Classic spawned in the bottom right of King Sejong Station. He decided to open nexus first, gambling on the fact that it was extremely unlikely for soO to open with an early pool in Game One of a GSL final. His investment paid off, as soO did a standard spawning pool timing without gas. This worked out perfectly for Classic because the pool first opening neither had the potential to match nexus first economically, nor could it put any pressure on his early nexus. To follow up, Classic got up two assimilators rapidly, which allowed him to get sentries both for defense and overlord killing. Coupled with this, Classic built a proxy stargate hidden extremely close to soO's main. This placement was key: this would be the last place that soO would expect a stargate to be and soO's first two to three overlords were most likely going to be rallied to Classic's side of the map. Classic's plan was to deny scouting and ravage soO's mineral line with two proxy oracles right when soO would start to take a massive drone lead with his three bases while also allowing Classic to safely take a third. However, Classic made the mistake of not checking with his initial oracle to see if soO was keen to his plan. When Classic decided to go in with his two oracles, they were greeted with a spore crawler and a queen. While the oracles managed to get a few kills, the damage they did was not worth the amount invested or how much it delayed the other Protoss tech.





Classic took a third behind his oracles and pushed out with a force of stalkers and sentries. His oracles continued to scout around soO's half of the map and saw that soO was trying to double expand to a fourth and a fifth very early. Classic knew that he could cancel at least one of the expansions, and indeed, he managed to force a cancel on soO's extremely optimistic fifth base and go home without a scratch. The decision to push out earlier than expected was very key to the rest of the game. Had Classic let soO simply take five bases, soO would have simply run over Classic in the late game. His blink/+2 timing was planned in order to hit soO before he got a critical mass of mutalisks. To avoid dying to a bigger Protoss army, soO would have been forced into building lower tech roaches and investing precious gas needed for mutalisk production. These types of builds have been popular in the Korean metagame for quite some time now, as it allows for a Protoss player to push out and abuse a Zerg who is playing too greedy. The combination of blink, forcefields, and recall allow a Protoss player to be extremely mobile and aggressive while committing to a dedicated attack. The quick +2 attack also allows for a quick transition into Colossus because the Protoss will have +2 as well as +3 before the Zerg player in most situations. Unfortunately, at this point Classic made an almost game-ending mistake. He engaged soO's army in a rather awkward position with his mothership core far away from his army. Trapped in a roach sandwich with no hope of recalling home, Classic's army was doomed to die. However. his immaculate forcefields allowed him to take out soO's fourth base and deal as much damage as he could before losing his entire army. Had his mothership core been in the fight, Classic would have been able to safely recall home with the game almost won. As it was, losing his sentries and a great majority of his army put Classic considerably behind where he could have been. Luckily, the fact that Classic was on three bases versus three and a half bases for soO allowed him to catch back up despite such a terrible loss.




Although Classic lost the majority of his army, he was able to give himself a fighting chance thanks to a solid backup plan. He started Colossus production and threw down two stargates while attacking. With soO on equal bases with Classic, all Classic had to do was not lose a critical amount of probes to soO's counterattack. He managed to get a high enough phoenix count to keep the mutalisk/corruptor force occupied, using his stalkers to great effect when needed. Classic knew that soO's gas income was limited enough to where he could not tech and build his muta ball at the same time, so Classic only spent gas on immortals and phoenix and focused on simply defending his three bases. His choice to build four cannons at his third base was key because it deterred soO a number of times from assaulting it. Once he managed to get a high phoenix count, Classic began to push out with them, although he almost lost the game as he flew half of them into a fungal growth. However, soO's counterattack army positioning allowed the Protoss fliers to take out almost all of the mutalisks, a fortunate break which gave Classic the freedom to push out further with his main army. With this extra amount of space, Classic was able to take out the roach/zergling counterattack force that was putting pressure on his natural and third bases, giving him even more breathing room. After that, Classic managed to take a fourth base and simply remaxed with a great army composition, superior air units, and better upgrades. After a engagement at soO's fifth, he forced a GG from his opponent, taking a 1-0 lead.




In conclusion, while Classic's proxy stargate opening did not turn out the way he wanted to and he lost his entire army in the mid-game, his solid play overall in both the macro and micro departments helped him take a convincing Game One over soO. Classic made enough right moves in this game in order to make up for his few errors and keep soO starved on gas all game long. When it came down to utilizing his phoenix to counter soO's mutalisk/corruptor composition, he caught soO out quite a few times and managed to pick off mutalisks every single time. All game long, Classic didn't give soO any room for error. This led to soO being gas starved and, although soO eventually managed to get to ultralisks and infestors, he simply did not have enough support and upgrades for his units, leading to a significantly one-sided engagement for Classic.

From the rest of the TL Strategy team, I would like to thank you all for reading this. Please leave any questions or comments in the thread as to help us all learn as a community. Thank you!

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Going into his third finals appearance in a row, soO spawned in the top-left position. He was rather unlucky in the opening builds; his safe 14 pool expansion build was neither aggressive enough nor greedy enough to counter Classic's nexus first. To follow up, he went for a standard gas-less style and droned heavily, as his well-positioned overlords reported so sign of any kind of attack. soO's attention to detail rewarded him well and allowed him to spot Classic's hidden proxy stargate. At this juncture, soO made a key move by not revealing the overlord that spotted the stargate. Had soO moved his overlord closer to the stargate, Classic would likely have abandoned his plan to make two oracles and simply made a phoenix (or nothing at all). This little detail forced Classic to waste 1000 resources to kill only two or three drones.




After scouting Classic's third base, soO attempted to be extremely greedy and double expand, knowing any sort of three-base attack would be extremely delayed due to Classic's investment into the oracles. His goal was to get up to ten extractors in order to fuel his gas-intensive mutalisk/corruptor composition. Unfortunately, Classic's early pressure threw him off. He was caught with his pants down slightly and was forced to cancel his fifth base. Had soO been able to establish his fifth base, he would have been in an almost unbeatable position. In addition to canceling the fifth base, Classic's attack also forced soO to invest much more into roaches than he had hoped to do. soO was arguably complacent and didn't expect Classic to push his fifth base so early; in addition to his greedy double expand, he decided to invest in a spire, infestation pit, +1 ranged attack, +1 armor, burrow, roach speed, and zergling speed all at the same time. If Classic attacked later with +2 and blink, these investments would have made him considerably safer and would have made his mutalisk switch harder to scout. However, he was open for a brief window of timing which Classic exploited to perfection. When a few minutes later he also lost his 4th to the "true" blink timing, his economic position worsened even more. soO desperately needed to keep that base alive, as being thrown back to only six extractors would cripple his tech considerably. He attempted to move in to defend his base, only to be zoned out by Classic's excellent forcefields.




Down to only three bases, but with a powerful mutalisk/roach/zergling army ready to march, soO had to deal economic damage, and had a good timing window to do so. However, his counterattack was stymied by Classic's cannons and preemptive phoenix production. soO then needed to spend additional gas on corruptors, which limited his options even further. soO made a further transition to ultralisk/infestor, a composition that requires even more gas than the mutalisk/corruptor army that he was currently sitting on. Naturally, this was a difficult feat being on only about six extractors. He seemed to be in a good position with his ability to keep Classic's army in his base, especially when he started to get his infestors out. When Classic flew his phoenix too close to the previously unscouted infestors, soO managed to fungal growth almost half of them. However, soO managed to muck things up by engaging the phoenix with his mutalisks out in front of the corruptors, allowing the phoenixes to take out almost half of them. While soO did manage to establish five bases eventually thanks to all the time his mutalisks bought, he was too gas starved to upgrade his units fully. After fighting Classic's phoenix and another bad engagement with his mutalisks, Classic went in for the kill, having 3-0 upgrades to the 1-2 of soO. Had soO managed to have more supporting units for his ultralisks and better melee upgrades, it could have been a different story. However, soO's lackluster gas management plus his carelessness with his mutalisks doomed him to lose Game One and fall behind 0-1 in the series.




In conclusion, while Classic's proxy stargate opening did not turn out the way he wanted to and he lost his entire army in the mid-game, his solid play overall in both the macro and micro departments helped him take a convincing Game One over soO. Classic made enough right moves in this game in order to make up for his few errors and keep soO starved on gas all game long. When it came down to utilizing his phoenix to counter soO's mutalisk/corruptor composition, he caught soO out quite a few times and managed to pick off mutalisks every single time. All game long, Classic didn't give soO any room for error. This led to soO being gas starved and, although soO eventually managed to get to ultralisks and infestors, he simply did not have enough support and upgrades for his units, leading to a significantly one-sided engagement for Classic.

From the rest of the TL Strategy team, I would like to thank you all for reading this. Please leave any questions or comments in the thread as to help us all learn as a community. Thank you!

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