EPT
Mirror Mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?
Warning: Massive Spoilers Ahead
Warning: Massive Spoilers Ahead
60 minutes after the start of today's MSL Semis between Iris and Kwanro, both players would have answered the same: Byun Hyung Tae. After thoroughly demolishing the rodent zerg in the first two sets, Iris was firmly in command of the series. Kwanro looked relatively shaken up after losing game 2 in disappointing fashion.
Experience was on Iris' side as well. Having been to the biggest stage of em all at the Daum OSL Finals, Iris was no stranger to such a big stage. Our little Pikachu however, was just getting a taste of the big stage. 2-0'd by the so called CJ Team Killer. Coincidentally, Iris was also up 2-0 on GGPlay in the OSL Finals until he coincidentally got stomped by GGPlay's ridiculous swarm play. But let's not sidetrack ourselves here.
About 15 minutes into Game 3 on Outsider, Iris was pretty much in full command of the game, looking to basically clean up for an easy 3-0 sweep. With a sizable army, 4 bases, and a ton of vessels, Iris decides to just basically screw around, send his 10 vessels in nonchalantly and irradiate some OLs.
Then, the SVs went boom. A couple plagues and a couple muta shots later, Iris' SV count dwindled to about 2. 5-10 minutes later, he'd find himself getting attacked by 10+ ultras. 60 minutes later, he'd find himself going home once again defeated 3-2 after being up 2-0 in a Best of 5 series to a zerg. Kwanro swiftly annihilated our hero terran in games 4 and 5 and has graced us with yet ANOTHER ZvZ finals.
When you look back into Starleague History, you'll see that there haven't been many SLs without big name players. Most recently, you might consider Luxury/Jangbi to be one of the worst Starleagues, but nothing compares to this atrocity we got in the MSL. Calm vs Kwanro.
Now I know some immediately thought "Almost as bad as NATE OSL" (The NATE OSL was the OSL that Sync eventually won, but no one really cared cause every favorite got eliminated early on and South Korea also made a huge World Cup run during that time period). However, at least we got to see Sync play some TvZ in the Nate finals. Who doesn't like to see Sync play TvZ? Fireworks terran was fucking awesome.
Anyways, now effectively we have arguably the worst Starleague finals in store for us. A mirror matchup ZvZ between a decent player in Calm, and a quite mediocre player in Kwanro who got rather lucky on his way to the Finals. Having to play Zero in ZvZ in the quarters was just lucky as hell. But besides the point, I would have rather seen Calm play Backho. Backho sucks at PvZ, but damn I woulda much rather seen any other race player get to the finals.
Zerg vs Zerg sucks. It's a matchup that involves 5 units: The drone, overlord, mutalisk, scourge, and zergling. Games range from 5 minutes to 15 minutes long and involve small and big battles of mutalisks, scourges, and zerglings. Early game, everyone makes zerglings and they go attack each other. Mid game, everyone makes mutalisks/scourge and they attack each other. Late game, everyone has a ton of mutalisks and zerglings and they attack each other.
At least in TvT you get some varying game lengths with all different types of strategies. Just the other day we saw UpMagic nuke Light in one of the most intense TvTs I've ever seen before with some epic base swapping. Dropship play, vult play, mass tank play, BCs are basically all viable in TvT. PvP on the other hand is quite possibly the most variable mirror matchup. Fast DTs, 4 gate, 2 gate reaver, etc. are all viable builds and make for some nice battles with some good storms going off.
Zerg vs zerg though leaves us with mutas, lings, and scourge. EVERY SINGLE GAME. If Jaedong weren't playing in the OSL finals and instead say Zero made it instead, I seriously doubt anyone would wanna watch Zero/Yarnc ZvZ finals either. Seriously, ZvZ BO5s are terrible to watch. Now, we're graced with two of them, and I don't even know who to blame for this atrocity. MSL organizers are probably shooting themselves if they aren't already dead over this finals. Instead of what could have been Jaedong/Bisu, we get Calm/Kwanro.
Mirror Mirror on the Wall, who's the fairest of them all? While Kwanro laughs and smiles when he asks the mirror this question, the general viewing public is left to cry and weep. Oh, the possibilities. Iris/Calm woulda been good. Jaedong/Bisu too. But no, we're stuck with Kwanro/Calm.
Fuck me, ZvZ sucks, and I am NOT watching this MSL Finals. Who cares enough to watch ZvZ? Especially a final with Calm and Kwanro. I'll go watch Jaedong win that Golden Mouse of his, but I'll just forget that Avalon ever sponsored a MSL.
