So, JangBi, you've managed to gain a single win and made your way to the tiebreakers because Killer was so good. Seriously, if Killer had dropped a game then you'd be out but because Calm and Baby () were as bad as you, forcing a three-way bad off to see which of you is least terrible. And if there's one contest that we know Calm can win, it's a bad off. So here we are on New Bloody Ridge.



Calm spawned at 7 in purple while JangBi got yellow at 1 and opened with a standard pylon at natural. Calm opted for an overpool while JangBi threw down a 10 gate at his natural choke looking to apply some pressure while FEing. Calm seemed to have the possibility in mind and held his drones at 10 while taking his natural with a quick two hatch low econ build. His drone count remained at ten as he took his third base, while JangBi pumped probes and added a nexus.

Although Jangbi's the two early zealots got zero kills, they actually did their job as Calm's zerglings couldn't move out while they were tied up on defense. This let JangBi get ahead as he didn't have to forge or cannon for a long time while Calm's economy and tech were delayed. Although Calm quickly took the measure of JangBi and realised his three hatcheries gave him total map control JangBi was already charging to corsair tech at this point having spent the entire early game building probes.

Rather than leave his gateway idle JangBi produced a few extra zealots, which caught Calm off guard at an unexpected timing as he was powering and trying to catch up. Three hatcheries were obviously more than capable of dealing with one gateway zealots, but they still took Calm by surprise, stopped mining, traded decently with zerglings, and caused Calm to massively overcompensate on defense. Valuable time was wasted building zerglings to defend against a mass zealot play that did not and could not exist at that timing. Calm's poor drone saturation led to a delay in tech, forcing him to use hydras as a stop gap defense against corsairs while his lair was morphing.

JangBi followed up with text book DTs, but he invested only lightly in the mid-game, instead spending money on tech, upgrades, infrastructure and a quick third base. Although Calm finally secured his part of the map against DT/sair with hydralisks and overlords, JangBi was already in a very strong position.

Calm responded by trying to lock down his part of the map and rushing to hive tech for defilers and cracklings rather than trying to out-expand and outspend JangBi, afraid of overextending himself on the map. However JangBi sensed his economic advantage and refused to take unnecessary risks, massing up a powerful army but not committing to any major engagements. With his nine gateways and mass templars, he could easily take some additional bases while fending off the defiler-zergling play with storms. With his opponent refusing to commit to poor attacks, Calm was forced to try and make something happen. However, his attack with lings and defilers failed as predicted, leaving him with a weak economy and weaker army. With Jangbi able to bully him everywhere on the map, Calm GG'd.






I still love Baby and he deserved to go through here, especially against a scrub like JangBi. But he has a real problem with backing up his incredible multitasking with results when it counts. Cutting past some uneventful early game stuff, the action began with Jangbi (@4) going for some lame DT drop against Baby (@12). Despite having scouted JangBi's build, some catastrophically poor turret placement allowed JangBi to get a foothold in Baby's base from which JangBi then dropped even more DTs which caused further trouble, which in turn allowed two gateways of dragoons to cause even more damage at the front.

Baby was able to stabilise his front with a solid walloff and sieged tanks but JangBi had been expanding like crazy during all that time and was at near twice Baby's supply and a base ahead with map control at this point. It wasn't really an ideal situation for Baby.

Fortunately Baby is a fantastic multitasker and hit back with vultures at JangBi's third base at 2:00 which ravaged the mineral line while a drop in Jangbi's main which killed a respectable number of units for no tank losses. JangBi did what he could with blocking pylons to deny vulture raids while he took his backdoor mineral only, but Baby was severely limiting his ability to mine.

Baby's tanks, vultures, and dropships combined to make a very mobile forc. Although JangBi had the units to win a straight up battle, he found himself clearing away mines at one position only to see that Baby had packed up to strike elsewhere. Jangbi simply couldn't move his troops anywhere without creating a new opening to be exploited.

The result was that for fifteen minutes Baby held up evenly, despite being on two bases against Jangbi's four. JangBi delayed Baby's attempts to expand to 11:00, but Baby could finally took his third base a good ten minutes after JangBi took his fourth. Unfortunately, JangBi knew the value of harassment as well, hitting with a massive storm drop that took out 22 scvs at Baby's third. In the meanwhile, Jangbi barely held onto the 7:00 main expansion as his carriers arrived just in time to clean up Baby's drop.

Unable to get the better of his opponent in the ground war despite having twice the resources, JangBi had resorted to carriers, hoping to outspend Baby where he couldn't be outplayed. With the incredibly lucky survival of JangBi's base at 7:00, Baby was forced to push out onto the map, finally giving JangBi the chance to use his carriers and ground army to win a big battle. Baby GG'd.





Of course, whats' a Kwark section without a Stork game?



Hydra opened at 4 in white while Stork got 12 in yellow on Pathfinder. Hydra opted for an overpool expansion before zerglings which Stork scouted correctly and responded with an appropriate forge nexus opening. Some cute probe micro allowed Stork to keep tabs on Hydra's production for a long time, which led safe cannon cutting and probe pumping. Hydra just went for a double expand opening, but went for faster tech with less drones than standard.

With no threat from Hydra, Stork was able to do whatever he wanted. He chose to play defensively, grabbing a fast second gas and rushing out +1 air attack so he could cover himself against lair plays. His corsair scouted a lair and hydralisk den, so the incoming elevator rush failed to surprise him. Stork responded cool and collectedly, building cannons in his main base while his corsairs pushed back slow overlords fascilitating the drops, while also threatening to kill the overlords in Hydra's main if the offensive hydralisks didn't back off. Hydra chipped away and took down the gateway at Stork's wall-in, but Stork had a fast robotics and a reaver on the way.

With speed done, Hydra struck by dropping three places at once, with a total of twelve hydralisks. Stork microed his reaver well, but Hydra was still doing economic damage with his hydralisks. Corsairs struggled to effectively deter the drops, and Stork started to let some fo them get picked off due to sloppy micro. Stork's reaver was doing very well, but with just slow zealots to support it, he was killing the hydralisks at too slow a pace.

Stork microed incredibly but damage was being done on too many fronts. While Hydra's economy was weak, it was still good enough to keep a constant stream of hydralisks coming in this all-in attack. Stork needed to build so many things, but simply didn't have the money to keep up with his losses. He couldn't even spare the time to build another shuttle after losing his first, because he was always one reaver away from losing. Stork miraculously stabilized after some time, but he had taken a lot of economic damage. Additionally, he had let one too many corsairs get picked off, which made Hydra's imminent mutalisk switch look all the more dangerous. Even though Stork tried to hastily rebuild his air force, one stargate couldn't keep up with Hydra's three hatches

Hydra took out Stork's main base with a combination of mutalisks, but the game was still not over. Stork went for a counter-attack with a speed shuttle with two reavers, which crippled Hydra's economy in return. At about twelve minutes into the game the supplies were 30ish for Hydra against 20ish for Stork, with Stork trying to claw his way back into the game. Incredibly Stork managed to briefly regain control of his main with just two gateways of dragoons, which demonstrated how close this brawl was at that point. Hydra's superior production facilities lay idle as he just didn't have the money to use them, but Stork was still stuck on one base.

The deciding factor in the game would be army composition, as Stork's mainly dragoon army simply did not do well against Hydra's hydra-muta. Hydra's attack into Stork's main finished of the dragoons and destroyed the two gateways Stork was relying on for production. Seeing that there was no hope, Stork GG'd.

Another summer OSL with an airline company, this time an intranational subsidiary of Korean Air that advertises itself as the airline of choice for the young and hip. In honor of their sporting butterfly logo, we take a look at this season's RO8 contestants through compound eyes.



Fantasy really does deserve the title “second best terran.” He might not always seem like it; his bionic TvZ is pretty shaky most of the time, he is inconsistent and prone to slumps (like the one he just shook off), and his list of weaknesses goes on. When the stakes are high and Fantasy has time to prepare though, he usually gets results. Fantasy is good at mech play against all three races and his vulture micro is to be feared. Fantasy also has a well-earned reputation for surprising opponents with unusual, intricately planned strategies.

Let’s not downplay his weaknesses too much though. After all, Fantasy has only just pulled himself out of a long post-OSL gold slump that exposed all the aforementioned problems with his play with painful clarity. It’s all about the balance between his strengths and weaknesses when Fantasy plays, and which ends up outweighing the other on any given day. The flawed but brilliant terran innovator, Fantasy is the…


Long and spindly, the European mantis relies on stealth and the element of surprise to catch its prey. Well camouflaged against the against the green vegetation it inhabits, the praying mantis waits for its unsuspecting victim to stray too close, and then bursts out of hiding to seize its prey in its powerful, spiked forelegs, overwhelming the hapless insect before it even knows what happened.

The European mantis also relies on its camouflage and trickery as a defense mechanism. The fact is that if a hungry predator sees through the bug's tricks, the mantis is really a rather vulnerable insect.



For our next exhibit, we have the first SKT zerg in the RO8. Oh, Hyuk. Hyuk has been the stereotypical SKT zerg for ages, an okay-ish at best player prone to crumbling under pressure. He has a tendency to occasionally surprise, and take far more accomplished progamers down a peg. For most of his career he has primarily been a Proleague player, but unlike the far superior Sea, Hyuk surprises few when he drops out of individual leagues early. Lately Hyuk has been reversing his usual trend: despite doing poorly in Proleague as of late, here he is in the RO8 of the OSL. Outside of the booth, Hyuk is not given to the little displays of personality or emotion that might make him more interesting to watch or follow. The stoic, archetypal SKT zerg, Hyuk is the…




House crickets are completely harmless insects. As long as they stay outside where they belong, they bother nobody. In the winter however, house crickets usually find their way indoors to avoid the cold. Once inside they become incredibly obnoxious, as anyone who was rooting for Jaedong has tried falling asleep with a cricket chirping loudly in the same room can attest. A very familiar insect, house crickets have inspired all sorts of stories and fables, not because they ever do anything interesting though, because they don’t, unless you count knocking JD out of the OSL as interesting. Stupid crickets.



Hydra is the latest in the royal lineage of CJ zergs dating back to the MaestroExiled Traitor King himself. His ZvT is still a work in progress, but he has established himself as having some of the best ZvP and ZvZ in the world. With a play style characterized by excellent micro, intelligent use of aggression, and a death stare to rival Jaedong’s, Hydra is the…



Emperor dragonflies are large, powerful insects that feed on all sorts of smaller insect species, including the occasional butterfly. They can fly as fast as 10-15 meters per second (25-30 mph) and often search for their prey from high in the sky. Like other dragonflies, they can’t sting or bite humans, but that doesn’t stop them from being one of the most feared predators in the insect world.

Modern dragonflies also have a lineage dating back hundreds of millions of years to the Carboniferous period. Their ancestors were the most massive insects ever to take flight, reaching wingspans of over 75 centimeters (2.5 feet).



There’s not a lot to say about Modesty really. His one standout quality is that his ZvZ is far better than his other two matchups, which in a zerg heavy environment can get you far. Modesty is a…



Fruitflies are not the most impressive insects in the world, but they thrive in the right conditions, which are not hard to find: proximity to fruit or a biology lab in need of something simple and fast growing to raise for genetic testing.



n.Die_soO is the second of two SKT zergs to make it to this season’s RO8. Man, that feels weird to type. Deep in the OSL and doing well in Proleague, soO’s performance has been surprisingly good for any rookie, let alone one from SKT's notoriously unreliable zerg line. He doesn’t seem anywhere near invincible, mind you – watch his game against Fantasy (or read KwarK's analysis) for example. Even if he’s not the favorite to take home the gold in this tournament, soO is still early in his career and his future is looking bright. The darkhorse Royal Roader, soO is the…



In their solitary phase, desert locusts are your normal, run-of-the-mill grasshoppers. They are relatively large insects with powerful hind legs for hopping, but are also herbivores that can’t bite or sting. When they enter their swarming phase, they undergo a radical change in both color and behavior, and literally billions of them congregate to travel for hundreds of square miles, blighting any and all vegetation in their way. Keep in mind though that as destructive as they are in swarming phase, they don’t have any particularly threatening defense mechanisms.



Having the Tyrant himself as your personal mentor is an opportunity that every young zerg dreams of, and Killer has clearly not been wasting it. The kid breezed through the dual tournament and his RO16 group 5-0. In the process he looked comfortable in all three matchups and outplayed both Sea and Ty with apparent ease. Especially with the less than spectacular condition of a lot of the players in the OSL right now, Killer is looking dangerous. Jaedong’s promising protégé, Killer is the…



Not impressed by flies? Don’t be fooled, robber flies are not the tame little houseflies you’re probably accustomed to. Aside from being much bigger and buffer, they have a sleek, elongated abdomen and long, spiny legs. Robber flies are fast and aggressive hunters that rugby tackle their prey mid-flight, grip them in their powerful legs and stab them with their sharp, rigid proboscises, injecting their victims with a potent combination of toxins that finish the job. They’ll take on just about any flying insect, including wasps, dragonflies, and butterflies. Larger species, like the red-footed cannibal fly, have even been reported to take down hummingbirds. Pretty BAMF for a fly.



It’s hard not to get caught up in the JangBi hype. After the end of the protoss golden age, JangBi slumped hardest and longest of the six dragons. Even after his surprising return to form, JangBi was on the verge of elimination both in the prelims when he lost his group and dropped into the wildcard tournament and in the RO16 before Killer went 3-0. In both cases, JangBi refused to give up on his last glimmer of hope and proceeded to stomp everyone between him and the next round. Now JangBi is the lone protoss in the RO8, and he's made it clear that he plans to go all the way.

I still find myself approaching the whole “JangBi is back” bandwagon with a little bit of skepticism, however. He has looked shaky in some of his recent matches. In particular, his PvZ condition is worrying (who's PvZ condition isn't these days though?). His current 13 game PvT winning streak is inflated by prelims, and even being in the peak PvT shape of his entire career might not be enough to get him past Flash, his RO8 opponent. If JangBi wants to be the first protoss champion since Bisu won the Clubday MSL in fall of 2008 (against JangBi himself, as fate would have it), he's in for a hard, uphill battle to the top. The last hope for Aiur in the OSL, JangBi is the…



Queen Alexandra’s birdwing is the largest species of butterfly in the world. These huge, colorful insects spend most of their time flying at great heights in the upper reaches of the rainforest canopy. Unfortunately, Queen Alexandra’s birdwing is an endangered species, as habitat destruction has reduced its range to a small patch of rainforest on the eastern coast of Papua New Guinea. Magnificent though they are, there is a certain fragility to butterflies, born of their large delicate wings. Count yourself lucky if you see one of these, because they might not be around for much longer.