Day 2 Recap: Wiped Out

Koreans crush international players and confirm all-Korean quarter-final.

Short Match Recaps

by Kollin, stuchiu, Waxangel, and Zealously

Round of 32 Matches

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Game One - Daybreak: MC's proxy oracles worked wonders against herO's blink stalker build, as he easily held his opponent's attack while oracles annihilated the probes in the empty main.



Game Two - Akilon Wastes: Both MC and herO were able to take their expansions fairly early, setting up a two base vs. two base game. MC opted to go all ground with zealots, stalkers, archons, and templar, while herO went for a mixed army of void rays, immortals, and zealots. HerO's composition proved to be superior when the two armies clashed, with the CJ Protoss coming out over 40 supply ahead. However, in a strange turn of events, herO threw away his lead by taking engagements that were equally as poor on his side as they were well done by MC. That opened up up an opportunity for MC to end the game with his mass ground army, which he took without hesitating.



Game Three - Star Station: Game three quickly turned weird as both players opened by rushing Dark Templars. Neither was able to get detection up in time, nor block their ramp successfully so a base trade ensued. MC's decision to kill herO's probes before going for his buildings ended up paying dividends, as he was decisively ahead in economy once both players had re-established new mains. HerO went for a final attack, but he GG'd out after his observer was sniped.



MC 3 - 0 herO



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G1 - Star Station: Mvp opened with a reactor expand, while feast started out with one base blink stalkers. Both players postured around Mvp's main for position, before Mvp eventually drove feast back with superior numbers. Mvp hit like a hammer down upon feast's natural, and took the game with an overwhelmingly large bio force.



G2 - Akilon Wastes: Feast once again opened with blink stalkers, while Mvp chose a gasless expand. Mvp's economy was hit hard by feast's heavy aggression and the following contain, and while the game stabilised Mvp was extremely behind in upgrades. The IM Terran was forced into a desparate, last ditch attack, but feast's large amount of archon zealot dominated Mvp's marauder heavy force, and the series was tied up at 1-1.



G3 - Newkirk City: Mvp was the aggressor in this game, as he opened with a marine widow mine drop against feast's one gate expand. Feast defended with no economic losses, and both players transitioned into the mid game. Mvp kept up the heat as he moved out with a large bio force, but was deterred from directly attacking by feast's high templars. Instead, Mvp chose to drop his entire army into feast's main, which the Protoss once again did an admirable job of defending. Armed with an extremely strong archon zealot force, feast made the decision to move out and immediately was backstabbed by four medivacs worth of units. Instead of recalling, feast went for the basetrade but Mvp had more than enough to hold off the attack. From there, Mvp's huge advantage snowballed and eventually, and with a 60 supply lead, he crushed through feast's miniscule army.



G4 - Cloud Kingdom: Feast chose to open with the popular FE into DT on Cloud Kingdom, hiding his citadel and DT shrine in a corner of the map. Mvp on the other hand played it safe, and started out with a reactor expand. Mvp showed off his spider sense, not only finding the proxy pylon the DT's would be warped in from, but also the hidden dark shrine. Mvp was put in a fantastic position over his opponent, his only disadvantage being he was slightly behind on army upgrades. He rectified that by dropping four medivacs worth of units in feast's main, killing the nexus. Then he dropped in the third, killing that nexus. Then, only a few minutes later Mvp left feast with no nexii as he ran into the natural and won the series.



Mvp 3 - 1 Feast



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Game One - Cloud Kingdom: Life deflected some early msc+gateway unit pressure from Minigun, and then ran him over with a roach and speedling counter attack.



Game Two - Daybreak: Minigun tried to go for a macro game by taking three bases on Daybreak, but Life busted out the old school roach-ling waves, relentless attacking Minigun until he was forced to GG out.



Game Three - Newkirk City: Minigun decided he would Soul Train it up with an immortal-sentry all-in. To counter, Life decided to go for a speedling-hydra composition. Due to nerves or some other factor, Minigun's micro was sub-par during the huge engagement, and he GG'd out after his attack failed.



Life 3 - 0 Minigun



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Game One - Newkirk City: Taeja's supreme multitasking really shined in this game. Both players went for fairly standard openers: a reactor expand into widow mine drop against a gateway expand. However, SaSe was unable to really put any pressure onto Taeja which resulted in the Liquid Terran powering ahead with upgrades and economy. Taeja's advantage from there just grew and grew, as he stretched Sase to the limit with medivacs all over the map. While Sase eventually managed to hold off the seemingly endless harass, Taeja was not finished. A far superior bio hellbat force crushed through Sase's army, and forced the GG out from the Swedish Protoss.



Game Two - Neo Planet S: Taeja chose widow mine harass as his opener for the second game in a row. Sase defended it nicely, and punished Taeja's attempted mech transition excellently, with an impromptu gateway unit + observer timing attack. Taeja defended to the last unit, but it was not enough and Sase took a fairly easy game two.



Game Three - Akilon Wastes: Once again Taeja showed that the new Turbovacs™ had massively benefited his playstyle, as he picked apart Sase from every angle. Both players opened with fast expands and transitioned into fairly normal midgames, Taeja going bio hellbat while Sase opted for storm. Taeja was relentless with his medivac harass, not doing as much damage as in the first game but pulling his opponent out of position enough so he could run in and deny Sase's third. Taeja soon got bored of toying with his prey, and off the back of 9 barracks worth of production clashed with a noticably smaller army at Sase's natural. Taeja had far too many units for Sase to even nearly hold on, and took the game.



Game Four - Cloud Kingdom: Sase opened with an expansion into fast DTs, while Taeja opted for a CC first. Sase did a significant amount of damage with his DT's, putting him ahead. From there Sase advanced his lead further, as he took three bases and got all the upgrades he could ever want. Taeja desparately tried to apply pressure with a bio hellbat army, but Sase had no trouble in mopping it up. Sase and Taeja clashed in small skirmishes across the map, as both players got stronger and stronger armies up and running. Sase looked like he couldn't lose, as he was ahead of Taeja economically, technologically and in terms of supply. Surely he could not lose from this position? He would have to f*** up multiple engagements extremely badly for Taeja to win. Unfortuantely for SaSe that's exactly what happened, losing his army not once but twice due to him seemingly falling asleep at the keyboard. Off the back of this Taeja had a superior amount of mining bases, and shoved his way through what was left of Sase's defences.



TaeJa 3 - 1 SaSe



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Game One - Neo Planet S: After Bomber opened with some light reaper pressure, the game progressed to a fairly standard 3 base vs. 3 base state. Goswser decided he would go for a big roach + speedbane timing to try and catch Bomber off guard, but only ended up being able to trade disadvantageously. From there, Bomber geared up for a 2/2 marine-tank push while Goswser stayed lair heavy, making lings, roaches, banes, and infestors. When Bomber's big push did come, Goswser was able to smash through the force coming by land, but was severely damaged by Bomber's two simultaneous drops. Bomber just reproduced his army with his signature macro, attacking and dropping until Goswser was forced to GG out.



Game Two - Whirlwind: Game two unfolded somewhat similarly to game one, with Goswser gearing to hit a big speed roach/bane timing as Bomber went up to three bases. While Bomber actually managed to get some damage done this time around, it was partially due to the fact that Bomber had two medivacs worth of troops out destroying drones and hatcheries. It looked like a horrendously bad trade for Goswser who even lost his main hatchery, but somehow he held on and clawed himself back into the game. A great engagement with roaches, banelings, and infestors saw Goswser even pull ahead, and he looked like he was in position to finish the game as he transitioned to ultralisks and vipers off a superior econony. However, it then became Bomber's turn to show off his resilience, as he defended well and massed a dangerous army. An incredible, creative play from Bomber turned the tide in his favor once more, as he self-targetted his own medivac with seeker missiles and sent it hurtling into Goswser's tightly packed army after turning on afterburners. These makeshift mega-banelings were enough to give Bomber the edge he needed, and he steamrolled through Goswser's bases to take a well earned victory.



Game Three - Newkirk City: In a marathon game that lasted over an hour and until all the resources on Newkirk City were mined out, Goswser barely outlasted Bomber to take a much needed win. The game started off with some interesting marine-tank pressure from Bomber, but it didn't stop the game from slowly turning into half map-split macro game. Each side has plenty of resources to expend and tried everything to break the stalemate. Bomber had considerable success with seeker missiles but less with nukes, even mistakenly nuking over 80 supply worth of his army at one point (it didn't even matter). Eventually Goswser seemed to come ahead with his mixed army of brood lords, queens, infestors, ultralisks, and corruptors, having the superior standing army by the time resources were depleted and banks mostly gone. However, Bomber stayed in the game to try and drag it out as long as possible, abusing his afterburner medivacs to see if he could eliminate Goswser, or at least force a draw. Gowswer refused to accept such a fate, and doggedly chased the medivacs around until Bomber was forced to GG after a 70+ minute game.



Game Four - Star Station: Bomber opened up marine heavy to put on some pressure, but otherwise the game flowed into a typical macro game without much incident. Bomber persistently harassed Goswser with drops as he prepared his 2/2 army, but Goswser held on reasonably well as he teched up to brood lords. While Goswser got his broods out in time to stop Bomber's big push, Bomber just retreated back and took more bases and he prepared for the late game. The two players traded blows in the late game, but the key would prove to be Bomber's commitment to dropping constantly. While Goswser did a good job stopping quite a few of the drops, he just didn't have the endurance to last the entire way, and GG'd out after being worn down.



Bomber 3 - 1 Goswser



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Game 1 - Akilon Wastes: Stephano opened up with hatch first, with Last going for a quick proxy reaper build that managed to deal minor economical damage before Stephano deflected the attack and stabilized. He then transitioned into his favored composition of roach/hydra/ling whereas Last put down his expansion and went into bio /tank with widow mine support. Both players elected to play very standard macro from that point on – Last utilised medivacs to slowly but surely pick Stephano apart by taking out key units and structures, while Stephano's static defenses could not quite hold the harassment off. Stephano did hold on for about twenty minutes, making good use of vipers to pull in a few tanks, but eventually the damage he had been dealt had him bleeding out as Last marched up and killed him straight up.



Game 2 – Daybreak: Both players opened up with quick expansions, with Stephano immediately gearing up for a roach timing following it. Last spotted the push as it moved across the map, and a bunker with 4 marines and a lot of scvs repairing it managed to hold the push off after losing 9 workers. From that point, both players went back into macro mode – Stephano up to 4 bases, whereas Last got his third and faster upgrades. The medivac harassment that had worked wonders for Last in the previous game was his weapon of choice in game 2 as well, as he dropped all over Stephano to take out hatcheries, drones and queens with Stephano helpless to stop him.



The Frenchman's troubles did not stop there, as he lost yet more drones and bases while falling behind in supply. Knowing he was behind, Stephano had no choice but to try and make something happen. When Last went for an attack on the third, Stephano's hydra/viper composition completely smashed the Terran forces, from which point he moved out onto the map to take out one of Last's bases while simultaneously losing one of his own, as well as his spawning pool. Stephano tried to move out onto the map to re-take a base or two, but yet another marauder drop in his natural took out the sixth hatchery of the game and forced the GG.



Game 3 – Cloud Kingdom: Stephano opened up hatch-pool while Last went for 2 proxy raxes in the middle of the map, which Stephano detected with an nearby overlord. He pulled drones to take out the bunkers constructing in his natural, but 4 marines already rallied in took out a significant amount of drones and lings, putting the Terran up 5 workers. After deflecting the attack, Stephano immediately sent out his lings to take out Last's constructing command center, but the moment the lings moved into Last's natural, the Terran went for a counter with marines he'd hidden in the center of the map. Things couldn't have worked out better for Last as he took out the natural, queens and a massive amount of lings and drones while still having triple OC himself. Stephano tried to stabilise, but there was little he could do when the STX Terran's group of marines and hellions moved into his natural, his queens were slaughtered and he tapped out.



Last 3 - 0 Stephano



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Game One - Daybreak: ThorZaIN opened up with some hellion-banshee harass, but was unable to do much damage against a well-prepared Killer. ThorZaIN transitioned into a mech compostion, while Killer decided to go for hydra-roach-infestor. Killer used his composition to control the map and keep ThorZaIN on limited bases, comfortably setting himself up to transition into brood lord infestor. ThorZaIN was unable to handle this composition and GG'd out.



Game Two - Newkirk City: Game two played out similarly to game one at first, with ThorZaIN turtling up with mech while Killer went for roach-hydra-viper. However, instead of containing ThorZaIN and consolidating his lead slowly, Killer went for a series of rash attacks that lead to ThorZaIN taking a comfortable lead. ThorZaIN then transitioned into Sky Terran and made mass battlecruisers, vikings, and ravens, crushing Killer in several late game battles. For some reason ThorZaIN decided that he wanted to spend around forty in-game minutes to actually finish the game, and thus the game dragged out completely pointlessly for before ThorZaIN finally delivered a killing blow.



Game Three - Cloud Kingdom: ThorZaIN appeared to take an early lead after he defended against Killer's roach rush without much trouble, but Killer's mutalisk play slowly brough him back into the game. Killer successfully kept ThorZaIN off his back while he recovered and teched up, and was able to crush ThorZaIN later with an ultralisk centered force.



Game Four - Akilon Wastes: Killer went for more early game shenanigans, executing a roach-baneling bust. This attack ended up being a moderate success, and Killer transitioned into a normal macro style. Once again, Killer decided he would go for a mutalisk based style, which paid dividends. ThorZaIN lost a few key engagements, allowing Killer to repeat the game three pattern where he teched up to ultralisks and finished the game.



Killer 3 - 1 ThorZaIN



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Game 1 – Akilon Wastes: Creator opened up the series with gateway first, wheras Polt went CC first with a quick reaper follow-up that managed to delay Creator's expansion by roughly thirty seconds. Polt managed to be annoying with his reaper for a few more minutes, but eventually both players transitioned into the standard macro game – Creator going for colossi and blink, Polt for bio with widow mine support and a quicker third base. Polt tried to make things happen with a triple turbovac drop in the main of Creator, but aside from killing a few stalkers, Creator's defense was on top of it.



A few minutes later, the first and most significant big engagement happened in the center of the map, where Polt's vikings tore through Creator's colossi and his marauder-centric bio force tore through the rest of Creator's forces now lacking in splash damage. From that point on, Polt dictated the pace of the game with multi-pronged harassment that took out key structures, probes and smashing whatever units that tried to defend against the drops. Creator held on for several more minutes, but when he found himself 60 supply down with his key structures going down, he was forced to GG.



Game 2 – Daybreak: Game 2 started off similarly to game 1, with Creator going for gateway/core before his nexus, and Polt once again opening up with a reaper build. This time, no damage was dealt and Creator went across the map with his MsC, poking at a supply depot but falling back before dealing any damage. From that point, however, the game ended up working out a lot better for Creator. He deflected a bio timing from Polt while taking nearly zero damage and followed up by getting his double forge up quickly, even getting up to his third base before Polt.



Creator then went up to colossi tech, finishing up 2/2, range and zealot charge all at the same time. Polt went for another attack, trying to surprise the Protoss player near his natural, but crucial mistargetting denied him from killing even one colossus. Creator's vastly superior upgrades and stronger army continued to pay off for him as he dealt terrible terrible damage to the terran forces and followed up by walking across the map and killing Polt.



Game 3 – Whirlwind SE: Polt went for his favored reaper opening for the third game in a row, whereas Creator switched things up and went nexus before gateway. Polt's reaper managed to get a thorough scout by detecting the nexus first, but Creator managed to take it out before it could deal any significant damage to his workers. Creator proceeded to go up to three bases and into turtle mode, whereas Polt elected to go for turbovacs drops all over the place. Though Creator initially reacted well and held them off, Polt's skill in combination with the extreme speed of the medivac speed boost allowed him to continiously supply block, take out workers and structures and pull Creator out of position, taking his own third base up while keeping the Prime Protoss distracted.



Polt's aggression paid off once again as he managed to take out Creator's third, but Creator responded by immediately expanding in the other direction instead. At this point, Creator was heading toward 2-2 and colossus tech, but Polt was prepared with vikings and a two-pronged attack: a quadruple drop into the Protoss' main and an attack that took out Creator's fourth while the latter was occupied with defending his main.

The considerable size of the map both hurt and helped Creator at this point, as its considerable size allowed him to stay alive where he wouldn't have on a smaller maps, but he continued to have a tough time against Polt's multi-pronged harassment. He lost his main to a drop, the forge upgrading +3 weapons and then the forge ugprading +3 armor and continiously lost units to bio with medivac support. The deciding engagement came soon after; vikings tore through the colossi, and his bio (which was at this point supported by a vastly superior economy) proceeded to maul Creator's ground forces and force the GG.



Game 4 – Neo Planet S: Reaper expand for Polt once again, Gateway-Core-Nexus for Creator. The Protoss got his MsC out quickly and went across the map. Behind the mothership core, he had a group of gateway units pushing out for a gateway timing. However, Polt was too well prepared with bunkers, widow mines and SCVs to repair/tank damage, and stimpack finished just as Creator broke down the bunkers and with the mothership core and sentries out of energy, Creator had no choice but to GG as his units fell to the stimmed bio.



Polt 3 - 1 Creator



Round of 16 Matches

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Game 1 – Daybreak: Leenock started off the series by going hatch first, and Innovation went for the now-standard reaper opening. The Terran immediately sent 2 reapers off to Leenock's base, managing to take out a queen, a number of drones and forcing a few lings before retreating to the watchtower. Innovation followed the reaper attack up with hellions to keep Leenock in his base, but he went in with more hellions, took out two more queens and then Leenock just kind of died.



Game 2 – Newkirk City: Having just killed Leenock with a reaper opening, Innovation realised there was no reason not to go for the very same opening in game 2 as Leenock went hatch-pool once again. Despite the terrain being worse for reaper play compared to Daybreak, Innovation was able to take out 5 drones while losing nothing. Only this time, Leenock didn't die to a hellion follow-up as he re-droned and put down his spire and baneling nest. Going into mutalisks, Leenock managed to stop two medivac drops while losing nothing, for once putting the pressure on the Terran with the mobility of the muta/ling composition.



Throughout the game, the two players took turns in blowing each other up – widow mines killing dozens of lings and banes, and banelings melting equal amounts of marines. Innovation kept for going marauder drops to take out key structures, put Leenock played very well, constantly staying on top of the STX Terran's aggression. With Innovation constantly dropping at two or more places at once, was moderately successful with his aggression and managed to take out queens and a spawning pool, but he couldn't stop Leenock from going up to four bases and had no choice but to try and get his own fourth up.



Eventually, it got to the point where not even Leenock's strong multi-tasking could keep up with Innovation's all-over-the-place aggression, and he suddenly found himself behind on bases and bleeding out as his key structures and units were taken out across the map. With no way to come back against the five-base, hyper-aggressive Terran, Leenock had to GG.



Game 3 – Cloud Kingdom: Innovation knew that he'd dealt significant damage to Leenock with reaper openings twice before, and so he opted for CC first to switch things up. Leenock went for another hatch-pool opening, but with no reapers hurting him, he was able to freely get his natural expansion up and throw a spire down to obtain map control. From that point, both players went for the same compositions as last game, with Innovation going for bio and Leenock going for muta/ling/bane. Leenock's mutas managed to stop a lot of drops, but Innovation in true Korean Terran-fashion kept on dropping, and Leenock suddenly found himself 60 supply down.



Leenock tried to make things happen with his mutas and good baneling hits, but in the end Innovation's aggression won out as he took out Leenock's infestors left and right, and tore the FXO Zerg's economy to shreds with drops. Leenock made a last stand at the third, but Innovation's army was much stronger and Leenock surrendered the series 0-3.



Innovation 3 - 0 Leenock

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Game Two – Neo Planet S: Two of the most notoriously macro-centered players in the world both chose to open up with hatch/CC first, with Ret immediately following up with ling speed and Flash going for his third CC on the back off a single rax and a reactored factory. With his base not having been scouted, Ret went into mutalisks, hoping to deal some quick damage with the element of surprise on his side, and quickly expanded to the northern fourth base. Once Ret's mutas arrived, however, Flash already had turrets up in his base, and Ret was unable to deal any significant damage with the mutas before transitioning into the more general muta/ling/bane composition for the mid-game.



With Flash left alone for a while after the muta switch, Flash’s trademark macro-mode kicked in, and his three-base economy allowed him to stay on even footing with the Team Liquid Zerg, pump out significant amounts of bio with widow mine support, and get his desired upgrades up while simultaneously fending off attempts at mutalisk harassment. Not much later, he pushed out across the map, took out one of Ret’s bases and half of his units with the attack and followed up by killing him off completely.



Game Two - Cloud Kingdom: Both players went for macro builds, Ret going for a hatch first and Flash a CC first build. Flash from beginning to end would take map control with hellions and transition into widow mines and bio medivac. He was able to keep slightly ahead in the macro game with superior economy and upgrades. Flash would keep up the pressure and smash Ret over and over again with drops, widow mines and constant unrelenting pushing that would deny Ret any attempts at a 4th base. Ret would never be able to get stability for his economy and army and was torn down.



Game Three - Akilon Wastes: Flash opened with 11 rax 11 gas reapers, but his opener did little damage against Ret’s 15 hatch opening. From there, Flash took the map control with reapers and hellions and kept Ret on 2 bases as long as possible while transitioning into widow mines and bio medivac. Ret went for a roach-hydra composition and after forcing Flash’s light contain back, would mass drone and take his 3rd and 4th at the same time. Flash attacked and killed Ret's 4th, but could push no farther. Ret forced the army back and start teching to vipers. From there, Flash and Ret fought all across the map with. The earlier engagements favored Flash, but Ret was able to take the momentum by establishing a 4th and 5th base while kiling Flash's main army and teching to ultras. Finally Ret saw an opening and tried to kill Flash’s 5th, but Flash stopped the push while killing Ret’s 5th. Ret scrambled to defend, but this left another opening for Flash to exploit as he would also kill the 4th. From there, Flash was too far ahead in supply and army for Ret to make a comeback.



Flash 3 - 0 Ret





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Game One - Daybreak: Rain held off Jjakji's two-rax proxy rush with trivial ease to take game one.



Game Two - Cloud Kingdom: Rain opened safe and standard while Jjakji went for a normal marine-widow mine expand into drop harass. Rain displayed great awareness, reactions, and positioning to deflect all of Jjakji's drop harassment, no matter how hard he tried. He was able to assemble his deathball without much trouble, and proceeded to wipe Jjakji off the face of the map.



Game Three - Newkirk City: Jjakji decided to open up with a tricky proxy factory for quick widow mines before Rain could get vision out. While Jjakji was able to get his mines past an inattentive sentry on Rain's ramp, getting some probe and army kills before an observer came out.



Rain opted to go for a big gateway attack to counter, hoping to catch Jjakji off-guard. However, Jjakji managed to compose himself and hold on defense, after which Rain GG'd out.



Game Four - Neo Planet S: Rain opened with a peculiar FE into one oracle build, but failed to do much damage to Jjakji's mineral line. Jjakji decided he would try to take advantage of the situation by playing aggressively off two bases, but Rain played well to hold off Jjakji's drops and frontal attacks. The situation looked to be getting bad for Jjakji as Rain's colossus count grew, but somehow Jjakji succeeded in winning with an SCV pull, all-in attack where Rain missed his force-fields badly.



Game Five - Akilon Wastes: Both players decided to go for straight up macro games in the deciding set, with jjakji looking to get his medivac harass going. However, Rain showed the same kind of solid drop defense he had shown throughout the series, and slowly built up a deadly army while jjakji wasted his effort and resources on failed drops. Jjakji could find no way to avoid the inevitable deathball and GG'd out of the game.



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Game One - Cloud Kingdom: Both players settled in to play a macro game on Cloud Kingdom, msotly leaving each other alone to get the compositions they wanted. Sen decided to turtle up on four bases with spines, spores, swarm hosts, and hydralisks, while PartinG put together a colossus based ground force. Seeing that it would be difficult to penetrate Sen's defenses with a direct ground attack, PartinG started trying to mass void rays back at home. While PartinG did take Sen by surprise momentarily when his void rays hit the field, Sen's great use of vipers and hydralisks nullified PartinG's army. Sen seemed to have unlimited abducts as he simply pulled all of PartinG's high value units into the middle of his army, and then swarmed over whatever was left with hydralisks.



Game Two - Daybreak: PartinG quickly retaliated by going for a 7-gate all-in that Sen did not expect, evening up the series.



Game Three - Akilon Wastes: Game three played out similarly to game one at first, with both players going for a macro game, and Sen looking to turtle up with swarm hosts. However, PartinG played more aggressively this time and hit a great timing with his stalkers and colossi, crushing through Sen's bases before he could get his defenses in place.



Game Four - Newkirk City: PartinG finally decided to go for his patented "Soul Train" immortal all-in with a chance to end the series. Yet, it looked like Sen had somehow unlocked the puzzle on how to stop the Soul Train, producing hydras and forcing PartinG to call off the attack. However, PartinG merely decided to delay his attack for long enough to add on some colossi, after which he struck again. While Sen came close to stopping PartinG with his roach-hydra-corruptor composition, PartinG's micro was just too much and he broke through to take the series.



PartinG 3 - 1 Sen



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Game One - Star Station: MC started the game with a stargate expansion against Mvp’s standard reactored rax into CC. Mvp tried to go for a widow mine marine drop, but was slaughtered by the phoenixes of MC. At the same time MC tore through the mineral line of Mvp's underprotected base with two oracles. MC kept attacking with phoenixes and oracles picking off marines and scvs while teching to 2 forge colossi and getting a third. MC then attacked Mvp with his combined army and killed a large amount of Mvp’s army. MC backed up to let storm finish and attacked once more to finish the game.



Game Two - Newkirk City: MC opened the game with a stargate expansion whilen Mvp used his standard reactor rax into CC. MC tried to pressure with his MSC and oracles, but he lost the MSC to Mvp’s marines. MC tried follow up with two base all-in using five oracles and gateway units. However, Mvp saw it coming and was more than prepared to crush the attack. From there Mvp just attacked with his MMM until MC had to surrender.



Game Three - Whirlwind: MC stuck to his guns using another stargate expansion while MVP switched it up by starting with a CC first. MC’s MSC hovered around MVP’s main and his oracle was spotted on the way to MVP’s natural. This forced MVP to split his marines to defend both bases. MC pooled up 4 oracles and then sucker punched MVP killing all of his marines and a large amount of scvs. After doing so much damage, MC decided it was time for MVP to die so he went for a 2 base colossi stalker all-in that just ran over MVP.



Game Four - Cloud Kingdom: MVP went for a CC first again and MC went for a Nexus after some stalker-zealot pressure. MC then did a 5 gate attack after his natural was up and won.



MC 3 - 1 MVP



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Game One - Daybreak: Both players took their naturals without much hassle, except some mostly inconsequential widow mine harass from Bomber. The critical move of the game ended up being Bomber's decision to go for cloak banshees, as he killed off several of TaeJa's marines and SCVs while knocking him off balance. This allowed Bomber to go for a quick marine-tank push as a follow up, netting him an easy victory.



Game Two - Newkirk City: Both players once again took their expansions fairly quickly, but this time Bomber's mine drop harass caused TaeJa a fair amount of annoyance. Bomber was able to take a supply lead as both players transitioned into making large marine-medivac-tanks. The pivotal moment came as both players tried to drop at once, with Bomber managing to sneak a deadly 4-medivac payload into TaeJa's main while TaeJa's drop was thwarted and destroyed. Seeing no way to stop the drop in his main, TaeJa GG'd out.



Game Three - Cloud Kingdom: Game three saw Bomber using widow mine drops again, causing TaeJa yet more annoyance as he had to sacrifice marines, scvs, and scans to deal with the burrowed menace. Yet, TaeJa still came out slightly ahead, having opened more greedily and having limited the damage to an acceptable degree. After a marine-tank build up on both sides, things swung hugely in TaeJa's favor due to a very poor engagement from Bomber. However, TaeJa was quick to return the favor by donating troops to Bomber in a poor engagement of his own. The killing blow came soon after, with Bomber loading up his troops and finding the perfect spot in TaeJa's base to doom drop. TaeJa decided to GG out without even trying to contest the drop in his main, seemingly thinking that he had no chance due to the positioning.



Bomber 3 - 0 TaeJa



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Game One - Daybreak: Game one played out a lot like Last's games against another foreign Zerg in Stephano, with his Marine-Medivac-Marauder composition wreaking havoc over an opponent who went for a roach-hydra-viper composition. Last's multi-tasking was just too much for Killer, and he yanked him around for almost the entire game, dealing damaging and slowly building his lead. Killer tried to defend and stabilize, but was eventually worn down.



Game Two - Akilon Wastes: Killer changed things up in game two by going for a muta-ling-bane style composition, but it was to no avail. While he did manage to prevent himself from getting completely torn apart by drops, he couldn't find a way to hurt Last or get any kind of good engagement. Last amassed too much of an army advantage for Killer to deal with and finished the game with a frontal attack.



Game Three - Whirlwind: Already having to climb a mountain to come back from a 0 - 2 deficit, Killer started game three off poorly by allowing Last's hellion opener to roast some drones. From there it was just downhill for Killer, as he repeated game two in going for a muta-ling style but just not being able to hurt Last. The STX Terran put the hurt on with even more of his drop tactics and mobility abuse before finishing Killer off with a frontal attack.



Last 3 - 0 Killer



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Game One - Akilon Flats: Polt started the game with fast reapers to harass Life. He used them to keep Life inside his 2 base while he teched to hellions and got triple cc. Polt took the map with reaper/hellion, but Life snuck a 3rd hatch down and cleaned up the force with mass speedling and queens. Afterwards Life decided to go for a 1/1 speedbane bust that did some economic damage, but was mostly cleaned up by widow mines. After that it was a see-saw, high paced match as Polt and Life wrestled for the map control. Polt tried dropping, pushing and attacking, while Life kept him back with good defense, counter attacking and a large mutalisk pack. Life finally won the map control as both players settled on 4 base each and he teched to ultralisks while doing even more damage with mutalisks. Once Polt moved out, Life stalled his advance while doing massive ling-muta counter-attacks. Eventually this broke down into a desperate base race for Polt as he realized returning home was no option. Life was able to clean up Polt's entire main and kill his army for the victory.



Game Two - Newkirk City: Polt opened with a reaper build again and Life pushed back the pressure. Life tried to do a baneling bust, but was easily stopped by Polt’s follow-up hellions. Polt also went for fast medivacs with stim giving him a large advantage in tech which he used to slowly pull Life apart. Life tried for a desperate roach baneling all-in off of 3 bases, but was easily held off and had to give up the game.



Game Three – Daybreak: Polt opened proxy reaper against Life’s hatch first opening, getting a bunker up in range of Life’s natural and was generally annoying for a couple of minutes before backing up and getting his expansion up. He followed up with reactor-hellion to force more lings from Life. He succeeded, but ended up losing all of his units to Life’s speedlings. Both players then transitioned into their favored mid-game compositions, with Life going for muta/ling/bane and Polt going for the standard bio composition with medivac support. From that point, Life once again controlled the pace of the game, forcing Polt into a mostly defensive position with attacks on the third and mutalisk harassment in the main, even getting up a few spines and spores to keep his bases safe from drops. Polt made a few moves to deal economic damage, but Life was on top of his game and defended well while teching up to broods and vipers. Once he showed up at Polt’s front door, he was up 80 supply and rolled right over the Terran to collect the GG.



Game Four – Star Station: Polt went for reaper expand against Life’s hatch first. He brought an scv along with his first reaper to construct a bunker, but Life’s lings took out the worker before the bunker could finish and forced a salvage. He then ended up having his momentum taken away as speedlings surrounded and killed his reapers, significantly weakening the hellion follow-up.



Life transitioned into roaches immediately, holding off a widow mine drop that ended up killing Polt’s own medevac. He moved out to try and take down Polt’s third, but three siege tanks, widow mines and some bio completely melted the roaches and forced Life to retreat. Life went up to his fourth base and a roach/hydra composition, and although he lost his fourth to Polt’s bio/tank push, he was able to push the Terran back as his vipers came out.



From that point, both players went for another expansion and more upgrades, with Life going for ultras to complement his viper/ling. Polt moved out with medivacs a few times, taking out a few workers and almost sniping the spawning pool but was held off each time. But when he didn’t find success in drops, he went for ground assaults with tons of marauders, managing to take out Life’s fifth base twice. Polt briefly tried to go for a BC transition, but with a ton of corruptors and vipers in the air and ultras on the ground took out all the BCs and Life looked to be in great shape before he ran his army into more of Polt’s units and lost most of it. From that point, he found himself far behind in terms of both units and economy, and as Polt's much more mobile army took out his fourth he was forced to GG.



Game 5 – Cloud Kingdom: Polt managed to to block Life’s hatch first, forcing him to put down his pool before the hatch whereas Polt went into reapers for the fifth game in a row. He followed up with hellions while getting 3 OC’s up back at home. After taking out a bunch of units in the middle of the map, Life put down his baneling nest and went for +1 melee weapons, preparing for a massive ling/bane attack on Polt’s third that took out 10 scvs and a bunch of units while concealing a muta switch. Suddenly, Polt found himself in a lot of trouble as 12 mutas showed up in his natural while half of his army was out on the map. The situation spiraled out of control for Polt from that point, with several medivacs full of units getting caught out without dealing any damage to Life.



With the superior economy, Life continuously slaughtered Polt’s workers, and he managed to deflect a desperation attack as Polt’s 3-3 finished. With the Terran forces eliminated and Life’s brood lords out, the Zerg player threw down manner hatcheries outside Polt’s third, and the Terran took the hint and tapped out.



Life 3 - 2 Polt



The result itself was not surprising, and one we had seen all too many times by now: Koreans wiped out all of the international players heading into the final day of the tournament. However, the brutal manner in which the Koreans eliminated the opposition at MLG Dallas was enough to alarm even the most cynical fans. Out of twelve foreigner vs. Korea series, the foreigners failed to win even a single one. In fact, winning just a single map seemed to be a more reasonable goal for the international players, as they went a combined 5 - 36 in map score.Even EG.Stephano.RC , the standard bearer for non-Korean players since October of 2011, couldn't do anything to stem the Korean tide. Stephano looked like he could have a favorable draw against STX_Last , a player overshadowed by the top Korean stars in attendance at the event. However, Last showed that while he was lacking in notoriety, he certainly wasn't left wanting for StarCraft II skill. His incredible multi-tasking with dropships and infantry left Stephano looking punch-drunk, and the Frenchman lost in a 0 - 3 rout. In an encore performance, Last did the same to Chile's c.KiLLeR in the next round to win another sweep.While Stephano failed to live up to his reputation, another Zerg playing out of France succeeded in impressing the viewers. Recent Millenium recruit Goswser had racked up a number of impressive victories against Korean Terrans in WoL, but facing Startale's Bomber in the post HotS world seemed like another challenge altogether. And while Goswser did end up losing his series against the Startale Terran, he put up a serious fight in a four game series that was closer than the 1 - 3 scoreline would suggest.The first game was a stomp, one that went exactly as things should have gone on paper. Bomber out macroed, microed, and multi-tasked Goswser in a curb-stomp game. Game two looked to be going the same way, as Goswser was caught without defenses against drops, even losing his main base. However, he showed amazing tenacity to claw his way back into the game from such a situation, finally bringing himself to a point where he could take the lead with one good roach-baneling engagement against a marine-tank army caught out of position.Goswser looked all but destined to take a famous, come back from behind victory, but Bomber pulled out a stellar play and made it a reverse-comeback. By targeting his own medivac with seeker missiles, Bomber was able to create a makeshift super-baneling, one he used to devastate Goswser's army in the decisive battle. That shifted the scales in Bomber's favor for good, and he took the second game to go up 2 - 0.Bomber very nearly 'cheated' Goswser out of yet another victory in game three, a marathon game on Newkirk City. The two players split the map in half and consumed its resources entirely, throwing their troops into a near endless meat-grinder until it became literally impossible to create any more reinforcements. Goswser got the better of Bomber in the final major battle of the game, coming out with the stronger army in a straight-up fight. However, Bomber had a number of medivacs and infantry survive the fight, and threatened to win an elimination victory by evading Goswser's immobile army while chipping away at his buildings at an excruciatingly slow pace. Thankfully, for both Goswser and the audience, Bomber allowed his units to get caught and conceded the GG. Unfortunately for Goswser, there wouldn't be any dramatic game five at 2 - 2, as Bomber stepped his game up to finish the series in game four.Non-Korean players weren't the only ones facing extinction. The entire Zerg race came dangerously close to being booted from the tournament as well. Taking away the eight non-Korean Zergs in the tournament, that left only FXOLeenock and ST_Life remaining to represent the Swarm. Both of them easily cleared their first round hurdles of BabyKnight and Minigun respectively, but ran into serious hurdles in the Ro16 in the form of Korean Terrans.In Leenock's case, INnoVation was just too much to handle. The STX Terran took to HotS like a fish to water, and showcased some of the best medivac play in HotS so far. Leenock was locked in an almost permanent state of dealing with some kind of Terran attack, whether it was delivered via express medivac drop or marched in directly on foot. A 3 - 0 win for Innovation would have been a shocking result in WoL, but he made it look like an obvious one in HotS.Thus, when ST_Life went up against Polt in the final Ro16 game of the night, there seemed to be plenty of reason to worry. Innovation had already taken out a top Zerg in Leenock, and overall, Zergs had gone 1 - 6 against Terran in the entire tournament. Polt had also looked very strong in his 3 - 1 victory against Creator in the Ro32, even if it was in a different match-up.Fortunately for Zerg fans everywhere, Life proved why he is considered the best Zerg in the world by defeating Polt and surviving to day three of the tournament. The victory didn't come easy, with the series going all five games. Great muta-ling play saw Life take game one, but Polt tied things up by defending a baneling bust in game two. Life retook the lead in game three with yet more great muta-ling play, but lost game four when he couldn't get his roach-hydra composition to work quite as well. The final game saw Life return to his winning formula, playing a ling-bane-muta based style again. It was the correct choice for Life, as he was able to outmaneuver and outplay Polt to earn a spot in the quarter-finals.