Liquid Plays '09 - Page 6

sKyHigh vs Jaedong, set 6 on Destination.
SkyHigh proxied a barrack outside JD's main, I think it was an 8rax. It was at the ramped base and SkyHigh lifted it into his main. While making marines, he sent an SCV across the map to JD's natural, and started making a bunker there, forcing JD to pull his drones away from his main. Then he walked up to JD's main mineral line with 3 or 4 marines, while all of JD's drones were at his natural. I'm sad that Jaedong lost, but that was one of the best mind game fakeouts I've ever seen.

This all happened about 20 minutes ago, so there isn't a VOD yet.

Leta just dominates Luxury with some of the best map I've seen since I started watching pro starcraft. Leta just dominates his opponent start to finish. He started by proxying his engineering bay, forcing luxury's natural hatchery well off-center. Shortly after the proxy factory, leta sent a tank and an SCV over behind Leta's mineral line, and this happened (6:35 in):



At some point leta proxied a second engineering bay, to give him vision of luxury's natural. But the real masterstroke was the tanks with a bunker, a turret, and a supply depot. The amazing part was just how ready Leta was. His seige finished just when the bunker was ready, he had cloak in time for mutalisks, everything was just perfect. If I count right, Leta only lost two units the enire game. Leta's knowledge of his opponent's possibile strategies, and the steps he took to preemptively counter them was beyond pimp. This wasn't so much a pimpest play as it was a pimp bitchslapping his 'ho.

This was the game where Mind did the most brutal TvP contain I've ever seen:



YoonJoong had a good effort here, but he was totally shut down. I don't know if a contain is viable for a Liquid Play, but if it is, then this deserves to get in.

The score is 3 to 2. Khan is ahead. Best and Bisu had already been eliminated. Fantasy is the last hope for his teammates, and facing Jangbi; one of the six dragons whose strongest matchup is PvT.

When fantasy's 2 factory push gets to the front of Jangbi's temples, he lays spider mines to protect his push. Without his robotics facility completed, Jangbi can't risk running forward to snipe tanks. Fantasy takes advantage of this and seiges up to start hammering on Jangbi's temples.



Basically, fantasy played really, really smart this game. He could have just pushed forward. Instead, he waited until he'd killed the temples, and gave Jangbi a chance to move his army out of the way. Fantasy didn't forget the details, and laid mines on the ramp, preventing a flank. The course of the game was completely changed, as a player of Jangbi's caliber would have been able to defend the rush with an additional 4 dragoons and a zealot. Fantasy's misdirection here was pimp, and more importantly, smart.

You probably already know exactly what this game is, but if you don't, this game is art. Behold:



After avoiding Jaedong's scouting overlord, Skyhigh proxies an 8rax outside Jaedong's main. While lifting it into the Tyrant's main base, he makes a bunker in range of jaedong's natural, in vision range of an overlord. Jaedong has no choice but to respond by pulling drones, while marines were being created in his main. When he had built up to three marines, he moved into Jaedong's base, and started making another bunker, this time in jaedong's main. Because of the lost mining time, Jaedong couldn't make many zerglings, and even more mining time was lost when his drones ran away. Jaedong didn't leave, but the game ended right there. Skyhigh's play here was pimp, no way around it.

I'm not really sure how to describe this, other than just telling you to go watch it. If there was a list of great push breaks in modern starcraft, this would be on that list:



I really don't know what happened there, aside from the most impressive push break I've ever seen live.

UpMagic had lost game 1 badly. There was a lot of talk about savior in 2009, and Up had to win. Surprising nobody, Upmagic went for a mech build. He incorporated vulture harass:



Once Upmagic gets going, he does not stop his harass:

• 7:55 natural
  
• 10:20 maynard
  
• 10:38 natural
  
• 11:00 fourth
  
• 11:10 third
  
• 11:47 main
  
• 12:00 fourth
  
• 12:30 natural, main, third all at the same time
  
• 13:20 fourth
  
• 13:30 main
  
• 13:51 maynard
  
• 14:05 third
  
• 15:27 fourth
  
• 16:05 third
  
• 16:30 fourth
  
• 17:30 nuclear silo under construction...

UpMagic's multitasking here was unbelievable, and his omnipresent vultures were more impressive to me than the Pimpest Play VOD of Boxer's Triple Play.

Much's massive minedrags murder the little monster. Flash gets an early advantage, and sets up a pretty brutal contain on Grandpa Toss. Grandpa does this:



I would never have thought a player like Much could have done something like that against Flash. Just minedrag after minedrag, and oh so many explosions. Amazing--and pimp.