Proleague Season Starts!

[s]event_430[/s]

The first matches of the season in the 2007 ShinHan Bank Proleague featured MBC Hero and Cj Entus, the 1st and 2nd place winners of last seasons Proleague. MBC was in for a big night, but CJ fans were in for a slight upset.

The very first game of the year was featured live via streaming, courtesy of sc2.org.

The draw looked like this:

MBC Hero vs Lecaf OZ
Player	Map	Player
Light	Monty Hall	JaeDong
Sea.RuBy	Python	HiyA[fOu]
Saint[z-zone] n.Die_Jaehoon	Chariot of Fire	KT.MGW)GGAEMO BackHo[WHITE]
Bisu	Nemesis	AnyTime
ACE	Shin Peaks	ACE

The match opened up with Light against JaeDong on Monty Hall. Monty Hall was one of the new maps introduced in the SuperFight #5 recently. This map was not new to JaeDong as he had beaten Nada once already on the same map and in the same match up of Zerg vs Terran. However, Light had demonstrated much skill and timing as his play showed great planning and thought was put into his match. Light would eventually take the game and give MBC a 1 - 0 head start.

1 - 0 MBC

Next up was Sea.RuBy against Lecaf's HiyA[fOu] in a Terran mirror match up on Python. Python's starting locations are at 1, 2, 7, and 8 o'clock positions. Each base has it's own gas natural with a mineral nat sitting in between 1-2 and 7-8. Both players have the luck of spawning right beside each other with Sea.RuBy at 7 o'clock and HiyA[fOu] at 8 o'clock. They would battle it out, but eventually Sea.RuBy would come out as the victor. Sadly, I do not remember much from this game as it was at the time around 2:00am. None the less,

2 - 0 MBC

Without a single match won, OZ goes into what might be their final game desperate for a win. So it all comes down to a 2v2 for OZ to turn it around on MBC, a Protss/Zerg vs Protoss/Zerg on an new island map, Chariot of Fire. Saint[z-zone] and n.Die_Jaehoon represent MBC as they go up against OZ's KT.MGW)GGAEMO and BackHo[WHITE]. Both teams go for a mix of Mutalisk, Scourge, and Corsair airforce as they duked it out in the air. The OZ team would find trouble expanding mid way through the game as the MBC team tried hard not to let them expand, but eventually the OZ team would bring the fight to them over one of n.Die_Jaehoon's expansion at 6 o'clock. As the battles ensued the game and the match was sealed by Saint[z-zone]'s Hydralisk drops. With a final in sync "GG" from the OZ team, MBC would go on to sweep the match, completely shutting down OZ's first match of the season.

Final score:

MBC Hero 3 > 0 Lecaf OZ
Player	Match	Player
Light	>	JaeDong
Sea.RuBy	>	HiyA[fOu]
Saint[z-zone] n.Die_Jaehoon	>	KT.MGW)GGAEMO BackHo[WHITE]
Bisu	N/A	AnyTime
ACE	N/A	ACE

Cj Entus vs STX SouL

Three very long hours later Cj Entus and STX SouL were up on stage, and once again sc2.org had provided the streaming. Here are the match ups:

Cj Entus vs STX SouL
Player	Map	Player
Much	Nemesis	Siz)KaL
Sea.Jy	Python	Inter.Calm
Oversky TheManiaMST	DMZ	sOo[S.sIR] by.hero
IriS	Tau Cross	Ever)T(Sheis
ACE	Geometry	ACE

Much the popular player going into the match was up against Siz)KaL, the not so favoured player of the two. Each player took a corner on Nemesis as Much spawned at 5 o'clock and Siz)KaL spawned at 10 o'clock. Nemesis, like Blade Storm, has a natural behind the main base, but unlike Blade Storm, Nemesis' natural has a gas. Both players were head to head from the beginning of the match, meeting with each other in the middle in small skirmishes. Storms were casted here and there, but eventually Much's forces were forced back into his base. Siz)KaL decides to cannon Much in and take over the entire map. Much does get away with an expansion on the middle island at 6 o'clock but as the game went on Much could survive no longer. Several times Much tried to break free of Siz)KaL's contain using Arbiters and hallucinations, but it was futile and so the first win went to STX SouL.

1 - 0 STX

Already with a they jump ahead, Inter.Calm went into the 2nd round with a bit of cushioning from his teammates win in the last round, but Sea.Jy would see none of it. The details of this battle are unknown to me as Midas was making his way through the MSL Survivor League and thus I had missed most of this game. What I can tell you is, Sea.Jy takes it to make it a tied match.

1 - 1

Now came the 2v2 match on a map that used Disruption Webs as an obstacle. It was named, you guessed it, DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). This 2v2 map has six starting locations in an almost hexagonal form. In between each base is a trench filled with disruption webs, and on each base was a ramp leading into the trench. Unbeknownst to the STX team, near the end, could have possibly been that there were two ramps leading into the main base, one that led to the trenches, and one that led outwards from the center into a path that circled all six bases. From the way the STX pair had played, you would have thought that they didn't know there were two ramps to each base. I definately saw a "What? Two ramps?" look on sOo[S.sIR]'s face at the end.

2 - 1 Cj Entus

Next map, Tau Cross, no need for introduction. Now Cj was just one away from the win and the man to give it to them was IriS. He was in and ready for the kill, his opponent? Ever)T(Sheis. IriS, a definate favour in this one by most people was ready to win it for Cj, but Sheis stepped in his way. IriS spawned at 9 o'clock and Sheis as 6 o'clocl. From the beginning Sheis took slight advantages in a few skirmishes here and there. It wasn't until a drop by Sheis into IriS's base that struck a blow and thus began IriS's slow defeat. Push after push on to IriS's base resulted in heavy casualties to his SCVs, it wasn't until long that IriS had to throw in the towel and call it game.

2 - 2 STX ties it up.

The first Ace match of the season! A hero could emerge from either one of the teams today, who would it be? STX SouL decides to send out Inter.Calm, who was possibly trying to make up for the loss to Sea.Jy in the 2nd round. And from Cj Entus they sent out none other than SaviOr, the man that had reigned at the top of the Pro-gaming world for quite a while, but had recently taken a turn for the worst. Slumping horribly, could the Proleague be where he gains his momentum again?

The map is Geometry and both players take a top corner as Calm spawns at 11 o'clock and SaviOr as 2 o'clock. Both players do similar builds in their Zerg vs Zerg match up, but Savior, showing some great sense play in the beginning, decides to expand after his lair tech. This would turn out to be a fatal mistake as Calm upgrades his zergling speed and out produces SaviOr in zerglings. Finally the zergling forces meet and SaviOr's zerglings are ripped to shreds. As SaviOr goes all out to defend with a mixture of drones and zerglings, the game came to an end as Calm's mutalisks flew in to end the game. 3 - 2 STX SouL. SaviOr's slump continues and Calm redeems himself.

Final score:

Cj Entus 2 < 3 STX SouL
Player	Match	Player
Much	<	Siz)KaL
Sea.Jy	>	Inter.Calm
Oversky TheManiaMST	>	sOo[S.sIR] by.hero
IriS	<	Ever)T(Sheis
SaviOr	<	Inter.Calm

So their you have it folks, MBC Hero and STX SouL take the first wins of the new season.

Special thanks to sc2.org for streaming the live matches and TL.net for their pre-game report.

Links
SC2.org - Live Streams
TeamLiquid.net - Pre-game Info