The Starcraft II Copa America Grand Final Has Ended With a Victor Between SpeCial and Kelazhur

The Starcraft II Copa America Grand Final Has Ended With a Victor Between SpeCial and Kelazhur
Credit: StarCraft via YouTube

The Grand Final of the Starcraft II Copa America has officially come to a close. After a dominant display, SpeCial has claimed victory in the rematch over Kelazhur, once again beating him with back-to-back wins without a loss.

Representing Mexico, SpeCial has claimed victory both in the Final and the Grand Final match. Both of these victories were taken in dominant series over Kelazhur, who failed to beat him in a single game of either match.

After being knocked out by SpeCial in the Final, Kelazhur went against Cham in the loser’s bracket, a Zerg player that Kelazhur himself had knocked into the loser’s bracket. Defeating Cham to claim the loser’s bracket victory as well as earning a chance at redemption against SpeCial, Kelazhur, unfortunately, wasn’t able to find much ground to play against his two-time opponent.

SpeCial, in the meantime, ends the tournament almost completely undefeated, having lost only a single game in the semi-final against Zerg-main Erik before beating his opponent in the best-of-five series 3-1. Other than that matchup, SpeCial defeated Ryu and Kelazhar twice without losing a single game in either matchup.

In this best-of-seven grand final, SpeCial controlled the tempo of every game. Kelazhur was able to get quite a few strong harasses off and had some success in targetting SpeCial’s economy, but SpeCial was quick to bounce back on every occasion.

The fourth and last match, in particular, was especially cheesy, with SpeCial utilizing his three-game advantage to play a bit riskier. Starting off with a two-barracks harass push, the Mexican player began churning out reapers that managed to almost completely cripple Kelazhur’s early-game economy.

In all games, SpeCial showed favoritism towards the recently-buffed mechanical side of Terran, favoring siege tanks, cyclones, and liberators in most engagements. Past that, he made sure to keep a handful of battlecruisers and banshees on deck for most engagements, which saw exceptional use in the second and third games. Thors made more than a few appearances as well.

Despite this mech trend, Kelazhur seemed not to be able to manage to counter it, rarely putting out any of the mech counters that Terran can utilize such as marauders. Instead, the Brazilian representative continued to favor marine bioballs with a few medivacs following around, as well as a number of hellions. This style of play didn’t do him any favors as he didn’t manage to control the tempo of the game at any point.

Both players go home with their share of the $10,000 prize pool, with the winner taking $3,000 and Kelazhur taking $2,000.

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