Jaedong vs Bisu: The Game Was Out of Control

Wow. On July 6th, 2010, a resurgent Bisu and the always terrifying Jaedong faced off against each other in a game that is a strong candidate for game of the year. Coming into the game, Bisu and Jaedong were tied 4:4 head-to-head and they were playing on the map, Judgement Day, a slightly Z favored map against Protoss.



Jaedong spawned as Green Zerg at the 5 o'clock position while Bisu spawned at the 11 o'clock position as the orange Protoss. Cross positions implies there will not be some sort of early rush and favors a macro game.

Jaedong opens overpool and despite scouting this, Bisu, being the baller that he is, opts to go nexus before cannons. The reason I feel Bisu felt he could get away with a quick nexus was that he believed Jaedong did not know his spawn location. Of course, an overlord will eliminate one spawn point, however it's still a 50/50 shot. If you pay attention to the replay, Jaedong sent all six of his zerglings towards the correct location. This is a testament to the number of practice hours put in by Jaedong to know, based upon a probe's timing into your base, you can correctly predict the opponent's spawn location.


Random white guy.

Now, here's where Jaedong makes an uncharacteristic error. He hesitates running by the morphing cannons and only manages to get two lings in. This slight second of hesitation results in a potential greater loss of massive econ harassment and scouting. However, two lings is the bare minimum to force the protoss to pull probes and chase the lings, thus Bisu is at a slight economic disadvantage. This disadvantage is also compounded by the fact, Bisu, the famed probe whisperer, atypically lost his initial scouting probe and is completely in the dark. Had Jaedong gone an all-in ling bust, the game would have ended.


Come on, Jaedong...

Jaedong progresses normally, going 3 hatch -> spire ->5 hatch hydra. However, the deviation is that Jaedong opts to put his 4th hatch at an expansion. This is a pretty risky move since if scouted, it gets dealt with easily. Furthermore this usually entails that the Zerg will either go lurkers for defense or mutas for a contain so that the Zerg can drone up his new expansion safely. Meanwhile, Bisu opts for the Robo tech signalling some shuttle/reaver play with corsairs.

Bisu reaches a critical mass of corsairs which forces the Zerg to play a bit more defensively. Bisu tries to kill some drones with his reaver, but is turned away. Jaedong, then brilliantly, goes for a strong drop at the gas expansion. Bisu's army is caught slightly out of position, and as a result, Bisu loses many probes and his nexus. At this point, the commentators, many viewers including me, and even Bisu himself felt the game was over. (Bisu admitted that in a post-game interview.)

Ouch.

Bisu is now forced his hand and goes to attack the 4th expansion. Much to my surprise, Jaedong just simply did not have enough units to fend off the attack. To be quite honest, I expected Jaedong to switch to mutas after seeing Bisu's army composition and win the game right there. Instead, Bisu destroys Jaedong's 4th expansion quite easily and the advantage swings back to Bisu.


Both players are content to macro up for a bit. Jaedong expands to the 3 and to the previous expansion he lost. Bisu, after amassing quite a sizeable army, decides now is the time to attack and makes his way towards Jaedong's main.
Jaedong sets up a beautiful flank and, after a bit of a skirmish, proceeds to melt Bisu's entire force.

This game is officially out of control.

Jaedong now decides to set up a lurker contain outside of the expansion at 12 to prevent Bisu from expanding. The theory behind this move is sound, but the execution was not. Jaedong got caught and, for a reason unknown to me, decides to not to retreat his 4 hydras and 6 lurkers. Instead, he burrows his lurkers and proceeds to lose his small force. Reinforcements come too late and Jaedong loses even more units.

???

After a few more minutes of macroing up, Bisu makes his way towards Jaedong's main again. With some sublime storms and well-microed reavers, Bisu was able to dispatch Jaedong's entire army and advanced in Jaedong's main. Reinforcements came at just the right time for Bisu and allowed him to push further into Jaedong's base and eventually destroy the entire main.


Never a good sight for a Z player.

Bisu then set his sights on the heavily sunkened 3 o'clock expansion and killed it pretty easily. However, Jaedong had expanded towards the 7 o'clock position and was frantically trying to put up his tech buildings. As Bisu made his way towards this expansion, Jaedong drops a few lurkers and cracklings into Bisu's main. These few units wreak havoc in Bisu's main destroying all of his gateways and tech buildings. Bisu then pushes in and takes down that expansion.


At this point, the game is clearly over as Jaedong with left with one hatchery without any tech to work with. Bisu does some cute reaver micro killing the larva and Jaedong finally gives the gg.

GG indeed.

All-in-all, this was a terrific game with a lot of back-and-forth action. I would hold off a bit before proclaiming the return of Bisu, because I felt this game was more Jaedong's loss than it was Bisu's victory. Throughout the game, Jaedong made a few critical errors which Bisu pounced on. I'm sorry Bisu fanboys, but I'm not convinced yet.