At the age of 16, Cho "Maru" Sung Choo of Prime is the youngest champion and royal roader in the history of the OSL, as he 4-2's SKT's Rain for the $20,000.
After upsetting many a tournament favorite in Symbol, Innovation and Rain with an aggregate score of 11-3 in playoffs, Maru is crowned the season two champion of WCS Korea and the youngest player to even conquer and OSL-branded tournament. The youngster - currently only sixteen years old - managed to turn a 0-2 deficit into a 4-2 comeback against SK Telecom ace Rain by using cheese and orthodox play both, becoming the sensation of the tournament.
Game 1: Akilon Wastes
To everyone's expectations, the series opener was a slow and extremely passive game, befitting match favorite Rain's style. Sans quick thirt bases and with a conservative tech curve, the SKT Protoss became impervious to any attacks Maru might've liked to launch.
When Rain finally decided to move out on the map, Maru found himself defenseless against the perfection coming from the SKT ace. Rain's patience and maneuvering were calculated to the millimeter, hurting Maru in small increments until the game snowballs out of control. Rain used timely zealot warp-ins to draw back Terran's army and conquer the map inch by inch until his army grew to unsurmountable power, bringing him game one.
Game 2: Anaconda
Contrasting to game one, game two saw a pinch of early aggression on the back of Maru's 1-base banshee/hellion and Rain's 1-base stalker run-bys. The first few minutes were marked by somewhat even worker trades but the harassing power of Maru's units eventually prevailed and by the 10th minute, the Terran was ahead 15-8 in workers killed.
Then suddenly Maru was uprooted from his comfort zone as Rain's stalkers stormed in for a surprising raid. The damage the Terran sustained - both economy and army-wise - skyrocketed and within a couple of minutes Rain was in a double supply lead. A few final nudges were needed before Maru would surrender and Rain ran 2-0 in the lead, confident about taking the series.
Game 3: Bel'Shir Vestige
With game three played on the Rain-favoring Bel'Shir Vestige, things were looking grim for the young Terran. Dragging it into a macro-game would mean an almost impossible victory considering how game one had turned out and cheesing sounded like even riskier strategy, Rain being famous for his invulnerability to trickery.
Back against the wall, Maru chose option two and surprisingly it paid off. With a double proxy rax straight to Rain's race, Maru brought down his opponent to literally zero probes after sniping a critical stalker. A short and critical game for Maru, certainly, one that not only kept his chances alive but also one that shattered the aura of imperviousness around Rain's persona. After all, if he could die to a cheese on Bel'Shir, he could die to anything else.
Game 4: Star Station
Similarly to game one, game four too started slowly, Rain now cautious about possible gimmicks coming from Maru. His style of play was back to the patient, conservative openings and not until Rain had secured a strong enough army tech-wise, with both colossi and high templars, did he move out for a push.
That same push would be his doom here. Having his templars a bit farther than necessary and with too big a clump, Rain giftwrapped his army and had it be EMP'ed in its entirety by Maru's bullseye ghosts. With no energy and no shields, Rain was forced to retreat tail between legs but the mobility of Maru's army continually, withering it down to numbers begging for a tap-out.
Game 5: Newkirk Precinct
Realizing Rain will never detour from his passive play, Maru took the strategy books written by his teammate MarineKing and went full greedy, opening Newkirk Precinct with a triple CC and double e-bay, gearing for a powerful mid-game. To his surprise - but also delight - said mid-game would never come as Rain warped proxy pylons in the proximity and geared for an immortal push, attempting to break Maru before he gets too big.
Despite the firepower coming from the Protoss, however, the youngster was on point with his defenses. Bunker repairs ensured the impenetrability of his front wall and timely evacuation of marines guaranteed that he has enough army to withstand the Protoss push. As his immortals were surrounded and slaughtered along with his melting gateway army, Rain had to admit defeat third time in a row, falling one game away from elimination.
Game 6: Whirlwind
As the old saying goes "When behind, dark shrine" and with one map down to Maru, Rain went for exactly that - a somewhat surprising move considering the games he played so far.
Not that that was of any trouble to the Prime Terran, though. Detection was on-point for Maru and Rain's DTs were sniped swiftly, dealing near zero damage and setting Rain immensely behind. Now in the zone after such a big victory, Maru knew the game was his to lose but lose it he would not. A bio counter push disintegrated Rain's third and marched towards his natural where Rain made his final stand before tapping out.
Maru thus inherits the Korean crown from Soulkey and will represent his country at the WCS Season 2 finals at Gamescom in two weeks. He is joined by the other four top five players - namely Rain, Innovation, Bomber and First - and will compete for a share of the $150,000 seasonal final prize pool.
Detailed report on the series will follow shortly.
| 1st |   Maru | $20,000 |
| 2nd |  Rain | $12,000 |
| 3rd-4th | Innovation | $7,000 |
| Bomber | $7,000 | |
| 5th | First | $3,500 |
| 6-8th | Supernova | $3,500 |
 Soulkey | $3,500 | |
| Symbol | $3,500 | |
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