[Indent]It’s the OSL semi-finals! The first pair to face off was Nada and GoodFriend. Nada, two time OSL winner and sole remaining contender for the golden mouse verses the puppy faced KTF franchise Terran who has yet to truly cement his image in SC history. Would the less accomplished player be hungrier for the win? Let’s find out! But first, I've got to comment on the headshots they threw up before every game.

Nada does his best chimpanzee impression while GoodFriend grins like an eighth grader with a lollypop. Way to pick flattering pictures OGN!

Ok, now on to the games.

Nada vs GoodFriend
Game 1 - Arkanoid

[Indent]Nada (Red - 1) and GoodFriend (White - 11) both opened with the exact same CC first build that we’ve all seen a million times on this map. Due to the incredible efficiency of Nada’s SCV micro, he ended up marginally ahead. (See rinizim’s interview thread in the tourney’s forum for more details) Both players macroed and save the threat of a goly drop by Nada, there was no interaction between the two sides. Nada expanded to his second nat first and also made the first offensive move. A tank/goly drop in the corner of GF’s natural expansion.

Nada's first drop does modest damage to GF's economy before it's taken care of.

[Indent]GF cleared it out quickly due to a fast counter goly/tank drop on top of Nada’s attacking units. Some damage had been done to the KTF player’s economy, however, and he still didn’t have his second nat running yet.

[Indent]Once GF did get that new nat mining, things didn’t get much better for him. Nada struck again, this time at the new natural.

Nada kept GF running in circles, giving him no opportunity to regroup and make an attack of his own.

[Indent]GF had a tank line set up outside of Nada’s main this entire time and was forced to finally move it to deal with the harassment. Nada then decided to move out and take the middle. He had a huge macro advantage at this point due to his many drop victories and the fact that he was now mining from another expo in the middle right as well as expanding to the bottom right. Nada even had a group of mnm securing the bottom left main from GoodFriend’s expansion attempts. (He had floated his original rax there at the beginning of the game and slowly produced the units as the game progressed).

[Indent]The Genius Terran had every angle covered and after some half hearted counters from GF, we saw the gg.

Nada > GF
1:0

[Indent]Nada played an incredible macro game with perfectly placed drops by reading his opponent’s moves like a book. I’m constantly impressed with the way Nada makes incredible opponents look entirely ineffective.

Game 2 - Peaks of Baekdu

[Indent]GF got the top main and opened with a no scouting depot/rax build. This was obviously the best course of action against his predictable macro oriented opponent who was busy with his own greedy build down at the bottom main... or so you would think!

[Indent]Unbeknownst to GF, Nada was laying down a 7 rax in the mineral patches of GF’s natural expansion!

Oh Nada, you sneaky devil you.

[Indent]A furious micro battle ensued with GF bringing in SCVs to protect his newly built marines as they spawned from the barracks. Nada was getting SCV kills and kept the rine numbers low as he danced around GF’s main ramp.

Looks like Nada has been doing his Marine Micro UMS training.

[Indent]It was a lucky break for Nada that his opponent built his rax so close to the ramp and it ended up winning him the game! GF's build was designed to stop the fairly common 8 rax proxy for this map, but Nada's faster build combined with his incredible micro ended up taking the game anyway. (See rinizim’s translation for Nada’s words on this as well)

Nada > GF
2:0

[Indent]Nada had a great build that he executed well. It just so happened that GF opened blind with the worst possible counter build. Bad luck, but I’ve got to say that I love seeing a player like Nada play games like this. It keeps him unpredictable and brings a new side to the series. Now if only he would start taking chances while playing TvP.

Game 3 – Tau Cross

[Indent]Nada (Orange - 1) opened with a 1 fact tank/rine into fast CC build while GF (Blue - 5) used an interesting 2 fact vult build, with no add-ons or upgrades, into a slightly less fast CC. He attempted to harass Nada and successfully killed the SCV building the expansion CC as well as all of Nada’s rines, but it didn’t seem to overly compensate for the fact that Nada got his CC down first.

[Indent]Nada built up a vult/tank force and expanded again to the middle right expo while his opponent gathered units up into 2 relatively fast dropships. GF dropped 4 tanks on Nada’s cliff and it seemed that he would end up doing a lot of damage, but Nada kept a cool head and retreated his SCVs to his main. He then took one tank and one goly, loaded them into the only dropship he had, and plunked them next to GF’s tanks. GF was forced to unseige and Nada walked up with his tanks on the ground to seize the moment.

Now you see it.

Now you don't.

[Indent]Nada mined up the area around GF’s choke and covered the near expansion in mines as well. He was now in a comfortable position, strongly holding an extra expo over his opponent.

[Indent]He dropped the side of GF’s main and was repelled. GF was also able to break out of his box and start a CC at the nearby expansion, but with no money for dropships and his units in the middle patrolling the no mans land, Nada was able to doom drop GF’s main again and this time he reinforced his attack to leave no doubt. The KTFer was going down, 3-0.

Nada seals the deal, hardly breaking a sweat.

Nada > GF
3:0

[Indent]A harsh score for a harsh series. This reminds me of the blowouts we witnessed last OSL with Jju getting creamed easily in 2 consecutive ZvZ 3-0 sweeps from both Chojja and Yellow. Nada made GF look like a chump, not a top 4 OSL player. It seems BadFriend is doomed to obscurity once again, leaving us wondering where his gosu TvT was that day.

[Indent]So we’ve got Nada going to the finals with a chance to win his third OSL title and with it, the golden mouse. We’ll have to wait for the conclusion of Anytime vs Midas to see who will join him in that event. For now, we wait.

[Indent]Be sure to check out jkillashark's awesome OSL summary topic to see what happened in this OSL and make sense of what the future holds, though at this point it’s pretty simple.

x_woof_x

United States659 Posts

November 01 2006 14:28 GMT

awesome!~

BrutalMenace

United States1237 Posts

November 01 2006 14:54 GMT

NADA FIGHTING!!!!!!!!! nice report and always thankful for the updated proleague matches.

Nimonic

Sweden30 Posts

November 01 2006 14:59 GMT

Very nice writing, thank you alot :D
Btw when is anytime and midas playing ?

Polemarch

Canada1564 Posts

November 01 2006 15:01 GMT

great reports! love all the pictures and captions

if i can nitpick about this

Not bad for Nada considering his build was admittedly designed to beat an expected 8 rax proxy build from his opponent, not win him the game flat out. (See rinizim’s translation for Nada’s words on this as well)

maybe my interpretation of your text or rinizim's is wrong, but i think it meant goodfriend's build was timed to be able to stop an 8-rax... so nada 7-raxed to beat it (aiming to win the game there)

it's good to see nada being able to cheese too... adding more strategic depth.