Olympus vs Sharp and Mind vs MajoR
The first set featured two players formerly from Sonic's team BBARAS. They opted to secure three expansions before Olympus played aggressive to cover his fourth expansion. Olympus ended up squandering all of his dragoons for a few tank kills which allowed Sharp to wreak havoc with vultures. Continuing to take expansions, Olympus was not able to stop Sharp's main army from destroying his three expansions, in turn handing Sharp the game. Mind versus MajoR saw Mind trying to overtake MajoR's economic lead off of 14cc with aggressive tank placement. MajoR teched to wraiths and abused Mind with surgical precision allowing him to win the game despite inferior wraith counts for almost the entire game.

Winners' Match: Sharp vs MajoR and Losers' Match: Mind vs Olympus
In the Winners' match, Sharp used dropship tactics to secure an extra expansion between their bases at the far side of map. The way the tank lines where laid out allowed Sharp to crush MajoR's tank army which started at the top and went downwards. It eventually became a fight for the bottom left expansions where Sharp's tank pushes squeezed the life out of MajoR. In the losers' game, Olympus' reaver tactics severely delayed Mind's third expansion. Mind committed to three base play but was unable to kill Olympus. The game then entered a low economy phase with both players playing with one mining base. At one point, Olympus seemed one step away from eliminating Mind but Mind outlasted Olympus.

Final Match: Mind vs MajoR
The rematch opened with Mind forcing MajoR to take his mineral only to match Mind's gas expansion. MajoR brought wraiths into play to try and establish air dominance but the advantage was neutralized by valkyries. Owing to a larger tank count and air superiority, Mind was able to catch MajoR out of position twice, spelling the end to a potential upset.

You mix the most random Protoss, a watermelon of a Zerg who is way past his prime, a super tall Terran that uses wacky builds and a Zerg player that no one knows about and what do you get? The Circus that was group F. Let’s break down the hilarity of this group.

July > Jeco
Jeco opened up with an overgas at the 11 o’clock while July opened up with a more traditional overpool. Jeco opted to go for Lair first, positioning himself to be more defensive. July went for a very quick expand off the overpool and also goes for Lair first. This is where the game got a bit weird. Jeco decided to build a hatchery in base and followed it up with a creep colony to catch up on July’s larva advantage before building another creep colony. July built an evolution chamber at his natural and seemed content to wait out for his mutas. Jeco then decided that he should probably build a hatchery at his natural instead.



He then followed up with an attack with his zerglings into July’s well fortified natural, lost it badly and was forced to retreat to delay for his mutas. July had too many zerglings at this point and just overran Jeco’s natural. Jeco lost all of his mutas to July’s scourges and was forced to tap out after seeing July already having a healthy stack of mutas himself.

Jaehoon > Shinee.
Second game of the day had Jaehoon spawning in cross spawns against Shinee. Shinee went for the 14cc down at the 7 o’clock location while Jaehoon opened with a simple gateway expand. Jaehoon scouted Shinee early enough to see the 14cc build going down and made the smart decision to pump zealots out to pressure the greedy build. Intense micro battles started to escalate between the two players but Shinee lost crucial marines early on and was unable to stabilize due to the onslaught of zealots, having lost too many SCVs. Eventually, Shinee managed to deflect the attack, but Jaehoon already had an expansion down and added more gateways alongside reavers coming in. Jaehoon mustered up a Dragoon force to burn down the bunker while Shinee went for a risky position with his first tank. Jaehoon seized this moment and sniped the first tank, spiraling Shinee down even further into the hole of being behind. Jaehoon followed this up with reaver harassment and Shinee tapped out, having no forces to deal with it.

Jaehoon > July
Jaehoon spawned in the 7 o’clock position on fighting spirit while July spawned in the 5 o’clock. The game looked pretty normal until a certain gateway was spawned at the natural instead of the normal, boring forge.


July scouted this in due time and prepared for the imminent attack on his natural, while taking his third at the 3 o’clock. A zealot and a probe charged in, but fantastic snipes by July to get the probe right off the bat, forced Jaehoon to hide his zealot in the mineral line at the natural. July immediately threw down a hydra den. The question now was whether or not Jaehoon scouts this in time. Jaehoon’s second scouting probe got killed mid map which kept him in the darkness. However, this was where everyone got confused. Instead of opting for mass hydras for a normal hydra bust, July stacked up on zerglings instead.


Jaehoon’s second force of zealots evenly traded with zerglings and now Jaehoon knew the bust was coming. Moments after, the stream of zerglings and two hydras charged into the natural and Jaehoon pulled all his probes to defend. Problem was that July cannot get any of his zerglings past the sim city which had key zealots blocking the chokes. July tapped out shortly after, deciding in his infinite wisdom that he cannot play that far behind.

Jeco < Shinee
The poor man’s Fantasy vs Calm, Jeco vs Shinee kicked off on Fighting Spirit. Shinee spawned in the 11 o’clock position and went right away for a wall-off at his ramp, while Jeco went for an overpool into 2 hatchery build.


Shinee nabbed himself a quick refinery off the one base and immediately got to work teching up to his starport. Quick lair followed for Jeco while Shinee added 3 supply depots to his wall at the ramp. New meta game incoming? Spire was started for Jeco while Shinee used his first vulture to try to get into Jeco’s main which was then deflected by zerglings and the sunken colony at the natural. Shinee added a control tower to his starport after getting his first wraith out which went overlord hunting. Valkyries were in production for Shinee while Jeco used his mutalisks to try and chase away the vulture and the wraith loitering about. Jeco added a macro hatchery to his main and Shinee started adding barracks and a cc. This is going to be important folks, pay attention! While skirmishes took place all over the map, Jeco took a third at his 6 o’clock and transitioned to a hydra lurker army, confusing the viewers while Shinee macroed out a Valkonic army. Shinee pushed with his army backed by 3 tanks and melted Jeco’s hydra lurker army, prompting him to GG out. Remember kids, Bio > Hydras!

July > Shinee
With the final match being on Match Point, Shinee spawned at the 1 o’clock while July occupied the 7 o’clock. Shinee went for a wall-off at his main choke point, indicating that he is going for the same build as he did before. July expanded normally while Shinee tried to go for a sneaky proxy factory outside July’s base. Too bad it was scouted almost immediately and that factory did not do much at all. Shinee still tried for the factory float but this was easily taken care of by July’s zerglings. A wraith came out for Shinee but July was already on top of that with hydras. July used his many zerglings to take down the barracks at Shinee’s choke and that was all she wrote. Shinee was unable to defend against the swarm of zerglings and hydras and tapped out, giving July a ticket to the Ro16.