After what seemed like an endless TvZ marathon, Mihaylo "Kas" Hayda grabs the third place at IEM Kiev along with the $1,750 prize money. It took the Ukrainian five games and two and a half hours to overcome the Korean threat and receive the wild applause of the audience.
Kas' campaign began on Tal'Darim Altar with a 40-minute long struggle and playing from behind the whole time due to Zenio excellent macro and aggressive expanding. His perseverance paid off as a single battle went wrong for Zenio, putting the supply lead in Kas' hands for the first time in the game. He made use of it by hunting down the spread hatcheries of the zerg and win the opening set.
Set two was played on Terminus and Zenio made sure that Kas understood how hard of an opponent he actually is. The zerg applied constant pressure while continuously expanding all over the place, never going down on bases. The score was tied. The Ukrainian "destroyer" retorted on Metalopolis with similarly dominative play, employing a succession of drops to pin down Zenio for the 2-1.
The set balance was once again restored on Antiga Shipyard as a roach opening against Kas' preigniter build escalated (after twenty more minutes of constant action) into a win for the zerg player.
The, arguably, best series thus far in the tournament was completed with a majestic war on Shattered Temple. Once again Kas was put on the disadvantage as a massive roach drop all over his main ravaged his infrastructure and made his comeback job look almost impossible. Yet, Mr. Hayda somehow retook his signature immovable high economy posture and with help of his marine/tank composition and perfect positioning, he was able to close the series 3-2.
