The first game of the day had fantasy spawning at 6:00 on Destination, while up and coming KTF Protoss Stats ended up at 12:00. Everything seems standard, until the observer zooms over to see Stats sending out his 6th probe towards fantasy's base. However, this is not for a proxy as he starts warping a pylon in his base shortly afterwards.

Stat's probe reaches fantasy's base to see him start a Barracks, and then promptly plants an Assimilator over the Terran's Gas. Fantasy sends an SCV after the pesky probe, and after circling around the base once, Stats sees a gap in the mining line and does a manner pylon! This forces fantasy to take 4 SCVs off mining in order to start chiselling away at the Assimilator and the Pylon.

The Pylon quickly goes down, and fantasy gets a Marine to chase away the Probe, sending out an SCV to scout at the same time. However Stats has more things in store up his sleeve as he secretly sends out a Probe from base to the 2:00 expo and makes a pylon. As fantasy's SCV reaches his base, he sees only one pylon, which arouses his suspicion and causes him to start scouting around the whole area of Stat's main and natural. By this time Stat's already has his core, is nearly finished with his 2nd gate, and a dragoon arrives, chasing the SCV away. Fantasy on the other hand started his factory and CC at around the same time, placing a bunker and his Barracks at the bridge to form a defence.

Fantasy's SCV goes all the way down to the 3:00 expo but moves back up as it is stopped by a dragoon. However, it manages to get a glimpse of the proxy pylon before it goes down. Stats then sends a very lucky probe towards fantasy's base, narrowly escaping death from the bunker and goes in to see two factories both with machine shops, but still no tanks.

Things settle down for a bit before fantasy brings out a few vultures, going all the way behind Stat's natural to harass the probes. Fantasy also moves out with 5 marines, 4 tanks, and 3 vultures towards 2:00. 2 SCVs also follow this early force but are destroyed by dragoons. After a short skirmish at the expo the Terran force unsieges and moves towards the back of Stat's base. Unfortunately for fantasy, Stats could smell what was coming from a mile away, and already mined out the backdoor mineral patch in order to send forces to flank the assault on his natural. Fantasy's forces were quickly destroyed as his vultures were already out of mines, and Stats suffered minimal losses. More vultures sped their way to the corner expo, but were way too late to be of any help.



The game proceeded to be more standard, with fantasy getting armory and scan, as well as a 3rd CC to expand to 5:00. Stats teched towards arbs and working on his upgrades while double expanding at the top right and 2:00 expos. Stats tried to harass fantasy with a DT drop, but this was fended off easily with fantasy's many scans. Fantasy's vultures tried to harass and lay mines but were met with dragoon fire at every turn.

Both players then entered macro mode and amassed huge armies with the standard PvT unit mixes (arbs, zealots, dragoons vs tanks, vultures, goliaths, vessels). Stats also took hold of the left side expos, and started building a fleet beacon and more stargates. When fantasy scanned Stat's bases and saw the fleet beacons and stargates he decided it was time to push further towards the Protoss base.



Fantasy tried to advance towards the 2:00 expo but Stats stopped the assault twice, both players losing a similar amount of forces. The players both lost their expansions as Stats then decided on a different strategy, destroying fantasy's 7:00 expo while losing his own at 2:00. Fantasy's main and natural were both mined out by this time and had to move quickly before it was too late, and began attacking the 9:00 expo. Stats moved his medium-sized carrier force out and cleared the tanks at 2:00, and attacked fantasy's 3:00 expo along with a recall of goons, zealots and HT.

Fantasy still had a pretty large goliath tank army and was still able to stop the onslaught of the carriers. He destroyed 2:00 again, but was forced to retreat as Stats started attacking his main. After a short calm, he led a final assault at Stat's 9:00 expo, but this force was utterly destroyed as Stats set down a brilliant stasis on all of his goliaths. Fantasy, out of expos and without a big enough army to defend, GG-ed after Stats arrived at his nat.



IMO, Stats had control of the map throughout the whole game, and foiled the Vulture Terrorist's every attempt to harass. Fantasy did a good job of trying to get back into the game though, but it was simply not enough. Perhaps his dispatching of fantasy's early push played a pivotal role in leading to this decisive victory.

Stats: 1-0, Advances to Winner's Match!
fantasy: 0-1, Advances to Loser's Match!

type-b spawned at the top, and Much warped in at the 6:00 position. Much opted for a standard FE build, scouting after the pylon while type-b went for an overpool build. Seeing the early pool Much played it safe, warping a Forge before Nexus shortly after.

Everything seemed normal as type-b got his 3rd hatch and Much setup his simcity, until type-b sent a drone out and started mining the backdoor mineral chunk of Much's base! This was quickly spotted by Much and he built another cannon at his natural while keeping his probe at the higher ground. As type-b could not mine the minerals away quickly enough, he retreated his drone and lings.



Much built Stargate and Citadel while type-b teched up to Spire and Hydra den as well as getting an extra hatchery. Speedlings ran into harass the natural assimilator as it was unprotected by cannons, but zealots quickly ran over (walked over?) to defend. Much also had a 2nd gateway warping at his natural, probably for a quick zealot attack.

A small fight ensued in the centre between lings and zealots with much showing off some zealot micro, but it didn't really make a difference. Much also started hiding his corsairs in the bottom right corner, and when he gathered 4 sairs, he sent them along with 2 dark templar to type-b's 2:00 expansion. The dark templar managed to kill off a few drones, but there were too many overlords there and type-b quickly reacted by sending more hydralisks and scourge over to defend.

Much then tried to harass type-b's main with the dark templar, but type-b had some clutch drone blocking micro, blocking off any entry to the main. Much tried this again, but to no avail. Soon after, Much moved out with a small zeal archon force, while type-b started gathering mutas for the inevitable midgame HT sniping. It all went downhill for Much from there, as type-b's mutalisks roamed free and sniped more and more of his high templar to death. Eventually type-b gathered enough hydralisks to attack, and when the 2 armies clashed in the middle, Much admitted defeat and GG-ed.



type-b – 1:0, Advances to Winner's Game to face Stats!
Much – 0:1, Advances to Loser's Game to face fantasy!

The winners of their respective games Stats and type-b came to meet on the blue lands of Byzantium 3. The players spawned at close positions, with type-b on the bottom left corner and Stats on the bottom right.

After Stats built his pylon for his FE, he sent his scout to the right position. Type-b, going for an overpool build again tried to leave his drone at the ramp to block the scout but the skinny probe went right past without trouble. The probe then went on to harass drones a bit, then went back up to type-b's natural just in time to prevent the drone from building a hatchery multiple times and even successfully killing it at the end. As type-b sent a second drone out, Stats managed to plant down a pylon, further delaying the Zerg's expansion. Finally type-b's lings arrived to chase the probe away and the warping pylon was cancelled.



Back at the Protoss base, forge, cannons, and gateway were already up to meet the incoming zerglings, with a nexus in the making. Type-b also got gas rather early, and started morphing a Lair as well. He then even took his second gas at his natural, as well as morphed a hydralisk den. With his low drone count and attention to denying Stat's probe from scouting, type-b seemed to be going for an all-in build.

Stats, with the lack of hatcheries to be seen around the map, felt something was up and was already making several extra cannons at his hatchery to defend against potential hydra busts. However, type-b's strat was actually something that a player like YellOw would pull off, and he actually got an early drop upgrade. 10 speedlings were dropped into Stat's main, chasing all the probes away and destroying the nexus. 3 more lurkers were slow dropped into the main shortly after.

Stats placed extra cannons to defend his natural's mineral line probes, and the lurkers could only hit the second gateway and pylon at the natural. He also managed to squeeze two dark templar out before the templar archives fell to the zerglings. An observatory was also nearly done warping.

Meanwhile, type-b had researched hydralisk speed and possibly range as well, and was gathering a sizeable force of hydralisks. Stats made an archon and some zealots, and when the observer was out cleared his base of the 3 lurkers, as well as started multiple gateways and another nexus back in his main.

Type-b's overlords, now with speed upgrade as well moved over to the edge of Stats base again and dropped around 10 hydralisk and 3 lurkers. However Stats managed to catch the zerg forces as they were dropping out with his small army of archons zealots and dark templar, and easily disposed of the hydralisks and lurkers.



The rest of the game was basically a repeat of the above paragraph, with type-b dropping hydra lurk in vain, and Stats gathering more and more army, and eventually type-b Gged.

Stats – 2:0, Advances to the MSL!
type-b – 1:1, Advances to fight the winner of fantasy vs Much!

Grandpa Toss, looking really really tired, warped in at the bottom right corner while fantasy was at the top right. After Much got his gas, he sent his probe out to scout towards the correct position. Fantasy also sent his SCV the right way, making its way in to see Much warping in a second gateway after his core as well as a range upgrade.

Fantasy, looking to safely secure his natural, setup a block with bunker, supply and barrarcks at the choke of his natural. Back at the Protoss base, Much could be seen warping a citadel, as well as cutting probes. Fantasy then started a Starport while Much began his templar archives. With dragoon range complete, he began to harass the wall, but fantasy's siege mode also finished at the same time, getting rid of the dragoons.

Fantasy sent two SCVs to scout Much's base, but was repelled both times by a pair of well microed dragoons. As the dark templar came out of the gateways Much started to move toward fantasy's base with around 6 dragoons, 2 zealots, and the 2 dark templar. Fantasy, playing it very safe, got an ebay and then built 2 missile turrets at his natural, and also grabbed several SCVs to repair the bunker in case of an attack.

Much's attack was seconds late from being successful, however, as the turrets were completed just in time. As Much also didn't see a CC at the natural, he guessed correctly that fantasy probably opened with a fact-port build, and sent 2 dragoons back to his main to defend, while taking his own nat. Fantasy's 4 vulture drop with mines was defended easily, but when Much lost 2 dragoons when he tried to clear the minefield with goons only. While starting his CC, fantasy tried to drop again with a vulture and a tank this time, but was again unsuccessful.



The dark templar managed to take out the tank weakened during the drop, and then 2 more sneaked in to try take out the tank. Much sent in 5 dragoons as well to attack the front, destroying the bunker and the marine but was stopped by SCVs and sieged tanks. Fantasy yet again tried to harass with another vulture drop but it failed to do any damage, although it did allow him to scout.

During this time Much started his 3rd base at 6:00, while fantasy moved out several of his tanks to the ridge outside his nat. Catching a glimpse of Much maynarding his probes to 6:00, he also sent several vultures to harass this new base, losing Much several dragoons to mines in the process.

Taking his 3rd base at the same time, fantasy also sent in several vultures and a dropship with 2 tanks to Much's new expansion, forcing the probes to retreat back to base, and eventually destroying the newly built nexus. Fantasy then proceeded to siege up on the ridge north of Much's natural. Knowing he had no chance of winning unless he did a successful counter against fantasy's base, Much went around the Terran army through the middle and headed towards fantasy's 3rd. The meagre force of dragoons and a few speed zealots were stopped short by just a bunch of mines, vultures and few tanks at the back. When fantasy's main army returned to base, Much's army was demolished and tapped out soon after.




Much – 0:2, is Eliminated from the MST!
fantasy – 1:1, will play against type-b in the Final Match!

The Zerg player appeared on the right hand side, with the Terran on the opposite side. Fantasy sent his SCV out after the building his supply depot, while type-b opened with a 12 hatch and sent his overlord to 12:00, wary of any proxy barracks the cheesy Terran might use. As the 2 drones were sent out to establish an expansion at the natural, fantasy's SCV came in to build an ebay right over the spot, forcing type-b to build his extractor and pool first before he destroyed the ebay.

As type-b started his Lair, fantasy also laid down his factory and also sent an SCV to mine at the mineral chunk behind type-b's natural. A spire was started for type-b, and fantasy had also made a second factory, planning for a vulture run-by behind the back of the 3:00 base. However his plan was delayed slightly as type-b managed to send a ling to the temple, stopping the SCV from mining.

Vultures started to come out from fantasy's factories and killed off the lings intruding on their mission. Type-b setup a simcity at the front of his natural with an evo chamber, which he then cancelled to switch for a hydralisk den. By this time, his spire was also complete and larva were turned into eggs to hatch mutalisks. 4 speed vultures made their way around the back ridge, but as type-b was expecting this he ordered his drones away from mining and used them with several lings to block the choke, delaying the vultures long enough for the mutalisk force to arrive.



Fantasy's backup plan was already in progress as he had goliaths and turrets ready to defend against mutalisk harass. After securing his main, he expanded at his natural, while type-b on the other side started a 3rd hatchery at his nat and a 4th one at the 1:00 expo.

During this time, type-b continued to amass more mutalisks as well as a group of speedlings. Fantasy had around a full group of goliaths by now, but type-b's big force of mutaling easily destroyed the slow attacking goliaths. SCVs scrambled to spam turrets around fantasy's main CC, as mutalisks came in and destroyed the Terran's buildings including one of the factories.

Type-b's mutalisk group took the floating CC down to it's last bit of life, but suddenly decided to spare its life and attacked missile turrets instead. From then on, it was an uphill battle for fantasy. As he slowly gathered goliaths and vultures and secured his natural again, type-b was ready for a second wave of mutaling hydra, which fantasy barely defended with heavy losses even with his 1/1 upgrades. Type-b's economy was well under way with, with a good drone saturation at every base, 2 more hatcheries building at 12:00 and 10:00, and upgrades coming from evolution chambers as well. Fantasy again tried to harass with vultures but with hydralisks everywhere and sunken defences setup, they were only going to their deaths.

Fantasy had no choice but to continue turtling and expanding slowly with his tanks, mines, and goliaths. When type-b saw the Terran's defence, he knew it would be suicide to try break it head on. With his speed and drop upgraded overlords, he picked up a huge group of hydralisks and doom dropped them all into fantasy's main base. As the mech army retreated to defend, even more hydralisks came in from the front side, destroying fantasy's CC. Somehow, fantasy managed to defend the attacks again, but the game was over already. Minutes later, type-b massed yet another unstoppable force of mutas and hydras and the Terran typed out as the last of his forces were destroyed.



type-b – 2:1, Advances to the MSL!
fantasy – 1:2, is Eliminated from the MST!

The Red Sniper appeared at 7:00 while leftie Zerg spawned at 11:00. While HoeJJa decided to play standard with a 12 hatch, Hwasin decided that he was not going to waste time playing against Zergs he knew he was going to win against and did a proxy BBS at a position that would not be scouted if scouting along close positions or diagonally.



Basically HoeJJa got a bit unlucky with the scouting as he scouted diagonally towards bottom right, then to top right, then...well it was a bit too late by then as Hwasin started building a bunker next to his hatchery. HoeJJa pulled a bunch of drones to defend against the marines and SCVs, but only managed to kill off 2 marines and the rest slipped away unscathed into the bunker.

Looking to use his drones to stop any more marines from coming in, they actually ended up dying to the new marine reinforcements. Hwasin set up a mini contain with a supply depot and HoeJJa's last attempts to run lings past was stopped, and tapped out.

Hwasin – 1:0, Advances to the Winners Match!
HoeJJa – 0:1, Advances to the Loser's Match!

The two players face off on Byzantium 3, with Hyuk at top left and BackHo at bottom right.

Hyuk opens with an overpool, while BackHo, scouting the wrong position first plays it safe with a forge first FE. Hyuk hides a drone over to the back of his natural's mineral line so that the scouting probe doesn't see it, and comes out right after to lay down a hatchery. Both players opted to play standard, BackHo setting up his FE and Hyuk getting gas and a 3rd hatch at 12:00 expo.

However, things start to differ from the 'normal' PvZ we see nowadays after BackHo's core is finished. Instead of getting the standard citadel and stargate, he only builds a citadel, followed shortly after by 2 more gateways, while upgrading +1. Hyuk sticks to the norm, getting a 4th hatch, spire, and den at the same time, with a 5th hatch at his 12:00 expo later.

As BackHo's +1 upgrade and leg upgrade near completion he moves out with 9 zealots and 1 goon towards Hyuk's main base. Hyuk's lings outside BackHo's base sees this, and he promptly starts another sunken to defend. 2 stargates have also been started in the Protoss main as this is happening.

I have to say that the attack on Hyuk's base was one of the worst I have ever seen. BackHo seemed undecided about what to do as he moved in, with one zealot dying to sunken hits by moving back and forth, and the rest of the force seemed to move clumsily. The goon also quickly died without doing anything, and at the end of it all, Hyuk only lost 4 hydralisks and a drone. BackHo also decided to send 3 zealots to take a look at 12:00 but they backed off as they were met with sunken and hydralisk defences.

BackHo warps a templar archives and starts gathering corsairs at his natural, perhaps fearing an oncoming mutalisk attack. A new group of zealots speed their way again to Hyuk's natural, but again back off as there are more defences this time. Soon after, Hyuk comes out of his base and heads towards bottom right with a large group of lurkers, hydralisks and zerglings, morphing a hatchery at his ridge expo as well. At this point, BackHo's army reminds me of a great article Kwark wrote a long time ago, with no dragoons or even a robo bay in sight.



While the Zerg forces pushed the pure zealot force all the way back to the natural, the group of 6~ sairs attempted to wreak havoc on Hyuk's overlords. It didn't seem to work that great though, as Hyuk simply hatched some hydralisks and the sairs were detered. BackHo also tried some sort of dt corsair harassment at the 12:00 expo but speed overlords with a large group of hydralisks made quick work of that idea.

A nexus was warped in at the 6:00 expo, and there were high templars and observers for BackHo as well during this time. Meanwhile, Hyuk starts to morph a LOT of lurkers, probably noticing the lack of dragoons in his opponents army mix. He moves out with a huge lurker hydra ling force, and pushes BackHo's meager army back to his natural, leaving the newly established expo free to destroy. By now, Hyuk has around 7 hatcheries, and a fresh new batch of hydra lurk forces appear and dispatches BackHo's little force for the GG.



Hyuk – 1:0, Advances to the Winner's Match to face Hwasin!
BackHo – 0:1, Advances to the Loser's Match to face HoeJJa!

Hwasin comes out at 3, and Hyuk at 9. Both players open standard, Hwasin starting a wall at his nat for a 1 rax CC, and Hyuk 12 hatching. Hyuk's scouting drone annoys the working SCVs a bit but don't do any real damage. After the drone leaves, Hyuk sends it back towards the Terran base to mine out the back door mineral chunk. However, Hwasin's impeccable scouting skills lead him to send a marine there, driving off the drone.

From then on the game progresses normally, Hyuk teching to Lair after a 3 hatch opening, and Hwasin with 3 barracks after securing his natural. He then moves out with a small force of marines, 1 firebat and 1 medic. The early attempt to attack Hyuk proves to be a mistake though, as a group of well microed speedlings make quick work of the small bionic army.



Mutalisks popped out of their eggs after a few minutes, and the two players danced their forces back and forth, with Hyuk seeking to snipe as many marines and turrets as possible while Hwasin tried to keep the damage from the harassment to a minimum. Hyuk expanded to the 8:00 expansion while getting lurkers and teching to hive as well.

Finally putting a stop to the relentless mutalisk harassment, Hwasin then moved out with a force of mnm, 3 tanks and 2 vessels over the southern ridges. Hyuk had a pretty large army of muta lurker ling, and it looked like he would have been able to defeat the Terran ball head on. Unfortunately, he pretty much suicided his army in, squandering any sort of advantage he may have had, although he did pick off one vessel with scourge.



The game was decided by that battle, as without any remaining forces Hyuk could not defend against Hwasin's attack on his expansion. He tried a counter with lings but marines simply stimmed and safely retreated into their bunkers. Hwasin then switched to SK Terran mode, and after a few small skirmishes he a-moved his army into the Zerg natural for the win.



Hwasin – 2:0, Advances to the MSL! (for the 9th time in a row!)
Hyuk – 1:1, Advances to fight the winner of HoeJJa vs BackHo!

The second showcase of BackHo's horrible PvZ pitted him against HoeJJa on Heartbreak Ridge, with Protoss at 9:00 and Zerg at 3:00. HoeJJa went for the standard overpool build, also sending an early drone to scout the ridge behind his natural for any cheese, while BackHo went for a forge nexus FE. The probe scout also managed to prevent HoeJJa from putting down his hatchery for a bit, but it then died quickly to the lings as it was damaged by the drone before as well.

HoeJJa then started his lair and laid down his 3rd hatchery at the 1:00 expansion around the same time as BackHo's nat was complete. After his core finished, BackHo added a citadel, stargate, and a second gateway as HoeJJa began his spire. 3 zealots and a dragoon were then sent out towards the Zerg expansion at 1:00, which now had a morphing 5th hatchery. HoeJJa's natural was also setting up its defences in the form of an evolution chamber hatchery sunken simcity. The first corsair scout also went down to a pair of scourge shortly after.

For some reason, even though the 1:00 expansion already had a sunken and a bunch of lings defending it, BackHo thought that it would be a good idea to continue sending his force of 3 zealots and a dragoon there. 2 dark templar were also sent towards HoeJJa's natural. BackHo's zealot goon force crawled into the corner next to the neutral temple and got flanked by a group of speedlings, achieving nothing at all. The DT-s also managed to get around 2 drone kills before they died.



Things didn't look good for BackHo as HoeJJa's mutalisks hatched and the Protoss only had no sairs and an incomplete archon so far. The slow moving archon was forced to chase the mutalisk group around the base, and although they did not do much damage BackHo was still forced to stay in his base because of them. At this time, HoeJJa started getting a few hydralisks now, although still small in numbers as he dedicated most of his larva to mutalisk.



After zealot speed and +1 upgrade finished, BackHo attacked with a group of zealots and archons, killing off half of HoeJJa's hydralisks, forcing the Zerg to retreat behind his defences. With 3 high templar out and not many hydralisks for HoeJJa, things were actually looking up for the Protoss. However, the situation turned around quickly as HoeJJa instantly sniped all 3 of the HT, causing BackHo to retreat and wait for new high templar without which he would not be able to win.



The game was over in the next 2 minutes as HoeJJa managed to snipe all the new HT again, none of them even getting a single storm off, and as the Zerg's massive macro had kicked in, HoeJJa's huge force of hydralisk and mutalisk a-moved their way to victory, eliminating BackHo's chances of advancing to the MSL.

HoeJJa – 1:1, Advances to face Hyuk in the Final Match!
BackHo – 0:2, is Eliminated from the MST!

Hyuk spawned Yellow at the 12:00 position, while HoeJJa was purple at the 6:00 position. Both players opened with the same build, some sort of “overgaspool” build, with Hyuk's pool being slightly faster. Once their pools finished, both players instantly started to morph their hatcheries into lairs.

Their builds start to diverge slightly here, as HoeJJa decides to take a small risk by getting a second hatchery in his main before getting zerglings, while Hyuk gets 8 lings out slighly earlier. As Hyuk's lair also completed slightly earlier, he also had a slightly faster spire as well.

Hyuk then sent 9 lings up to HoeJJa's ramp which had 7 lings in a nice arc above it. Thinking he could break the defence he attacked but was repelled by the smaller force due to their advantageous positioning. However, he did manage to slip 2 lings past into the purple base, catching a glimpse of the eggs being turned into mutalisks. Back in his own base the same was happening too.

This time it was HoeJJa's turn to go on the offensive as he sent in a few lings towards Hyuk's base, although they were quickly shot down by the mutalisks now roaming the base.

What happened next went by much too quickly for me to describe in detail, as ZvZ always does. Basically, the two growing mutalisk scourge forces converged around centre, both players pulling off some nice muta vs scourge micro. It then seemed like that HoeJJa had a slightly smaller and perhaps more damaged mutalisk force and he started retreating. The two airborne armies then met again, and as Hyuk's extra scourge force suddenly arrived, HoeJJa's mutalisks suddenly all disappeared, leading him to type out.



Hyuk – 2:1, Advances to the MSL!
HoeJJa – 1:2, is eliminated from the MST!