Several years ago, the curtain came down on the professional BW scene with the last OSL. Many held out hoping that the BW scene can be revived and that we can be once again blessed with high level games played by our favourite players. Fast forward several years and the scene has been slowly rebuilding itself. We've had many players also return to our game and have witnessed first-hand their attempts at climbing the fish ladder among other feats. Will the scene ever reach the same peak? Only time will tell, however, we were recently treated to something that felt inconceivable only a while back: TaekBangLeeSsang!

If you don't know about TaekBangLeeSsang at this point, feel free to brush up by reading many of the articles written about these players and their famous rivalry or just check out our BW liquipedia for a quick lesson. When the legends match commenced this past Saturday, old rivalries were ignited as each player fought for their rightful place at the top!

Though we were only treated to several matches, this is just the start! All of these players have decided to participate in the qualifiers for the upcoming ASL. Depending on the final outcome, this could be one of the most hyped BW tournament to date! For now, sit back, relax and read on for a recap of all the games played this past Saturday by SC2John and FlaShFTW.



Python (Top/Left):
The first map of the tournament was on an old classic, Python. However, with the current standard, and having close-ground spawns, this was going to be an interesting game. Most notably the naturals on Python are much larger, and thus harder to wall, compared to the modern-era maps. We'll see this play out later in the game. Stork, obviously out of practice, defaulted to the old PvZ standard of Corsair/DT. The lack of early game pressure allowed Jaedong to comfortably take a third base and climb up the tech tree as his economy exploded.

A few clever ling maneuvers resulted in Jaedong picking off a stray zealot and Stork’s first DT while a single pair of scourge reigned the skies and kept Stork’s corsairs pinned back. Without any sort of pressure on the map, Stork was running out of time. Suddenly, 18 hydras came knocking on his front door. Without any defenses, the natural fell swiftly and “gg” was called.


Fighting Spirit (Left Vertical):
Both players opened with safe, standard expands. FlaSh made a small adjustment and built a few extra marines for an early push, but Bisu’s dragoon count was already high enough to deflect the push with ease. Taking control of the map and expanding to the third, Bisu made a sprint toward arbiter tech, but FlaSh knew something was up.

Without warning, FlaSh began to mobilize long before he had a critical mass of siege tanks. Just before arbiters were out, Flash attacked into Bisu’s natural with a decent-sized mech army. With only a handful of dragoons and few gateways, it looked like a timing attack victory for Flash but Bisu kept his cool. A few good zealot bombs and mine drags cut the mech army in half and damaged most of the tanks. Flash decided to try a cute runby with vultures into the third base, but Bisu deflected it and cleaned up the remaining push with reinforcements.


Suddenly the tables were turned, and a great recall into Flash’s main base all but sealed the victory. A crippled Flash could only sit and watch as Bisu’s gigantic army fueled by four bases swarmed into his natural and delivered the death blow. Of note, FlaSh didn't manage to take out a nexus and only took out a handful of probes. He, himself, cut SCVs to fuel this semi all-in attack and could not continue producing from his factories. Having lost most of his tank force, he had little defense for the counter.


Destination (Standard):
Flash played this showmatch with a bit of an unorthodox twist. Instead of the patient macro machine, we saw much more FanTaSy-esque drop play from Flash. Some early game vulture/tank drops kept Stork pinned back but were unable to deal any significant damage to the Protoss economy. Unable to find a hole in Stork’s defenses, Flash settled back on his third base and began to macro up an army. Notably, both FlaSh and Stork opted for the mineral-only expansions, deeming it too dangerous to take the further gas bases.

Stork sent his first arbiter to the Terran main base while distracting Flash with a small group of zealots, but Flash was too quick. In a disastrous turn of events, Stork recalled his entire army into Flash’s main base where tanks were already set up to absorb the blow. This proved to be the turning point as Flash retaliated with a slow push into the choke by Stork’s fourth base and decimated the remnants of his army. Stork attempted a few counterattacks to push the Terran back, but with a mech army knocking on the door of his expansion, he found himself trapped in his base and unable to sustain against Flash’s methodical siege.



Game 1- Circuit Breaker (Cross Positions):
Bisu decided to go with the standard early game harass with a handful of zealots and a probe, but some excellent ling micro prevented Jaedong from taking any damage. In fact, Jaedong managed to stabilize well enough to deflect Bisu’s speedlot/corsair timing attack, but a clever corsair “runby” allowed Bisu to pick off several unprotected overlords and thwart Jaedong’s counterattack with a single DT.

Jaedong switched into mutas as the swarm swung into high gear. Through some sort of voodoo, Bisu snuck a large contingent of zealots and high templar past the mutalisks and into Jaedong’s third base. Unfortunately for him, Jaedong was just a hair too quick and saved his hatchery with only critical health remaining.


The Tyrant’s revenge was swift and deadly. Zerg units poured into Bisu’s third, wave after wave, until finally overrunning Bisu’s army and laying waste to his bases.

Game 2- Destination (Standard):
The game started off like a standard PvZ. Jaedong dealt with an annoying zealot harassing his drones in his natural. Bisu dealt with a few pesky jaedong lings in his main base that seemed like they would give him an early win. Both players had, more or less, full information on each other and were going toe to toe into the mid game otherwise.

When Jaedong moved across the map with his somewhat predictable hydra/ling attack, Bisu again swooped in behind the units and picked off nearly half a dozen overlords. But it didn’t stop there. Bisu’s corsairs ripped through another half dozen overlords while DTs streamed across the map and danced around Jaedong’s forces. After being picked apart by Bisu’s trademark composition, Jaedong was forced to tap out without much of a fight.

Game 3- Eye of the Storm(Cross Positions):
Like the previous games, the early game was defined largely by small micro skirmishes between lings and zealots. With some outstanding scourge micro, Jaedong drove back the initial corsairs with ease and began to transition into mutalisks but he wasn’t prepared for Bisu’s followup +1 zealot rush.


Eight zealots walked into Jaedong’s third before the sunkens were complete. Completely unprepared for this aggression, Jaedong had to sacrifice several drones in defense before amassing enough lings to take on the zealots. However, the +1 attack upgrade proved to be far too strong as Bisu’s zealots shred the lings in a matter of seconds. Even with a decent amount of mutalisks out, losing the third base was too big of a blow to Jaedong’s economy. Bisu took the stage with a pleased look, but it was clear that this was only the beginning of a new age rivalry between the greats!


Writers: SC2John, FlaShFTW, BigFan
Graphics: v1
Editors: BigFan, c3rberUs
Photo Credits: DailyEsports