Our first round starts off with a rematch from the semifinals of last seasons GSTL. IM even decides to send out the same starting player as the last time these teams met. There is one crucial difference between now and then though, Losira is the reigning Code A champion of the GSL.
Ice cream realizes his chances against the monster that is Losira so he decides for an all in opening. He starts out with some early hellions into a push including some marauders and a mass of SCVs. It seems the nerves got to IceCream though, as if he devised the strategy independent of the map. The rush distances were too long for his choice to be effective, and IceCream’s timing was too slow. Losira managed to hold this off with help from some spine crawlers. Being Losira, this was not all: he also countered the terran main during the push destroying every single SCV. No room for a comeback today.

ZeNEX responds to the initial loss by sending out another terran at Losira on one of the new maps to the GSTL. Hack begins with some early marine pressure, but since it’s Losira he’s attacking the units are simply lost while doing no damage. Losira responds with a multi-faceted approach, he aims to teach Hack how to properly pressure with units while also wanting to crush his economy. He does just that, running by a group of speedlings into Hack’s main picking off some scvs in the main and natural.
Hack then transitions into the song that never ends, assuming that a two base siege tank push is the be-all end-all of strategies. Losira does an excellent job of picking off reinforcements, back stabbing the main, and crushing this push SIX times. Eventually Hack is overwhelmed by Losira’s superior upgrades, army size, and economy. Losira is looking unstoppable.

The early game starts out with both players fast expanding and sitting back on their macro.
Zero goes for a 5 warp gate 1 robo attack, but Losira managed to see this coming having many spine crawlers set up to hold this in combination with some hydras. Zero’s attack barely gets busted and both players go back into macro mode, with Losira coming out way ahead. The map is nearly being devoured by creep at this point.
Zero tries to set up his 3rd at the gold, but Losira’s massive hydra force will hear nothing of this. He completely destroys Zero’s army and his expansion, winning the game with a lone unit type (and a few corrupters to keep them company)

Both players open hatch first. Coca being another ZeNEXplayer in line to realize he is the clear underdog against Losira opts for a speedling all-in. Losira repsonds with some roaches, a spine crawler, and a few banelings. Losira defends the attack easily, then counter attacks with his roaches and wins the game. Extremely simple, Losira made this entire match look extremely simple for him.



Losira 4:0 ZeNEX

The opening game of this series is between fan favourite Fruitdealer and a relatively unknown fOu protoss, Twilight. Both players go for quick expansions, with Twilight going for stargates behind his tight wall-off.
Fruitdealer baneling busts the Forge and manages to run lings through due to sloppy sentry control. The voids eventually clean up the harass in the main, but Fruit continues to mass up banelings, hoping to fend off the stargate units at his base with pure queen. The phoenix lift up the hapless queens while the rays become fully charged and proceed to wreck the zerg natural.



While the deadly voids slowly relocate to the zerg main, the lings and banelings continue to stream into the protoss base, taking down the main nexus and a multitude of probes. Fruitdealer manages to get some spore crawlers in the mineral line as well as a couple of hydralisks. Both players continue their 1-base play into the midgame, with Zerg only barely holding off the graviton + voidray harass.

At the 13-minute mark we see re-expanding taking place, with Twilight transitioning into gateway play. He musters up a solid army of zealots, sentries and phoenix and rushes for the expo. Good forcefield placement and lifting of the hydras simply overruns the Zerg army, and Fruitdealer gg's in this bizarre first game.

1-0 to fOu.

Alive is sent out to take down his former teammate, Twilight. Alive proxies a factory in an odd position while Twilight takes map control with his early two gates. Alive's hellion sees the relatively bare base and decides to expand quickly. Twilight matches the Terran, going for an expansion of his own along with a robo + extra gates. Twilight's first major tech choice is the zealot charge upgrade, as he looks to shred the mostly bio-Terran composition.

He goes for a huge attack with a gateway force at the Terran natural but the zealots are funnelled into a bio concave and melt before they can slice and dice. Twilight is forced to retreat all the way to his base, losing a few sentries to smart stims.



A dark shrine is being erected while the two armies glare at each other in the middle of the map. Alive seizes the opportunity to stim into the unprepared protoss ball, leading with brutal EMPs. Blink and charge both prove rather useless as the upgraded bio army cleans up with minimal losses.

Alive levels the series at 1-1.

The new map Dual Sight plays host to game 3, as fOu throws in one of their heavyweights - Leenock. The zerg opens with hatch-first against a reaper-first scout from the terran. Alive gets two factories for a quick blue-flame upgrade, and the timing proves perfect. The first four hellions arrive just as the upgrade finishes, and with only ling tech, everything in sight is roasted to death.



More hellions arrive to join in the zerg-burning party, and with only a couple of queens to fend them off, Leenock wisely gg's.

2-1 to TSL.

On the expansive map Crevasse, TheBest opens with gas-before-rax, while Alive forgoes the vespene in favour of a quick expansion. The long rush distance between the cross positions gives TheBest enough time to rush straight to cloak banshees. The scan from Alive shows a lack of building and addons and he quickly swaps buildings for the raven.

TheBest goes for a rather all-in 1base push, bringing SCVs along. Alive holds rather easily with autoturrets and the timely completion of his siege mode upgrade.



Incredibly behind, TheBest grabs his delayed expansion and only barely fends off Alive's strong marine/tank pressure. With a 50 supply lead, Alive is free to expand as he puts down a couple of sensor towers and missile turrets to be super, super safe.

The large army (TheBest) and the maxed army (Alive) walk awkwardly past each other, making a beeline to the opponent's main. A basetrade ensues, but Alive's superior production allows him to grind down the invading force while his main force rampages through TheBest's feeble defences.

3-1 to TSL.

The second TvT of this series is on Xel'Naga Caverns, with scfOu fighting for his team to stay in contention. Alive goes for a very quick expansion, while sc chooses to scout around and pressure with an early reaper. The two players exchange banshee harass while macro'ing hard off two bases. A strong push from Alive makes it all the way into the forked area above sc's natural, but the red terran charges headlong into the marine/tank composition and clears it out, with equal losses.



SC's starport churns out medivacs while Alive has a large viking contingent, but superior unit and map control from SC gives him the clear advantage. Alive decides to pull all his SCVs to buffer his push, and while he does rid his front area of opposition forces, he has under 5 harvesters, and his push is halted at SC's gold base. The reinforcements for SC trade themselves willingly, knowing that each unit lost for Alive is irreplaceable. Within minutes, the supply gap is disgustingly huge, and Alive's sweet run is halted.

3-2 to TSL.

The two Terrans spawn in cross-positions on the unfamiliar map Typhon Peaks. SC chooses to build his CC at the expansion site while PuMa constructs his in-base. Both players choosing to stick to mainly marine/tank, as is the standard for this mirror matchup. PuMa is being more active, feigning pressure with medivac drops and constant movement in the center of the map.

The two large armies sit near one of the watchtowers, each daring the other to make a move. More intelligent drops from PuMa take advantage of the immobility of his sieged opponent. SC decides to break the standoff, pushing strongly into the blue army with tricky dropship micro. PuMa's reflexes are up to the task as he wisely un-sieges and goes for a counter-push. A slight over-extension of his army let's SC inch back closer to equal supply.

The game is paused due to Tasteless' erratic foot kicking a rather important cable.



PuMa does a massive drop in SC's base, quickly rushing over to the production facilities. SC realises that he's in dire straits, and counter-attacks at PuMa's main. The SCVs come to hold off the red army, and the sheer number of them swarms SC's entire army, while SC's reinforcements die the minute they leave their burning buildings. PuMa's marines continue a systematic destruction of the red-coloured buildings and very soon it's game over.

GG.
TSL wins 4-2.

InCa started off for oGs against a new face, the Zerg player Min. Following the tradition of many Protoss on Tal'Darim Altar, InCa went forge FE. Playing a safe macro-oriented style, Min responded by taking three quick bases. InCa transitioned into dual stargate phoenixes, which Min luckily scouted with an overlord.

Though the phoenixes were meant to harass, Min was overly prepared with spore crawlers and even hydras. Knowing that Protoss has no ground army, Min took a fourth, and even a fifth base, while InCa got his third. Min got such an explosion in economy which allowed him to pump a huge amount of mutas out that InCa couldn't engage even with phoenixes. Mutas and lings killed a ton of probes in two-pronged harasses while InCa was scrambling around to defend. InCa realized he had no choice but to all-in counter while the mutas were in his base, but Min didn't pull back to defend and instead decided to kill every building of InCa. The game became a funny basetrade scenario. At this point, Min already had seven hatcheries spread across the map, so he was fine. InCa lost all the buildings in his main, and the only building he had left was a newly built assimilator at Min's old natural. This put InCa in a checkmate position, as he couldn't move away from that assimilator, and he gg's.




1-0 SlayerS

Min opened safely against TOP on Xel'Naga Caverns with a speedling expand, and it completely nullified any damage from TOP's 2rax. With so many speedlings out on the map, TOP kept his second OC in his main and even opted to get a third command center in his base. Meanwhile, Min went for a baneling bust but botches the micro, causing him to fail miserably.

Min responded by taking both of the side expansions, hoping to claw his way back into the game. TOP turtled extremely hard to secure his third while Min's mutas did good harass and picked off drops. Once TOP approached a maxed army, he slow pushed towards Min's third. In perhaps one of the most entertaining battles of GSTL ever, Min broke through the push with almost 140 banelings and even had enough to kill the PF at TOP's gold base.



At that point, TOP was running low on minerals at both his natural and gold base, and Min was mining off the base at 5 and part of his natural. TOP slow pushed to 5 but Min once again, killed it off with banelings. However, reinforcements from TOP did finish off the hatchery, putting Min on only one base at his third. TOP on the other hand, took his own third and dropped and incredible amount of MULEs with all the orbitals he had. With almost no more economy, Min ran out of gas and just couldn't produce enough to kill TOP's army. Had he denied TOP's third instead of letting him freely take it, Min would've had a slightly better chance of coming back.

1-1

SlayerS sent out Ryung next, who had an abyssmal TvT in the last GSTL. TOP's first banshee and marine harass didn't work out too well for him, and a marine counter-drop in his main denied mining for a bit. TOP sieged up under Ryung's cliff to attack the production facilities, and while he did suffer some losses, Ryung managed to clean up the tanks with a nice concave on both the low ground and the high ground. Both players completely miss eachother's army and attack eachother's newly newly-made third base, but Ryung's orbital burned down while TOP's landed atthe bottom-right gold. Surprisingly, Ryung had a reaper that scouted it and his army moved out to destroy it.

The game is surprisingly evenly matched, with similar economies and armies. Ryung managed to catch TOP's army out of position while dropping the main, and was able to get a good siege right outside TOP's natural. TOP does get a good flank on it and managed to wipe it out, but reinforcements from Ryung streamed in and sieged TOP's third right above his main. With his army wiped out and his economy heavily damaged, TOP gg's.




2-1 SlayerS

Next up, SuperNova was sent out to snipe Ryung in anothe TvT on Crevasse. Both players expanded to the back expansion early on and transitioned into the standard marine tank composition. A banshee from SuperNova barely killed anything and was followed up by a marine drop, which was deterred by a viking. Ryung quickly took the third at his natural and set SuperNova behind in economy with a cloacked banshee. Both armies met in the middle of the map and SuperNova was too slow to react, losing units needlessly by sieging too late. He returned the favor to Ryung, who lost several tanks while trying to retreat.

Ryung sneakily unsieged his army and went towards SuperNova's natural to siege up, even taking a fourth base in the process. SuperNova tried to flank with the part of his army already out on the map, but Ryung is all too prepared and had units ready to pick them off. SuperNova, with a smaller army and a dwindling economy, got eaten by Ryung's next push. These two wins against TOP and SuperNova set the stage for Ryung's role as a TvT sniper on SlayerS.




3-1 SlayerS

In an attempt to dethrone MC's amazing PvT, Ryung opened with a second barracks at his third base. He even added a third barracks in his main to add to the all-in nature of the build. Unfortunately for him, stalkers do super well against marines when micro'd, and they spawned cross-positions. These factors led to a pitiful all-in by Ryung and MC took an easy win, easily.




3-2 SlayerS

SlayerS sent out another new face, Frozen, to snipe MC in a PvP. As expected, both players opened with a 4gate rush. MC's first probe got killed before it could proxy a pylon. Both players opted to add a twilight council in for blink. Blink finished at the same time for both players right as they engaged. A little tug-of-war ensued and MC managed to push Frozen back to his base. With the more probes, resulting in a stalker advantage, MC blinked up the ramp and ended the game.




3-3

The match reached a final set 7, and unfortunately for SlayerS, they placed their last hope in MMA to play the dreaded MCvT. The last map was Terminus RE, and MMA proxied a second barracks behind his mineral line to hide his aggression with concussive shell. MC on the other hand, opened with a 1gate FE, and just barely scouted the proxy. The Terran attack came just a little bit too late, as MC's warp-in reinforcements just barely held it off. MMA just barely missed the timing to do any damage.

Realizing how behind he is, MMA transitioned to cloaked banshees while walling his ramp off. The banshee arrived while MC's army was parked at MMA's natural, and got over 10 probe kills while the army was retreating. This prompted MMA to all-in, even pulling scv's to tank damage. The first banshee harass proved to be too much, and MMA's superior army crushed MC resoundingly.



Following the trend of upsets in the month of March, SlayerS, a team with tremendously disappointing play in the last GSTL, upset oGs in a great series.

4-3 SlayerS Wins!

There's no doubt about it that MC is the backbone and the final frontier of oGs, and MMA was able to pull out a win in the most dire scenario, the ace match. Frozen and Ryung valiantly tried to snipe MC to no avail, but MMA picked up where his team left off and finished the series easily.

Both teams send in strong Terran players to open for them on Tal'darim Altar. Polt goes for the 1-rax FE after seeing the far spawn positions, while Rainbow opts for cloaked banshees. Rainbow manages to get reasonable damage done before the turrets and vikings come out, emerging with a decent supply lead. Rainbow's tanks camp on the low ground outside the natural, and at the same time he fends off a small group at this own base.

The tanks are slowly inching closer, getting in range of the orbital and engineering bay, forcing Polt to break out with banshees of his own. Polt's small marine/marauder force is unable to make inroads as the tanks are well spread and drops are negated by Rainbow's superior air force. The third base goes up for Rainbow, which Polt quickly harasses. The reaction time for Rainbow is superb, coming to the defence and the ensuing engagement sees Rainbow's tank-heavy army easily win.

His group of tanks go to camp the natural again and Polt cannot engage head-on and gets systematically picked apart. Polt trades his whole army for only a couple of tanks, and Rainbow's 3-base allows him to reinforce at will. As his production buildings get shelled to bits, Polt concedes defeat.

1-0 StarTale.

Prime send in CheckPrime to face his GSL nemesis, Rainbow.
They are battling it out on the new 1v1 map Dual Sight, a medium-sized battlefield.

Check goes for a standard hatch-then-pool build, while Rainbow pressures with marine/hellion while proxying a starport across the map. Check manages to fend off the limited harass and correctly predicts the incoming banshees, constructing a few spore crawlers. The banshees fly around with nothing to do due to the defences, and Check takes the opportunity to counterattack with a bunch of speedlings, taking out tanks and marines.

Check uses his map control to grab an additional base, and uses his mutas to keep the Terran scared of expanding. However, his morphing banes are discovered, leading to a retreat, and Rainbow buys enough time to get his third. Check decides to attack into the planetary with a swarm of roaches and banelings, but the planetary and banshees deal too much damage, and he's forced to pull back.

Meanwhile, Rainbow's blue flame drop at the main wipes out some drones, further cementing his economic advantage. Check can't take on Rainbow's fearsome mech army head on, and his huge drop is scanned and deflected easily.

Meanwhile, the terran's blue flame harass has burnt many a drone to a crisp, and Rainbow's fourth is being constructed. Check goes for one last-ditch attack in the main as well as the fourth Terran base but they are both mopped up easily by the tanks and thors, leaving him with no economy and army. GG.

2-0 StarTale.

Startale brings out their ace, MKP, to take out the dangerman Rainbow. On the 3-player map Xel'Naga Fortress, Rainbow 1-ups MKP by doing the same 1-rax FE but with the CC at the expo. Rainbow gains a huge economic lead as MKP keeps his second CC in-base.

A small marine push from Rainbow skirts around MKP's army and forces SCVs to be pulled as Rainbow's streaks further ahead on the worker count. MKP tries to exploit his only advantage: tech, as he sieges near his enemy's natural. However, with only two siege tanks in the army, Rainbow simply pulls his own workers and mops up, all the while furthering his lead.

A couple of brutal drops in the mineral line combined with a hard contain at the front of his ramp keep MKP pinned in his base. Excellent sieges at the edges take out the remaining tanks and Rainbow simply waltzes in and kills everything. A comprehensive victory.

3-0 StarTale.

Rainbow's third TvT for the series is against MakaPrime, on the map Typhon Peaks. Both players go for a relatively quick expansion, with Rainbow's blue flame drop failing hard, going straight into marines. Maka's cloak banshee allows him to get back into the lead with 10+ kills, while Rainbow's continued blue flame harass aren't controlled as well as one would expect.

Rainbow grabs his third and fourth base just before Maka, as both players transition into a fairly standard marine/tank composition. A number of infantry skirmishes go either way, steering clear of the huge tank lines in the center of the map. Maka makes a huge mistake of making a bio drop onto a Planetary, and is forced to pull back.

Somehow, Rainbow manages to slowly lose his lead. His careless positioning of his siege tanks and questionable decision to go for battlecruisers are the crux of the problem. The combination of stimmed marines and vikings make short work of the battlecruisers. Nevertheless, Rainbow continues to make the flagships, allowing maka to dominate the ground war and roll towards his half of the map.

Rainbow's last stand is at his fourth, where he has tanks sieged to defend. Maka scans and simply charges through it and damages the production buildings. The next couple of small battles go Maka's way, and with the fall of the planetary so falls Rainbow.

3-1 StarTale.

The players spawn in cross spots on Metalopolis, with Maka opening with hellion into banshee/CC. Curious' roaches pop just in time to defend the flaming cars. Curious techs to banelings rather early instead of taking an additional base, as well as spire tech. Maka floats his third orbital to the gold base, defending with marine/tank/thor. Curous decides that he can't let Maka M.U.L.E as he likes and throws a handfull of roaches and banelings at the gold base, disrupting the economy.

Maka counters with an ill-fated attack, taking the longest possible path to the Zerg base, and by the time he gets there the multitude of lings and banes easily mop up. Some excellent mutalisk harass from Curious forces Maka to pull his army from base to base, as well as forcing stims. Maka goes for another strong push, but with the mutalisk flock cutting off reinforcements, another prepared swarm of lings/blings easily wipe out the anti-air and allow the mutas to destroy the thors and tanks.

From this point on, Curious takes his own sweet time to deny Maka's fourth base, teching to broodlords off 5 bases. The zerg army marches inexorably towards the only mining base left for Maka, the Terran natural, and the sheer number of broodlings, zerglings and banelings overwhelm everything in sight.


4-1 StarTale wins.

MVP opens up with a fast expansion, while Jyp tries some pseudo early pressure in an attempt to sneak a probe in. MVP denies this scout and transitions into tanks and banshees. Jyp tries another bizarre bust attempt, however this time he has no alternative reason other than improperly gauging the tank count prior to the attack. Though MVPs banshees are easily deflected, resulting in no damage, he uses this timing to push to the usual siege spot just below Jyp’s natural; getting set up before charge completes.

The banshees do continue to play a role, denying probes from free access to Jyp’s third as well as harassment within the main. This distraction continues into MVP fortifying his position outside the natural with a multitude of bunkers.

Jyp comes to the realization that he cannot bust MVP’s positions and attempts a base trade. However the terran defensive kung-fu is a few degrees too strong, and MVP holds the assault with only a fraction of his army and a strong wall.

Both players start off playing passively in macro mode. MVP chooses to go for a more barracks oriented build this time. Trickster opens with a healthy mix of gateway units into very fast colossus. For the first portion of the game MVP merely pokes around with his bio ball while both players expand to their third bases, but MVP takes the risk going for the gold.
16 minutes into this game we finally see an engagement, MVP feels comfortable attacking now that he has added ghosts and Viking into his composition. While Trickster manages to hold with his massive stalker count, he is left with very few units. MVP comes out ahead from this exchange only because of his superior gold base.

Even though he is left with a lesser army and unable to engage an a direct conflict, MVP remains aggressive dropping Trickster's main once the army is out of position. With his flourishing economy now kicking in, MVP engages Trickster's army. The colossi drop immediately to the massive Viking count, and Trickster's army is wiped out. Without a standing ground army killer calls to his Templar tech in an effort to keep himself in this game, constantly harassing MVP with both the light and dark type.

However, MVP continues to utilize the mobility of the terran bio ball, dropping and backstabbing killer whenever his army is out. Eventually the production facilities disappear, the economy wears out, and Trickster can’t hold on anymore.

The 2nd half of this game more than made up for the lack luster first half. MVP appeared on the brink of victory for over 10 minutes, but Trickster managed to hang on using brilliant defense involving multi-pronged harass. Offense really was the best defense for killer here, unfortunately it was not enough to stop MVP.

Again MVP switches up his openings, no doubt due to it being a different match up, and starts with blue flame hellions. Meanwhile Fruitdealer is stays true to his image and secures a very fast third. MVP makes the best of a situation when he sees his marine timing attack won’t work, and uses this diversion to allow his hellions into the zerg main. He continues this tempo of aggression with drops into the main and on any other front where he can find an opening.

Fruitdealer responds to this with a legion of lings, well supported by banes, to make an attempt on MVP’s third. Unfortunately for the zerg, his opponents micro is too strong and the attack fails. MVP rebounds off of his back foot with a push directly for Fruitdear’s main. Realizing he can’t engage this terran ball, he counters the undefended planetary with his muta swarm. These mutas continue to prove invaluable, waiting for every possible opening to pick off the entire terran tank force.
Unfortunately Fruitdealer can only stall for so long with his dwindling economy until MVP produces thors to deal with the muta counters. He is finally broken after a well fought defense, against the might of the game genie.

As a change of flavor from the previous games, this one begins with plenty of early action. Trickster employs a style that is reminiscent of the old BW zergs, managing to have just enough to defend MVP's aggression. This is not to say he escaped unscathed, because of his marginal style MVP was able to severely cripple the development of the protoss ball because of a low forcefield count allowing many units to be sniped.

Once Trickster produces his first immortal he is able to stabilize himself into a bit of comfort, pushing back of the forces of MVP while doing an excellent job at picking off ghosts. All the while MVP is continually trying for specific timing breaks of Trickster’s army, and almost in relaxing zen-like state the protoss shows that he has the right amount to make this timing a bad idea. Both players demonstrate very clean control of their units, while utilizing the spell casters whenever they can.

MVP eventually lures Trickster's units out of position with a single marauder harassing the third. He then sends his ground army to assault the third and when Trickster a-moves his units back to defend the Vikings easily pick of the naked colossi.
Even though MVP continues to execute amazing manipulations of his opponents army movement, Trickster is too entrenched in controlling the flow of this game. He eventually drains on an already fatigued MVP, and wears him out to the point of no return.

Both players seem very dedicated to their early scouting this game. Losira breaks down the rocks to scout his opponent, while Trickster takes advantages of hallucination. Losira proceeds from here to show us the best form of scouting, the kind that also causes mineral line damage. His zerglings not only penetrate the main easily, Trickster botches his force fields so badly he actually prevents his army from entering his own base. This economic damage snowballs into Losira being able to attack move all over Trickster with an endless stream of roaches before the boost of Trickster’s 3rd can kick in.

StarTale send out the God of War as their first player, while SlayerS choose the protoss Frozen to open. Both players opt for fast expansions and minimal units, with July getting hatch before pool, and Frozen getting Nexus before Forge. July sticks to his trademark 2-base baneling aggression, and decides the wall isn't as strong as it looks.

The lings stream in and run straight to kill the undefended main Nexus, forcing the probes to relocate. Free to do as he likes, July grabs an uncontested third while teching to spire and nydus. The paltry stargate force of Frozen barely holds up the menacing mutas as rebuilt main Nexus is harassed once more. July pops a Nydus in a shadowy area, which the protoss fails to spot.



Lings and banelings spew forth, and with corruptor support, Frozen's units evaporate into thin air. He calls GG.

1-0 StarTale.

SlayerS send their ace player, MMA, to duel with the fearsome July on Xel'Naga Caverns. MMA shows us his innovative opening, with an early reaper play transitioning into a Command Centre-wall off. The scouting reaper spots the roaches from July, which are deflected easily by a solitary siege tank. MMA feels safe enough to grab a third CC inside 6 minutes, looking to stick with a marine/tank composition.



July, thrown off by the unusual terran build, ends up with a fairly late lair and third base. The small number of mutualisks are more of a nuisance than a threat, and MMA continues to macro hard, looking to secure the gold base. July spots the juicy terran expo and runs his baneling/roach army rushes headlong into it. The spread-out siege tanks shred the squishy banelings before the marines take too much damage. Considerably behind after that extremely cost-inefficient attack, July begins to set up his fourth base at the 9 o'clock position.

MMA seizes the opportunity to push towards the Zerg natural, and he sieges and stims perfectly, wiping out the second round of baneling/roach. July realises that he has precious little and resigns. An impressive performance from MMA, showing extremely potent army control and strong macro.

1-1 Tie.

In response to MMA's strong showing, StarTale send in their PvT specialist, Squirtle. On the new map Dual Sight, we have the Terran spawning in the 2 o'clock position and the Protoss at 8 o'clock. MMA again chooses to 1rax-FE, but he also techs quickly to medivacs. Squirtle drops his own expo after a few gates and looks to go down the robo path.

Smart drops from MMA keep Squirtle firm in his base, confining him to 2-base. MMA goes for the sneaky gold expansion at the 11 o'clock spot, which goes undetected. Squirtle chrono's out his colossi and warps in mostly stalkers, meandering around the middle of the map. He sends a small group of stalkers to deny the important gold base and succeeds.



The huge engagement takes place alongside the miniature Xel'Naga towers, with a poor angle for MMA. He smartly micros his bio back and forth while the vikings give their lives for the over-extended Colossi. Both players retreat to lick their respective wounds, with Squirtle left with only a couple of Colossi and all stalkers. Squirtle manages to remix with the additional warp-ins of stalkers, and he charges to deny the Terran 4th base, destroying the workers in a blink. However, MMA parks his force just outside the sole exit, leaving Squirtle stuck inside.



Squirtle doesn't want to engage the spread out Terran army but is forced to as his expansions are left bare otherwise. Once again, the Colossi go down quickly to Vikings before their rays can deal their full damage. MMA lands the excess vikings and together with the stimmed marauders, strolls into to each base along the way to the main, destroying everything in sight. The production capabilities of Squirtle are simply not sufficient, and he taps out.

2-1 SlayerS.

The next player for the StarTale team is the zerg, Curious. He performed well against MakaPrime in the previous team match, and hopes to repeat that ZvT performance. In cross positions on Metalopolis MMA feigns some light hellion pressure, to which Curious reacts with some roaches. MMA secures his natural with standard marine/tank while Curious expands vertically with his third.

Excellent double-pronged harass from MMA keeps the ling/muta force of the zerg running to and fro. MMA showcases his excellent multitasking by adding more production facilities, a third, and a very strong marine/tank/medivac push towards Curious' third base. Well spread siege tanks destroy the rush of banelings and the marines easily mop up the rest of the zerg force. The tanks inch within range of the hatch and easily take it out. With a firm advantage in his pocket, MMA retreats to his base.



The mutalisk cloud causes some damage in the main, but marines arrive in time to save the important buildings. MMA turns defence into a lightning offence with a huge push along the other main corridor of the map. Sieging near the natural base, the tanks obliterate the incoming flood of banelings. The marines avoid the exploding goop and stim forward to take out the remaining mutas. Curious surrenders and it's MMA's third straight win.

3-1 SlayerS.

Down to their last player, Startale makes the logical choice of sending out Bomber, their reputed star. On Typhon Peaks, MMA spawning in the 7 o'clock position and Bomber in the 10 o'clock spot. MMA takes a strong lead early on as his reaper manages to snipe marines and force SCVs off their line. His expansion is up and running before Bomber even begins to build his own, and Bomber's banshee harass is dealt with efficiently with marines and scans. With a 40+ supply lead, MMA looks to be cruising to an all-kill.



MMA goes for a sizeable drop in the main, but his positioning is sub-par, leading to unnecessary losses. Down 2-bases to 4-base, Bomber decides it's time for an all-in push, bringing his tank-heavy army for the long trek to the red base. MMA catches him off-guard with an even larger drop next to the main CC, but smart defensive tank sieges allows Bomber to eventually mop up the invading forces.

Meanwhile at MMA's natural, his few siege tanks are quickly rolled by Bomber's imposing force, leaving his production buildings unguarded. SCVs charge towards blue army to no avail as the healed marines tear right through their mechanical chassis. The flow of units dries up for MMA, with the exception of a few cloaked banshees that he snuck out the back of his base. They proceed to even up the worker count by harassing the natural expansion of the scan-less Bomber.

However, the lack of unit production is a problem that MMA never manages to fully solve. Although he still holds the economic lead, the ensuing basetrade favours his opponent. Bomber keeps his Orbital alive, while MMA loses his, revealing all his buildings and leaving him unable to produce more units and structures. Bomber takes the main base of MMA and eliminates the 3 cloaked banshees.

MMA goes for one last attack, hoping to destroy the Orbital and force a draw, but the sieged tanks prove the difference as Bomber's base remains intact. With zero chance of a comeback, MMA reluctantly leaves a game he should really have finished off.



3-2 SlayerS.

SlayerS send out their third player for the night, their TvT specialist Ryung. He starts in the 2 o'clock position while Bomber occupies the 4 o'clock base on Crevasse. Both players go for an early expansion due to the long rush distances. Ryung chooses a more tech-oriented path, going for banshees with cloak, while Bomber stays with a healthy marine/tank/viking mix. Ryung manoeuvres the banshees extremely well, kiting marines, sniping SCVs and forcing turrets.

Thanks to his early game harass, Ryung erects his third before his opponent. He notices Bomber's main army hovering around the centre of the map and goes for small drops around the mineral lines. Ryung tries to move out but is met by a wall of tanks from Bomber, restricting his movements. The numerically superior force from Ryung combined with smart marauder baiting allows him to bludgeon through the first Bomber set-up.

The following engagement end progressively in Ryung's favour as he encroaches upon Bomber's side of the map. Bomber makes a critical unsiege and Ryung pounces in and picks everything off. At the very same time, drops are taking place in Bomber's expo, and with an insurmountable supply gap plus an unstoppable army closing in, Bomber calls an end to his team's GSTL campaign.



4-2 SlayerS win!

Slayers decided to start off with rising Protoss star Alicia, while IM countered with middling Terran Yoda. They spawned cross positions on Tal’Darim Altar, with Alicia at 1 and Yoda at 7. Yoda decided to take advantage of this for a safe one rax expand, which Alicia scouted as soon as it went down. Yoda got a little greedy and went straight from his expansion into a factory, blissfully unaware that Alicia had already started a proxy stargate in the expansion directly above his main. The combination of a well-placed pylon and sight from his first void ray allowed Alicia to start warping zealots directly into Yoda’s main while he pushed into the natural with a couple of stalkers. Yoda’s handful of marines were unable to kill the void ray without first dealing with the supporting gateway units, allowing Alicia to build up to three void rays. Yoda pulled his SCVs for some last-ditch repairing, but he was forced to GG before the five minute mark.

IM wisely decided not to send out another Terran, instead tasking perennially solid Zerg Losira with taking out the upstart Protoss. The struggle moved to Crevasse, where Alicia spawned at 11 with Losira at 7. Losira quickly took the expansion outside his main, while Alicia went forge first and took the expansion inside his. Losira committed to an early baneling bust, but Alicia somehow sniffed it out and fended it off handily with four cannons and a pair of sentries. Meanwhile, Alicia had started an air force that he promptly sent to Losira’s base. A single void ray and a handful of phoenixes tore through a half-dozen queens and plenty of overlords, forcing a huge number of spore crawlers. Alicia kept wreaking havoc, bouncing back and forth between Losira’s main and natural until he could bring his gateway army down to seal the deal. Losira used burrow to keep his roach army from being immediately run over, but in the end he was forced to pull his drones and then GG.

Deciding they’d had enough of Alicia, IM sent Zerg powerhouse Nestea to show him who was boss. On Terminus RE, Nestea started as the green zerg at 3 with Alicia all the way across the map at 9. While we knew this, it took Nestea a while to find out; he opted for two quick hatcheries without even bothering to send out a drone scout. Alicia spotted both expansions and went for a four gate to punish him, hitting at the natural before zergling speed was done and before a roach warren had even started. The first four stalkers quickly took care of the handful of slow zerglings Nestea had to defend, but looked outmatched by the second wave. Fortunately for Alicia, four zealots arrived just in time to form a meat shield, letting him kill Nestea’s stream of zerglings without losing a single unit. Things spiraled out of control from there; Alicia bulked up on sentries and laid down consistently brilliant forcefields. Nestea’s lings kept washing up against the gateway units with little effect, so rather than picking off the third base Alicia just pushed straight into the main and forced a GG.

The IM bench looked a little stunned at being suddenly down 0-3. Having failed to win with both Terran and Zerg, they concluded their best bet to take out the suddenly monstrous Alicia was the coin flip that is PvP and nominated Yonghwa as their savior. He opted for a three gate build at 11 on Typhon Peaks, while Alicia embraced his inner cheese and went straight for four gates over at 1. He used his first stalker and zealot to distract Yonghwa just long enough to get a forward pylon down. From there you’d have expected the rush to be on, but Alicia instead decided to set up a loose contain. Both players resumed probe production and threw up a twilight council while they continued to crank stalkers. The stalker balls stared each other down across Yonghwa’s ramp, but Alicia blinked first (literally!), jumping over a forcefield and into Yonghwa’s base while the zealots cheered them on from outside. In contrast, Yonghwa’s zealots jumped right into the action under cover of a guardian shield. That, combined with some slightly off stutter-step timing from Alicia, left him with a significant stalker advantage by the time Alicia blinked back out. Yonghwa saw his opportunity and pushed out, leading to a fairly anticlimactic battle in the middle of the map that saw Alicia eliminated and put IM on the board.

Slayers were now faced with their first decision of the series, and Boxer decided that maybe ZvP would work out better for them than it had for IM. He sent out Golden, who spawned at 3 on Twilight Fortress against Yonghwa at 7. Golden opted for a very slow (for a zerg) expansion on 22. He followed that up with a clever scouting trick, using a zergling to distract Yonghwa’s ramp-guarding zealot while a drone on gather command scooted right on by. This gave him full vision of the two additional gates going up, cluing him in to Yonghwa’s three gate expand. Even though he’d been scouted, Yonghwa stuck to his plan, putting up a nexus and then moving out to put some pressure on. Consistent forcefields on the ramp forced Golden to pull more drones than he wanted, but once his third spine crawler got up he was able to push Yonghwa back.

From there Golden started a spire, while Yonghwa just added a fourth gateway and continued to crank units. When Yonghwa moved out to continue to pressure, Golden tried to sneak his zerglings into his base, but they ended up caught and destroyed between a zealot wall and a bunch of forcefields. Having just eliminated most of Golden’s army with no real losses, Yonghwa immediately moved out and arrived at Golden’s expo just as the first mutas were popping. Golden wasted little time pulling his drones; even with five spine crawlers up it was clear he was in trouble. Unfortunately for him, the boost from the drones wasn’t enough to overcome the sheer numbers of the incoming gateway units, and Yonghwa recorded IM’s second win.

Having failed to crack the Yonghwa nut with both Protoss and Zerg, Slayers decided the obvious answer was to send out a Terran. They chose Ryung, who took the field at 8 on Metalopolis. Yonghwa opted for a one gate robo all the way across the map at 2, while Ryung threw up an expo and cranked out some marauders. Yonghwa’s nexus wasn’t far behind, with both players being fairly passive early on. Ryung put up a reactor starport for a standard MMM build, while his opponent put up a robo bay and a pair of stargates. A drop attempt caught Yonghwa’s army out of position, but key forcefields and a last-minute colossus turned potential disaster into an opportunity as the drop force was destroyed before it could do any real damage. Overzealous pursuit turned it back into a disaster, though, as both of his colossi were caught by reinforcing marauders.

Both players took their third at around the 15 minute mark while they continued to mass up their armies. Yonghwa made good use of his phoenix fleet, swooping in to snatch up a half dozen SCVs at a time and then zooming away before Ryung’s slow vikings could catch up. Ryung, for his part, just patiently massed marauders and vikings, mixing in a few ghosts here and there and picking off as many phoenixes as he could. Both players moved to take their fourth as they maxed out, Ryung boldly taking his gold while Yonghwa contented himself with the 6 o’clock natural. This ended up being a wise decision, as Ryung moved out to deny the other gold base shortly right as the nexus finished. Yonghwa decided to take advantage of the wide concave around the gold, spreading out his colossi, waiting for level three weapons, and then moving in. His colossi got a little overzealous, though, and Ryung’s vikings tore them up before they could do sufficient damage to the bio army. Yonghwa was left with nothing to stop the marauders marauding through his expansions, and he GGed once he had no more mining bases.

On the brink of elimination, it didn’t take IM long to put MVP up as their last line of defense. It then didn’t take MVP long to take advantage of the long rush distance between his 7 spawn and Ryung’s 1 spawn on Crossfire SE for a one rax fast expand. Ryung went with a slightly slower expansion and a slightly faster tech, but by seven minutes in they were at mostly the same place. MVP opted for a raven in case of banshees, but Ryung was instead angling for a marine-tank push. After making the trek across the map, he ran into a bunker and promptly turned around.

Both players continued to jockey for position, feinting in and out of firing range but never quite engaging. MVP seized air control with a fleet of vikings, while Ryung focused on medivacs and tanks. MVP expanded to the 4 o’clock and extended a siege line from his main into the area around the southern watchtower while Ryung took the 11 o’clock and kept his army roaming the top half of the map. A scan showed that MVPs tanks were a little thin, so Ryung pushed in, trying to drive a wedge between MVPs main army in the middle of the map and his main in the lower left. Sloppy control cost too many bio units, though, so Ryung had to content himself with just trading some bio for some tanks and backing up.

Both players started their fourth bases, with Ryung sieging up around the northern watchtower as MVP was decamping from the southern. MVP’s forces paced around a bit before moving up to challenge Ryung’s hold on the northern tower. Ryung again succeeded in trading some bio for some tanks, and took advantage of the battle to slip some marines into MVPs mineral line at 4 o’clock. MVP quickly pulled his marines back, which provided a perfect chance for Ryung to surge forward and bust MVP’s tank position in the middle of the map. He then moved to expand at the 8 o’clock base, drawing some of MVP’s forces while he resumed his push into MVP’s tank line. By the time the dust settled, the supplies were even, but Ryung had accumulated a 10 tank lead, while MVP was left with a fleet of vikings and little ground support. This is when MVP played his trump card; his viking superiority had cleared the way for that most fearsome of capital ships, the battlecruiser. Ryung had no answer at all; he threw up a half dozen starports and started cranking out vikings while he scattered his army, trying to buy enough time to build an air force. His last-ditch viking attack was demolished by a battery of Yamato cannons and he GGed.

With IM now on the verge of tying the series up, Slayers decides to stick with TvT and sends out the relative unknown Ganzi for a clash on Xel’Naga Caverns. He starts off with one rax expand at 1 o’clock, while MVP is doing the same thing at 7. While Ganzi moves from there into a conventional build, MVP throws up 5 barracks, ignoring gas in favor of a strong marine timing push. Ganzi holds the first attack, but MVP manages to sneak his second squad of marines into the main. By the time they’ve been chased out, MVP is up by almost 20 SCVs and has begun teching into a more conventional build. Ganzi realizes he’s hopelessly far behind and tries to capitalize on his temporary tech lead, immediately bringing all of his SCVs with a tank-marine push. MVP manages to dance his army around long enough for stim to finish and then pincers Ganzi’s forces between his main army and reinforcements coming down from his main. MVP just barely clears out the attack, but since all Ganzi had left was a couple of mules, barely was all that was necessary to put IM one win away from the championship.

After losing two games to a terran with a three letter acronym for a login, Slayers decided that seemed to be the way to go and sent out their captain, the legend-killer MMA, for the ultimate duel on Dual Sight. He spawned at 8 with MVP at 2; both of them started with a one rax expand before throwing up two more barracks. MMA’s choice of a scouting reaper paid off with 4 SCV kills before sneaking out the back of the base, as well as providing enough scouting information for MMA to make the ballsy choice of trying to sneak a gold base at 5 o’clock. MVP used his star-sense to scout it out almost as soon as it finished, but was only able to force it to relocate to the 6 o’clock expansion. Having failed to eliminate the extra expansion, MVP began multipronged marine harass while he massed up a tank-marine army. MMA stuck with marine-medivac and quickly realized he couldn’t fight MVP’s tank-backed push to 6 o’clock, so he simply let his orbital command, originally built at the 5 o’clock gold, complete its cross-map migration the 11 o’clock gold.

MMA finally got sick of being pushed around the map by tanks and started building his own, but promptly lost his first batch due to sloppy control. He continued to dance around in front of MVPs army, forcing MVP to siege and then retreating while the economy from his so-far-secret gold base kicked in. It wasn’t until MVP was ready to take the gold as his fourth that he discovered MMA had been mining it for a while; this prompted him to push in at MMA’s natural. Knowing he couldn’t fight a tank push straight up, MMA looped around to hit MVP’s third. In a moment of indecision, MVP pulled back a part of his army to try to defend while leaving the bulk of his tanks to continue the push. Superior upgrades and superior numbers let MMA’s attack annihilate MVP’s first wave of defense, forcing him to unsiege his tanks and begin the long trek home. MMA saw the opportunity he’d been waiting for and pounced on the undefended tanks; MVP rushed in with his remaining marines to try to defend and ended up losing both the tanks and the marines.

At this point the supplies were drastically in MMA’s favor, but a crack team of marines managed to eliminate his gold base, leaving both players not mining and giving MVP a ray of hope. After some inconclusive fighting outside MVP’s natural, MMA decided to pull back, re-claiming the 6 o’clock base instead of pushing his luck. MVP sieged up and floated his natural orbital to the 12 o’clock, but MMA was already rebuilding at the 5 o’clock gold, further extending his lead. The two engaged in some fancy siege tank positioning dances while MVP dropped the gold and thinned MMA’s SCV herd. MMA countered with an elevator drop in MVP’s main, eliminating a significant number of production buildings at the cost of a few siege tanks. He then dashed over to siege the mineral line of MVP’s last mining base, forcing MVP to unsiege and try to push him out. MMA seized the moment to stim in with his bio and eliminate the last of MVP’s tanks, and with them IM’s hopes to retain the team league crown. MVP GGed, and the entire Slayers team flooded onto the stage and started hurling players into the air at random.