Match A:
Jaedong 3-2 ► Advances to Semifinals
Snow 2-3 Eliminated

[VOD] Jaedong < Dante's Peak > Snow
[VOD] Jaedong < Circuit Breaker > Snow
[VOD] Jaedong < Triathlon > Snow
[VOD] Jaedong < Benzene > Snow
[VOD] Jaedong < Dante's Peak > Snow

Match B:
Hydra 3-0 ► Advances to Semifinals
Calm 0-3 Eliminated

[VOD] Calm < Dante's Peak > Hydra
[VOD] Calm < Triathlon > Hydra
[VOD] Calm < Circuit Breaker > Hydra
[VOD] Calm < Benzene > Hydra
[VOD] Calm < Dante's Peak > Hydra

Match C:
ZerO 3-0 ► Advances to Semifinals
Stork 0-3 Eliminated

[VOD] ZerO < Circuit Breaker > Stork
[VOD] ZerO < Benzene > Stork
[VOD] ZerO < Dante's Peak > Stork
[VOD] ZerO < Triathlon > Stork
[VOD] ZerO < Circuit Breaker > Stork

Match D:
great 3-2 ► Advances to Semifinals
Kal 2-3 Eliminated

[VOD] great < Benzene > Kal
[VOD] great < Triathlon > Kal
[VOD] great < Dante's Peak > Kal
[VOD] great < Circuit Breaker > Kal
[VOD] great < Benzene > Kal

By l10f

Jaedong, the huge favorite of the series, starts at 9 o'clock as the Orange Zerg, ready to take on the underdog Snow. The Teal Protoss gets Forge -> Nexus -> 2 Cannons against Jaedong's overpool expand build. Snow's Probe delays Jaedong's hatchery for a while. Jaedong ignores the probe and runs to Snow's base, but the zerglings aren't able to do any real damage.


Jaedong takes a 3rd at 10 o'clock and pulls his zerglings back to kill the probe. Jaedong gets lair at his natural, and even sees the second probe coming out with his overlord. Both players tech up standardly, to spire and stargate. Snow decides to get a robotics first for a reaver harassment play.


Snow pressures with his zealots and dragoon while killing overlords with his corsair. Snow attacks Jaedong's 3rd at a good timing before his sunken finishes, but he backs off. Jaedong kills off the force with his mutalisks. Snow builds up a large corsair army, but he uses his shuttle separately, and loses the shuttle and reaver to Jaedong's mutalisks.


Snow gets gateway units to support his corsair army against Jaedong's mutalisk force, but Jaedong changes his tech to hydralisk. Snow attacks with his zealot/archon/reaver/corsair army right before Jaedong gets his critical amount of hydralisks. Jaedong loses all of his mutalisks killing the reaver, and Snow moves into Jaedong's 4th expansion. However, Jaedong is able to clear out the army since there are no templars or reavers.


Snow brings another reaver to attack Jaedong's 3rd, but Jaedong has enough hydralisks to defend. Snow tries to harass with his 4 hp shuttle while building another army, but due to the reaver having 0 scarabs, fails to kill anything before dying to scourges.

Snow builds up another large army without taking an expansion, in a final attempt to break Jaedong before he gets too powerful off of his 4 bases. Snow gets nice storms off and kills most of Jaedong's army, but his reinforcements are a lot slower than Jaedongs.


Snow expands, but Jaedong's hive has finished. Jaedong gets some lurkers and attacks Snow's 3rd expansion. Snow manages to defend without losing many units. Jaedong attacks once again with more units, and snow defends once again, but this time he also kills 17 drones with one dark templar.


However, Jaedong's next attack kills Snow's 3rd, and with his main mined out and natural about to be mined out, Snow decides that he needs to make an attack. Jaedong easily defends and stops Snow's 3rd at the same time, forcing snow to GG.

By ]343[

Snow enters the 3rd day of the MSL down 0-1 to the best Zerg in the world. No sweat, right?

Jaedong spawns in blue at 7.5 while Snow warps in as the purple Protoss at 1.5. Jaedong opens overpool against Snow's forge fast expand. Jaedong hides his expanding drone as the probe passes by and lays down his hatchery, while Snow attempts some cute harass with his probe. Snow begins his Nexus before his first cannon, but follows up with another cannon and gateway; Jaedong retreats his initial lings and begins his 3rd.

Snow's probe sees the 3rd while he techs to stargate and Citadel, while Jaedong opts for the standard 3hatch spire into 5hatch hydra. Jaedong scourges a sair but Snow is still pumping them. Snow adds his Robotics and Templar Archives simultaneously, followed by a Support Bay, possibly fearing the hydra bust.

The first Dark Templar heads out toward the 3rd of Jaedong, followed closely by a shuttle--but it's spotted by Jaedong's zergling, and the shuttle and resident DT soon meet an untimely death.

Jaedong opts to move out with his large mass of hydras after deflecting the harass. His hydras commence their assault on the natural, but Snow's reaver fails to be mentally challenged.


Meanwhile, Snow trys to do as much damage to Jaedong's overlord as possible. Jaedong, unfazed, continues streaming in the hydras. He breaks much of the wall and destroys the cannons in the natural. Snow soon moves to push the hydras back with a number of newly speedy zealots plus his reaver, but Jaedong regroups and manages to snipe the 33-kill hero (the commentators were even counting!) when the shuttle leaves the poor thing alone.


Snow's next reaver comes out, dealing quite a bit of damage as well, but Jaedong's hydras overcome the zealot resistance to snipe the reaver on the ramp. But...


Whoops. 6 hydras explode.
+ Show Spoiler +
It's still looking good for Jaedong--his hydras force the probes to escape the natural, his +1 range attack is finished, and he clears a forge and a few pylons. But another reaver and a new archon force the hydras back out of the natural.


Jaedong at this point still has no fourth base, instead choosing to continue pumping hydralisks to break the front. He notices a DT engaging in the defense, and brings an Overlord to detect it... but the two archons and reaver are more than enough to stop Jaedong cold.

Jaedong backs off behind the ramps while getting his 2nd ranged attack upgrade and taking his 4th. Snow has 3 reaver and pumps a round of templar, hoping to use this impressive army to secure his 3rd. Jaedong builds some mutas, but his templar snipe attempt is brutally blocked by corsairs.

Snow's speed shuttle is held at home by mutalisks and scourge, though Jaedong loses a large pile of scourge for a single sair thanks in part to a nearby archon.

Jaedong's next attempt to fight at the natural is a failure as storm ravages his hydras. Snow drops a dark templar at Jaedong's 4th, succeeding in removing the new sunken before dying.

Snow follows up with a 4 speedlot drop in the 4th, and a storm drop immediately afterward. Storm wreaks havoc on the drones, while the zealots stop the defending hydras. This results in sadness and the loss of ~9 drones for Jaedong.


Snow decides the time is right to move out with his large zealot/templar/reaver army, threatening Jaedong's 3rd and taking his own 4th in the process. Jaedong desperately sends his hydras across the bridges to defend.


With the death of his army, Jaedong counters with the small hydra/lurker army he has remaining. It forces a cancel of the 4th, but a reaver again saves Snow's day at his 3rd.


Snow razes two of Jaedong's bases, while his 3rd lives. Jaedong exhibits some token resistance and gg's soon afterward when his army is caught out of position outside his natural.


Snow defended very well this game, to state the obvious. His choice to make a few extra cannons and make an early reaver despite having templar tech paid off, and Snow's scarab placement against the hydras especially impressed. The 5 or so reavers Snow built probably combined for over 100 kills between them.

On the other hand, it was a bit puzzling as to why Jaedong did not back off with his hydras earlier; engaging against the archons and reaver seemed a bit brash. Of course, he could've hardly expected the Protoss to kill so much stuff with his reaver (being on a team with such godly PvZ players and all...), and he miscalculated a bit. Some might say he was "stubborn," a trait which seems to be common among a large percentage of JD's losses. But really, the epic defense by Snow turned the game around.

By ]343[

Fresh off a ridiculous reaver defense by Snow, Jaedong is eager to start anew on Triathlon. The Tyrant spawns in angry red at 8, while Snow spawns in teal at 4.

Snow opens forge nexus against Jaedong's overpool expand. When Jaedong's lings pop, Snow adds two cannons and a gateway, continung to play standard. But his probe sees a quick Lair in the main, and Snow knows something is up. Snow's probe runs away to Jaedong's protected natural, but gets back in to see the 2-hatch muta build; both continue normally, and the spire and Snow's stargate begin at roughly the same time.

Jaedong expands to 1.5 and his protected natural at 4.5. Snow adds a second stargate and a robotics support. Jaedong's patrolling scourge prevent Snow from marauding too much with his corsairs.

Jaedong builds his 5th and 6th hatchery in his nat and 3rd respectively. Snow looks to do harass with his sizable corsair fleet and shuttle/reaver, but Jaedong's mutas (with +1 armor) and scourge soon force the shuttle and sairs to flee for their lives.


Jaedong uses the scourge to push away the +1 attack corsairs, and uses the opportunity to attack the main and the 3rd of Snow with mutalisks.


Snow's first attempt at an in-base reaver drop costs first the shuttle, and then the reaver, for only 3 kills. Meanwhile, Jaedong clones his scourge beautifully and takes out a large portion of Snow's fleet, giving him the opportunity to finish off Snow's 3rd nexus.


Jaedong takes his 5th. Another try at reaver harass is again unsuccessful--Jaedong has air dominance the shuttle goes down too easily. Snow, realizing the need for air superiority, adds a fleet beacon for upgrades, but Jaedong's mutas wreak havoc, again destroying the 3rd nexus and doing damage to the main mineral line. Snow's next reaver drop attempt is spotted by a clump of overlords, and Snow is only able to manage a few kills again.


Snow is getting desperate--at 3 base to 5, his corsairs are constantly being sniped by scourge. Snow's shuttle is scared off by a scourge, but Snow adds a 3rd stargate to counter what looks like a huge number of +2 armor mutalisks.


Jaedong takes his 6th, and starts massing an inhuman number of hydralisks out of his many hatcheries. He snipes the reaver in the natural with his mutalisks, but the huge fleet of corsairs obliterates all the mutalisks despite hydra support.


Snow defends heroically with his reaver and probes against the few survivors of the gigantic mass of hydras. But he doesn't see what's coming for him...


Jaedong clones a lot of scourge beautifully and takes out all but a handful of corsairs. Then he attack-moves into Snow's natural with an ungodly number of hydras, forcing the gg.


A beautiful, dominating game by Jaedong. He reversed the recent Protoss trend of air dominance with +1 corsairs by massing even more +1 armor mutalisks, helped perhaps in part by the map. Air dominance let him expand at will while blocking Snow's expansions. Jaedong's scourge cloning was especially top-notch, and his reactions to Snow's harass attempts were generally quick and crisp. Then, when he saw that Snow was committing to 3 stargates, he made the obvious switch to ground units and won easily.

Snow, showing his lack of big-stage experience, seemed slightly flustered by his opponent trying to beat his mass corsairs with mass air--how does that even make sense? But it happened, and in emphatic fashion.

By l10f

After the rape that was set 3, Jaedong seems comfortable once again spawning at 1 o'clock as the Green Zerg on Benzene. However, Snow, the Blue Protoss at 7 o'clock, also looks unshaken since Protoss has been beating Zerg often lately on Benzene. Snow once again builds his nexus before the cannon, and Jaedong is forced to get 5 o'clock first because of the scouting probe.


Snow continues to harass Jaedong's natural with his probe, and Jaedong was forced to build his 3rd hatchery late. Both player opens with standard builds, teching to spire and stargate. Jaedong gets his 4th and 5th hatchery along with an evolution chamber and hydralisk den.


Snow gets his templar archives, but Jaedong scouts Snow's main with his scourges. Snow gets two dark templars, but Jaedong is prepared against them. Jaedong starts pumping hydralisks. Snow sees this with his dark templars and adds additional gateways for a strong 2 base attack.


Jaedong gets his 4th base at the mineral only expansion, and Snow moves out with his zealot heavy army. Even though Jaedong defends, he loses a lot of units and overlords to corsairs. Jaedong stops Snow's 3rd, and snow sends even more zealots to Jaedong's 4th. Jaedong barely gets his lurker in time to stop the zealots.


Snow continues to actively use his zealots to pressure, and Jaedong burrows lurkers at Snow's 3rd to delay it until observer comes out. Jaedong spots a couple of high templars near Snow's natural and moves his lurker in to kill them, but they all die to storm.


Snow begins to harass Jaedong. Snow drops two dark templars and one high templar in Jaedong's main and storms the drones that are running away. The dark templars kill the spire, and Snow drops another high templar in Jaedong's natural and kills more drones. Snow pressures with his force again to divert Jaedong's attention, then once again moves in with his shuttle to storm more drones.


Snow attacks 5 o'clock to move Jaedong's army towards the center, and engages Jaedong's army. He also drops Jaedong's natural with a templar at the same time, killing even more drones. Snow safely pulls back his dragoons once he's done enough damage. Snow also takes 6 o'clock, to take advantage of his map control.


Snow reinforces his army and attacks Jaedong at the center again, but pulls back once dark swarms go off. Snow attack's 5 o'clock, but Jaedong attacks from both sides. Snow storms all of Jaedong's units and moves towards Jaedong's 4th again, but loses a lot of his units to lurkers and swarm.


Snow takes this time to take 11 o'clock and now Zerg is behind one base. Snow keeps controlling the center and denies Jaedong any extra bases. Snow maxes 200, then feigns an attack to 5 o'clock to make Jaedong move his army there. Then he switches target to 3 o'clock. Jaedong quickly moves back his army, but it is no match for Snow's army, and Jaedong GG's as his three hatcheries fall.

By l10f

Everyone expected Jaedong to take this series easily, but after seeing set 4, nobody was sure what would happen anymore. Even in this Zerg favored map, it seemed as if Jaedong might lose. Jaedong starts at 7 o'clock as Orange Zerg, and Snow starts at 1 o'clock as the Purple Protoss. Both players open the same way they did in set 4, without showing any deviation from standard play.


Jaedong has had enough of the probe harass, and hides his drone until the probe gets into his main to place his natural hatchery. Both players tech up, and Snow moves out with a few zealots before his leg and attack upgrade finishes. Jaedong's defense seems a little weak, but he cuts off reinforcements well with his zerglings, so the zealots aren't able to do a lot of damage.


Jaedong makes a lot of drones after getting enough units to defend, and Snow makes a dark templar. Snow loses one corsair easily, but micros the rest of his corsairs to safety. Jaedong takes a 4th base in the 5 o'clock main base and gets lurkers to defend for a while.


Jaedong breaks down some buildings with his lurkers, but snow takes this chance to move out with a shuttle after clearing the way with corsairs. Snow's shuttle makes through without being detected to Jaedong's natural. Jaedong loses almost all of his drones at his natural, but Jaedong stops Snow's 12 o'clock expansion.


Jaedong loses control of Snow's entrance while replenishing his drone count. Snow moves out and drops Jaedong's 3rd expansion, once again killing most of his drones there. Thanks to his harass, Snow is able to expand safely and has a very large army with templars, dragoons, and reavers ready to attack Jaedong.


Snow attacks towards Jaedong's natural to make Jaedong move his units there, then goes through the center towards Jaedong's 3rd base. Jaedong tries to sandwich, but Snow's storms decimate anything Jaedong throws at him. Snow's reinforcements are a little snow and Jaedong manages to kill both of Snow's reavers, but Jaedong has almost no army left.


Snow takes control of the center and takes 12 o'clock. Jaedong finishes his hive tech and begins to mix in defilers. Snow tries to harass again, but loses all of his corsairs. However, he is somehow able to save his shuttle (with the spirit of Kal) and sends it straight to Jaedong's 3rd, killing more drones.


Snow once again moves out with a very scary army, consisting of reavers, archons, templars, dragoons, and zealots. Jaedong gets a good plague, and Snow moves back to take 9 o'clock. Jaedong also takes a 5th base and attacks the hill at 9 o'clock. Snow holds off with help from reavers, and Jaedong sets up a lurker line below the ramp.


Jaedong takes this time to sneak a lot of units to 12 o'clock, but the nexus barely survives. However, Jaedong takes this time to move up the ramp at 9 o'clock and isolate the 9 o'clock expansion. He is unable to kill it due to reavers and cannons, but Jaedong sets up a lurker line on top of the hill.


Jaedong even takes the 6 o'clock expansion, but snow quickly attacks with his large army, obliterating Jaedong's 5:30 and 6 o'clock bases. Jaedong decides to counter Snow's 9 o'clock and kills it, and a small army also finishes off the nexus at 12 o'clock. Snow now has no economy and decides to attack Jaedong's 5 o'clock expansion. Jaedong barely holds the attack off with dark swarms and plagues.


Snow now has no army and no economy, but once again builds up an army with whatever he has left to attack Jaedong, but Jaedong easily defends and Snow is forced to GG.