EPT
The day began with
Stats edging out 
Maru 3-2 after multiple holds against marine/tank/liberator pushes. Maru held on as long as he could in a macro game on Frost by taking a number of advantageous fights, but never quite got ahead from them. Stats eventually finished the job with a storm/colossus lategame army. He fell victim to the ever present 1-1-1 all in on Dasan Station, however, and let a large advantage slip away on New Gettysburg by taking an abysmal fight in the open and losing his entire army close to his bases. Two holds against committed 1-1-1 attacks with blink/colossus play still secured the series for the KT Protoss.
Foreign hope
Neeb advanced to the semifinals as well, but was almost caught out by 
Pet's adaptation in the series. After being easily beaten in two standard games, Pet turned the cheese switch. An early pool with speedling follow-up against Neeb's Nexus first put a win on the board for him, and a zergling drop supported by more speedlings attacking the front on Galactic Process broke Neeb's wall for an easy second. With the series tied 2-2, Pet attempted a baneling all-in on Dasan Station but was found out at the last second. Although he was able to break the front wall-in, Neeb bought enough time for resonating glaives to finish and stabilize. Although Pet tried his hardest to get back into the game, it seemed only a matter of time until Neeb's higher tech army was able to march across the map and finish him off. When Pet had his lurker caught out, the game was over immediately and Neeb emerged victorious. TY and Zest played a much shorter series than any of the others. Two games in a row, TY got away with extremely greedy builds against Zest's safe robotics openings, and had next to no trouble closing his games out from there. a DT drop with gateway attack follow-up caused more concern on Frost, but TY was able to hold on well enough while killing Zest's third base himself. After a last ditch effort, Zest typed out of a mostly underwhelming series. What was arguably the least exciting series on paper quickly made people think twice, as
Patience and Trap put on a real show for viewers.![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Olli/Trapsemis.jpg)
Trap and Patience played the best game of the night.
Two standard games opened up the series 1-1, but New Gettysburg was where they really began their slugfest. One huge disruptor hit after another appeared to swing the tides i either player's favor. At times it looked as though Patience could easily close out the game, but Trap kept finding key pick-offs and good enough disruptor hits to push him back. DTs saved him from another attack, and he somehow found time and space to build up a larger army than Patience, supported by a fourth base. Despite trying his hardest to run around with blink stalkers, which Patience did an excellent job of, Trap was always going to close the game out. With his back against the wall, Patience delivered what may be the best game of the year.
In a basetrade scenario, Trap sniped Patience's observer. With DTs on the map and an army left, albeit smaller than that of Patience, Trap looked to have the game won. But Patience fought for every unit and eventually killed Trap's army, sustaining big losses himself. He did, however, keep his warp prism alive. That proved to be the game winning factor, as Patience continuously micro'd his units in and out of the prism against Trap's single defending DT. His army had higher damage output than the DT destroying his buildings on the other side of the map and a single blink stalker eventually destroyed the last of Trap's buildings.
The nature of PvP is cruel, though. And somehow fittingly, Patience lost the fifth game to a DT rush. Despite opening with an early expand into robotics build, Patience was caught off guard by a single DT completely. Having just warped in two sentries and an immortal first, Patience found himself staring at his robotics facility in disbelief, left with too little gas to build an observer, while the DT did irreparable damage. A desperate counterattack was never strong enough to worry Trap, who closed out the game with blink stalkers.
KeSPA Cup resumes tomorrow with the semifinals Between
Neeb and Stats, as well as TY and Trap. The grand finals are held immediately afterwards. Writer: Olli
Pictures: Kenzi
