ESFI World

Yesterday marked the end of a successful first week in the IPL Team Arena Challenge 2. Earlier this week, we reported on the teams entering the stadium as well as some changes made in the lineup (Startale substituting for SlayerS). This is the first in a series of recaps following each week's matches where we'll highlight some of the best match-ups and games played during the week.

This season's map pool includes a varied mix of old community favourites, Blizzard ladder maps, and some newer maps featured in IPL's $1,000 New Map Tournament.

• Terminus SE 
• Sanshorn Mist
• Atlantis Spaceship
• Shakuras Plateau
• Calm Before the Storm
• Shattered Temple
• Antiga Shipyard (Cross Only)
• Daybreak 
• Tal’Darim Altar
• Darkness Falls

The format is simple: there are sixteen teams in this double-elimination tournament (winners and losers brackets). Each team begins by brawling in a best-of-nine series: one advances to the round of eight, the other is knocked to the losers bracket to fight their way back.

Week 1 Results

IPL Team Arena Challenge 2: Week 1 Results

NS_HoSeo	5-3	Team Dignitas	Match Page
Team SCV Life	5-3	Team ReIGN	Match Page
FXOpen E-Sports	5-3	Vile Gaming	Match Page
Mousesports	5-4	Quantic Gaming	Match Page
Startale	5-2	ZeNex	Match Page

Match of the Week

In what was the only nine-game series played during week one of the IPL Team Arena Challenge 2, Quantic vs. Mousesports displayed back-and-forth games between some of the best foreigners in the world.

Game 1 between the two teams featured Quantic's Theognis against Mousesports' HasuObs! Both players seemed to open with safe macro builds until HasuObs' stalker harass became a full-on attack; catching Theognis off guard and forcing him to retreat while taking severe damage.

With the early lead HasuObs engaged Theognis' bio-force with chargelots and +1 upgrades, diminishing the Terran's force and securing his own third nexus. As the game trudged on, Theognis tried to even the score with a drop but was cleaned up and swept away after dealing only minor damage.

In a conclusive fight, HasuObs engaged once more with 2-2 upgrades and blink, taking game 1 for Mousesports.

Game 3 featured the incumbent Destiny sparring against MaNa's protoss. On Tal'Darim Altar MaNa replicated the opening of HasuObs except that as Destiny took a quick third base, MaNa harassed with two stalkers and zealots. Destiny took the risk of not transfusing energy into the hatchery and eventually lost it to MaNa's follow-up zealot/warp-prism drop.

Destiny, now on the backfoot, traded that base for MaNa's newly-made third. MaNa retaliated with a colossus army against Destiny's dual-pronged attack of mutalisks and roaches. The mutalisks successfully gave Destiny the upperhand and map-control, forcing MaNa to fortify his base with blink stalkers. Fearful of the high mutalisk count, MaNa allowed Destiny to take two more bases, putting him at a five to three advantage. The zerg returned the favor by denying MaNa's desperate fourth once more with mutalisks and chipping away at the protoss' army, eventually taking game three.

Game 4 featured Mousesports' ThorZaIN, Team Liquid Star League 3 champion, up against Quantic's Destiny once more. Beyond the reactor opening and Destiny's double spine-crawler, ThorZaIN chose to work toward an army of 2/2 marines, siege tanks and medivacs to support.

Feeling the pressure of his opponent as the siege tanks held the middle of the map, Destiny tried to flank with zerglings, infested terrans, and roaches from both sides, only to be swatted back down as ThorZaIN established his third and eventual fourth base. The final engagement swung easily into ThorZaIN's favor as the zerg was restricted on three bases and could only muster a few brood lords. Ultimately the brood lords were easy picking for ThorZaIN's ghosts, and sealed a resounding win for Mousesports.

Game 5 saw ThorZaIN attempt to defend his team's position against Quantic's Agh on Daybreak. Similar to the game between HasuObs and Theognis, Agh opened safely to expand to his natural but soon changed his tone and engaged head-on to take out ThorZaIN's natural expansion. ThorZaIN then sought to take the game back by performing a drop in what became an unfavorable engagement for Agh, costing him some of the lead he originally had.

As a second drop was taking place, however, luck was with Agh as his dark templars revealed ThorZaIN's position. Both players were now on three bases and ThorZaIN, 20 supply behind, now had his dropped repelled and was caught off guard without detection. Luckily, ThorZaIN had +1 defense for all his units and forced the dark templars to hit the SCVs twice before vanquishing them.

Opting away from colossus tech, Agh chose high templars but his slower upgrades (+3 for ThorZaIN, +2 armor for Agh) eventually led to his demise. ThorZain, once behind in supply, had cleanly one-upped his opponent's tech switch to take another powerful win for Mousesports.

Game 9 was a fierce final battle between Mousesports and Quantic. ThorZain had breezed through Naniwa and taken two more wins before losing to SaSe who then fought through biGs to face MorroW in the final match of the series. The last game began on Sanshorn Mist with both players aiming for macro games: SaSe opened with a forge fast-expand and MorroW with a fast third base. SaSe tried to perform a dual-pronged attack on MorroW who had sixty-six drones to forty-eight probes, but the damage done by the warp prism, stalkers and zealots at the third was minimal in the grand scheme of things as roaches popped out to hold both fronts. Carrying the economic advantage, MorroW teched into infestors, lings and roaches. Tactical and careful, SaSe tiptoed into the third with his +2 attack blink stalkers, immortals and zealots. MorroW, thirty supply ahead, then quickly forced SaSe to use all of his forcefields before trudging home while taking punishment from +1 armor roaches.

Pounding at the door drunk with anger, MorroW continued to force SaSe's hand as the protoss desperately rummaged for resources to fuel the newly warped dark templar shrine. Sixty supply behind and soon to be two bases behind, SaSe managed to slip in some dark templars thanks to his warp prism and took out MorroW's fourth while also managing to establish his third.

It wasn't long, however, until the protoss' third fell to lings slipping through from behind as SaSe's army tried to return the offensive favor. Losing a third and making archons, SaSe marched forward with his +2 attack and +1 armor against MorroW's fifteen brood lords. In an uncharacteristic misstep, SaSe then blinked his stalkers forward into two fungal growths, allowing the janitorial brood lords to completely wipe them out. SaSe, crippled and nearly defeated, tapped out giving Mousesports the final win.

In a close series, Mousesports finally overcame their opponents five games to four and will move on to play against either Evil Geniuses or Old Generations in round two of the winners bracket. Never fear for Quantic, though, as they can still come back through the losers bracket where they will play the loser of the EG vs. oGs match.

Watch the rest of the VODs from this series at IPL's website: IGN.com/IPL

Predictions for Next Week

Week 2 will premiere on January 30th with the following match-ups: 

• Evil Geniuses vs. Old Generations -- Despite the loss of MC, oGs can still play compelling matches against Evil Geniuses. I expect a close series in favor of Evil Geniuses (5-3) with JYP and Puma playing an important role. An EG win will also depend on how IdrA fares against Terran and whether PuMa, JYP, HuK and DemusliM can hold their own.
• Complexity-MvP vs. Team Liquid -- Complexity has been shaping up into a formidable team in recent months, however, Team Liquid is still one of the best foreigner teams around and the combination of HerO and Zenio might be too much for CoL.MvP. I predict 5-2 in favor of Team Liquid.
• Prime vs. Team Empire -- Perhaps the hardest of the match-ups to predict may also be the most entertaining. With viOLet now on Team Empire and Kas' third place at IEM: Kiev, they may be able to hold off the stalwart Prime as long as they find a solution for the one man army that is MarineKing. I predict 5-4 in favor of Empire though I still have my doubts. 
• ReIGN vs. ZeNEX -- ReIGN's recent acquisition of Axslav along with ZeNEX's punishing loss to StarTale mean ReIGN might be able to pull out a victory. Such a victory would depend heavily on Slush, Inori and Artist, all of whom have the potential to take multiple wins from ZeNEX.
• Team Vile vs. Dignitas -- Whether or not Yong plays, Vile still has State and Illusion to fend off the vicious roster of Dignitas. Dignitas might still take a sweeping win though, given SeleCT's vast improvement since residing in Korea. Merz, SjoW, KiLLeR and BlinG are also reliable players to help keep Dignitas in this tournament.