EPT
For those who may not have followed the tourney forum's discussion of the league draw, the groups are as follows:
Group A: July Zerg, The Rock, Xellos, Max
Group B: Reach, Friend, Yellow, Ddang
Group C: Iloveoov, Gorush, Sync, Jju
Group D: Boxer, Oversky, Nada, Kingdom
Group A: July Zerg (Park Seong Joon) v The Rock (Ahn Ki Hyo) on Pelennor EVER
Just weeks after he took the title with a convincing win over Reach, the new king finds opponents lining up to swipe his crown. July Zerg opened the defence of his Starleague title against league novice The Rock, who offed Silent_Control in the preliminaries to secure a spot in the big leagues. David and Goliath? July picked The Rock as his first opponent in the group draw but would his decision come back to haunt him as Ra's did in the Gillette league?
The Rock (protoss at the five o'clock position) quickly scouted the champion's main and went for a forge before any gateways. As July started a second hatchery at his choke The Rock played his cards early, starting to warp in a pylon near the morphing hatch. July reacted to the threat, but not quickly enough. As the pylon warped in The Rock started bringing in cannons, not next to the pylon on the low ground where they would b vulnerable to drone defence, but up on the neighbouring plateau overlooking the choke. July realised he was not going to get the pylon in time, even with his newly rallied drones and cancelled his hatchery. The Rock looked to quickly consolidate his surpise early containment with a gateway at the zerg choke.
After his long-awaited spawning pool finally finished morphing, July sent his first swarm of lings right at the choke, ignoring the increasing cannon count and skirting round the gateways to freedom. The scurried down towards the protoss main, and managed to run through a second cannon- guarded choke, despite The Rock's efforts to bar their way. Three lings had survived the treacherous journey and proceeded to harass the undefended toss nexus. The Rock was continually forced to bring his probes off away to threaten the lings as they took continuing swipes at the nexus. As two zealots thundered back to take care of the attackers, it became clear that July's scouting drone had sneaked to the three o'clock position and started a new hatchery. However, July's attempt to circumvent the containment was shortlived as the protoss army discovered it and dealt with it swiftly. With the main protoss forces engaged at three, July quickly tried to take advantage and threw his zerglings up against the rapidly solidifying containment. Two zeals emerged from The Rock's two choking gates just in time to force a retreat.
His options starting to run out, July sent more lings into the breach, this time running them between the cannons and escaping. The Rock saw his chance and his zealots launched themselves into the zerg main. One sunken held July's defences together, as the zeals were unable to destroy it in the predictable confusion with lings and drones milling around the zerg mineral line. As the last zeals disappeared in smoke July started morphing in a spire but his opponent once again seemed to be one step ahead, with a stargate in his main already producing corsairs.
July's first flight of mutalisks battered the containment at the zerg choke but were unable to break it thanks to the timely arrival of protoss corsairs on the scene and The Rock's persistent warping of new cannons.
Becoming more and more desperate by the minute, with The Rock expanding to three, July had now morphed a hydralisk den, while his protoss opponent had a robotics facility in his main, an emerging shuttle hovering patiently and waiting for imminent reavers. The Rock was putting the squeeze on the champion, his cannon count rising to 10, then 11, then more, with the containment looking more and more impregnable by the minute.
Zerglings and hydras tested the choke again and again, but the withering cannon fire was too much and the zerg cause looked even more lost as two reavers were deposited at the choke and The Rock started a third nexus at the low right centre position. A second robo facility at the containment site ensured immediate reaver availability for the protoss armies.
With his mineral line dwindling, July tried a last throw of the dice. Hydralisks started to load into his overlords and slow-moving detectors made their slothful way down the left side of the map, out of range of the cannons. But as with every other phase of the game, The Rock was immovable. His corsairs effortlessly closed on the vulnerable overlords and shuttled-in reavers took care of the hydralisks as they dropped from the overlord transports to avoid airborne destruction.
July looked a shadow of the player who rolled over Reach in the recent finals. His relentlessly attacking style was stymied by The Rock's solid early containment and July seemed to lack ideas when shut up in a box and unable to take the fight to his opponent.
Group B: Yellow (Hong Jin Ho) v Midas (Jeon Sang Ook) on Requiem
And so the zerg legend makes a welcome return to the OSL, having seen fearless upstart, July, take the prize that has so far eluded him. Yellow (zerg at the 12 o'clock position) finessed an early drone through the 11 o'clock mineral line in order to start an early expansion as Midas (terran at six) went for one barracks followed by a bunker at the top of Yellow's ramp, looking for early containment with a troop of marines backed up by two burly SCVs. Whether Yellow adjusted his strategy to take into account the containment or whether the terran army's plan was simply an irrelevance is unclear but as the swarm's spire finished morphing at the zerg expo Yellow immediately started work on a queen's nest, ignoring the terran outpost near his base.
Midas retreated his marines to his main and threw up turrets around his base as Yellow's first flight of mutalisks swooped in and out of range, harassing the terran base. Meanwhile, at his own main, Yellow was morphing a hive, followed by a greater spire, signalling guardians. Teching furiously, Yellow's army was light on numbers and as Midas finally realised he needed to advance with his force of marines, medics, firebats and tanks, Yellow started morphing a slew of sunkens at his ramp in a desperate attempt to buy time for his guardians to arrive. As his tanks rained down fire on the sunken colonies Midas threw his troops into the breach, trying to break through into the zerg main... but failed.
The excruciating wait for his greater spire finally over, Yellow was now armed with a flight of slothful guardians and swift scourge, plus a new expansion on the way at the one o'clock position. For his part, Midas was busily constructing two starports in order to fend off the slowly advancing guardians. His first wraiths seemingly caught Yellow by surprise and managed to eliminate two guardians, with scourge out of position. Nevertheless, Yellow quickly consolidated his airforce with more scourge and mutas. Midas was still functioning off one base and now tried to take an expansion at the three o'clock position, catastrophic timing that was to destroy any chance he had of victory. As he tried to advance on the one o'clock zerg expo, destroying drones and sunken, Yellow's mutalisks swooped in to save the hatchery then launched an all-out assault on the terran forces' new command centre. His SCVs fled but Midas was completely unprepared to defend the expansion and the command centre was obliterated by the merciless mutas. In desperation Midas counterattacked at 11 and one, finally destroying the already damaged one o'clock hatchery. However, with his minerals running out, no expansion, and a guardian force ready to attack, Midas signalled the end of his resistance and Yellow had made a triumphant return to the highest level.
Group C: Iloveoov (Choi Yeon Seong) v Gorush (Park Tae Min) on Bifrost III
Bifrost is once again the battleground for terran and zerg after making a reappearance as one of OGN's favoured maps. Iloveoov (terran at the two o'clock position) opened with a barracks - factory - academy build as he looked to sweep aside Gorush in order to concentrate on a big weekend in the MBC leagues. Gorush (zerg at eight), looked like he wanted to cooperate at least as far as making sure it was a short and spectacular game, opting for a go for broke one hatchery lurker build.
As he waited for his lair and lurker upgrade Gorush sent his early lings around to the rear entrance of the terran base, snapping at the depot Oov had erected to block off the entrance. Two SCVs waiting nearby kept the depot in existence until a single vulture arrived to frighten the zerglings away. As Oov started to explore with a force of three vultures, the first lurkers scuttle across Bifrost. Two burrowers, with lings for support, worked their way towards the front of the terran stronghold, the lurkers rapidly sneaking into the Oov's main and round to the plateau above the mineral line. His SCVs under threat, Oov finally managed to eliminate the threat with vultures, tank and marines, thanks to a timely scan. Gorush did not let up, sending three more lurkers into the main, but Oov's rapidly regenerating scan energy plus siege mode helped him rain death upon the hidden attackers.
Gorush, his economy anaemic but his lurkers continuing to threaten, sent one burrower to attack the supply depot blocking the terran base's rear entrance, while stationing one lurk at the narrow front entrance. However, his attack was now in danger of faltering as Oov had finally erected an engineering bay and was working on turrets to protect his main. Oov was also counterattacking at last with vultures behind the zerg mineral line, although a sunken finished just in time to force them to retreat. Lurkers and lings broke into the rear entrance just moments before Oov was able to finish a missile turret as Gorush launched one final attempt. Unfortunately for the swarm, two of Gorush's lurkers scuttled straight at a nearby spider mine and were obliterated in an explosion of blood. The zerg did manage to force an SCV evacuation and halt the terran mineral collection momentarily, but Gorush's desperate attempts to reposition his lurkers to avoid withering tank fire proved fruitless and the invaders were destroyed.
With a starport now being completed, science vessels on the way, and not even a single expansion to help cope with the inevitable terran assault, Gorush realised his storm had blown itself out and typed gg.
Group D: [Red]Nada (Lee Yoon Yeol) v Kingdom (Park Yong Ook) on Mercury
Like Oov, Kingdom could be forgiven for having other things on his mind, with the MBC Game team final the next day and MBC Game Starleague final on Sunday, as he clashed with Nada on Mercury. Nada will no doubt have been focussed on launching a new assault on the OSL title after the machine malfunctioned against Reach in the Gillette semis.
Nada (terran at 12) walled in with one barracks, while Kingdom (protoss at six o'clock) went for double gate ranged dragoons and robo, while warping in a mysteriousy placed pylon at the two o'clock position. Nada, intentionally or otherwise, seemed a little late making a decision before finally opting for a one factory early expo build. Kingdom reacted by taking his natural and quickly started to warp in a third nexus. Nada, with his natural up and running and minerals flowing cranked up the factory count, starting work on four factories at the same time, adding to his initial build. Kingdom, meanwhile, was increasing his gateway count, with a citadel also warping in. Both players were throwing up structures all over their respective bases, with no sign of any aggressive moves. Until...
...Nada swept down the map, swiping aside Kingdom's advance force of dragoons and engaging his underprepared main army. Kingdom, suddenly realising that his whole game was in danger of collapsing, was microing furiously in an attempt to halt Nada's thrust but by the time the terran army's advance was halted his tanks were within range of Kingdom's perimeter and bombarding pylons while threatening the third nexus. Nada moved forward again. Kingdom's desperate shuttle maneouvres, dropping zeals in amongst the terran attack force, were to no avail, as the nexus was obliterated.
Kingdom's attempts to top the terran economy had gone up in smoke and Nada was in complete control. His vulture force sneaked round into the protoss main, picking off probes left, right and centre. His economy was now in ruins and Kingdom felt it was time to devote all his attention to the weekend finals.
