Another Sunday, another day of Starcraft at GomTV. Tasteless and Daniel Lee braved a freezing cold studio to commentate on the match between Bisu and Skyhigh.
After a long and (for the players, certainly not the viewers) grueling season, we're approaching the last matches of the GomTV Classic Season 2. All the Zerg players have met their end in the tournament as well as nearly all the Terran players, save one: Skyhigh. This upstart Terran has been the cause of several sets of raised eyebrows, as his last win in the GomTV was against one of the Six Dragons, BeSt, an impressive feat to be sure. However, another Dragon rises to the challenge this time around. Did Skyhigh have what it takes to take down Bisu, the same Bisu who took down Flash in his last match?
Match 1 @ Andromeda
The importance of getting the first win in a series cannot be overstated. The momentum gained and the blow against the opponent's morale can make all the difference in the end. Skyhigh knows this and so decided to go for a proxy barracks in the center of the map right off the bat, quickly followed by a second one. Luck was on his side, as Bisu suspected no trickery and did not scout the raxes until the marines were at his doorstep. With only a zealot out to deal with the marines, Bisu should have been hard pressed to hold this off.
Fortunately for Bisu, Skyhigh pauses just above the ramp and starts constructing a bunker while waiting for a few extra marines, giving Bisu just enough time to get a dragoon out. With another gateway warping in, the game was slipping away from Skyhigh, who finally attacked. The delay proved fatal, as Bisu microed his zealot, dragoon and probes with the necessary skill to kill off most of the marines. With zealots streaming out of two gateways the game was settled. A costly delay indeed for Skyhigh, as he was already considered the underdog and could really use a win in the first match. The score is now 1-0 in Bisu's favor.
Match 2 @ Destination
The second game was mercifully lacking in cheese. Bisu decided to go for a fast nexus, confident that there wouldn't be any more cheese from Skyhigh, at least not in the second match. Skyhigh went for a quite standard one factory into expand and the game settled into a rather ordinary pattern. Before long Skyhigh decided to become aggressive and moved out with a small strike force, planting mines outside Bisu's natural before backing off, seeing the heavy defenses Bisu had in place and also suspecting that Bisu had a tricky shuttle on the way. There was indeed a shuttle, but the reaver within did next to no damage to a Skyhigh, who had turrets and tanks aplenty in place.
Bisu was however going for a fast carrier build. Once Skyhigh spotted this he immediately pushed out to prevent the carrier numbers to grow too large, the nightmare of any Terran. A mine prevented Bisu from getting a third expansion for quite a while, Bisu lost a large part of his ground army, his reaver and one carrier and Skyhigh's unit count was high. Unfortunately Skyhigh pushed his luck a bit too much and engaged in a foolhardy battle in the center of the map, losing almost all of his forces in the process. With his army demolished the carriers proceed to dance a little jig over Skyhigh's main, taking out the armory and preventing more goliaths from being built, as well as preventing Skyhigh from claiming a third base.
The end came swiftly, as a rebuilt Protoss ground force with heavy carrier support was more than a match for the paltry Terran forces that remained. Bisu is up 2-0 and it will take some heavy mental work from Skyhigh if he's to come back in the third match.
Match 3 @ Colosseum 2
Skyhigh spawned in the top left and Bisu spawned in the top right. Skyhigh chose to wall in and go for his expansion, not an uncommon sight on this map. Bisu had a different plan though, going for a quick dragoon rush with the intention of either busting down Skyhigh's wall or at least pick off a bunch of SCVs who would be forced to repair. On top of this he built a robo bay close to the midway point between the bases, thereby promising Skyhigh some undying reaver love. An SCV managed to sneak out and spot this, but failed to spot the fact that Bisu had used a shuttle to move his units over the ledge into Skyhigh's natural.
Once the reaver joined them a brief struggle ensued. Struggle might actually not be the correct term, it was more like a downright spanking that Skyhigh recieved. Skyhigh surrenders after almost all his SCVs and all of his fighting units were destroyed. Bisu wins with a clean sweep, 3-0!
Protoss on Protoss action
With Bisu taking home this match we shall be having a PvP Grand Finals. But first the second finalist needs to be decided! This Sunday there will not be any games, as the Chinese New Years will be this Monday, putting the world in to the year of the Ox. The Sunday thereafter however, on February 1st, Free and Jangbi will duke it out to decide who will face Bisu later on. Keep your eyes peeled next week for a preview of that match, and make sure to watch the VODs of Bisu vs Skyhigh if you haven't already done so!
Links
GomTV.net - VODs
