Bigfile MSL Round of 32, Week 3
Results for Groups G and H


Recap and Review
I had such high hopes for the Round of 32. From the very start, I had wanted amazing games to watch, to cover, to relish and discuss with friends. After the first week, I was disappointed. True, there were a few good games, such as EffOrt vs Flash and Kal vs Light, but otherwise the games were pretty lackluster. Metaphorically speaking, I cried when Group F finished.

Week 2 made me pick up my head a bit. While most of the games in Group E were terrible, in Group C Bisu played two great games, taking out Calm and then Action to finally walk out of a 3 Zerg group. fOrGG kept things interesting in his match against free with his patented 'timing attacks' in a fight for the 2-1 spot. Did somebody say Hyuked?

And then came this past week. The two groups that were tied for the most ominous or exciting, depending on who you are, distinction of being the "Group(s) of Death." Out of the eight players still fighting for tickets to the Ro16, there were 7 that I could live with advancing. With Group G, I would have been happy no matter who advanced with the high level of games played, and unfortunately, (or fortunately, if you're that dude named Carnivorous Sheep) hero snagged a spot from H, and overall mostly mediocre games were played in H. Though the level of play wasn't anything too impressive, let's take a moment to just briefly go over them. (Group G will be discussed mainly in the "Games of Interest" section.)

Group H:
HiyA decides to do a man's opening, going 2rax in his game against "how did I get my vT stats" hero, drawing this reaction from the Cyborg. However, HiyA decides that the number two isn't cool enough, and decides to up that number to six before getting his factory. hero also decides to make a lot of buildings on two bases, and plants hatcheries wildly around his main, deciding to go... 4hatch lurker. Anyway, HiyA tries to go for an early bust with a small group of MnM, but runs into this:


Anyway, after that first ball gets slaughtered (why no firebats, bro?) HiyA decides to continue pumping out of his six barracks, and eventually decides to get a tank. hero is trying to be neo-Shine, and instead of a massive amount of hydras we get this:


Anyway, I thought HiyA was done for at this point but Magikarp busts out some baller micro to defend and the game moves into the late stage. However, at this point hero decides he's learned how to ZvT and everything goes downhill for HiyA after this. His drops get scourged, Cows tear apart his bases, small flying bats terrorize vessels with a ferocity that would make Fantasy proud, and eventually HiyA has to tap out.

The first match between Fantasy and JangBi was just plain boring. The game goes on for about 15 minutes before any real engagement happens, and then two things happen:

1) Fantasy decides to donate some units to JangBi.
2) JangBi fakes Fantasy out, and recalls in the main to simultaneously attack the protected back expo.

After these blows, JangBi continues to amass advantages through having more bases and coming out on top in the clashes, and eventually Fantasy retires from the game. In the end, no economic harassment by Fantasy just allowed JangBi to macro up, and with the help of JANGBI STORMSSS Fantasy was forced into submission.

The winners' game just involved fail. First, hero decides to be like flamewheel, and decides to go for a hydra bust. However, he lets JangBi's probe in, which should have totally ruined everything. Then again, JangBi's defense was slow... but it didn't matter. hero aborted his attack, and afterward even though JangBi makes great use of his storms to kill stuff having two bases to four really doesn't work out in the long run. hero advances 2-0.


Fantasy vs HiyA is a TvT (T.T). And even though it could have seemed epic from the LR comments, I've seen enough of tanks exploding for a while. If you want to bask in the full gloriousness of Jung Laden planting mines, go watch the VOD.

Anyway, the final game for JangBi and Fantasy was the polar opposite of the first game. Instead of turtling for 15, this game involved some economic harassment! Fantasy, doing what he does best, scores a bunch of early probe kills, racking up six on one bike alone. JangBi, too, has some nice Reaver harassment that gets a tank and a couple SCVs.

However, the battle left something to be desired. Immediately losing both reavers and a few templar, JangBi gets overrun.


So Group H kind of disappointed me. I didn't mind that hero advanced (okay slightly, he knocked out that fish guy), but I'm sad that both HiyA and Fantasy could not advance.

But then there was Group G. Not only did this group produce the best games of the Ro32, but it also made me feel better about my prediction skills.

Okay, even though I had to use coins. Don't hate.

Four out of five games in this group were all pretty good. In the first set, great and Sea squared off for the zillionth time in a short amount of time. The game went pretty standard: Sea went 1rax CC and great went for 3hatch Muta. While he didn't do a lot of economic damage, great was able to stall Sea long enough to get his third up and running without any molestation from Gauss Rifles. Everything should have been okay until this:


After that, this pretty much summarizes the rest of this thirteen minute game:


ZerO vs Stats will be detailed below, so never fear! Just know that Stats' huge chin is really good at raining storms upon hydralisks.

In the winners' game between Sea and Stats, Stats decides to be imba and goes 12nexus into... 3 stargates. Carriers! Not only that, but he is able to supplement his flying blimp fleet with a sizable ground force as well, and Sea is crushed. Near the end of the game Sea tries to go for a base trade but Stats just balls over him. Chinterceptors for the win!


The losers' game between ZerO and great was... arguably the best ZvZ I've ever seen in my life. l10f has it detailed below. After that, the finals between great and Sea again was just meh; Sea dominated great for the 2-1.

Games of Interest

Group G Second Set: ZerO vs Stats on Odd-Eye 3
By flamewheel

I'm going to preface this BR by saying that it's my first one ever, so don't hate me too much. Also, after his kind of meh series with Hydra in the OSL, I wasn't expecting too much. With PvZ being in the state that it is combined with the fact that ZerO has the second highest (after Jaedong) ZvP ELO on the scene right now, all signs were pointing to a victory for ZerO.

With that being said, the following game impressed me a lot, and further convinced me that KT Rolster is going to give us a good show for the PL finals.

The map is Odd-Eye 3; Stats warps in at the top left location while ZerO spawned at bottom right. As all good, non-cheesy Protosses do Stats goes for a Forge FE while ZerO opts for an overpool. However, Stats decides to be a straight up baller and goes Nexus first before even attempting to scout. As Stats' probe reaches ZerO's base, he notices lings moving out and a drone moving to 3:00, but due to some mismicro he is unable to delay the third hatchery from going down. Meanwhile, across the map Stats gets away with just one cannon since he pulled three probes to block, allowing him to get his Cybernetics Core faster.

ZerO's lair finishes with no sign of a Hydralisk den, and hides his spire at the natural and Stats plants a Robotics Bay after the Stargate. With the first Corsair, Stats scouts the now-morphing Den, and decides to continue making corsairs; after two Reaver pop, we see that Stats is going for some sort of Sair-Reaver play.

With his first six corsairs Stats goes out for some scouting and overlord killing, and after the Shuttle finishes he moves out, engages ZerO's mostly-Hydralisk army in the middle of the map with speedlots and reavers. As ZerO moves to attack, Stats snipes the two scourge homing in on the shuttle, forcing ZerO to fall back.


Stats heads for ZerO's well-simmed third with his army, and despite a sandwiching attempt by ZerO Stats frees himself with relatively few losses thanks to some handy Reaver micro. At this point, Stats has templar out and is taking his third, and moves to engage ZerO's hydralurk army, killing almost all of ZerO's well-spread army with storms and Reavers.


Stats moves to assault the third but is held off after ZerO scourges his single observer, and the Dark Templar Stats tries to sneak into ZerO's natural is hunted down by Hydralisks.

At this point, Stats has a pretty big advantage: it is 3base Protoss fighting 3base Zerg, and Stats has overwhelmingly won all the major engagements. ZerO knows he has to do something to rectify the situation, and makes a control group of Mutalisks to take advantage of Stats' relative lack of anti-air (corsairs died during the last engagement hunting Overlords).

ZerO's mutas kind of did their job, killing a few templar and a Reaver and forcing Stats to kind of storm his own army, but on the other hand pretty much every mutalisk was left with next to zero health. Then, ZerO then decides that he's going to charge his hydralisks up the bridge to try to attack Stats' army.


After losing six hydralisks without even firing a shot, ZerO pulls back again, allowing Stats to reinforce his death ball, and he roams it around the top right quadrant of the map.

And here is when the funniest part of the game occurs.

While Stats' army is away from his base, ZerO decides to go for the biggest ninja maneuver I've ever seen in a Pro game of Starcraft. With three control groups of Hydralisks, ZerO walks into Stats' empty natural and starts opening fire.

Of course, a key element in ZvP is for the Zerg to engage the Protoss where there is ample room to move about.

A cramped Forge FE natural is not that sort of battleground you'd want to be in if you were the Zerg. Here are a few choice examples of why not.





With this attempt, ZerO lost probably around 60 supply of units in less than 20 seconds, and Stats' still-strong army moved out across the field, forcing ZerO's reinforcements back. Over the course of the next few minutes, Stats shows that he has storms aplenty, using his mighty AoE spell on as few as two or three hydralisks at a time.

As the death ball takes out the newly-established fourth and swoops down on the third, eliminating all Hydralisks resistance along the way, ZerO types out as his drones are stormed.

Overall, a very strong showing by Stats. Holding air dominance with good corsair usage allowed him to abuse the tremendous damage of the reavers, and thanks to some amazing storms he was able to devastate ZerO's armies to keep ZerO from expanding. ZerO, for his part, was pretty much just on the short end of the stick, and threw in the gauntlet with his inexplicable decision to trap himself in Stats' natural.

Group G Losers' Set: great vs ZerO on Triathlon
by l10f

ZerO, after suffering an unexpected loss to the Chintoss in his first game faces Great, who has beaten ZerO in every other official matches in the past. Nevertheless, ZerO has a 4 win steak in ZvZ after breaking his 8 loss streak in the matchup. ZerO starts at 5 o'clock as the Yellow Zerg while Great starts at 12 o'clock as the Red Zerg. Due to Triathlon being a peculiar map with a safe in-base expansion, both players apt for economic builds. ZerO goes 12 hatchery in his natural and Great builds his spawning pool with his 12th drone.


ZerO starts with a slight build order advantage, but Great quickly makes up by making only drones and a few lings, even forcing ZerO to build a sunken with his few lings. ZerO sneaks in two zerglings into Great's main, and they manage to kill a drone before being killed. Both players tech up to spire, and since zerglings became pretty much useless, Great sacrifices all of his zerglings to kill a couple of ZerO's drones. Zero builds a spore colony to protect against Great's earlier mutalisks and kills his own zerglings so he could make more mutalisks before his overlord is made.


Great's +1 air carapace finishes, and ZerO keeps sending pairs of scourges to try and pick off any mutalisks he can. ZerO builds a queen's nest and techs up to hive while getting a couple of queens for ensnare. Great sees everything with his scourges and thinks that he can finish the game when the +2 air carapace finishes since he is ahead in upgrades. Great attacks before greater spire finishes, and although Great has a lot more mutalisks, spore colonies and ensnare helps ZerO fend off Great's mutalisks after losing a few drones.


Seeing that ZerO will now have a tech advantage in air, Great decides to take his natural while getting hydralisks to fight against devourers. ZerO is behind in economy but is ahead in tech, and decides to use this to his advantage and picks off hydralisks and drones before Great has enough hydralisks to drive ZerO's army back. A good ensnare lands on Great's mutalisks and hydralisks and ZerO kills a significant amount of ZerO's hydras, mutalisks, and drones, and even succeeds in getting his own expansion.

ZerO adds a fourth hatchery at his natural and gets two defiler mounds to research plague and consume at the same time. ZerO tries to use his +1 attack upgraded zerglings to harass Great, but they don't do much damage. Great takes a hidden expansion at 9 o'clock natural, and follows up with his own two defiler mounds. ZerO uses his air advantage to pick off more of Great's units and moves back once he sees Great's defilers start to consume Zerglings.


Zero takes another expansion at the center expansion near his natural, and both players begin to mix in lurkers for defense against Zerglings. Now this game has turned into a macro game with a lot of cheap units like zerglings and hydralisks with high tech units like defilers and lurkers. ZerO takes advantage of the fact that he has queens to use broodlings on defilers. Great starts to break the eggs leading to the 6 o'clock expansion, and gets a plague on all of ZerO's mutalisks when he tries to come defend.


Great takes the 9 o'clock main expansion and uses his economic advantage to create a large number of zerglings to distract ZerO in multiple places at once. Great takes another expansion at the center, using lurkers to defend against ZerO's zergling heavy army. ZerO knows that he will lose unless he does something about 9 o'clock and drops a large number of zerglings, lurkers, and defilers. He manages to kill Great's hatchery, but Great takes this chance to attack ZerO's center expansion with all of his army. With a good swarm and lurker positioning, Great kills ZerO's expansion. He also harasses ZerO's in base expansion with two mutalisks, and ZerO fails to notice until all of his drones die.



ZerO retakes his center expansion and tries to harass Great's expansions with his zerglings, but there are lurkers placed everywhere to defend against zerglings. ZerO once again loses his center expansion, and good plagues on ZerO's units allow Great to decimate ZerO's army that comes to defend. ZerO knows that his zerglings can no longer do the damage he needs to do, and realizes that he will need ultralisks. He starts building ultralisks, but since Great has twice as many mining bases, something amazing has to be done. Zero loads all of his units including ultralisks to drop 9 o'clock again, but an overlord with two ultralisks gets killed by scourges, and his zerglings and lurkers get easily blocked. Great builds his own ultralisks with better upgrades to overwhelm ZerO's army and take the game.

The ships move onward, through the darkened waters. The stars are hidden behind clouds, as if they are too horrified to witness the destruction of the cruise ship—an event lost upon the progamers below. Across the boats, one by one heads start reappearing above deck, the jubilantly triumphant first joined later by a slightly more subdued second individual. On some of the boats, progamers resurface quickly, and on others extended periods of time pass before the successful combatants are released. Those that finish quickly are told to wait, but for what?

Lee Jaedong is the first out of all the progamers to return topside. Having completed his tasks with ease, Jaedong stands aboard his ship, staring at the bright stars overhead. Shortly after, Shin No Yeol joins him, and instead of talking, the two progamers reflect upon the matches that they had just played. After ten more minutes of meditative silence, one of the bodyguards finally reappears on deck, speaking into a handheld radio.

“It appears that everyone aboard the other ships have finished as well, and just in time. Now, I know you can’t see it currently because of the clouds, but—“


“…Ah, that was fortuitous. Anyway, you two may have noticed by now that you cannot see another ship anywhere nearby. That is because there are eight docking bays, one for each ship. When we land, the two of you will go separate ways. I will take Mr. Lee one way, and one of my associates waiting at the dock will take Mr. Shin the other. It won’t be a long walk, I assure you.”

At this point, Noyeol had to ask, “What about everybody that didn’t win?”

“Well, at this point we can hardly send them back. They will be escorted to the fine resort we’ve built on this island, and it is there that they shall stay until it is time to journey back home.”

And with this, the bodyguard bows and returns to the lower deck, once again leaving the two progamers alone with their thoughts as the ship speeds onward.

As the boat draws close to the island, the clouds start thickening once again, eventually blotting out the stars. Jaedong stares at the approaching scenery, trying to get a better sense of his surroundings, but it is too dark to make note of anything.


There are three more bodyguards waiting at the dock when the ship arrives. Jaedong and Noyeol disembark, shoulder their bags, and follow their respective bodyguard into the jungle.

As the two progamers follow their bodyguards into the forest, a heavy fog rolls in, leaving the island even darker than before. Surrounded by black, Jaedong can barely see the bodyguard that he is supposed to be following, but as he trudges along the jungle path he still continually glances around at the surrounding forest. The woods are mostly quiet save for the wildlife, but there are some unnatural sounds, faint, but persistent. Jaedong listens closely, and he swears he can make out the sounds of construction, of mechanical happenings.

And then, passing through a clearing, he sees it: in the distance, barely visible through the stifling fog Jaedong sees a gigantic structure. He tries to make more sense of it, but because of the visual impairments he cannot make out too much. However, as Jaedong continues walking forward and the building fades out of sight, he is left with the unsettling notion that something ominous and very large is being constructed in the distant factory.

Jaedong keeps his thoughts to himself though, and continues to follow the bodyguard, now scanning the gloom feverishly for anything else out of place. However, nothing comes to his eyes—only the faint sounds remain, reverberating throughout the forest from everywhere at once.

After another five minutes of walking, the bodyguard tells Jaedong to stop and look around. At this point, the fog is so thick that Jaedong can barely see, but slowly, something comes into focus.


Jaedong stares, dumbfounded.

“What… what is that?”

“Please go inside. We will explain.”

Jaedong walks into the dark building, and after entering the main doors, the only way to go is forward, down a narrow corridor. At the end, another set of double doors. Jaedong goes through them, and as the doors swing shut behind him the room is completely dark.

And all of a sudden, the lights come on, and Jaedong is standing on a balcony. Below him is a massive arena, replete with terrain. On the other side of the gigantic room he sees somebody else, and has to squint his eyes to see who it is.

Kim Gu Hyun stands on the other side of the arena, looking back at Lee Jaedong. They stare at each other, wondering what is to happen next.

And then, a voice booms out over the loudspeaker.

“Ah, gentlemen. Good to see that both of you have made it in such a timely fashion. You may call me K, and I will be instructing you for this next part of your journey.

Below you in the arena is something that you should be familiar with—a battlefield. On the balcony with you is the interface you will use to control your armies. Please insert your keyboards and mice now.

There will be another match undergoing now between you and the player across the room. However, you fight now not on a small computer screen, but on the arena below. Instead of the tiny creatures you are used to, now you will engage your opponent with life-sized warriors. Holographs, of course, but this should be very similar to what you’re used to.

We’ll give you a few minutes to prepare. After that, well, you know what to do.”

The loudspeaker goes silent.

The two progamers look at each other.

And at seven other similar arenas all around the island, the doors slam shut. The real game is about to start.