Day 2 of MLG Orlando has concluded and Pool Play is finished! We now have the championship brackets for tomorrow and its all set to be a rather epic day. Let’s take a look back at some of the epic moments of the evening!
SlayerSBoxer vs MarineKingPrime – Terran vs Terran
The match between these two legendary Terran players started off with a bit of friendly verbal (or text as the case may be – it’s a figure of speech, sue me) psarring, with MarineKing saying “Fake Boxer vs Real Boxer”. The lore here is that originally MarineKingPrime was known as Boxer, since that was who he had drawn most of his inspiration as a pro gamer – however, upon SlayerSBoxer’s switch to Starcraft 2, he changed his name to MarineKing to avoid confusion.
Some great hellion harassment started things off for Boxer – but, Battle.net lag reared its ugly head many times during the match, which may have thrown off Boxer’s micro a bit during this phase. Boxer attempts several times to push with pure hellions vs. marines (living up to MKP’s name, to be sure). Eventually the game progressed to Seige Tanks from Boxer and a Marine/Hellion/Medivac combo from MKP. Brilliant use of drops by MarineKing to take the game.
MarineKingPrime vs Drewbie – Terran v Terran
Speaking of MarineKing, apparently I missed this matchup earlier in the day as it was not on the main stage – but the story goes that MKP made quite the blunder against Drewbie, a player that has not been doing so well in this tournament. He was in fact eliminated just as I was leaving the venue by Stephano, IGN Pro League season 3 champion.
Anyway, Drewbie took his only win of the day simple because MarineKing apparently dropped a nuke on his own army. When questioned about this situation after the match, Drewbie thought that MarineKing was simply being arrogant and he capitalized but this was not the case – MKP launched the nuke and couldn’t cancel it in time to save his units! A very rare blunder from this amazing Korean Terran player.
Liquid’Haypro vs MarineKingPrime Zerg v Terran
MarineKingPrime exhibited an unorthodox opening here as he floated his initial command center to the gold (or high yield, and thus less easily defended on most maps) minerals then utilized an extremely fast 1 barracks, 1 starport and 1 factory build to have a simply horrifying number of units that Haypro simply could not keep up with. It’s this sort of innovative play that sets players like MKP apart.
Kiwikaki vs Bomber: Terran vs Protoss
In game one, the raging imbalance of Terran once against reared its head – I don’t care what you say, no one can convince me that EMP is a balanced ability. It’s too fast. The Immortal/Archon/Zealot army of Kiwikaki was simply mowed down after being hit with three consectutive EMPs in rapid succession. There was no time for him to react to the incoming army, and really, nothing he could’ve done anyway.
In game 2, Kiwikaki defends early pressure from Bomber – Bomber defends a counterattack from Bomber using a well timed bunker to house his marines. Kiwikaki then quickly crumbled under a an excellent marine/marauder push with some truly outstanding micro, allowing him to keep his units under the influence of Stimpacks the entire fight.
EGInControl vs EGPuma – Protoss vs Terran
An epic teammate battle took place on the main stage. Despite InControl’s less than stellar record in the tournament (0-6) and elimination from play here at MLG Orlando, he truly managed to give Puma a run for his money in game two with some excellent stalker/colossus play. The main reason I wanted to talk about this match was InControl’s excellent sportsmanship. After losing to his teammate, he walked across the stage, hugged him and raised his hands into the air. Truly a touching display – I know I would’ve been frustrated as all hell with a record like that, so its admirable to see Geoff InControl *badumtish* of his emotions.
SaSe vs Bomber – Protoss vs Terran
Another Protoss vs Terran game – this time with the man who could truly be called the Cinderella story of this tournament – Quantic Gaming’s SaSe, who came all the way up from the open brackets to qualify for the Championship Pools, against the defending champion, STBomber. The match was quickly tied up 1-1 with some extremely high level play from both competitors, but game 3 in particular was a nail biter.
In game 3, Bomber opened up with a 1-Barracks expand build that simply could NOT hold up against some truly outstanding Colussus play, despite being outflanked by a Marine/Marauder/Medivac build, the army of SaSe was just able to punch through Bomber’s defenses. This was truly notable as this has been Bomber’s only loss of the entire tournament thus far! Call me biased, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this man went all the way to the top.
Photo Dump!
Check out some of the pictures we took from the rest of Day 2 with a brief caption after each.
JulyZerg with JP McDaniels after a win
Team Pretty Girl Swag – all girl Halo 3 Players
MLG Branded MadCatz Pro Circuit Controllers
Epic Panda hat there bud – apparently a MarineKing fan as well
Problem?? Flip a Table!
You heard the lady.
THO Infamous hard at work here in the Halo Reach pools
My favorite part about MLG, aside from the hype and awesome players? Unlimited Dr. Pepper for free.
Quantic Gaming's SaSe just after taking down Bomber. Look for my interview tomorrow morning.
That's it for now folks! Tune in tomorrow for the most epic day of all! Championship Sunday!!!
Dustin Steiner is GameZone's eSports Correspondent! Follow him on Twitter @SteinerDustin
