Zest <Naro Station> HerO
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch

Zest, KT's main lieutenant, showed that he deserves his 80% winrate in PvP as he dismantled HerO on all fronts. Zest held off a 3 gate stargate timing (the third gate was proxied because why the hell not), and transitioned into an immortal heavy style. For a minute, HerO seemed to be ahead after holding off an attack fairly convincingly with colossus, however it was not enough as Zest had the quicker three bases and ran HerO over with a void ray archon composition. Zest showed that only having to practice for PvProleague massively improved that mirror matchup, and after such a dominating, clinical display it's fair to say he is one of the masters at it.

TY <Bel'Shir Vestige> JangBi
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch

Solid play from both players in a standard but long and well-played TvP. Nothing spectacular or revolutionary, but this would have been a top game in any other week. Very worth a watch if you have time. To quote someone from the LR thread, "That was a nice game".

Flash <Akilon Wastes> TaeJa
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch

Two of Wings of Liberty's best Terrans faced off in an excellent mech vs mech clash, which narrowly went in Flash's favour. Both players opened with hellions, and transitioned into similar compositions but Flash's consistent harassment whittled down Taeja constantly. Eventually Taeja found himself several bases down, with Flash sieging his natural and was forced to tap out to seemingly overwhelming superiority in terms of harassment, positioning and game sense.

Rain <Neo Planet S> Soulkey
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch

Both players play completely standard, safe and solid and one comes out the victor. No gimmicks here, no tricks, just two players trying to prove who is straight up better.

Reality <Akilon Wastes> HerO
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch

The second game in HerO's slug-fest of a three kill against Samsung Khan was a peculiar back and forth that included manner nexuses backed up with manner cannons, huge colossus armies and a helluva a lot of SCV's dying. HerO started out by repelling some early marine hellion pressure, while wrecking his opponent's mineral line. From there, things tilted more and more into HerO's favor, and it was eventually enough for him to take the win in flamboyant style. This game was far from your standard TvP and showed off some of HerO non-standard play and game sense that has helped him become the player he is today.

TY <Newkirk Redevelopment Precint> Flash
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch

Ty likes hellbats. A lot. It would probably be fair to say he has the highest HPM of any Korean player (sadly Europeans still surpass him on this front). It was shown in this game, as he opened with a hellbat drop, which Flash just managed to hold off, while dealing significant damage himself. This game features any extremely scrappy, micro intensive early game with both players going for straight up offensive while each having little defense for their opponents' aggression. This resulted in a real nail-biter and highly unpredictable game.

RorO <Korhal Floating Island> HerO
VODS: Free Korean on Youtube - HQ English on Twitch

Now you've warmed up with the first few shorter recaps of the far inferior games, we can get onto the main story. Are you settled in, boys and girls? Excellent. Now, I'm going to tell you the story of the little carrier that couldn't. But first, some back story.

HerO's opening gambit to secure his eventual carrier was a cannon rush, which succeeded and caused RorO to expand to his third and fourth base locations. The follow up was a colossus gateway push, which ended up taking out the third and putting HerO in the lead. However, HerO had failed to scout RorO's mutalisk switch which would have been an enormous problem, had RorO actually attacked with him. Luckily for HerO, he didn't and the EG-TL Protoss added on two gates and started up the phoenix production, all the while taking out RorO's third (he had since retaken his natural from the nefarious cannon duo). Then, completely by accident, he got the carrier upgrade. It was completely illogical, but damn it carriers are awesome so we'll accept it and move on.

<3

Both players built up fearsome air armies; HerO's archon, templar and phoenix count rose and rose while RorO's muta corruptor army did the same. Zergling run-bys from RorO devastated HerO's infrastructure, sniping off anything from pylons to nexuses. However, well placed templar and the emergency task force of phoenix rushing from location to location stopped HerO from being completely wiped out. Still, he was left with a single mining base. Both players kept up the harassment, keeping each other on extremely limited economies and neither player really maxed out at any point. HerO took favorable engagement after favorable engagement, and at some point in all this, the poor little carrier, who just wanted to be a phoenix was lost. RorO realized HerO's biggest advantage, the carrier, had disappeared and did a huge tech switch off around two mining bases to infestors. Despite getting every last one of his phoenixes fungaled, HerO managed to storm all of the inert infestors and even out the game again. HerO's bank was larger though, and RorO wasn't allowed the time to build up an enormous mutalisk ball again. Fantastic feedbacks on what remained of the infestors further tipped the scales into HerO's favor, and forced out the GG from the Samsung Khan Zerg.