- News by: Julian Xu

Week 7 is over - read on to find out what’s happening in the East!

In Division 1, MIT (5-1) pulled off a critical win against McGill (5-2) to move them up into 3rd place, behind undefeated Tufts (6-0) and UOttawa (6-1). In what was arguably the most anticipated set of the match, we saw MIT’s Reaverie (Ethan Sterling) face off against McGill’s Freaky (Sami El Dabbagh) in the first set on Outsider. Prior to the game, both players had individual records of 5-1, with both their only losses coming from UOttawa’s dRaW (Cameron Ward). The action started early as Reaverie’s 2 gate met up with Freaky’s 9 pool by the Zerg’s natural. Although both sides suffered equal losses, Reaverie continued the pressure with more zealots, followed by dragoons, then corsairs – all still off of one base. Eventually, after close to 20 minutes of fighting, Reaverie’s constant pressure on the Zerg allowed him to secure an economic advantage, and thus the game as well. Next week, MIT hopes to build on its momentum and challenge Tufts for the lead. Can they be the ones to give Tufts their first loss of the season?
Princeton (5-1) leads Division 2, and is followed by Rutgers, Cornell, and George Mason, all with 4-2 records. Cornell defeated Binghamtom (4-3), essentially destroying their playoff chances while keeping their own alive. Meanwhile, George Mason pulled off a 3-2 victory against Yale (4-3), putting them in a good position to grab a playoff spot. In order to secure that spot, however, they must win against Cornell next week. George Mason will be relying on their Terran ace LF (Rob Griesemer), also known as “lightning fingers,”* to continue to perform well. LF is currently 7-1 in individual standings and a perfect 2-0 in ace match appearances, one of which came this week against Yale’s wasiul (Kamil Wasilewski). Random tidbit: wasiul now has the most ace match appearances, at 4 (with a 2-2 record in those ace matches).
Moving over to Division 3, UWaterloo (6-0) is still undefeated, UToronto (6-1) is in second place, and Carnegie Mellon and Ryerson are tied for third place at 4-2. While UWaterloo, UToronto, and Carnegie Mellon all won with 3-0 scores this week, York surprised Ryerson and took a close 3-2 victory home even though they forfeited the first set. In the ace match on HBR, York’s Aura (Antoni Piotrowski) looked to be in trouble against Ryerson’s Dawn (Dawn Kim) after his 3 hatch mutas were easily deflected. Then, with a large marine and medic army knocking at his door, he slow dropped 4 lurkers in Dawn’s main and just like that, Dawn GG’ed. Next week Carnegie Mellon will play UToronto in a big match that may have playoff consequences. UToronto is certainly expecting this match to be important, as they are sending out their star player IefNaij (JianFei Wang) in the lineup for only the second time this season (the first time was against UWaterloo, but he forfeited that match).
And last but not least, we have Division 4. Actually make that the least… Division 4 is still boring and riddled with no-shows and forfeits. With only 2 weeks left in the season, there are still 3 teams that are undefeated (Duke, Emory, Georgia Tech). Although Florida took Georgia Tech to the ace game in their match this week, Georgia Tech was not too worried since they had the Chinese phenon MasterAsia (Ruodo Wang) in their arsenal. Next week, Georgia Tech and Duke are set to face off. Will there be 1 less undefeated team in this division? Or will they just indefinitely postpone their match like they did with Emory? Stay tuned to find out!

*I just made that up. LF had an APM of 345 in his ace match against Yale’s wasiul. I don’t know what LF actually stands for.