Bracket by SilverskY

KeSPA Rank. Player
1. Jaedong
2. Bisu
3. Flash
5. fantasy
10. Kal
11. ZerO
12. EffOrt
14. Hwasin
16. Calm
18. UpMaGiC
22. Kwanro
29. Iris
30. fOrGG
36. Canata
46. Pure
50. PianO

Hiya opens 2-port while Hwasin does a 1-fac expand. The wraiths do enough damage to make both players come out relatively even. Hiya briefly cliffs Hwasin and takes his own natural. Hwasin responds by getting goliaths and eventually 2-port wraiths for himself, but this is scouted by one of Hiya's wraiths. Hwasin sets up a contain and takes his third, but Hiya breaks it with ground units and SCVs. Hiya then takes out Hwasin's natural, forcing Hwasin to retreat to his main, expanding to a back natural. Hiya then moves to take out Hwasin's third (while taking his own back natural), but while he does this, Hwasin successfully cliffs Hiya's front natural. Both players use dropships and Outsider's terrain to secure more bases far away from their mains. Hiya drops Hwasin's factories, but the drop doesn't do enough damage before it is snuffed out. There's a big clash in the center, and Hwasin's army crushes Hiya's due to superior dropship micro and placement. Hiya didn't have enough goliaths, and Hwasin would drop and re-drop on clumped tanks. Hiya was definitely ahead in this game but Hwasin clawed his way back.

Luxury opens 12-pool-gas versus Hwasin's 2-rax. Luxury proceeds to two hatch spire, but loses two drones to a marine push because his sunken was a few seconds late. Two medics arrive just as Luxury's spire finishes, and Hwasin breaks the one sunken with the help of two stim-rallied firebats. Luxury's natural hatchery dies, but he is able to mass enough mutas to save his main. Unfortunately, it's a hopeless situation, because 1-gas muta does not win against a terran who has prepared with 3-rax mm. Luxury eventually retakes his natural, but Hwasin is able to take his as well and techs quickly to irradiate, which easily kills Luxury's two-group muta harass.

Bisu opens proxy two gate right at Free's entrance, directly in the path of Free's scouting probe. Free pulls seven workers to attack the first warping gate while Bisu attempts to build a second one. Both gates die before a zealot can be produced, but Bisu clearly practiced for this situation. Despite losing all those buildings, Bisu came out slightly ahead because Free had to pull so many workers and lost a lot of mining time. Bisu gets range and a citadel before second gate, while Free goes 2-gate robo obs. Bisu expands behind DTs and cannons.

The first fight occurs at Bisu's natural between two cannons, four dragoons, and two zealots for Bisu against seven dragoons and two zealots for Free. Free wins the fight with four dragoons left over, taking out the nexus. Bisu's freshly produced units allow him to retake his natural and remake the nexus. Meanwhile, Bisu snuck two DTs into Free's main that killed a decent number of probes. Both players take third bases. The two big armys feint at each other, and Bisu runs around the side of the map with a group of zealots and takes out Free's third while Free's army is away, and then holds Free's counter with superior army positioning. Now down a base, Free is unable to recover. The armies trade one more time and Free taps out.

Both players open with nearly identical builds, gate robo gate. Bisu gets a nexus, battery, and ground reaver while Jangbi a speed air reaver then nexus. Jangbi gets two shuttles and does some cosmetic damage with three air reavers, but through good goon positioning and fast reflexes, Bisu has negated Jangbi's harass. Both players take their third. During the first big army clash, Bisu has storm and Jangbi doesn't, but this advantage is nullified by Jangbi sniping a shuttle with two reavers inside. Jangbi barely saves his third base several times, but his probe count is significantly reduced, and Bisu has taken a fourth. There's another big battle, and for some reason Jangbi still doesn't have storm, but his army somehow still wins. But Jangbi lost his reavers, and Bisu's next wave forces Jangbi to run while Bisu takes a fifth base. Down two bases, Jangbi can only muster a weak counter, and concedes.

Game opens standard FE into sair-archives for Stork while Kwanro goes for three hatch spire into more hatches. Byzantium's third gas allows Kwanro to get mutas and lurkers both, and Stork's initial zealot-archon push is stopped by hydra-lurker-muta. Stork loses his main cannons and corsairs to mutas and scourge, defending with nothing but slow, clumsy archons. Kwanro's mutas do tons of damage to zealots, probes, and templars while four archons chase helplessly. Stork is on three bases but has a low probe count. Kwanro remains on three bases, but has a larger ground army.

Kwanro trades his muta fleet for two or three templars, and then attacks, catching most of Stork's zealot-archon-templar army in the open. Kwanro ignores the remaining storms and blows right through Stork's army, razing Stork's natural. Horrible army composition and decision making from Stork. He saw that Kwanro was only on three bases and should have gotten more defensive units (more templars, dragoons, and reavers) and pushed out later.

Kwanro opens standard three hatch spire while Shine goes factory-expand, getting goliaths instead of valks to defend. Shine also opts to get more factories (instead of the goliath-mm switch that Flash uses). Kwanro's muta harass is effective, killing several SCVs while keeping Shine's army occupied while taking two more bases. The muta harass finally ends when Shine gets irradiate, but due to a super fast muta split, Kwanro keeps most of his mutas alive.

Kwanro drops Shine's main with hydras, which do some damage before dying. Kwanro then hits the front, doing some insignificant damage before running away. Even though Kwanro is losing a ton of units, he is buying time for his economy and denying Shine a third base. Shine finally pushes out with several vessels and a mech army, but Kwanro drops Shine's main and natural simultaneously, doing a ton of damage to Shine's SCV count. Shine's push eventually gets flanked by a huge number of hydra-ling, and Shine taps out. Kwanro controlled the flow the entire game, macroing strongly behind small attacks that exploited the lack of mobility from Shine's mech army.

Both players open 1-fac cc, adding factories while fighting for territory in the middle with vultures and tanks. Skyhigh wins the first fight with better tank positioning on high ground. Both players take more bases, but Skyhigh holds more territory. The game focuses on the 8:00 gas base, which Sea needs to maintain an even expo count. After many drops and counter-drops, Sea finally secures it, but Skyhigh has been running off more bases for quite a while, and has switched to BCs. Sea has a window to do a mass drop, but Skyhigh intercepts and deflects the attempt. Once BCs are out, Sea concedes.

Skyhigh sends one of his first few SCVs to proxy a rax above Zero's natural cliff. Zero scouts for proxies at the normal location (12:00), doesn't find any, and proceeds to 12 hatch. Skyhigh blocks the entrance with a supply depot, sealing off Zero's natural hatchery from his main. Zero cancels the hatch and builds an offensive extractor in Skyhigh's main. Skyhigh bunkers Zero in, but Zero runs a few lings past, and uses the drone from his cancelled natural to expand to one of the corner bases. The lings that ran past get speed, and Skyhigh is forced to defend with SCVs only in his main. Zero still can't get out of his main, but the five lings are wrecking havoc in Skyhigh's main. Zero rallies lings two by two from his outside hatch while getting lair. He then attempts to break out with lings, but Skyhigh holds, losing most of his marines. Skyhigh is still on two barracks with stim not yet done researching when Zero gets to muta. Skyhigh can't fight muta on one base without range or stim, and quickly dies. In a stunning repeat of what happened on Outsider, Skyhigh successfully proxied but followed it up with some bad decision making.

Horang builds two manner pylons and two gates in Nada's mineral line, badly screwing up his mining, but all four buildings die without producing any zealots. Horang then proxies a cybernetics core and citadel in one of the corners, making a second core to research range in his main, faking out Nada's scouting SCV. In response, Nada FEs, not knowing that Horang's archives was already started, but then finds the archives with a marine anyway, and barely gets turrets up in time. The DT can't get into Nada's main, but Horang does kill some SCVs and a tank with his first zealot and goon, delays mining at the expo with his DT, and expos himself. Next comes a DT drop, which also fails to do damage. Back at the proxy, the single scouting marine almost kills the archives but is taken out by a probe. Horang takes a third base while flying his shuttle around Nada's main.

Nada proxied a starport above Horang's base, and his vulture drop nets a decent number of probe kills while he takes a third base also. Horang takes a fourth and techs to arbiter, and uses his first arbiter to spearhead a push break at Nada's natural, cutting off Nada's third and forcing it to lift. From then on Horang repeatedly smashes into Nada's natural front with stasis, wearing Nada down until Nada has no more units and has to taps out. Horang transitioned very well from an unorthodox opening into a solid standard late game.

Horang opens 1-gate hidden expand, taking a back natural nowhere close to his main. Up does a 1-fac expand as well, and then attacks early with three tanks and several vultures. Horang handles it well, securing his own natural. Horang techs quickly to arbiters off four base (two gas) while Up adds vactories and a third cc. At this point, Up still has no idea about Horang's hidden back natural expansion.

Up then uses three dropships to cliff Horang, who has no shuttles or arbiters out. The cliff is a real pain, doing massive damage to whatever units come out of Horang's main gateways. Horang tries to take it out with a shuttle, but loses it and the units inside to the cliff group, which quickly gets reinforced by more dropships. Up has meanwhile taken a back double gas while Horang attempts to secure the empty main. Horang uses two shuttles and finally clears the cliff, but his army is now too small to deal with Up's main push, which takes out the probes Horang's mineral natural and briefly sieges his main. Horang manages to break through, but his units have to chase Up's mini-pushes all around the map. Up manages to cliff Horang yet again. Horang finally gets stasis, but is too far behind economically to catch up. Very nice dropship style and multitasking from Upmagic, who seemed to attack everywhere at once.

Jaedong 12-hatches, using his ninth drone to scout and get an SCV kill. Leta does his standard TvZ 2-port wraith into mm. His vulture can't get in and he gets an ovie or two with his first few wraiths, but no significant damage. Jaedong gets den and spire together off two hatcheries, and is able to fend off the wraiths nicely with muta-scourge. You can see the superior reaction speed and muta control from Jaedong here, as he is very careful not to take extra hits or lose even one drone or overlord to Leta's wraiths. As a result, Jaedong is able to go on the offensive, forcing Leta's wraiths to stay home and defend while Jaedong takes two more gas. Jaedong masses two groups of mutas, and just obliterates Leta's wraith and mm force. Leta is forced to stay on one base while Jaedong has a 4-gas eco, eventually overrunning him with mutalisks.

Movie opens standard FE (no goon timing attack), while Jaedong does a 12-hatch, getting gas and lair before third hatch. Jaedong gets spire and adds three more hatches, taking the natural of the far main. Movie techs toward the zealot-archon timing attack, going at Jaedong's natural with 10 speedlots and 2 archons. Jaedong looks in trouble for a few moments, but holds it off with muta-ling-sunken and very nice building placement. After the first attack (and DT-sneak follow up) failed to do significant damage, Jaedong was able to fully secure four gas bases. Movie tries another break at Jaedong's nat, and once again Jaedong barely holds with muta-ling-sunken. Movie cannot secure a third gas due to Jaedong's mutas, and keeps trying to break Jaedong's bases but is barely held off each time.

Eventually, Jaedong gets to hive and ultra-defiler-crackling without ever having to make a hydra or lurker against zealot-archon. Movie never gets that third gas base and never fully kills a Jaedong expo, so he could not mass the archons or reavers needed to fight ultraling and swarm. Jaedong played very passive, gaining eco advantages by closely defending several times, and eventually massed a huge ultraling and defiler army.

Savior opens standard 3-hatch, while Gogo opens 2-rax expand. Savior gets a lot of early lings (instead of sunkens) and a den, while Gogo delays his factory for four barracks. Savior loses a group of lings trying to run into Gogo's main, but still succeeds in setting up a lurker contain while taking a third gas. Gogo's factory is late, so he trades a group of mm for three lurkers to break the contain. Unfortunately, Savior already has stop lurker traps and a larger lurker-ling army, and Gogo is forced to wait for vessel and tanks.

Gogo moves out with his first push and immediately gets backstabbed. He comes home to clean it up, and then moves out again, but Savior is close to swarm. Gogo's first dropship could have taken out Savior's defiler mound, but Gogo fails to focus fire and the drop does no damage. Gogo's attacks stall due to swarm, and pretty soon Savior has ultras and plague powered by 4+ gases. Savior was the better player this game and certainly deserved the win, but Gogo played quite badly all game.

Savior opens standard 3-hatch muta while Canata opens 1-fac expand, getting a port soon after for dropships and valks. Savior uses his mutas to stop the first vulture drop and take a third base. Canata moves out early with valks and goliaths, and Savior flanks nicely with hydra-muta to stop it. Savior seems ahead, but loses his lead when Canata turtles on three bases and dual armory, dropping two vultures which deal quite a bit of damage in Savior's main. Savior counter-drops, trading four ovies of hydras and his entire muta flock to defending tanks and goliaths. Savior takes his fourth, and switches to pure mutalisk, but doesn't have enough to beat Canata's upgraded push (with valks) and is forced to counter with his mutas while Canata razes his main. Canata's mech blob is just too large, and Savior finally gives up.

Much proxies a gate and a core near FBH's main, making two zealots, but FBH holds his wall with a bunker. Much proxies a robo there too, so FBH sees zero tech in Much's main. FBH siege-expands, while Much takes his natural and harasses with two reavers. Much rushes to carriers while taking his third. This would be a perfect time to timing push, but FBH is only on two factories and is getting his third cc.

When FBH finally pushes, Much backstabs, and FBH barely keeps a red health cc from dying. FBH has a large army, but carrier mobility is just brutal on this map. Much can attack the back of FBH's main and FBH's front third natural over cliffs and water. Nevertheless, FBH's army is still superior, but Much does a nice job of constantly countering, taking out critical comsats with his carriers so that FBH can't scan for DTs. Neither player is mining off more than one base at this point, but Much somehow pulls out the win, abusing his carrier group and forcing FBH's goliaths to run all around the map to buy time for his gates to make a sizeable ground army. This was quite a brutal way to lose, as carriers are really strong on Carthage's terrain.

Much goes for proxy gate and core again, but Forgg defends with a nice main base building layout. Forgg shows some great micro, killing two zealots and a dragoon with marines and vultures, losing only the marines. Much proxies a robo, but Forgg successfully pushes out with vultures and a tank, leading to a one damaged goon versus one tank wild car chase along the top of the map. Forgg neutralizes Much's proxy gate, but fails to find Much's robo which was a few screens away. The reaver arrives in Forgg's main and kills almost all of his SCVs before eventually dying to a wraith.

Meanwhile, Forgg gets into Much's main and deals massive damage to his probe count with vultures and mines. Both players are down to less than ten workers, but Forgg has one tank and a ton of mines laid all over Much's main, allowing him to abuse the tank's extra range. The game turns into a ridiculous goon vs mine micro UMS, with Forgg using his one red health tank and rallied vultures while Much desperately defends with goons and no obs. Both players slowly rebuild their worker counts. Much gets obs, but loses his proxy robo. Much uses his obs to push all the way to Forgg's main, attacking with half a group of goons and a zealot. But Forgg has four tanks and vultures, and the attack goes very badly. Forgg eventually finishes Much off with a vulture drop and tank push. Neither player expanded all game.