WC3R - WGL WINTER - Ro16 LB Semifinal: [HU] Sok vs. XiaoKai [UD] (Group A)

if you lose here in this very match in the lower bracket semi-final you are out of warcraft gold league that should certainly not be your goal for xiaokai i think that would be quite fine if he just performs well he definitely did against fly raised some eyebrows there if he defeats sock it would be an upset it would be a great showcase of his skills and for sock if he gets eliminated huge disappointment as you say awl win just recently third best player in the world according to the elo and in a head-to-head comparison remo their trading wins it's two to three in series and in maps it's six to six the last encounter by the way was one by xiao kai in october in world cyber games yeah that was a crucial last map that was the last refuge game where we did see the crypt lord where the human tried to play with uh one base it was a one base one based game kind of unusual to see but yeah i think people are kind of sleeping on xiaokai of course he is the least known name in this group and he hasn't really been very strong before this year i would say but also in his first match against fly yeah he lost that series but that was very close to it he played very well he got a map as well and this is gonna be a strong contender here for stock stock did he study up on some other people's replays is he gonna come in with a new approach against criplord i think he may have to if he would look over towards europe there the humans have been dealing with crypto for a long time and some humans are able to deal with it very well especially hawke is super strong against that and at times also blade is that a resource that sock makes use of or is he more focused on the agency he can definitely learn from his mistakes he's uh pretty smart when it comes to adjusting and his matchup versus undead was really really good not too long ago so maybe it was just not his day maybe we'll he will come back in full force and show the world what he's capable of he's won against one two zero three times in october so this is by no means a bad matchup for him just has to fix a couple of things gonna be very interested here in the vetoes as well we see them right now sock bands last refuge again we saw that before last refuge banned and turtle rock by sock and zhaokai bands tarana stand and concealed okay leaves us with northern ireland as the starting map and this is a very very good crypto map as well as echo alton xiaokai picking echo oils definitely shows us where he wants this series to go for the lord amazonia for sock that seems to be set in stone against the lord there's no expansion possible there's no lord possible really so yeah that is a valid pick but northern isles and equals if you're a fan of sock this is concerning yeah that last refuge ban i don't know about this humans over in europe have been showing that once you get the merc camp quickly and you expand you get that level 4 am this is where you can really flip the script and put pressure back on the lord that is where the undead will be in trouble but suck perhaps still a little more set in his ways however he will have adjusted he will have made some uh yeah nuanced adjustments to his play i wonder what they are gonna be and is this as predictable as we're expecting will this be crippled all the way through would it be some dk fiends some players some units nowadays play multiple styles although the king the undead king of asia said that the dk fiends just simply isn't good anymore nowadays against against human criplot is what you want to go for yeah and why not i mean it works really really well and the answers aren't as elaborated as they are against dk fiends even though dk fiends is definitely still playable if you ask me later today we move into group b by the way where we have the king of undeads in asia one to zero versus focus and in the lower bracket lin and fortitude we're just moments away from game number one the number one underdog in this tournament if you maybe exclude the western players who have to deal with high ping is xiao kai he's the least decorated player of them all he's the least experienced player of them all but he showed that that doesn't really affect him he just has some fun alongside lingara and alice in wcg they were able to make it to the semi-finals as a team and xiao kai was the big carry so now once again he has to prove that he can also do it in solo competitions just as he did in september in the wgl qualifiers when he made it also into the semifinals yeah zhaokai had some really good games already against fly it was kind of the usual rookie mistake where he got a head early and then tried to close it out a little too fast and fly was able then to use all of his routine to and class to hold on the late game and win that one is that something that's going to be seen from xiaokai again of course also he will have reviewed those games and will be able to adjust his mindset if nothing else a different matchup of course whereas for stock it is the same it may be in fact a very very similar game we have similar maps it's probably gonna be a similar strat with the crypt lord and of course the same matchup so will be very interesting to compare how stock handles this differently yeah but compared to two days ago i don't think he will go for tower push this time that uh sounded like that looked a little too ambitious if you ask me yeah against human that's pretty much never a good idea they have militia and it's probably not something you want to do should be a lord should be an expansion uh of course not on amazonia unless he has something very wild prepared it's not going to be our first map this will be a sox loser's choice still can think back to that very impressive game it was in wgl against happy on amazonia where he was able to get the victory of that series i believe the only one who was able to do that in years online defeating happy that's where he got out of the group in first place that was so crazy yeah that was his last time in the playoffs and then he got demolished by th in the mirror match with a mountain king in mirror of all heroes last time that game yeah these two games were and last refuge yes um last time he was eliminated by an undead that was one two zero though definitely a different force than xiao kai is but the history of wgl we've had quite some upsets in the group stages so we can't rule anything out here yeah absolutely everyone is still in the running everyone still has a chance sock by the way filo is here he's gonna drop down really low in the elo points not necessarily something he probably cares about so much but was really impressive rise him up so high as he did to third place those first two spots for the humans in the elo had been reserved for infj and th for years but th didn't have a very successful qualifier season he didn't qualify for this tournament he tried to off race in the wild card that didn't work out for him so th is missing we were afraid infy was going to play undead here once again but he seems to be back to human at least against night elf we see the players now here we have the trophy they're both still trying to get to it as well in the upper right the awl champion the best human in the world according to the elo ranking for the africa freaks it's sock and his opponent xiaokai what can he bring to the table he surprised us all in the match against fly where he was an even bigger underdog than he was or that he is in this game and he went on and won the first map pretty convincingly is there any pressure on him does he feel that the pressure should definitely be on sock if you ask me yeah i think so too certainly has something to prove cannot be satisfied with how that game against mikhail went the lord definitely posing serious problems to suck but guess what this is not a crypto expansion build this is a fast fiend build which should still very likely be a kryptord but a lot more emphasis on early pressure fiends with criplord can do a lot of damage early on but no expansion by xiaokai despite how good this map is supposed to be for just that style yeah curious and maybe sock will be surprised by that as well maybe xiao kai thought okay lord expo is very predictable so sock will definitely play or try to play around that so let me throw a little curveball here let me give this match up an extra spin and see where this goes oh three militia only called for the first camp that saves a lot of lumber could be a fast tech once again by sock is that the read by xiaokai is he expecting the farseer to play aggressively against the expansion maybe xiao kai is expecting just that and with this build that he's playing the script lord fiend bill there's nothing really that can be pressured from humans perhaps reconsidering now yeah cause more militia going for the natural we'll be going for a fast expansion here as it seems but that's also kind of dangerous yeah once shaokai has crept a couple of camps three greens into one orange he'll be level three with like three to four fiends at that point he's gonna be crazy strong okay moving over right away two skellies two beetles off we go can he okay creeping first not rushing immediately over gathering some strength as we've seen multiple times on northern isles the greens just too easy to do and you can still do severe damage but he sends out the summons already there was a scout in the middle sock is aware of this [Music] with zhakai taking his time here at least sock can uh creep his own levels ah interesting creep up by zhaokai he's going for the green first if you go tuskar into lab after that that's level three and with plenty of beetles that you can summon that should work out as well in the main base causing militia maybe even getting a peasant i'm not sure if you got that one nice chasing after it not the usual crippled play that we not at all for the tusk cars now of course big creeping he did play a lot of fiends in his game against fly on turtle rock and we were kind of curious about that as well which then eventually resulted in the tower push which you know failed now we have a skull and he's moving north getting intercepted right now good timing for the am he's at level three got the level two elementals almost getting surrounded oh that was dangerous okay he's moving up now that's a lot of footman or could be a lot of footman in a bit did he cue defend already against all these fiends don't tell me he brought a an acolyte to this no so it's just for region okay i was worried he's really towering this but yeah so far stock is defending everything yeah showing up there very early before level three normally we would expect a level three crippled first for the beatles and then be aggressive could have gone for that at the lab but play it a little bit faster but yeah sock is ready shows up in time great scouting as always with the footy always checking out what's going on and jiaokai is not really finding an opening here just yet okay suck even though this is unconventional what he's playing against very well prepared adapting on the fly this is what world-class players are able to do and shaokai has to rethink his plan that didn't work as he wanted to you can of course still go for tier 2 expansion but he's got to be careful if you don't do any damage to the human economy they rise up to tier 3 so fast and then they're very powerful denies the footman with the arcane tower okay he's apparently everywhere crucial camp here being stolen away by zhaokai though this might be level three maybe not quite double but it should be getting very close that's a lot of invulnerability yeah definitely would have preferred some mana or hp but involved helps i suppose [Music] and now he's level three okay four fiends level three crypto this is the power spike a little delayed but still dangerous seems like sock definitely needs some defend he's staffing home so it's the beetle's still harassing in the main i'm not too sure if he can enter and sock in a fashion of an infi of a fortitude using his archmage and the footman well to do some structural damage that was the perfect impale all the units hurt lightning shield against the acolytes not really allowed to lose them oh not enough repair really well done by socks surgical strike take out the shop so no statues at the moment fiends and beetles attack the farms two farms gone socks supply block more farms falling dk should be coming out very soon towers coming up in the back but smart play here by zhaokai just using the telestaff getting back that way and he's got another mana potion still i thought he rebuilt them at the expansion immediately but the farms just started so this throws sock quite far behind and the fiends continue with the pressure as they call militia now and sock has very low lumbar so what's he doing once he arrives at tier 2 yeah very hard to deal with these fiends wouldn't be too surprised to see upgrades on them borrow could also be crazy strong there's no reveal for the human here clutch coil what elemental falls that's more experience level two beetles not level two impaled so it's not that scary he also has very low mana should maybe give the potion to the dk to not lose any fiends as sock comes in with a defense footman one of them going down there quickly does he even have defend he's not activating it and now comes the borrow and not having a dust very annoying right here okay but two fiends already borrowed no fiends to heal them and stays at tier 2 for the 50 supply mountain king is coming beetles potion was used so xiaokai is unlimited time here once the mountain king is out you gotta run is he willing to invest in impale on the archmage could surround him there would be a trade for tp most likely and the expansion becomes the new base with the sanctum yeah it seems like stock is absolutely stabilizing over here so i could also fall back he certainly still has map control he could creep all the camps away from the mountain king and that might be the play now going to tier 3. i'm not too sure if this tier 2 heavy pressure is the right thing to do what can you really accomplish you prevent tier 3 for a bit but you're not taking to tier 3 either you're not getting your lips you're not getting destroyers you're not getting banshees late game and stock on tier 2 for now is absolutely fine if there's no upgrades no tier 3 upgrades for the undead stabilizing on breakers trying to intercept units with storm bolt i like socks play even though tier three is heavily delayed i think i should just creep the cams away in fact it might be a little too late now to start the creeping he's trying to do a little too much with these pushes impale on the am lots of damage onto him call comes through but there's the tp has a theme one fiend goes down in the meantime and stock is going tier three okay yeah now he definitely stabilized and how much brute force is enough brute force i think like he's banging his head against this human base with no success really he has to catch up and tag and need the level 2 dk because now running away from storm bolt is really rough we have a statue finally but he finds himself in the surround that's obviously the danger if you encounter a couple of footmen and the mk that's the kill not passing the tp not willing to trade it this is a tough we get tough game for shaokai this is how it's supposed to be when we see these names against each other and we can't be back soon at least i wonder what his idea was initially when he chose this strategy he's going for tavern revive on the level one hero or maybe he is a tier three and the lich is an altar but he didn't start it so i don't think he's at t3 yet yeah he's just gonna revive him normally tier three will be done for xiaokai very soon might have even finished crypto is level four certainly a powerful level up he awards also pretty nice but suckers getting ready for the late game he's got 1400 gold tier 3 finishing for him soon as i could even go for shredder if he wants it doesn't feel like sock is very much affected by this being the lower bracket and being one of the favorites for the top eight this is speaks volumes to his shape and confidence now okay that was one day off but now i take control once again first queen down already one coil but the dk could be surrounded here again very limited mana on all heroes triple watch elemental doing decent damage but the mountain king is now out of mana no level two brilliance just yet okay i'm getting surrounded oh he has no tp oh oh what a blunder and that might just be the way back for xiaokai supply lead hero kill big experience level two for the mk all right archimedes back from the tavern as well with all the gold in the world you can of course afford that but it can't happen too often triplet may have another impale so it needs to be careful which is coming in as well with that the nova a dangerous life glitch arrives there might be a coil nova actually oh there's a nova it's enough he doesn't even need a second spell die back for sog speaking of not experiencing not being affected by being in the lower bracket that usually doesn't happen to him 1800 gold all right but he's feeding the undead heroes and that's definitely not what you want cripples four and a half now dk is gonna be three soon lich in fact it's gonna be level two pretty soon but still lots of production for sock macro looking good how is he gonna level this mk and paladin now that's the big problem marketplace gone shop gone scorpions little risky red spots far away bottom right lap is a good spot i think but this will turn into a problem rub off the mage eye and an inward potion for the lids close to level three on the decay climbing in uh or closing in on level five of the crypt lord and importantly the involve was stolen away by the way oh mk all right am once again back to tavern so expensive it's not the 600 plus gold that fly invested it's only a level 3 hero but still this could all be army this could be 700 800 gold army destroyer bust three destroys and i don't think sock is ready for this yet is it really only one gyro going for the lich now heavy focus on him there was an involved use it oh no the damage dealer gone stock going for the execution and this works so no hope of corruption against the high armor units is a is dangerous maybe he can snipe the priest but apparently these gyros are enough for now now moving in range immediately executed beetles getting stolen but they can be dispelled i guess can be dispelled and they expire after a while new gyros flying in can he get the air or can he defend the air superiority it was the last coil for a bit new beetle summoned will be stolen soon level 4 archmage getting blocked if only had a nova now or orb of corruption gets back into a safe position with the paladin being there for the holy light all right talk now finally taking full control of this game we were a little concerned for him but now he seems to be in a good spot mk about to get level three pal and also close to the level up he's got a little four a.m now he's got a big army he's got the upgrades he needs tier three late game human about to kick in and the one base xiaokai his time seems to be running out unless he gets a few more hero kills then i suppose everything's still possible level three impale level two coil plus nova that's what xiao kai has to rely on 13 supply elite already creep jack here but there's not too much to impale hero focus again and the dk is very low no items no level 4 for death pack also very low lock and loaded not yet yeah mana is an issue we didn't see the double mana potion purchase no knights come in the focus fire is still good he stole the heel ward didn't know this yet maybe he doesn't know this interaction you can steal hillary with control magic not everyone knows that but now it's gone hero's dropping really low here for xiaokai falling back with the aura of course he's pretty speedy he's getting a few gyros every now and then now the involve goes to the human he's spending his resources really well now no tp but a staff and an involved plus the orb mana potions would be so good statue uptime wasn't really high especially when he pushed with the three destroyers there was no statue for a long time so always max one impale max one or two coils even very rare nova shokai knows there's no tp so maybe a run by here can do a lot he can't stay in here too long he's gonna have to evacuate being stuck in a bad position there and now the human arrives tp out the lich is not in range at the moment oh that was close yeah we've seen this um on on day one the tp when the rest of the army wasn't in range whoopsie okay second dealing control four three two heroes that is a great foundation oh something is up at shaokai's spot yeah something's below the desk hopefully it's not a gremlin good game by sock here adjusting well to the opponent the filbot fiends is what that opening is called with fiends and a fast criplot normally the power of that is having four fiends out quickly and level two beetles and then being able to pressure really hard on tier one but uh shakkai play a little differently pushed already with level two only level one beats then with that it wasn't that many beatles to begin with by the way and it didn't look that scary honestly no at no stage of the game really even like that he is still in the game is due to the two hero kills in the middle which shouldn't really happen so it was a little bit of an invite by a sock to allow him back fighting for this but yeah he needs a great play now to stop this expansion or stop the army reduce the army is it all about hero kill again just that it was for fly that's definitely the easiest way to come back into this one otherwise he's gonna need some more tech a bomb with disease cloud definitely and maybe even banshee with a depth training but off of one base very hard to do kind of impossible to do for that too many units have been going down xiao kai wasn't able to bank on 50 for really long time he's always losing a few feet has to remake them by some items sometimes losing some heroes like we saw there with a litch earlier it's only the first map of course but in terms of strategy chosen and execution yeah i feel like xhaka is not playing as good as on the first day and suck plays it definitely better than on the first day against mikhail was a different game of course even though same first heroes same same race he was up against isn't the two base play but it's it's not a disappointing sock at all so far if you take small care of the heroes this game should be his and i mean by now we must know that this is the only way back for shaokai right so put more focus on like inward potion even more than you already did get the paladin up yeah and that's your game champigo hoping here for michael's uh for zhaokai to turn around jimmyko said he wants to finish better than sock does the rivalry between them is still very much active apparently the two best humans from south korea they've been coming up together that's been improving together it was jamiko first stepping onto the scene and starting to impress us but most recently a sock seemed to overtake him they have their different strengths chemicals certainly not as good in human mirror as sock is but they're both actually pretty good against undead against old sardone that that is yeah against cripload we're still a little unsure it in the past gold leaks they both kind of disappointed us to be honest like especially in the team event their team was one of the favorites for the playoffs and they disappointed pretty much every single play day unfortunately last time none of them was in the playoffs it was winter of 19 when sock was in the playoffs chemical hasn't been there since the tournament happy one that was summer of 19. waiting for another big performance but even with chemical having lost the first round it was a great game still against long line i think jamiko is looking in pretty good shape now at the moment will be playing human mirror in the lower bracket the matchup that seems to haunt him the most but blade of course there will be playing with a pink disadvantage we are back from the break here and apparently we have a result uh sock wins northern isles there was maybe a disconnect and the win is given to sock and we go on to echo isles that's unfortunate okay that's weird they paused the game and uh jacques hadn't been afk for a long time or anything but it was a very bad position maybe he was just like yeah whatever gg go next yeah maybe he wasn't able to re-enter the game or something you know a couple of bucks can always happen that is very unfortunate ah okay tough spot for shaokai now trailing 1-0 yeah the crippled fiends experiment doesn't work out we saw him successful with that before in fact that is how he defeated sock wasn't it in the wcg uh team game the last game with the one base fiend play but this time stock goes for the fast expansion and uh was ready to deal with that fiend pressure i really feel he should have crept the level three first but anyways that is water under the bridge now echo isles could be a very different game much better for a fast expansion for criplord not that it's impossible on northern it's also very much doable here but it's the easiest always on echo isles exactly that must be an expansion like if not on that map where else so kai does this affect him if yes how much suck can be pretty happy with the first game just take care of your hero a little bit more and then advance into the lowest finals where he would meet mikhail again all right or not all right usually they start the game then pause immediately but this is a paused game still i think one of the players didn't give the ready yet yeah sorry i didn't suck didn't get ready yet we're gonna have this game starting in just a second couple of hiccups here no biggie the more warcraft the better a little more time on stream with you guys the better later we're gonna dive into group b where we're gonna have one two zero versus focus this might probably be the best match of the entire day and we have the rematch of the winter semi-final of 2019 in lin versus fortitude so now we got it everything is sorted out we move on to map number two shaokai with a disconnect that wasn't uh solvable unfortunately so the admins gave the win to a sock instead of a regame suck now for africa freaks spawning in the upper left and xiao kai has to play from behind in the upper right now on his map choice echo isles fast expansion is what we're expecting and it is very likely what we're going to be seeing this time we're going to have a normal hero build a ghoul ultra build so a load coming out here pretty soon is what we are certainly expecting it was a krypt fiend experiment before that didn't work out too well now going back to the tried and true here we see him papa roach ghouls fast expansion and what's going to do against that this time yeah starting with the green is he expanding himself with mercenary camp i think one base little advice tier t2 expansion also always interesting who has the better timings who's faster who's cutting more corners who arrives at the shop earlier what's the best time to push really still lots of question marks in this early game matchup we saw yesterday blade against mikhail on this map where blade had an insane early game tremendous play by the moldovian i thought he had that game one already but michael hunkered down he held on he got to 80 supply and seem to have the perfect army there in the end with a healthy mix of fancy statues a-bombs and of course a whole bunch of fiends and the possession onto the knights there seemed to seal the deal where blade wasn't able to get the high level heroes that's a problem on echo isles if you're both fast expanding both staying on one hero for a long time creep cams will disappear very fast and there's going to be very little left for second and third hero later perhaps that will become a factor xiao kai is going for the fast expo as we expected and as suck expected we'll see what he does about yeah he's here with the footman to confirm this but nothing really you can do about it as there is so much stuff on the ground you don't want to get too close otherwise you're surrounded and feeding more experience immediately so that's an easy creep how easy is this expansion is the question he's going to follow it up with the ziggurats soon we see a big congo line on the left-hand side sock is skipping the mercenary camp we saw that before by him that's always a little dangerous once the lord is level three and even before that dealing with the lord the beatles the skeletons the ghouls all of that without mercs can be really really hard bit of a greedy built by xiaokai by the way going for the expo before the ziggurat being sure that he's not gonna get harassed and you know what i like it because the human is gonna be normally forced to stay back defend no humans are willing to ignore their expansion anymore running across the map and trying to go for a cancel themselves risky so he's gonna stay back oh the replenishment potion for the crypt lord wonderful amazing for telestaff as well i'm coming in it is of course level 2.6 this is impale can prevent repair a little bit and we got a ghoul squad in the north is sock ready for this i don't think he has some footmen there there was a tower but an arcane tower doesn't do really well against ghouls he's buying time in the south not doing much damage just stalling and he puts the ghouls to rest deciding to creep there instead of keeping up the pressure he easily could have killed quite a few peasants right there but uh gave some time for stock who is very close now to the level three i think this was a little too passive yeah by xiaokai now the expansion is standing the peasants are protected the arcane is up at the expansion but in the main some peasants are taking a beating oh he's not even moving them away the concave is incredible for shaokai killing one two three peasants in quick succession boom level three and decides to go for level two beatles for even more pressure shock he's not responding to the school pressure at all yeah of course stressful situations so many things happening at the same time beagles and cripload in the south ghoul's in the main that is so expensive wow he's losing his entire economy oh my god stock was sleeping for a little can't allow that on this level this is this is horrible it's a graveyard no mana anymore for the lord burn through that with more more beetles and this is basically two base one base still in favor of shaokai yeah it didn't start attacking yet though xiaokai did normally behind that you want to attack fairly quickly but because of how many ghouls were brought this wasn't so easy in fact there's still one acolyte missing at the expansion but tech should be starting now okay it is but you know it's pretty damn late under tech actually for this being echo isles so sock can still recover okay still a very very sloppy response to the two prone attack usually we can't expect more of a player like stock scratching at the 2500 elo mark that is usually world class not showing here yet and there's another attempt by shaokai only two lumber peasants in the main oh boy yeah lots of footies ready for the counter attack and there is i'm not sure if there's a tower there in the main one narrow i believe being upgraded but yeah this is the strength that human can come up with this counter attack ideally in this counter attack we want to have an am and mercenaries if you have a berserker and double shadow priest with this push this is where the undead can struggle quite a bit well some ghouls here in the main attacking the farm they are too hurt shock high maybe overextending a little bit a.m is gonna find some kids okay sock recovering a little bit but when will he ever attack he's at 70 lumber oh that's okay he's at 90 lumber oh he's checking already at the expansion where we have more lumber workers they are way better protected [Music] and that's not not too far behind in tech it's like a minute or so maybe uh yeah maybe a minute so is that gonna be the mk coming out quite a bit later than the dk but could be worse i suppose very well protected expo though with the graveyard at the expansion for more corpses for beetles i like that but no necropolis yet so if acolytes fall they will be gone for a long time who's gonna make the next step now i think they're both patiently waiting for their upgrades tier two second hero yeah unmask is low for zhaokai by the way he can't rush tier 3 right away which is ideally what you want to do with this fiend style oh threatening us around here but lord moving out has an impale as well and a staff so that doesn't do too much sees the tech timing seize the towers only two towers it's not really very well defended good enough now of course for the beatles but later on with a 70 push that could be dangerous good impale again gets a kill immediately able to run away from the footman soccer's always threatening the surround and wasting a little bit of time on that not too sure if it's worth it all that attention for just the staff cooldown now the dk's here with the coils it's getting quite a bit stronger fast tier three by silk this is pretty much the same timing as zhaokai's now right yeah absolutely a little slower okay we do have the mana pods this time was able to afford it maybe on northern ireland was a little too expensive just being on one base this is so powerful now surrounds and the fiends work well you better but oh very early burro so i didn't expect that i like that no dust here for the am just yet but i'm sure now he's gonna be getting it soon as he was just reminded would love to see a double slaughterhouse here for zhaokai to be able to get into destroyers a bombs and this cloud quickly but lumber seems to be a continuous problem for xiaokai doesn't have too many ghouls left i suppose now the ultimate of course got two apart from that not too sure how many he lost there the footy run by was quite nice and that's a big potential for stock now you can steal this little too late could have gone for the fiends as well i think the damage would have been enough and on the other side he's finding himself in an impale in a surround this might just be the kill on the mountain king would be huge for xiaokai even though he's trading two footman against it next impale can't tp out that's the coil man he wanted to make damn sure that this happens he is trading a lot of fiends for that but with the bank he has he can afford that there's also time where the mk isn't getting experience so that's a big deal more footage going down of course you want to get value out of them while you still can once the lid shows up in destroyers these footies will be useless that's going to be soon lich coming out we do have the second slaughterhouse i like that tier three upgrades here coming in for xiaokai soon but am can pick off a few more fiends down to 52 supply reinforcements of course very quick but this also feeding the archmage quite high out leveled the lord now castle in the bottom left looks a little weird but very very well protected there now see this more and more that we tech at the expense yeah interesting i wonder if this game he just did it because he lost so many peasants in the main or is that just a new meta would be kind of i guess if if the opponent isn't playing dk fiends you're getting pressured at the expo you're not losing peasants there all the time and you can afford it i guess yeah looks good to me sounds good to me shaokai in a good position he needs to win this or he's out destroyed your staff landed the expansion right yes i would think so that's a little dangerous isn't it later on when the fights happen around the expansion we'll see on the other side they might join the fight quicker again afterwards we get knights we get abominations we get banshees we get the good undead versus human very late game with a typical dry hero combo crypto dk litch and archmage mountain king paladin always the question on echo isles how to creep as there's on the left hand side there's actually the mercenary camp plus the murlocs plus the turtles this should give him some good levels yeah mk pal he should both get be able to get to level two maybe level three mk but he has not that much left how we saw wfz winning in the very late game against blade before yesterday was with crazy strong fiend upgrades he had three one upgrades very fast i doubt kai is going to have that again lumber low lumber low all the time he built five production buildings that cost and got the web and got the disease cloud and got the banshee adapt that costs so much priest master training is finished we already have a few sorceresses for slow zhaokai looking pretty aggressive here he doesn't have level 3 dk yet he's only got 62 supply which really isn't that much off of two bases there's good sim city like he will never be able to reach the passengers this is becoming more more of a standard fighting position here but the choke is so narrow the gyrocopter shakai seems to be another one of those undeads who is refusing to make destroyers nowadays flag for stock that's an immediate tp can go for the green spot close to his base to get the level 3dk and then muscle up he spread a little bit of the disease cloud which is always neat but yeah tp is gone we got one heel scroll we got double claw on the lid indoor potion to make him safer as well good mana on the dk so yeah it's the green spot now level two impale is unlocked as well xiaokai shouldn't give sog too much time is that level three mountain king over there level 2 clap very important in the late game tally should go back yeah that's gonna be enough all right definitely pretty decent levels here for stock interesting to see that sock plays it safe goes for divine shield not devotion aura this is a lot of goals it's a lot of ghouls with frenzy i believe there's only one arcane in the main this is another involved maybe yeah two involves for shaokai zero for sock supply-wise we got a 10-supply lead morta's coming in now against the banshees but okay floodgates open bench uh beetles can pass we go to the mountain king once again oh shares the nuke on mk and paladin inner fire kicks it is that enough for shaokai to force game three curses getting reflected back banshees don't have too much mana anymore knight's getting focused hard though taking a lot of damage from this focus fire mountain king dropping low as well beautiful clap oh my god damn pale and he's killing him also got the paladin so no holy light possible that's a crucial kill for shaokai 15 supply lead now another knight goes down another breaker is about to fall with that focus fire meat hook and still the beatles and ghouls they're ravaging the main base those two towers not enough seemingly to deal with it and certainly stock plumbers down 51 supply only left a few impales still landing a bomb still standing strong zhaokai lost barely anything yep still close to 80 and not even the items like he still has the two involves he got a heal scroll and he used i think a mana potion on the crypt lord that's it focus fire on the paladin who goes into divine shield next to the shop should be able to heal himself but he's just moving forward again no destroyer not even necessary with that crazy focus fire disease cloud is spread everywhere it smells like game three to me yeah mountain king back from the tavern doing what he can trying what he can but so far behind oh my god look at those corpses crazy gets an abomination here so sock is getting some kills but 20 food behind and now this little choke you can kind of block it with the abominations mortars can do decent damage but mountain king dieback this game this is so game yeah that's the end here as suck drops back down to noah keep zhaokai is still sitting at 80 comfortable this whole time first destroyer now getting morphed now that there is not too much human and left anymore and all these gyros can't get away it's working out about to hit four cannibalize on the abominations and take a little feast in the past line spreading more disease and yeah having the spell is very very comfortable and if you don't fight a mountain king that is an easy fight tonight so of course a little threatening it's annoying against the paladin but yeah impale dominates archmage falls as well this was not high level human play you can't gg allow your opponent to send four ghouls into the base and wreck every single peasant not allowed at all yeah that was definitely not the greatest there by sock he was still overwhelmed with a two-pronged attack and once again no mercenaries you know even if he micros the peasants in the main a little bit better you still want to have some decent weapons to push back the ghouls to do a lot of damage to them and mercenaries is usually the best answer and when the huma the undead finally falls back at some point he will that is when you're open when your window of opportunity opens to finally do something yourself but sock is still not playing with mercs and i think that is just straight up a big mistake but he got the win earlier it's a 1-1 now and we're gonna have our decision yeah amazon amazonia should sued sock a lot better probably no crypt lord straight up dk fiends and this is where the korean humans shine absolutely this is where we have seen him and shimiko play so well in the past unless it's going to be a lord but it's very very hard to pull off on az soccer is going to need to make sure he scouts properly and i imagine he will so hard to deal with this late-game ghoul run by into the main late game the best way to do it like i guess if you have four towers it's kind of expensive though super can afford it yeah if he does more damage in the early game then he doesn't have to pay f spend every nickel on army and then maybe can afford it i think in this game everything went wrong for salk like very very early on um economy got wrecked mountain king was lost in the middle after that surround and shaokai could pretty much play whatever he wanted at that stage he got five production buildings which is super expensive and that was just it that's when you can't reach the very very late game stage and this is when you get overwhelmed one one here once again xiaokai showing some strong games against fly we had close games there as well it was a loss in the end how is this one gonna be suck is he gonna drop out here or will he keep his chances alive amazonia i think that's gonna be a very strong map for him yeah if it's sad versus standard i see him very far ahead zhaokai is definitely good with the dk fiends but suk is just a master in that matchup dk fiends against expansion question is how good is xiaokai with this he's definitely a little ahead when it comes to the crypt lord and sock is not on that level yet as he said he uh sock was able to defeat happy offline just here you go this will be a fast expansion very likely if xiaokai wants to risk something he can try to go for the golem pull and the creeping of the natural himself and trying to expand but that is a big risk because if suck shows up there it is a complete disaster yeah xiao kai last time he won against sock it was last refuge so it was still a lord stakes are high man really really cool to see xiao kai that he's not getting shaken by this disconnect loss this didn't affect him at all really standard strategy straight up play good surround boom win maybe he's gonna regret not playing this expansion style on northern isles i thought so too i absolutely thought so too i can understand it as well he has been able to pull off wins with his criplord fiend style i think he just expected shock to not fast expand trying to play one base and from that position the lord fiends can be pretty good transitioning slowly into tier three but against the fast expo there it was tough and suk did really well he had footies where he needed them defend in time towers how he needed them on northern isles where xiao kai perhaps went for the wrong strategy very interested to see what strategies we have here there's a few curve balls you can go for as well one two zero in the past has shown glitch google aggressive play that is extremely rare to see nowadays but always an option didn't you also have this cool creep brought on amazonia where one two zero made the crypto work by pulling out the creeps at the camp that could be a possibility but yeah usually the humanist favor on az if it's just a dk fiend standard game then uh stock is definitely very strong against that but it can also be difficult if something goes wrong in the beginning if the merck cam and the the gold mine pull doesn't work out properly suddenly boulders fly peasants keep dying maybe you lose the last hit coils fly footies go down you want to risk that on this stage of the game in this stage of the series when it's due or die it's literally one map do or die now loser out winner in the decision match on friday against mikhail yeah suck definitely a bit of pressure on him i wonder how much that affects him he's the big favorite the koreans want to see him perform well the humans want to see him perform well he is one of their front runners nowadays yeah came into this tournament with a lot of buzz that awl victory not just a victory notice the victory against the la light but the four and oh when do you ever see a clean sweep in the best of seven especially against low light who's so versatile that was super strong but maybe that was all his gunpowder maybe he has nothing left in the tank for wgl where in the past year he didn't really perform too well last time he won against alice okay that's to be expected but then against one two zero he seriously had no chance at all the crypt lord here in the second wgl having a successful stint so far high stakes who's the first player that we have to say goodbye to is it shaokai the number one asian underdog or is it sock third best player in the world it's not going to be easy for him neither this map nor the possible lower bracket final that would be a rematch against mikhail otherwise we get an undead mirror so xiao kai bottom left what does he have in store for us that the lord isn't the dk and sock his tournament life hanging by a threat needs to perform at 100 percent here right now we didn't exactly see the buildings yet in the main but i think that's an altar and a ziggurat i believe yeah and a crypt after okay yeah all right we're back to standard understandable on this map dk fiends the so-called ted fiend build very low aggressive potential early only dk and skeletons but a fast tech a fast transition into the strong fiend units and a second and third hero coming up for the undead pretty fast that normally is always answered by a fast expansion from the human side this is certainly what i'm expecting here by sock he is masterful with this strategy he's been playing it for years but it can be tricky on amazonia that creep camp is certainly not the easiest i'm always impressed by his breaker and night control once he gets there the surface he gets on fiends is unbelievable it's similar to lynn how he played his raiders against talents like always three nights on one fiend and with sundering blades that's so much damage super hard to position correctly but sock nailed that perfected that and saw kai with a neat little play pulling the two creep curves together prevents the lightning shield here so uh the am can't creep this as fast as he would ideally like and what this does also is it makes so that the dk's creeping at the troll camp cannot be disrupted but instead is an aggressive dk level one harass right away kind of rare to see nowadays kind of going throwing this coil on the archmage oh wow little ambitious but okay another one what what okay he's got one left now maybe it's a statement coil you know i'll be in your face the entire game get ready for it okay can you get the last one yes he does that card on the creep so one left skeletons are coming in of course oh circuit brown oh my no way jesus another issue possibly on shaokai's side something's up yep shakai a little unlucky here i don't know if it's with the setup or with a connection that was i don't know creep stolen game plan disrupted showing his tactics aggression right away tough conditions here in the gold league so far yeah definitely making socks life difficult but now the dk's out of mana and only has like 38 experience or whatever it is from that creep normally we see the dk creeping up a little bit in the middle at the troll camp then harassing killing something and getting level two whilst the expansion is being crept but with this soccer slowed down a little bit more yeah definitely nothing decided yet here but again this is a little nerve-wracking by now because if you if you are eliminated now you leave with nothing not a single dollar zilch yeah and then after so many months of playing qualifiers right it's a little ruthless all the top eight get a payout here very very top-heavy that's why we love dreamhack so much everybody who qualifies gets a little something dreamhack of course to be continued next week just took a little break for wgl so it doesn't cross each other and then also dreamhack asia the top 16 about to start so the next two weeks are dreamland for warcraft fans playing from the studio is that the first time we see him on a stage as big as this we saw him in wcg yeah i don't know what stage is bigger remo not sure i definitely have thank goodness we didn't have to restart okay so this is a dk down to 50 this is still a coil what elemental summoned one fiend is here on footman just scouting for more reinforcements did he bring a new rod of necromancy i don't think so this is a weird game archmage gone for quite some time militia down already and this is good damage on the archmage is this game plan to force the tv and so he abandons his expansion just running after the am but he is not in kill range yet via the coil a few peasants going down you want to coil the skeleton i guess didn't really work a little bit more block dk got to be careful to not be surrounded that happened on the left-hand side or right hand side already dude this archmage needs a tp soon what's the kill threshold what's the hp at the moment footy comes in to block and rescue that archmage is hurt and the thing lid is gonna be coming real soon immediately but he has to cross yeah damn nobody does that anymore nobody just clicks on the am anymore so kai just ruthless aggression from the very very get-go didn't creep a single camp okay archmage made his way over there region scroll running still has to play this careful all right great delay of the expansion here by zhaokai that bought him so much time came at a price lots of mana invested and most importantly the dk got very little experience didn't see any lastest didn't kill any footage and kill any peasants just chased after the am made his life difficult well he did kill a couple of peasants yeah well too many though only 1.4 he needs to get that level two now for the aura which he will soon aim got his level three and suddenly he half hp again that's nice we got coronova now but yeah big level difference no unholy aura yet there's probably another coil just to get the kill not yet mana potion early did he get so used to this from playing lord that's his new go-to thing now yeah i like it for the dk he's gonna have more coils and the skull heavy siege then i guess coral nova of course on the archmage here we go hero focus once again still a level one coil so this doesn't affect the archmage too much but he still hasn't used one nova against the creep so he doesn't have a second one oh that perhaps a little over eager no defend yet let's attack okay so can you hold this it's quite some fiends he pulls the ghouls this is such an all-in yeah zhaoka is not attacking yeah tier 2 all it if this tower falls the ghouls can go ham on these peasants what's the follow-up thought you can't really there's none there's no this is all in yeah yeah this is all in by zhaokai wow he has crazy tactics man the tower rush against fly now this all in and you don't really expect the ghouls here statue needs to survive focus fire on the water elemental might not be in the group two footman hurt at the base watermelon is putting in good damage and the tower and the footman defend against the ghouls but that's space for the fiends or needs a second sharp archmage so hurt footman so hurt ghoul saved and peasants fall let's get the level two uses the noble before the mana is lost shredder now for stock he's gonna have plenty of lumber soon tower going down but the footies are holding the line for now for now indeed are you serious sao kai following in the footsteps of the legendary td in one of his most important matches of his career this is not militia called though the bodies are still here in decent numbers not much mana either trying to replenish it now two statues three fiends going for the archmage once again that is quite attacking that he's not attacking the cigarettes now he is but not the right one frost armor is really good on the fiends statues are healing constantly rejoining as well level three of the dk increases the threshold oh so so close but fiends are losing hp the dk's going after long range coil tp dodges it though and the towers are gone the footman safe socks life for now can't wait for tier two or you can hardly wait for two to set you surrounded that's not too much damage here of course there's still no tier three attack one statue gone needs another one not kept at 40. he built the next ziggurat in the base still pressuring mountain king coming he needs to be the savior ultimate back 50 how much mana is there feels like he got a karnov already oh the feet might be surrounded because he glitching out yeah i'm not following through with this same need to be real careful now can't really afford to get in range the statue is incredibly important shaokai cannot afford to lose it but it's only the water mental sets can put some pressure has to invest in nowhere to finish around it seems to be like it seems like we have no burrow here ah now we do oh that's two three footies falling yeah legend level three now as well out of mana at the moment however lumber milk coming in mk coming but no tier two units yet this push isn't over nope in fact we have more towers coming and he's getting closer to 50. double statue once again there was a coil hits the archmage again for this tenth time and that tower push against the expansion unbelievable mk shows up what can he do footman numbers dwindling he's going for the lich he's a little bit out of position aiming for the surround but i think he can't fight out if the mountain king isn't blocking damage is very very very low brings in the shredder that might help there is a coil ready though maybe two even sock is hanging on to dli 15 supply lead towers are coming up this time mk in trouble oh my god one of the human favorites of this entire tournament about to be eliminated in round one tower finishes he can go for an erupt now he's gonna have so much slow here there's more coils what elementals are feeding so hard oh are you kidding me here we go are you kidding me eliminated show guy against all odds he does it he crowns his year his wonderful second season of the year with the lower bracket final undead mirror against mikhail that was expected by nobody great showing by xiao kai with his very own style just throwing coils at the am early game always keeping pressure on the first hero tower pushing the expansion on easy i have legit never seen that before an incredible the versatility in shaokai crazy the first tactic on northern isles didn't really work and i thought that's that's the series he can't win amazonia against sock it's it's not possible but he didn't go he didn't go the normal path straying away from it and all of a sudden you face an ultra ultra aggressive archmage at the very start of the game archmage dk on the archmage and then that was all preparation that was all preparation for the tower push to come and how smart was that everyone knows sock is insanely good against the standard undead when he's going tier three and sock at some point gets nice he can can he can kite he can make use of the mk and he's gonna survive until gyros that's where soccer's strongest and zhaokai always playing something else all the fiends crypto expo and then dk fiend tier two tower push there were so many frost armors ready not enough pressure on the statues because the archmage what was his damage up time really like zero and sock is out from an awl win to elimination in the first stage of the group tremendous i'm almost in shock man would have expected this one xiaokai great performance by him and he has definitely real chances to make it out of this group a he's going to be playing against mikhail in the undead mirror and of course mikaela very strong undead the best from south korea but anything can happen there i think he was very good in standard mirror even in his slump days that was the matchup that stood out how good is he in the crypt lord mirror though we don't really know oh man this is sao kai's breakout performance probably after carrying his team at wcg into the semifinals he could make it into the round of eight what a story from zero to hero and for salk the other way around man how the mighty have fallen so far down suck here not gonna be representing the humans in the quarterfinals might be up to infie to do it once more and well for chimico the chances are looking very good that he's going to be going further than sargo's tournament yeah he just has to survive one round but that is tomorrow in the lower bracket against blade and we know how great blade is in human mirror now the interview with shaokai coming up soon of course he's on stage looking forward to this especially the fan question we've had some pretty good fan questions here recently what do they want to know from xiaokai i'm sure fan interest is spiking right now yeah yesterday and it wasn't i think it was two days ago where or yesterday we got the second place in the fan voting which is crazy given the fact that we had one two zero and fly and linden damn but yeah suck not ready for undead this time yeah needs a little more practice he needs to get more used to the kryptord honestly the european humans look quite a bit better against that now blade has also lost 0-2 but he almost won that first game on against wfz and on last refuge that was a bit of a weird one i know how strong blade is with rifles but against lord first one base rifles probably not the way to go so so definitely one orc in the playoffs in fly what undead in the playoffs with either mikhail or shaokai and yeah either of them and we haven't seen them in a long time performing so well next up after the winners interview that is coming up is one two zero versus focus probably the highlight of the day yeah super sick game one two zero was looking extremely good against orca matchup that's been hard for undeads for years and years so as long as i can remember pretty much but in dreamhack he showed how insanely good he can be in that matchup and that not just with lord but also with standards one two zero is just shining of brilliance in that matchup but at the same time we have the interview and thanks to the support of uh wong and vengolia we're able to almost simultaneously translate to you you made quite a comeback in this series after being one map down on the first map actually talking about that what happened on northern isles uh what made you disconnect or what was the technical issue the pc was under the desk and the foot moved a little too much so uh he kicked the pc a bit and that disconnect oh wow wow that this happens it's crazy uh it's okay you seem a little nervous is this your first offline experience did you play before he says well yeah i did but that was three to four years ago so it's the first time in a long while i am nervous indeed did you practice that or was this just a strike of genius that so no i didn't really practice this this wasn't tailor-made for this map this the strategy just came to my mind and it worked really well and it's time for the beloved fan question ladies and gentlemen okay this is once again not really easy if you can use your hair to change the smart brain like ted will you be willing to do so maybe go bold and be and get smart or something okay uh yep i will shave it all just for just to get td's uh skill in game all right yeah well priorities right become a better warcraft player over losing your hair i definitely agree with that so we got a couple of subs here throughout the series thank you mr gn for 47 months already all the smoke for 11 month to ziff still one of my favorite favorite nicknames in our sub list for 15 months and stussel for seven months wgl what an amazing event go go foggy go go blade it's time for them tomorrow we have group b coming up and that is the banger that is focus versus one two zero also in the lower bracket we got lynn and fortitude two top four players from just one year ago fighting for survival in the first round once again thank you very much for your support we're reliant on this to keep this project running in the description you find the channel description and the what description you find all the ways uh to support us you can stop on twitch here of course get couple of emotes and stuff and you can throw us a donation via streamlabs you can buy our merchandise or use the amazon ref link and of course if you want to support us non-financially you can hit the follow button on twitch on youtube on facebook twitter instagram join our discord spread the message about the back to warcraft temple that we built for the competitive warcraft scene we're halfway through the day after some hiccups and super excited for group b so get some snacks get some lunch get some coffee maybe and then watch some more amazing warcraft see ya in seven minutes

Channel: Back2Warcraft

Views: 3,786

Rating: 4.8315787 out of 5

Keywords: Warcraft, Warcraft 3, tournament, Wc3, War3, Wc 3, warcraft III, frozen throne, tft, warcraft tft, esports, rts, real time strategy, Back 2 Warcraft, Back to warcraft, Back2Warcraft, B2W, Back, Back2, B2Warcraft, back to warcraft, Neo, Remodemo, Remo, 2019

Id: dulJk53LvxI

Length: 80min 40sec (4840 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 02 2020