EPTJust saw the games, I didnt know the results before seeing them so it was pretty exciting.
Savior vs Iris - Best player in this match is Savior, and in the sense of wanting the best players to advance I would want him to advance. However since that would mean a potential Reach going up against him in the semi, my hopes were on Iris to pull an upset as Mantoss doesnt fare to well against S-Class Zergs and certainly not the Maester of them all.
My thoughts for the first match was that Iris was going to try a tank push and that Savior would defeat it with superior control. That didnt happen but Savior was so onto Iris all game, and his drone running around under the factory probably psyched out Iris much enough for him to get desperate. And try a sunken rush. Which failed horribly. After pissing on that you could see Savior breathing out knewing he had won the game right there. Only some playing around with mutas before wraping it up. Rape.
The final match between the two turned out to be sore to my eyes. Both players played decent until Savior chose to not finish it when he had everything in Iris' base. After that you could see horrible micro from Iris and terrible ecomanagement far from Saviors regular standards. I dont know why Maestro pulled away, but it turned out to be a bad choice. Hydra/Lurker is good against the semi-SKTerran Iris did, but hydra only isnt the best choice. Especially when you're that behind in upgrades. And where the fuck were the plagues ? I cried in agony when I saw those packed balls of vessels begging to be vomited on. Both played far from their best level, but Saviors play was the most disappointing.
After seeing a lonely lurker pulling of 22 scv kills and still seing scvs mining there I can with a hand to my heart say Iris is the last player of the remaining four I want to see winning this OSL.
Mantoss against Stork - Of course I wanted Reach to win this badly, but I knew before the match Stork was a better PvPer. He's not the most feared PvPer since Kingdoms golden days for nothing. However Reachs PvP is very peaky with good streaks(his PvP streak a couple of years ago) and bad streaks( Soo and Chalrenge WTF?), and at times certainly capable of beating anyone. Even Stork as he showed last week allthough it was a simple BO win that didnt really show much.
I had a feeling that both players would play safe and standard at a map like Fantasy and I turned out to be right as they both did the observer rush BO. The first initiative came from Reach with his reaver drop that seemed to do some damage at the main after throwing out a retarded scarab at the natural. However Storks main drop with 2! reavers at the same time did more or atleast equal damage. As they both expanded roughly at the same time I was perplexed by how much more units Stork actually had, and if he didnt choose to lose 3-4 observers throughout the game before his first natural attack on Reach including one in the attack itself he might have finished it right there, because oddly enough Reachs stormupgrade seemed to be nonexistant. I felt Reach was holding on, but apperantly he must have lost a shitload of probes on Storks reaverdrop because he was nowhere near Stork in unitcount and Stork steamrolled him moments later with a superior groundforce as he tried taking his mineralonly.
Solid play from Stork this game and I was neither pissed nor sad Reach lost that one.
The last game was intense and exciting as hell. You could tell from watching Storks face expression and his movements around on the map as you saw a moment of him playing first-person building a pylon for getting a clearer sight for a possible main drop coming from Reach. However the man himself seemed to think it would be a better choice to go back to the strategy from their game the previous week instead of trying to prolong the match any further. Stork was sooo ready for this and you could tell he was pretty much aware of such a scenario likely to be happening. He even made a third gate before expanding, and Im pretty sure he was fairly low on probes when Reach attacked.The timing on Storks reaver was perfect, and Reach sortof messed up his reaver-control as Stork made a conclave of goons unable to be penetrated. I was so hoping he got Storks reaver on his first two scarab shots, but no. After this it was basically over. No way a player like Stork is going to let an adventage like that go away.
Stork was a worthy winner of this match and he'll also be worthy champion. He showed everyone how good his PvP actually is and how patient strategic and timing oriented the matchup is along with a by the book example on how to expand and still be able to defeat a 2gate 2 reaver attack. Unit formation is so important in the matchup and the way Stork proved it was magnificent.
Some questions arose though. Why didnt Reach decide to stir up Storks defense by dropping the main first. Im very positive Stork had close to nothing in defense at his main and Reach had an observer there all along. If Reach did this and showed some more patience before attacking the outcome might have been different. Im aware of the attack being close to an allin attack but he must have underestimated Stork if he thought he wouldnt be able to defend properly this time. Reach also expanded as he attacked so Im trying to figure out what he was thinking there. Semi allins is probably the worst choice you can do as the chance of your attack to fail rise with less units and you'll still be behind if you dont attack. With an observer in Storks main I expected more from Reach.
The other thing I asked myself is why Stork attacked Reachs ramp at a point where it was pretty much decided he had won the match instead of taking a new expand and safing it in. He did this against Rock at Nemesis in Proleague and got punished hard for it. Please dont make such hasty decisions in future games Stork. Patience is a virtue. You've not robbed Reach from being the second Protoss after GARIMTO to have two OSLs for nothing. Keep that in mind when you enter the final.
Bisu vs Flash - For me this was the match of the week by far. Both these players are really good, and they're certainly both hot champion material I wanted a Reach vs Flash final since day one of this OSL. I wanted one of them to win. As Reach is now defeated we'll see if the royal road prediction I made after his Dual tour matches against TT was justified. The kid is a demon at TvP, and he is showing no sign of having any Midasticks so far. Sure Bisu might be the allaround better player, but it brings me joy to see a kid as fearless and deadly as this one, and he might just be a Terran player capable of doing something else than dodging Protosses all the way and be proclaimed to be a Neo-Legend(Casy), and actually start out his path to be one. While Boxer shone semiyoung, Oov shone fairly old, Nada is the only one close enough to shine as young as Flash among the legends. And they both cruised in as Terran players able to molest Protoss players with both micro and macro oriented strategies. Needless to say I was excited for Flash for this match as he won his first match in a stellar perfectly executed Bionic rush.
As for Bisus chances on a map like Monty they would normally be 60-40 in his favour against any Terran, taken his recent perfomances into consideration. His molestation of Hwasin in the MSL quarter was nothing short from breathtaking. The macro he dispelled was abnormal. To be quite frank it seemed like Pusan on exstacy or Reach having adrenaline injection. He also lost two games. One in which Hwasin played very good, and in one where he got outsmarted or should I say cheesed since we dont like Hwasin. There was something about that match though. Oh yes it was played at Monty. The same map our new Protoss king lost to the ancient god-knows-how-many-days-since-last-victory ChRh. And that was as a reeking fresh MSL champion as hot as ever being the first nonZerg in 5 MSLs(2 Chojja/GR 3 Maestro) to win and the first Protoss since rA went all the way 8! MSLs ago even before Oovs dominanceball had begun rolling. Bisu is does not like Monty, and his hatred for this map would be bigger after this match.
As the match begun I was worried about how little the file was. I expected a Proxy gate DT rush from Bisu or something similar. As Flash moved his 5th and 6th scv I was worried though. Would he try something stupid and get cought with the tail between his legs and surrender before there was even a match ? As his second scv went over the minerals I was sure though. The fucker is completely out of his mind. 8 rax is fine. You can recover unless the Protoss 14 nexused(In which case you should do much damage) and get away with a not too scrubby economy. 2 rax though is pretty much allin. When Bisu built his gate I was pretty sure there was no way his cheese would have any remotely chance of succeeding. Then Flash built the gas, I was like wtf, crowd was like wtf, and the commentators were like oh yes and EVERYONE was like WOOAHHHH when Bisu built his proxy robo. I was seriously clapping my hands and speaking to myself "Holy shit this is crazy, oh my god". And then Bisu saw it. And made the battery. And knew his OSL quest had been pissed on in two games that added together lasted 12 minutes. By a 14 year old kid. Wow that must suck.
I was smiling and laughing full of enthusiasm throughout this game because even though the game could have been better, longer, showed more skills etc etc, it showed why BW is such a complex game and coincidence is such a big part of it. Any decent player could have done what Flash did, even though his execution was very cookie cutter. Few with his skill would consider doing it with such stakes though. Balls. Balls. Balls. Bisu raped by balls. Twice in a row. In a quarterfinal in the most prestigous tournament in Brood War.
Needless to say I like players with balls. But I like even more players with balls able to win without using them. Flash is one of that kind. Boxer, Nada, Sea(he shows them from time to time) and UpMagic are other Terran players in that category, and that's pretty much it. Theres always been a lack of good players with balls, and I dont mean your average Ever)P(TT who pretty much only has his balls to rely on or players like Bifrost and GF where the balls are permanently dormant.
Actually this game reminded me somewhat of Nadas 2 rax rush against Oov in their MSL final against each other ages ago at the map called Detonation X.
Hwasin vs GGPlay - The match I didnt really care about as they'd both get raped in a semi by both Bisu and Flash anyway. I do like GGPlay way more than Hwasin even though I must admit Hwasins play has been on a higher level since the end of 06. I somehow knew this series was going to a third game, but I voted on GGPlay in hope that hed play like he did vs Nada on Python in a ace match in proleague a month or two ago when they played twice(1-1 I think?).
The game turned out as expected though. I was honestly thinking Hwasin was going to kill him even before he got lurks. Theres not much to say about the game really. The 9pool did close to zero damage due to poor control from GGPlay and more than decent defense from Hwasin. I liked how Hwasin made the CC in GGPlays face when he left with the lings though. Hwasin knew GGPlay would hurt is own econ even more by thinking he could end it with speedlings and Hwasin was right and defended without any problem. After the mutas there was just a matter of time before the blob came and finished what was left. Disappointing game.
Then the final game on Hitchhiker. The map is said to be Terran favoured, and I think it is. More so against Toss though. The Zergs has to use their sense to win. Low drone count fast tech and good muta harass seems to be the key. Perfect examples Yarncs Oovrape last OSL, every game of Savior there and the recent humiliation of Casy performed by exactly GGPlay himself. I would still say the game would be in Hwasins favour though.
Hwasin did what I thought Iris would do against Savior. It almost worked too if it hadnt been for a wasted M&M attack, good muta harass, and excellent vessel sniping from GGPlay. The delay was just sufficient enough for the defiler to come to the rescue. At this point it was almost July vs GF last game in EVER2 final tense. Ok not that tense but anyway. After that Hwasins tank placement impressed me as GGPlays swarm push was shut down with a slamdunc. At this point it looked pretty even, but then Hwasin in what seemed to be an easy dodge lost two important vessels that btw was previously hit by one scourge each. That along with some good guerilla attacks from GGPlay halted Hwasin enough. But the final knockout punch took its time after a horribly failed double dropship attack and a successful expansion kill from Hwasin. And what a punch with Kaiser blades that was
GGPlay did his job and showed he's a good timing oriented ZvTer able to play low-econ high tech with good enough ability to compete with both of the remaining Terrans. Hwasin was pretty much outplayed that match. When his push failed it seemed that his game fell apart and he seemed to let down his fist and tried to go into macromode after doing onebase most of the game. That hardly works. If you go onebase you need to keep the pressure going, however when GGPlay displays such excellent defense, and slowdown tactics it gets hard. GGPlay deserved this and I was happy for him, and even though I think hes a less worthy OSL winner than Flash and Stork hes way higher than Iris in by my book.
So the semis will now be Iris vs Stork and Flash vs GGPlay. Both good matchups but Im afraid they both might get onesided. I hope GGPlay puts up a good fight though.
the only guy left that I like is Flash...
