At the beginning of the day, four players vied for the ultimate title: the WCS Global Championship. The last title of Heart of the Swarm, the ultimate symbol of greatness.
Soon, however, there were just two.
Life versus Classic began the day. The two fought a close series. Classic was solid, defensive and standard. Life was aggressive, erratic and unpredictable. Life took the first game with a brutal Roach/Hydra attack, overwhelming Classic's defenses.
But the next two games went to Classic, with his strong Gateway unit control proving the difference. Life failed an all-in on Terraform and couldn't bring the game back despite some creative play with Banelings and Infestors. A similar story played out on Coda, where Classic defended a 6-Pool. Life almost held that game, but Classic pressed inexorably on.
But then Life brought the series back, taking an advantage of a positioning error on Moonlight Madness to flood Zerglings into the Protoss base. Again on Bridgehead, Life got ahead with a flood of Zerglings that cancelled his opponent's third base, before he finished the job with another wave of Zerglings and Roaches.
Life moved on to his second consecutive BlizzCon finals. Joining him from the lower bracket would be the winner of yet another Jin Air teamkill, sOs vs Rogue.
This series didn't have the longevity of the first. sOs made short work of his teammate. Rogue attempted to make it interesting with a proxy Hatchery in Game 1, but eventually tried to attack an entrenched position in sOs' main and lost most of his forces. sOs teched to Dark Templar, and easily took the game.
Game 2 didn't go much better for the Zerg player as sOs crushed through with a Blink Stalker/Sentry force. In Game 3, Rogue again fell to Gateway pressure. It was a disappointing end to his BlizzCon run, but he had already gone farther than anyone had expected.
And so, in the end we got the final that everyone had hoped for, at least since Life had eliminated INnoVation.
Life, the reigning world champion and the most dominant Zerg of Heart of the Swarm. And sOs, the 2013 World Champion and winner of two $100,000 tournaments. Both, seemingly, at the top of their form.
They delivered. Over the course of seven games, Life and sOs fought map after map. Back and forth, they traded wins, exchanging cheese for cheese and all-in for all-in.
Game 1 went to sOs, in classic sOs fashion. An 11 supply Gateway pumped out fast Zealots, which only served to compliment a Cannon rush. The strategy threw Life into disarray, and a follow up proxy Oracle and Gateway all-in finished Life.
Life bounced back, pulling out yet another early Pool on Coda. This time, Life was able to deal damage, killing several Sentries and a handful of Probes. Life carried an advantage into the midgame, where he finally crushed sOs with a Roach/Hydra assault.
The series continued like this. sOs took a victory on Moonlight Madness, defending against a Zergling attack and counterattacking for the win. Life took the next game on Bridgehead, defending against Dark Templar and swarming over sOs with Zerglings before switching into Mutalisks.
sOs pulled out an unorthodox and surprisingly effective Tempest strategy on Dash and Terminal. He followed it with a classic Blink Stalker/Sentry push, and won with brilliant Blink control. He went up 3-2 in the series.
Then he tried to finish it in Game 6. On Cactus Valley, sOs ramped up for an Immortal/Sentry assault, a deadly build made famous in Wings of Liberty, in an attempt to put an end to Heart of the Swarm.
He failed. Life barely held on, and in one of the most tense moments of the entire tournament, sniped sOs' reinforcing Warp Prism to save the game. Life counterattacked, crippled sOs, and then weathered the storm of sOs' desperate final all-in.
Game 7. One last set to decide the series, assign the championship, and put an end to an era of StarCraft 2. Everything on the line.
Life went for a Baneling bust. It's a strategy that few players would attempt. The irony is that sOs is one of the few who would try a similar strategy.
Life broke into the base, destroying the front wall and ravaging the natural. sOs attempted to hold the low ground, but eventually successive waves of Zerglings and Banelings broke the front again and took down the Nexus.
But Life couldn't break up the ramp. High ground Cannons, Sentries and the Mothership Core kept sOs alive, and with a stronger economy. Having failed to deal game winning damage, Life was on the back foot.
And sOs didn't let up. He retook the low-ground, got his second base up and running, and transitioned into the same Blink Stalker/Sentry attack that he had done in countless games prior. That attack broke Life's meager army.
sOs won the game. Before Life had even tapped out, he sat back in his chair, closed his eyes, and smiled.
His second BlizzCon title and his fifth premier championship. He now controls a majority of Global Finals titles from Heart of the Swarm, and has solidified himself as a legend of the scene. The most interesting, unorthodox and unpredictable Protoss of the past three years had defeated his most accomplished rival.
And with that, Heart of the Swarm came to an end. One last tournament, one last series, one last champion. sOs' victories ushers out one era, and propels us towards the next.
Christian Paas-Lang is an eSports journalist from Toronto, saying goodbye to Heart of the Swarm. Its been good, mostly. You can follow him on Twitter.
Copyright © 2016 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.