A Tale of Two Terrans


Four semifinalists remained, and all had aspirations in the NSSL with two hoping to define themselves as champions with their first title and two trying to follow up on long-ago victories. In the end, despite impressive performances from all four players, (T)Maru and (T)Dream were able to claim their respective series and advance to the finals.





The day’s first match opened with a surprise from Stats, as he attempted and won with a phoenix/colossus composition. While Maru took a middle-of-the-road stance with little pressure before a nearly-maxed turret contain, Stats had no problem breaking the barricade and later crashed through Maru’s third. After taking an early lead in the series, the KT Protoss switched to a 2-base blink build that was effectively held. Stats tried following this up with a cute hidden base, but Maru’s counter pressure ended up being too much for him to handle. Game three turned ugly: a risky DT opening was heavily punished before getting off the ground and a followup bust proved unsuccessful.

Game 4

King Sejong Station

RATING:

The series had slowly become more aggressive with each game, resulting in increasingly shorter and more one sided games. Both players turned it up to 11 on KSS, but it bucked the trend and became one of the longest games in the series. Maru expected Stats to open with an economic build, and he gambled with a cloaked banshee. Unfortunately, Stats had chosen a proxy oracle, leading to an almost comical tit-for-tat in each player's mineral lines. Maru had zero defense for the cloaked oracles as his marines were late, and Stats had to use his oracles for detection at home. With no time to get critical upgrades like stim, Maru was hemorrhaging on the defense as Stats continued to pile on pressure. The Jin Air Terran cleverly built tanks to fortify his main, but Stats' proxy stargate proved decisive as he rallied phoenixes to disable Maru's desperate defense.

Jin Air Maru T5 RATING:

Maru was unlucky with the build orders roulette and fell extremely far behind, but he made up most of the difference with some pesky banshee harassment. However, he cut a few too many corners on his defense and had to abandon his natural several times. Even though he continued to whittle down Stats' probe count, the protoss army at his doorstep kept him from his second base. He tried mines and tanks as he almost came close to pushing Stats back, but he could never build a large enough for and ran out of money before he could secure his natural.

P11 KT StatsRATING:

Stats had no problem holding Maru’s initial attacks, which earned him a sizable lead. However, his second oracle accomplished little in the terran main base and was out of position to defend Maru’s first banshee. This led to Stats losing 22 probes, which nearly evened up the game. However, he was able to continuously deny Maru’s natural expansion with constant stalker attacks and, despite continuing to take some damage from banshees, starve the terran out. A key moment was managing to pick off Maru’s first siege tank, which allowed Stats to do way more damage later on.



After a bitter game 4, Maru bounced back and managed to kill 21 probes with an early marine/hellion drop on Deadwing. Behind by every measure, Stats tried to claw back into the game with multiple zealot drops to mask his colossus and quick storm, but he was unable to handle Maru's killing blow. With a spot in the finals at risk, Stats opted for another DT build in game 6, but Maru spotted the potential proxy pylon with his scouting reaper. Realizing that only oracles or DTs could be the choice, (T)Maru prepared with missile turrets, deflecting Stats' DTs with ease. The Jin Air Ace catapulted himself into the showpiece with a flurry of drops that eventually overwhelmed his opponent.


In the other semifinal match, Dream played the series of his life, while Life appeared to be daydreaming in the first few games. It only took seven minutes for Life to stumble on his way to the zerg throne, as Dream’s fairly early hellion pressure killed sixteen drones and allowed the SKT player to have a free ride into the mid-game. Later drops were all effective and a simple push into Life’s fourth sealed the first game. Things didn't go much better in game 2. While Life didn’t take a comparable amount of damage, he was similarly unable to keep his fourth base, and his famous zergling runbys did almost nothing. Dream picked him apart in the mid-game once again to claim a quick 2-0 lead.

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Despite digging himself into an early deficit, Life showed his championship mettle by claiming three straight victories to take match point. In game 3, quick mutalisks combined with a baneling bust overwhelmed the SKT Terran to settle the Royal Roader into the series. Dream, anxious to keep his lead, grabbed another early lead with his opening, and his transition into mech appeared unstoppable. But Life built units when no other zerg would, and a lack of support for the terran thor armada allowed Life to draw even and eventually see out another win. Sensing weakness, Life again broke the terran's back with a baneling bust on three bases that even involved queens. Dream was far too behind to hold the follow up, and he surrendered a third consecutive game to fall to 2-3.

Life was in prime position to appear in his first Korean final since his debut Code S season. His steel nerve and history in Bo7s gave him an advantage with match point, and Dream's lack of experience in high stakes series looked too severe to recover from. But the best series of the tournament-—perhaps of the year so far—would go down the wire in two of the most remarkable games in history.

Game 6

Merry Go Round

RATING:

While 2base spire can appear gimmicky, it was a great adjustment by Life to Dream's build: CC first, 2 marines, then a reactor for his factory before a third CC. The terran once again pushed with his hellbats, but Life was able to deflect the attack just in time after skimping on his defenses. Realizing that Dream likely had little at home, Life countered with a huge swell of zerglings and banelings, crashing through the front. On one base and fourty supply down, Dream appeared to be halfway to a corpse, but he did have 3 CCs and a mile-wide upgrade advantage. Life sat back as Dream began dropping, enabling him to expand once again, and Life's succeeding attacks all proved futile. The supply gap dwindled with each branching marine split, and suddenly, Dream was even. Even though Dream's mid game push was 10 minutes late, Life had run out of steam after failing to transition.

KT Life Z6 RATING:

With his bust a success, it looked like Life could just ride the wave of his momentum into a fourth straight victory to seal the deal. However, the KT Zerg didn't regroup his forces at any point to deal the finishing blow. Even though he was 40 supply up at one point, he was at a severe tech disadvantage. His inability to consolidate his lead in either economy, tech, or army was shocking, as he had shown a willingness to transition from his all in earlier in the series. With a severe upgrade disadvantage, there was no way for his banelings or zerglings to find equality on the battlefield, and his supply lead sputtered as he collapsed.

T2 SKT DreamRATING:

Dream was caught off-guard by both Life’s early zergling attack and his followup mutalisk + baneling bust, and while his hellbat push did reasonable damage to Life’s forces, it was unable to pick at the drone line and didn’t even pay for itself in the end. Against the bust, however, Dream made all the right decisions and retained enough units to hold in his main base, and while he was still very far behind, his upgrades and superior army were sufficient tools to work with later on. He used his drops to deal damage and to reclaim his natural, and he summoned the strength of the great comebacks of yore to drag his lifeless body back into the series.



Game 7

Deadwing

RATING:

With their ticket to the finals on the line, both players were content to play a macro game on the largest map in the pool. Dream was the first to take an aggressive stance one both players had secured 3-4 bases each, but Life had no trouble dealing with it. The instinctual rashness that had typified both his wins and losses compelled Life to push Dream back to his third base, but the KT Zerg had once again overextended. Both players settled back in their bases to consolidate their armies, with only drops and mutalisks venturing into the other side of the map. When the alarm finally sounded for Dream to start his parade push, Life was ready, leading to a stalemate for several minutes. Yet Dream's excellent splits and simultaneous marine and mine drops eventually wound Life into a frenzy, forcing the zerg to lose his army in bad positions. Life was bleeding from the cuts, and a deadly elevator at his third wrung him dry. No amount of mutalisk harass could stem the tide, and Dream claimed his shot at his first title against all odds.

KT Life Z1 RATING:

Life’s counterattack was an overextension, the original sin of all zergs. Even though he had taken some economic damage, it was not enough to justify a swift and careless attack. However, his choice of defensive battles was excellent, and he was able to repel a terran playing out of his mind. Any other zerg would have died tenfold, but Life held on by never neglecting to spread his units and recover bases. Despite his best efforts, Life lost too much to Dream's economy and superior unit efficiency, and there was no way to stop the elevator at his third base. His choice to harass with his mutalisks instead of defending surrendered the critical 3rd-to-4th base location, leaving him with his hands on his head as he gg'd.

T7 SKT DreamRATING:

Dream kept his cool and played methodically as well as aggressively. His defense against Life’s attack was solid, and the succeeding parade push was straight out of one of INnoVation’s games from 2013. Additionally, the young terran showed exceptional micro by retaining his widow mine shots until they could grab at least a group of units or a mutalisk. His only mistake was committing to the first parade push for a little longer than he should have, but it didn’t really cost him that much and allowed him to control the tempo for almost the entire game.