[MSL] Power Underwhelming Text by Atrioc WARNING, THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SPOILERS OF NATE MSL 2009 GRAND FINALS



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In Game 3 on Odd-Eye of the MSL Grand Finals between Jaedong and Flash, during an important battle approximately 18 minutes into the game, a power outage seemingly caused by Flash's heating fan crashed both the player's computers, ending the game and destroying the replay.



KeSPA, using only information available from the VOD as the replay was not available, took a short commercial break and then concluded that there would be no regame, the win would be awarded to Jaedong and the series would resume at Game 4 on Fighting Spirit.



General consensus based on all available facts and opinions from high level Starcraft players indicates that Jaedong had a clear and definite advantage, but opinions remain split on whether or not giving him the win was the correct thing to do.



VOD of the Match





In Game 3 on Odd-Eye of the MSL Grand Finals between Jaedong and Flash, during an important battle approximately 18 minutes into the game, a power outage seemingly caused by Flash's heating fan crashed both the player's computers, ending the game and destroying the replay.KeSPA, using only information available from the VOD as the replay was not available, took a short commercial break and then concluded that there would be no regame, the win would be awarded to Jaedong and the series would resume at Game 4 on Fighting Spirit.General consensus based on all available facts and opinions from high level Starcraft players indicates that Jaedong had a clear and definite advantage, but opinions remain split on whether or not giving him the win was the correct thing to do. Kwark: That vod has another 30 seconds in it not shown on the playback. The defiler at 7 had just consumed under Flash's vision and his vessels had no energy to irradiate. In the last 3 seconds of play you can clearly see on the minimap that Flash's army aborted its attack on 7 and retreated to hold his min only. There can be no debate about whether Flash would have broken 7 or not because the vod shows him deciding not to attack it. Imo that pretty much closes the case on the game.





Nazgul's Opinion:



It is very hard to give an opinion on this without the full facts being out yet and opinions are going to vary a lot nonetheless I will give it my best shot. When watching the replay of game 3 between Jaedong and Flash it seemed to me like Jaedong was ahead by a pretty large margin. The build he used going 3 hatch before pool and actually getting double evo’s this time to out-upgrade Flash was really greedy and he managed to hold him off long enough to get to armor and speed upgraded ultras with nydus channels and defilers.



Upgrades

It seemed his ultras were at 5-2 most likely against 2-2 marines. I recall seeing the upgrades midgame at 2-1 (lings) vs 1-1 (marines) maybe someone can confirm this. The facts on who had which upgrades will start rolling in soon enough which will definitely improve such a theoretical discussion. Flash was going for a pure m&m vessel build with no tanks for support. These marines by themselves die pretty badly against ultra/swarm so he would need a whole lot of vessels to be able to get away with it. As we could see in the final shots the main army of Flash got destroyed by swarms right before the power blacked out and he would have to start building an army again from scratch. It is safe to assume he didn’t have 10 tanks sitting in his base to turtle his way to protecting his new expansion and soon enough once Jaedong replaces his army ultra swarm would have been attacking the 9 o clock expansion.



Bases

Flash’ main was already mined out and his mineral only was close to being mined out. Soon enough he would be playing from a single base. Currently sitting on 2 bases soon enough to be 1. Jaedong on the other hand had 4 bases with minerals available of which his main was possibly mining out soon. Although I don’t think his drone count in main was anything comparable to Flash’ expansion scvs and it would probably run for a while. That would mean there was a guaranteed 4 base vs 2 base and a potential 4/3 base vs 1 base period to come in the next few minutes of the game. This combined with the annihilation of the Terran army and the well upgraded Zerg units I genuinely do not believe Flash had a shot at winning this game. Sure you might argue “but its Flash” however that argument is a lot more valid when he doesn’t play against Jaedong. Between two players of a similar skill level I do not see a way for Terran to pull out a victory in a situation like this.



The Decision

Was it fair.. no it was not fair. It was not fair at all. Flash still thought he was in the game and he got a loss. Everyone saying the decision was not fair is absolutely correct. However KeSPA had to make a decision where there was no fair side at all. Someone was getting screwed regardless. Jaedong had the game won 99% and to make him re-play it would be more unfair than to give Flash the loss. By a large margin. To go from 99% to 50% is way worse than going from 1% to 0%. In my eyes KeSPA made the right decision.



It is very hard to give an opinion on this without the full facts being out yet and opinions are going to vary a lot nonetheless I will give it my best shot. When watching the replay of game 3 between Jaedong and Flash it seemed to me like Jaedong was ahead by a pretty large margin. The build he used going 3 hatch before pool and actually getting double evo’s this time to out-upgrade Flash was really greedy and he managed to hold him off long enough to get to armor and speed upgraded ultras with nydus channels and defilers.It seemed his ultras were at 5-2 most likely against 2-2 marines. I recall seeing the upgrades midgame at 2-1 (lings) vs 1-1 (marines) maybe someone can confirm this. The facts on who had which upgrades will start rolling in soon enough which will definitely improve such a theoretical discussion. Flash was going for a pure m&m vessel build with no tanks for support. These marines by themselves die pretty badly against ultra/swarm so he would need a whole lot of vessels to be able to get away with it. As we could see in the final shots the main army of Flash got destroyed by swarms right before the power blacked out and he would have to start building an army again from scratch. It is safe to assume he didn’t have 10 tanks sitting in his base to turtle his way to protecting his new expansion and soon enough once Jaedong replaces his army ultra swarm would have been attacking the 9 o clock expansion.Flash’ main was already mined out and his mineral only was close to being mined out. Soon enough he would be playing from a single base. Currently sitting on 2 bases soon enough to be 1. Jaedong on the other hand had 4 bases with minerals available of which his main was possibly mining out soon. Although I don’t think his drone count in main was anything comparable to Flash’ expansion scvs and it would probably run for a while. That would mean there was a guaranteed 4 base vs 2 base and a potential 4/3 base vs 1 base period to come in the next few minutes of the game. This combined with the annihilation of the Terran army and the well upgraded Zerg units I genuinely do not believe Flash had a shot at winning this game. Sure you might argue “but its Flash” however that argument is a lot more valid when he doesn’t play against Jaedong. Between two players of a similar skill level I do not see a way for Terran to pull out a victory in a situation like this.Was it fair.. no it was not fair. It was not fair at all. Flash still thought he was in the game and he got a loss. Everyone saying the decision was not fair is absolutely correct. However KeSPA had to make a decision where there was no fair side at all. Someone was getting screwed regardless. Jaedong had the game won 99% and to make him re-play it would be more unfair than to give Flash the loss. By a large margin. To go from 99% to 50% is way worse than going from 1% to 0%. In my eyes KeSPA made the right decision. Chill's alternate viewpoint:



Q: Assuming Jaedong was ahead, what are your thoughts on KeSPA's decision?



Chill: Its ridiculous, the precedent in the Starcraft community has always been to regame unless theres no possible way for one player to lose, and I dont even feel like Jaedong had an advantage at that point.



NEW from Chill: I just rewatched the VOD and JD was ahead but I still don't feel right about the decision. I like giving the win only if it's obvious one player can't lose.





Q: Assuming Jaedongahead, what are your thoughts on KeSPA's decision?: Its ridiculous, the precedent in the Starcraft community has always been to regame unless theres no possible way for one player to lose, and I dont even feel like Jaedong had an advantage at that point.I just rewatched the VOD and JD was ahead but I still don't feel right about the decision. I like giving the win only if it's obvious one player can't lose. Ret's opinion

I'd just like to say I think the descision Kespa made to award JD the win was the right one. He was playing on a T favored map...in a very very favorable position after having overcome all the imbalances that make this map so hard to play ZvT on. If you put jaedong back at the start of the game it gives flash an advantadge again...So regame is a lot worse than awarding Jaedong a win for a game he would win 99.9% of the time. He was about to get his 5th gas...Flash was outta minerals in about 2 minutes....with no vessels or tanks to fight Ultras. m&m in small numbers would have never broken jaedongs base at 7 o clock. So all in all the only right descision in my opinion.









Thanks to Ret, Nazgul, and Chill for giving such timely responses

We will keep this updated with any new informaion or insights from the Koreans on the KeSPA decision as they become available. Look forward to a full MSL finals recap focusing on the games themselves from the MSL news team in the future. I'd just like to say I think the descision Kespa made to award JD the win was the right one. He was playing on a T favored map...in a very very favorable position after having overcome all the imbalances that make this map so hard to play ZvT on. If you put jaedong back at the start of the game it gives flash an advantadge again...So regame is a lot worse than awarding Jaedong a win for a game he would win 99.9% of the time. He was about to get his 5th gas...Flash was outta minerals in about 2 minutes....with no vessels or tanks to fight Ultras. m&m in small numbers would have never broken jaedongs base at 7 o clock. So all in all the only right descision in my opinion. Writer man what