SKT's Parting took first in the group of death. Photo: Battle.net
SKT's ace PartinG and defending Korea champion Maru advanced to GSL's playoffs over the dead bodies of Flash and KangHo. The quarter final pairings are thus set and the league is ready to return October 2nd.
With his current form not exactly exception, fans of the Ultimate Weapon Flash were concerned about his chances of advancing to the GSL playoffs. KT's star Terran had a terrible showing at the recent DreamHack Bucharest and with his group consisting of PartinG, Maru and KangHo - considered by many to be the group of death in the Ro16 - troubles were ahead of the BroodWar legend.
Flash opened the game with a dominant performance against IM's KangHo, channeling his best match-up into a 2:1 lead. That put him in the winners match against Parting, who had just triumphed over Korea's champion Maru with the same score in group's first opening match.
A dramatic base race put an end to the three-game series which saw PartinG advance as first in the group, sending Flash to the deciding match, where he awaited the winner of Maru and KangHo. As the latter two met in the losers match, the audience saw Maru abusing the 4M composition to prevail over the Zerg 2:1 and win another round of games for himself.
A TvT thus closed the last Ro16 group of WCS Korea. Playing tangibly better than his opponent in all of the three games, Maru was able to punish the multitude of mistakes made by Flash and turn them into a 2:1 victory, only dropping the middle game on Akilon Wastes after failing to crush the God with a 1-base all-in.
With the group of death over, the tournament moves to its third and final stage - the single elimination playoffs. All four quarter finals (see below for match pairings) will be played next week, two on October 2nd and another two on October 4th. The semi finals are scheduled for the week after that and the grand final for October 19th.
