EPT
HanbitStars and IS (stands for "Ideal Space") are the two biggest, meanest and (most importantly) best-funded professional teams in SC Korea right now. The HanbitStars team includes such SC luminaries as Sync, HOT Forever and the reigning undisputed OGN Starleague champion [Oops]Reach. The IS team ain't no bunch of newbs, either: [Red]Nada, Yellow and, up to about 1 week ago, the ultimate SC player himself, SlayerS_`BoxeR`, among others.
Part I of this Team v Team battle got underway yesterday, with the next series of matches scheduled to be held next Tuesday. Here's what went down:
[NOTE: HanbitStars players on the left, IS players on the right]
1. Junwi (Z) ("Bak Gyung-rak") < IntoTheRainbow (P) ("Kim Sung-jae") - Neo Forbidden Zone
2. Sync (T) ("Byun Gil-sup") > Mumyung (Z) ("Sung Hak-seung") - Neo Vertigo
3. [Oops]Reach (P) ("Bak Jung-seok") < [Red]Nada (T) ("Lee Woon-yeol") - Neo Lost Temple
4. Silent_Control (T - Ran) ("Na Do-hyun") < Sir@Soni (Z) ("Lee Jae-hang") - Neo Bifrost
5. Kingdom (P) ("Bak Yong-wook") < [z-zone]KOs (T) ("Kim Hyun-jin") - Gaema Gowon
IS team takes apart HanbitStars 4-1. A few comments:
- Junwi and IntoTheRainbow went into marathon mode in their bout. Lots of mistakes and missed opportunities. Junwi should have had it early, but just didn't push hard enough, long enough. Just an exhibition, but saw Junwi pull a few boneheaded moves I saw him do before he went pro. Not a good sign of things to come in the WCG. On the other hand, I could really see IntoTheRainbow trying hard in this one, perhaps to show people what he's capable of after Boxer's dad essentially accused him of not being an adequate practice partner for Lim. He put on a pretty good showing. He is IntoTheRain's jeja (a "student" or "disciple" in Korean), afterall.
- In the clearest sign these were exhibitions, Sync opted to "fan-service" everyone by going his trademark "Sparks Terran" (basically a hard-and-early M&M push made into art by Sync). Got some oos and ahhs from the crowd for that one. GJ.
- OGN specially selected Neo Lost Temple for the Reach v Nada showdown 'cause they wanted a good fight. Shoulda gone with Gaema Gowon instead. Nada just dominates on this map. Flashes of brilliance from both in the beginning almost made it a game worth watching, but then Nada storms out of his main and ends it quickly with a tremendous Tornado Terran push (two-dozen tanks covering most of the screen, a half-dozen mine-laying vults, 3-4 scvs building turrets as they go along, and a partridge in a pear tree.). A classic Nada game. Reach may have had a chance if he had only done what he did v Boxer last week: protect expos and probes from vult rushes and/or drops using lots of cannons. Goddangit it, Cannons, people! Cannons!
- Haven't seen Sir@Soni in action since last December's SKY. Still looks pretty sharp. Silent_Control looked not even close to being as menacing as his name sounds: wiped out early by a "surprise" lurker/ling drop. Pathetic.
- A pretty good slugfest between Kingdom and KOs. Kingdom's been making some noise recently (just turned pro about 6 months ago). Won the single-day KTF tournament a short while ago (beating Nal_Ra in the finals - Nal_Ra had won the two preceding KTF tournaments back-to-back). Steadily improving in skill. People may remember him from his memorable 3/4 place battle on Neo Hall of Val against Grrr in last year's HanbitSoft OGN Starleague. It still holds the OGN record for the longest ever single match: nearly 52 mins. Exciting as hell, too.
j/k
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