Berkeley StarCraft 2 players (from left) Jason “RexRequired” Nguyen, Ryan “IntuitioN” Quick and Nicholas “Silky” McNeese took first place in the 2019 ESPN Collegiate Esports Championship. (Photo: Blizzard Entertainment)

There’s a good chance esports as we know them wouldn’t exist without Starcraft.

For over 20 years, people have played – and watched people play – this game. The mechanical skill and strategic acumen required for high-level play gives Starcraft incredible depth and makes for a compelling audience experience.

Players execute hundreds of actions per minute as muscle memory takes over, sending their fingers into a flurry across the keyboard. Meanwhile, their eyes scan the screen, constantly reading the situation – looking for the perfect time to strike.

In a one-vs.-one game like Starcraft, players don’t have have a team for backup or to carry them. This can make mistakes extremely punishing, and a skill gap is usually extremely obvious.

Collegiate Starcraft uses a team brawl format, where each school fields a team of three players. Teams each decide which one of their players will play in a given round. For the finals, the match was a best-of-seven, and each player had to go once before any could repeat.

Much of the team-level strategy is found in deciding which player to use. They need to know their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opponent’s, to read their moves and attempt to counter.

UC Berkeley walked on stage with the expected confidence of a number one seed, tournament favorite, and defending national champion.

If they felt pressure, they didn’t show it.

Cal player Silky was stoic. With his head high and shoulders back, he looked locked in and ready to win. As a World Championship Series qualifier, he’s played at the highest levels of competitive Starcraft. His laser focus tells the audience he’s been here before.

Berkeley undoubtedly has dynastic ambitions, and the Golden Bears have put up impressive results year after year.

On the other side of the stage was the University of Chicago. Wearing all smiles, they brimmed with excitement. While no fluke, their appearance in the finals looked far from certain during a rough patch in the regular season. Even in the playoffs, Chicago had to pull off upset wins against Waterloo’s B team in the quarterfinals and their A team in the semifinals. Both of these teams spent the entire regular season hanging around the top of the standings.

Both of these teams entered the finals after 3-2 semifinal wins. For Chicago, that was an upset. Chicago read Waterloo’s strategy and countered the Warrior’s “ace” player, TheRiddler, with their own Omgabanana. Omgabanana knew his Protoss build was strong against TheRiddler’s favored Mech Terran and he won the game with relentless aggression.

For Berkeley, their 3-2 win was a scare, met with sighs of relief – relief that their season wasn’t over, relief that the dream was still alive. When asked about the team’s strengths before the CEC, Cal player RexRequired was unequivocal.

“Our biggest strength is definitely how dominant Silky is.”

So when Silky dropped a game to UC San Diego’s DragonGodSC, it definitely wasn’t what Cal expected. But they carried on and made it to the finals. With years of success, Berkeley is a team that defines collegiate Starcraft 2. And given Silky’s ability – he’s defeated some of the highest-ranking players of all time – he was the defining player of the tournament.

“He acts as a huge anchor in our wins and is a massive confidence booster,” said Cal player RexRequired.

Even so, he can’t carry the entire team on his back. Luckily, he didn’t need to. The rest of the Cal squad are excellent players in their own right. If Chicago wanted a chance to win here, they needed to beat Silky in at least one round to make the opening. Since UC San Diego could, that had to boost Chicago’s confidence.

After the first map of the series, desk analyst Alex “Axeltoss” Rodriguez summed up the essence of Starcraft perfectly.

“Starcraft is a game of moments.”

Throughout this match, we saw those moments where the tides shifted. Where comebacks were mounted. Where defeat seemed inevitable. Sometimes there’s a buildup to that moment. Sometimes, it was serendipitous.

On Map 1, Chicago’s Teletubby (Terran) was up against Berkeley’s Intuition (Protoss). Knowing that Intuition would begin pushing out of his base around the 4:00 mark, Teletubby decided to pursue the Stimpack upgrade, which boosts speed and firing power of your troops, as fast as possible. Stimpack provides a crucial power increase.

Teletubby went on offense, timing the completion of his upgrade around his arrival at Intuition’s base. Unexpectedly, Intuition met him in the middle of the map with a large group of Stalkers. With only seconds left until the Stimpack upgrade completed, Intuition’s Stalkers wiped out Teletubby’s forces, stopping the early push he was banking on.

Asked about this by CESN, Intuition said, “I made more Stalkers than he anticipated, so when he moved out to meet my push, he lost a lot.” While this seems small, it was a pivotal moment that dictated the pace of the rest of the game as Intuition snowballed the match, winning it handily for UC Berkeley.

A similar situation unfolded on Map 4, in a rematch between Teletubby and Intuition. With surgical precision, Intuition went for an early Twilight Council play, to upgrade his Stalkers with the Blink ability. Once complete, he clandestinely advanced on Teletubby’s base. In position, he Blinked his Stalkers into Teletubby’s base and took out his Tech Lab, denying the Stimpack upgrade just six seconds shy of completion. Teletubby spent the rest of the match playing far on the back foot.

After this initial strike, Intuition played slowly and methodically to contain Teletubby until he amassed a massive advantage. In both of these rounds, Intuition read Teletubby’s strategy, isolated his weaknesses, and took capitalized on opportunities.

Map 3 was Silky’s lone appearance in the finals, delivering textbook Zerg play against Omgabanana on Protoss. There wasn’t a consequential, game-deciding moment, but the cumulative effect of favorable trades and a solid read on Omgabanana sealed it handily for Silky.

Silky had to be aware of the many options Omgabanana would have in the midgame and know how to counter them effectively. Protoss players often end up making a concerted push with a mass of powerful, but expensive units. Silky masterfully manipulated space to distance himself and take out those units while incurring minimal damage. To follow it up, his speed and mobility made it nearly impossible for Omgabanana to pull off a comeback. Silky went in for a final assault, staying calm and collected as he delivered the win for Berkeley.

When the round ended, he stood up quickly and walked over to Omgabanana for a handshake – stoic expression unchanged.

There was another rematch in this series, between Berkeley’s RexRequired and Chicago’s Pancakes.

On Map 2, RexRequired had Pancakes on the ropes. Pancakes was extremely far behind, and even though a win looked unlikely, he held on. His grit paid off as he demonstrated the power of one of Starcraft’s best comeback mechanics – spell casters. By using powerful, but fragile, High Templar units to drop Psionic Storms, Pancakes devastated RexRequired, wiping out dozens of his forces.

When RexRequired split his forces and attacked Pancakes’ base, Pancakes decided to make an aggressive push of his own – with all of his forces. He capitalized on the chaos.

“By focusing all my attention and army on my attack I was able to land some good Psionic Storms in order to break the front, do some damage, and then recall my army to defend a still mostly-intact base,” Pancakes told CESN.

This situational awareness gave him an advantage. While Starcraft can be punishing if you fall behind – any many players concede early – there are comeback mechanisms in the game. Being able to deliver those Psi Storms knowing that Rex lacked a response, flipped the switch and gave Pancakes the win.

After four rounds, Berkeley led the series 3-1, with Pancakes holding Chicago’s lone round win.

RexRequired had a shot at revenge on Map 5. While blowing the lead and taking that loss to Pancakes on Map 2 couldn’t feel good, these two players have more history than that alone.

“Pancakes stomps me on ladder so often,” Rex said.

These players meet at the highest levels of online ranked play, and Rex had taken his fair share of losses to Pancakes. So this time, it was personal.

Rex delivered a stunning performance. His pinpoint-precise control over fast-moving Reaper units allowed him to take out many of Pancakes’ probes, hurting his economy. And then, Pancakes invested into an attack he couldn’t execute. Lacking sufficient strength, the offensive proved too costly.

Recognizing the opportunity for a decisive counterattack, RexRequired amassed all of his forces, including his SCVs, and went all-in for a final assault. Pancakes had no way to answer the onslaught. He attempted to get Archons into play quickly, but it was too little, too late. He couldn’t get there.

As the victory screen flashes, a huge smile breaks across Rex’s face. Intuition joins him on stage. Silky connects with a huge high-five, and by now he’s traded the stoic look for one of unbridled joy. The triumphant Golden Bears walk over to Chicago with hands extended. Smiles grace both sides as the recent opponents engage in post-game camaraderie.

“The way RexRequired deconstructed Pancakes in that final, decisive match was really beautiful to see,” opined Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen from the hosts’ couch.

With Rex’s rematch win, Berkeley clutched their second consecutive championship title in a dominant fashion. “It was amazing to see all their hard work pay off, and for them to represent Berkeley and win,” said Kirk Robles, director of Cal Esports, in a university news release. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Starcraft is a game of moments. Often, the apparent smallness of these moments belies their gravitas. But when you hoist that championship trophy, there’s no doubt that’s a monumental one. As RexRequired put it:

“Right now, I finally beat him. And we won because of that.”

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