Team Acer dominates DreamHack Bucharest StarCraft 2 tournament as Nerchio defeats teammate Bly to win final

As good as the all-Acer finals may have been for the team, however, it had to have been a bit rougher on Bly, who was crushed 3-0 by his teammate in their finals match. He’d had a great run through the tournament, blanking Rain and fraer before taking down DreamHack Summer winner Grzegorz “MaNa” Komincz (Polish Protoss) in a 2-1 Semifinal. He’d blown apart MaNa’s risky gameplans time and again through good scouting, and Game 3 was a cautious, step-by-step annihilation as Bly built a mid-game lead into a unchallengeable map control and an unstoppable army.

Nerchio had a near-death experience on his way to the title fight. After beating Giantt and TLO, he got out to a great start in his semifinal against Daniel “StarNaN” Ohlsson (Swedish Protoss). StarNaN has been a progamer since January, and it seemed unlikely he’d pose much of a challenge for Nerchio. Nerchio crushed him in Game 1 with a mutalisk swarm. However, in Game 2, StarNaN destroyed Nerchio’s roach army with a series of perfect forcefield splits that let him break take Nerchio’s forces piece-by-piece.

Their third game on Ohana may have been the day’s best. The two players each tried to get control of the match through pressure against expansions, and StarNaN nearly beat Nerchio with a timing attack that was poised to roll through most of Nerchio’s bases before he could get brood lords and a high-enough infestor count to do anything about it. Nerchio saved himself by throwing all his zerglings against StarNaN’s undefended third. StarNaN’s nerve failed him, and he turned his army around to clean up the attack. While he managed to resume his offensive, Nerchio’s crisis had passed and he held on while his late-game army came together and denied StarNaN’s attempts to establish new bases. Starved of resources and with a dwindling army count, StarNaN could do nothing as Nerchio overran his bases.

The semifinals provided the last of the day’s drama. Nerchio remarked after his victory that he and Bly practice together a lot, and lately he’s been strong against his teammate. It showed in the match results. Nerchio took two easy wins over Bly before being challenged in their third game on Cloud Kingdom, when Bly narrowly defeated Nerchio’s infestor / roach army and then went on an offensive of his own.

He tried too hard to deliver the knockout blow, however, and ended up losing his advantage as Nerchio drove him back across the map. He got a single message from Nerchio, “Draw?” just before Nerchio’s horde came and finished Bly off.

DreamHack’s new tradition of disastrous champagne ceremonies continued, however, as the celebratory champagne was heard popping open during the finals match. After getting his check and trophy, Nerchio took his already-opened bottle of champagne and walked down the ramp to the crowd where, instead of spraying it, he took a single sip and put the bottle on the floor. It was, if anything, even more anticlimactic than the lopsided final he’d just won.