Battle Report by DoctorHelvetica

BeSt spawns the purple protoss in the top right, Bisu the blue protoss in the bottom left. The camera zooms in on two audience members in horse masks, the match was so exciting even animals came to view it. The commentators have a hearty chuckle and return to the game. Both players mirror 1 gate range builds.

Bisu manner pylons with his scout, while BeSt's scout is chased out of Bisu's base. Bisu's probe continues to survive, and with a slightly faster dragoon, Bisu moves out for slight pressure, killing BeSt's probe in the center of the map, then Bisu retreats. Bisu's buildings are all seconds ahead, while both players add a robotics.

Both players mirror builds exactly, both adding observatory followed by support bay at the exact same timing. BeSt is the first to deviate, adding a faster expansion than Bisu. Bisu snipes one of BeSt's wandering observers and BeSt moves out with his reavers, moving his Dragoons to the center of the map. BeSt however, can't break into Bisu's main and retreats his shuttle. Bisu takes the opportunity to push out, his shuttle containing two reavers. The armies engage in BeSt's natural, but Bisu's force and micro is too strong. BeSt's army comes out short and he taps out. GG.

Bisu had the clear advantage from the beginning, chasing BeSt's probe out of his base and blocking his ramp with the zealot. BeSt made no huge effort to get back inside Bisu's base, correctly expecting mirror builds, but it is not unlikely the truncation of his intelligence made him uncomfortable.

Bisu's manner pylon was in great position, and it took quite a few probes and the zealot chasing Bisu's scout to take it down. In the meantime, Bisu had clear vision of all of BeSt's moves, his scouting probe alive for an obscene amount of time. The manner pylon also resulted in a small but important (especially in mirror match-ups) advantage, in unit count and economy.

The observer snipe was another seemingly small but significant blow to BeSt's game and his psyche. Bisu's defensive posture made the reaver unable to deal damage in Bisu's base. Bisu seized the moment to move out, knowing BeSt might not move his shuttle back in time, also knowing that BeSt most likely has 1 reaver versus Bisu's 2.

When Bisu's army arrives, pushing BeSt from the center to his natural, the unit advantage was clearly in Bisu's favor. Eventually, BeSt's earlier expansion would result in his advantage, but Bisu's timing was absolutely impeccable. BeSt was forced to move his 2nd reaver down his ramp which was quickly sniped, and Bisu's 2 unharmed reavers cleaned up BeSt's entire army.

Battle Report by Kwark

As the commentators hyped the second game they showed us some stats. Bisu is 90% in his last 10 games including a convincing win against BeSt. BeSt is 40% over the last 10 games.
Bisu spawned in white at 2 on Tears of the Moon whereas BeSt took red at 10. BeSt opted for the scout on 10 psi whereas Bisu held it until 12 but they both used the same build (8p, 10g, 11a, 12z 15p, 17 manner p) anyway. The early zealots forced the manner pylons to sell and both players went for a second zealot and core with identical timing. Early gas with a delayed core gave both players a big gas surplus allowing for extremely rapid midgame teching, something both exploited with a simultaneous range, dragoon and robo. However while Bisu made a quick second gateway and opted for observers BeSt stayed on 1 gate and went instead for shuttle and reavers. Dragoons denied scouting as Bisu went for a quick expansion and 2 gate goons holding the high ground while BeSt went for a highly aggressive 3 gate goon reaver build with speedshuttle. Unfortunately for him he failed to realise that Bisu had expanded so quickly and wasted valuable time attempting drops along obvious routes where Bisu had left observers in wait.
Although he didn't lose his reaver he did no damage and each second he delayed Bisu lengthened his army advantage with his 2 base macro.

Finally BeSt readied himself for the battle but Bisu had observers everywhere (25 minerals each and an idle robo) and was able to reposition his entire army to face him. Despite excellent shuttle micro Bisu's goons overwhelmed BeSt and took the win.

I like Bisu's build here, the high ground outside the nats favours early expansions defended by goons and his robo purely for obs didn't just serve to make him safe against darks but also reavers. Had BeSt immediately pushed with his army and first reaver when he still had the unit advantage he might have won it, but Bisu was probably familiar enough with BeSt's style to gamble on BeSt attempting shuttle harass which could never work with Bisu's observer network. Bisu exploited BeSt's build well, and he did it blind. An impressive game, teammate ones generally are.

Not needed

Bisu > BeSt @ Sin Chupung-Ryeong
Bisu > BeSt @ Tears of the Moon

Bisu 2-0 BeSt

Battle Report by DoctorHelvetica

Fantasy spawns the white terran in the right position, Luxury the blue zerg at the bottom. Fantasy builds his first supply at the choke, intending to wall-in. A Fantasy look-alike is shown in the audience, to the surprise of the commentators. The wall-in finished before the drone scout. Fantasy gets an early gas with the intention of a mechanical build.

An overlord gets through, scouting Fantasy's early gas, although Luxury probably expected mech from him. Fantasy expands after his first factory is finished. Fantasy soon adds a starport, to my excitement, because I love the Fantasy build. Luxury is playing very greedy, building few lings and getting a fast lair.

Luxury smartly blocks with a hydralisk den to prevent a vulture runby, preventing Fantasy from doing damage with the initial bike. Luxury morphs his spire. Fantasy builds a single wraith then adds an engineering bay and control tower. Both players have low units and a lot of tech, opting for a strong late-game rather than being aggressive early, although Fantasy seems intent on harassing.

Fantasy throws down an armory and some turrets in his base and with the armory finished he also gets a single valk. Luxury takes his 3rd base while macroing mutaling and Fantasy soon scouts it. Luxury moves forward with a lot of mutalisks and 2 lurkers, but significantly loses his lurkers to mines on the map. A disappointed look on his face, Luxury carries on. Valkyries and turrets however, cause the mutalisks to melt quickly and Luxury is forced to move back.

Fantasy adds barracks in his base, hoping to whip up a sizeable force for an assault on Luxury's base. Mutalisks attack Fantasy's main mineral line, scourge keeping the valkyries at bay while Luxury destroys turrets. The valks force Luxury out, but in the meantime Luxury is building a mean lurker force. Lurkers eliminate the temple in Fantasy's main, while Luxury distracts with muta harass. Lurkers and mutas run up the ramp and right into Fantasy's small army on the cliff.

Fantasy eliminated the lurkers, but Luxury continues to keep Fantasy's SCV count at a pathetic rate. Luxury breaks the turrets at Fantasy's natural, and continues muta harass in both sections of Fantasy's base. Fantasy moves valkyries out to chase mutas out of his nat, but his Valkyries defense force is sniped by scourge, leaving Luxury free to be as mobile as he likes, severely disadvantaging Fantasy who was already in an almost unwinnable position.

Luxury's final mutalisk break proves to be undefendable by Fantasy's pathetic army, he loses all his valkryies to scourge and leaves the game. GG.

Both players opted for a low unit, high tech early game. Fantasy does the Valkyrie/biomech build he does best. Luxury makes many careless mistakes in the beginning, losing mutalisks and lurkers to mines, putting Fantasy at an advantage. However the mass mutalisk by Luxury proves to be a very apt counter against Fantasy's low tech build.

The layout of Medusa makes it difficult to defend muta harass without a lot of turrets, so Fantasy's valkyries are a mobile option to defend the mutalisks. Once the muta harass is done, the Fantasy should have caught up with his tech and roll Luxury. However, poor turret placement (placing turrets on the high ground to defend the mineral line and cliff), poor supply placement (supply's on cliff easily sniped), poor tank placement (undefended and destroyed by mutalisks easily) gave Luxury the luxury (pun intended) of having an effective muta harass/contain.

The marine force which Fantasy creates is not able to defend well due to the low medic count and Luxury is able to contain Fantasy while taking 4-5 expansions. Fantasy can't leave his base to do damage because his unit mix will be destroyed completely by the mass mutalisk, he hardly has the economy to build enough valkyries to comfortably move out or reach critical mass, and Luxury's muta micro forces Fantasy to split up his forces and move all around his large base.

The lurkers on the cliff sealed the deal, destroying any hopes Fantasy had of an apt counter force. Fantasy was stupid not to turret the cliff, and the build he chose was unable to respond to the mutalisk contain. Luxury soon raped Fantasy with overwhelming mutalisk numbers and Fantasy leaves the game. gg

Not Available
Fantasy > Luxury

Not Available
Fantasy > Luxury

Luxury > fantasy @ Medusa
Luxury < fantasy @ Return of the King
Luxury < fantasy @ Sin Chupung-Ryeong

Luxury 1-2 fantasy

No Battle Report
Stork > Jaedong

Battle Report by Kwark

Stork opens by sending out one of his first 4 probes for a proxy build. Carefully avoiding the overlord route he places a pylon in JD's nat and then proceeds to wall JD in with a forge and a gateway. Very sexy opening, extremely weak to fast pool builds but clearly Stork felt that JD would almost certainly go for 12 hat and that he was 1-0 up anyway. I liked it as an opening but Stork handled it very badly. Firstly, he chose to play cannons vs sunkens uphill, not a game he could win. Instead of simply building his cannons far enough back to be safe and hold the wall he wasted 3 of them. Because of this he could not hold both lines of defence, keeping his main safe from muta and the zerg contained. Mutaling could always hit the proxy cannons and Stork needed far more than 2 cannons there. Losing 3 in such pointless conditions (he should have realised and cut his losses at 1) is inexcusable.

JD promptly broke out with mutaling and then fast expanded. Realising his muta were useless against the growing mass of corsairs he switched to hydralisks and finished Stork off with 2 hat hydra before speed or dark were out. Extremely crude game.

JD never should have been allowed out of his main, that was a huge mistake by Stork and I don't get why he did it. When your first weak, 20 damage dealing structure which cannot target half the time because it can't see uphill and cannot hit the other half because it's firing uphill is owned by a big, 40 damage dealing, tentacle you shouldn't decide to try it twice more just to see if it was a fluke. Sunkens own cannons, accept it, move on.

Battle Report by Kwark

Stork spawned in blue at 10 on Tears of the Moon, JD in purple at 6. Stork went for the standard 1 gate opening on Tears, scouting on 10 while JD went for a gasless overpool. This is a safe economic build, although the pool is relatively fast the gasless overpool is at heart a defensive FE build from a Zerg certain that they can take it in the mid to late game if they get a secure economic start.

Stork scouted the wrong way but saw the overlord and corrected himself early for a quick scout while going the 1 gate fast gas 1 gate zealot build (8p, 10g, 11a, 13z, 16p). JD took his natural just before the pool finished and then made 6 lings to scout with. JD then powered his economy, pumping pure drones while getting gas and heading to lair under the watchful eye of the scout probe.

Stork headed to stargate, standard off of one base, while keeping his single gateway pumping units. JD got zergling speed and finished off the scout probe while getting a hydralisk den. As the scout probe died he suddenly switched into pure lings, understanding that the time between the probe dying and the sair arriving were his to do whatever he wanted while Stork could only assume. When he saw some lings in his nat Stork assumed they were a few from earlier that could easily be cleaned up, JD immediately surrounded 2 of his zealots with speedlings, killing them almost without loss and forcing Stork to waste minerals securing his ramp with a cannon.
A few hydralisks were out in time to block the first sair and without any aggressive potential Stork was forced to try and take his natural with cannons and a fast reaver. Unfortunately for him JD scouted the support bay timing with a suicide scourge and he could see the cannon warping in timing. He hit Stork at the exact most vulnerable point with an excellent ling flank to surround Stork saw yet another group of units massacred by speedling micro. JD expanded and pressed the advantage, breaking into Storks main and killing the new reaver but excellent probe micro in combination with the sairs finally hitting JD stopped the flow of units towards Stork.

Although his base had been saved Stork was now on a weak one base economy against a weak 3 base economy and he had no army to speak of. Once spores ended the corsairs rampage JD was firmly ahead.

Stork again attempted to establish his nat, this time with 2 reavers, 3 zealots and 6 sairs. However an army of hydralisks with scourge support moved across the map and Stork wasted 2 corsairs in situations where they really should have lived. 5 is the critical mass for just attack moving into a scourge, leaving them unstacked and losing 2 was careless and it meant that his 4 corsairs were pretty useless. JDs scourge prevented any shuttle tricks on the reaver as the corsairs were forced to watch from behind a cannon.

Instead of attacking the reaverzee JD just made it useless by sniping the shuttle and then switched into 3 gas muta, something Stork no longer had the sair count to deal with. Stork saw them and GGed but even if he hadn't lost his main, he'd have to completely reshape his army to deal with it.

A very strong game by JD. Some good exploitation of mind games and assumptions to steal zealot kills early and then excellent control and decision making throughout. Very one sided, Stork was just outclassed.

Stork > Jaedong @ Return of the King
Stork < Jaedong @ Sin Chupung-Ryeong
Stork < Jaedong @ Tears of the Moon

Stork 1-2 Jaedong