Day One: Group A (Flash/HyuN/Jaedong/Bogus)

+ Show Spoiler [Results] +

• Yet another crap Leessangrok Game
  I'd be lying if I said that Flash and Jaedong weren't the favorites for this group. I'd also be lying if I said that their match lived up to the hype of being the most anticipated of game of the Dual Tournament. Thankfully for you, I'm writing in a brutally honest style here. Any way you look at it, the winners' game on Gladiator was pretty mediocre. It didn't have any of those jaw-dropping moments that we've seen (and expect) from past games between the two. In the past couple of months where the two have met, the theme has been (mostly) the same. Flash pushes out at a bad time, Jaedong crushes his army, Flash plays catch-up while Jaedong takes over the map. You can guess what the outcome is.
  
  It's strange how Jaedong has got Flash's number in their past few games. Hopefully, we get to see better games from Flash if they face each other in the OSL proper (if it were to happen).
  
  
• Bogus living up to his ID
  My dark horse for this group was Bogus, as I could definitely see him taking games off Jaedong and Flash. He has impressed me in this season of Proleague, stepping up as STX's Ace, as former front-runners for the team Kal and Calm have disappeared into thin air. Back to talking about Bogus' performance in this group, he definitely did not play to my expectations. He made many critical errors against Jaedong on NBR and more evidently, against Flash in the final game, where some abysmal tank placement cost him the game. I'm not really sure where to pinpoint Bogus' poor performance in this group here. My guess was a combination of nerves (first time qualified into the ODT/OSL, facing Leessang) and high expectations (being STX's new ace). I'm confident that we will see him bounce back and put in a solid performance in the MST offline qualifiers.
  
  The other guy
  
• There isn't really much to talk positively about Hyun, both coming into and coming out of the games. Most people expected him to flunk 0-2, and that is what we saw. While losing to Flash is no real big shame (got caught off-guard with a +1 attack), his execution of the Crazy Zerg strategy (skipping lurkers to go straight to ultralisks, for those unaware) against Bogus in the losers game was subpar, allowing Bogus to take full control of the game once he noticed it.

Day Two: Group B (Mind/SoO/Hydra/Tempest)

+ Show Spoiler [Results] +

• Are we in 2003?
  Mind and Tempest attempt some out-of-the-box strategies, Mind succeeding, Tempest failing. I'd like to focus on Tempest here, as Mind's strategy against Soo will be covered in detail as a feature game. The first game from Tempest, he tried some proxy gateway shenanigans we're all used to, and failed against Hydra's impeccable defense. The second game against Soo, he did a really strange one-base zealot into fast expand. Now, I don't know what the coaches in the KT house were thinking, but with the exception of Stork, you cannot one-base against Zerg in this modern age, especially on a map like Gladiator. Maybe he was just scared he was going to get 3 hatch hydra busted, as the norm on these maps lately (which I will cover in the rundown of Group C).
  
  
• Cyclops absorbs the Maestro's powers
  As revealed in this neat tidbit, Hydra reveals he is virtually blind in one eye, thus dubbing him the 'Cyclops Zerg'. Obviously, with an MSL championship under his belt, this disability hasn't hindered his play at all. In one of his more impressive performances as of late, Hydra utilised Zerglings to tear Mind down, similar to how his predecessor had played in his prime. With solid results in the MSL, will Hydra be able to transfer his success into the more prestigious OSL?

Group C (Shine/Shuttle/JangBi/s2)

+ Show Spoiler [Results] +

• Bloody Ridge of Hydralisks
  A notable theme in the first two games. Three hatchery hydralisk bust. In fact, in most of the ZvP's I've seen on the map, most (if not all) Zergs have been attempting to do this strategy. It feels like I'm watching Heartbreak Ridge ZvP rotated 90 degrees. Surprisingly, the king of all-in, Shine, and the new king of all-in, s2, failed to win their first games with this strategy. Despite this, Shine managed to redeem himself in Game 5.
  
  Return of the Almighty
  
• Since the start of the month, the dubbed 'Paewang (Loss King)' Jangbi has somehow found his once Bonjwa-like form and has put in a performance of 7-0 in televised games. His games in this group were typical of the Almighty, and not the Paewang we have seen since the start of the year, with a solid defense against s2 and smart decision making against Shuttle. The next logical step for him is of course, the OSL victory, but, as for myself, I would be more happier with an OSL silver ^_^.

Group A: Flash vs Jaedong - Gladiator

This will not be an indepth report, because the game does not deserve it. It may have been exciting from a spectators standpoint, but in reality it was already decided within the first few minutes and the next twentysome minutes revolved around Jaedong lazily bludgeoning his way to victory.

Flash opened with a forward 8 rax, planning to wall off in case of an early pool, which Jaedong happened to do. Then instead of expanding or teching, Flash added another Barracks and academy. From here, things went downhill for Flash.

Where did Flash's build come from? Maybe something from 2 years ago? Or 5 years, taken from one of his predecessors? Nope. How about 8 years old. 2 rax acad CC is the build that took iloveoov to a 27-0 winstreak back in 2003. It was proven obsolete by Savior back in April of 2005 when he crushed a red hot Nada in their famous game on Luna. So why did Flash use such a build? Good question.

The entire game's outcome revolved upon three things:

1. Flash spawned at 11 and thus had a bad wall. There was no way he could have avoided it given his strategy and his position. Not only was he forced to show his entire marine count at the wall, the last thing he wants to do, he also lost a number of crucial marines to zerglings because he couldn't afford to lift the wallin.
   
   
2. Jaeong brought his overlord above Flash's natural and constantly checked the wall with zerglings. The only way Flash's build can work is if Jaedong is in the dark and is forced to assume that he expanded or teched. But because he could see Flash's marine count at every step, that was never going to happen. As soon as Flash moved out, he knew it, and put down the paltry 2 sunkens that he would need to defend (normally you'd need 4 but he only had 1 medic and Jaedong had expertly thinned out his marine count).
   
   
3. Did Jaedong remember how to beat such an ancient build? Not perfectly, but it was enough.

The 2 rax acad cc nowadays is essentially an allin, because if the Zerg gets enough sunkens up in time to defend, they simply have too strong of an economy and mutas are too threatening. Flash had no way to defend the mutas because he just didn't have the money at the right time. The lateness of the Terran natural is not compensated by their early aggression so long as the Zerg reacts and scouts appropriately. The advantage the Zerg gets is in two forms:

1. The Terran doesn't have enough money to afford the necessary 9-10 turrets to repel mutas and thus must suffer damage and cannot move out. Thus the Zerg can merrily oversaturate without any fear of reprisal.
   
   
2. The Zerg has enough of an economic lead that they can safely double expand without weakening themselves at all. Unfortunately, Jaedong forgot the dynamics of this situation and did not take advantage of the opportunity to take an early 4th and pump drones, but even without doing so, he was still well ahead.

In actuality, Jaedong's play was lethargic, sloppy, and hardly accurate, but as he said in his interview, he knew his early advantage was so large it really didn't matter what he did. Normally you'd expect him to have crushed Flash with just his mutas and have won the game with the first lurker/swarm push. Can you think the last time Jaedong had mutas in the Terran main against 2 rax with half of it lacking turret coverage, and not crippling or killing them? Still, his early game play was excellent, and overall Jaedong did only what he had to in order to win.

For his part, Flash's play was razor accurate after the opening debacle. His positioning, mine placement, army movement, expansion timings, and mech transition were done as well as anyone could've hoped for. He was simply so far behind from the initial strategy that an unrefined Savior from 2005 could have easily won that game.



Group C: Jangbi vs Shuttle

Jangbi warps in as the yellow protoss at the 2 o’clock position while Shuttle starts as red protoss at 11 o’clock.

After a slightly faster core before his second pylon, Jangbi puts down two more gateways before his robotics facility, getting ready for an aggressive one base strategy.


Jangbi’s first push comes with seven dragoons and one zealot. Shuttle has been building almost continuously from his first gateway and has six dragoons and two zealots when the push arrives. Jangbi micros significantly better in the engagement, focusing down both of Shuttle’s zealots while Shuttle fails to pick off Jangbi’s.


Shuttle ends up retreating his last two dragoons away from his base. Jangbi gets down the ramp into Shuttle’s main, but is forced by Shuttle’s reavers to back off and hold a contain at the natural. Jangbi tries to chase down the two isolated goons, but Shuttle rescues them with the first shuttle out of his robotics facility.

Jangbi uses his gateway count to strengthen the contain while his own reaver tech approaches completion.


Shuttle isn’t initially able to put his reavers to use, but after building his forces a little more he is able to push up his ramp with dragoons while bringing his two reavers in a shuttle.


His own shuttle and first reaver still in transit, Jangbi falls back in full retreat, ceding control of Shuttle’s natural and setting up an arc with his dragoons to the south of it. Shuttle mistakenly senses an opportunity and moves southward to keep up the pressure after regrouping.

Shuttle falls into the trap and attacks despite worse positioning, just as Jangbi’s own reaver finally shows up.


Jangbi moves in with five of his dragoons during the battle to snipe Shuttle’s, er, shuttle. Both of Shuttle’s reavers go down shortly thereafter, especially with a well-placed scarab catching both of them. Shuttle is a dragoon up on Jangbi by this point but Jangbi’s reaver more than makes up the difference.


Jangbi starts his natural and once more moves into Shuttle’s to establish a contain. Behind in military and with an uphill ramp to fight through, Shuttle does not have the resources to mount a serious challenge to Jangbi’s contain before the yellow natural finishes.


Falling behind in economy as well now, Shuttle has no choice but to take risks. He tries flying a probe south to take the 9.5 o’clock south of his main. Knowing Shuttle has to try to bypass the contain somehow though, Jangbi has observers already in place to catch this and sends three dragoons down to force the cancel.


Shuttle pokes up the ramp twice more and finding the contain as impenetrable as ever, loads four dragoons up into shuttles, hoping to ferry troops out where he might find a better position. Jangbi again spots it immediately and greets the two shuttles immediately with a posse of dragoons, forcing them to turn right back around.


Shuttle is truly out of options now and commits to one last suicidal charge up the ramp with his entire army. After getting obliterated by Jangbi’s slightly better army and far superior position, Shuttle GG’s.

I never thought I'd see the day. GomTV has made a series of very, very good moves, while OGN has just spent the last three months drawing out a very, very bad one. I'm talking of course, of MyStarleague.

The show was pretty bad, but that was hardly a surprise. For ten years, OGN hasn't been able to produce a non-OSL Starcraft program that was any good, so it's mostly par for the course. This time they were inspired by the recently popularity of American Idol type shows in Korea, which like most other television concepts applied to Starcraft, quickly lost its entertainment value.

After all, how fun could it be to watch amateurs play when one has been spoiled by seeing the best players in the world, on the very same channel at that? And of course, it's a well known fact that hardcore Korean gamers are not the best at expressing themselves outwardly (imagine an audition with five hundred Hyuks), so the show had neither personality nor quality games.

For all of its faults that made it nearly unwatchable, I don't really have a big problem with MySL as a show. As is always the case with bad television, one can always change the channel. The real issue is that OnGameNet pushed back their flagship program, the OSL, for three months of MySL garbage.

Now in theory, MySL had some lofty aspirations. The idea is that the amateur scene has been steadily declining for years, which is worrisome because it reduces the pool of prospects from which the next TBLS will emerge. As the producers explained, by giving anyone a chance to compete in the OSL preliminaries they were creating interest in BW and giving hope to aspiring gamers.

Hmm... I thought this thing already existed. It's called the courage-league, and besides the fact that MySL is on TV, it's pretty much the same. Courage-leaguers get the chance to become licensed progamers at least, while MySL winners got the chance to go 0-24 (all twelve of them lost 0-2) in the OSL preliminaries. And ff they wanted to encourage people, they could have at least told the show's cast to be on message. In the first episode, as HOT-Forever had the following conversation with a participant: “How many times have you been knocked out of courage?” “About thirty times.” “Do you know any of their names? “Uhhhh...” “So of the thirty guys who already beat you, none of them can even make a single pro-league appearance. What makes you think you have what it takes?”

Yes, maybe it created some interested simply by virtue of being on cable television, and because it was original to a degree. But it's infuriating that OGN claims MySL was for the future of e-Sports, when they had to sacrifice the industry's ultimate tool for hype and interest: the OSL. One step forward, ten steps back.

It was such an incomprehensible move, that I'm tempted to resort to conspiracy theories to make sense of it:

• KeSPA was punishing OGN for not taking as firm a stance against Blizzard as MBCGame.
  
• KeSPA threw in one less season of OSL as a sweetener at the Blizzard bargaining table.
  
• The OGN director lost a bet to the MBCGame director and was forced to take OSL down for a season
  
• It's actually PART of a bet between the two directors, that the MSL can/cannot beat OSL's ratings if OSL is off the air.

In any case, the OSL is back, so we can finally forget about the past few months of nightmare and enjoy life again.