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Quarterfinals Day One: December 18th, 2009
The first day of the OSL quarterfinals came almost as soon as the Round of 16 ended. With the promise of LeeSsangRok, nerds everywhere were lining up to watch the games. Hype was through the roof, as it always is when Flash and Jaedong are scheduled to play. While Flash versus Jaedong was certainly the match of the night, each set had its own promise and flair.
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The korean nerds are stoked too
The first match of the night was Flash versus Jaedong, starting off the night with supersonic hype levels. Calm versus Pure would follow, possibly the least hyped match-up in the mix. However, Calm had been showing a pretty strong performance coming into this match. Pure, although he was the underdog, had shown a strong performance against ZerO in the previous Round of 16.
Movie versus ZerO was another highly anticipated match. Movie's PvZ has always been a blast to watch and ZerO never fails to bring the noise against his Protoss foes. The day would end with Shine versus Stork. The most hated progamer amongst TL netizens versus one of the most beloved. Let the games begin.
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Flash has said in interviews that the OSL maps are very good for Zerg against Terran with the exception of Fighting Spirit, which was the map used in game 1 and which currently stands with a 60% TvZ advantage, statistically. Thus, in Flash's mind at least, game 1 was a must-win game: he didn't want to have to win two games in a row against Lee Jae Dong on unfavorable maps.
Jaedong 12 hatched into 3 hatch muta and Flash went 11 rax 15cc into standard play. With such an early cc, there was obviously going to be some early ling pressure, but Flash handled it easily with some gosu supply depot and SCV placement. Flash made the standard timing attack while the spire was going up that every Terran facing 3 hatch muta does, but Jaedong was smart enough to have three sunken colonies building when Flash's MnM force moved across the center of the map. Flash was content to prevent Jaedong's third base from going up, instead.The problem with the way Flash shut down Jaedong's third base was that his initial army was on the other side of the map when Jaedong's muta/ling army attacked his natural. Flash was OK, though; he had a bunker at his natural and a sizable force in his main and turrets freaking everywhere. Still, having half his army on the other side of the map probably wasn't a good thing. Flash has run into problems in the past when he has felt confident enough in his defense to take chances, with sometimes disastrous results.
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LeeSsangRok
This time, though, he was fine. Jaedong lost all of his lings and a muta to Flash's marines, and the time that he had to harass was limited since +1 was destined to come relatively early because of the correspondingly early engineering bay. Jaedong didn't seriously attempt to harass after the first attack; instead, he tried to get his third up. Flash was on the ball in preventing Jaedong's third, with an SCV scouting all of the available expansion spots. When he found the just-completed hatchery, it was pretty much over for Jaedong. All Flash had to do was show some godly micro and army control on the way to the third and the game was his. He dodged Jaedong's lurkers, sniped his mutas, and killed the hatch.
At the same time that he was trying, again, to get a third base up, Jaedong tried a desperation backstab against Flash's main with mutas and lings. Unfortunately, most of Flash's army was right next to his base, and he had a control group on the other side of the map streaming towards Jaedong's third. Predictably, he killed the attack and he killed the third, and that was the end for Jaedong.
Flash had complete control of the game from beginning to end. It's hard to see what Jaedong could have done to get a third up. Lurkers at the ramp during his second attempt would have been nice, but Flash was getting tech fast and defilers wouldn't have been in time to save Jaedong.
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Calm put down his 12 hatch at another natural expansion, which was pretty out of the ordinary. Obviously, he was locked into double expanding against 
Pure's forge-nexus. In a heads-up play, Pure took advantage of Calm's hatchery being on the other side of the map from his first lings and cannon rushed that hatchery, killing it without any opposition from Calm. Technically, though, Pure spent more minerals to cannon rush the hatchery than it took to build! Pure's core (and thus his tech) was delayed, and, as it happened, Calm's tech was right on schedule. Soon, mutalisks and scourge were flying into Pure's base, killing everything. Pure typed out, surely with a resolve in his heart to beef up his base defense in game 2.![[image loading]](/staff/DoctorHelvetica/everOSLQUARTERS/wfa3333.jpg)
ZerO started Game 1 by going 9 pool → losing a drone to a probe → double expand. You won't find that build on Liquipedia. ZerO deviated very slightly from the 3 hatch spire into 5 hatch hydra build that every zerg and their grandmother has been using since early last year, putting down his 4th hatchery slightly early. Movie transitioned into corsair/reaver because that's what you do on HBR, man. Bisu went sair/citadel against Shine, and we all know how that turned out. Besides, all of the Protosses that are currently showing strength against Zerg (Kal, Movie, Bisu on maps not named HBR) are heavily incorporating reavers into their play.
While the first shuttle was building, a quartet of zealots sojourned into ZerO's nat and died terrible deaths after killing a drone or two and stopping mining for a while. Movie's shuttle almost met the same fate right outside ZerO's base when two scourge were in the same hex as that shuttle, peeking though the windows at the reaver within. They flew away without doing anything. Scourge are pretty stupid.
Movie was spooked enough to retreat with his corsairs and shuttle. He dropped his reaver off at his natural for defense and suicided all of his corsairs while trying to kill a few overlords. At the same time, he put down six gateways... maybe losing the sairs was just freeing up supply? Either that, or Movie is really, really bad at corsair control: he lost about six sairs for basically nothing.
After killing all those sairs, maybe it would have made sense for ZerO to switch to mutas. He didn't; he kept pumping hydras. A group of 9 mutas at Movie's base at about 10:30 would have meant big trouble for Movie. He had hardly any anti-air.
Anyway, at around the time ZerO's imaginary mutas were ravaging Movie's base, Movie had loaded up 3 HT into a shuttle and flown over to do some damage. Once again, ZerO's scourge were blinded by the shiny Protoss unit that they were supposed to destroy. ZerO did as good a job dodging a storm with drones at his main as is humanly possible, but the drones at the nat weren't as nimble. Having done its duty, the shuttle died an honorable death, failing to cheat death for a third time.
Now ZerO had a muta group, but Movie's many gateways had done their job and there was a sizable goon/temp force at the Protoss natural along with the reavers. There was nothing ZerO could have done with either his Hydras or Mutas to harass or break Movie. When Movie moved out, ZerO tried to snipe HTs, but the mutas he lost probably weren't worth it.
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The three faces of defeat
Instead of playing passively and trying to defend his four bases with his newly morphed lurkers, ZerO strangely tired to kill Movie's army outright in a single pincer attack. It didn't work, and ZerO was doomed. He typed out when Movie's formidable army broke down the front door of his base.
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Shine opened with the same build that ZerO did in his first game against Movie, a build which seems to be popular among zergs in this OSL despite its obvious disadvantages.Shine displayed his fantastically aggressive nature right off the bat when he attacked
Stork's sim city with his initial six lings, despite the fact that Stork had a solid wall of probes defending. He killed a few probes, but, obviously, didn't get through. The game slowed down soon afterwards, with Shine employing the zerg bread and butter of 3 hatch spire into 5 hatch hydra. Stork went corsair/reaver, a build which he has had great success with in the past.Stork moved his initial group of shuttle/sair up to Shine's main, catching Shine totally off guard and killing a few drones. When Shine called in the cavalry in the form of mutas, Stork got the heck out of dodge... but why? He had six sairs and there were no scourge in sight. He should have stood his ground and tried to kill him some mutas! Stork paid for his dishonorable move by promptly losing his shuttle to scourge when it tried to harass at Shine's nat.
Shine was soon getting a fourth base up and sending out a muta/scourge strike force on the hunt for corsairs. After some scourge cloning that could have gone better, Stork had enough of an air force to head over to Shine's main again with a shuttle full of DTs. In a tense sequence, Stork tried to clear overlords with his corsairs and escape detection with his DTs, failing on both counts.
Shine used some fantastic muta/scourge maneuvering to stop mining at Stork's third base. At the time, Stork storm dropped Shine, getting about eight drone kills. Shine wasn't able to kill the nexus (right away) or the shuttle, but he came incredibly close to doing both. He got the nexus in a muta raid about a minute later.
Stork kept storm dropping and doing decent damage. Unfortunately, he was pretty obviously behind in economy and almost mined out in his main. Shine's killer mutas kept taking targets of opportunity, and hive tech was on the way.
Actually, hive tech wasn't on the way. Mutas just kept popping at the fifteen minute mark of the game. At one point, during a push by Stork, Shine proved once and for all that he is absolutely freaking insane when he attacked an archon head on with his mutas. Somehow, Shine's pure muta army destroyed Stork's push.
After the push, the game settled back into its previous mode: Shine's mutas giving Stork nightmares, and Stork's HTs killing drone after drone. When Stork tried to break the cycle by attacking, Shine simply destroyed Stork's last mining base with a fleet of mutas. The hilarious thing is that Shine had a bunch of excess minerals and gas during all this; you'd assume that building mutas isn't that difficult. Stork couldn't recover his lost base and typed out after some futile attempts.
Quarterfinals Day Two: December 25th
Another match of LeeSsangRok makes a pretty good Christmas gift. On Christmas day, the rest of the Ro8 matches were to be played. Everyone got a piece of the Christmas joy. The progamers were wearing Christmas hats and Kim Carrier even donned a full Santa outfit! Many hoped for a great gift in the form of great games. As the countdown toward the first game started, many hoped their Christmas wish would come true.
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A spot in the semi-finals was a big deal. The player would receive a seed into the next OSL and greatly increase their chance at winning the entire tournament. The road to the Ro8 had been quite dramatic indeed. Most of the favorite players advanced on, creating a Ro8 filled with monster players (Flash, Stork, Jaedong, Calm) and monster expectations.
The dream for many was an OSL finals rematch of Stork versus Flash. Their first meeting on the finals stage of the Starleague was in 2008, when Flash trashed Stork and began his pure domination of the year. Or, Jaedong and Stork could meet once more. Their first meeting was another dominant victory for the Tyrant, resulting in yet another OSL silver for Stork.
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Santa's little helpers
Regardless of who advanced, the hype was high. As long as a Calm versus Shine finals weren't in order, hopefully many would be satisfied.
On December 25 2009 15:38 thopol wrote:
Seriously. Best gift ever. The gift of gosu.
Seriously. Best gift ever. The gift of gosu.
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Game 2 was a game which brought back the "Cheddar Terran" nickname to use for Flash. There's no point in recounting such a micro-based game; suffice it to say that Flash executed a well-designed bunker rush, killed Jaedong's first scouting overlord (smartly taking advantage of the redesign of HBR), and won. Please watch the VOD if you want to marvel at the clever build or, if you're a Jaedong fan, to get into the proper mindset for when Flash and Jaedong inevitably meet in the MSL finals.
Flash said this in a post-game interview:
-Was the bunker rush an improvised strategy?
▲No, it was a strategy that required considerable timing and preparation. That's why I prepared it very careful. I knew that it would work, so I pushed out confidently and I think that it turned out very well.
▲No, it was a strategy that required considerable timing and preparation. That's why I prepared it very careful. I knew that it would work, so I pushed out confidently and I think that it turned out very well.
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For Pure, Game 2 ended the same way as game 1: with mutalisks ravaging the Protoss main. Calm 9 pooled and did the most all-in 2 hatch muta build you'll ever see. I think there were 8 drones mining minerals when mutas started building. Once again, Pure didn't secure his base quickly enough and a horde of mutas killed his main nexus. Pure tried to prolong the game, but victory was impossible. Ironically, Shine, not Calm, was the person getting hated on in the live report thread for cheese on the day this game was played.
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After 9-pooling yet again, ZerO double expanded, with the location of the third base across the map. He went lair followed by a 4th hatch and a spire, which is very standard for modern zergs. However, after 5 hatches had been put down, ZerO got greedy by expanding quickly instead of securing the two chokes that he had to defend with sunken colonies. Also, he didn't have zerglings to fill the gaps of the morphing sunken colonies when Movie attacked with speed zealots and a couple dragoons. These two facts combined to ensure that Movie had an extremely successful attack. He ravaged ZerO's third base, killing the hatchery and a bunch of drones. Shortly afterwards, Movie got a third base of his own up and running and began amassing a huge food advantage.
ZerO went heavy muta, but Movie had a very strong anti-air defense: lots of archons and cannons, and three corsairs just for kicks. ZerO's mutas weren't able to do anything. ZerO built a whole bunch of sunkens at each of his bases and basically just hoped for the best.
"The best" came when ZerO luckily killed a shuttle/reaver with his mutas and was able to delay Movie's fourth base with a squad of lings. Despite this, Movie still had an enormous food advantage. After a few other big breaks for ZerO, including a second shuttle snipe and an effective pincer attack, Movie was able to build another army with ease and roll over ZerO's third and fourth bases. ZerO tried to delay the GG with ultras, but even they couldn't win him the day.
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In between games 1 and 2,
Stork swore in an interview that he wouldn't suffer the embarrassment of losing to pure mutalisks again. Shine helped Stork to fulfill that promise by using an entirely different strategy from his first game.Fighting Spirit produces more epic PvZ games than any other current map. Simply go through TLPD and look at the game lengths for PvZs to confirm that claim. This game was no different: Shine pushed Stork to the limit with aggressive play for 25 solid minutes. Stork knew what he was getting into. In an interview after his win against Kwanro, Stork said that the name "Typhoon Zerg" was solely reserved for Shine. Stork drew a clear distinction between Kwanro's suicidally aggressive play and Shine's intelligently aggressive play.
Right away, Shine gained a small economic advantage when Stork went forge first despite Shine's 12 hatch. Stork put down a quick gateway, though, so he was able to get a cybernetics core up at about the same time as his first cannon, which is obviously ridiculously fast. Stork followed up with a fast robo and his sairs started to kill Shine's overlords.
After Shine's spire finished, Stork carelessly lost a corsair to scourge. Outside Stork's natural, Shine showed his aggressive nature by engaging Stork's small army with a small number of lings, losing more material than he killed. After the lings were driven off, Stork brought a probe to an expansion location. At this point, because Shine showed no inclination to expand, it became obvious what the game-deciding battle would be: Shine would pump lair units off of three bases in an effort to keep Stork from gaining an economic advantage with a third base. Stork needed to defend with his reavers, or he would lose the game to Shine's overwhelming aggression.
First, though, Stork made a cursory attempt to use his corsair/reaver in a traditional harass, but he didn't do any damage due to Shine researching BURROW (love ya, Shine). Stork promptly brought his reavers back to defend, and, in turn, Shine moved to attack Stork's third base.
After some DT harass that did very little damage, Shine loaded up his hydras into overlords and tried a drop on Stork's main. It largely failed due to some good storms, but it brought Stork's army out of position and left his third open to attack. This is why Shine's style of aggressiveness is different from zergs like Kwanro's: each of his seemingly suicidal attacks has a purpose.
After a dramatic sequence in which two reavers crawled from Stork's main base to his third to defend, Shine had to retreat and expand himself. After the failed attack, Shine was in a pretty bad position. Stork had a food advantage and an economic advantage. Stork did his best to let Shine back in the game with an utterly failed storm drop, but his advantage was great enough that it probably didn't matter. Besides, he followed up with a hero DT that deftly skirted outside the range of the spore colony at Shine's third base.
Shine tried to harass Stork's army with mutas, but the Protoss army was too dragoon-heavy for any kind of templar sniping to go on too long. Shine did a good job of delaying Stork's push, though, sniping observers with skill.
At around this time, the food counts for each player were almost equal, but Stork's army composition was extremely strong. It was very heavy on dragoons and had substantial reaver/temp support. It was the perfect counter to Shine's muta/lurker.
Slowly but surely, Stork broke out. He sent a shuttle filled with zealots to Shine's fourth, and, intentionally or not, it drew Shine's mutas away. This made it easier for Stork to get across the bridge behind which Shine's lurkers lay. As Stork broke the contain, he expanded on Shine's side of the map.
Soon, Shine's contain was in shambles and his mutas were dead. The subsequent attack on Shine's natural was some of the best archon/goon micro in recent memory, but it didn't matter once dark swarm suddenly went up. Stork had to wait for his inevitable victory to take place.
After a few minutes, Stork attacked Shine's natural with reaver support and Shine typed out.
In game 3 on HBR, Shine 9 pooled and tried to mine out the minerals above Stork's base. Stork noticed the cheese only at the last second, and was able to get probes in position to defend just in time. After some dancing around, Shine had to leave after doing almost no damage. It's not as if the attempt hurt him badly, though.
Stork went sair/dt and Shine went 3 hatch spire into 4 hatch scourge/muta. Stork lost a corsair carelessly to scourge for the second game in a row, opening the door for Shine to ravage Stork's main from the air. To the dismay of every Starcraft fan who wanted a Stork vs Flash rematch in the finals of the OSL, Stork's counterattack with zealots failed miserably and he had a hard time driving Shine's mutas away.
Just like in game 1, Shine's mutas made Stork miserable, but unlike game 1, he macroed up a strong hydralisk follow-up. His attack on Stork natural with a combined hydra/muta army ended the game; he had impeccable control throughout. Stork typed out with a look of utmost dejection.
With the conclusion of Jaedong being cheesed in the second game and Stork losing to Shine; fanboys were enraged. In the Day 2 Live Report thread, many were banned for their foolish comments. Indeed, Shine[KaL] was to be in the semi-finals over Stork.
Although Jaedong could not match Flash in a straight-up game, his loss to a bunker rush can be partly blamed on his poor response to the attack. Whether the cheese had happened or not, Flash is in another class of TvZ from the Tyrant. Flash's road to the finals is getting easier by the minute. If not even Jaedong can pose a serious threat, what zerg can? Only time will tell.
Shine's advancement was well-deserved on his part. His mutalisk control is in another dimension of skill, his aggressive style is smart rather than suicidal and goofy like Kwanro's. Shine has earned his nickname "The Typhoon" and his furious storm of Lair Tech aggression has left Protoss players by the wayside. Even Flash would have to be wary of Shine's style, as Flash has lost TvZ in embarrassing fashion before by skimping out on early game defense.
Shine, sadly, is the most hated progamer on TeamLiquid. Shine has beyond sick control of his units and a really aggressive and fun style to watch, but he is discredited as a progamer because he has yet to show strong management skills. Maybe Shine will win some people over as time goes on; even Stork was once the most hated progamer.
Movie has worked hard to get where he is and he deserves his position. If anyone should be playing Flash in the finals, it's Movie. While Movie can be a bit sloppy in his execution, he has a very solid mental game. In a Bo5, who knows what kind of interesting cheeses and builds Movie can pull out against the "Ultimate Weapon."
The Semi-Finals will finish January 8th (KST) and the finals will be played on the 17th. Either Movie or Shine will face Flash to become an OSL champion. Flash is looking to take both leagues, while the others are looking to become the next royal roader.
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I want to be royal.
There is a lot at stake. Flash could become the second progamer to ever win two simultaneous Starleagues. This accomplishment combined with his breaking of 2400 ELO would be utterly astounding. Shine could prove the haters wrong and defeat the best TvZ in the world to prove he has what it takes to be one of the best. Movie could succeed the six dragons and become the next champion of CJ.
Shine and Movie are going to have a tough time. Flash owns this season. When either one of them enters the stage of the grand finals, it will seem as though they have been sentenced to an execution rather than a simple game of StarCraft. The ante has been upped and there is no turning back.
