Bigfile MSL Round of 32, Week 2
Results

Group C: 7/1 (17:00 KST)


Is this the return of the Revolutionist? Perhaps. While it may be too early to tell whether Bisu is again ready to lift up an MSL trophy, these games combined with his victory over Jaedong in SPL are sending a clear signal that his signature matchup, PvZ, has regained that unique sparkle that made him famous in the fist place. Calm, for his part, played solid ZvZ and nearly won his game vs Bisu, definitely making him the deserving second player to advance from this group.

Group D: 7/8 (17:00 KST)


It is dissapointing that the current #1 Protoss player (by ELO) couldnt make it into the MSL Ro16, but a surprise showing by Hyuk meant that it all came down to a single great final match with fOrGG that he unfortunately lost. It remains to be seen whether Hyuk will make up for the knockout with superior games later on, but a solid 2-0 showing makes it clear theres more to him than previously thought, and hes capable of delivering when it counts.

Group E: 7/8 (19:30 KST)


This is a nice feel-good group that has two things everyone is looking to see lately: a good showing by an up-and-coming Protoss, the race that seems stagnant for new blood ever since the fall of the 6 dragons, and the successful advancement of an old-school player in the form of Midas. While neither have very high hopes at making the finals, realistically, every round they get closer is a nice surprise to the fans. As for the other two players, Really looked a bit off of his game - especially in TvT, where we have seen far better play from him in the past, and Shuttle just disappointed in general.

Group D Final Match: fOrGG vs free on Fighting Spirit
By l10f

Free, after a good month in Proleague, faces ForGG, the conquerer of Arena MSL on Fighting Spirit. Interestingly, these two players have been winning every other game against each other. Free > ForGG on 2/14/09, ForGG > Free 2/12/09, Free > ForGG 2/19/09, and so on (See: Here). So if this pattern continues, this time it's ForGG's turn to beat Free. ForGG starts at 11 o'clock as the Brown Terran against Free's Blue Protoss at 1 o'clock. ForGG walls off his entrance and techs to his factory, but Free makes his gateway in his natural to produce a zealot first. He makes a pylon to stop the wall from completing so his zealot can get in. However, a mistake makes his zealot get stuck, and it ends up killing nothing before being cleared out by ForGG.



ForGG decides to go with the FD build, with slight variations, since he already had a lot of marines. He pushes out with two tanks and a lot of marines. Vultures are added on with mines. ForGG kills 6 dragoons and stops Free from mining his natural for a while before his army is cleared out. Free knows he is economically behind, and decides to risk getting his 3rd fast. ForGG decides to keep up his momentum and and make 2 more factories for a timing attack. He pushes out with 4 tanks and vultures.



Free knows that he just needs to survive until his 3rd expansion kicks in, and with good dragoon micro, kills a lot of vultures without losing dragoons to mines. ForGG sieges up a few steps away from Free's natural and starts setting up a line, while making 2 more factories instead of taking an expansion. ForGG moves up little by little, and Free brings a few dragoons around to stop reinforcements from coming. Free gets a shuttle and zealots and only fights when his natural is in danger. Free kills only the tanks in range of his natural, and stalls for more time.

ForGG brings his vultures back to secure his reinforcements path, and Free tries to push out using that time. Free soon realizes that he would only lose units and pulls back. Free attacks once his zealot speed upgrade finishes, but mines kill a lot of vultures, and he's forced to pull back after killing the tanks in the front. ForGG uses this chance to kill some dragoons using mines.



Free engages only when he has zealots and pulls back with his dragoons. He knows with one more mistake, ForGG can push him all the way. After a few moments, Free decides to just try to push out with all his units, but good vulture placements kill all the zealots, then dragoons die to tanks. ForGG can now push into Free's natural and 3rd, and Free is forced to GG.


Group C Opening Set: Bisu vs Calm on Fighting Spirit
By l10f

Bisu started at 1 o'clock as the Blue Protoss and Calm started as the Yellow Zerg at 7 o'clock. Harnessing the full power of the Bee Suit skillfully drawn by our friends at Teamliquid.net, Bisu pulls off a cute cannon rush on Calm's natural. Using two pylons to block the path, one cannon forces Calm to cancel his hatchery and rebuild it at the 11 o'clock natural. Calm clears out the cannon using his first 6 Zerglings, but the mental damage is already done.



Calm rebuilds his natural and the game proceeds back to a standard game as commentators joke at the different depictions of Bisu's name by the fans (Bee-suit, 비수, Bi-水). Bisu gets +1 attack upgrade for his corsairs and Calm builds his 4th and 5th hatcheries. Bisu pressures with a few zealots, and Calm makes mutalisks to take care of them. However, Bisu has built up a large amount of corsairs, so the mutalisks don't do much damage. Bisu makes dark templars before high templars and drops at 11 o'clock while sending his zealots to Calm's natural.



Bisu leaves his dark templars at 11 o'clock main without doing anything and drops 4 zealots on Calm's main. They do no damage and Calm uses this timing to attack Bisu's natural. Because he made dark templars and archons first, he doesn't have any storms to defend. Calm easily destroys Bisu's army and goes into Bisu's natural. Bisu finally uses his dark templars, and with all the overlords going with the hydralisks to attack, the two dark templars kill everything at the 11 o'clock expansion.



Calm moves to Bisu's main after killing his natural, but Bisu sacrifices all his zealots to kill Calm's overlords and the Dark templars that come out surround and kills a lot of the hydralisks. Bisu picks off every overlord that comes with his +1 attack upgraded corsairs, and still has his 3rd running. Calm is on 2 bases now and he makes more hydras for a final attack, but after he sees that Bisu is ready, types out. Maybe if Calm had attacked Bisu's 3rd instead of trying to end the game by moving into the main, he could have had an economic advantage even after his hydralisks got defended. Bisu's corsair micro and perfect dark templar timing allowed him to defend what seemed impossible and win him the game.