Big thanks to Daigomi for the banner
So we come to the twilight phase of Round 1 and glance back on what has already been a better tournament than Bacchus OSL. As strange as it may seem, we have come to the end of the first round of the OSL. Yes, that was very short! At the moment we have 12 players qualified for the OSL - and tonight we find the remaining 4 to join them. Regrettably, Manifesto7 was unable to save his report thanks to some computer troubles [read: power failure] so this post will be double length!
Group E was one of the better groups on show in the OSL. We had Sea/Deazang/Jangbi/Xellos all fighting for two spots - and what a show we were given. Breaking it down player by player how could you not be excited? Sea and Daezang are both similarly styled gamers and thus should create a really exciting game for us first up, while JangBi is on fire against a questionably formed Xellos. So let's see how everything went down in this group.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=YZa7q-Cm1Ys
+ Show Spoiler [Game Comments] +
Like i said in my preview post, when you get two players of similar style on a map that just begs for creativity and map abuse you're going to get a great game. Daezang opened up strong, but his lack of macro cost him in the long run. Sea played super agressive as well, true vintage Sea, which fully abused Daezang's slowing hands. That being said, this was an excellent game and a nice comeback win for sea.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wMOWS1QJ2Zo
+ Show Spoiler [game comments] +
This was a rather sad game for any Xellos fan. Jangbi really ran away with his reaver harass and well, put on an entertaining show for the viewers. Although Xellos was note happy - he did storm out of his booth looking unusually angry. Nevertheless Jangbi looked very solid
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CAp9Z2viwKM
+ Show Spoiler [game comments] +
This really was the most likely combination to advance, so no real upsets here. JangBi showed here that he's actually rather flexible and opted for Dark Templar drops - which proved to be very effective indeed. On top of that he decided to prove a point to Sea and followed up his Dark Templar antics with a fearsome macro - quite impressive actually. And with that victory he goes 9-1 against Terran in recent times with a 70% all time winrate against Terran; quite scary.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9su-vlhSltQ
+ Show Spoiler [game comments] +
Dark Templar seemed to be loved on this map - and i suppose for good reason. Daezang shows us his interpretation of DT on Andromeda again Xellos and once again find success with the little ninjas. From there he was firmly in control and built up a strong economy which in turn overran a badly underdeveloped Xellos. DT's seem to be coming back in fashion! On a random note, Daezang played with 300+ APM this game so he's not getting slower in his old age!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0YsaFxSnDoY
+ Show Spoiler [game comments] +
And so we see the two combatants from round one duke it out yet again - yay! On the sad side of things one of these truly great players needs to be eliminated... As noted in the previews, both players know how to exploit a map perfectly - and Daezang showed us this right at the start when he narrowed Sea's choke by killing his assimilators. And well, Daezang picked up from the strong start and followed into a strong and logical midgame. Then we entered the somewhat standard carrier vs expanding terran game which is always interesting to watch. And then Sea manages to macro up a ton of Goliaths and blasts his way to another comeback victory; moral of the day: if you dont' have the mechanics, you ain't going to qualify for a starleague
And thus, the results are as follows:
Sea > Daezang
Jangbi > Xellos
Jangbi > Sea <-- Jangbi advances!
Daezang > Xellos
Sea > Daezang <-- Sea advances!
And now comes the group i just can't be excited about.. None of these players are going to win the OSL and will be knocked out with relative ease in the nest round. Nevertheless this was my assigned group and i will do my best to remain professional no matter how boring these games are. Obviously i have about 0% interest in this very anti-climatic end to Rnd 1. Oh well.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=A876MA10ISQ
+ Show Spoiler [game comments] +
There was a mildly entertaining micro tussle at the start of the match, where upmagic got way behind when he lost way to many units early on. And then things just went down hill for upmagic.. His vulture tricks never really took off and Rock had his gameplan totally sorted - and he came away with the result. I can't blame him either - especially when your opponent plays so bad.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LuELW0byEak
+ Show Spoiler [game comments] +
This game was an epic failure.. Yarnc tried to do some cute stuff like sac'ing his overlord to scout for tech and BestGod doing some Dark Templar antics - but at the end of the day Yarnc was less of a handicap and raped BestGod with pure mutalisks. At least i can't be disappointed because i didn't have any expectations xD
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gNNsFACAHkY
+ Show Spoiler [game comments] +
I was actually surprised with this game. Rock reverted back to the incredibly manly Goon/Reaver strategy and Yarnc countered it beautifully with pure Hydra with burrow. There were critical moments where Yarnc was able to snipe critical shuttles and ultimately out play Rock and take the win. This game, i guess, it redemption for that last game
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5ukmizMMmi0
+ Show Spoiler [game comments] +
God was clearly begging UpMagic to win this game, most notably when BestGod gifted his Shuttle into Up's turrets, and his reaver's scarabs glitching on a clump of ~10 SCVs but alas... Up was not listening. This was a very uninspired game and a rather boring drawn out slug fest - and ultimately BestGod (against all odds) dominated UpMagic..
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ajZikEgJU_E
+ Show Spoiler [game comments] +
This game was an epic failure by BestGod. Well done on Rock using Dark Templars to win the path to victory.. and well what a very anti-climatic ending to Round 1 haha.
So, to recap;
Rock > UpMagic
Yarnc > BestGod <-- Yarnc advances!
Yarnc > Rock
BestGod > UpMagic
Rock > BestGod <-- Rock advances!
So.. to recap; here is the list of players in this seasons 'real' OSL.
Flash
Luxury
Stork
Bisu
GGPlay
BackHo
BeSt[HyO]
NaDa
Rumble
Much[gm]
July
InteR.Mind
JangBi
Sea
YellOw[ArnC]
Rock
And well, one can't help but be underwhelmed by that lineup - and most nostably the lack of Jaedong and Savior.
So what happens next? Well it's highly likely that there will be a group drawing for the OSL groups sometime this week - which should be awesome as always. And from there, we should have games the following week. Awesome Both myself and Mani well be there bringing you premiere coverage of this prestigious league (and please don't forget about it in the hype of TSL ) and you may just see the return of a certain long lost TL feature...
Until then!
Plexa