Photo: Kevin Florenzano for ESL
As the tournament in the big apple reaches its semi final stage, Naniwa is not just the only foreigner but the only non-Zerg remaining, too.
The quarter final round of IEM New York began with the one-sided defeat of HerO at the hands of Life. The StarTale Zerg, who had a difficult time in his group and advanced as second after 2-1'ing Zest in the decider, played a much more dominant series against the Liquid ace and dealt him a 3-0.
He was joined in the round of four by fellow StarTale team-mate Curious. Known as one of the most consistent Zerg players in Korea with nine consecutive Code S/Premier league appearance, Curious followed up his strong showing in Group C by playing a five-game series against sOs. This ZvP would also become the highlight of the day and would be strongly recommended by the caster crew to anyone who wants to learn the match-up in depth.
Two four-game mirrors put an end to the quarter final round. In semi final three, HyuN recovered from a one-game deficit and ousted DongRaeGu from the tournament and made his way to his fifth Ro4 this year alone. Similar was the outcome of the Naniwa/San semi final and after being down a game, the Swede engineered a powerful comeback and kept the foreign hope alive.
The tournament resumes today with he last three sets of matches. Life vs Curious is at 16:30 CET, Naniwa vs HyuN is at 18:30 and the grand final is scheduled for 20:30 CET.
