The elfi vs. Life Honorable Mention Awards for Really Weird Stupid Games That Are Weird

#5. qxc vs Jaedong on Merry Go Round

Homestory Cup (November 14) - VOD

#4. Ruin vs Daedalus Point

Code A Season 1 (January 15) - VOD

#3. Zerg vs Protoss on Overgrowth

VOD VOD VOD Any (All the time) - VOD

#2. Revival vs ByuL on Yeonsu

WCS AM Ro32 Season 1 (February 25)







#1. Billowy vs Flash on Yeonsu

Proleague Round 2 (March 30)







"And then Billowy said let there be a salvage. And God salvaged and it was good."

- Book of SwagHo 1:1

Honorable Mentions

#5. Billowy vs Symbol on Waystation

Code A Season 2 (April 18) - VOD

#4. Top vs viOLet on Heavy Rain

WCS AM Challenger S1 (January 21) - VOD

#3. Scarlett vs TooDming on Frost

WCS AM Ro32 Season 1 (February 19) - VOD

#2. Has vs Jaedong on Polar Night

WCS AM Ro32 Season 1 (February 26) - VOD







#1. Ruin vs Soulkey on Frost

Code A Season 2 (April 11) - VOD

While we'd like to rank every game every played, it's natural that some great games just miss out on our list. Our initial tally included up to 100 games, and some of our personal favorites unfortunately missed the cut. However, there are some games that, even though they don't deserve to get on the main list, have to be included for posterity. So, before we get on to thelist, we present to you theand ourWhile the term “full foreigner” has become a meme at this point, it does accurately describe the tendency of some non-Korean players to give away games where they had initially secured an unlikely lead. However, the term is often misused on games where their lead is not absolute and their opponent has some potential advantage.Against Jaedong, qxc went full foreigner.Jaedong decided to skip roaches and extra queens to get a fast spire on three bases, a decision that proved near-fatal when qxc immediately attacked with a powerful hellbat/marauder composition. His paltry zergling/queen (with 1 spine crawler) defense was massacred, and Jaedong found himself sitting at half the supply of qxc with twelve drones, about eight mutalisks and a handful of zerglings. However, not all was lost as qxc would somehow managed to lose a game where he had every advantage. Turrets were cancelled and killed, widow mines killed marines as small groups of zerglings baited shots, marines shot overseers, marines were stimmed at the wrong moments, and tech and production were severely delayed while Jaedong kept qxc in his main and natural for an eternity to equalize the supply. It only took one big attack for Jaedong to put qxc in almost the same position he had been in just ten minutes ago, and there was no way Jaedong was going to throw away this game.We’ve seen all sorts of dedicated cannon rushes originating from the deep realms of protoss depravity. Has is the most famous for doing so, with completely ridiculous tempest + cannon contains in PvT and mass pylon wall-offs in PvZ. These peculiar strategies have been surprisingly effective against players that should have known better despite making absolutely no sense.In the deciding game of a Code A group, Ruin found himself facing a Zerg player on Daedalus Point. The relatively new map (at the time) had shown itself to be extremely zerg favored, as protoss had a difficult time walling off their natural expansion. Ruin, however, actually used the map to his advantage and proved that he was the next greatest cannon architect. He began by building an extremely bold wall from the start right outside Sleep’s main base. Sleep, unsure how to react, tried playing on one base, but Ruin built cannons and additional pylons behind his initial pylon/gate/forge, preventing the zerg player from ever leaving. By the time Sleep had a nydus network and enough roaches to break out of his main base, Ruin had built a force of blink stalkers and sentries off one base and easily crushed him.They said that terran players were the one with the best ability to abuse gold bases. That orbital commands were the most dangerous town halls, closely followed by planetary nexuses. Protoss and Terran had the more dangerous proxies and the most annoying rushes with static defense.Overgrowth dispelled all of these commonly accepted opinions and turned perfectly normal zerg mechanics into a protoss nightmare. CatZ, soO, TRUE, and Scarlett led a proxy hatchery movement that caused complete meltdowns in normally stable players as the creep-ridden horrors never seemed to go away, no matter how many probes were pulled, since one finishing could mean the end of the game. Gold bases were seized to fuel terrifying spine crawler rushes and horrifying 2-base plays. Alternatively, the zerg player could play completely normally with a gold base and possibly take an early lead or force their opponent to all in. If the protoss survived, what was their reward? Swarm hosts. Here's a bunch of screenshots to make your protoss friends cry:That was like watching Revival cross the street and then a car is about to hit him. Then BAM, the car explodes, but the debris are flying everywhere, but Revival fucking dodges only to hit his head into a fire hydrant. He then gets up and is mugged by guys with guns and is about to get shot but then one of the thugs backstabs his friends and Revival gets the fuck out of there, but is then chased by a pack of ravenous dogs. He crashes through a butcher shop, throws the meat at the ravenous dogs to only have the butcher try to stab him, only to have the previous thugs start shooting up the butcher and the police coming in to shoot the thugs. After surviving all of that Revival walks home to only have a piano fall out of the sky and almost land on top of him until mutas swoop in from nowhere and die for him.The thought of having an extra nexus for some reason besides taking a base is enough to bring most protoss players to tears of laughter. While having extra hatcheries or CCs for a heavy production or income boost is relatively common in longer games, one never sees an extra nexus or two sitting around for extra probes or chronoboosts. They can’t lift off, spread creep, or really do anything besides just sit there, so these 400 mineral investments are generally unnecessary beyond securing additional expansions.Billowy, however, found another use for the protoss town hall. Against Symbol in Code A, he opened relatively normally on Waystation with a gateway expansion into phoenixes and a third base at the island. It felt like he was going to play a normal macro game as he started getting blink and colossi, but then he built a fourth nexus in a seemingly random spot near Symbol’s fourth base. As Symbol scouted the island base, he prepared to pressure Billowy’s two mainland bases while building a nydus network. However, as the zerg player moved across the map, Billowy’s army suddenly teleported next to Symbol’s fourth for a surprise attack. The colossus/blink stalker army Billowy had amassed on three bases proved to be too much for an out of position Symbol to deal with immediately, and a single nexus had changed a promising macro game into a clever, quick victory.WCS America is great, and if these awards teach you anything, let it be this: we fucking love Chinese players. It's not that they're unique and bring fresh styles to the table (they do), but that they seem to make so little sense that when they end up winning (they do quite often), we're left with hilarity to look back on. What do I mean by that? I mean TOP vs viOLet. No, I'm not talking about games like this one. There is no game like this one. Maybe somewhere in platinum league but certainly not at the professional level. And most certainly not in the deciding game 5 of WCS America Challenger League.The score tied at 2-2, TOP did what everyone predicted: a gateway expand into 4gate pressure. Rotterdam knew it, Mr.Bitter knew it, viOLet knew it, the observer knew it. Perhaps that's why all of them missed where the chaos of this game truly started. As his extra three gates were going up, TOP accidentally cancelled his natural nexus and nobody, neither casters nor the observer, noticed—only viOLet. The game is nothing but madness from here on out as viOLet tried his best to recover from making the right choice and TOP's accidental nexus cancel let him execute a 2base all in that lasted for an eternity, all to the late night entertainment program of Mr.Bitter desperately trying to navigate between urges to laugh, cry and rant his heart out, while his brother-from-another-race, Rotterdam, unsurprisingly mostly laughed.Once upon a time, true protoss mentor Teoita in a fit of wisdom spoke the words that to this day depict a protoss lifestyle: "Protoss all ins are like a wok - you can throw whatever you want in there and it will turn out alright.". TOP proved himself a real wok-race warrior by producing seemingly random units at random times. There was an oracle whose mission was to single-handedly kill viOLet's third base, a few phoenixes that I guess helped some queens escape from zealots... unupgraded zealots. Since TOP had a stargate (don't ask me why he had a stargate) he naturally made void rays as any self-respecting protoss would and, to top it all off, he transitioned everything into the one true build - an immortal/sentry all in. I didn't learn much from this game (in fact I think I unlearned a lot), but one thing's for certain: third bases don't exist in China.When we think of the best games that Starcraft 2 has to offer, we think of macro wars and daring cheeses; we remember insane comebacks from the brink of defeat, and tense battles that are fought right to the bitter end. However, there are some games which require but a single moment; one singular event which elevates the whole match beyond the ordinary.ZvZ rarely tops the list of people’s favourite matchups, and maxed out roach slugfests are even less appreciated. At the start of the year, though, Scarlett and Toodming played out a thoroughly entertaining match on Frost. Both players opened with practically mirrored roach builds, and Toodming drew first blood by forcing a cancel at the third with a large ling run by. From there, the two forces ping pong'd from one side of the map to the other. Armies were thrown away before being instantly replenished, and advantages were traded back and forth in a game that was impossible to call. I could go on to praise Toodming’s impressive army positioning and engagements throughout, or Scarlett’s harass and defence. But, frankly, there’s only one moment that matters.I (stuchiu) have been watching this game since 2010 in the first GSL Open Season. Suffice to say, I have seen some shit. I saw Inca try dts 4 games in a row, San manner block his own expansion, Protoss 4 gate the wrong spawn on a 4 player map, BitByBit ascend to Proletariat Godhood, GSL try to set TT1 on fire, the first 1-1-1, the first soul train (fun fact, Avenge was its first conductor), Targa Banes, Morrow Banes, Snute Banes, Dimaga Banes, Losira dancing lings into losing, Ruin making an S into losing, Naniwa dancing zealots into losing, I have seen some shit.So it is with very little doubt that I say that this was easily the craziest debut any player has ever had in a Premier Tournament. On one hand you had Jaedong, a player who had just come off getting to the finals of Blizzcon. A perennial fan favorite who faced utter humiliation at the hands of sOs. It was a beating so terrible that no Jaedong fan had thought it could ever be one-upped.And then they met Has.This game was actually good. Like, really good. Yet, instead of the great play Ruin showed in his stubborn attempt to reach Code S in an era of Daedalus Point, we will forever remember him for being "The Architect". While his ballsy cannon contain on that nightmare of a map proved to be a stroke of demented genius, his "S" ceremony in-game ended up being an embarrassment. Confident of his victory, The Architect erected a monument to his impending Code S berth. Instead his hope wilted as Soulkey ran over his dreams with a bulldozer. Turns out S stood for "Soulkey."