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This is it. Since the start of the year we've had five tournaments, the addition of a GSL-exchange program, and a whole 'lotta of complaints about seating. Now we're finally here, the grand finale of MLG's 2011 season, a single event with a prize purse nearly ten times the earlier tournaments.



The culmination of an entire year in a single event, it all comes down to this. For the players who have played well, there are a direct seeds into the championship bracket. For the rest, the open portion still exists for a chance at redemption. The road will be more arduous than ever, but hope is ever present in the constantly-shifting world of Starcraft.



The story for much of the year has been the clash between East and West, the eternal struggle between Koreans and so-called foreigners competing for precious tournament titles. The early chapters showed the strength of the competition in Korea, and more than once we found ourselves calling the death of the foreign player. Perhaps our cries were premature, however, for the month of October showed western-raised players winning IEM, IPL, and lastly MLG.



Now the battle must rage on. With more Koreans than ever at MLG, and foreigners continually looking strong, this tournament will be a showdown for the ages. This is it. Since the start of the year we've had five tournaments, the addition of a GSL-exchange program, and a whole 'lotta of complaints about seating. Now we're finally here, the grand finale of MLG's 2011 season, a single event with a prize purse nearlythe earlier tournaments.The culmination of an entire year in a single event, it all comes down to this. For the players who have played well, there are a direct seeds into the championship bracket. For the rest, the open portion still exists for a chance at redemption. The road will be more arduous than ever, but hope is ever present in the constantly-shifting world of Starcraft.The story for much of the year has been the clash between East and West, the eternal struggle between Koreans and so-called foreigners competing for precious tournament titles. The early chapters showed the strength of the competition in Korea, and more than once we found ourselves calling the death of the foreign player. Perhaps our cries were premature, however, for the month of October showed western-raised players winning IEM, IPL, and lastly MLG.Now the battle must rage on. With more Koreans than ever at MLG, and foreigners continually looking strong, this tournament will be a showdown for the ages.

Match Results via @teamliquidlive By Heyoka





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MLG Global Invitational Recap



MLG Global Invitational



MLG Providence kicked off with the final four of the MLG Global Invitational, which came to a live conclusion after being played online for several months. IdrA and Nestea were up first, in a battle between ZvZ masters from Korea and North America. The first game showed that IdrA had done his homework, as he exploited Nestea's direct-to-roaches style with a well-timed Baneling and Zergling attack. IdrA then read Nestea's transition into Mutalisks, easily blocking it with Spore Colonies and Hydralisks. Nestea tried to recover by adding Infestors to his army, but he was overrun by IdrA's powerful Hydra-Roach force.



Nestea evened up the score in game two, in a straight up 3 base v 3 base game on Antiga Shipyard. This time it was it was IdrA who went for Infestors while Nestea went for Hydralisks, and the Hydralisks won again. IdrA did well with his Infestors in the first major battle, but he simply did not have enough fungals to defeat the sustained DPS of Hydralisks in the second big confrontation.



The final game began with IdrA attempting to exploit Nestea's no-Baneling style once more, but Nestea's good defense and constant drone production meant that the two players ended up on roughly even ground. Both players went for Roach-Hydra in this deciding game, which seemed to come down to one huge confrontation outside of IdrA's gold base. Nestea botched his positioning badly in this battle, allowing IdrA to emerge with a thirty supply lead. Instead of attacking and securing the victory, however, IdrA chose to sit back and secure more expansions. While one could say he was just playing it safe, it ended up being a critical mistake. IdrA had more money, but he was still bound by the same 200 supply limit as Nestea. Both players maxed out their armies, but Nestea made the crucial inclusion of Infestors to his army. When they clashed again, the Infestors allowed Nestea to win a crushing victory, one which even IdrA's superior production could not overcome. Nestea took the series 2-1, and progressed to the next round.



MVP and Naniwa faced off next, beginning their series on Daybreak. As is the trend on the map, both players built up their economies while splitting the map. The two players had a few clashes in the middle of the map, where Naniwa seemed to be emerging with the advantage. Critically, he was able to pick off all of MVP's Vikings and then replenish his army with Colossi while MVP was still producing primarily infantry. The Colossi heavy army applied the killing blow for Naniwa, who soundly defeated MVP's army and secured the victory.



The second game saw an interesting early game back and forth, with MVP pressuring hardly early off two rax and almost killing Naniwa's Nexus. Then, Naniwa's counter-attack forced an Orbital Command lift from MVP, and also killed quite a few SCVs during the assault. However, MVP got the last laugh in the game as he had been teching up to Stim and Medivacs the whole while. Naniwa was stuck on gateway tech with poor upgrades when MVP attacked with his MMM force, which resulted in a one-sided victory for the Terran champion.



Base trade was the name of the game in the final game, as is often the case on Dual Sight. Both players went up to two bases after a little bit of early game trickery, with Naniwa making an upgraded gateway army and MVP producing a standard MMM ball. Even though MVP held the advantage in being able to lift his buildings, Naniwa's superior upgrades carried the day. The Swedish Protoss found MVP's relocated base and crashed in, able to triumph over MVP's stim-kiting and Medivac healing with brute force.



The Finals



Naniwa fell temptation to the deadliest of Protoss sins to begin the series: Dark Templars. Nestea read and prepared for this move far too easily, able to shamelessly drone up while getting just enough Roaches and detection to defend. This gave him a massive economic advantage to begin with, which he converted into a huge amount of upgraded Roaches soon after. Naniwa had no way to keep up with Nestea's mass Roaches and was forced to GG out.



Naniwa seemed to be headed towards an 0-2 series loss in the next game, after being forced to cancel his early Nexus and getting his Void Rays fended off. However, he managed to outsmart Nestea in the end, transitioning to a six-gate attack. When the critical attack came, Nestea was building Drones instead of Vital roaches and Zerglings. Though Nestea did his best to stay alive, he eventually conceded to Naniwa's relentless attack.



The mind-games continued in the final game, with Nestea doing a fake Drone + Zergling all-in. This move forced Naniwa to give up his forge FE, and make two cannons in his main before going for one base play. Naniwa hit back by building a pylon and two cannons at Nestea's natural, delaying the expansion significantly and forcing the creation of several Zerglings. It was dubious as to who got the better of this exchange, but it was quite a unique thing to see. Naniwa went up to four-gates before he expanded, while Nestea took two quick expansions.



Naniwa tried to exploit this greedy play from Nestea by doing a four gate attack, which very narrowly failed. However, he was still on fairly even ground since he had traded well with Nestea and preserved most of his sentries, which set up a strong follow-up attack with the added income of his natural. A +1 attack, Blink Stalker attack was next for Naniwa, and Nestea was once again caught completely off guard. After posturing with his troops to force Nestea out of position, he cheekily blinked up into Nestea's natural with 18 Stalkers to take the hatchery down. Nestea hastily tried to defend himself, but only ended up sending his Roaches in a deadly force-field trap. With his economy and army crushed, Nestea could only do so much as Naniwa's snowballing army crashed through his base. Nestea conceded the game, and Naniwa claimed the MLG Global Invitational Championship.