Both players opened gate-robo reaver obs expo. Kal sacrificed three goons to snipe Jangbi's first reaver:

After a brief macro period, Jangbi was caught halfway up Kal's back natural ramp, and as a result lost the fight:

The slippery slope of modern PvP put Kal well ahead in the next fight, with over a group of units left over. In the process, Kal took a third base.

Miraculously, Jangbi was able to break contain. Kal's goon-heavy army was crushed by Jangbi's more efficient archon zealot templar mix.

Jangbi took a third and relentlessly dropped Kal's back natural and third base:

This swung the game in Jangbi's favor and he eventually broke Kal's natural and main:

An amazing comeback for Jangbi, who was quite behind at one point. This game showed how quickly things can change in PvP. If Kal had made an extra round of zealots instead of dragoons or a few more templar he wins this easily.

Both players chose to open standard. The first action was Kal storm dropping Jangbi's main, getting a decent number of probe kills.

As a result, Kal was ahead economically, but was stormed to death in the first battle due to his templars being used in the raid.

However, Kal's econ advantage showed, and his next few waves of units overwhelmed Jangbi's storms and took out Jangbi's third:

Kal took his own third and eventually steamrolled Jangbi's army.

A solid and decisive win. It would have played out differently had Kal's storm drop failed. Like game one, this game showed how PvP can hinge on something as "minor" like running probes a split second late.

Kal had the momentum going into this game, and it seemed he had the upper hand when he contained Jangbi at his main ramp with three gate goon versus Jangbi's two gate reaver obs.

However, Jangbi uses his quicker tech to drop reavers at Kal's nat. While this didn't kill very many probes, Jangbi was able to force several of Kal's goons to defend and used this distraction to break out.

Behind in tech and units, Kal was getting desperate. His attempt at picking off Jangbi's reavers ended in disaster:

Jangbi followed up with a reaver drop in Kal's main and a successful attack at Kal's nat.

Kal's FPV showed him targeting observers and pushing Jangbi back with DTs. But it was too little too late, and Jangbi's superior unit count prevailed once another obs arrived.

It was clear Jangbi had practiced against the ramp contain situation, and he executed the drop / breakout maneuver brilliantly.

Up 2-1, Jangbi gambled with proxy gates in the middle of the map while Kal went for the standard gate assim. Kal unluckily scouted west instead of north, and did not see the gates until too late.

The game turned into a micro war, and while Kal did a decent job of keeping his one dragoon alive, he was unable to kill Jangbi's zealots before their numbers became too large.

Jangbi pylon prisoned Kal's second dragoon, taking it out along with Kal's only gateway.

Kal was left with one cannon, one red health dragoon, and an inferior economy against five zeals. Jangbi moved in and finished him off.

I'm not sure if Jangbi would have done this strategy had he been down 1-2, but his proxy was a calculated gamble, executed perfectly at the right time in the series.

Free was going to open standard robo obs reaver. I knew this. The announcers knew this. The booth girls knew this. If we all knew Free would open standard, Bisu certainly did as well. Accordingly, Bisu did the most greedy, abusive one gate core expand build he could, adding two gates after the nexus.

As a result, Bisu's expansion was warped in before Free's was even started, and Bisu was adding his sixth gate and third base as Free was adding his third and fourth gates. Free's only way back was to exploit his slightly faster tech, but Bisu moved in and traded his entire goon army for two of Free's reavers:

Losing the second reaver was a micro mistake by Free. He did not need to drop it and did not pick it up fast enough. Perhaps he forgot the reaver was low health. Regardless, the error closed the only window Free had to take back the game.

The next battle pitted Bisu's larger goon zealot force against Free's dragoons and two reavers. Bisu's econ and gateway advantage proved too much:

Free was completely outsmarted and out-executed this game, and it set the tone for the rest of the series. Next time Free plays a best of five, you can bet that his opening build won't be so transparent.

Bisu opened robo obs reaver and Free opened four gate goon. Four gate goon automatically dies to dark templar, but the PvP build order gods were on Free's side. Four gate goon against two gate robo should be an easy Free win.

Except Free didn't win. His attack came slightly early, but his eight goons and one zeal still should have beaten Bisu's six goons and two zeals, especially given Free's extra rallied gates:

However, Bisu used his probes and warped a front pylon to draw fire, barely holding.

This bought time for Bisu's reaver to complete, and he set up a defense that Free couldn't penetrate.

Seeing no robotics in Free's main, Bisu proceeded toward dark templar and Free tapped out when he saw Bisu drop two of them outside his main.

Just amazing defense by Bisu. This game defied the laws of PvP. It was scissors beating rock, one of those rare situations in PvP where only the absolute best can come out on top. Yes, Free got antsy and attacked early. Yes, if Free micro'd better or waited one more round of dragoons, he would've been able to break through. But only someone as good as Bisu could hold in a situation like this. Amazing, amazing defensive micro from the Revolutionist.

Bisu opened proxy 9-gate at Free's natural, and then successfully manner pyloned him:

While this is a bold strategy that fit a player up 2-0, Bisu erred in attempting to outmicro Free's zealots and probes. This was a poor choice because Free is simply one of the best at lower tier unit micro. Bisu needed to vastly outmicro his opponent for this 9-gate proxy to succeed, and that just was not going to happen with Free defending.

Bisu made five zealots out of that one gate but was only able to kill six probes. One cool moment was one of Free's zealots getting three kills with three consecutive hits on Bisu's harassing red health zeals.

Bisu did not do the damage he needed and was behind going into midgame. Both players opted for dark templars, but Free was able to secure his natural earlier with cannons. Bisu barely held off the DTs, using probes and units to block while his cannons warped in.

Bisu took his third while storm dropping, but Free ran probes instantly. Had Bisu picked a better angle to fly in, he might have been able to get some. Behind in macro, Bisu pulled probes to defend his third, but was unsuccessful.

Down a base, Bisu took his back natural but twice was caught with his army out of position during Free's attacks. Left with no options, Bisu gambled and countered Free's third, taking out the nexus:

However, once Free's army returned, Bisu realized there was nothing he could do, and typed out.

Free did a very good job of defending the early zealot harass and subsequently preserving his economic lead.

In a similar situation as Jangbi last series, Bisu wanted to end it early and went for fast DTs. Free opened four gate goon rush again, this time proxying three gates.

Unfortunately for Free, DTs beat a mass goon timing attack. Free's four dragoon and one zealot faced off against three defending goons as Bisu's DT traveled across the map. Free killed a lot of Bisu's probes before freshly produced dark templar defended, but it didn't matter how many probes Bisu lost as long as his DT could take out Free's main.

Bisu's single DT was already at Free's ramp when the cannons were started, but with some miraculous probe micro, Free was able to "confuse" the DT for an amazing 22 seconds so a cannon could warp in. It was truly one of those I-can't-believe-it moments:

Free's "Great Probe Wall" was a cute trick, but ultimately it didn't matter. Bisu was too far ahead, and Free had to absurdly rally back to his main from his proxy gates. The game turned into pseudo elimination race where Bisu's goons hammered Free's nexus outside the range of his cannons, while Free's goons countered into Bisu's main.

Bisu successfully defended with probes and freshly made goons. When Free lost his nexus, he typed out.

Player / Matchup / Last 10 / Last 3 Months / Head-to-Head
Bisu / PvP / 7-3 / 10-4 / 0-0
JangBi / PvP / 7-3 / 7-3 / 0-0