Bracket by SilverskY

Upmagic opens with a proxy ebay, delaying Effort's natural hatch. Effort quickly pulls drones to kill it and puts down a pool and extractor. Up follows that up with a 14cc, starting his rax slightly before Efforts pool finishes. The rush distances on Carthage are long, and Up timed his bunker perfectly. Effort gets a fast lair while Up goes for a factory. Effort sneaks three slowlings through, and while three isn't a lot, they do their best to stay alive and disrupt timing. Effort gets speed and sneaks ten more lings through, which occupy Up's vulture and delay turrets. By the time the lings are dead, Efforts mutas are there, and Up doesn't have enough turrets. Up only has one goliath and one valk to and seveal misplaced turrets to deal with the mutas at his natural. The valk quickly dies to scourges and Up is in trouble. Losing your first valkyrie to nothing when doing such a greedy build (1 fac, 1 port) is extremely costly, and Up can never recover, losing his nat and the game.

Effort drone scouts on 9, and 12 hatches behind that while making an offensive gas in Up's main. Up 1-rax expands, kills the gas, and goes for two port wraiths. Efforts first lings do some cosmetic damage, but his second eight speedlings get into the main, scouting the wraiths, killing a vulture, and are generally very disruptive. Up's wraiths don't do much damage, and Effort is already at 3-hatch muta, with his double gas base morphing. Up adds a port and goes for valk-wraith, which is a creative strategy but ultimately doomed. Effort didn't go all-in on 2-hatch muta, instead expanding and using his mutas for control rather than offense. Up's air force is superior, but Effort switches to hydra-lurk, giving him map control and denying Up's expansions with drops. By the time Up has mech units to move out, his army is pitifully small compared to Effort's gigantic hydra-lurker-muta group, backed by hive and defilers on the way. Effort simply rolls over Up's weird strategy.

Both players open expand and make a ton of vultures. Both players proceed to make a lot of tanks and split the map, but Iris gains a big advantage with a few well-timed wraiths. Hwasin eventually recovers with goliaths, but Iris has taken an extra gas base, and this allows him to add dropships to his large ground army. Hwasin's largely tank army is immobile, unable to attack Iris' bases, and he doesn't have the gas to keep making an army and add dropships. Iris adds a ton of factories, and uses his fleet of dropships to repeatedly outposition and out drop Hwasin, whose final SCV-led push break fails miserably.

Iris opens FE, getting a cc before his first factory. Hwasin goes for fac-cc, and there's a pause to solve some technical issues before the game resumes. Iris ups his factory count while Hwasin takes his third, and then executes a picture-perfect break on Hwasin's line of tanks, drawing fire with his vultures while sieging. Iris takes his own third. Hwasin' loses a few SCVs to a vulture raid at his nat, and then his counter fails to break Iris' tank line. The result is both players on three bases, but Iris with the larger army, better map position, and more SCVs. Iris just walks his big army up to Hwasins third and destroys it, and Hwasin taps out.

The game opens standard 12-hatch against FE into sair-archives. Kal tries very hard to use probes to get into Jaedong's main, and finally gets one through, spotting four slow hydras walking forward. Kal reacts by adding several cannons, while Jaedong's slow hydras kill the gate and forge. Kal waits, and waits, but no hydra break comes, because sneaky Jaedong has instead morphed a lair at his third base, adding hatches and drones. Jaedong only had four slow hydras and a handful of zerglings, and forced Kal to severely delay his extra gates. Kal's DT only gets one or two drone kills before being dispatched, and now Kal was facing a full lair tech Zerg with a better eco. Jaedong has scourge to deal with sairs, and lurkers out before Kal's robo is finished. Kal moves out, taking his third, but Jaedong mass drops Kal's main, which includes a single lurker dropped at Kal's nat which gets a ton of probe kills. This forces Kal's army to come back, while Jaedong takes another base. This happens a few more times, Kal unable to move out while Jaedong counter-drops, and eventually Kal cannot replenish his army because he has no gates. Jaedong does one final attack on Kal's third, and it's over.

Standard openings for both players, Jaedong going 12-hatch into scourge and lurkers and Kal going FE into sair templar. Kal attempts to secure a third, killing two lurkers with archon-zealot splash, but its eventually shut down by lots of speedlings. Jaedong makes a muta switch, and Kal is unprepared, losing many probes in his main. Kal's speedlot counter fails to do much damage, as Jaedong already has hydras and his mutas return to clean it up. Jaedong is now running on four bases and 6+ hatches, while Kal has failed to secure a third, and doesn't even have storm when Jaedong attacks with hydra muta. The attack breaks Kal's natural, and the game mercifully ends. Great game management by Jaedong or horrible play by Kal, either way, Kal never seemed to have a chance this game.

Bisu opens gate-expo into DT drop, while Fantasy does an FD, expanding while laying a few mines. Bisu's drop does decent damage, but is driven off by a wraith. Fantasy gets a dropship, but Bisu is ready in his main, killing the vultures without taking any damage. Fantasy takes a third and drops again, but doesn't get very many kills. Bisu makes sure to secure his eco against drops and techs to arbiter as he takes his third. Both players on three bases should favor the Terran, but Fantasy has lost some SCVs and vultures while doing no real damage with harass. Fantasy then does his tanks-in-dropship with ground vultures attack, which is more successful, but Bisu snuffs it before it does too much damage. Both players take a fourth, and Bisu attacks right then, blowing through Fantasy's spread-too-thin tank line with a well timed stasis on a vessel. Fantasy's third base is destroyed, and his forces are split between his fourth and his natural, and Bisu just runs him over after that.

Bisu sends two early probes out, checking for Fantasy's location, then proxies two gates in Fantasy's back natural. Fantasy walls, completely oblivious until two zealots happily stroll into his main. Fantasy's response is actually quite good: he gets a bunker and his factory completed, but some nice zealot micro kills all but three SCVs. Bisu's eco is largely intact, and even though he loses both gates and the pylon, is way ahead. Both players expand, but Bisu has the larger army and better tech. After squashing a Fantasy drop on his back natural, Bisu eventually just steamrolls through Fantasy's front natural.

Piano 14cc's, and Canata reads him like a book, going for proxy rax, fac, and starport. Piano's bunker is too far fowrad, allowing Canata to run by with his first few vultures. It's a slippery slope from there, as Piano is unable to defend from Canata's marine, then vulture, then wraith, then siege tank attacks without pulling (and losing) a ton of SCVs. Canata easily takes the game.

Canata goes fac-cc while Piano opts for fac-port. Canata gets two ports himself after expanding, and while he takes some damage from cloaked wraiths, is able to defend rather easily, even taking a third base. Piano's expansion is dreadfully late, and Canata's third has two gas, allowing him to make more wraiths and tanks that easily crush Piano's natural before Piano can even start macroing fully.

Kwanro opens 12-hatch while Flash goes rax-cc without making a single marine. Kwanro does a speedling attack, but Flash defends, losing several SCVs and marines. Kwanro then tries a second speedling attack with the same number of lings, and this time gets into the main, killing a medic and disrupting turret timing. Flash clearly is expecting muta, making anti-air turrets, but Kwanro has gone lurker break. Flash is completely unprepared, with no scan and only one bunker when four lurkers blow through his natural and into his natural. Well executed aggressive play by Kwanro.

Flash 14ccs while Kwanro goes 2-hatch muta. The advantage from the earlier cc is clear: Kwanro's lings do less damage, his mutas face faster turrets and mm. Credit to Kwanro for holding his third and getting to hive and defilers off three gas, but Flash has achieved freight train mode and cannot be stopped. Flash's huge Terran ball, complete with a cloud of Vessels, rolls Kwanro over after a very successful opening.

Kwanro 12-hatches and Flash expands after making two marines from one rax. Flash rushes to vessel, staying on two raxes. Kwanro takes his back natural and double gas, and the race is on. The Zerg player on Outsider often rushes hive and makes a dozen sunkens, hoping to stall for his hive tech, because he can easily hold 4+ gas. It's the job of the Terran to break him before then. Even though Flash rushed vessel, his turrets were late and slightly out of position, allowing Kwanro to inflict a decent amount of damage with mutas. Flash is unable to break Kwanro before hive tech is achieved -- Kwanro is getting all three: guards, defiler, and ultra. Flash's vessels find the morphing guardians, but his dropships are late. Kwanro has reached critical mass and upgrades with his army, and Flash is nowhere close to breaking him. It's only a matter of time now, because a 3-base Terran simply cannot fight 4+ gas hive zerg, no matter how good you are at control. That's exactly what happens: Kwanro's ultras, swarm, and lings whittle down and destroy Flash's SK army, and the #1 Terran is out of the MSL.

Calm opens 12-pool while Forgg opens 2-fac before expo, making lots of goliaths. Instead of attacking, he expands. He doesn't make turrets, so when he finally moves out, he immediately gets countered by Calm's mutas. Forgg's army comes back and chases the mutas, but after they get a ton of SCV kills. Forgg moves out, again barely leaving any defense, and gets countered by mutas again. This happens repeatedly until Calm has a huge army and can finally crush Forgg. Credit Calm for making the obvious play, but extremely stubborn and illogical decision making by Forgg.

Forgg 8-raxes and bunker rushes, following it up with a vulture. Forgg tries to get into the main, but Calm does a very good job of blocking with his drones and lings. Meanwhile, Calm has already started spire, and Forgg's backup plan seems to be speed vulture runby. Unfortunately, its extremely badly timed, and vulture speed completes only after mutas are already out. Forgg kills just about every drone in Calm's main, but it doesn't matter: he has no defense for air units, so Calm wins with his mutas despite barely any drones mining.

Game opens standard, with Pure going FE into sair templar and Zero making scourge and lurkers. Pure masses an impressive army, but simply is unable to crack the three screens of lurker hydra ling that Zero lays out. There's two ways to win this type of game: be super aggressive, breaking it head on with superb control, or sitting back, taking bases, and harassing. Pure chooses the first option, but simply does not have the storm or large army control to pull it off. He attacks Zero's mass of lurker hydra ling several times, but is never close to fully breaking through. Soon, Zero has hive and is operating off 4+ gases, and the game is over.