BW competition doesn't seem to run out of surprises. Team FlaSh is an analogue of the KTF MagicNs of old; hogging all the hottest players into one team. However, with a weak 2v2 showing, their path wasn't all that smooth. Team Bisu on the other hand was just a solid candidate and I'm sure no one expected Tyson to be the one carrying the two former post-KeSPA champions, but they are now here in contention for the Finals spot.


It's a fun night when two of your favorite players not named Stork, Movie or Mini or Free or Horang2... play each other. The downside is that you know one of them will lose. Bracing for that, we take a look at this PvP. To start off, this PvP was a tale of two halves. In the first half, Rain played fantastically. Both players traded storm drop runs but it was Rain who had a better score. But his time in the driver seat made an abrupt stop when he assaulted Bisu's third. In that battle and the one that followed it, well-placed storms bounced back Rain pretty hard. It opened up the second half that consisted of Rain patrolling his troops atop his plateau while Bisu ran free, denying and destroying expos. Frankly, it was weird but the destruction of that much economy sealed his fate when Bisu finally marched up the hill.


This game was a bit of a shocker depending on how you viewed the matchup. It was FlaSh versus somebody but that somebody was Tyson, a known FlaSh-killer back in the day. The start wasn't anything out of the ordinary with a trade-tanks-for-dragoons push and protoss absorbing the blow. Skipping to early lategame, the action really began by Tyson's effective hallucination-recall-into-recall. After the cleanup, it was a contest for the Terran fifth expo. Tyson did a good job of delaying while adding base after base but even with all that money, it seemed like FlaSh always had more in the bank. It was basically a stream of engagements, one after the other. One thing I want to highlight was one of the longest line engagements in offline StarCraft for a long while. Eventually, Tyson was able to outmuscle FlaSh's defences at his fifth and forced a GG.


It was a do or die for Team FlaSh and everything was now staked at their weakest point; 2v2. Good thing the Brood War gods sent help by giving them the unnaturally strong Z-Z combination. That combination hadn't lost a game yet so go figure. To team FlaSh's credit though, FlaSh may have actually played better as zerg than his main race. And as for the game itself, it was kind of mundane until FlaSh revealed his revolutionary strategy -- burrowing hydras.


So, Team FlaSh got another game and Team Bisu stepped one game closer to choking it away. The last time we saw a TvT, it was sSak pummeling poor Rush with ingenious air tactics. But what happens when we have two of the game's Top Three TvTers in this wacky map? According to last week's games, it was wraiths. Last took control early with 2-port, taking out several workers as sSak's starport expand build was obviously less than ideal during the timing. sSak did try to play the iloveoov card with a hidden expo but AlphaGo sniffed it out and ran his strategy into the ground. Last ran away with the advantage and took his team to the deciding match.


Be honest with me, you predicted FlaSh to be sent out here.

Both of his teammates wanted him to be out there too, but FlaSh was awed by Last's play so he made the decision as captain to send him out there.

With the match on the line, Bisu decided to try to bust Last's bunker. He got the bunker down to red health but SCVs kept the bunker from going down. This put him in a horrible position eco-wise because he delayed adding his natural expansion, so he decided to double expand. Last on the other hand knew he had a timing window, so he pushed to Bisu's natural and divided his troops. The initial force he sent out eventually got sandwiched and wiped out but not before taking down the nexus which set the condition for the next sequence; a frantic contest with Last pouring metal out from his factories to finally kick down Bisu while Bisu put up great resistance by squeaking out some good engagements. However, Last's momentum never slowed down and ultimately, he forced his will to complete the reverse sweep.

Team FlaSh advanced 3-2 to the Grand Finals!
Also known as the other match. Yes, there was a match on Sunday after Last reverse-swept Team Bisu.


Rewatching the game, I noticed how even with PianO's vulture shenanigans and drops, he couldn't seem to find a serious defect in BeSt's defence. It reminded me of the benefits BeSt once had when he had the League Terrorist to well.. terrorize him with vultures. Even today, you can see the skill that was imprinted into his protoss genes. And just as innate as vulture defence is to BeSt, it feels like playing badly in PvT is in PianO's gene. Look at the checklist:
[ / ] completely missing a horde of dragoons that denied your expansion
[ / ] getting raided by a zealot train
[ / ] getting hosed by a recall and dying to other half of the protoss army

It was basically the StarCraft version of big brother holding his little brother's head away as his little brother punches away at the air.


What happens when you pit bad TvPers against protoss players who can play with FlaSh? If you answered the terran player wins, then you need to watch the game above. (GuemChi held his own during his Bo5 match with FlaSh).

If you haven't caught on yet from the above, this game was also quite a downer. GuemChi won conceptually by building carriers. He started warping them into battle around the time Light was busy building up his third base. With only two factories, Light was caught in an awkward timing where the only practical way to avoid death by interceptors was a timing push. Unfortunately, GuemChi crushed the first and second attempt leading to an awkward GG.


With the first two stomps out of the way, we got to witness these two teams' undefeated 2v2 outfits in a final battle to determine who is better. In this game, the spawn positions created an interesting dynamic. Both terran players shared an entrance while the zerg players spawned at their flanks with an order of A-B-A-B. The two terrans declared a standoff at the convergence while the zerg players raced to mutas. Despite getting mutas first, MIsO somehow never matched SoulKey's count which gave Team IamMang map control. With that, PianO slowly chipped away at MIsO's base which eventually forced Light's hand. Light broke out of the standoff-turned-contain and almost had PianO by the throat. But with the help of SoulKey's mutas and an SCV pull, PianO held on. Then SoulKey made the game-winning moves, first killing off MIsO's mutas and finally raiding Light's base.


Although everyone played a part in the 2v2, it should be noted that it was the zerg versus zerg matchup that helped a lot in deciding the match. It wasn't very different in this game. The major point in this game was the early ling confrontation that SoulKey took handily. It played a major part in letting him snipe MIsO's extractor twice which in this gas-heavy matchup spells death. MIsO had a good run (successful 2v2 team and almost took down FlaSh on Blue Storm) but in the end, it wasn't enough and SoulKey took the game.

Team IamMang advanced to the Losers' Bracket Finals with a score of 3-1!