Photos: ESL
With the fall of the last foreigner, WCS Europe Season 3 is down to an all-Korean grand final. In 15 minutes, SK_MC faces Acer_MMA for the premier league throne and the $20,000 first place prize.
The completion of the 5th place consolation matches - which saw Duckdeok secure a Season 3 finals spot for himself - the action in the ESL studio in Cologne switched to the championship-relevant matches with four players still alive: MMA, Vortix, MC and Genius.
The former two were the ones to sit one against each other for the first semi final of the day. With a convincing 3-0 stomp over Nerchio, MMA's TvZ was looking invincible, tilting the odds strongly in his favor.
Three games later, another foreign Zerg lay in MMA's feet. Playing with the recognizable perfection from yesterday, the Korea gave Vortix no opportunities and played a text-book 4M game from beginning to end. "Getting outclassed" is a word adequately describing the series and Vortix would tweet something very similar seconds after the completion of the series:
We just play at another level, I will try to improve my ZvT for W finals, but I'm kinda satisfied with my performance here, ty for support!
— Juan Moreno (@mouzVortiX) October 6, 2013
The second semi-final paired the Korean Protosses MC and Genius, two people bound by their past history of twitter banter. Both players were enjoying the momentum of easy quarter final victories (MC against Targa and Genius against Duckdeok) and with PvP being the match-up, no clear favorite could be called.
Bel'Shir Vestige and Akilon Wastes went to MC after two relatively standard games so for the third game - and what would end up being the full stop to this series - the Boss Toss went for something special. An early probe exited MC's base and placed a proxy pylon and on the low ground north of Genius' base and a cannon rush was officially initiated.
However, a lucky probe scout by Genius managed to spot the incoming cheese and a proxied void ray at MC's natural was the immediate response. Even though warped in slowly in the absence of chronoboost (Genius' nexus had already died to MC's cannons), the void ray did grow to be a tangible threat to Boss Toss' well-being. Unpowering MC's only gateway and thus delaying his anti-air put Genius within a hand's reach of a draw but in these hectic moments, the former Blizzcon champion forgot one very important unit: MC's MSC.
Keeping it hidden until having enough for photo overcharge would eventually bring MC the game. The nexus cannon gave him a whole minute of invincibility which was more than enough to get a stalker out and with mobile anti air now on the map, Genius was checkmated. A gg was called and MC advanced to finals with a convincing 3-0.
