The day is finally here – the grand finals of the BSL!


After a long, grueling journey, we're in finally here, the long sought-after conclusion of the struggles of our combatants. The final matchups are clear, and while so far, we've had an uncharacteristically one-sided round of playoff-matches, we can hope, and expect, that the final day will deliver more evenly matched games. Here's to give a bit of a recap of yesterday's semi finals, as well as expectations and predictions for what today will deliver.

First, a small recap.

Ro4 Recap

Both our semi-finals ended 3-0, and there was never any real doubt about which way they were going to go. Sziky got dominated by Mihu, only having occasional moments where he looked up to the task yesterday. Gypsy played well against Dewalt, but fell behind against his relentless harassment in game one, and was genuinely unlucky with his scans in game two, looking really strong until he lost to a surprise carrier switch – one Dewalt did a masterful job concealing. Frankly, Gypsy was playing a good series of games, but Dewalt played a fantastic series of games. The first game, with the relentless shuttle use, was fantastic. Gypsy tried to secure a split map, but Dewalt was everywhere, constantly hitting Gypsy's scv lines, killing one of his armories, and being on something like 30-gateway production. It's rare that we're treated to play of this quality in a non-korean tournament. Game two was less solid, but the move of making it seem like he was faking a carrier transition while actually legitimately transitioning into carriers caught Gypsy off guard, and Dewalt showed his carrier fleet just as Gypsy made his 200/200 move out- a move out that happened with far too few goliaths. It was a small detail, but it was an amazing mind game from Dewalt, one that paid off massively.

Sziky's games vs Mihu looked a bit hopeless. His muta control was on point, and both game two and three had him dealing a significant amount of damage, seemingly putting him in a decent spot, but when the crucial engagements were happening, Sziky fell short, and the mistakes that cost him, were surprisingly sloppy. In the first game, he never fully hit his stride, attempting a 9pool, but Mihu scouted him first spot, held nicely, and did well to inflict some damage with a two-marine moveout to Sziky's third.

On Aztec, he failed to notice Mihu's big army moving out, and when he was scrambling to get a hydra to his choke so he could protect his base with a morphing lurker egg, he mispositioned it, a mistake that doomed his chances at winning the game. The final game saw another surprise two-marine moveout demolish his entire natural mineral line. That was certainly a clever move by Mihu, one he deserves credit for making – but Sziky not noticing for what seemed like an eternity was on him. This game later on showcased how good Sziky can be, because the mutalisk control enabling him to stake out a comeback was fantastic, however, one drone missing in his main gas and some poor final engagement control meant it was all for naught. It also looked like Sziky was trying to play for too long with just zerglings defiler, but not managing to get off juicy plagues, not managing to hinder the vessel growth, not transitioning into ultras, and never managing to fully enter the late game in a good position.

Both players having faced their superior in the semi finals, and today is their redemption day. While they both lost their semi finals 0-3, their performances made me lean towards this being Gypsy favored.

Gypsy's TvZ is great, and not too different from Mihu's. Their chief difference is probably that Gypsy is more willing to open 8 rax, at least if the map permits for it, but aside from that, he will also normally transition into SK terran, only adding tanks against a lurker heavy user or to knock down a zerg defence before swarm hits. While it's conceivable that Sziky shows up as a stronger version of himself, the games against Mihu were not confidence-boosting. Now, Sziky's mutalisk micro was on point, but the defiler use seemed sloppy, in a way that made me question the latency. Swarms were regularly half a second too late, and aside from the aforementioned mutalisk control, Sziky seemed to be having an off day.

Gypsy looked good, though. He lost by a similar scoreline, and I'm sure he's beating himself up a bit over losing, and game two was particularly heartbreaking, but he can go into the bronze final being proud over his BSL performance. While a few players knew how good Gypsy is, this has been his introduction to the greater BSL audience, showing that he's one of the best player in the scene. His Ro16 group stage performance was downright amazing – starting off by dominating Terror, the winner from of BSL12, before he won two straight up games against Mihu – who might just end up winning this season.

I think he'll end up taking the third place spot now.

Looking at how the games will go, as mentioned, Gypsy is none too different from Mihu in his approach. There are however, a few differences. One, Gypsy likes opening 8 rax, it's a build he's very comfortable employing and transitioning out of. I've seen him follow up with 1-1-1, but most of the time, he goes into standard bio play after. Occasionally, he'll make a big drop play, but mostly, it's about being active with marines and vessels, playing an endurance based game.

Sziky opted for a 9pool in the first game against Mihu, and I could see that come into play in one of the games of this series, too. Then, he will go into mutas. From the games against Mihu, we could see that he attempted to stay on just ling defiler scourge for a considerable amount of time, not wanting to transition into ultras until his upgrades were starting to kick in, and even attempting a guardian play in their final game. I'm quite certain this is how it'll go this time around, too. He's not going to go defiler-less crazy zerg, and I think he's very unlikely to try any type of hydra lurker build.

While I think Gypsy is going to end up victorious, this is partially based around yesterday's performance – one where I thought Sziky played a bit below par. It could be that he'll show up at peak skill level today, which could prove sufficient. There was also an element of slightly bad luck to it all; all three games featured Mihu moving out with some marines that Sziky failed to notice, and those squads dealing game-deciding damage. The second game had a lurker egg slightly misplaced, and the third had one missing worker on gas. While these errors were massively consequential, they're not that difficult to correct, and with less sloppiness, redemption is within his grasp. There's also the chance that Gypsy falls to a backstab: Sziky likes ling backstabs, and Gypsy tends to occasionally be a bit skimpy on the defense, not building bunkers unless he really feels they're needed, and trusting his own marine+scv micro to defend. If Sziky backstabs, I find it unlikely that Gypsy retreats, being one to press his advantage instead, which could result in some fun, tense and low econ mid game scenarios.

Still, the safe bet seems like Gypsy. I predict he'll take it 3-1.


Prediction: Gypsy wins 3-1!

Dewalt against Mihu

To many, the dream final, we get a matchup that has in some ways been signalled since the groups were drawn. While the Chinese scene has been separate from the rest of the foreign scene for most of SC:R, the past couple months have seen some showmatches taking place, mostly between Bonyth and Dewalt and various top Chinese players, and just like Bonyth and Dewalt have been picked as the top representatives of the west, Mihu has been picked as the top representative of China.

Dewalt and Mihu have faced off in two bo9 series. Mihu won both – but both 9 game series ended 5-4. The latter one, saw Dewalt make a pretty solid throw in the final game: We were really close to getting 9-9 across 18 games.

Mihu, as shown, is not a gambling man. He can go for some low risk, high reward type plays, attempting to deal damage with small vulture groups, but he does not favor blind allins. While his Ro16 group was not entirely smooth sailing – losing one of the games against TT1 and straight up losing against Gypsy, Mihu's introduction to the western tournament scene has been mighty impressive. From the playoffs, he's sporting a 6-0 record, and both series looked relatively easy. There was hardly a moment from any of these 6 games where Mihu didn't look in command.

Myself, I picked Dewalt as my winner before the first group stage games were played, and he has in no way disappointed me so far. This time around, he has dodged his two nemesis matchups: Facing Bonyth, and playing Bo1, and consequently, he's looking at a 10-0 scoreline going into this. He started off beating Sziky 2-0, then Ultra 2-0, then Hawk 3-0, and yesterday, another 3-0 against Gypsy – whom was on an 11 game win streak himself before running into Dewalt. He also had the top spot after the ladder stage, and so far, he's been nothing short of extraordinary.

I'm fairly certain the undefeated streak ends today. Mihu is too good to lose 0-4. However, I'm still going with Dewalt as the final champion. I think we're gonna get a long, epic series, with multiple back and forth games, and with quite some variety to them. Dewalt's mass gateway shuttle templar style against Gypsy was fantastic – but he also showed willingness to go into carrier play, and he's no stranger to arbiters either. Essentially – we're going to be treated to fairly 'standard' play – but it's not going to be predictable, slow, or boring. Dewalt's ability to mix it up ensures that we'll see various approaches, all depending on map and positioning. So far, I've seen him favor carriers on Revolver, and I can picture a similar approach for Aztec or Ascension, especially if he's playing clockwise or counter-clockwise respectively.


Prediction 4-3 for Dewalt!

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Writers: Liquid`Drone
Graphics: v1
Editors: BLinD-RawR