Hot 6ix GSL Season 1
Code S

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by Waxangel

Zest continued his remarkable run through Code S by defeating Rain 4-2 in the semifinals, reaching the grand finals in his debut GSL tournament. The rising star had been on a rampage in 2014, emerging as KT's new Protoss ace in Proleague and even all-killing SKT in the Round 1 playoffs. With a combined record of 42-16 in 2014, Zest seemed to be firing on all cylinders.

A best-of-seven against OSL and GSL champion Rain seemed like it could have been the hardest test of Zest's career, as he had never faced such an accomplished player so deep in a tournament. Instead, it became a stepping stone to even greater heights. Zest proved exactly why he had a stunning 20-5 Protoss vs Protoss record in 2014, thoroughly beating Rain and leaving no doubt as to who was the better player on the night.



The series began with Zest taking a 2-0 lead to start, making great use of an uncommon phoenix opener in game one and winning a late-game laser show/colossus war in game two. The two game cushion gave Zest the leeway to try an all-or-nothing, 4-gate blink stalker rush in game three, but the risk failed to pay off against Rain's dark templar rush.

With a build order win in hand, Rain then put in his best performance of the series in game four on Frost. The two players seemed to match each other every step of the way, nervously eying one another as they went up to three bases and built up their armies. In the end, Rain was able to get the exact engagement he wanted at Zest's third base, forcing the GG.

Though Rain had tied the series 2-2, his comeback only seemed to drive Zest to play even better. Game five on Heavy Rain saw both players go for three-gate pressure early, their armies missing each other as they crossed the map. Things seemed to fall apart for Zest when Rain withdrew his attacking forces back to his main, resulting in Zest's army getting sandwiched and annihilated. However, Rain proceeded to make the fatal assumption that he had bought the breathing room to take an expansion. Instead, he found himself massively outgunned and forced to surrender when Zest reloaded and launched an immortal backed attack.

Zest then closed out the series in game six, a revenge game for his loss on Frost. After relatively even build-ups to similar compositions, Zest's army of archons, zealots, and immortals was able to engage Rain's mirroring army from a superior position to force Rain's final surrender. Zest now awaits the result of Life vs. soO to see who he will face in the April 5th final.

Notes and Observations

• To no one's surprise, Zest thanked teammates MyuNgSiK and Stats for helping him practice in his post match interview. However, he also gave shoutouts to both sOs and herO for playing a couple of practice games as well. We're really afraid that Zest, sOs, and herO are forming a PvP hyper-illuminati.
  
  
• Zest has been a ruthless champion-killer this tournament. Here's the full list of major championship winners he beat in his run:
  
  
  • Code B: Creator (WCS Korea 2012, TSL*)
    
  • Code A: INnoVation (WCS Season Finals), Stork (OSL and WCG)
    
  • Code S: Leenock (MLG x2, IPL, DreamHack), Dear (WCS Season Finals, WCS Korea), Soulkey (WCS Korea, WCG), sOs (WCS Global Finals, IEM WC), Rain (OSL, Hot6ix Cup, WCS Asia)
  
  Needless to say, Korean fans and media are very excited about the prospect of Zest vs Life in the finals.
  
  
• The other storyline you have to attach to Zest is that he is the SKT Killer. He's 11-3 against them this year!
  
  
• Royal Roading doesn't get nearly as much hype in SC2 as it did in Brood War (probably because it seems to happen all the time), but it's still one more cool aspect of Zest's run.
  
  
• The large number of combat hallucinations (archons, colossi) both Rain and Zest decided to use was somewhat notable. It was also notable how ineffective they seemed to be, not really tanking much damage at all. Well, I guess that sentry energy has to go somewhere.

*If we can list BW titles for Stork, then we can list TSL for Creator.

Writers: Waxangel
Photos and images: ESL, Kevin Florenzano
Editor: Waxangel