MLG Winter Arena: Day 3 summary

The last 2 days of the MLG have been an intense battle of skills between some of the best players in the world. We have seen a great show of skills from a variety of players involving strategy, micro, and positioning. Warning! This article is a complete spoiler if you are waiting for the VODS that will come out a week later.

 The Schedule for MLG Day 3

These events will start at 2:00pm Eastern Standard Time and will end at some time near 8:00 pm

MLG Winter Arena Day 3 Match Summaries

The match summaries will be covered as they happen. If you are interested in anything from the other days, day 1 and day 2 of the MLG Winter Arena are also covered.

Dongraegu vs. Parting

 Game 1:

The game opened with a forge fast expand and a fast 3 base play for Donraegu. Voids and phoenixes were used first. Parting then transitioned into a ground army with upgrades. Parting wins the first game with blink stalkers against mutalisks. Parting made a great move knowing that if the opposition has mutalisks you must be attacking in order to keep Dongraegu's mutalisks away from your base. Parting took some probes losses but in the end he managed to keep the battle on Dongraegu's side. Parting won the first game.

Game 2

Game 2 was also a macro oriented game. DRG was on 4 based before the 14 minute mark. DRG had a huge roach army which was burrowed in the middle of the map. Parting was very lucky and saw this army burrowed in the middle with his observer; he killed this entire army with a combination of stalkers and sentries. If he hadn't seen this the game would have been over much faster. It looked like Parting would have won after this huge blow to DRG's army; however, Parting went on to push into DRG's base. He was able to hold off the attack after Parting ran out of force fields. DRG won the game.

Game 3

Game 3 was a less macro oriented game. Parting decided to go for a one base blink stalker all in attack.  However; DRG was ready for this from scouting. DRG had spines and a HUGE amount of zerglings. The last battle was a huge amount of lings overwhelming the blink stalkers and sentries.

Game 4

 DRG started the game off witha 6 pool. Parting went for a forge fast expand. The game stabilized and DRG took his expansion. Affter both forces took their expands, Parting made a poke into the expand of DRG. After this DRG massed infestors while Parting made blink stalkers. DRG loses most of his infestors while denying partings 3rd expand. DRG then went on to make mutalisks. Both eventuallly secured their 3rd bases. At 18 minutes DRG took his 4th base. The game went on for more than 30 in-game minutes. The games changed when DRGG kept taking expansions. On the other hand Parting kept up with expansion, but lost his key mining bases suddenly. This created a significant problem for Parting. The game ended with a huge attacking force of broodlords, infestors, and roaches. Partings did a great job trying to defend with stalkers and a mother ship. In the end though, DRG won and continues to the next game against OZ.

Oz vs. Violet

Oz won against violet  2-0. The last game involved dts and denying the third of Violet. 

DRG vs. OZ 

Game 1:

DRG tried to doa  fast expand. Oz decided to do a forge fast expand. However the game turned into OZ's favor when he put cannons behind the minerals of DRG's Natural expand. Things got worse when DRG decided to expand to his natural expand and also got cannoned out there. DRG then tried to gather enough forces to bust OZ's wall, but there were too many cannons. After this failed attack, DRG surrendered. 

Game 2:

The  game got off to a normal start. Oz was actually taking the safer route for expanding and things were just getting underway. However the game dropped and had to be restarted. there was a short delay due to this problem.

Game 2 (restarted):

The game started much the same as the first game that got dropped. However, the warp prism that OZ created was spotted before it had a chance to do anything to serious to DRG's economy. The game ended with massive mutalisks and zerglings attacking OZ's base. OZ's army was out of position. This prompted OZ to initiate a base race. DRG ended up winning the base race.

Game 3: 

The game started once again with DRG going for a fast 3 base play. OZ also went for a forge fast expand.  The game proceeded with pressure from both players. DRG decided on roaches and zerglings. OZ decided to go stalker, immortal, and sentry. OZ's army got sandwiched near his base, but he managed to fend off the roach attack from DRG. After this OZ decided to push towards DRG's base- DRG responded with zerglings and mutalisks. OZ had some great micro but there were too many units. DRG won the game.

Huk vs. MarineKing

Game 1: 

The game turned out to be a huge macro game mostly involving zealots, sentries, and DTs for Huk. MarineKing used mostly marines, marauders, and medivacs. The game turned into Marineking's favor when Huk began to run out of resources on his 3 bases. Marineking managed to gain a 4th base and proceeded to win the resource wars. In the end Marineking won the game with an overwhelming number of medvacs and ground units. 

 Game 2:

The game begain with what appeared to be a fast expand. After Marineking scouted the nexus, Huk canceled the nexus and went for some early pressure. He nearly broke the main base but Marineking barely held his main base. After this Huk decided to expand and create DT's. The DTs did some damage but nothing too significant. After this, Huk spent more resources on his economy. This was a problem because Marineking was building a large army off of his contained one base. Marineking then went on to make a 3 medivac drop that Huk could not hold. Marineking takes the match bringing the score 2-0 in Marineking's favor.

Huk vs. DongRaeGu

Game 1: 

The game started with pretty standard openings from both players. Huk went for a forge fast expand and DRG went for a fast 3 base opening. Huk then went on to take a 3rd base along with DRG taking a 4th. DRG showed an amazing ability to macro wile attacking. He kept a near max supply during the entire time of attacking Huks base. DRG then went on to take advantage of Huk's strong point, micro. DRG attacked on two fronts making it very difficult for Huk to micro on both sides. In the end Huk could not keep up with DRG's amazing macro. DRG took the 1st game.

Game 2:

The game started with Huk trying a cannon out of DRG's natural expand. This was done with the knowledge that DRG's pool was ready. The cannon rush failed and Huk was forced to retreat and regroup. Huk ended up going blink stalkers against DRG's roaches and infestors. DRG's macro once again proved to be too much for Huk. Huk could not get his supply up high enough against DRG. supplies for Huk and DRG were around 100 and 180 respectively during the last 5 minutes of the game. Huk ended up losing and thus was knocked out of top 3 placement in the MLG arena tournament. DRG seems to have gained the name Protoss killer due to his performance in the last few days. 

Dongraegu vs. Marineking: Final Match Series!

Game 1:

 Marineking went for a proxy barracks. This was spotted by DRG's overlord. DRG reacted to this in a strange way. After letting the barracks finish, Marineking came to DRG's base and attempted to build a bunker at the entrance. However this doesn't work. Even though the bunker did not finish Markineking did massive amounts of damage to DRG's economy. After this DRG could not recover his economy. Due to this problem, he decided to try a zergling baneling all in. This turned out to not do enough damage thus causing DRG to GG.

Game 2:

Marineking decided to go for a marine stim timing attack. However DRG decided to go with a less expected attack. He went for an extremely aggressive build with lots of speedlings early in the game before the wall was finished for the natural expansion.  After this attack, Marineking was somewhat behind concerning attacking forces and SCVs. DRG went on to make a huge baneling bust with lots of lings to flow in after. Marineking clearly lost in this game.

Game 3:

Marineking went for another bunker rush which did not do much damage. Marineking then went for marines and medivacs. The medivac drops managed to cancel the 3rd base of DRG. After this Marineking showed some amazing micro skills against zerglings and mutalisks. After a small victory against DRG's army he decides to push into the base of DRG. Marineking advanced too far forward against spinecrawlers. This was a mistake due to the fact that he had tanks and needed to keep the position ready for banelings. After this, Marineking slowly feel to DRG's mutalisks and the rest of his army. Due to DRG's win, the match series will continue to a best of 7.

Game 4:

Marineking goes for a bunker rush again but does not do much damage. DRG goes for roach and ling and Marineking goes for marauder marine medivac. Marineking manages to cancel the 3rd base of DRG. At a later point Marineking goes back and destroys the same third while landing his factory to block zerg reinforcements. After keeping DRG on 2 bases, he manages to come in with a huge overwhelming force that DRG's force of roaches and infestors could not stop. 

Game 5:

Marineking went again for another bunker rush. This one included a large amount of SCVs as well though. The bunker managed to go up and stay repaired. DRG GG'ed after the bunker remained. 

Game 6: 

Marineking Pro decided to harass with some early helions. DRG decided to make roaches in order to block the helions. On the back of this, Marineking essentially made a double expand. He then went on to make upgrades for marines and made tanks. DRG didn't see the 2 extra bases until quite late. After realizing this he tried to catch up but couldn't macro hard enough to build a comparable army. Marineking won the game and the MLG Winter Arena! 

The final bracket

For the full, bracket click here.