The soso column #1: 'We need more of that in SC2'

Just like 99% of foreigners, I was disappointed when MarineKingPrime beat Jinro to advance to the finals. It was like the ending of the movie Signs. M Night Shyamalan had a great story going. It was suspenseful and exciting. When Mel Gibson and his family were bunkered down in the basement we were all asking ourselves how the hell they were going to get out of this mess. Then we discover that water kills the aliens. Really? Why did the aliens invade a planet that's 70% water and populated by people that are 60% water if they're deathly allergic to it? And what would they have done if it happened to rain on the day of the invasion? In Jinro's case, he prevailed through the round of 32. In the round of 16, despite losing his first game, he miraculously won two straight against the defending GSL champion to advance out of the hardest group in the tournament. Then he beat IdrA in a crazy series in which IdrA six pooled and was a five hp marine away from forcing a game five. By any measure, it was an incredible GSL run and the makings of an unforgettable story. But, just like Signs, the ending was surprisingly disappointing. Replace "water" with "proxy cloaked banshee and hidden gold expos" and you have basically the same story.

On the bright side, unlike the rest of Shyamalan's work, the GSL finals should still be awesome. Maybe not The Sixth Sense awesome, but definitely better than The Happening. MarineKingPrime vs IMMvp is a promising match up. MKP has already given us some of the most exciting TvTs this season. He had a ridiculous "we may never see this kind of game ever again" against Nada only to nearly repeat the performance later in the series and flirt with it again against Jinro on Scrap Station. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was participating in some kind of double secret Day9 Funday Monday challenge where you have to counter attack whenever your opponent starts shelling your base with siege tanks.

We're also guaranteed water works. Win or lose, MKP will start crying. He always does. And it's great; we need more emotion in eSports. One of the biggest things holding eSports back from appealing to a wider audience is the lack of a human connection. In traditional sports, even if you don't know anything about what's going on, you can at least appreciate the excitement and understand the emotion when Landon Donovan scores a game winning goal in the World Cup. There's just something universal about running around wildly and being dog piled by your teammates. We need more of that in SC2 - more unbridled emotional expression. Imagine if after the finals the winner ran across the stage pumping his fists in the air like he's on an episode of Jersey Shore and then jumped into the crowd mosh pit style. How cool would that be? And I think it could actually work as long as someone small like MarineKing won; we might run into some problems if iNcontrol ever ends up in a position to crowd surf at a GSL finals though.

Back to the series itself - it's surprising to me that TvT has evolved into such a dynamic match up. The mid-late game used to consist of very passive tank/viking battles with neither player making any decisive move; like the last Harry Potter book where Harry and Hermione camped out in the woods and bored the hell out of anyone reading the book for the middle 300 pages. But now we have much more of an emphasis on harassment with hellions and banshees, more drops and players taking advantage of the mobility of a bio based army. MKP and Mvp have some of the best micro in the world and it should lead to some exciting and fast paced play.

Mvp is probably favored to win it all, but people always underestimate MarineKing. He has an ability to pull out victories despite losing HisWholeEffingBase (maybe he really is doing a Funday Monday challenge that we don't know about). Something could probably be said for having the experience of competing in a GSL final too. When he lost to NesTea in the second season, he didn't play to his full potential. Some of his SCV/marine rushes reeked of desperation and he seemed rattled when things didn't go his way. This season his play has been more varied and he's been more willing to improvise - by improvise I mean suicide half a fleet of medivacs into missile turrets in an attempt to counter attack while losing his main and natural… but still. Whoever ends up winning, I'm sure we'll be in for some surprises. How many times in the MKP-Nada series did Artosis and Tasteless explain that Nada was in a position to either win or draw only to end up losing to MKP's crazy shenanigans?

I'm taking MarineKingPrime with the 4-3 upset. It makes for a better story.