UMBC BEATS U. PITTSBURGH 3-2 IN AN EPIC SET OF GAMES IN THE COLLEGIATE STARLEAGUE

UMBC takes down U. Pittsburgh to advance to the round of 16 in the CSL. (dates for ro16 have not yet been announced)

The VODs will be posted sometime real soon to either my channel at www.youtube.com/aegisstarcraft2 or to some other channel. (which in that case I will update this here)

If you want to hear a bit about the matches read below::

SPOILER ALERT:::

In game 1 NerZhuL came out with strong MMM play on the map Xel’Naga Caverns and Saer the protoss player from U. Pittsburgh did not throw down his force fields in time and took a huge beating early in the game, losing his natural expansion and his entire army. NerZhuL pulls back, takes a third base and advances for the win.

In game 2, LunatonePKM, the protoss player playing for UMBC is up against Xog, who is one of the top ranked zerg players on the North American server. On the map GSL Crevasse Lunatone takes an early expand and simultaneously cannons his opponent’s expansion, taking down the hatchery at Xog’s natural expansion. Xog takes his in base expansion and suffers a huge loss as Lunatone pushes in with 6 gates worth of units and delivers a punishing to Xog’s main.

Game 3 was the 2v2 with UMBC’s Cyrain and BruceLee against U. Pittsburgh’s Gamfvr and Lobo. This PTvPT game began with heavy aggression from the UMBC team, but siege tanks held the line for Gamfvr and Lobo. UMBC’s aggression continued into the mid game with Cyrain’s forces sacrificing themselves to take down Lobo’s main. However Gamfvr’s forces were left unchecked and the aggression left the UMBC team lacking in tech to stop the siege tank push and it was gg.

Game 4 saw a TvT with UMBC’s Cyrain vs Gamfvr; TvT is a complicated positional match up, with movement patterns and placement just as important as in a game of chess. This game was further complicated by the close air spawn positions on Shattered Temple. The TvT panned out with drops and counter drop plays and subtle tank movements until Cyrain found himself cornered and unable to take a third base. Gamfvr took his fourth base easily and forced an ace match in the series.

After a period of deliberation for both teams (ace match players are not announced), U. Pittsburgh did not place Xog as we expected, but instead put up Saer once again. UMBC fielded NerZhuL once again and the game was played on Metalopolis. Close spawn by air allowed both players to macro up large armies, but NerZhuL showed superior micro and drew the game and a match to a close by smashing the gateway+colossus army from Saer, bring the game and the match to a close.