En Taro Quarterfinals
The same weekend that saw the WCG take place saw the remaining two quarterfinal games between free and NaDa and Bisu and firebathero. With no Zerg in sight, it fell to the Terran players to stem the tide of Protoss dominance. As to how well they did? Well, let's just say this is a good time to be a Protoss fan.
NaDa vs free
The constant apple of Woongjin Stars' eye, free's performance of late has been much lauded, and rightly so. Exquisite micro, excellent timing and good judgement have been the prominent factors in his game. As an added plus, he has faced NaDa earlier in the tournament, in the group stage to be precise, and triumphed. NaDa, it must be said, will always be a winner, but he had nothing to pit against his Protoss adversary in this series.
Game 1 @ Medusa
Nada, starting out in the top left, decided to try a 2 factory opening while free, who spawned in the bottom starting location, went for a one gate reaver build. Now, when watching this short but sweet game, pay particular attention to what happens when NaDa pushes out with his angry Terran forces. As NaDa starts penetrating into free's base, his reaver just finishes warping in. Now, all free needs to do is micro his dragoons to avoid and take out the mines and vultures, use his reaver to support his troops and use a zealot to drag a spider mine into all NaDa's marines. The vultures keep streaming in, but while they do manage to kill a fair number of probes, NaDa is eventually forced to retreat home to defend against the incoming reavers.
The shuttle couldn't quite drop off it's deadly payload, being hounded by siege tanks as it was, so free sends in six dragoons, followed by two more, to take out a number of tanks and a few goliaths, while his reavers are dropped off during the battle to inflict some pain upon NaDa's SCVs. When the dust settles NaDa has barely any SCVs left alive, prompting him to surrender.
Game 2 @ Destination
On a roll from the last game, free plays the proxy card the following game, and plays it well. While his gateway was warping in by the bridges leading to NaDa's natural, free's probe was dancing around, preventing the factory from being placed for a few crucial moments. When the zealots started pouring in, NaDa's marines were being pushed around by one zealot while the other handled any SCV who dared work on completing the factory. With some effort, the factory finishes and the vulture starts to clean up the zealots, but the losses have been felt. A number of marines and SCVs bit the dust, putting NaDa in an uncomfortable place. free simply waited until he had four dragoons before storming up the ramp, killing the vulture, marines and tank that were guarding it before proceeding to clean up NaDa's remaining SCVs. NaDa types in GG.
Game 3 @ Athena 2
What would be the final game of the set offered no tomfoolery from either player, but rather a more straight up macro oriented game. NaDa, who spawned in the 10 o clock point, went for a single factory siege expand build with an early armory, showing no intention of moving out anytime soon. free, who started out at the 2 o clock spot, expanded off two gateways, adding one more and expanding yet again shortly thereafter. The game remained completely uneventful the first few minutes, as both players added production buildings and pumped out units to their hearts' content.
The first clash would come just as NaDa was about to move out of his base. His tanks were forced to siege in a large clump as he saw the Protoss forces rushing in, meaning he had no vultures or mines to shield them from the mass of zealots who rushed in and started tearing things up. free pulled back, but not before killing most of NaDa's forces. free took this opportunity to expand yet again, while NaDa regrouped and rebuilt his army. The process of rebuilding is slower for Terran than for Protoss when both armies have been decimated, so free had the edge in the following encounters. NaDa tried to expand, but free's army supported by some pretty storms pushed him further and further back. With the aid of arbiters free pushed his way into NaDa's natural expansion and the Tornado Terran had lost the third and final set.
firebathero vs Bisu
When firebathero first ended up in that Group-o-Protoss earlier this fall everyone was sure he had gone completely bonkers. An all-Protoss group, with his dubious TvP skills? Then he stumped everyone by defeating first Much and then Bisu, before moving on to take out Tempest in the Ro16. Bisu came out second in that group, thwarted Hwasin and proceeded to plot his revenge against this upstart Terran. Then, when the big match came, FBH had reverted to his normal, uninspiring TvP self, while Bisu was looking as sharp and deadly as ever. There was no real contest to be found here.
Game 1 @ Medusa
firebathero started out at the bottom position and Bisu at the top right position. Some paranoia must've crept into FBH's mind, for he made no less than 7 marines to accompany his tank as he moved out of his main. These marines seemed shocked to see actual enemy units however, and did a lot more running in circles than firing, causing both their own lives and the life of the tank they guarded to be forfeit. Bisu had gone for a quick reaver build which worked very well. In fact, the engineering bay of FBH wasn't even half done when the reaver landed and started wiping out SCVs and marines. Some dragoons pushed into the main, tried to kill off a few tanks but were driven off by siege mode. No matter, they proceeded to wipe out FBH's expansion, forcing his CC to lift off.
The shuttle with the reaver went home and picked up another one, only to drop them off near a cluster of four supply depots and wiping them all out, sending FBH far back into the red. There was no coming back for this and thus when Bisu pushed in there was nothing left to do for FBH. Bisu takes the first game comfortably.
Game 2 @ Destination
Bisu threw in the kitchen sink as this game started out. Proxy gateway? Check. Gas steal? Check. Manner pylon? Check. All this could've been much, much worse if FBH hadn't blocked off the zealots with supply depots, rendering the proxy quite useless. After fighting the proxy off, FBH decided to take his natural expansion and secured it with a bunker. Bisu double expanded while a couple of dragoons were pressuring said bunker and equilibrium was reached. FBH moved out with a small force a bit later and almost managed to take out the shuttle with the reaver in it, as it flew straight over his marine squad and then by a turret. As FBH set up his tanks outside the pylon wall at Bisu's second expansion in the top left, dragoons swarmed in and with reaver aid took them all out with no difficulty.
Some macroing ensued for both players, the armies growing rapidly. FBH commenced his slow push toward Bisu while Bisu's forces danced around to delay the said push. Eventually a battle broke out at a bridge crossing in the center of the map where Bisu managed to kill off a lot of tanks, but not quite enough to stop the push completely. Three tanks reached Bisu's second expansion and started shelling it. For some reason Bisu was perfectly fine with this, despite having a very large army at that point. What Bisu DID do was a nice recall amongst firebathero's factories, forcing the Terran army to move back and deal with it. A factory and a few other buildings went down, but no major damage done. Another detachment of Protoss units found part of FBH's army out of position close to FBH's second expansion. The expansion was summarily wiped out and after Bisu recalled yet again amongst the factories, FBH had no will to continue this game. Bisu is now up 2-0.
Game 3 @ Athena 2
It was time for firebathero to bring the fight to Bisu, instead of sitting back and taking slaps from reavers and recalls. The two factory opening he opted for was intended to do just that. The group of vultures that whizzed across the map could've been trouble for Bisu, had one of his probes not spotted them as they moved out. Bisu brought his dragoons to his choke and fended off the attack without too much difficulty. FBH then defended against the reaver harassment that ensued with great success, not letting that pesky robot slug hurt his economy, which was already lagging because of his choice of opening.
While the shuttle was hanging around FBH's base, Bisu put down two stargates and a fleet beacon as well as expanding. While fbh sat in his base, preparing to move out against Bisu, the carrier count grew. The two armies met in the center of the map somewhat later, where the carriers supported by dragoons had no difficulty wiping out the Terran force. The rest of the match was basically carriers roaming the map, interecepting what units they found and wiping them out. When the terran goliath ball was too large for this, the carriers started raiding the main of FBH instead. With his main mined out and his opponent overwhelmingly large, it seemed FBH should just GG and get out of the game. This didn't happen for a while, prompting Bisu to make a statement. As the armies clashed, a pair of scouts joined the battle, sending a clear message to his opponent. At last firebathero surrenders and storms out of the booth, leaving the Revolutionist to accept the cheers of his fans.
And So There Were Four
The Terrans have surrendered, the Zerg have scattered and only Protoss remain. First off JangBi gets to face off against Kal and then two days later it's time for free and Bisu to go at it. For anyone who loves to watch two groups of dragoons fire blue balls of death at each other, this is terrific, even though PvP monsters such as Stork and BeSt are absent. For anyone else, they'll just have to grin and bear it, hoping that it will turn into short, micro intense affairs instead of passive macro games.
Here's the map pool and the order: Medusa - Destination - Athena 2 - Byzantium 2 - Medusa
Thursday 13th of November - Kal vs JangBi
Kal arrives to the semis after a narrow win against reigning OSL champ Stork, and while this sounds rather impressive one must bear in mind that Stork was in fact practicing rather heavily for the OSL finals just a few days later. Despite this he still made Kal work for his wins. Now, Kal is not by any standards an unworthy contestant for the spot in the finals, it's just that he can hardly be called consistent, not to mention that his records in the matchup are not that impressive either.
JangBi has looked comfortable throughout the MSL so far and has certainly looked comfortable elsewhere. While PvP is statistically his weakest matchup as well, he has won seven of his last ten matches against Protoss players. He may not have the morale boost of having trumped PvP monster Stork earlier in the tournament, but he's been looking sharp, very sharp in his play. While he lost his previous Bo5 against Kal, I have a feeling he'll pull through here without too much difficulty.
Writer's prediction: 3-1 to JangBi.
Saturday 15th of November - Bisu vs free
If you only had the opportunity to see one match, you should probably pick this one. Looking at both player's recent records, they have one major feature in common: They're mostly wins, even though Bisu has a slightly stronger PvP history than free. The former MSL champ is looking hungry for yet another win and has been letting noone get in his way. free has been the winning machine Woongjin Stars has needed to climb the proleague rankings and has only three losses to show over the span of this month. Predicting who is going to come out on top here is very difficult indeed, as it depends by and large on wether the players are having at their best on the day in question.
If pressed I would have to give the series to Bisu, but not without dropping at least two games to free. The reason is that while free is playing beastly, Bisu has been playing equally beastly and has more notches in his belt. He has been in finals and semi-finals plenty off times before and is more used to the intense pressure involved, whereas free may feel slightly more nervous as he approaches the ultimate goal.
Writer's prediction: 3-2 to Bisu
There you have it folks, nothing more remains to say. If you're able to, make sure to catch the first semifinal
between Kal and JangBi tomorrow!
Thanks to Teamliquid for statistics on the players.
