Idra unexpectedly opened pool first only to be matched by Jinro’s 2 rax marine opening. Neither opted for any early aggression, content instead to establish their naturals. Idra began wearing down the rocks to Jinros natural, but a supply depot and marines kept it from getting too far. As Jinro’s natural began to kick in he added two more barracks, a factory, and a starport. Idra’s baneling nest finished simultaneously with his lair, allowing baneling speed to start soon thereafter. Jinro made the first significant move, poking out as stim finished to check for a quick third as Idra started his spire. Having not found a hatch and aware his stim timing no longer held the advantage, Jinro retreated back home just as Idra began his side third. Continuous scouting with a single stimmed marine spotted the hatch not long after, but it did not trigger a Swedish push. As Idra’s flock of mutas took control of the map they were met by a thor volley and well placed turrets, preventing any harass. Jinro made the next move, pushing out with marine medivac tank just to the center expansion, defensively sieging up to safely establish his own third.



With pressure back on Idra and little to no harass success, Idra opted to take Jinro’s side expansion. At the same time, Idra’s muta pack finally found a hole, slipping in behind the terran natural, but Jinro's response was game changing. He defended the mutas with a nearby thor and some marines from the main while a marine tank force from his 3rd pushed towards Idras 4th to force a cancel and simultaneously dropping Idra’s 3rd and killing a number of drones.



Unable to harass or assault Jinro’s position, Idra needed to make something happen and attempted to expand to the center, but a small drone transfer to his third was caught by Jinro who had begun crawling in that direction. This triggered Idra to attack, his army taking out only half the marines but most of Jinro’s siege tanks while preserving the muta flock. Jinro seized the moment and very briefly exposed his third, pushing forward with the surviving marines and forcing Idra to cancel his 4th yet again.



Idra quickly replaced his zergling baneling force just in time to defend another push headed to his third, again taking out the majority of the terran army, but still Idra was unable to break the terran front.



With minimal drones at his third and without a 4th, Jinro’s transition to marine thor tank was too resilient for Idra to damage the Gorilla terran’s economy. Running dry and without the army to make something happen Idra GGed out.

Even Ensnare’s computer could feel the tension in the air after the Jinro vs Idra match, and mere seconds after the game started a mouse error forced an early pause. When things resumed Ensnare opened reactor before rax into an immediate factory for two super early hellions. Idra opened hatch first and scouted the factory at the front and immediately started a roach warren. Four roaches hatched for Idra just as the hellions reached his natural, preventing them from doing any damage. Ensnare started a command center behind the hellions, which allowing Idra to harass the terran wall until a tank completed and chased them off. Ensnare moved out in sync with his blue flame upgrade, a small marine, tank, and hellion push managing to snipe a few drones, before retreating from the roach army. Idra’s spire and baneling nest finished and while his initial mutas were deflected at the main, he was able to snipe a siege tank and force a big stim, Ensnare having not even started a starport for medivacs nor begun a third CC. Ensnare began to push out with a marine marauder siege tank push, but Idra’s muta control allowed him to slow it down and force yet another stim.



Just outside the zerg third, Idra engaged and easily cleaned up the terran force with units to spare as his 4th and 5th hatch were building. Ensnare was years behind after the failed timing push, but he was able to set up a planetary at the gold expansion as Idra chose to invest his advantage into an even larger economic lead. A now massive gaggle of mutas returned to terrorizing the terran natural and main, sniping a few turrets and SCVs but losing a comparable number of mutas in the process. The muta harass continued, Idra using his economic advantage to keep Ensnare constantly on the back foot and delay his 4th as the 5 zerg expansions mined untouched and a hatch finished at the last remaining expansion. Resilient to the constant pressure, Ensnare became maxed himself just as a few broodlords finished morphing. Ensnare attempted to harass the side expansions as Idra's broodlords above the middle cavern attempted to bait out Ensnares vikings, failing a couple times before a well placed fungal growth caught all the vikings and gave his broodlords room to work. Aware of the danger, Ensnare sent a small bio force to Idra's third, pulling back the zerg army and minimizing the momentum as he scrambled to replace his vikings. Idra was confident in the damage the broodlords had done however, he moved in and wiped out Ensnare’s nearly mined out gold and both armies were wiped out.



Idra used this opportunity to tech switch hard to 19 ultras, absolutely trampling the moderate terran force as it was moving out to attack Idra’s 6th. It turns out little can stop that many raging ultralisks, they continued on to Ensnare’s natural, finally cashing in on the massive macro advantage Idra had held all game in a convincing win.

Jinro opened with marine hellion pressure against Check's hatch first, managing to catch an overlord and a couple early zerglings before even reaching Check’s main. Some fantastic micro put Jinro even further ahead, managing to kill off more zerglings and a queen.



The push was cleaned up as zergling speed finished, and Check ran his remaining speedlings to the Terran main. Jinro thought he secured his wall with a factory, but mistakenly left a tiny gap. Check's lings wrecked havoc, killing numerous SCVs and scouting Jinro’s transition, putting Jinro well behind in harvester count. A banshee finished and finally cleaned up the zerglings but the damage was done, both players stabilized and macroed for a bit.



Check tried to take his side third, but the banshee scouted it and with some marine support Jinro was able to force a cancel just as mutas raced over. Check was determined to establish a third however, he double expanded to the side expansions, but his attempt to muta harass was met firmly by a thor. Jinro made the next move, sending marine squads to each side expansion. He was able to snipe the hatchery on his side, but Check defended the other with ease. Slowly clawing his way back into the game, Jinro moved out to try and take a center third but Check was pushing with a large roach force and overlords loaded with banelings. Unable to hold, Jinro was pushed back into his main, wisely deciding to grow his advantage rather than attempt to end it right there. Desperate for a third, Jinro used a marine drop in the zerg main to pull Check’s entire army back and allow the terran army to set up at the middle expansion. For a brief moment a dream comeback seemed possible, but Check would have none of it, intelligently splitting his army for a massive flank that crashed through Jinro’s position.



Almost entirely starved, Jinro mounted one final attempt to take a third, but Check’s roaches were far too much. Out of resources and units, Jinro’s only option was to type out.

Both players open standard. Ensnare opted for a reaper to scout, but Jinro was well prepared and denied scouting at the cost of a marine. Jinro opted for a blue flame hellion drop, but Ensnare’s own marine marauder drop hit first, Jinro being in perfect position to defend it. After getting a couple free marine kills, Jinro followed through with his drop - a couple of hellions and marines dropped in the back and a hellion at the front, but despite some incredible medivac micro, Jinro was unable to do economic damage. After a brief macro period Ensnare made the next move, a large 3 medivac bio drop including a siege tank, Jinro immediately pulled his main's SCVs to help defend, but he lost most of them in the process putting Ensnare up 37 to 18 SCVs.



Jinro’s cloaked banshee managed a few kills but not near enough before being scanned and killed. Aware of his lead, Ensnare broke down his rocks looking to expand, but a very successful hellion drop at the natural suddenly turned everything around, giving Jinro a 6 harvester lead. Both players turreted up and established their thirds, Ensnare again making the next move pairing a 16 marine drop while moving the rest of his army forward. Jinro was in position to punish the advancing army, costing Ensnare much of his tanks and bio, but the marine drop was doing a lot of damage to the natural. Jinro immediately counter dropped into Ensnares main, taking out an armory and couple of production buildings, but cost him most of the SCVs at his natural. Both players took their 4th bases. A couple more well defended drops gave Jinro momentum, but in an attempted counter drop Jinro did equally little damage as both players settled in to fully splitting the map. Jinro made the next move, pushing just slightly into the middle in an attempt to draw Ensnare in, but instead Ensnare tested Jinro's awareness by swinging his army over to siege up below the main, and although a portion of Jinro's army was unprepared, Jinro ultimately did more damage than he took.



Ensnare was far from done however, swinging back to the far side and punching a temporary hole in Jinro’s defense and keeping the armies close. Ensnare had a momentary lapse shortly after, losing a fair number of units unnecessarily, giving Jinro a bit of momentum. Ensnare continued dropping in slightly unfavorable trades until a small drop snuck into Jinro’s 5th as Jinro was moving forward, bringing the game back to a standstill. Ensnare next massed a group of vikings and momentarily took air dominance from Jinro, but was unable to capitalize before Jinro reclaimed his viking count lead. As the game continued on towards mining out, Jinro got a fusion core. Ensnare moved again towards the cliff of Jinro’s main, but Jinro again blocked, killing off a large portion of Ensnare’s ground army and pulling further ahead in Vikings which he used to harass Ensnare’s main, doing damage but ultimately losing most of his vikings. These were quickly replaced however as the first battlecruisers joined the battle.



As Jinros army moved towards Ensnare’s 5th, Ensnare countered right down the middle, catching a portion of Jinros army. Jinro landed the vikings to hold the bio, but this allowed Ensnare to easily focus-fire down the battlecruisers. Ensnare couldn’t handle Jinro’s vikings as they returned to the air however, and suddenly Ensnare found himself mined out while Jinro still had two mining bases. As Ensnare’s last troops rallied to the front and Jinro started destroying whatever he could get his hands on, Ensnare realized his blood sweat and tears were not enough this game, and typed out in what was easily the most epic TvTs in SC2 thus far.

Idra opted for hatch first into a quick roach warren, Check alternately going pool first with slight zergling pressure, Idra relying on good zergling positioning and his queen to hold his ramp. Check began a baneling nest, but when his lings caught sight of a roach he immediately canceled the nest to get a roach warren of his own. Both players macro up, Idra getting his evo chamber first and starting +1 ranged, meanwhile Check used his zergling advantage to mostly break down Idra’s backdoor rocks as both players teched to lair. Idra's overseer caught sight of Check’s building spire, allowing him to get hydras and 4 spore crawlers pre-emptively. Check started a hatchery at Idra’s side expo, and by pulling Idras army with his mutas the backdoor lings were able to finish breaking down the rocks and get a few drone kills before being chased off. Idra moved out, using his superior roach hydra army to take out Check’s third. On the way a roach flank caught Idra’s hydras in bad positioning, but Check’s quick decision to retreat cost him his mutalisks, giving Idra the green light to start a hatch at his center expansion and push towards Check’s main.



Check’s large roach force led Idra’s army around in a circle, allowing him to force Idra to cancel his third but costing him a few roaches thanks to Idra’s pursuing army.



As the merry-go-round once again came to Check’s main, Idra stopped chasing and moved into Checks main. Check’s massive roach army put up quite a fight, but Idra managed to prevail thanks to a set of reinforcements that streamed into Check’s base, clinching a victory for the Gracken.