In this new series from Team Acer, we're going to be looking at some of the most memorable games played by our Team Acer StarCraft players. We're going to start out with Artur 'Acer | Nerchio' Bloch, looking at some of his strongest - and weirdest! - games in his history - the games that made him the name he is today. Let's get right into it, starting with a time warp all the way to this time last year.

Go4SC2 is a bi-weekly StarCraft II tournament put on the German ESL organisation. It's a single elimination format that often sees more than 400 players participating, making it a great way to see both up-and-comers and experienced pros battling it out. Nerchio made his name from online cups like these, but Go4SC2 #120 was special for a few reasons. Firstly, it was the first online cup that Nerchio played in after joining Team Acer, and secondly it was absolutely crazy.

 

Nerchio has a history of playing Random in smaller tournaments and on the ladder, and he proved his mastery of all three races in his matches against Russian pro VERDI. He played as Random in each of the three games of the final, spawning as Protoss in the first map, Zerg in the second and Terran in the third. Watch all three if you've got some time, but you've got to check out this final game as Nerchio gained a lot of fans for his creative play here!

 

 

 

With the third game in hand, Nerchio was to take the Battle in Berlin tournament - his first major offline result.

 

HomeStory Cup is a unique event on the e-Sports calendar, which forgoes the traditional competitive and highly organised tournament setting to present a much more laid back event. It was in these conditions at HomeStory Cup IV that Nerchio proved to have raised his game yet again, with a strong showing in his first group against Socke, Incontrol and Thorzain. 

 

In his second group he would face a greater challenge, going up against Koreans Violet and Hero as well as Dreamhack Winter 2010 champion Naama. My favourite series of the event came here, when Nerchio went up against Hero in an epic ZvP. 

 

 

After taking the series, Nerchio went onto the playoffs where he was defeated by MC, who would go on to take the title.

After falling out in the playoffs of HomeStory Cup IV, Nerchio came back stronger than ever six months later in HSC V. The Zerg player swept his groups convincingly, taking both stages 3-0 with wins against Naama, YongHwa and Snute. In the quarterfinals he took on and defeated the German Protoss HasuObs and in the semifinals he had a thrilling series against the same guy that knocked him out of HomeStory Cup IV, Korean Protoss MC.

 

With MC out of the way and two successive ZvP victories under his belt, Nerchio must have felt good going up against the very same Korean Protoss he beat in group play - YongHwa. While all the games were exciting, the 'pimpest play of the tournament' came at 7:31 mark and has to be seen to be believed. I've included a YouTube clip below:

 

 

With the series win, Nerchio takes home one of the biggest international trophies. Nice one, Nerchio.

 

I hope you enjoyed the games - what did you think of them? Be sure to let me know in the comments, and let me know which player we should shine the spotlight on next time for Team Acer Classics. Thanks for watching and farewell!

 

Photo credit: Jeroen Weimar