Re-Live the CSL Season 3 Finals with Mona Zhang! - Watch as UCSD takes on Duke for the gold! Check THIS LINK for Grand Finals VODS casted by Day[9]

Although both UCSD and Duke were late-comers to the game and only joined us starting in Season 2, they soon proved to be strong favorites for CSL champions. However, in spite of pristine records and undeniable division domination, Season 2 was unsatisfying for both Duke and UCSD. Arguably the biggest trash-talkers of the East and West (except, of course, for UVic), Duke and UCSD have been claiming the throne every season but falling just a little short through a combination of bad luck, overconfidence, and intense competition from other schools.

Duke with an embarrassing Ro16 drop-out, and UCSD with a respectable but frustrating runner-up.


UCSD, home of team Xeris, returned to the Grand Finals of Season 3 hoping for a chance to redeem themselves—not only for pride, but for their teammate randomKo_Orean, whose mother passed away at the end of their run last season. Duke, unshaken by their defeat by Princeton in Season 2, proved that their unfortunate downfall last season was just a fluke and waltzed into the Finals, with the air of a rightful ruler returning to his throne. On one end, UCSD: playing for honor, playing for the team, and playing for the love of StarCraft. On the other end, Duke: playing and winning because they can.


Set 1: Xeris_Cheese DukeFrozen

xErIS_cHEesE (capitalized according to UCSD’s psychological game plan to intimidate and disorient), started the series with an appropriately cheesy first set. With a proxy that seemed almost SC2-inspired, Cheese cleverly placed a pylon below Frozen’s cliff so that he could warp units gateways directly into his opponent’s base.






Although Frozen scouted Cheese’s cheese, he soon lost two gateways and was forced to pull as many as six probes—but in a crucial moment, one of Cheese’s reinforcements decided to warp in on the other side of the gateway, forcing Cheese into an unfavorable four zealot to four zealot + probe battle. His economy battered but intact, Frozen managed to fend off the all-out zealot aggression with brilliant control and a calm head.





One zealot didn’t get the memo.


Frozen, who lost mining time but relatively few probes, recovered quickly from the initial proxy. From there, he added to four gateways, surprised Cheese with a superior unit count, and grabbed the first win for his team.

Set 2: Xeris_Xeris DukeNukem3D

xERIs_XErIS, the UCSD coordinator, mascot, and reliable anchor, entered his game against Nukem with an uncomfortable 0-1 deficit but an impressive individual 16-3 record. Unfortunately, he also entered with minimal preparation because family tragedy, again, struck UCSD.

Luckily for UCSD, Xeris seemed to have come out of the womb playing PvT on Destination.

Nukem quickly set up a well-defended double expansion in response to Xeris’s own double expansion. Unfortunately…





…he left a hole in his defenses.

Xeris traded a group of dragoons for massive damage to Nukem’s natural, and then in a moment of brilliant position play, exploited the left side’s mis-positioned tanks, shutting down Nukem’s third base. Xeris continued to dominate the map, grabbing six bases and building close to forty-thousand gateways.

Xeris relocates his home to the middle of Destination, where the view is better and more public transportation is available.

With three bases to seven, Nukem was forced to GG, bringing the series to a 1-1 tie.

Set 3: Xeris_TOP DukeJS

JS opened with an aggressive bunker rush, but TOP defended easily with a 12pool 12gas and a few pulled drones. He then transitioned into 2-hatch mutalisk, dictating the pace of the game with frustratingly effective mutalisk harass. Things were looking grim for JS, who had five SCVs at his natural at any given time.

Four SCVs survived the mutalisk massacre.

TOP set up a third base while continuing to harass, morphing in a Hive and transitioning to guardians off of three gas. In the meantime, JS somehow managed to set up a timing push with a good force of m&m, tanks, and science vessels.

Luckily, TOP already had lurkers and quite a few guardians…morphing in the wrong position.

TOP and JS traded bases and ended up playing one base to one. JS, however, had a little something called “Lift-off,” and was soon able to re-establish his natural. With one base to two and little else to his name except for a handful of zerglings and defilers, TOP made a heroic last stand but had no answer to this force of science vessels and firebats:

2-1 Duke.

Set 4: Xeris_Jaeyun DukeTyler

“We were REALLY trying to avoid getting Jaeyun vs Nony (which happened).”

- Xeris_Xeris

UCSD found themselves staring into the worst case scenario in the fourth set: their best versus Duke’s best—except that Duke’s best was none other than NonY, and that if (when) NonY won, it meant that some unlucky UCSD player would have to meet NonY yet again in the ACE match.



Jaeyun opened with an aggressive 9pool speedling, hoping to end the game earlier than later, but NonY had plenty of time to set up three cannons from his safely distant cross-position.

Overkill, but better safe than sorry.

While Jaeyun transitioned into a 5-hatch hydra build, NonY opted for a corsair-reaver followup—a highly technical build, and one that could be potentially dangerous for a player who hadn’t been practicing SC1.

However, NonY proved that his reaver control was still absolutely pristine, sniping drones from Jaeyun’s third while setting up his own third. Off of three fully functional bases, NonY transitioned into a large ground army and threatened to finish off Jaeyun’s third altogether.

Unfortunately, NonY misclicked.

Before (yes, there is an observer in that army).



After.

Even after losing an entire army, NonY’s economy far surpassed Jaeyun’s, and he quickly set up a 4th base while rebuilding his forces. Jaeyun, choosing to attack the 12 o’clock 4th base, lost his own 6 and 7 o’clock bases.

With a superior economy and army, NonY swept in for the kill.

Day[9]: “I’ve never seen a protoss army surround a zerg army before.”

3-1, Duke. UCSD a loss away from defeat, and a guarantee that NonY will be waiting in the ACE.

Set 5: Xeris_Andrew DukeBo

In this Zerg versus Zerg, DukeBo set the pace of the game with a highly unconventional 9 proxy hatchery in the center of Outsider.

Due to some miraculous laws of physics (and/or the Duke team sowing the soil with salt beforehand), Xeris_Andrew’s overlord flew by this cheese blissfully unawares.

But Andrew, curious as to why so many zerglings were running north, sent his overlord to do a little exploring.

Andrew immediately put down two sunkens and produced nothing but zerglings—and in a heart-stopping moment, he realized that this was the wrong version of Outsider—but his defense was solid, and even Bo’s clever drone drill couldn’t break the ramp.

2-3, with UCSD beginning to claw their way back into the series.

Set 6: Xeris_Jeesu DukeEllington

OneOther: “Yue is kind of fail like that but hopefully he won't fail us tomorrow.”

After opening with a safe forge-first build, DukeEllington cleverly hid a probe behind a dead tree in Jeesu’s base, hoping to scout for any unorthodox builds.

Probe napping on duty.

Unfortunately, DukeEllington’s sneaky probe didn’t see this zergling bust coming at all.

NonY had the right idea when he built three cannons in set 4.

Xeris_Jaeyun, seconds before the game, told Jeesu that he would win everything for UCSD if he got a second chance. Jeesu gave it to him.



And in an epic comeback, Team Xeris brought the series to a tied 3-3.

ACE: Xeris_Jaeyun DukeTyler

Xeris_Jaeyun: “When I lost, the score was 1-3 with NonY waiting at ACE…but Andrew and JeeSu really pulled out clutch wins and I promised them I'd bring home the win if they gave me the opportunity to play again.”

But could Jaeyun make good on his promise?

Jaeyun started off strong, comfortably establishing three bases while putting up a solid defense against NonY’s +1 timing push.

But here, NonY was left in a moment of uncertainty. He didn’t have much scouting information, his zealots did little damage, and he had no idea what Jaeyun would do next. NonY, carefully accounting for all possibilities, added two stargates and a robotics bay.

Unfortunately, NonY’s corsairs were busy accounting for the possibility of mutalisks…on the wrong side of the map.

Jaeyun’s mutalisks swept into the natural for two crucial templar snipes, opening the floodgates for a horde of hydralisks waiting outside NonY’s door. Meanwhile, NonY’s corsairs arrived a little too late, and his zealots spent precious seconds twiddling their psi blades in a corner protecting his third.

The corsairs were a little late for the party, but it’s surprising the zealots didn’t learn from their example.

With some hero dt defense, NonY held off the attack and managed to keep his natural intact. Tensions ran high on both sides. NonY had to do everything right to come back into the game, and Jaeyun had to do everything right to cling onto his advantage. Jaeyun’s economy was running a little low on drones, but NonY’s was running low on probes.

NonY’s corsairs barely missed the reinforcing overlords.

Jaeyun managed to ferry over overlords and reinforcements, charging back into the natural with hydralisks and more hydralisks. But with one single storm, NonY checked Jaeyun’s advances.

Jaeyun persevered, losing most of his hydralisks but continuing to rally them into certain death in NonY’s natural. He couldn’t let NonY get a foothold in the game, because he knew that for NonY, the smallest foothold meant a win.

The game was this close, balancing on a knife’s edge of 7hp.

Jaeyun, unwilling to stop being the aggressor, transitioned into mutalisks and halted mining in NonY’s main.

NonY cleared out the mutalisks and countered, but Jaeyun ignored the attack and continuously streamed units into NonY’s main. With one last crazily unexpected transition, Jaeyun bursts into NonY’s main with a handful of lurkers.

And then, the impossible happened. Jaeyun beat NonY. UCSD won three games in a row to take the championship.