Game One – Antiga Shipyard

DongRaeGu went into game one looking to put the 'turtle' in 'turtle-hive.' After some fairly mundane openings where both players secured three bases, DRG rushed straight up to hive tech behind a sea of spine crawlers.

Rain seemed to take it stride, building up in an attempt to hit a pre-hive timing with stalkers and colossi. However, he couldn't find any success, poking away and killing several crawlers but unable to deal any significant damage to DRG before his brood lords were out. Rain shifted track towards playing a longer game, securing a fourth base and teching to templars and mothership.

DongRaeGu was able to push out to the middle of the map and take one more expand at the center before the game broke down into an ugly stalemate. DRG had no desire to attack his opponent until he built up a perfect army, while Rain likewise did not want to engage the fearsome brood lord-infestor composition. Rain contented himself by doing what he could do to exploit DRG's immobility: taking expands for himself, denying them for DRG, and wiping out the entirety of DRG's main and natural with warp prisms and zealots.

Unfortunately for Rain, all those gains proved to be rather inconsequential in the face of an army he could not dare to face. Due to impatience or whatever other reason, Rain was finally goaded into fighting DongRaeGu's force head on... and the results were not pretty. The crucial vortex was only able to swallow up a few brood lords, while the rest of DRG's troops did their work picked Rain's army apart.

Having lost his mothership, Rain had no chance at winning another engagement. DongRaeGu began his march of death around Rain's bases, forced a brutal last stand from Rain, and took the first game.

DongRaeGu 1 – 0 By.Rain


Game Two – Entombed Valley

DongRaeGu set out to try and make game two a repeat of game one, rushing hive once more. Rain wasn't fazed by the events of the previous game, going for yet another phoenix build into a three-base attack aiming to hit DongRaeGu before he could mass brood lords.

The second time around, things went better for Rain. DongRaeGu was attempting to secure a fourth base, which stretched his defense line much thinner compared to the veritable wall he had been able to erect on Antiga Shipyard. Rain managed to force a cancel on DongRaeGu's fourth, but more importantly, was able to sneak a warp-prism into DongRaeGu's main to take out the greater spire. It was a crucial break for Rain, delaying DRG significantly while allowing himself time to secure his fourth base and prepare an army suitable for fighting in the late game.

Rain did not squander the advantage he had been able to take, hitting DongRaeGu one more time before the critical mass of brood lords and infestors was reached. With a decent vortex, some storms, and blink stalkers, Rain was able to clear out DRG's fourth base – all while warping in more zealots in the Zerg main, of course. Rocked and unable to recover, DongRaeGu GG'd out.

DongRaeGu 1 – 1 By.Rain


Game Three – Ohana

Rain decided to open up game three with a build that looked suspiciously like the infamous Startale immortal all-in, getting upgrades and a robotics facility at the appropriate timings. DongRaeGu was wary of the build as well, sacrificing two overlords to make sure he knew what he was up against. Seemingly having confirmed Rain's plan, DongRaeGu pumped out a batch of roaches and lings in preparation, but as it turned out Rain had duped him, going for a fast third base instead.

DRG went into recovery mode, taking his own fourth base and trying to build up his economy and tech at the same time, but he was already a step behind Rain. For his next trick, Rain struck with a Creator-esque mass immortal and blink stalker timing, even duping DRG one more time with a hallucinated colossus. While DongRaeGu's roaches and lings were doomed to die to Rain's attack, the handful of useless corruptors that hatched certainly did not help.

DongRaeGu 1 – 2 By.Rain


Game Four – Daybreak

Game four turned out to be oddly similar to game three, with Rain kicking down the front door with a three base blink-stalker + immortal timing, though the road there was slightly different.

As things tend to go on Daybreak, both players took three bases without much trouble, and DongRaeGu didn't fall victim to any kind of trickery this time. He took a fourth base, built spines, and reared up to take whatever attack Rain decided to come with.

Alas, even somewhat prepared and expecting what was to come, DongRaeGu didn't have a chance. Immortals and stalkers chewed through all the resistance with remarkable ease, and DRG had to surrender his third consecutive game.

DongRaeGu 1 – 3 By.Rain


Game Five – Antiga Shipyard

With everything on the line, DRG decided to throw his wildest change-up thus far in the series, going for a muta-ling based strategy after a standard three base opener. As for Rain, he resisted the temptation to go for a two-base all-in for the fifth game in a row, going for yet another one of his safe, not-particularly-greedy three base builds. However, he did give it a little twist.

With DongRaeGu starting to mass up mutalisks and zerglings in an attempt to knock Rain off balance, it was Rain who would knock DRG on his back instead. Four heroic dark templars found their way to all four Zerg bases on the map, hitting them at the same time while DongRaeGu's main force gathered near Rain's base. The results weren't pretty, with DongRaeGu reacting late to each threat. Drones were massacred, while DRG's macro suffered all the while as he went into crisis control.

In that chaos, it was all too easy for Rain to push out with his blink stalker army. Rain caught DongRaeGu in one of the worst possible positions, with over a thousand minerals banked, and a paltry army of mutalisks and zerglings that had been meant to harass, not act as the last line of defense. Though it was hopeless, DongRaeGu mounted one final defensive effort. After taking a few moments to contemplate his loss, DongRaeGu gave the final GG of the night.

DongRaeGu 1 – 4 By.Rain