Results from Live Report Thread by Stuchiu.
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IPL_Hyun makes his first appearance in the GSL
- TSL_HyuN defeats CreatorPrime 3 - 1.

Going into the first match of the night, the question on everyone’s mind was what version of Hyun we were getting. While Creator had for the most part conquered his nerves, Hyun was a player that you just couldn’t count on to play his best in the booth. The winner of countless online cups and showmatches could never show 100% of his strength when the heat was on, and that seemed to be the biggest thing Creator could count on, more so than his own skill in three-base timing attacks.

That all changed as Hyun showed in the first game he was completely ready to destroy Creator. He easily stopped Creator’s warp prism 4-gate and then followed-up with a roach-ling drop rampage for the rest of the game as Creator tried to defend. Creator showed some signs of life in game two where he hit a 2 and a half base timing where he moved out with 1 collosus and a stalker immortal sentry push that caught Hyun completely off guard. Hyun was duped into making too many corruptors and the army on the ground crushed as Hyun couldn’t make up enough army to defend.

With the series tied, HyuN refused to let Creator build momentum, and delivered a soul crushing blow that might have counted for two wins instead of one. Starting with fast speed to scare Creator into making cannons and sentries, HyuN then switched briefly into muta to force more reactions from Creator in templar tech. From there, HyuN went straight up to greater spire off four bases, settling into the late game behind a wall of sunkens.

In response, Creator showed some fancy harassment with blink stalker run-bys zealot run-bys and warp prism harassment while teching up to the Protoss air fleet. The two players split the map, but when the final engagement happened, Hyun had nearly 30 infestors with which to make Creator's Life miserable. With superior control, and a sloppy mothership giveaway from Creator, HyuN brutally dismembered Creator's entire force, and nearly 10,000 minerals worth of warp-ins after to take the game.

Frustrated with that loss, Creator went for an immortal sentry build on the next map, but he looked shaken as he was caught in transit by speedlings and annihilated with shocking ease. Creator lingered in the game, perhaps feeling the emptiness of such a one-sided loss, before he finally GG'd out of the series.

- Potential Realized (?)

Hyun’s 3-1 win over Creator here was a semi-surprising result. While everyone knew Hyun was easily capable of winning, no one trusted in his offline performance enough to say with certainty that he would win.

Overall, Hyun showed a lot of impressive play. He used a wide variety of build orders against Creator and executed them all well. He didn’t show any of his latent nerve problems and didn’t seem shaken up after his loss in the second game. While there are no more Protosses left in the tournament, Hyun’s performance on Monday has shown that he has what it takes to win this GSL and become the second royal roader, especially with the fact that this GSL finals will be held at IPL. With having already won a satellite for IPL 5, this could be the perfect storm for Hyun can extend his sacred precincts from the IPL Fight Club to IPL proper and have a chnace at winning two championhips on one weekend.

AXclaimtion Point
- AX.Ryung defeats MarineKingPrime 3 - 1

On this GSL stage, MKP and Ryung played their parts perfectly. MKP was the aggressor trying to take map control and look for holes in Ryung’s defense. Ryung was the positional defensive player who exploited any holes in MKP’s army movement. Ryung would scout early and often each game while MKP would never scout until the final game. It started off well for MKP with a build order advantage that nullified Ryung’s combat shield timing. Instead it led to MKP getting a strong siege-tank contain on Ryung’s natural. From there MKP wouldn’t let the advantage go and would play out the rest of the game flawlessly.

Ryung rallied back in the second game. MKP got an advantage early in the game by stopping Ryung’s cloaked banshee harass. He made some good moves attacking the fringes of Ryung’s base and cutting him off from his third while taking his own. But Ryung continued to play solidly with good use of a medivac drops distract MKP while he picked fights only in favorable positions. Eventually Ryung was able to get himself a 20 scv lead, drawing MKP into a base trade situation. In a hectic finish MKP was left with a better army but less infrastructure, while RyunG had the supply depots and buildings needed to rebuild an army if MKP could be kept away. While MKP did his best to chase Ryung down, Ryung evacuated and relocated his buildings constantly at opposite corners of the map, slowly piecing an army together. At a certain point MKP realized he needed to settle down and start rebuilding as well, but by then it was too late and Ryung took the game.

Even though the series was 1-1, MKP started to show some cracks in his confidence going into game 3. The game started badly for him as his proxy starport got scouted and was forced to cancel. But he recovered well and went for hellion marine medivac pressure that got him right back into the game. It was a game that tested the strength of both players’ offense and defense. MKP would do damage and attack Ryung’s natural third throughout the game, but be unable to push farther than that. Similarly Ryung would attack and do damage against MKP. It was a strange game for MKP as he would be using clever fakes to kill of exposed tanks at one moment, and follow it up with a sloppy moves like letting 20 scvs die to 2 marines. In the end, MKP’s offense was stopped by Ryung, and Ryung’s offense was able to do far too much damage to MKP. It ended with a desperate base race attempt by MKP, but Ryung easily thwarted his attempts and took the game.

By the 4th game, Ryung seemed to know exactly how to play against MKP. After the inital openings with Ryun going cloaked banshees and MKP doing a rax into cc, the game settled down normally with MKP getting an early positional lead by containing Ryung to two bases. But Ryung understood that while MKP’s offense was very strong, that meant he was open to counter harassment. Ryung’s banshees would continue to attack MKP’s scvs outside of the turret range and delaying MKP’s building 3rd. Ryung would then abuse MKP’s insistence on building his third cc at his third leaving it constantly exposed to drops and getting it canceled or killed over and over again until finally MKP would build it in a safer location within the natural. Ryung managed to safely take a third at different location, all the while ignoring the soft-contain to do more damage to to MKP. Ryung would break the contain with overwhelming force, and confirm his victory with continued methodical play.
Ryung’s Round of 4

This was a very important match for the Axiom Terran as he had never reached the semi-finals before. And with a possibility of Leenock waiting for him in the semi-finals, the road to the finals looks to be even tougher than ever before. Still this is something that Ryung should cherish as a monument to his hard-work.

When MMA was winning the hearts of minds of fans around the world as Slayers’ Ace in the GSTL, Ryung was practicing. While Ganzi was getting strong results in the GSL and foreign leagues, Ryung was practicing. When Taeja switched teams to TL and would become the strongest Terran in the world, Ryung wasn’t disheartened and he still kept practicing. As Slayers got new and more exciting players like Coca and Puzzle pushing Ryung further in the darkness, Ryung kept at it. Even during the slayers break-up when the entire team was split up and he was sent home, Ryung kept on practicing.

Day after day, season after season Ryung would keep going to the grinding stone constantly working on his Terran play and never making it past the group stages of the GSL Code S since August of last year. Finally, finally the culmination Ryung’s two years of patience and hard-work has paid off. He never got the recognition of Boxer, the fame of MMA, the glory of Taeja, or the dance moves of Ganzi. What he does have is this semi-finals. A place he has never reached and a testament to all of the time, hard-work and persistence that he has put into this game.