, once the best zerg in the World. ForGG won the first game with a well executed proxy 2 rax. The second map went nearly down the same path, except that this time it was Symbol who cheesed, and equalized. Everything was to be decided on the last map, Foxtrot Labs. ForGG opted for his well-known style, with hellions and banshees, but Symbol punished him with a nydus worm near the terran base, who didn’t manage to stay alive. ForGG was thus sent to the loser’s match.
He faced HyuN who had just lost to GuMiho. For this match, the terran champion recovered all his skill and crushed HyuN 2-0, with the same builds he used against Life. Everything looked as if HyuN had not been able to prepare for this style, as if he hadn’t watched DreamHack …
The decisive match turned into a revenge for our Millenium player. Against Symbol once again, the first game lasted less than 10 minutes. ForGG played his hellbat-banshee classic style after having produced 3 reapers to embarrass Symbol and forced him to produce some zerglings. Symbol manage to repel the push, but played very greedy immediately after, and was unable to defend ForGG’s next push. In game 2, ForGG went once again for his ZvT style, but added a medivac full of marines to do an elevator with the hellions into the zerg’s base. But Symbol scouted this attack and easily defended. “No problem”said ForGG who insisted and attacked the natural expansion of Symbol. He killed the hatch, but lost all the forces he had sent there. The advantage had however been taken, and ForGG capitalized on his advance by building a very strong mech army. Despite the attempts of Symbol to get back into the game (hidden roaches, zerglings run-by’s), one big fight in front of the third base of ForGG allowed the Millenium player to crush Symbol’s army. Symbol GG’ed out, and the terran player moved on to the final bracket.
In the final bracket, ForGG had to face Rain, the new member of mYinsanity and who was seen, together with CJ Entus herO, as one of the favourites to win the competition.
In front of protoss, ForGG opted every single game for a reaper opening in order to slightly pressure, but mostly to scout what his opponent was doing. Twice he got surprised by oracles, especially in the first game where he lost so many workers that he could never really come back. However, ForGG managed to come back to a 1-1 score, and even to win the following (crazy) game. Leading 2-1, ForGG could almost feel the taste of the semifinals ahead of him. But Rain is one of the best, if not the best, protoss player in the World, and in a very intense fourth game during which Rain microed his blink stalkers beautifully, the score ended up tied 2-2. The last game saw Rain take a considerable advance thanks once again to his blink stalkers. However, ForGG managed to came back, to a point where he was almost certain to win, and decided to push the protoss natural base with his bio-viking army. But protoss is the best defensive race, and maybe ForGG committed a little too much. Regardless, he was still ahead in the game. Had Rain insisted on a blink stalkers-colossi army, ForGG’s next push (with the pulled boys) would have won him the game. But Rain is very clever and instead, he made only one colossus and switched to an army of charge zealots and storm. The storm finished right as the terran army arrived on Rain’s third, and … they did rain indeed. Showers of electricity on ForGG’s army sealed the deal. Our terran had nothing left to do than to GG.
Several weeks ago, Rain would have destroyed ForGG 3-0 without any doubt. The simple fact that ForGG was able to come this close to defeating the best protoss in the World and move on the semifinals is a confirmation of his present shape. Next year’s WCS already shape up to look very encouraging for our terran player. Make sure to support him !
Bezu and Nazca
If you want to learn more about the players, you can visit the StarCraft II team section.