The first MSL finalist is determined

While people perhaps are looking forward to tomorrows semifinals more than they were looking forward to this one, some really entertaining games were played yesterday. So who won? Read and find out.

I'll reiterate my earlier thoughts on this match:

Kal arrives to the semis after a narrow win against reigning OSL champ Stork, and while this sounds rather impressive one must bear in mind that Stork was in fact practicing rather heavily for the OSL finals just a few days later. Despite this he still made Kal work for his wins. Now, Kal is not by any standards an unworthy contestant for the spot in the finals, it's just that he can hardly be called consistent, not to mention that his records in the matchup are not that impressive either.

JangBi has looked comfortable throughout the MSL so far and has certainly looked comfortable elsewhere. While PvP is statistically his weakest matchup as well, he has won seven of his last ten matches against Protoss players. He may not have the morale boost of having trumped PvP monster Stork earlier in the tournament, but he's been looking sharp, very sharp in his play. While he lost his previous Bo5 against Kal, I have a feeling he'll pull through here without too much difficulty.

Writer's prediction: 3-1 to JangBi.

Now let's see what actually happened in the games:

Game 1 @ Medusa

No proxying or other tomfoolery during the first game, thankfully. JangBi spawns as red, Kal as yellow. Both players opened up with the exact same build, a one gate tech to reavers. Early game featured passive play, both players content with taking out the other player's scouting probe and moving their units around, although JangBi overextends himself and sloppily loses a dragoon early on. After that brief piece of action the game settles down to a simmer as both players await their reavers. Kal boldly moves in with his dragoons to divert JangBi's attention from the shuttle trying to sneak in a reaver, but two dragoons drive off the shuttle and Kal is forced to retreat, losing most of his dragoons but managing to snipe JangBi's reaver in the process.

Both players have expanded at this point and are stepping up their macro game, adding gateways to match their improved economy. Kal must've been doing this when JangBi's dragoons rushed in, for he was caught off guard and as a result loses both his shuttle and reaver to a well timed snipe. The action slows down yet again, but JangBi has his forces in a position quite close to Kal's base, allowing his reavers to take down the temple blocking the ramp leading up to the cliff above Kal's main. Kal watches this with a raised eyebrow and coolly waits until half JangBi's dragoons have funneled through the small gap before attacking with his own forces, wiping out all but a few dragoons while still retaining quite a few himself. Both players lost their reavers and shuttle in this exchange.

The few dragoons of JangBi rush into Kal's base in a desperate attempt to do some damage at least, and picks off a few probes before Kal's entire dragoon force descends upon them. Why Kal sent so many dragoons to chase down two is unclear, as he could well have pressed his dragoon advantage instead. With his choke fortified with dragoons and reavers, JangBi sends a speed shuttle with dark templar to shepherd Kal's probes around his base. While few probes are actually killed, they spend more time running for their lives than mining for some time. A storm drop just after this does the same thing, kills few but sends most probes running. This shuttle with high templar hides in the top left corner for future strikes. While JangBi's army gets totally destroyed in the next major clash, this shuttle swoops in to storm more defenseless probes. This action is later repeated, although the high templar do not survive this time.

While Kal has won every army clash so far, JangBi has seen his economy untouched throughout the game. The next major clash is much closer than previous battles, forcing Kal to retreat. A single reaver then starts hopping between Kal's expansions, hunting down probes while Kal's dragoons drunkenly stumble around trying to destroy it. Due to his efficient harassment, JangBi's second expansion is much later than Kal's but he is still able to field an equal or better army, while Kal is struggling to hold on. A last final push and JangBi marches over Kal's paltry forces and securing the first game. Whew!

Game 2 @ Destination

Refreshingly, neither player chose to cheese on Destination and we were treated to a straight up game instead. JangBi finds the bridges leading to Kal's natural blocked and is perhaps a bit suspicious at this point. He gets his robo bay and observatory before grabbing his natural expansion. Kal however grabs his expansion immediately after his core is finished before adding a gateway and robo bay, putting him ahead at this point. Given his success with templar last game, JangBi heads for templar tech right away. One of Kal's observers sneaks in and spots this before getting taken out, so Kal immediately starts placing dragoons at potential shuttle routes.

As a prelude to the action ahead, the shuttles for both players start moving their templar payload around. While JangBi's shuttle skirts Kal's main, unable to find a good point of entry, Kal's shuttle blasts right in and is destroyed, but not before two high templar storm JangBi's probes, killing quite a few. There would be many more storms to come, as the two armies met for the first time on an open battleground. A truly magnificent blanket of storms covers Kal's entire dragoon force, decimating it completely and forcing it to retreat to his natural. Adding insult to injury, an equally magnificent storm drop kills off most of the probes in Kal's main. Kal redeems himself the next battle though, as he manages to kill all JangBi's high templar in one storm. This tips the battle to his favor and JangBi is now the one forced to retreat, giving Kal the opportunity to raze JangBi's second expansion with a few dragoons.

With his main mined out, JangBi had no way of reinforcing his army properly. Kal was sitting comfortably with two expansions in addition to his natural and just kept the pressure on JangBi, who eventually was forced to surrender. 1-1!

Game 3 @ Athena 2

A cute little trick started off this game. JangBi's scouting probe scouted the wrong location to begin with, but as he was turning around to head to Kal's real location he runs into Kal's scouting probe. He leaves his own probe blocking the ramp, fooling Kal into thinking that he had actually spawned there. Kal eventually got through and discovered his mistake, but by then both players had blocked off their ramps with units. JangBi remembered his success with reavers from the first game and as such went for quick reavers again this game. Kal opened aggressively with three gates into an expansion and started pumping units for all he was worth. While Kal was gathering his forces beneath JangBi's ramp, he noticed how one of his zealots gets hit by a scarab and sends a few dragoons home to guard his probes.

JangBi first attempt to leave his base with his shuttle is spotted by a scouting pylon Kal had smartly placed earlier, but this merely gave him time to wait for a second reaver before moving out. Kal is unable to use his natural expo as the two reavers are dropped off there, driving off some dragoons in the process. Seeing that his opponents forces were divided, JangBi moves out and wipes out the dragoons Kal had left in his natural expansion, then wipes out the dragoons roaming the map, then lays siege to Kal's natural. Kal has reavers of his own by this time, but critically no shuttle to juggle them with. As such he loses his initial reavers to concentrated dragoon and reaver fire. Things are looking grim for Kal, but he manages to hold out long enough to pick off JangBi's two reavers and reinforce with a reaver of his own, forcing JangBi to pull back a while.

While both players are busy rebuilding their forces, JangBi's shuttle has picked up another reaver. The shuttle swoops in, drops of the reaver who gets a fair amount of probe kills and manages to escape to tell the tale afterward. Kal wards off JangBi's next push, killing both JangBi's reavers and losing a couple of dragoons in the process. With a shuttle of his own now, he decides it's time for some payback. Before the shuttle gets very far however Kal spots that JangBi has dragoons ready to intercept such a notion and is forced to pull back. While Kal's shuttle is away on business JangBi pushes once more and takes half Kal's dragoon force and both his reavers while retaining both his own reavers, but dark templar save the day for Kal and JangBi pulls back yet again. Attempts to harass JangBi's main and second expansion with dark templar prove completely fruitless, while two zealots and two reavers do significant damage to Kal's own second expansion.

With a superior army and with superior micro, the two armies clash for the final time in the center. Storms and scarabs fly everywhere, but in the end Kal's army lies in ruin. As the still-massive army starts tearing down his natural expansion, Kal surrenders.

Game 4 @ Byzantium 2

With the finals in his sight, JangBi decided to finish the series with a bang. A single probe headed out towards the center of the map early on and planted down two gateways. With no idea this was happening, Kal placed down a gateway and took his gas right away, intending to tech. His scouting probe scouted the wrong way and failed to see the gateways right away. He did however find them when he moved diagonally over the map with his probe, but by then the zealots were already on their way. As the zealots descended on Kal, he built a forge, hoping to place a few cannons for protection. He also started building dragoons.

Knowing that dragoons would be a problem for the rush, JangBi had a brilliant solution. He places two pylons around the area where units spawn from the gateway and blocks off with a zealot. The zealots wipe out the trapped dragoon that spawned, leaving only one roaming dragoon to deal with. Words don't really do this cheese justice, you should just watch the VOD above to witness the beauty of it. As it were, Kal taps out and JangBi is headed for the finals with a 3-1 victory.

But Who Will He Face?

Only one semifinals match remains to determine which two Protoss will battle for the grand prize. JangBi will be one of them, and if he plays then like has against Kal, things are looking good for him. Having said this, both free and Bisu are more than capable of taking on JangBi, his semifinals against Kal aside. He will need to step up his game yet another notch if he is to secure a title.

Make sure to catch the second semifinals between free and Bisu tomorrow to find out who will become JangBi's opponent in the finals!