Nicholas “HuT” Hutton stunned players, viewers and casters alike on Tuesday evening as the former heavyweight returned to the professional Starcraft 2 scene to not only compete but win the Starcraft 2 OCE / SEA ESL Weekly Cup.
Nicholas “HuT” Hutton stunned players, viewers, and casters alike on Tuesday evening as the former heavyweight returned to the professional StarCraft 2 scene to not only compete but win the StarCraft 2 OCE / SEA ESL Weekly Cup.
Competing in his first professional event of the year after a partial retirement in 2019, HuT had a tough run to the final, beating GnuGnu, last week’s finalist MeoMaika, Nuks and three time winner Probe before a final showdown with another Protoss heavyweight, Pezz.
That final showdown saw some decisive early game victories spiral out of control for the Terran player, who only dropped one map has he claimed the title with a 3-1 map score line.
Another new winner brings the total to four different winners in eight cups, showing the Oceanic / South East Asian scene is well alive and competitive in terms of depth and skill level.
Speaking after, HuT, who is currently without a competitive org after previously competing on SYF, said it feels good to be back competing in SC2.
“Seither and I got bored of Escape from Tarkov recently, so after the ESL announcements I decided to just mess around with SC2 and see what happens,” he said.
“I guess at this point, I’m definitely back.”
wow, we won! https://t.co/pLAu2LpeYc back on the grind 👊 (teamless player BTW)
— Nick 'HuT' Hutton (@syfHuT) May 19, 2020
Featuring a mix of aggressive builds, HuT surprised both Protoss opponents with unorthodox, one base strategies in the semi-final and final that set him on the way to victory.
HuT proved the StarCraft muscle memory stays long in the brain despite only coming back to the game around two or three weeks ago. He coupled his unorthodox abilities with some evident ability to execute a sound economic game.
“I suppose you’re never done with SC2, it’s done with you,” HuT said on his return.
“This patch seems like Terran can actually compete vs Zerg and Protoss, so we’ll see what happens later in the year for me in terms of results.”
Congratulations to 🇦🇺@syfHuT on winning @ESLAustralia Open Cup #8 3-1 over Pezz!
— StarCraft esports (@StarCraftEsport) May 19, 2020
Liquipedia: https://t.co/xjg6PUJRib pic.twitter.com/wuKbplofpd
Elsewhere in the bracket, fan favourite MeoMaika was an early casualty of HuT, whilst last week’s winner Seither took the week off, citing tiredness and general fatigue as the reason.
The surprise package of the tournament was Vivid from team OSC-Elite, who recorded his best ever finish, placing in the top 4 of the weekly event.
Yours truly rode some extreme bracket luck to place in the quarter finals.
The ESL SC2 Weekly Cup, fueled by Dare runs every Tuesday night, starting at 19:00 AEST and is open to players of any skill level in the OCE / SEA region.
Find more info at the official site.
Imagery supplied.
