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Home Gaming STARCRAFT II WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES – AUSTRALIA NATIONALS/OCEANIA FINALS WRAP
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STARCRAFT II WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES – AUSTRALIA NATIONALS/OCEANIA FINALS WRAP

Over Friday and Saturday, the WCS Australia Nationals’ intense competition saw many of Australia’s best StarCraft II players fall by the wayside. Returning StarCraft: Brood War veteran Peter ‘Legionnaire’ Neate’s run in the tournament was ended in deft fashion by fellow Protoss player Zi Ray ‘Light’ Wang, and Tim ‘MaFia’ He dispatched many opponents with his trademark poker face and calculated Zerg play.

Through the mid-bracket carnage, Jared ‘PiG’ Krensel’s disciplined approach and meticulous execution took him through to the final without dropping a match. Despite being bested by Krensel earlier in the tournament, Andrew ‘mOOnGLaDe’ Pender fought a determined battle back through the lower bracket to face his nemesis once more in the final. GLaDe’s relentless attacks tested PiG, taking the final to a second series, but in the end, it was superb positional strategy that allowed PiG to bring home the bacon in the Zerg v. Zerg final, and be crowned the Australian champion.

That said, the WCS Oceania Finals on Sunday were a whole new story, and aside from the top six Australian competitors from Saturday qualifying for the regional playoffs, the previous day’s results mattered for naught.

mOOnGLaDe was rocked in a first round game by a bombardment of more than a dozen nukes from the Terran-playing New Zealander Tilea ‘KnighT’ Flavall, but managed to come back to win the match, and maintained his momentum in the tournament through to the final, beating Australian champion PiG along the way. Though placing well in the Australia Nationals, MaFia stepped up another gear, and fended off a number of tough competitors to meet GLaDe in the final.

With two Zerg forces in a pitched battle for the title once more, mOOnGLaDe’s early aggression tested the defences of MaFia, and ultimately proved too much, with mOOnGLaDe wrapping up the final series in two games. While there could only be one champion for the Oceania Finals, both finalists will advance to the StarCraft II World Championship Series Global Final at the Battle.net World Championship in Shanghai, China in November.

You can find the final bracket for both tournaments here, or watch the matches at http://www.twitch.tv/aclprosc2.