EPT
INnoVation vs 
iAsonu and ByuN vs Serral, but promised to be thrilling none-the-less. First up, Stats and herO, who had the honor of kicking off one of the most hyped tournaments of the year.
Stats proxied a dark shrine in game one. herO went for stalkers, but had his warp prism push delayed by an adept run by. By the time he was back at Stats’ base he had dark templars in his main where Stats depowered the robotics facility to take the game.Up a game, Stats reached two bases faster, with herO opting for a one base blink build. He failed to crack Stats, however, putting him at an immediate disadvantage. All Stats had to do was apply some pressure and herO left the game
herO leapt out to a lead after catching Stats' push mid map, but a failed immortal/zealot drop and aborted push turned the game in Stats' favor. Stats dropped herO's main and killed his fourth while teching to carriers. A brief concession dance and herO was gone, giving Stats the 3-0 victory.
Having scouted a pair of proxy barracks,
MajOr responded with cyclones and a proxy starport, the latter producing a liberator and netting him six SCV kills. He held Kelazhur’s reapers and followed it up with a lethal cyclone/marine push.Game two went a bit longer, but the result was the same. MajOr dominated, enduring harass and getting a quicker third before building a sizeable lead. With his production under siege and a marine/tank strike force hitting his third, Kelazhur had no choice but to tap out.
After some early scuffles, game three saw both players reach four bases. Bases began to fall on either side, though, with MajOr steadily pulling ahead. Up forty supply, MajOr put the clamp on Kelazhur's production, prompting a doom drop that MajOr wiped out. Down eighty supply, Kelazhur wished MajOr luck before ceding the match, 3-0.
Asonu played incredibly patiently in game one, sacrificing bases to the even more patient INnoVation. Eventually the rubber met the road. Ultralisks killed two bases, but INnoVation stopped iAsonu's mining. The Chinese Zerg attacked, but ran out of steam, falling behind 1-0.
Mutalisks killed 18 workers late in game two, but the investment turned out to be a bad one for iAsonu who was unable to muster a proper army to stop INnoVation's bio/tank push. Having reset iAsonu's army, INnoVation reloaded before putting an end to the game.
INnoVation's devastating 2/1/1 opening bought him a massive lead in the early stages of game three. iAsonu fought back, but was in an irrecoverable position. INnoVation powered up and dealt the finishing blow to take the match 3-0.
ByuN tried, but was unable to get anything done against Serral, who teched to hive without any real hiccups. He added ultralisks and vipers into his hydra/ling/bane army. The addition proved more than enough to overwhelm ByuN's bio/mine.
Serral looked to be in a good spot after stopping ByuN's hellbat timing, but persistent bio pressure and a fortuitous mine shot which killed a large portion of Serral's banelings evened the series for ByuN.
ByuN once more found his aggression thwarted in game three. Forced to chase mutalisks, ByuN was unable to prevent Serral from reaching hive tech. ByuN loaded up for an attack into Serral's fourth, but was easily repulsed by ultralisks, putting him a loss away from elimination.
ByuN probed constantly with a banshee and drops, killing a hydralisk den and gaining a solid lead. On the back foot, Serral had no way to prevent ByuN from camping the edge of his creep, eventually beginning a slow push that sent the match to the fifth game.
After a lengthy, tightly contested series, ByuN brought things to an unceremonious end with a hellbat timing. Though initially pushed back, the follow up strike had enough muscle to close out the match in ByuN's favor.
