EPTLive Coverage Thread
Koreans Rock Again, but Slightly Less So
For once, the story of the first day at MLG is not about how the Koreans crushed through the foreign competition. Instead, it is about triumph from outside the system of the GSL, with both NesTea and Mvp being knocked into the lower bracket tonight by DeMuslim and Ret, respectively.
Even so, the later stages of the upper bracket are already filled with the obvious favorites. Leenock, Oz, viOlet, and MarineKing all made it through their matches. Three of the four upper bracket Ro8 matches are Korean-vs-Korean, a strong display for anyone confused as to where the strongest talent is.
One small surprise was PartinG's triumph over DongRaeGu. After being thoroughly humiliated last week in the GSL quarter-finals it seemed as if DRG would have an easy path to the upper bracket Ro8. The first game went as planned with DRG showing up the Protoss in every regard, but in the second and third games PartinG played them out much more solidly and took home the series win.
Perhaps all too predictably, the biggest loser today were the Americans themselves. Sheth, Idra, Axslav, and Minigun all find themselves fighting in the loser's bracket after a single match. The story gets even worse if the umbrella is widened to include all of North America, adding dde, Ddoro, and Drewbie to the list, leaving Huk as the only representative of the continent to come through in his games.
Day One Update Log
+ Show Spoiler [Update Log] +
05:33 GMT (+00:00): MC 2 - 0 TheStC. MC cleaned out TheStC's SCVs as TheStC went on the offensive, putting the pressure on TheStC to do as much damage in return. However, TheStC just couldn't get the job done, and MC won the series.
05:27 GMT (+00:00): Ret 2 - 1 Mvp. After a long game on Daybreak, the game turned into a base trade where Ret won on both ends. He defended his home base easily, while inflicting a massive amount of damage to Mvp, winning the game.
05:24 GMT (+00:00): DongRaeGu 1 – 2 PartinG. DRG 6 pools. PartinG holds with a cannon, sneaks a pylon into DRG's main and kills him with a handful of warped in zealots.
05:19 GMT (+00:00): MC 1 - 0 TheStC. MC followed a sweet colossus fake into a strong templar based army, covering TheStC with storms and forcing the GG.
05:14 GMT (+00:00): DongRaeGu 1 – 1 PartinG. PartinG opens with 3 void rays after FE. Unlike when he did it in GSL, he waited to show them until he was in DRG's base and the Zerg main didn't take long to destroy.
05:05 GMT (+00:00): Mvp 1 - 1 Ret. Ret went for the roach-bane bust early on, doing a decent amount of damage but not ending the game. The game progressed to a later phase, where Ret tried the bust at a much more massive scale, with speed roaches and speed banes. Mvp help this attack off quite easily, and Ret GG'd out of the game.
05:05 GMT (+00:00): MarineKing 2 - 0 NaNiwa. MarineKing plays a normal bio midgame, NaNiwa tries to harass him with DTs and they don't do enough. MKP rolls through the weakened Protoss army.
04:51 GMT (+00:00): DongRaeGu 1 - 0 PartinG. DRG overwhelms parting by keeping him busy at his third and natural while filling the map with creep and hatcheries.
04:51 GMT (+00:00): MarineKing 1 - 0 NaNiwa. MarineKing gets a fast third orbital while NaNiwa techs heavy on 2 base. Nani is unable to deny MKP's third from going down and dies to a stream of MMM.
04:48 GMT (+00:00): Ret 1 - 0 Mvp, viOLet 2 - 0 SjoW. Zerg brothers in arms! Ret had a few scary moments when his third was being pressured hard by Mvp, but he recovered and let his economy kick in. After that, relentless waves of mutas and double-lings were too much for Mvp, who GG'd out. As for viOLet, he was in control all game, staving off SjoW's attacks and build up his own muta-ling-bane mass to take down the Swedish Terran.
04:38 GMT (+00:00): Oz 2 - 1 DeMuslim. Oz begins with a quick third, and DeMuslim plays a very heavy two-base game. Oz holds off all of DeMuslim's aggression with incredible forcefields and DeMuslim taps out.
04:30 GMT (+00:00): viOLet 1 - 0 SjoW. viOLet pounded SjoW's first big marine/medivac/tank advance, and that was it. He had a lot of troops left over, added a ton more banes, and went in for the kill.
04:22 GMT (+00:00): Oz 1 - 1 DeMuslim. DeMuslim opens with 4-rax and a starport, then later all-ins with all of his SCVs. Oz holds barely, techs up during a long constant micro battle and eventually overwhelms the Terran.
04:20 GMT (+00:00): Leenock 2 - 1 ThorZain. ThorZain mechs, but this time Leenock is able to drive the army back with brood lords and roaches and takes the series.
04:05 GMT (+00:00): Oz 0 - 1 DeMuslim. Oz goes for a quick third base, and DeMuslim's first marine-marauder-medic army does a ton of damage before more gateways are up, and he pummels him to death from there.
04:02 GMT (+00:00): Leenock 1 – 1 ThorZain. Leenock busts ThorZain's natural with early roach aggression, then finishes him off with lings and banelings.
04:00 GMT (+00:00): Winners round one is complete!
03:57 GMT (+00:00): HuK 2 - 0 Socke, TheStC 2 - 0 Drewbie. Old oGs-TL housemates synchronizing their victories! HuK slipped some hidden pylons into Socke's base, which made his 4-gate an auto-win. As for TheStC, he countered Drewbie's fast expansion with a fast double expansion, and won the game by trading his third base for Drewbie's second.
03:50 GMT (+00:00): Leenock 0 - 1 ThorZain. ThorZain mechs once again, they split the map and ThorZain wins with a huge thor/viking army after Leenock takes a few bad fights with broodlords.
03:48 GMT (+00:00): HuK 1 - 0 Socke. HuK hit a nice gateway attack while Socke was trying to tech too quickly. The damage snowballed out of control, and HuK took the game.
03:43 GMT (+00:00): TheStC 1 - 0 Drewbie. 1/1/1, not just for TvP! StC's great micro and timing allowed him to easily punish and defeat Drewbie's regular fast expant build.
03:42 GMT (+00:00): Socke and HuK starting up!
03:36 GMT (+00:00): Matches starting up again. ThorZaIN vs Leenock and Drewbie vs TheStC.
03:24 GMT (+00:00): MC 2 - 0 Merz. MC was allowed to hulk up after taking three bases, and carpeted everything Merz had to secure the victory.
03:08 GMT (+00:00): MC 1 - 0 Merz. Nothing special, MC massed some gateway units and colossi off two bases, and attacked. Then Merz just kinda died. Oh well.
03:08 GMT (+00:00): Ret 2 - 1 SaSe. SaSe takes an early third, Ret pressures and kills it with roaches and SaSe GGs when he sees ret has burrow and is attacking his nat.
03:00 GMT (+00:00): Parting 2 - 1 Pomi. Tal'Darim Altar. Who's better at microing zealots and stalkers? Parting, I guess!
02:59 GMT (+00:00): DongRaeGu 2 - 1 GanZi. GanZi opens very fast 3 cc, DRG makes roaches and banelings, busts his wall, and kills him.
02:53 GMT (+00:00): Ret 1 - 1 SaSe. Ret counters repeatedly when SaSe's army moves out onto the map to stop Zerg expos. He holds SaSe to 2 bases and overpowers him.
02:49 GMT (+00:00): Pomi 1 - 1 Parting. Pomi's warp-prism play brought about another base trade scenario between the two Protoss players, but this time he got the better end of the exchange.
02:47 GMT (+00:00): DongRaeGu 1 - 1 GanZi. DRG tries a roach-ling-baneling allin, GanZi holds and wins with a counter.
02:44 GMT (+00:00): Mvp 2 - 0 San. San opened with some blink pressure, but was left playing follow up after he failed to do much damage. Mvp then hit a great counter-attack timing as San tried to tech up to too many things at once, and took the series.
02:38 GMT (+00:00): Ret 0 - 1 SaSe. After losing much of his army in his first push and losing many probes to muta harass, SaSe builds up a sizeable army and takes on Ret's army directly and crushes it. From there he kills expos until Ret has no more.
02:34 GMT (+00:00): DongRaeGu 1 - 0 GanZi. DongRaeGu plays a smart infestor-ling style, sniping GanZi's natural and being annoying with infested terrans. GanZi takes out some expansions but not before he mines out and runs out of steam.
02:31 GMT (+00:00): Mvp 1 - 0 San, Parting 1 - 0 Pomi. Two matches that finished almost exactly together. San went for a two base colossus timing against Mvp's fast triple orbital build, but failed to kill Mvp off. He GG'd out after he realized he was at a massive economic disadvantage. In the other game, Parting and Pomi had an interesting base trade scenario, but Parting's blink stalkers ended up being a bit better than Pomi's less mobile colossi and immortals.
02:22 GMT (+00:00): Time for more games. Mvp vs San, and Parting vs Pomi.
02:05 GMT (+00:00): ThorZain 2 - 0 Sheth. ThorZain pressures with marines and tanks and repeatedly kill Sheth's expos while he secures his own.
02:02 GMT (+00:00): Leenock 2 - 1 dde. Alas, Leenock got his groove back. After thwarting dde's marauder-hellion pressure, Leenock went for a quick finish with a ton of speedlings and speedbanes.
01:49 GMT (+00:00): dde 1 - 1 Leenock. dde looked much better in the second game, thwarting Leenock's plan to go for a bust with an early tank, and building on a strong macro base to take down the MLG Providence champion.
01:39 GMT (+00:00): ThorZain 1 - 0 Sheth. True Spoon-Terran style, ThorZain mechs and patiently takes the map while pushing out to choke Sheth to death.
01:37 GMT (+00:00): Leenock 1 - 0 dde, Violet 2 - 1 Axslav. Leenock took down dde in a predictable one-sided affair, while Axslav put up a good fight against Violet before ultimately falling to brood lords.
01:35 GMT (+00:00): DeMuslim 2 - 1 Nestea. DeMuslim mechs after 2 proxy rax. They split the map, trade repeatedly for half an hour, and DeMuslim comes out on top after some good fights.
01:25 GMT (+00:00) Leenock vs dde begins!
01:11 GMT (+00:00): viOLet 1 - 1 Axslav. viOLet came back from being quite far behind, having allowed Axslav to take one half of Metalopolis and donating a ton of troops in failed attacks. However, viOLet survived long enough to put together a death army of a dozen brood lords supported by a dozen infestors, and used that to slowly but surely erase Axslav's advantage and take the game.
01:08 GMT (+00:00): Leenock vs dde and Sheth vs ThorZaIN coming up!
01:05 GMT (+00:00). NesTea 1 - 1 DeMuslim. NesTea deflects early attempts at aggression, takes control of the map with mutas and then rolls over DeMuslim when he catches the tanks unseiged with a large baneling-muta army.
01:03 GMT (+00:00): Oz 2 - 1 Idra. Idra tries an attack with hydra-roach as Oz was making his third, and is repelled just barely. Idra GGs before Oz even leaves his base to counter.
01:02 GMT (+00:00): Naniwa 2 - 1 Grubby. NaNiwa decided to try for a faster expansion with his blink stalkers, while Grubby stayed on one base to try and make NaNiwa pay. NaNiwa's defense was up to the task, and he won with his resource advantage once it kicked in.
00:47 GMT (+00:00): Oz 1 - 1 Idra. Oz tries to cannon Idra's third, loses a lot of stuff without doing much damage. Idra counters with roaches and kills him.
00:47 GMT (+00:00): Grubby 1 - 1 NaNiwa. After losing the first game, Grubby came back with some sweet mid-game DT usage.
00:44 GMT (+00:00): Axslav 1 - 0 viOLet. Axslav looked extremely solid as he slowly secured bases and built up a deathball on Antiga Shipyard. It didn't help viOLet that he never tried to go for infestors or brood lords.
00:43 GMT (+00:00): NesTea 0 - 1 DeMuslim. Very even all game, NesTea harassing with mutas and DeMuslim harassing with marine drops and denying expansions with small groups. Turning point comes when DeMuslim takes out morphing brood lords at NesTea's nat with his marine-tank-thor army.
00:37 GMT (+00:00): Oz 1 - 0 Idra. Idra gains big lead in the midgame with a muta switch, but Oz gets to 3 attack on his units and wins with a huge blink stalker-immortal push on 3 bases while Idra is behind on upgrades.
00:34 GMT (+00:00): NaNiwa 1 - 0 Grubby. Blink stalkers vs blink stalkers - and NaNiwa had the better micro.
00:27 GMT (+00:00): The next round of games begin! Grubby vs NaNiwa, Axslav vs viOLet, Nestea vs DeMusliM, and IdrA vs Oz.
00:07 GMT (+00:00): MarineKing 2 - 1 Losira. Losira goes for a ling-infestor style but MarineKing takes an early third and denies all attempts at aggression. Aggressive drops press his advantage and he overwhelms with marines and tanks.
23:57 GMT (+00:00): HuK 2 - 1 MiniGun. Huk opens with a stargate instead of a robotics, and wins after prolonged micro-war where he kills an expansion while taking his own.
23:54 GMT (+00:00): SjoW 2 - 0 HayprO. SjoW outslugs HayprO in a very scrappy, very close game on Metalopolis. They base-traded, stabilized, and reset. Then they did it again! SjoW just proved to have a little more in the tank as the game went on, and it was enough for the victory.
23:49 GMT (+00:00): MarineKing 1 - 1 Losira. Losira makes mutas in the midgame and maintains economic lead after gaining map control. Wins in endgame with brood lord-infestor after defending drops and trading blows at expansions.
23:48 GMT (+00:00): Grubby vs NaNiwa Soon! Meanwhile, SjoW and HayprO haven't finished playing this ridiculously epic game on Metal.
23:44 GMT (+00:00): HuK 1 - 1 MiniGun. This time it is Huk who takes the expansion first, and after killing Minigun's expansion right as his own starts running he takes an easy victory.
23:29 GMT (+00:00): HuK 0 - 1 MiniGun. Minigun gets the first expansion while Huk opens blink stalkers, and later makes DTs while Minigun starts building colossus. Minigun keeps colossus lead all game and rolls over Huk.
23:27 GMT (+00:00): Socke 2 - 0 Ddoro. A bit typical. Socke wins a deathball fight on Daybreak after both players macro off three bases.
23:20 GMT (+00:00): SjoW 1 - 0 HayprO. A long game on Daybreak ends after continued battles where HayprO is just too inefficient, and lets SjoW slowly snowball his advantages.
23:20 GMT (+00:00): MarineKing 1 – 0 Losira. Predictably sloppy game on both sides, they traded marines for banelings and later infestors until Losira ran out of steam first.
23:10 GMT (+00:00):. Huk vs Minigun and Losira vs MarineKing starting.
23:08 GMT (+00:00): Socke 1 - 0 Ddoro: Well, that was fast. Socke went blink and Ddoro went Stargate, but the game ended before any of that high tech mattered, with Socke turning some early pressure into a game winning attack.
23:05 GMT (+00:00): Losira vs MKP on Dual Sight, SjoW vs HayprO on Daybreak also starting up.
23:04 GMT (+00:00): Ddoro vs Socke starting up on Shakuras Plateau, first match to start!
22:00 GMT (+00:00): Just chillin'
22:30 GMT (+00:00): Whoo, pre-game show ^_^;
Winners Round Two
05:00 GMT (+00:00): MC vs TheStC - A3
- Game One: MC followed a sweet colossus fake into a strong templar based army, covering TheStC with storms and forcing the GG.
- Game Two: MC cleaned out TheStC's SCVs as TheStC went on the offensive, putting the pressure on TheStC to do as much damage in return. However, TheStC just couldn't get the job done, and MC won the series.
- MC 2 - 0 TheStC
05:00 GMT (+00:00): DongRaeGu vs PartinG - C
- Game One: DRG overwhelms parting by keeping him busy at his third and natural while filling the map with creep and hatcheries.
- Game Two: PartinG opens with 3 void rays after FE. Unlike when he did it in GSL, he waited to show them until he was in DRG's base and the Zerg main didn't take long to destroy.
- Game Three: DRG 6 pools. PartinG holds with a cannon, sneaks a pylon into DRG's main and kills him with a handful of warped in zealots.
- DongRaeGu 1 - 2 PartinG
04:45 GMT (+00:00): NaNiwa vs MarineKing - A1
- Game One: MarineKing gets a fast third orbital while NaNiwa techs heavy on 2 base. Nani is unable to deny MKP's third from going down and dies to a stream of MMM.
- Game Two: MarineKing plays a normal bio midgame, NaNiwa tries to harass him with DTs and they don't do enough. MKP rolls through the weakened Protoss army.
- NaNiwa 0 - 2 MarineKing
04:30 GMT (+00:00): Ret vs Mvp - A2
- Game One: Ret had a few scary moments when his third was being pressured hard by Mvp, but he recovered and let his economy kick in. After that, relentless waves of mutas and double-lings were too much for Mvp, who GG'd out.
- Game Two: Ret went for the roach-bane bust early on, doing a decent amount of damage but not ending the game. The game progressed to a later phase, where Ret tried the bust at a much more massive scale, with speed roaches and speed banes. Mvp help this attack off quite easily, and Ret GG'd out of the game.
- Game Three: After a long game on Daybreak, the game turned into a base trade where Ret won on both ends. He defended his home base easily, while inflicting a massive amount of damage to Mvp, winning the game.
- Ret 2 - 1 Mvp
04:30 GMT (+00:00): viOLet vs SjoW - A3
- Game One: viOLet pounded SjoW's first big marine/medivac/tank advance, and that was it. He had a lot of troops left over, added a ton more banes, and went in for the kill.
- Game Two: viOLet was in control all game, staving off SjoW's attacks and building up his muta-ling-bane mass to take down the Swedish Terran.
- viOLet 2 - 0 SjoW
03:30 GMT (+00:00): Leenock vs ThorZain - A1
- Game One: ThorZain mechs once again, they split the map and ThorZain wins with a huge thor/viking army after Leenock takes a few bad fights with brood lords.
- Game Two: Leenock busts ThorZain's natural with early roach aggression, then finishes him off with lings and banelings.
- Game Three: ThorZain mechs, but this time Leenock is able to drive the army back with brood lords and roaches and takes the series.
- Leenock 2 - 1 ThorZain
04:00 GMT (+00:00): Oz vs DeMuslim - C
- Game One: Oz goes for a quick third base, and DeMuslim's first marine-marauder-medic army does a ton of damage before more gateways are up, and he pummels him to death from there.
- Game Two: DeMuslim opens with 4-rax and a starport, then later all-ins with all of his SCVs. Oz holds barely, techs up during a long constant micro battle and eventually overwhelms the Terran.
- Game Three: Oz begins with a quick third, and DeMuslim plays a very heavy two-base game. Oz holds off all of DeMuslim's aggression with incredible forcefields and DeMuslim taps out.
- Oz 2 - 1 DeMuslim
04:00 GMT (+00:00): HuK vs Socke - A3
- Game One:HuK hit a nice gateway attack while Socke was trying to tech too quickly. The damage snowballed out of control, and HuK took the game.
- Game Two: HuK slipped some hidden pylons into Socke's base, which made his 4-gate an auto-win.
- HuK 2 - 0 Socke
Winners Round One
+ Show Spoiler [Round One Results] +
Newer updates above, older updates below.
03:00 GMT (+00:00): Drewbie vs TheStC - A2
03:00 GMT (+00:00): MC vs Merz - A3
Ret vs SaSe - A1
DongRaeGu vs GanZi - C
02:00 GMT (+00:00): Parting vs Pomi - A2
02:00 GMT (+00:00): Mvp vs San - A3
01:00 GMT (+00:00): Sheth vs ThorZaIN - C
01:00 GMT (+00:00): Leenock vs dde - A2
23:30 GMT (+00:00): IdrA vs Oz - C
00:00 GMT (+00:00): Nestea vs Demuslim - A1
00:00 GMT (+00:00): Violet vs Axslav - A3
00:00 GMT (+00:00): Naniwa vs Grubby - A2
23:00 GMT (+00:00): HuK vs Minigun - A1
23:00 GMT (+00:00): Ddoro vs Socke - A2
23:00 GMT (+00:00): Losira vs MarineKing - C
23:00 GMT (+00:00): Haypro vs Sjow - A3
03:00 GMT (+00:00): Drewbie vs TheStC - A2
- Game One: TheStC used a well executed 1/1/1 to defeat Drewbie's standard fast expansion.
- Game Two: TheStC countered Drewbie's fast expansion with a fast double expansion, and won the game by trading his third base for Drewbie's second.
- Drewbie 0 - 1 TheStC
03:00 GMT (+00:00): MC vs Merz - A3
- Game One: Nothing special, MC massed some gateway units and colossi off two bases, and attacked. Then Merz just kinda died. Oh well.
- Game Two: MC made a powerful gateway army off of three bases, and Merz could not find a way to deal with the high templars that rained storms down on his army.
- MC 2 - 0 Merz
Ret vs SaSe - A1
- Game One: After losing much of his army in his first push and losing many probes to muta harass, SaSe builds up a sizeable army and takes on Ret's army directly and crushes it. From there he kills expos until Ret has no more.
- Game Two: Ret counters repeatedly when SaSe's army moves out onto the map to stop Zerg expos. He holds SaSe to 2 bases and overpowers him.
- Game Three: SaSe takes an early third, Ret pressures and kills it with roaches and SaSe GGs when he sees Ret has burrow and is attacking his nat.
- Ret 2 - 1 SaSe
DongRaeGu vs GanZi - C
- Game One: DongRaeGu plays a smart infestor-ling style, sniping GanZi's natural and being annoying with infested terrans. GanZi takes out some expansions but not before he mines out and runs out of steam.
- Game Two: DRG tries a roach-ling-baneling allin, GanZi holds and wins with a counter.
- Game Three: GanZi opens very fast 3 cc, DRG makes roaches and banelings, busts his wall, and kills him.
- DRG 2 - 1 GanZi
02:00 GMT (+00:00): Parting vs Pomi - A2
- Game One: Parting's blink stalkers were better than Pomi's robo tech units in this base trade game.
- Game Two: Pomi's warp-prism play brought about another base trade scenario between the two Protoss players, but this time he got the better end of the exchange.
- Game Three: Parting's hidden pylon in Pomi's base helped him get the better of the stalker/zealot vs stalker/zealot exchange.
- Pomi 1 - 2 Parting
02:00 GMT (+00:00): Mvp vs San - A3
- Game One: Mvp took a risk with a triple orbital build, but it paid after he successfully defended San's two base colossi build.
- Game Two: San opened with some blink pressure, but was left playing follow up after he failed to do much damage. Mvp then hit a great counter-attack timing as San tried to tech up to too many things at once, and took the series.
- San 0 - 2 Mvp
01:00 GMT (+00:00): Sheth vs ThorZaIN - C
- Game One: True Spoon-Terran style, ThorZain mechs and patiently takes the map while pushing out to choke Sheth to death.
- Game Two: ThorZain pressures with marines and tanks and repeatedly kill Sheth's expos while he secures his own.
- ThorZaIN 2 - 0 Sheth
01:00 GMT (+00:00): Leenock vs dde - A2
- Game One: Standard lair phase muta-ling mauling from Leenock.
- Game Two: Wow! The roles seemed completely reversed, as dde rolled to a pretty standard lair-phase beat down of Leenock.
- Game Three: After thwarting dde's marauder-hellion pressure, Leenock went for a quick finish with a ton of speedlings and speedbanes.
- Leenock 2 - 1 dde
23:30 GMT (+00:00): IdrA vs Oz - C
- Game One: Idra gains big lead in the midgame with a muta switch, but Oz gets to 3 attack on his units and wins with a huge blink stalker-immortal push on 3 bases while Idra is behind on upgrades.
- Game Two: Oz tries to cannon Idra's third, loses a lot of stuff without doing much damage. Idra counters with roaches and kills him.
- Game Three: Idra tries an attack with hydra-roach as Oz was making his third, and is repelled just barely. Idra GGs before Oz even leaves his base to counter.
- Oz 2 - 1 Idra
00:00 GMT (+00:00): Nestea vs Demuslim - A1
- Game One: Very even all game, NesTea harassing with mutas and DeMuslim harassing with marine drops and denying expansions with small groups. Turning point comes when DeMuslim takes out morphing brood lords at NesTea's nat with his marine-tank-thor army.
- Game Two: NesTea deflects early attempts at aggression, takes control of the map with mutas and then rolls over DeMuslim when he catches the tanks unseiged with a large baneling-muta army.
- Game Three: DeMuslim mechs after 2 proxy rax. They split the map, trade repeatedly for half an hour, and DeMuslim comes out on top after some good fights.
- DeMuslim 2 - 1 NesTea
00:00 GMT (+00:00): Violet vs Axslav - A3
- Game One: Solid macro game from Axslav on Antiga, where he secured his three bases and deathballed his way to victory.
- Game Two: viOLet came back from being quite far behind, having allowed Axslav to take one half of Metalopolis and donating a ton of troops in failed attacks. However, viOLet survived long enough to put together a death army of a dozen brood lords supported by a dozen infestors, and used that to slowly but surely erase Axslav's advantage and take the game.
- Game Three: After a long macro game on Daybreak, brood lords were Axslav's bane once more as viOLet came from behind to takae the series.
- Axslav 1 - 2 viOLet
00:00 GMT (+00:00): Naniwa vs Grubby - A2
- Game One: NaNiwa won after he won a blink stalker battle with superior micro and positioning.
- Game Two: The two players were neck and neck for a while, until Grubby managed to squeeze out some DTs befoer NaNiwa was prepared.
- Game Three: NaNiwa decided to try for a faster expansion with his blink stalkers, while Grubby stayed on one base to try and make NaNiwa pay. NaNiwa's defense was up to the task, and he won with his resource advantage once it kicked in.
- Naniwa 2 - 1 Grubby
23:00 GMT (+00:00): HuK vs Minigun - A1
- Game One: Minigun gets the first expansion while Huk opens blink stalkers, and later makes DTs while Minigun starts building colossus. Minigun keeps colossus lead all game and rolls over Huk.
- Game Two: This time it is Huk who takes the expansion first, and after killing Minigun's expansion right as his own starts running he takes an easy victory.
Game Three: Huk opens with a stargate instead of a robotics, and wins after prolonged micro-war where he kills an expansion while taking his own. - Minigun 1 - 2 Huk
23:00 GMT (+00:00): Ddoro vs Socke - A2
- Game One: Socke went blink and Ddoro went Stargate, but the game ended before any of that high tech mattered, with Socke turning some early pressure into a game winning attack.
- Game Two: Socke wins a deathball fight on Daybreak after both players macro off three bases.
- Socke 2 - 0 Ddoro
23:00 GMT (+00:00): Losira vs MarineKing - C
- Game One: Predictably sloppy game on both sides, they traded marines for banelings and later infestors until Losira ran out of steam first.
- Game Two: Losira makes mutas in the midgame and maintains economic lead after gaining map control. Wins in endgame with brood lord-infestor after defending drops and trading blows at expansions.
- Game Three: Losira goes for a ling-infestor style but MarineKing takes an early third and denies all attempts at aggression. Aggressive drops press his advantage and he overwhelms with marines and tanks.
- MarineKing 2 - 1 Losira
23:00 GMT (+00:00): Haypro vs Sjow - A3
- Game One: A long game on Daybreak ends after continued battles where HayprO is just too inefficient, and lets SjoW slowly snowball his advantages.
- Game Two: SjoW outslugs HayprO in a very scrappy, very close game on Metalopolis. They base-traded, stabilized, and reset. Then they did it again! SjoW just proved to have a little more in the tank as the game went on, and it was enough for the victory.
- HayprO 0 - 2 SjoW
