The first half of the great battle between Koreans and the rest of the world went down in Korea’s favor. Banter, tight games and unusual strategies made for an entertaining, but still high-class set of games.
Everything seemed to go as expected and according to the Korean team’s wishes, which is coached by Won Jong Wook of StarTale, when LucifroN was easily dismantled by Seed. A failed Marine/Medivac push put the GSL Season 3 champion so far ahead that he could push his Terran opponent to death on two fronts while building three manner Nexuses of his own. DongRaeGu, however, got the shorter end of the stick when facing the Canadian champion Scarlett in a ZvZ. Despite her Mutalisks being dead weight in the air for the most part of the game due to DRG’s aggression, beautiful Fungals and cleverly chosen engagements guaranteed a comback for the only North-American representative.
No such luck had Nerchio as his lack of scouting information led him to misread the game entirely until eventually his Broodlords proved worthless against a group of carriers. A gimmicky move that, in this case, worked extremely well. The World Allstar-team, led by Bumblebee of Team Liquid fame, fell even more behind as Naniwa’s initial aggression managed to do less damage to Life’s economy than he had anticipated. This caused the Swedish player to attack head-on into a wall of Spine crawlers, much to the benefit of the surprisingly strong Zerg army.
Easily the highlight of the series was the clash of the titans in the form of Stephano against MC. As each player explained their prowess in the maltreatment of the human organ usually reserved for waste relief, the game warranted for no such trash-talk. Both players were on equal terms until, after a handful of engagements, Stephano got the upper hand to finish the first day of the tournament 3-2 in score.
| GSL World Championship | ||
  Seed | Cloud Kingdom |   LucifroN |
 DongRaeGu | Metropolis |  Scarlett |
| Squirtle | Antiga Shipyard |  Nerchio |
| Life | Entombed Valley |  Naniwa |
| MC | Daybreak |  Stephano |
The close result will certainly make for an interesting second leg today, as both teams face each other in a GSTL-style team fight, which, should the World Allstars win, will result in an ace match to determine the victor.
