IEF 2009: Stork secures Korean supremacy

Song Byung "Stork" Goo was crowned the International Esports Festival 2009 champion as he defeated amateur player Lee Chul "Terror" Min in the grand final by 2-1.

Greg "IdrA" Fields showed class in the match for third place when scoring a close 2-1 against Okeksii "White-Ra" Krupnyk.

The CJ Entus player from USA could with his goliath army take down the Ukrainian player's carrier armada in the third game.

Former STX SouL player Terror - now retired from the professional scene - could swipe clean in Group A and eliminate the chance for star foreign players Jos "ret" de Kroon, Jamie "MidiaN" Hallam and Eugin "Strelok" Oparyshev to advance.

It was the least to say an unusual sight as three of five Koreans were eliminated in the group stage already. Luckily, the Korean pride could be saved as the grand final saw two home-field players locking horns.

Reigning two-time champion Kim Taek "Bisu" Yong lost to Wei "JayStar" Ding and Kim Jung "EffOrt" Woo in the group of death. EffOrt, predicted by many to go far, also suffered two defeats whereas Jun Chun "Pj" Sha could sail through with only one loss (to Bisu) and claim the playoff spot from Group B.

Legendary Terran icon Lim Yo "BoxeR" Hwan, who was invited by the IEF committee, was no where near his prime time when he ended third place in Group E. Albeit doing better than Bisu and EffOrt by capping three wins (RushGoon, Nazomen and Rekrul), the SK Telecom T1 player suffered defeat to on-song White-Ra and Eric "G5" Rothmuller.

Blake "Chill" Muzar - more known as a TeamLiquid staff member rather than a player taking part in high tier tournaments - surprised many by defeating the DuskBin player Liu Bo "LBH" Hao in the previous mentioned group.

The tournament will be remembered not only due to the foreign, Chinese and Koreans being on an even keel, but also for the strange format. As only one player advanced from each group into a playoff, the tournament administration decided to have all the players do a rock-paper-scissors round to determine the unlucky two players to fight off in a survival match prior to the semi finals. Sadly for the group B rocket Pj, he lost to Terror by 2-1 to miss the semi finals.

The semi finals saw Terror defeat White-Ra, while the other semi final leg witnessed Stork taking down IdrA, both Koreans coming out victorious 2-0.

Stork could then move on to take his second international gold medal. He has prior to this event one gold and two silver medals from international events - gold and silver at WCG 2007 and 2008 as well as a silver medal from last year's IEF tournament.