EPTI was fucking hyped as hell for this. The main reason being that, for the first time since the GSL open seasons (which are the last GSL's I've watched as I'm not installing GOM's shitty player, allow restreams or stream in a browser for fuck's sake), there's a huge feeling of unknown. Who is actually shit hot at SC2? Who's terrible? Are Stars going to roflpwn because Soulkey's supposed to be elite? Has the level of Brood War regressed a ton? It's a level of unknown not just because you can't tell what the results will be, more that you can't even get an indication. I've not been able to watch much of the back end of last season or the ODT/OSL with work (who'd have thunk it) so there's added "unsure what's going on" factors.
So let's look at the games:
Fantasy > Jaehoon - didn't have much hope for this one. Jaehoon looked pretty pathetic, but he's always going to be a big dog to Fantasy. Was sad how it wasn't even close though.
soo > Sea - sad for this one. <3 Sea. Got to give props to soo though, his drone micro was baller and his muta control was also very nice. Probably one of the better performances of the night, although I always wonder what'd have happened if Sea had just thrown down a couple more turrets in his main.
Best > Sang - what's this, a random player that we've not heard of? He must be practicing SC2 HARD. That said, it's PvP so who knows. Low expectations again, but Best looked OK. Lots of little things that could be worked on, but his control was nice and build orders were favourable enough.
Sun > Jaedong - this was horrible. JD just seemed to lack SC2 gamesense, and Sun didn't seem much better, but at least he didn't suicide shitloads of roaches for no real reason
Horang2 > Stats - knew this one would be good, ridic hyped myself as it's my two favourite players against each other, and horangee's PvP is a joy to watch. Thought Stats had a bit of a lead but tigertoss's control and macro was too good.
Leta < Wooki - pretty meh game, Leta goes for early aggression, Wooki holds, Leta doesn't know when to leave the game.
Hydra < Crazy-Hydra - ZvZ so low expectations but it wasn't too bad. Threatened hive briefly, but CH played it almost too safe after getting an early lead despite a build order disadvantage. Oh well.
BByong < Lizzy - now this guy looks like he can play SC2. Ridic control, knows the game, smacked BByong up something silly. Could be a HUGE weapon for KT throughout the season if they can clean up around him when he has to play BW. BByong didn't look truly awful at least, but outclassed here.
hero[join] > Barracks - trainwreck, this'd have been awful whatever they played, but it was comically bad.
Effort > Flash - now THIS is what we were waiting for. Kind of like Jaedong, feel that Flash is just lacking in game sense and decision making, just allowed Effort to macro up like a boss and wear him down with endless streams of units. Effort looking genuinely good, Flash looking like he'd be OK against most, but not here.
Effort < Lizzy - an ace match'll kind of tell us who they think is actually best at SC2 right now, who plays before really gives us no clue. Much as Effort looked good against Flash, he was made to look ordinary here. Lizzy seems legit, hit at a great timing before Effort reached tier 3.
great < Juni - bad, bad ZvZ, I don't know what the hell great was thinking here
Kal < TurN - Kal kind of just got steamrollered here. Got hit by a large 2-base push, held on for a while and did some decent reaver harass but could never really break it out. Turn's looking decent.
M18M > RorO - OMG WATCH THIS GAME THIS IS WHY I WATCH STARCRAFT, WHO CARES IF IT'LL NEVER WORK AT REAL HIGH LEVELS, IT'S ENTERTAINMENT
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/kkysG.png)
Iris < Jangbi - no quick psi storms? really? Surprised to see Iris turn out really, more surprised that this seemed fairly one-sided. When Jangbi did get storms they were very pretty though, some things never change.
BraQ < Reality - so someone can actually play against Protoss. Reality looked solid, good signs for Khan here. FBH, I don't know.
Clam < Light - LOL vultures
mini > Zero - hilarious game, what the hell was Zero doing to let mini win this. Should be watched just because it's unorthodox PvZ
Last < free - FUCK YEAH FREE, thought he might use sc2 as a way to recover form, but this was a cute proxy elevator play into reavers that caught Last off guard.
Bogus < sHy - shy looked ok. Don't know what Bogus was doing, everything seemed late/off. Another case of decent micro but no real clue in decision making
Trap > Soulkey - was pumped for this following the "omg soulkey sc2 bonjwa" hype, fun game, but I wouldn't say it was that high quality
Classic < Flying - HOORAY STARS WIN. They looked OK here. 11 hours in I kind of forget what was going on at this stage.
Good points? This was FUN. It wasn't high level games on either side but if you came into it thinking that you're going to see code-S level play you're doing it wrong. Think of it as if you're watching triathlon, they're not going to beat Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps but you DON'T EXPECT THEM TO. There was less BW/SC2 to-fro bashing than I expected, although there's obviously a couple of retards here and there that seemed to get the banhammer.
Bad points? Ton of downtime, even more so than BW used to be (or at least that's how it seemed). Level of whining about irrelevant things (stream quality, rumours of who'd cast an unneeded and unwanted English commentary, game quality) was ridiculous. Format denied us Bisu/Stork. Lack of ace matches denied us knowing who is actually really good at SC2.
It was an epic day that I'd watch again. It's going to be an exciting season, as everyone evolves, learns more about the game, we see who's transitioning the best, how the teams handle playing two games at once... Can't wait for the next games, it's just a shame that with work I can't really watch, and even without that they've shifted timings to a real EU-unfriendly slot
