by stuchiu

ByuN takes three games in Prime's 5 - 2 rout over undermanned Fnatic RC.

Fnatic RC was always going to be hard-pressed to avoid elimination at the hands of Prime. But with their Protoss ace Oz headed to MLG Dallas, the result never seemed like it was ever in question. Spearheaded by ByuN's three wins, Prime won in dominating fashion as expected, without even having to resort to their two best players in MarineKing and Creator.

ByuNPrime started off the night with a couple of TvZ massacres as he took down the opening two Zergs from Fnatic, J (aka Luvsic) and Moon, in completely one-sided slaughters. Against both players, Byun went for greedy triple orbital into double engi-bay builds. J tried to fight him with mass mutalisk-ling-banes, but was just run over by Byun’s superior army, upgrades and economy.

Moon also tried to fight ByuN at lair with strong muta-ling-bane attacks. He seemed to be having more success as he damaged ByuN's third base with an attack, but was caught off guard by multiple drops from ByuN at the same time. The harassment was crippling, and Moon had to fold under the pressure.

Byun’s third game was more of a challenge as Rain (no, not THAT Rain) showed a strong, solid mech TvT style. However, ByuN used his bio army's mobility to take solid control of the map and relentlessly attack holes in Rain's defense. While Rain held out admirably well for a period, he made a bad move command straight into Byun's forces while trying to secure a fourth base. That was the domino that Byun needed to fall, and Rain’s defenses cascaded down under Byun’s constant attacks until he was forced to GG.

Neo-Classical BitbyBit Revival.

Fnatic would send out ByuL next to stop Byun’s running rampage. Byun decided to try to pull a fast one and opened with a 2 proxy rax on Cloud Kingdom. However, ByuL countered him with a 10 pool and appeared to take the lead.

From there Byun added on another rax and cc, and under the sage guidance of BitByBit's ghost, decided the correct move after failing to all-in once was to all-in again, and this time with a massive SCV train. It was a very close defense as Byun’s bunkers were just seconds away from finishing inside Byul's base, but ByuL held out just barely in the end.

Undeterred, Prime sent out MaruPrime to do another proxy 2 rax, this time on Entombed Valley. ByuL went for a greedy build this time around, allowing Maru to get bunkers up and do a moderate amount of damage before following up into a hellion-marauder all-in. Maru first sent the hellions, which completely caught Byul off guard as he slaughtered countless lings and drones. Smelling weakness, Maru pulled his scvs with his marauders and dealt Byul a killing blow.

Fighting to stay aLive.

Just one more game away from being eliminated from the GSTL entirely, aLive was sent out as the last man standing for Fnatic. It was an interesting game on Abyssal City as Alive opened up with a 2 base mech attack against Maru’s 3 base bio build. The push was extremely strong, but Maru was able to break it with a well placed flank of scvs and stimmed marauders.

Even with his first push having failed, Alive showed he too went to the school of BitbyBit as he prepared for a second, even stronger all-in. This time, Maru decided that the push was way too strong as it included air support, so he opted for a base trade. Both players would float their production and command centers away, but Alive had an advantage as he still had vikings that could shoot down floating buildings. Maru made a hasty decision to try and attack aLive's fortified position at a brand new base, but GG'd out after his army was splattered across the ocean floor.

Sting like a BumblebeePrime.

While BitbyBit came out of retirement spiritually, Terius (aka) Bumblebee returned in the flesh to play his first game for Prime in several months. It was an emotional return, as Terius made fans feel confused, surprised, angry, excited and confused again, all in one match.

It started off normal enough as Alive went for a triple cc into mech build while Terius opted to open 3 base mutas. From there, the match began to look more like a game of Fight Night than StarCraft II as the two players became embroiled in a haymaker-filled brawl. Terius would throw away his army of muta ling bane against Alive’s third, only to have aLive return the favor by throwing away his thors against Terius’ roaches.

After a few rounds, it looked like aLive was coming out ahead as he was able to get a 4th up earlier, though the danger of Terious' impending hive-tech could not be ignored. Still, aLive seemed prepared to deal with it, having built extra starports to mass produce vikings. With Terious' infestor-brood lord army not looking 100% complete, aLive pushed out to apply the death blow.

And then, aLive made the blunder of the game. He clumped up his 20 vikings, hellions, and banshees in the space of 1 fungal in the vision of 8 infestors. As expected, Alive’s army was broken, but due to the lead he had started with, he only went from a sure win to an even game, instead of an even game to a sure loss.

The game stayed even as the two players continued to harass each other's economies with raiding roaches and hellions, all the while building up armies for another colossal clash. As aLive moved out with one more maxed army, Terious wiped out his last remaining mining base with an infestor hitsquad, forcing aLive to win or lose with his last push. The game came down to the wire as aLive managed to narrowly defeat Terious' army (this time, his vikings were spread), but Terious still had enough mining going on to build more forces. In the end, Terius built up as many roaches as he could, which were enough to take out aLive's remaining thor-hellion army and take the series for Prime.

Player of the Match: ByuNPrime

This shouldn’t even be an argument. Somehow GomTV decided Terious deserved the award for winning won one sloppy game against Alive to clinch the series, but Byun took out three players and gave the fourth a run for his money.