EPT
As we near the end of a rather unimpressive OSL we come to what could be one of the best series of the whole tournament. Both Bisu and Flash are extraordinary gamers and thus the quality of games for this semi-final should be very high. It's not often that talent of this caliber ends up in the semi-finals so we should consider ourselves blessed with two awesome semifinals after a rather bland tournament thus far.
All the information regarding these two players and this matchup can be found over in the OSL Semi-final preview thread here and don't forget about Liquibition happening in a matter of hours!
Game 1 - Troy
Flash’s strategy this game revolved around the reverse island nature of the map. I believe it was Fakesteve who proposed the bunk rush build initially and it’s about time that it was used in top tier competition.
The idea behind this build is to firstly take up a strong defensive position near their main for pressure. The bunker is placed near a very tight choke point which makes life difficult for people wanting to break the bunker. Next it allows the Terran to take down the assimilators forcing the Protoss to play island based whereas he has free reign to do as he pleases. This is a huge advantage as to play effectively on islands you need lots of shuttles or a lot of apm.
Throughout this OSL the assimilators have been used in a variety of ways. For example, let’s look at rumble’s 3 hat guardian build against Flash. By expanding quickly to one of the islands then walling it off he secured an easy three gas. However, due to Rumble’s inept skills he lost miserably. Best has used the assimilators to his advantage against Sea. He used a dark templar drop to kill the assimilators of Sea (and to generally wreak havoc) which forced Sea into an island situation.
I doubt we’ve seen the last of Troy – I’m reasonably confident it will be in the next OSL as well. There are so many possibilities to exploit this particular feature of the map and we’ve certainly seen that this OSL.
Shortly after finding Bisu, Flash had 3 rines and a handful of SCV’s headed Bisu’s way. Bisu in turn had a single Zealot. Flash started a bunker just above Bisu’s assimilators while pressuring with his small SCV/Rine army. 2 Goons come out for Bisu and defend as best they can, but Flash puts on the pressure and starts a second bunker inside Bisu’s main.
Bisu pulls his probes, and the bunker nears completion – luckily the dragoons killed all the marines leaving the Bunker empty. Flash’s reinforcing marines were forced to shelter in the bunker behind Bisu’s assimilators. As Flash’s rine count increased to three, he pressed the attack once more, after taking a couple shots at the defending dragoons they made a break for the bunker, only one of the marines survived the ordeal.
Bisu retreats his dragoons out of his base to ward off further reinforcements. They manage to hold off a number of marines; giving bisu enough time to amass a small army of dragoons and charged the bunker with probes and dragoons. Within a few moments the bunker had fallen. The 3 dragoons marched forward to the bunker in his nat, and with some really slick dragoon micro prevented any mainres from entering.
Now it was bisu’s turn to press the attack – with 4 dragoons and a zealot he went for Flash’s natural – which was defended by a bunker and a few scv. Thanks to the miracle of repair, the dragoons were unable to break Flash. However as dragoon numbers were rising, Flash evacuated his marines and walled off his main – saving him from defeat, but making the task ahead very difficult indeed. Bisu in the mean time had expanded and had an observatory warping.
Flash knew what he had to do, and he immediately started 2 starports and started to produce wraiths with cloak. Bisu had teched to reavers and had an observer on its way to scout Flash. Bisu also expanded to 11 making Flash’s economic situation more and more desperate. Flash sent his first handful of wraiths at Bisu – who was ready waiting with Dragoons. The wraiths cloaked upon seeing the dragoons and managed to snipe Bisu’s first shuttle which was waiting in the corner of his base. As an observer arrived for Bisu the wraiths started to crumble – and soon only a lone wraith was left.
Nevertheless, Flash continued to build Wraiths and soon his numbers were high once more, with about 5 Wraiths he started looking for things to pick off. Meanwhile Bisu had added a stargate. After seeing that there was nothing to pick off, the wraith pack headed towards 3 and started to kill the assimilators there – but Bisu was eager to capitalize on his advantage; he sent his dragoon army towards Flash’s nat and lifted them 2 by 2 into Flash’s main.
The Wraiths were quick to act, and they managed to kill the shuttle after it had lifted 4 goons in. But Flash could not defend it, he pulled all his SCVs and Wraiths but could not win. Flash realized the game was lost and quickly conceded.
Bottom line this game is that Flash got greedy. His initial rush should have been to disable Bisu but not kill Bisu. If he had solidified his position in Bisu’s nat and killed off the assimilators Bisu would have had a hard time this game. Instead he pushed the attack and it was crushed. Bisu however, reacted smartly and with his nice micro he killed off all the reinforcements for the rush. After that the game was lost for Flash – he was always going to be miles behind after that failed.
Flash 0:1 Bisu
Game 2 - Fantasy II
Flash takes a different approach to TvP than most Terrans – as can be seen in all his recent TvPs. In the GSI Finals preview I tried to emphasize the fact that Flash is an innovator looking to expand the bound of Terran. The builds he showcased in the OSL (and GSI) are definitely moving TvP in new directions. This could possibly be the biggest revolution since Midas’s FD in 2005/6.
The defining feature of his TvP is his fast Armory and Goliath use. Given the extensive Protoss mimicry in recent times (thanks Bisu) the most popular PvT build today is 2 base -> reaver. This build picked up mid way through 2006 with Bisu tearing up Shinhan S2 OSL with his highly aggressive PvT style. He along with the new age Protoss (Much/Free) used the 2 base reaver build extensively and that has brought them many wins.
Flash’s build counters that perfectly. He generally builds around 3~4 vultures with tanks then adds an armory. He then produces 3~4 Goliaths (or more on Katrina) which he uses to prevent any harass from dealing damage to him. He also uses these goliaths for killing shuttles when they try to zeal bomb him. In my opinion, its about time Terran’s started doing this as I have noted that a few goliaths are immensely effective against Protoss.
But with the fast armory comes fast upgrades. Flash knows that +1 weapons is an insanely cheap upgrade for the effects it has. Protoss tend to build a late forge to maximize gateway production, this came about from the macro age of Pusan/Anytime. Thus, Protoss are often ill equipped to go into an upgrade war. +1 Weapons adds 5 damage to sieged tanks, +3 to normal tanks, +2 to vultures and +2 to goliaths (subtract armor twice due to two hit system). Those kinds of upgrades overwhelm the pathetic +1 armor upgrade (and the over priced +1 shield).
Lastly, the Flash build continues to focus on upgrades throughout, abusing the strength of +2. This means that he has a science facilty/starport lying around relatively early on. This gives him the edge against any kind of Arbiter late game antics. The Flash build really is equipped as an all-purpose anti-protoss build. Coupled with Flash’s awesome goliath control he is an all purpose protoss killing machine.
Bisu decided he would be aggressive with reavers, and started a support bay. He also shuttled one of his Probes to the island at 6. As Flash maynarded his SCVs to his natural – Bisu had his shuttle on the move and thus begun a test of micro. Bisu dropped his Reaver in Flash’s natural and fired a single scarab which killed a good 5~6 SCV. He then went for his main. After killing some defending marines he forced Flash to retreat his SCVs. He hovered his shuttle around looking for a weakness, but could not find any.
Bisu then double expanded to his natural and the island to catch up to Flash’s economy. Flash took up a defensive position in his Natural while Bisu began to add on the gateways. Both players settled in for a macro game and Flash started a command center at the southern point of his base ready to float down to 3. Flash also built some trademark Goliaths ready to destroy any invading shuttles.
Both players mobilized simultaneously. Flash had himself a decent sized army and pushed down towards 3 to defend it as his commend center floated down. Bisu had an army positioned just outside Flash’s base which was looking rather scary with many dragoons and zealots. Bisu also added some stargates and a fleet beacon.
Bisu picked up his balls, and attacked Flash at 3. 2 shuttles flew for the tanks on the ridge – but goliaths were able to shoot one of them down. Next moment a stream of zealots raced out into a mine field and tank fire. They were quickly vaporized but the dragoons bringing up the rear posed a danger to Flash. Flash pulled his SCVs for defense and staved off the attack.
Bisu’s macro was fearsome, and already had another legion of Zealots ready to go – and he had expanded to the Gaema Gowon main. Flash moved out with a nice army of tanks and vultures. He immediately sieged up on the high ground outside his natural and waited for more tanks to arrive. Flash knew Bisu was waiting on the high ground outside the RoV natural and mined up the edges of the ramps.
Flash then pushed slowly onto the high ground tempting Bisu to break it. Finally, the temptation was too much and Bisu came at him with everything. After a huge fight with much destruction on both sides, a freshly built arbiter comes from nowhere and saves the day for Bisu. Flash’s reinforcements are quick to join the battle and push back onto the highground catching a bunch of probes maybarding to Bisu’s expansion at Gaema Gowon.
Bisu gets pressured by Flash’s vultures, and he started to lose it. Flash holds his ground and manages to kill everything that Bisu has. Meanwhile Flash has expanded to the Xeno Sky main – grabbing the economic edge. As goliaths arrive for Flash, it is only a matter of time before Bisu can’t defend. Artbiters begin to fall – and despite some nice stasis use he can’t save himself from Flash’s might. After struggling for a while longer he is forced to gg.
This game is a testament to Flash’s macro. He always had a healthy stream of units ready to push forward. He lost the majority of the battles throughout the game, but he simply out macroed bisu and forced him further and further back and eventually won. However, Bisu made some stupid decisions along the way. He should have never attacked 3 – it was too heavily fortified while Flash’s natural was basically empty. If he had stormed his nat instead of his mineral only then the result may have been different.
Flash 1:1 Bisu
Game 3 - Katrina
Katrina has been taking a lot of flak recently for being a Carrier-only map. But what many people fail to realize is that there is an alternative. And obviously that alternative is the one Bisu chose today – the arbiter build. While the use of this build as a viable option on Katrina is debatable, it should be noted that Flash’s only loss on Katrina against Protoss was to an arbiter build.
Indeed, that was the first instance of Arbiters being used on Katrina. Pusan, a well known arbiter whore, opened with extensive Arbiter recall against Flash on Katrina. Even though Pusan’s obsession with Arbiters gradually led to a decline in his performance, the game is a testament to all the sexiness we’re no longer exposed to. His brutal arbiter use made poor Flash constantly move his army from his natural forward to his center expansion and just ran him into the ground. You can read up on this game here.
While that game was a long time ago, more recently Best has shown very Pusan-esque games on Katrina. In his ODT group Best showed an equally impressive performance and literally ran Hwasin ragged. It was a beautiful thing to watch. So despite this build being in the minority it give the surprise edge to the Protoss and makes for very entertaining games. Bisu has also experimented with this style before – but only just managed to squeeze through with it.
Obviously, Flash’s revolutionary build had the perfect counter to this arbiter usage in the form of mass science vessels with EMP. We’ll have to wait and see how future games pan out on this map when arbiters are used.
Someone had whispered in Flash’s ear as he had a marine running around doing some scouting duties. Immediately, the marine found the proxy robo and Bisu’s plans were in trouble. Flash started a fast engineering bay for turrets and left the proxy buildings alone. Bisu added reaver tech in his main and pressured Flash’s wall with some dragoons, but were scared off eventually by siege. Bisu also expanded to his natural.
Flash began to fortify his base with perimeter turrets, but he was too slow. The shuttle began to lift Dragoons into Flashs base. But Flash remained calm, and stopped the elevator quickly with his tanks. Bisu took the opportunity to position his reaver at Flash’s entrance and take a shot at his min line, the scarab however killed nothing. Bisu flew his shuttle around looking for another shot – but ultimately he could find nothing.
Flash spotted something bizarre waiting on the low ground outside his main. A reaver from the proxy robo had creeped forward towards the cliff, Flash took no mercy and three tanks blew the poor reaver straight to Protoss hell. Bisu took his center expansion and Flash got his armory up ready to produce goliaths. Bisu continued to add gateways but was missing the obligatory stargate. It looked like Bisu was playing Katrina as if it were any other normal map as Bisu decided to ditch Carrier tech all together.
Bisu pressured Flash’s wall and almost managed to kill a floating e-bay – but Flash’s tanks quickly moved into position and killed two dragoons making Bisu’s pressure worthless. Flash pushed forward towards his center expansion as his Command Center floated into position. Finally Flash clears the proxy robo with some Vultures and Bisu walls off the 12 position with Pylons ready for an expansion.
Bisu finally has two stargates in his base but they aren’t making Carriers. He is going for the ever so sexy Arbiter build. Flash knows this, and already has a science vessel ready for action. Bisu shows balls and adds a third stargate, but Flash has already prepared for Recalls with mass perimeter turrets and a plethora of mines lain in his main. Flash’s macro is insane as he has a huge ball of metal ready for Bisu.
Bisu ventures towards Flash’s center expansion with his Arbiter assisted army but a sweet EMP on top of the whole army forces Bisu to retreat. Bisu’s army grows in diversity as he adds High Templar to his mix and they are effective immediately. Bisu pushes towards Flash’s setup and with some awesome storms he manages to clear out Flash’s entire army. He continues to push forward into the center expansion where Flash’s reinforcements are waiting.
After seeing the mass of set up tanks he decides to send some probes in for some reason unbeknown to me. The probes obviously are massacred but it looks like Bisu is losing the mental struggle (he already built 2 observatories this game). Flash expands to the mineral only of 12 and rebuilds his forces. A small group of vultures runs around trying to kill probes at various expansions but only manages to kill a few before dying. Bisu also decides to expand to 5.
As Bisu looks to get aggressive by moving onto Flash’s center high ground another perfect EMP forces him to rethink his options. Bisu regroups his ball in the middle of the map and Flash seizes the moment to lay a blanket of EMP over his forces making his High Templar and Arbtiers completely useless. Flash moves his army north looking to pressure 12. Bisu has been concealing two Arbiters from the EMP storm and it is ready to recall. They drift over to Flash’s fortified base and recall an army on top of many mines. The result was a pile of goon goo and vaporized Zealots.
Flash took the moment to crush Bisu’s mineral only expansion and send an attacking party to 12. Bisu responded to moving in and crushing Flash’s center expansion and storming all his workers at Flash’s mineral only expansion. A lone dark templar saves the 12 natural from death, but the game is looking bleak for Bisu. A strong force of Tank/Vult moves in and attacks Bisu’s hidden expo at 5. Bisu is forced to use a defensive recall to defend his base.
Flash moves quickly with his new vultures and they immediately go for 12. But Bisu has different plans as he recalls Flash’s mineral only forcing a mass evacuation. Flash raids the 12 natural scoring a healthy dose of probes for his efforts. Meanwhile Flash has pushed into Bisu’s hidden expansion again but some clutch Arbiter use (stasissing the vessels then recalling an army) is enough to force Flash back. Flash has also expanded to the center expansion at 6. Despite a nice EMP, Bisu is able to get a recall in at Flash’s new expo – but the forces are quickly overwhelmed by the defenders. Flash again pressures 12 but is sent home by Bisu. Bisu recalls the center expo at 6 again, but this time he is able to kill the CC. Flash pushes 5 at the same time, this time he is victorious and destroys the base.
Bisu is dangerously low on probes and expansions, while Flash’s economic situation is much brighter with 4 bases and plenty of SCVs. But two HT at his mineral only periodically send SCVs to heaven making one of his bases useless. Flash EMPs some more Arbiters, prevent any further recalls for the time being. The armies collide outside Bisu’s mineral only and despite Bisu’s best efforts – his army is obliterated. Flash expands to 5 – keeping his mining base count at 3.
Flash assaults 12 with a large clump of tanks forcing probes to retreat to the natural. Bisu moves in and attacks the center expo at 6, but once again is crushed mercilessly. As his final dragoons pop open he realizes the game is lost and concedes.
For those of you who couldn’t follow that game this is what happened. Bisu screws up his opening and gets way behind. He then gets 3 gate arbiters which keep on being EMP’d preventing them from being effective. Then the game descends into madness with between 2~3 things happening all at the same time then finally Bisu runs out of steam and loses. It was an excellent game full of clutch moments. Flash simply outclassed his opponent on this map and it was a beautiful thing – his macro and EMP use won the game for him without a doubt.
Flash 2:1 Bisu
Game 4 - Blue Storm
Bisu has a history of losing on Blue Storm. Whether it be to GGPlay in invitational events, or Jaedong is super hyped up events or even to players like iloveoov one has to wonder – why does he suck so bad? Without a doubt this map is his Achilles heel – I wouldn’t count on Bisu winning a game on here against any S class gamer. But what’s interesting is that Bisu doesn’t have a map that he is particularly strong on unlike most gamers.
Cast a thought back to So1; Pusan had Neo Forte, Anytime had Ride of Valkyries, Boxer had Lim-Point while Oov had bananas. They all had their strong points and they milked them as hard as they could. However more recently players have been less dominant on one particular map and relatively good on all four. In Proleague you get map specialization in most teams, but those players are not making the individual leagues more and more often.
This is a troubling thought as the dynamics of the individual leagues are changing from the team leagues. While monsters in the individuals do really well in the team leagues it doesn’t quite work the other way. Sea, Pusan and Darkelf spring to mind when I’m talking about this. They are absolute monster in the team leagues but always fall short in the individual leagues.
The map specialization is hurting them in my opinion. It turns them into one map wonders, and now that Proleague uses a different set of maps to OSL/MSL map specialization in a non-league map just is terrible. Perhaps great players need to be exposed to a greater variety of maps or only used on League maps to cure this problem because well, I don’t want to see the same amount of garbage that there was in this OSL in the next.
Flash mines up and waits for his first tanks to roll off the production line. Bisu has teched to reaver and has his shuttle out ready to harass while he simultaneously takes his third base. Some scouting vultures see the Shuttle – and Flash already has goliaths prepared to ward off the harass. Rather than risk his valuable reaver, he returns home with his shuttle. Flash starts his 3rd CC and a Starport as Bisu moves across the map with a small force of Dragoons.
The dragoons move into Flash’s min only just as Flash pushes out to take the base – the two armies skirmish briefly before Bisu retreats. Bisu once again opts for Arbiters as his late game weapon of choice as his templar tech and stargate finish. Flash sieges up the high ground and takes the bottom right expansion. Bisu has his forces positioned in the crevice in the middle of the map – not exactly the best position for an army. Bisu has also expanded to the top left corner and to 12.
Bisu then drops two high templar in Flash’s natural. Much to the dismay of fans, commentators and yours truly; they just sit there looking lifeless. Whether they had storm teched or if Bisu just got lazy I have no idea – but it gave Flash time to retreat his SCVs and time to kill the HT with vultures. Bisu also came with a reaver which tried to take shots at Flash’s SCVs. But at the end of the day it didn’t kill squat. All it did was force Flash to run his SCVs around. Golaiths dispatched the shuttle and the reaver with ease.
Bisu had amassed a large army but was remaining massive against Flash’s impressive tank line. Bisu once again went for 3 gate arbiters and Flash once against amassed an impressive turret defense in his main. However, the first recall target was Flash’s expo at the bottom right – which was snuffed out by an EMP and a huge army. Both players took their time to add more units to their armies and Bisu decided to add 4 more stargates at his top left expansion for carriers.
Bisu readied two arbiters to recall Flash’s main – and as some cliffed dragoons killed some turrets an arbiter stormed in and recalled instantly. Flash scrambled to defend as the recall did an impressive amount of damage. Bisu then recalled Flash’s new expo at 6 – forcing a full retreat. Another recall in Flash’s main added more misery and he only just defended. The first carriers popped for Bisu, and he recalled into Flash’s main for a third time. This time Flash was waiting for him and the recall was killed without worry.
Flash moved across the map with an impressive metal army and Bisu recalled an empty expansion at 6 – the recall was cleared without worry. But now Bisu had 8 Carriers ready. A combination arbiter/carrier army laid waste to Flash’s army which had pushed towards 12 (and killed the nexus). The carriers raided Flash’s main and Flash sent goliaths to defend while moving across the map with an impressive army.
An awesome battle broke out when Flash pushed towards 12 but ultimately Flash held his ground and forced Bisu to retreat temporarily. Bisu made a move against the newly restored base at 6 – but was intercepted by Flash’s defending squad. An insane fight between carrier and goliath broke out as Golaiths chased the Carriers around the map. Carriers went and attacked Flash’s main but newly built goliaths defended well.
Despite having a full fleet of (empty) carrires and a small ground army Bisu could not win this game. He was forced to concede the series to Flash.
This was a truly impressive game from both sides. Flash held his ground well against Bisu’s tech switch and his macro was impressive. However, I couldn’t help but feel that Bisu’s switch to Carrier was a bad idea. He should have persisted with his recall efforts – which were achieving really good results. That being said, he allowed Flash to take the entire right half of the map and put himself at an economic disadvantage. Nevertheless it was an entertaining game.
Flash 3:1 Bisu
So there you have it; after much patience the OSL finally rewards us with games worthy of being called a semifinals. Flash and Bisu played brilliantly throughout the series, but full props to Flash for sealing it 3-1. Games 3 and 4 were truly epic and nailbitingly tense. The number of perfectly placed and timed EMPs in Game 3 was staggering as was the tension in the final set with everything riding on a fleet of carriers. Definitely check both of those games out if you haven't already!
Tune in next week same time (Friday 18:30) to check out the other epic Semi-final between Stork and Luxury! I changed the format for this report, if you like it better please say so - if you want me to revert back to how I was doing it before say so as well.
Until then
