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by Arrian, Atrioc, motbob and pangshai


It's been a fortnight of exhausting Brood War, and the MSL semis are finally upon us. For most fans, the ro8 was, and the ro4 will be, simply a formality. The final two players have already been decided, and the matches leading to the finals will be superfluous and redundant, their purpose only to build up the hype around two of the greatest players in the SC scene today - Flash and Jaedong. Last season's finals were merely a prelude to what is going to happen on May 29th, and with all the promise behind it, we are expecting no less than spectacular. Might we even say that the Flash-Jaedong rivalry is the equivalent of the modern day Lim-Jin Rok?



If the possibility of a Flash-Jaedong rematch doesn't quite excite you, well, there must be something wrong with you. Nevertheless, the games that paved the way to the meeting of the two should do the job. While Flash shocked everyone by losing his first match to MVP in a TvT that went into late game, he came back quite readily in the second leg to crush MVP 3-1 with superlative ease. Showing some variety in his play, he even threw a proxy rax bunker rush into game 3 that completely threw his opponent off course. Jaedong, similarly, trounced his opponent, Midas, with a handy 3-0 to enter the ro4. Even in the Calm-Great set, there was a fair amount of drama when Great found himself unable to get his drone to his back nat on Triathlon. The highlight of the ro8, however, was the series between Free and Hiya, which included a game with 3 port wraiths, hidden expansions, and nukes. Arrian tells us more.

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Midas v Jaedong game 1

Sure does seem like Midas has been featured a lot in my recaps. Truth is, he has, but it's also because his run in this MSL has been very interesting. Unfortunately, he ran into Jaedong, although this meant that if he overcame the defending champion to advance, his run would be that much more interesting indeed.

Both players opened with rather typical early expand builds in this matchup on Odd-Eye 2, but Jaedong broke the mold by getting an early evolution chamber after his third hatch and before going to lair. In fact, Jaedong delayed his lair quite a bit, getting his second gas even before going to lair. What that early evolution chamber did mean, though, was that a mutalisk opening was absolutely out of the question. Midas added two rax and an academy, seeming very comfortable.

Things started to look unusual again for Jaedong when he added another hatchery in his main, to bring his total to four. Midas moved out his small marine & medic force to put some pressure on Jaedong, forcing him to add sunkens, but Jaedong, ever the intelligent player, sent out about a dozen lings past Midas' m&m group and threw them into Midas' main, doing a fair bit of damage and distracting Midas, giving Jaedong time to morph his lurkers and take his third.

Midas began sending some vultures around the map and laying mines, giving him enough map control to take his own third. Some sweet stop lurkers cut down Midas' ball heading towards Jaedong's newly saturated third, but that didn't stop a few vultures from sneaking around the back and inflicting some damage. I was a little concerned for Midas; 11 minutes into the game, and he still didn't have vessels on the map to help deal with the lurkers. He had obviously delayed the vessels for the vultures and mines, but I didn't know how wise that trade was.

It must have been a facepalm moment for all Terran fans when Midas went after Jaedong's third and saw he had swarm already, and Midas' vessels were still undone. Granted, the mines were actually killing probably way more of Jaedong's units than they should have, but vessels are kind of important in TvZ, y'know? Meanwhile, Jaedong had switched his tech into hydra/lurker/defiler, though Midas appeared to be making some sort of hard transition into mech, with a total of 6 factories and the first tanks coming onto the field. He'd done this against by.hero earlier in the MSL, in a game that I'd recapped, and it worked exceptionally well.


Jaedong came in with a drop of mainly hydra/ling at Midas' natural, but the sieged tanks chewed it up pretty fast. While Midas was idly making this hard transition, Jaedong had taken the 7 o'clock and researched plague. In response, Midas secured his closest mineral and sieged it up heavily. I was looking for Jaedong to make a switch here; that had been hero's mistake: he had seen the switch but didn't change his ultra heavy play, and the tanks ate it alive. Jaedong was no by.hero though, and mutalisks soon arrived. They were particularly effective too, as Midas' goliaths were few and scattered.


Jaedong then adapted to a much heavier hydra strategy, which, combined with swarm, was nearly enough to stop Midas' expansion at the 6 o'clock, but was also not enough to save his newly morphed expansion at 2 o'clock. A big drop came in at Midas' third while Jaedong simultaneously worked his exposed mineral only. This really was a great move by Jaedong; Midas' tanks were out of position and he got two expansions in one move with relatively minimal losses compared to the damage that he'd laid on Midas. It was also the point where one player firmly secured an advantage, and Jaedong made the best of it. He came into Midas' 6 o'clock with another drop and, at the same time, moved up the back ramp. Once that command center was taken out, Midas was effectively mined out except for the 2 o'clock and the newly rebuilt 3 o'clock which fell soon after to guardians (guardians!), and Jaedong had managed to defeat his adversary with no real straight up army-on-army engagement.



Flash v MVP game 1

What do you do when you're one of the unnumerable faceless Terrans trying to break out on a not-great-but-pretty-good Proleague team, and you draw the most dominant player of your age in the Ro8 of your breakout Starleague? Win, of course. Flash's TvT is his best matchup, and he's been on a sick win streak, so things didn't look good at all for MVP at the beginning.

Despite Flash's forward rax, both players were fairly passive to start, but both players managed to slip vultures into the other's base. Naturally, it was Flash who came out slightly ahead, getting a few SCVs in the process. MVP put out a pair of wraiths, which accomplished surprisingly little because Flash had already gotten his armory and put out some goliaths. What followed was the fairly typical TvT factory/econ race, with some stop offs at making/denying expansions, vulture drops/raids, and mine laying, and neither player wound up with a discernible advantage as the match progressed into the late midgame.

15 minutes into the game both players had accumulated sizeable armies and laid claim to territory encompassing about four expansions a piece, but Flash held the larger portion with both the 2 o'clock and 7 o'clock double gas expansions. Things started to get interesting as MVP realized that Flash had extended himself too far and absolutely plowed into Flash's forces at the 7 o'clock. A pair of valkyries came out for Flash, which is highly unusual, and he used it to take down MVP's wraiths.


At this point it's important to note how well MVP was playing. Not just well; he was playing very well. His game sense was phenomenal, his macro was spot on, and he was always ahead in the tech race. 19 minutes into the game, and he already had the infrastructure and was teching to battle cruisers. Flash read his mind, though as he also made the move to bcs. The oddest thing about it all was that the game seemed even. Even though MVP had thrown Flash out of the 7 o'clock, that had only made the control of the map even between the two.

MVP was showing considerable strength though. At Flash's mineral only, MVP's tanks that were sieging it far outnumbered Flash's. This was when Flash revealed his battle cruisers. MVP knew he had the advantage, as he moved his battle cruisers to Flash's crucial double gas 2 o'clock, but was forced to back off, as Flash's turrets did significant damage. The game had reached an impasse, but MVP seemed to have a slim edge, if in nothing other than momentum. The battle cruisers traded yamato cannons over the border to Flash's 2 o'clock, but no engagement was committed to.

And so it continued. The battle cruiser numbers were getting fairly absurd by now, although Flash had gained enough ground so that his tanks prevented MVP from mining the 3 o'clock mineral only. That positioning and a nice EMP on MVP's battle cruisers seemed to indicate that the game had swung back to favoring neither player, but there were so many battle cruisers it was hard to tell. Finally over MVP's third the two fleets engaged, if only briefly, but Flash was the winner, taking control of the 3 o'clock.

MVP was running dangerously low on SCVS. He'd been sacking them for supply but he had so few that his 7 o'clock was barely populated. He did have a gigantic number of battle cruisers though, and the two players continued to dance back and forth, when Flash got the brilliant idea that he'd rather sack his tanks than of his SCVs and went after MVP's 7 o'clock, which, with only 1 tank guarding it, went down easily.

MVP finally got bold and went for Flash's production, and both fleets engaged with a gaggle of goliaths mixed in for Flash. Yamato cannons fired, and when the dust had settled, it wasn't even close. MVP annihilated Flash's fleet and then hit the production lines.


When Flash didn't gg after MVP destroyed his production, MVP went after Flash's 2 o'clock. MVP looked so good it was almost possible to forget how amazingly good Flash is at this game, and by the time MVP's battle cruisers arrived at Flash's 2 o'clock there was an army of goliaths and a large number of turrets to greet him. After some dancing and microing, the CC went down and so did the goliaths, but Flash still didn't gg. I was beginning to wonder what Flash had planned. Flash was being forced to distance mine, and although MVP smartly sent some vultures to mess that up, somehow Flash had another 4 factories and a bunch of goliaths.

And then all of a sudden it wasn't a handful anymore, and MVP's battle cruiser numbers weren't getting any bigger. On top of that, his battle cruisers were all heavily damaged, making Flash's goliaths a potent threat. Flash knew this and was so bold he moved out and began irritating MVP while moving his CC to a spot where he wouldn't have to distance mine, but once again MVP's vultures were there, and a smartly placed mine kept Flash from landing. Then those vultures went straight for Flash's supply depots, meaning that Flash really had no choice. With no miners, no secured expansions and his opponent able to run unopposed about his old main, Flash should have known he was committed at that point. He should have known there was no point in defending, he had to move and he had to move them, because engaging on MVP's terms would mean a certain loss.

With a little persuasion, that's what Flash did. His goliath numbers were substantial, and even the SCVs came out to fight for MVP. MVP scrambled to repair his battle cruisers, but neither player had any income whatsoever. In the end it came down to MVP's vultures. They harassed Flash's goliaths and the mines picked off a few goliaths here and there which turned out to be huge, because the final battle was close but MVP pulled through. All props to MVP for a beautifully executed TvT and a well earned and hard fought win against the Ultimate Weapon.



Hiya v free game 2

Another recap with free? So it is. Thus far in this Starleague, free hasn't been impressing. Instead, he's been doing just enough to get by week after week, and suddenly he's found himself in the Ro8. There are no easy games now, and he'd already lost the first game of this series, and the pressure undoubtedly was on when he and HiyA went at it on Odd-Eye 2.

HiyA spawned at 4 and free opposite him at 10. Despite the long rush distance, HiyA served up a bunker rush at free's natural, which forced a cancel because free had gone nexus first. HiyA pushed it a little harder, trying to build a bunker at free's warping gateways, but the zealot came out in time and the probes chased HiyA back. That was fine by him; the damage was done, the bunker was still there, and HiyA was expanding.


However, it was easily busted and free, hoping to catch his opponent off guard, sent his dragoons and zealots at HiyA's front. HiyA's choke was blocked with a bunker and a rax but free had a lot of units, and HiyA had just barely finished his add on. Only by the skin of his teeth did HiyA keep from being busted, but free had killed a large number of SCVs and set up his expansion, so the game was now advantage free. Then things got interesting.


Five barracks went down for HiyA, and free didn't know it yet, but he was about to get Deep Six'd. Fortunately for free, his Templar Archives had gone down but he still hadn't scouted anything unusual except for an abnormally small number of tanks and vultures when HiyA moved out. As a result, free was very dragoon heavy, and the marines and tanks made short work of them. With HiyA's barracks' rallied, free couldn't keep up.



Free v HiyA game 4

What??? Free and HiyA again? Save your incredulity. You'll need it for this game.

Free won game 3, so Triathlon would play host to the fourth set. Things were interesting from the get-go, with HiyA sending an SCV to the protected expansion of the unoccupied 12 o'clock, while sending a second scouting SCV to 5 o'clock where he found free, already with an expansion, core, and 2 gates. From HiyA's wall in, free probably concluded a typical 1 factory or siege expand, but HiyA had different plans.

He threw down 3 starports. With his inside expo done, HiyA was pumping wraiths and began researching cloak. Free likely had no idea what was coming when HiyA showed up and starting picking off probes. He got quite a few, and also nearly took down free's third because the dragoons were blocked off by the lurker eggs. That SCV he had planted at the 12 o'clock inside nat built a CC and then HiyA's wraiths were back, sniping observers and hitting probes.


As if that wasn't strange enough, a HiyA put down a covert ops. Free was content to add gates and get his third up, but then he made his own strange tech choice, getting a dark archon. A bit of bad luck befell our enterprising Terran hero, as an observer caught sight of HiyA's expansion, but he had tanks to defend behind the lurker eggs.

Bringing the shenanigans to another level, a cloaked ghost came into play, dropping a nuke on the edge of free's back nat. At HiyA's third, the dragoons were knocking down the lurker eggs, this time in force, but HiyA had blocked off the entrance with a supply depot and was holding on barely with one tank. HiyA answered this insult with another nuke, dropping it, this time, on free's fourth, killing a large number of cannons and probes.


But what HiyA wasn't prepared for a recall in his main. With free's attention diverted though, HiyA got off a second nuke which took down free's fourth for good . By this time, HiyA had transitioned into a fairly large mech army and managed to shake off the recall, albeit with significant damage done to his supply and mining. Meanwhile the Dark Archon was still hanging around, and free, ever presistent, was remaking his mineral only, which was now his fifth, having taken the top right nat. What he did now was what he ought to have down before, recalling onto HiyA's 12 o'clock. HiyA could not have fought off even if he'd wanted to, and the base fell.

Seeing how effective his recalls were, free moved in for another one, but HiyA countered with perhaps the sexiest play I've seen in Brood War in a long time. At the instant that free laid down the recall, pretty much the last possible second left, HiyA managed to lock down the offending arbiter. The expression on free's face was priceless, and the crowd and commentators went nuts. Despite the utter awesome laid down by HiyA this entire game, free just continued to expand, coming in with yet another recall, and laying down yet another expansion.


With HiyA's army brought back to defend the recall, free threw the full force of his army at HiyA's front, forcing a liftoff but not sealing the game. But the game, in spirit, was already sealed, as free mind controlled a wayward SCV and began his own command center, which was, sadly, quickly shut down by vultures. But if that's not a way to win a game in spirit, I don't know what is. The winning in spirit, however, was quickly followed up by actually winning, because HiyA knew how great free's economic advantage was and threw in the towel.

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Despite already knowing the players who are going to advance from the ro4, we thought those of you who're still in disbelieve needed some convincing. Our resident psychic/fortuneteller, Atrioc, brings on the magic.

Jaedong vs Calm

Zerg vs Zerg is a matchup that is often called boring, and to be quite honest there are many times where that moniker is deserved. With the absolute nanosecond-speed perfect decision making and endless preparation for every possible build order and starting position that is necessary to succeed in this matchup being far out of the realm of possibility for most players, 90% of ZvZ games end up being luck-based Bo1's where advantages are gained blindly at the start and ridden to victory unless one side makes a huge mistake.

This is not one of those times. This, instead, is Jaedong - who needs no ZvZ introduction as the absolute dominant force in that matchup since his debut - and Calm, the man who beat him their last Bo5 series. During the Swarm Season, the era in which to be a Zerg meant league advancement and success, the two players who emerged at the top of the Swarm to claim the gold medals were Jaedong and Calm: yet now, in a darker era for their race, they have to battle it out again under much different conditions. One, Jaedong, will be looking for revenge and to reassert his dominance, while the other - who has stalled considerably since the promise he showed in their last encounter - is looking to prove himself and reclaim the same since of purpose he had after the first Bo5 win.

These players make ZvZ interesting because of their vastly different styles for such a relatively cut-and-dry matchup. In terms of pure razor-sharp reaction and decision making, Jaedong has the edge - but was stopped cold in their last game by the "Brain Zerg"'s meticulous preparation that stunned the Tyrant himself - who called the one game of the series that he actually won "pure luck". Now, both will have to learn from the others skills if they want to compete here - every game is going to be a battle mentally and physically for control of the series, and in such a high pressure situation I simply have to give the edge to Jaedong. I predict him taking the series 3-1 or 3-2, because not only should his current skill level give him the edge but destiny itself: He, not Calm, was meant to meet Flash in the finals and I see no reason why he wont.

JD 3-1.

Flash vs free

Is anyone else getting tired of Flash's TvP? Because I, for one, am tired of writing about it. For there to be any excitement or even purpose to writing a prediction requires that there is at least a slight chance that either player could win. Unfortunately, seeing as how Flash hasn't even come close to losing a game vs Protoss in centuries and Free nearly dropped a Bo5 to HiyA after getting nuked and wraith harassed - I cannot honestly say that any such chance exists. Flash is going to win this and the only question becomes how dominantly will he do it. We, and the MSL sponsors of course, can only hope that it is not the 3-0 easy mode beatdown that we saw delivered to Pure in the OSL.

Luckily, Triathlon being in the map pool means Free has a good shot of taking at least one game assuming he doesn't fall to the myriad of timing attacks Flash has up his sleeve and actually manages to last to the late game, pull off his excellent late game macro heavy-expansion style play, and hopefully not do something stupid like put 7 stargates on 1 pylon and get it taken out.

Flash 3-1.

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29th May. That's the date. Cancel your appointments, prepare your popcorn. We may not have started the ro4 yet, but we all know who awaits us on that day. The OSL may have a huge, pretty aircraft hangar for their finals, but we have it going where it matters - the games, they promise to be phenomenal. So, mark it out on your calendars folks, this is a final you don't want to miss.