EPT
Group A
Zeus (P) ("Jun Tae-gyu") > [z-zone]KOs (T) ("Kim Hyun-jin") - Shin Gaema Gowon
I was mildly surprised to discover before the match that Zeus is 4-1 v T in official OGN play - winning v ChRh, Boxer, Xellos and KOs (Zeus also beat Nada PvT in the Team League, but it doesn't count towards official OGN stats). A pretty impressive list by any standard. KOs tho holds the distinction of being the first (and, as it turns out, the ONLY) Terran to beat Zeus in TvP OGN competition. The last time these two butted heads on OGN was also on this map. Zeus eventually won that rubber match, but not before dicking around with hallucinated carriers and almost letting KOs back in to the game.
And things were no less eventful this time around. In fact, things got turned into a wild, see-saw shootout. Zeus (@2) opened with an eye-raising gas-first-then-gate strat and proceeded to fuck up KOs's metal bo with dt drops combined with quick goon-based containment. Zeus took his natural while KOs had yet to expand and it looked like a fairly easy cakewalk for Jun. But, KOs needed to win this match if he had any chance in the tournament and wasn't about to give up. He got his metal in gear and the comeback was on. Kim executed a beautiful natural expansion even tho he was being harried by Zeus's mass goons, then proceeded to take the entire map in the middle with a wall of tank/turret/vult/mines. If you get the chance to watch this game on VoD, focus on KOs's tank placement: this is how it's done. The metal phalanx looked so intimidating that Zeus just kept backing up and never even tested it with his mass goon/zeals until the wall had creeped almost right up to his natural. With siege tanks blazing away, KOs made quick work of Zeus's natural and KOs's comeback looked complete.
But, despite his reputation for fooling around (both in-game and out), Zeus is still one of the smartest Protoss players around and he wasn't gonna be taken out so easily. Zeus expoed to the 5 main and, KO's vultures notwithstanding, managed to hold it and get it on-line. This proved to be the key to Zeus's victory. Zeus went to carriers and KOs slowly started losing ground again and, with econ at almost zero, looked ready to buckle for good. But, KOs miraculously managed to float his main CC to the 12 expo and got enough min to expo to the 8 main and, suddenly, the tables had turned AGAIN. The key to KOs's 2nd wind was not so much the expos, but the fact that his tank/turret placements still held the middle of the map and prevented Zeus from being mobile and administer any kind of coup-de-grace. Like I said, watch the placements. It's textbook. Zeus finally brought things to an end when a combined mass goon/zeal/carrier force finally took on these metal defenses and was able to win a decisive battle against KOs's gols.
A very entertaining match. Recommended. KOs is now 0-2 and looks certain to miss the final 8 cut while Zeus, at 2-0, is on a very powerful roll. While all the focus these days seems to be on the "Sun God" rA, Zeus has quietly let people know that there's more than one pantheon head to be reckoned with in this Starleague.
Group B
[Red]Nada (T) ("Lee Yoon-yul") v Yellow (Z) ("Hong Jin-ho") - Guillotine
Prolly one of the most controversial games in a while. Why? Because it LOOKED like Nada threw away the match on purpose and gave Yellow the win. Now, conspiracies, by their very nature, are difficult-to-prove beasts that seem visible only through peripheral vision. For every incriminating smoking gun, there are two very plausible explanations.
But, in all honesty, this one really does look, smell and act like the proverbial "duck." The motive was there (I'll get to that shortly), Nada has a history of throwing games when it suited his interests (Most notably v Elky in the Panasonic OGN Starleague where he lost on purpose so that he could avoid Boxer in the next round. Nada even let Elky nuke him a couple of times in that one and was shown on-camera laughing about it.) and, really, SO many people (including yours truly) were talking about Nada throwing the game days BEFORE the game!
It didn't help matters that Nada played worse than I've ever seen him play in a live TV tournament (I challenge anyone to come up with an example of him playing worse - you won't find any). Yellow (@1) basically won by early mass ling containing/harassing then powering to mass hydra/lurkers and overwhelming Nada (@11), who seemed inexplicably incapable of dojng anything right. Some highlights include:
- suspiciously low M&M count throughout the match. Please, when was the last time anyone saw Nada unable to produce hordes of units in the blink of an eye? It was like he was playing war3 or something, the marine count was so pitiful.
- The now-infamous play where Nada lets his rines go at it head-to-head with a superior ling force without medic support - when the medics were 2 seconds away?!?! Oh, yeah, I see a person back there raising his hand and saying "well, maybe Nada forgot to micro?" My answer to that is: STFU newbie and educate yourself before opining on matters you know nothing about! Nada doesn't make mistakes like that - not when the game's for real.
- The head-scratching proxy rax at the beginning somewhere just outside the 4 expo - right where it can be spotted by the next drone that decides to pathfind its way to an expansion. I know what some of you are thinking: "Hey, fuck you mensrea, I didn't see any proxy rax!" That's because you took a bathroom break. The rax got cancelled after a few passes by the builder SCV. Even the OGN commentators were stammering to come up with a theory as to just WHAT THE FUCK THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO ACCOMPLISH.
- Generally inept micro by Nada throughout the match. Even watched Nada leave his lone SV floating above a cluster of hungry hydras to be picked off easily as Yellow's forces were running crazy inside Nada's main. You know Nada's micro is leaking oil when the foremost line of defense against mass hydra/lurkers is a single, uncontrolled SV.
- Generally horrible in-game management. Yellow played ok, but I've never seen Nada get led by the nose like this by a Zerg user. Nada DOMINATES opponents, and even when he doesn't, the other guy's giving 110% just to stay ahead. This was a one-way steamrolling against Nada. WTF.
All this looks pretty damning in my opinion. But, what about the motives? Well, the motive would be to give Yellow another chance at advancing to the final 8. If Yellow had lost his match v Nada, both he and Chojja would be out for good, while both Nada and Nal_rA would advance from their Group no matter what. But what about Nada tho? Why would KTF sacrifice Nada? By losing on purpose, wouldn't that put an unreasonably high amount of pressure on Nada to win v Nal_rA (who's been like 3-0 v Lee their last three meetings) in their final round robin game in order to advance? And on Paradoxxx no less!
Yeah, it does look like a weird gamble by KTF. Or does it? To get a feel for what KTF MAY HAVE been considering (I'm not saying that KTF's a match-fixing bunch of fags yet, ok!) prior to the match, let's take a look at some of the possibilities now that Yellow has "won" over Nada.
Regarding the remaining games in Group B, if:
1. Nal_rA > Nada AND Chojja > Yellow -> Nal_rA (3-0) advances to the final 8 while Nada, Yellow and Chojja (all 1-2) go to a play-off to determine which ONE player gets to continue.
2. Nal_rA > Nada AND Yellow > Chojja -> Nal_rA (3-0) and Yellow (2-1) advance, while Nada and Chojja (both 1-2) go home.
3. Nada > Nal_rA AND Chojja > Yellow -> Nal_rA and Nada (both 2-1) advance, while Yellow and Chojja (1-2) are eliminated.
4. Nada > Nal_rA AND Yellow > Chojja -> Nada, Nal_rA and Yellow (all 2-1) will do a play-off to see which TWO players get to advance. Chojja (0-3) is gone.
I don't need to explain to you what all this means. I think it speaks for itself. Regardless of whether there really was a conspiracy by KTF to fix the outcome of the Yellow v Nada match, it seems clear that, at the very least, having Nada lose to Yellow on purpose wasn't such a very big risk to take after all - especially given Nada's habitual domination of Chojja, as well as Yellow's stated confidence against the Sun God, Nal_rA, all factors to be considered when planning for a possible play-off.
Waxangel made a point in the forum that there's no rule that says you have to try to win in a game. I saw red when I read this. I apologized to Wax afterwards for being snarky about it, but I'm still of the opinion that people who throw games on purpose should be, if not censured, then at the very least not be applauded for their actions. What the hell's admirable about using loopholes in the system governing a GAMING TOURNAMENT? How is it respectable to follow the letter of the rules of a GAMING TOURNAMENT while avoiding adherence to its spirit? Fuck legalistic interpretations. This isn't taxation law for crissakes where exploiting loopholes is almost encouraged. This is a game. It's supposed to involve certain ideals that go beyond what's explicitly stated. Since when does integrity, fairness and good manners in-game have to be legislated? My answer is it doesn't. It's a givens. It's part of what makes you a PROFESSIONAL GAMER.
And, assuming KTF did what many suspect they did, maybe OGN can't punish KTF for their rigging even with proof (like Wax said, there are no rules against not trying, are there...?), but KTF, Nada and maybe even Yellow certainly don't deserve my fan mail for it. Quite the opposite. They deserve all the HATE mail in the world. If they did it.
And not just KTF: some of the blame should be apportioned to the fags at OGN for not seeing such things coming to begin with (it's nothing new) and devising a system to address the possibility. Elky mentioned to me something he heard about having players from the same team always playing first in the Group matches and thus avoid future scenarios where someone might be tempted to tinker with the outcome to begin with. It sounds like a good start. I hope OGN and other tournaments implement it asap.
Anyway, like I said, nothing's for certain, but I've seen Nada pull this kinda shit off before and I'm not gonna give him and KTF the benefit of the doubt this time. I dunno about you guys, but I will be rooting my lungs out for Nal_rA and Chojja to pimp the KTF players' sorry asses from now through any necessary re-games.
Group C
[Soul]TheWind (Z) ("Bak Sang-ik") < [Oops]Reach (P) ("Bak Jung-seok") - Paradoxxx
I only caught the tail end of this match, so I'll just tell you what I saw when I tuned in:
LOTS AND LOTS OF CORSAIRS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF SCOURGE.
Holy crapola, there were a lot. Like watching the final part of Independence Day all over again. But, Reach (@1) had the upper hand v TheWind (@7) with an extra expo and a complement of carriers. TheWind taps GG.
Why wasn't I very surprised? Paradoxxx has so far proven to be a burial ground for Zerg ZvP - double gas at main or no. Reach is now ALSO 2-0 and looks in excellent position to advance out of the Group. Oh, yeah, btw - Protoss are now on an 8-0 tear in OGN play. OMG. TheWind is 0-2 and needs serious intervention from a major deity somewhere to have any hope of surviving.
Group D
Elky (T) ("Bertrand Grospellier") > )is(Side (Z) ("Joo Jin-chul") - Nostalgia
Everyone knows Elky loves CCs. He really does. So much so in fact that when Gundam was asked (a long time ago when he first got teamed up with Bertrand by iVenture) if he's learned anything from practicing with Betrand, Gundam responded: "I learned how to make Command Centers."
Everyone knows Side loves hatcheries. He really does. He just LOVES his "harem of hatcheries." So much so in fact that not only is Joo known for his mass hatcheries, he's - well, that's ALL he's known for. Korea's best example of the ultimate Sauron Zerg player. If Gyuntae is the "Father of the Drone," then Side MUST be the "Father of the Hatchery."
Now, please, will someone tell these bozos that we know already? I only say this because their over-arching strat for this match seemed to be expo-harrass-expo-expo again-expo some more-check to see if more expos possible. Well, not quite, but something like that.
Side (@7) took his early natural (as expected), while Elky did a curious double rax/1 fac/early CC natural build. The key moment in the game came early when Side saw the early expo by Elky and charged in with lurkers and lines of zerglings extending seemingly all the way back to his own main. Bertrand looked toast right here, and he's not really a mico-happy kinda player like Boxer or even Nada, but he somehow managed to micro his few M&Ms to hold the line and weather the storm (having 2 comsats helped).
Elky was never really threatened after that. Both expoed again (Elky even comically setting up shop at the 11 main - right in the way of Side's expo line on Joo's side of the map), but Side had left his main vulnerable to drops and Elky took advantage with a 2 ship M&M drop to level it, while full-force attacking Side's 9 expo with tanks + M&Ms. Joo had his other expos still going strong, but with his tech blown back to the stone ages and Elky massing more tanks and CCs, Joo wisely concedes and leaves the game.
Elky's in-game id was "I'm Back," and back he was in serious style after his style-ruining embarrassment against Kingdom last week. Bertrand will have his hands full next time against the terror known as Junwi, but at 1-1 he's still in it. Meanwhile, Side at 0-2 is out for good regardless of what happens next v Kingdom, who becomes the first to advance out of Group D. So, I guess it's true: winning the Challenge League ain't all it's cracked up to be.
!
(stupid Nada). But that won't help much, seeing as how I got 1/4 on the most recent one (serves me right for thinking I could beat "Murphy's Law"), and probably won't get a whole lot of points out of the "who will advance from starleague groups" bets, either 
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