Breaking the tradition of Korean pool play hegemony from the last MLG tournaments, the foreigners came strong defying the Easterners and taking three of all four top spots!
Day 1 of MLG Orlando saw half of the pool play matches completed as well as the forming of the temporary group standings. To many people's delight, the foreigners showed amazing performance, crushing the Korean contenders, leaving most of them to enjoy the lower places in the group.
Greg "Idra" Fields was the dominant force in Group A, dropping only a single map to a 6-pool by Haypro and finishing 6-1 by the end of the night. His other two victories were against Drewbie and the other group favourite - the Emperor SlayerS_Boxer, who came third after the Swedish zerg. Now having to play only TLO (currently 1-4 in sets) and the open tournament seed (who is yet to be determined), Idra's chances for a top 1 spot in the group are looking incredibly high.
Ji-Sung "Bomber" Choi was the only Korean to perform excellent this day, finishing with a perfect 6-0 score, showing levels of class above every other opponent he met. Surprisingly, the second place was taken not by Puma but by homeground player Sheth, who defeated Kiwikaki and InControl to end with a 4-3. The Korean is still a match behind, though, so as far as the top 2 spot is concerned, nothing is absolutely certain.
Jos "Ret" de Kroon was the people's hero in Group C, convincingly crushing every opponent, including GSL invite HongUnPrime, who in turn defeated Machine and compatriot Rain to finish 4-2. Rain himself, being the only other Korean in the group, had no luck in his match-ups and currently resides at the very bottom of pool C with a 0-4 score.
In the protoss-heavy Group D, EG's HuK ripped faces left and right, ending up with the stunning 6-1 score in one of the toughest pools in the tournament. HuK began with a 2-0 victory over July, and continued to deal deadly blows to ex-teammate Tyler (2-0) and the "God Protoss" MC (2-1). HuK needs to play possibly one last PvP against Hero to cement his position at the top.
| MLG Orlando Group Standings after Day 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Group A | Group B | |||||||||||||||||||||||
  Idra | 6-1 |   Bomber | 6-0 | |||||||||||||||||||||
 Haypro | 5-2 | Sheth | 4-3 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Boxer | 4-3 | Puma | 2-2 | |||||||||||||||||||||
 TLO | 1-4 |   Kiwikaki | 2-4 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Drewbie | 0-6 | InControl | 1-6 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Group C | Group D | |||||||||||||||||||||||
 Ret | 6-1 | Huk | 6-1 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| HongUn | 4-2 | July | 4-3 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| SLush | 3-4 | Hero | 2-3 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Machine | 2-4 | MC | 4-4 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Rain | 0-4 | Tyler | 1-6 | |||||||||||||||||||||
The action at Orlando continues today at 17:00 CET. This will be the day when we find who will find his way to the pool play and how will the championship bracket for Sunday look like. Stay tuned to all MLG streams and GosuGamers as well for more coverage!
Links
GosuGamers - MLG Orlando Coverage Portal
