EPT
1) Xellos[yG] (T) ("Seo Ji-hoon") > SoA.Eji (P) ("Cho Byung-ho") - Gaema Gowon
2) ArtofHan (T) (aka Oddysay, aka ranker) ("Han Woong-yul") < TheWind (Z) ("Bak Sang-ik") - Gaema Gowon
3) TheWind (Z) < Xellos[yG] (T) - Neo Forbidden Zone --> Xellos[yG] advances into the next OGN Starleague
4) ArtofHan (T) > SoA.Eji (P) - Avant Garde II
5) TheWind (Z) > ArtofHan (T) - Neo Bifrost --> TheWind advances into the next OGN Starleague
No big surprises here. Xellos[yG] crushes both his opponents his way: fast tech, safe bo, no early expos, excellent D, moves out once with overwhelming force and kills 'em all. TheWind did give him a tussle on Neo FZ, even opening all hydras to counter a possible fast gol drop by Seo a la Nada v Yellow. In the end tho, it was simply too much Xellos: upgraded marines were the difference.
TheWind finally gets his chance on the big stage. About time too. This fellow is talented and a worthy member of the Soul team. His quick dismantling of ArtofHan on Neo Bifrost was a work of, uh, art: fast zergling rush from both the rear natural and the front entrance. Han got caught napping (who could blame him after his 40 min marathon battle with Eji in Game #4?) and his paltry M&M force got sandwiched at the gates. No chance at all.
ArtofHan (aka Oddysay) gave it a good run, but got beaten by superior opponents this night. And Eji showed some tremendous expansion skills and mass strats (like Reach - back in SKY 2001), but lacked the micro and game management abilities to close things out. Also made way too many tactical and strategic errors. His match v Han on Avant Garde was about as "desperate" as it gets in this game: not only did the match go on for 39+ mins, but the last 5-7 of it was played by both players with a single battle group each (lot/goons v tank/vults) and no new units added because both had run out of minerals.
And faster than you can say "race imbalance!" another toss hopeful bites the dust (last week it was Nal_ra). Still a bit early to say for certain, but we could be headed to another Starleague with two (or FEWER) Protoss players.
Next up next week: IntoTheRainbow (P), [z-zone]KOs (T), TheMarine (T) and ElkY (T)
