Movie vs Kwanro game 1 @ Circuit Breaker

Kwanro builds an overlord then a pool followed by a gas before a third base. Movie builds an early expansion. Movie sends his first zealot to harass Kwanro's third, and Kwanro's overlord notices that the natural is kept by a single cannon and a dragoon. Thus he opts for his signature zergling aggression and kills the cannon. Movie barely holds thanks to good micro and is able to build more cannons. The crucial +1 upgrade completes a fraction of second before the forge is destroyed. His uses this advantage to counter at 8 o'clock where he kills both sunken and all drones. Kwanro mutalisks are out, but Movie is safe with a sizable fleet of corsairs and an archon. Movies has complete map control and secures a fourth base at 6 o'clock. He attacks Kwanro's third base with a large army of dragoons and superior upgrades. Kwanro has only a handful of hydralisks and sunkens to defend and the base dies as he types out.



Movie vs Kwanro game 2 @ Mist

Kwanro opts for an early pool. Movie chooses a standard forge, nexus, cannon. To keep Movie in the dark a few seconds longer, Kwanro blocks his ramp with a drone, but let it die miserably to the scouting probe.
Movie has the economic advantage. Kwanro makes once again an early gas, and goes for a low eco 3 hatch hydra all-in. He fails several times to catch the second scouting probe with slowlings and lets enter his main.
Movie adds a robotics as soon as he sees the hydra den, as well as 4 more cannons, with one on the high ground.
Kwanro decides to commit anyway due to his low eco. He destroys a few cannons, but Movie holds and soon a reaver is out, obliterating all hopes of busting the natural.
Movie transitions to corsair/reaver while Kwanro adds two more hatcheries to pump drones, without a lair.
The lack of spire and overlord speed make it quite difficult for Kwanro to defend harassment.
Movie drops two dark templars in the main while harassing the third and the nat with a reaver.
He scores a tons of drones and a few hydras. Kwanro attempts a final and desperate attack but Movie is ready to welcome him with storms, and the game ends in a puddle of hydralisks blood.






Bisu vs hero game 1 @ Mist

Ladies and gentlemen, this is what we have all been waiting for tonight! Or maybe should I say this morning as many of our American fans are alive and kicking at 5 AM to witness this historical moment of Brood War! On my left, the Protoss Revolutionist and SSL Royal Roader, Bisu! On my right, the ZvP Master and fastest-hands-of-the-scene, hero! LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!

Bisu spawns at 3 o'clock and hero a 9 o'clock. Bisu fast expands and builds a stargate and hero takes 3 bases and makes a hydra den. Bisu showcases his multitasking skills by luring the zerglings with a probe while sneaking a zealot into hero's main. Bisu instantly responds with a robotics facility and cannons at his natural. Déjà vu, I would say, but rather than going all-in in a typical Kwanro fashion, hero is content to snipe the forge and the gateway. At the same time, he techs to lair and adds two hatcheries.

Only a reaver drop can threaten him at the moment as Bisu has almost no ground army because of the money invested in cannons. Hero is perfectly aware of the situation and dispatches hydras and scourge to defend his mineral lines. Bisu does little damage with the reaver drop in the main, and soon hero has enough hydralisks to defend his base and attack Bisu's newly built third base at 5 o'clock.



Hero is now ahead economically and has complete map control. Bisu finally gets a huge stack of drone with a reaver drop, allowing him to catch up a bit. But hero takes full advantage of the long distance between Bisu's main and third base, dropping a dozen hydras at the third. He kills all cannons and almost all probes, and follows up with a drop in the main. By the time Bisu clears both drops hero has made a control groups of mutas. He uses them to snipe the high templars and the remaining reaver at Bisu's natural, leaving Bisu's dragoons army helpless against the hydralisks swarming the place. Bisu ggs.



Bisu vs hero game 2 @ Fighting Spirit

Bisu starts with a forge fast expand at 7 o'clock and hero with an overpool at 5 o'clock. Hero goes for a very micro oriented 4 hatch lair into 6 hatch hydras. The fast lair allows him to quickly upgrade overlord speed. Hero is ahead economically. He builds a spore at his natural and third to help protect overlords and provide detection in the case of an early DT/corsair attack.

Bisu responds with more gateways and an early robotics facility as a strong army, early observer and shuttle to harass are the best way to prevent a likely lurker/hydra/scourge containment. hero indeed techs to lurkers but instead of using them defensively to turtle on 4 or 5 bases while teching to hive or aggressively to fight for map control, he simply let them sit between his natural and his third. Bisu takes a third and both players macro for a while.

Bisu has big army of dragoons and high templars that is very strong during the mid-game but become weaker against hive tech. hero finally takes a fourth at 3 o'clock. Bisu decides that it is time to attack as defilers and cracklings will be out soon. He sends all his army to the top left corner of the map. The Zerg army is caught out of position, and instead of sending reinforcements through the center of the map to flank Bisu's army, hero hastily sends them straight into Bisu's concave.



Bisu now uses his army advantage to secure a fourth base and more zealots and archons to fight the hive army efficiently. hero is on the back foot and attempts a ling/defiler drop in Bisu's main. Bisu attacks the natural as he knows that many lurkers are in a defensive position at the fourth.



Instead of spreading out his lurkers behind the bridge to minimize storms damage, hero stacks them in front where they can be easily surrounded. This is exactly what happens and Bisu breaks hero's natural as the reinforcement from the fourth are stormed as soon as they exit the nydus canal. hero types out.




Bisu vs hero game 3 @ Match Point

hero chooses yet again to open with an overpool, followed by an extractor before the third hatch. The Revolutionist finally uses what can be called Bisu build, with a fast archive and a dark templar. There is no early aggression. hero upgrades overlord speed and hydralisks. Bisu takes a third at the mineral only and hero a fourth base at 5 o'clock. Bisu takes his own fourth base while hero techs to hive.

At this point, both players have a huge army, defilers defilers and cracklings are not out yet. Bisu uses this advantage to deny hero a fifth base at 6 o'clock. Then he pushes to the high ground on hero's side. The first big battle of this game occurs and ends quite evenly. However during the battle Bisu has sneaked 5 zealots into hero's fourth bases. He kills a few drones and almost snipes the hatchery. A few seconds later, he drops two high templars and two zealots killing no less than ten drones at the natural! He tries it one more time at the fourth but hero blocks the ramp with lurkers eggs! Meanwhile Bisu and hero both try to take a fifth at 6 o'clock. hero is forced to cancel the hatchery.



hero attempts a drop in Bisu's main, but several overlords are intercepted on the way, and Bisu is able to defend the drop with minimal losses. Additionally, hero loses all his overlords. This is only a temporary setback as he destroys Bisu's new base at 6 o'clock with lurkers and defilers. But that's not enough as a split map scenario is not ideal for a Zerg. His economy has also been severely weakened by the zealot raid and the drop. hero knows it and moves his army to the center of the map, forcing Bisu to retreat to his third. The base is in danger but Bisu is able to hold. Meanwhile Bisu has secured a fifth base at 12 o'clock.

hero is in trouble as Bisu has a death ball with a lot of archons supported by two reavers in a shuttle. He tries another small drop in Bisu's main, but the latter is ready with a lot of cannons and storms. A final battle takes place in the middle of the map and hero ggs.



Bisu vs hero game 4 @ Circuit Breaker

This awesome game has been covered in details by -2Pacalypse in the battle report section of this article.

I will nonetheless provide a bit of analysis and give out grades to each player.



Bisu vs hero game 5 @ New Sniper Ridge

We promised you a historic moment. Here you go.
hero spawns at 10 o'clock and opens for the fifth time in a row with an overpool and sends his overlord in the right direction. Bisu spawns a 1 o'clock and builds two gateways, confirming that recently Protoss have not felt comfortable to fast expand on this map.

Bisu sends his first two zealots to hero's natural. Another zealot and two probes are trailing not far behind. Not sure if he is overconfident in his micro, but instead of pulling back for a few seconds and attacking with three zealots and two probes, Bisu moves in and allows his two zealots to get surrounded an take a lot of damage.

He does not deal as much damage as he could have but forcing a lot of zerglings and a sunken after an overpool is enough to give him an edge.

Meanwhile, hero has made a lair and more zerglings. Bisu sneaks a zealot at the natural to look for a possible early second gas, which would indicate a two hatch mutas. Bisu techs to corsairs and expands, while hero has made a third hatch, a hydra den and two pairs of scourges to defend his overlords.



I am not sure I understood what hero's game plan was at this point, but he took a third base at 8 o'clock that was going to be difficult to defend. Bisu moves out and threatens to attack hero's natural but only sends three zealots to hero's third while the rest of the army goes back to his natural to defend a potential counter-attack.

Hero does counter-attack. Bisu not only holds easily but also kills several overlords at hero's undefended natural. Zealot leg upgrade are finally done and Bisu attacks the natural. Corsairs kill overlords while hydralisks are kept busy by the zealots. Hero has two lurkers morphing and Bisu does not have an observer but it's too late, four zealots are already in the main and they take down the spire and a few drones. Corsairs keep wrecking havoc in the air, and I left am wondering how hero is still able to make hydralisks.

Hero is once again trying to get back in the game with a lurker drop at the natural. Meanwhile, more zealots stream in hero's main while more overlords die. The two lurkers in the mineral line kill a fair amount of probes but it is clearly not enough and soon an observer is out.

Hero attempts another lurker drop in the main but it fails. Bisu then pushes with a much larger army and destroys hero's natural, securing the SSL9 Championship!

In the fourth game of SSL9 Grand Finals, Bisu was leading 2-1 and needed only one more win to be crowned champion. Hero on the other hand, was determined to not let that happen, and started the game with a mindset of a winner. The game started on the Circuit Breaker with Bisu spawning at the one o'clock position and hero at the five o'clock. Both players decided that they don't want to risk anything and opened with the relatively safe builds, hero even more so with the overpool, while Bisu went for a fast expand.

Bisu mentioned in an interview after he won his match in semi-finals, that hero prefers the no-muta build and just likes to beat you down with the hydralisks. This was evident from the hero's decision to take his mineral-only third base, as opposed to the natural of another main base which is more usual. Of course, Bisu scouted all of this with his invincible scouting probe which he kept alive for more than five minutes straight. Seeing the no-spire build from hero, Bisu knew that he should have no problem using his corsairs to scout and harass overlords wherever he gets.

Meanwhile, hero was preparing for a big attack with his hydralisk army which he was making out of his five hatcheries. But having his corsairs roaming around Zerg's base uncontested, Bisu was well aware of what was coming for which he prepared accordingly. He built five canons and moved four of his zealots away from his base so he could flank the hydralisks, while waiting for speed upgrade to finish.



Bisu managed to defend quite convincingly, but more hydralisks were pouring in. The crucial part of that fight as seen in above animation is that Bisu managed to kill all of the hero's overlords. Not just that, but he also managed to snipe additional overlords that were on their way from hero's base to provide vision to his army. While all of that was going on, Bisu made a single dark templar and hero was forced to retreat. Bisu then tried to use his dark templar to harass hero's third base, but hero's reaction time was just unreal, even without any detection at that base.



Bisu then moved out of his base with a handful of zealots, attempting to inflict any kind of damage to hero. However, in a somewhat of a poor decision making and hero's superb defense abilities, Bisu attacked with a group of zealots into the hero's natural and lost all of them. A couple of sneaky dt's managed to get few drone kills, but this was far from enough to justify all of his losses. Bisu then made another group of zealots and started roaming around the map with them, trying to delay any possible retribution of hero. However, hero has already made lurkers by now and has managed to deny Bisu's attempt at taking the third base.



After it has finally seemed that game will settle down a bit, hero pulls out a brilliant move of dropping two lurkers into the Bisu's mineral line, both at the main base and at the natural. Aftermath? See for yourself.





Besides killing most of the Bisu's probes, hero has decided to go for a killing blow and attacked Bisu's natural with his hydra army. However, Bisu has managed to defend the hydra attack with some well placed storms, while also clearing the pesky lurkers with his freshly built observer.



Seeing his economy in total shambles, the only logical course of action for Bisu was to gather what remained of his units and go for an all-in attack. It's hard to describe in words what has happened from this point on, as it was a ten minutes of constant action that forced you to sit on the edge of your seat, unknowing who will come out on top until the very end. Here are a couple of images and animations to help you visualize the mayhem that was going on.





After killing a hatchery and dancing around at hero's third base for a while, Bisu decided it was time to regroup and decide carefully what his next move is supposed to be. After pulling all of his units back to defend against a fake lurker drop, Bisu has gathered enough units to pose a serious threat to hero's base. After pondering where he should attack first, Bisu went to hero's third base again and took it upon siege. With his meticulous control and cautious micro, he managed to kill most of the lurkers defending that base.



But upon seeing way too many sunkens there, Bisu instead looped around and went for hero's natural base which had exactly zero sunkens defending it.





Even though Bisu managed to kill hero's natural, hero just barely managed to make enough units and clean up the remainder of Bisu's army. It's interesting to point out that Bisu has tried to take his third base prior to attacking, but it was stopped by hero's group of hydras. On the other hand, hero did manage to build his own fourth base at six o'clock before the attack, which Bisu hasn't scouted yet.



Not being able to get his third expansion up, Bisu has already mined out his main and natural. Upon losing all of his units at hero's natural, Bisu sent out an observer towards six o'clock base and when he saw that hero is already mining there, he gg-ed out. A very close game, that was impossible to predict until the very end.

We were lucky enough to have two of our own TL staff members, CaucasianAsian and lilsusie, present at the grand event and we just couldn't miss this opportunity to have a quick sit down and get some of their thoughts on the finals.

You can follow @lilsusie on twitter for more e-sport adventures.