The former SSL champion, sSak opened with 5 barracks at eleven o'clock while Afreeca showman, Larva started with 3 hatchery muta at one o'clock. M&M kept the mutas from wreaking havoc and then made their way to Larva's morphing third at five o'clock. Thanks to Larva's egg block blunder, sSak was able to simply walk inside and kill the morphing lurkers and hatchery. Larva however, was able to set up another third at seven o'clock. sSak secured a fourth base at five o'clock, splitting the map in a weird way. He quickly transitioned to mech and ran into the problem of having to protect his fourth across the map with Zerg forces flanking him at both sides. Larva took full advantage of the situation and smashed every iteration of sSak's mech army into the ground in the middle of the map. Coupled with his sliding form, sSak was unable to overcome ultraling constantly streaming from the flanks.

Two former Protoss powerhouses clashed in this set. Movie opened with 3 gateway observer against Shuttle's 2 gateway observer. He gained the upper hand early with some slick dragoon control causing Shuttle to play quite passively throughout the rest of the game. Movie took 2 bases much earlier than Shuttle and teched to storms quicker. Shuttle poked at Movie's bridge then retreated to his own bridge where the last battle took place. Movie's storms came in handy as he pounded Shuttle's reavers with them. After coming out so far ahead, Shuttle had to concede defeat only a few seconds after the battle concluded.

Meeting Larva in the Winners' Set, Movie decided to deviate from the standard and he went 2 gateway zealot. He was able to add a natural expansion earlier and teched to reavers while severely delaying Larva's third base. Movie was poised to abuse his air control with drop plays but, Larva's hydra-scourge response was very effective at stopping him. By keeping Larva busy defending, Movie was able to deny Larva's fourth and secure his own third base to even up the base count. Larva went hydra-muta and caught Movie out of position but, was unable to take out his third base. With a large army, Movie felt that he can take out Larva's third and overran it, however, Larva had other plans. He decided to sack his third in favor of dealing a fatal blow to Movie by taking out his third and natural. Larva left Movie with no economy and then proceeded to surround and kill Movie's last army. With this, Larva advanced triumphantly into the next round.

sSak opened with a siege expand while Shuttle went for a 1 gateway fast expansion into DT drop. There was not much to say about this game. Shuttle's DT drops were quickly foiled by a combination of tanks, three goliaths and scans. Having dealt zero damage with his DTs, Shuttle fell behind and sSak seized the opportunity to set up shop at Shuttle's front door. Of course, Shuttle tried to break out but, everything melted under mech fire opening the way to his base. GG.

Movie began the game with a nexus first into two quick gateways at the lower spawn while sSak went for 1 factory expansion with a very early armory. The game started really quietly for both players with a few pokes made by sSak's pesky vultures. Movie was able to secure his mineral only expansion much earlier than sSak's. When sSak secured his mineral only, he mined it heavily to guard against an impending attack from Movie who was now armed with a HT-packed shuttle. Despite having the numbers and storms, the attack hit a brick wall and melted with minor casualties on the Terran side. sSak then exploited the timing to subdue Movie's new expansion at the bottom, at the cost of a significant number of tanks. Still, sSak managed to force Movie back onto his plateau to guard his top left expansions. However, sSak's real intention was to siege up beside Movie's natural. The ensuing battle almost ended in a trade but, sSak's macro was too good and with reinforcements, he saved his position. sSak took the game and advanced to the Round of 16!

The first game of the night was a cross-spawn game on Circuit Breaker. Hiya, at five o'clock, opened with a standard barracks expo while his opponent ZeLoT opened with his standard 2 hatchery muta. For those who are unaware, he opens every ZvT with this build. He also placed his third hatchery at twelve o'clock and used his mutas and lings to keep Hiya from reaching it. Eventually, the M&M count enabled Hiya to try and contest the 12 o'clock expansion but was surprisingly wiped out by the mutas. It was then revealed that ZeLoT was aiming for fast greater spire tech. ZeLoT quickly morphed guardians and devourers near Hiya's natural and attacked Hiya. Previously, Hiya saw what went on in the Zerg main and supplemented his thin and meager marine force with cloaked wraiths. The air battle was furious with quick reversals; ZeLoT lost his lead overlords and Hiya lost all but one wraith. The key for Hiya was his mobility as ZeLoT's overlord speed upgrade was nowhere to be found. Hiya attacked ZeLoT's undefended natural and forced the game to end.

We got another cross-spawn game on Circuit Breaker. EffOrt started at seven o'clock and went overpool. Pure went with standard FFE into corsair/DT at one o'clock. Pure was pesky using several zealot runs into the Zerg's third expansion and when DTs came out, he pestered him with them too. These runs did no real damage. EffOrt just found them cute and shrugged them off as he bided his time. Pure however decided to crash in to try and disturb EffOrt, and did so this time with a zealot archon attack on his natural. EffOrt halted it with no problem while he removed Pure's natural nexus off the map. After yet another ineffective attack from Pure, EffOrt just streamed hydra-lurk and poured it on whatever Pure had to offer, beating him all the way back to his FFE wall and into the losers' match.

Expectedly, EffOrt and Hiya met in the winners' match. EffOrt opened with the standard 3 hatchery muta build at five o'clock, while Hiya opened with the standard barracks expo at seven. Hiya wasn't going for a standard midgame though. After the third barracks, he placed a factory for a strong pre-defiler attack that has been strong against the likes of hero. EffOrt's mutas kept Hiya in his base but he made a critical mistake; he did not try to venture into his main until the attack was on its way. Hiya appeared in front of his natural with a scary force and rapidly chewed through his front sunkens. Despite that, with only a few units at hand, EffOrt (with some help from Hiya overextending) somehow held and squashed Hiya's timing attack. With only a few mutas lost, EffOrt thought he had the advantage and went back to attack Hiya's main. However, it turned out that Hiya had amassed another army for a second strike. EffOrt was totally out of position and unprepared thus he allowed Hiya to waltz into the next round.

There is not much to say about this one. Pure went corsair/DT once again while ZeLoT went for 3 hatch hydra all-in. Pure did not have enough cannons. GG. If this was Bisu, TL would have gone nuts.

Ah. The rematch. Weeks ago, folks were amused when the Kongdoo bracket guy reported that ZeLoT beat EffOrt 2-1 during the qualifiers in Seoul. The ace match was played on this same map. The players also started in the same spots when they played that fateful game. Both players started with identical 12 hatchery builds. EffOrt positioned his lings above his ramp to deny oncoming attackers but ZeLoT went for a pincer by attacking from the ramp and the mineral only. EffOrt reacted quickly and was able to retreat to his natural. EffOrt's mutas helped him repel the ling attack then moved on towards ZeLoT's natural to square off against his mutas. ZeLoT proceeded to snipe a single scourge with five of his (LOL), robbing him of potential firepower. EffOrt simply engaged and won handily.

A bunch of amateurs, and one destructive force that is Mind. Group E looks like it will have the commander of the ship sitting back, watching his dogs fight for the scraps.

Mind has been playing pretty damn good this year… but not great. He still has some areas to improve on if he is going to show everyone why he is a previous MSL winner. He made a deep run in SSL11, playing an incredible Bo5 vs Bisu in the semifinals where he ultimately lost in the 5th set *cough* bullshit *cough*. Otherwise, 2015 has been a relatively decent year for Mind. He won early with the HoSic BJ, taking the finals 4-1 over hero. He will have some hiccups where he randomly will not make it out of group stages, otherwise, he is still the veteran that everyone needs to respect. While his TvT win-rate is a mere 43%, most of those games have been played against some of the best TvT players like Sea, Last, and sSak. With 2 amateur Terrans and the up and coming Olympus, Mind should have no troubles moving out of this group.

Olympus has been my hyped up rookie for this year after he miraculously defeated Sea at Challenge Day in the SSL11. But since then, he has not been performing that well in tournaments. Some might say it is beginners luck. I’ll say he is having stage frights and nervousness. I think if Olympus can get past the fact that he is in fact a pro-gamer and can lose his nervousness, he will be a damn good protoss in the scene.

Sharp is like the worse Terran version of Shuttle, consistently… bad, but with times of random competency. He somehow made it to the Round of 16 in the KDS 2 Starleague, beating Mini and Tyson, but then got completely stomped when put up against the professionals. It will be a hard battle between him and Olympus in the final game to see who moves out of this group.

Who the hell is Major? The guy is going to get proxy 2 gated in his own base by Olympus or 4 raxed by Mind and Sharp. No but seriously… who is Major? The guy has literally 7 games on hand. Anyways, this guy has no chance to make it out.

Ultimately, this group comes down to the Olympus vs Sharp match. My heart says Olympus but my Mind (hehe) says Sharp.

Mind and Sharp to advance. But please prove me wrong Olympus.

Group F features two players who are legends by their own right, July and Jaehoon. It also features the Incredible Hulk Shinee and Jeco (aka Sim Daesung), an amateur who has qualified for his first tournament.

July is a Golden Mouse winner, the God of war and the guy who perfected muta micro as we know it. That being said, July is also someone who is not all that high up on the fish ladder and mostly plays for fun these days. While qualifying into the tournament is in itself a surprise, it would be an even bigger surprise if he managed to get past this group. One thing is certain, July's fans will be fun to watch in the audience

Jaehoon enters this tournament with hopes of making it further than ever before and its more than likely that he will. His PvT is good enough to go toe to toe with the best terrans around and win. His PvZ has been getting better on stream for a while now and should be pretty confident against the opposing zergs of this group. If he can overcome his shortcomings in PvZ, he might be able to go far in the tournament but, as for this group, he should be an easy lock for advancing in first place.

Shinee has been pretty quiet since his quick exit from SSL10 which was last Christmas making this his first tournament in 2015. TvZ has always been his best matchup and looking at his pool of opponents, it may not be hard for him to make it through this group, scraping by in second place.

Jeco remains a huge question mark. Nobody has heard of him prior to qualifying for this starleague. All I can say is that we should be excited to see a new face in any tournament and I do hope that he surprises us with some good play. However, without any knowledge about him, I can not predict what we should expect from him.

Jaehoon and Shinee to advance