WCS Korea Season II

Ro8 - Day Two Recap
First 0 - 3 Bomber
Rain 3 - 2 SuperNoVa

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

VODs on Twitch

by stuchiu

The last day of the Ro8 concluded and now we have a complete semi-final bracket. On one side, Maru and INnoVation face off in a duel between the best in the world and a young upstart challenger. On the other side, the perennially jinxed Bomber goes up against the defending OSL champion Rain in what should be a thrilling TvP match-up.



Azubu.SuperNova's redemption arc came to an end in the first match of the night, as he finally met a player who could withstand toppling like a row of dominos to his aggressive style. Still, the series was a close affair as defending OSL champ SKT_Rain was just barely able to defend against SuperNoVa's attacks, needing to break out of his hyper-orthodox comfort zone and use some aggressive strats of his own in order to topple the wily veteran SuperNoVa.



The first game saw Supernova find one of his early game gambits pay off as his reaper-hellion harass killed 10 probes. However, Rain showed exactly why he is known for his stability, recovering his economy while punishing SuperNoVa for getting overeager with drops and wasting his army. From there Rain got into his groove as he sent in zealot runby after zealot runby into Supernova's third base while and warp prisms harassed Supernova's main. Rain appeared to be snowballing out of control, safely taking four bases while building up a large templar-colossus-archon ball.

With the situation growing more and more dire for SuperNoVa, he decided to pull the trigger on his SCV-assisted all-in. It looked like a desperate gambit as he went to engage Rain's massive army, but the events played out like no one could have expected. Rain was caught morphing archons instead instead of having energy for storms, as well as having a large number of zealots to out in to backstab SuperNoVa's bases. SuperNoVa's army was able to crush through the defenses, surviving with a small but dangerous force backed by many ghosts. Despite having crippled SuperNoVa's economy, Rain found SuperNoVa's surviving army just too much for handle, and GG'd out.

Moving onto Anaconda for the second game, Rain pulled out a PvT strategy sometimes used on Icarus—another map with a 'free' backdoor expansion. He pressured at the front with immortal-sentry, while teching to DTs behind his aggression. The plan worked like a charm, and Rain was able to ambush Supernova with his DTs to pull far ahead in economy. Supernova tried to get back into the game with drop harass, but Rain got a large enough archon immortal army off of two bases to just bust through SuperNoVa's front door and take the game.

The third game on Whirlwind played out as the first normal macro game. Not surprisingly, Supernova opted for the mass MMM + SCV pull timing that had worked well for him thus far in the OSL. It appeared to pay off as he was able to kill Rain's third base, but he lingered around for too long and allowed Rain to crush his army. This left Rain with a big army advantage as he simply retook his base, and Supernova realized that he had to go for another SCV pull before Rain became too strong. By that time though, the storms were out and the HTs were plentiful, and SuperNoVa was forced to GG and move on to the next game.

The fourth game saw Rain yet again abandon his extremely standard play and go for immortal aggression against Supernova. However, Supernova scouted it out and prepared well, leading to Rain belatedly deciding to try to play a normal PvT game. Unfortunately for him, there were too many holes in his defense and Supernova was able to drop to his heart's content, killing the main nexus and getting out without barely a scratch. This left Rain to try to go for an immortal-HT bust, but Supernova was too entrenched with emps, bunkers and a large bio force for Rain to win with his all-in.

With the series tied 2 - 2 and just one final game to decide it all, both players decided to play against their reputations. SuperNoVa went for a greedy fast third base, and upon scouting it, Rain decided he would push out mass early stalkers to try and punish it instead of play greedy himself. This change of pace served Rain well, as SuperNoVa was caught off guard by the attack. Initially thinking it was some light stalker pressure to hit his third, he was unprepared for the mass stalkers that came knocking at his natural. With some well placed time warps, Rain was able to crush SuperNoVa's meager defenses and make his way to the semi-finals.



It has been a long time since a player has been cursed as badly as ST_Bomber has been during this GSL. Artosis said the magic words, "Bomber will never win." After that, it was as if a 500 gigawatt light bulb lit up above Bomber's head, as he showed inspired play to overshadow Flash and smother Innovation in long macro games. To continue his string of impressive results, he made LG-IM's First the last player to be eliminated from the Ro8.

Even though First was known as one of the best PvT players in the world, Bomber made winning look easy. The first game was a routine victory for Bomber as he used a double medivac drop to punish First's horrendous sim city, killing off the robo and natural nexus in a game winning move. The second game saw the two players play a macro game on Whirlwind with Bomber hitting the perfect SCV pull attack with perfect emps to flatten First like a kimchi pancake.

The third and final game saw First try an immortal bust, only to have Bomber see it coming from a mile away. After an easy defense, Bomber then harassed First to the point that First was forced into a 3 colossus gateway all-in. However, he was totally shut down as vikings, bio, and scvs swarmed all over his units, ending the most one-sided series in this OSL's Ro8.

Before the match started, it was a foregone conclusion to Bomber fans that Bomber would win. With the Artosis curse, Artosis insistence that First would win no matter what and his insistence that Bomber was on a level below First in the matchup, Bomber fans were able to breathe freely knowing that Bomber's law would not yet come into effect. But now after the winning, Bomber fans are fretting once more as the Law could drop at any time. Even Bomber himself is worried, but at least for now, he can take some solace in the fact that Artosis' curse might be more powerful than any law.