EPT
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Last week we saw 2 of the most racially imbalanced Groups in the entire tournament, but surprisingly, were treated to some of the most inspired play and daring build orders seen thus far in the tournament.
MSL Groups
27/29 September 2007
Results
+ Show Spoiler +
Group F
Hwasin (T) > Shudder (T) - Zodiac
Shine (T) < Mind (T) - Blue Storm
Hwasin (T) > Mind (T) - Loki II
Shine (T) > Shudder (T) - Loki II
Mind (T) > Shine (T) - Python
Group B
Stork (P) < MuJuK (P) - Zodiac
Orion (Z) < Nal_rA (P) - Blue Storm
Nal_rA (P) > MuJuK (P) - Loki II
Stork (P) > Orion (Z) - Loki II
Stork (P) > MuJuK (P) - Python
Group F
Let us first cast our eyes on the veritable nightmare that is an all Terran group. Add to this the fact that 75% of the players are kindly placed as B listers in the scheme of major tournaments and there are no old name favourites in sight. I had a puke bucket ready as I braced myself for what was to come, and timidly started up the first game.
It began as expected. Hwasin showed typical form and executed a very standard dismantling of shudder, who seemed out of place. But the following match between Shine and Mind took me off guard. Shine brought on the pressure immediately with a proxy barracks and contained Mind with marine pressure and an interestingly placed bunker. He then started upon proxying everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, on the high ground outside of Mind’s base. So consumed in the timing of his master plan, Shine fell to a stream of vults from Mind’s own floated-factory proxy and saw his wraith build die before it got the chance to come to fruition. Mind reacted smartly, and with style no less!
This theme played out for the remainder of the games. Shudder got handled twice, and easily, not showing the form of a player that qualified for both majors. Shine’s play was quite forgettable, but Hwasin and Mind really poured it on. In their lengthy winners match, both players exploited holes, exhibited great games sense and map control, and showed keen feel for the match up. Mind exploited Hwasin’s CC first build with aggression from a single vult followed by a double expo to even the playing field while Hwasin used his early window of air control to push his opponent around. Both had solid army placement and control. It was TvT at it’s best.
The fact that a pair other than Boxer and Oov was able to impress me with a drawn out TvT should tell you something. I even appreciated watching the two of them smack Shine and Shudder around. Mind really stepped up and rose to the occasion, while Hwasin displayed top tier play, that may have been completely expected of him, but was impressive nonetheless and added to the solidarity of his current record.
If you only watch one!
Match 3 – Winners
Hwasin vs Mind
Beautiful reactive BOs and fantastic game management from both. This is what TvT is supposed to be.
Group B
This group didn’t answer many questions about the form of the players within it, but hot damn was it fun to watch! We saw an old favourite walk away with the prize and a quickly stifled elite player dust himself off to become the runner up.
On the surface it may seem that Ra and Stork won, as they should have, against two less than extraordinary opponents. Well as it turns out, if you probe deeper... you’ll see that that’s exactly what happened. But between the fun factor of the games and Stork’s hiccup in game one, you can easily fool yourselves otherwise.
Ra proved once again that it takes a top ten player to defend against his cheese
and took two fairly easy wins to claim the first spot. He played a really funky cannon rush against Orion in the very wide natural expo area of Blue Storm and somehow got away with it. That’s Ra for ya! He followed that up with a somewhat transparent ramp blocking DT build against MuJuK. Credit must go to Ra for map choice though, because the backyard expo of Loki makes it the perfect map to bluff cheese with a ramp block to gain a BO advantage, thus making it the perfect map to fake a bluff and actually go for it! In any case, the real story would seem to be Stork’s initial loss to a lesser Protoss. With distant starting positions, Stork felt comfortable to tech quickly to robo and was caught with his pants down. An uncharacteristic slip up from arguably one of the best PvP players ever. But after squishing Orion with a cheesy proxy-gate build, equally as hilarious as the embarrassing first game between Orion and Ra, Stork came back to beat MuJuK with a standard 3 gate goon robo build that caught his opponent’s DT timing perfectly.
So there really wasn’t much going on in this group, but if you’re looking to smile, make some popcorn and watch Orion get dismantled twice by two cheesy BOs that were so egregiously comical that they warrant laugh tracks.
If you only watch one!
Match 1
Ra vs Orion
See what a magician can do to a commoner.
Watch the games for yourself!
Thank you yakii for linking <3
GomTV3 MSL - Group F
2007-09-27 (Thursday), 18:30
Game 1
Hwasin(red) < Zodiac > Shudder(blue)Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3
Game 2
Shine(teal) < Blue Storm > Mind(red)Part 1 / Part 2
Game 3 - Winner's Match
+ Show Spoiler [Game 3] +
Game 4 - Loser's Match
+ Show Spoiler [Game 4] +
Game 5 - Loser's Final
+ Show Spoiler [Game 5] +
• all VODs by "밥"
GomTV3 MSL - Group B
2007-09-29 (Saturday), 18:30
Game 1
Stork (red) < Zodiac > MuJuK (yellow)Game 2
Orion < Blue Storm > Nal_rAGame 3 - Winner's Match
+ Show Spoiler [Game 3] +
Game 4 - Loser's Match
+ Show Spoiler [Game 4] +
Game 5 - Loser's Final
+ Show Spoiler [Game 5] +
* all youtube clips by Jon747
