SK Telecom Protoss Rain will defend his OSL crown on August 10th after defeating StarTale's Bomber in the second semi-final today. The SKT ace will play Terran youngster Maru for the $20,000 first place cheque.
After an exhausting triple-tiebreaker Ro16 group and one on-the-edge best of five series against Supernova, Rain arrived at a semi-final against StarTale's Terran ace Bomber. Having blanked PvT maestro First in the quarter final round, Bomber had a huge momentum on his side, yet not a strong enough to help him drill through Rain.
Good early game pressure nevertheless helped Bomber start the series with a win for himself. The massive unit count of a 10th minute marine/marauder push caught First by suprise and put him against the ropes, forcing him to rely on nexus cannons and time warps to stay alive until Bomber's attack runs out of steam.
An ongoing zealot warp-in harassment into Bomber's mineral line gave First an additional room to breathe and he was able to get an immortal and a few archons out but even with the high tier firepower could he hold Terran's relentless onslaught. As he pulled the few SCVs he had, Bomber regrouped for one final push and put the Protoss down a map.
Despite all the firepower and time warps at the ramp, Rain has troubles holding Bomber back
Confident after the win on Akilon Wastes, Bomber jumped right into the uncharted waters of mech in TvP. Knowing Rain's safe early-game playstyle, Bomber opened with a triple CC off one gas, threw a factory immediately thereafter and initiated the production of hellbats.
Yet all the mech firepower couldn't save Bomber from Rain's onslaught. Identifying that Bomber has gone for the immobile army, Rain barraged with him with one storm drop after another, frying SCVs to the point Bomber simply had to move out and try and deal damage. As the obligatory hellbat attack ate just as many storms as melted just as quickly, however, the score went back to a tie.
A quick game on Bel'Shir Vestige followed, won by a sneaky proxy pylon near Bomber's natural. Defending the hellion opening more than decently, Rain used his outer warp in perimeter to call in a few stalkers and counter harass Bomber's economy line to the point of a GG from the Terran.
The longest game of the series would be played on Star Station under number four. The match took a weird detour as Bomber went for a ninja expansion at the bottom right while Rain proxied a dark shrine at 12. Then, in a singular motion that would put him miles ahead, Rain scouted Bomber's hidden expansion and exploited his complete lack of detection to to put the Terran in all kinds of trouble, and then some.
Sitting on a nifty supply advantage, things were looking great for Rain until everything turned around in a matter of seconds. A bio/medivac raiding party flew in to snipe two nexi of Rain and equal the scales but an overcommitment by Bomber allowed Rain to stabilize and keep a piece of his advantage. From there, the Protoss was able to get his tech up, continue harassing Bomber's mineral line and outmuscle him in the tug-of-war at the center of the map for the 3-1.
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One game away from making grand finals, Rain knew there was a big margin of error and so an aggressive opening was chosen. Early stalker pressure delayed Bomber's lowground CC and the threat grew larger and larger as new units came in until not even the bunkers were enough defense. With forcefields and time warps all over the place, Rain trampled Bomber for the final 4-1 and advanced to meet Maru in the grand final.
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