Battle.net

The seats were filled at the RTS Tournament Stage as the BlizzCon 2010 StarCraft II Invitational moved into its second day. We witnessed some really great matches between some truly talented players in the first rounds of the tournament yesterday, as well as some highly entertaining and insightful commentary from our shoutcasters. With the field narrowed and reputations on the line (not to mention cash prizes worth $45,000), we were looking forward to even more exciting competition today -- and we weren’t disappointed. 

See how it all played out on our BlizzCon Tournaments Page.  If you missed that epic showdown, replays of yesterday's showmatch between SlayerS_`BoxeR` and Fruit Dealer, as well as the other tournament games, are available here. 

Spoilers below!

Grand Finals

South Korea's Min-Soo “NEXGenius” Jung's dreams of tournament victory were almost squashed when China's Dai “Loner” Yi's terran army sent him to the lower bracket in the semi-finals of the 2010 BlizzCon StarCraft II Invitational Tournament.  NEXGenius wasn't finished though.  Undaunted, he went on to defeat all comers in the lower bracket to meet Loner again for another chance for glory.  If Loner were to take those matches, he would win the tournament and dash NEXGenius's hopes in a single round.

These competitors were unbelievably well matched.  Every battle was marked by back and forth fights and almost identical expansion timing, with the pendulum swinging in favor of one competitor then the other after each clash of armies. Fortunately for NEXGenius, and a crowd hungry for more action, he went on to take the first round of three games with a hard fought 2-0 victory.  This set both pros up for another best of three games in the Grand Finals.

Again, each game was incredibly close with very tight macro and play from both Loner and NEXGenius.  Matches featured armies hammering at one other in fight after fight, both players expanding almost simultaneously with the winner in doubt until the very last second.  Again, NEXGenius matched Loner's solid and methodical fundamentals play with his own.  Again, NEXGenius managed to pull out a 2-0 victory against Loner to take home the tournament victory, the first place prize of $25,000 and, new for BlizzCon 2010, a BlizzCon Tournament Ring.  Loner took home the second place prize of $10,000.

Please join us in congratulating NEXGenius for his unflinching persistence in commanding the protoss to victory against a field full of very skilled StarCraft II players! We'd also like to thank all of our talented tournament participants from around the globe for two days of exhilarating competition, as well as Blizzard gamers everywhere for attending BlizzCon 2010 and watching from home.