Alternate Dimension IEM Crowns Different Champion

 
Interdimensional sources have given StarCraft 2 fans watching the $100,000 IEM World Championships in Katowice a fleeting glimpse into an alternate timeline where progamers competed not from flimsy, paper thin booths but from concrete bunkers drilled hundreds of feet underground.

In this alternate “Earth-2” dimension, the results of the tournament began to deviate in the match between Johan “NaNiwa” Lucchesi and Choi “Polt” Seong Hun. In the original timeline, NaNiwa forfeited after 3 minutes and 15 seconds of game time, implying that the crowd influenced Polt to scout for his proximate gateway attack.

On Earth-2, the crowd was prevented from unfairly influencing the match, and Lucchesi went on to win the first game, his opening zealot scoring an astounding 27 SCV kills and granting Naniwa the momentum necessary to win the series 3-0.

“I’d like to thank myself, because I am 99% responsible for this victory,” said Lucchesi, who brought out a CoolerMaster case with Polt’s face on it and proceeded to smash it with a replica Thor hammer. “I also would like to give 1% credit to ESL’s soundproofing engineers.”

Naniwa would face Mousesports player Baek “Dear” Dong Jun in the next round, and the Swedish Protoss was able to counter Dear’s methodical style by probe rushing in all three games to win 3-0. After the series was over, in front of a shocked audience, Lucchesi reportedly brought an adult Polish lowlands forest deer on stage and strangled it using his non-dominant keyboard hand.

“I can’t wait to post about this on Reddit and get a lot of karma,” said user 2EarthBestEarth. “Someone will quote me and probably get a lot of karma too.”

In the semifinals, Naniwa faced two time IEM champion Kim “herO” Joon Ho. Lucchesi was able to defeat the normally happy and smiling Kim by crushing his spirit with a barrage of pre-game bad manner. Once they exited the booth, Naniwa refused to shake hands, ripped the sponsor patches off Kim’s CJ Entus uniform, and consumed them on stage without breaking eye contact.

In the grand finals, Naniwa crushed a surprised Kim “sOs” Yoo Jin 4-0 by switching to Terran for four games, defeating both the Jin Air Protoss and every single forum poster who has ever whined about balance.

In the awards ceremony, Naniwa was presented with the $100,000 check but instead of accepting it, he punched directly through the cardboard and into a random League of Legends spectator’s chest, extracting his still beating heart on which Lucchesi had tattooed the words “I retire.”