Game 1 (Circuit Breaker):
Top horizontal

Shuttle opened with a surprise DT rush—an expected move in the first game of a series—but Sharp held it splendidly with a depot walloff at his natural ramp. After that, the game settled down with a few small attempts at vulture and reaver harass. After securing a fourth base in the bottom left, Shuttle began to take control of the map center with a gigantic gateway army, but Sharp was setting up a counterattack of his own—albeit, a slow one—through the low ground base into the mineral-only base outside of Shuttle’s main.

Shuttle once again found himself in the same situation as his semifinal game against Last. Luckily for him, instead of pushing onward to pressure Shuttle’s main, Sharp decided instead of a huge cross map push. But Shuttle was ready. A huge, maxed out Protoss army engulfed Sharp’s mech ball, and several key pockets of tanks were put into stasis. With this victory, Shuttle pulled way ahead in the economy war.


Sharp went for a Hail Mary push across the map after Shuttle suicided two or three small armies to trade for economy. It looked for a moment as if Shuttle had made a huge mistake, but another gigantic surround and excellent Arbiter micro allowed him to shut down the mech push and take the first game of the series.


Game 2 (Overwatch):
Left vertical

Game 2 started out unorthodox as well. Shuttle opted for an interesting economic proxy gate to deal some early damage to Sharp’s economy. Sharp held it with some overall good micro, but unfortunately lost a little too much with small, aggressive pushes and was unable to get the map control he needed with vultures.


Meanwhile, Shuttle’s economy and tech were booming. A surprise DT drop caught Sharp a bit unaware, but no real economic damage was sustained. Once Shuttle reached arbiter tech, he was able to break Sharp’s third base over and over (pic). Despite his best efforts to defend, Sharp found himself falling further and further behind in the economic war as Shuttle kept crashing army after army into his defenses. Finally, his morale broke, and he typed the dreaded “gg”.


Game 3 (Fighting Spirit):
Left Vertical

You could tell that Sharp had no confidence in the last game. He turtled overly safe on two bases and ceded all map control to Shuttle again. Though there were a few minor victories like picking off Shuttle’s reavers, he just couldn’t seem to gain his footing.

Nearly maxed on five bases, Shuttle just walked into Sharp’s natural, cleaned up all the tanks, and waltzed into the production line. Sharp’s spirit had been defeated. Waves of Protoss units streamed into Sharp’s base, and finally he had to tap out, giving Shuttle the victory in perhaps the most one-sided Brood War final ever.

I have always been a huge fan of Starcraft: Brood War and was really excited when I had the chance to finally see some live games during the last Sonic Starleague, it was a dream come true and I never expected it to come to fruition after what the scene had become.

Now, with all the ex-pros returning to BW and streaming their games, I was expecting something even bigger for the next Starleague, and sure enough, being able to see Flash, Effort, Best and some of the other big names of BW who just came back game, I realized how lucky I was to have been able to stay in Korea and wait for this to happen, it was finally happening for real.

I live here in Korea and am not afraid to share to the people around me that I was first interested in Korea because of BW (and they call me a nerd, of course), and am now married to a Korean woman and living here all because of my passion for BW. Of course, I’ll probably return to Canada one day but being able to be here and enjoy the resurgence of BW is absolutely amazing. I feel extremely lucky to have been able to see it before my eyes as I went to the studio to see the games live almost every week (And meet another TL BW fan, Alurr).

Before the ASL finals, I knew it was going to be at a bigger venue and there was going to be a bigger audience than what we had in the studio with the few hardcore fans. Unfortunately, when I knew it was going to be at 14:30, I was a bit wary because almost all Koreans work on Saturday and I knew it would probably make the crowd smaller than what I was expecting at first. Nevertheless, the passion and the energy was still there at the outdoor auditorium in the Children Grand’s Park of Seoul, despite the sun which was nothing but a nuisance in our ability to see the games in their full glory. The whole quality of the place with the presentation and everything was just top-notch.



I felt emotional after the hype video of Sharp and Shuttle at the beginning. I realized I was here in a foreign country, seeing the game of my childhood and Shuttle who, by the way, is the first player I ever saw playing on VODS when I started watching BW for the first time back in 2007 or 2008 with Tasteless casting the GOMTV Starleague. That’s crazy, everything is here, at the same time, around me. Needless to say, I was pumped and ready for some Starcraft. I was sitting alone because my wife had to work and could not join me even though she wanted to watch the games too. The weather was hot but seeing the passion of the people around me as we got excited by Shuttle’s epic maneuvers with his arbiters, it just made me forget about it and I was captivated by the games on screen instead.

On a side note, I think most people attending the event were over 20 years old but I did see a few fathers bringing their kids in, so maybe those kids will end up being interested in BW in the future? I sure hope so!

Everything considered, it was an unforgettable experience and I am just looking forward to the next Starleague in December. You guys are going to see me on camera again.