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Today was the first day of the 10th GomTV MBCGame StarLeague and also there were qualifiers for OSL with ODT Group H. Some upsets and some very entertaining games. Here are the battle reports and results.



Savior vs Hwasin at Longinus II



A battle of two people who are very good at TvZ. Hwasin has a 13:3 record, while Saviors 17:6 is also impressive. Hwasin hot of his quick qualification for the OSL faces the zerg many hold as the best player around these days. Savior had a neat little gold MSL shield on his collar to signify that he is the reigning MSL champion. Savior spawns at 11 and goes for a 12 expo, pool build. Hwasin lands at 7 and his first barrack is so late the commentators sound like they think he's fallen asleep. But a few seconds after the first barrack is started, so is a command center at his natural. He shortly adds another barrack and then gets his academy started. Savior on his part puts down a third hatchery in his main, a spire and a den while morphing in a total of 4 sunkens at his front door. He also takes the expansion at 1.

In the mean time terran has added two more barracks and a factory and moved out into the middle. Saviors mutalisks opts to harass this force instead of going for Hwasins base. The harass is rather unsuccessful and he even loses one of the two lurkers he sent to the ramp at 1 to protect it. Hwasin thanks Savior for the free kill and information and moves on 1. He easily kills the single lurker at the ramp and some mutas before he starts attacking the hatchery. Savior sends in a badly coordinated mutalurk force to stop him but ends up losing the hatchery and far more units than he should have. He quickly retakes 1, adds a hatchery in his main along with a queens nest and while terran moves out he also takes 3.

With the main terran army in the middle zerg decides to attack his base with a lurkerling force, but a nicely placed tank and some marines holds him off quite easily. Savior retreats before losing most of the lurkers. He uses them to pincer the terran forces who are at his natural. At this point his hive and defiler mound is completed, but no defilers are out and he cannot afford to wait, so he attacks the terran. However Hwasin has four tanks and about 2 controls of marines. He holds the zerg counter and takes out the natural, making Savior type out. GG. Savior was not his usual dominant self in this game, but that's not to take away from Hwasin who played very well. He's on fire these days and will be interesting to follow through both the MSL and the OSL.

Jaedong vs Pusan at Blitz X



Jaedong spawns at the right and starts with a 9pool with extractor trick to get an extra drone while the overlord hatches. Pusan warps in at the left and goes for a forge at his natural first. He also manages to delay the zerg expansion with his probe until the zerglings arrive. The zerg takes the expansion at 4 and is immidiately spotted, but Pusan sends his first zealots to the zerg natural and is dealt with quite easily. Jaedong puts down a forth hatchery in his natural while teching to spire and den. Pusan on his part goes for a starport and a templar archieve. The dark templar heads for the zerg expansion at 4 but doesn't do too much damage before it's killed.

As Protoss takes the expansion on his side of the middle an interesting battle breaks out. Jaedong runs in some lurkers and Pusan is still waiting for his observer. When it arrives Jaedong targets and kills it with his mutalisks, but Pusan just had time to take out the lurkers. Zerg adds a dual evolution chamber and takes his side of the middle, but protoss heads straight for it. Again Jaedong does a nice job taking out the observers, but Pusan does a nicer job with his storms and kills the lurkers and destroys the newly made expansion. At this point it's 3 bases for each player and zerg starts his hive, while protoss is making his first arbiter. Pusan takes the south west natural and attacks the zerg front. He almost breaks through, but get held off. Sadly his last templar choses to storm itself and a drone or two rather than the eight drones next to it. Pusan tries to take the south west main, but is stopped by lings. Instead he takes down the middle expansion of the zerg and then attacks the front. With storms going off everywhere the zerg force is reduce to nothing in seconds. Jaedong has to type out. GG.

Pusan stormed well most of the game and he also forced Jaedong to play with an equal amount of expansions most of the game. As the game ended the camera focused on Pusan as he displayed a clever little smile, clearly pleased with himself. Jaedong's nickname is legend killer, but I guess Pusan doesn't qualify as one.

Silver vs Bifrost on Desert Fox



Silver has a rather depressing ZvT record, with 5:10, while Bifrost had a 2:2 record. The OGN Sparkyz terran looked very nervous as he landed at 7 and started with a two barrack, command center build. Silver spawned at 11 and went for a 12 pool, gas, lair build before he added a second hatchery in his main and quickly started his spire. Bifrost used his command center to build scvs until he could open the path to his natural and destroy the creep colony there. Silver took the island next to him and his natural. As his mutalisks start roaming the map they do little damage as the terran has quite a few turrets, but they do see an armory and 2 starports. As Bifrost has four valkyries roaming the sky Silver moves in with mutalisks to soak up some fire and scourges them all.

Bifrost has been busy and now has a lot of marinemedic which he drops in the zerg natural. Zerg manages to scoure some of the dropships, but it's too late. Too many marines had gotten out and the expansion falls. As terran moves this force towards the main, he doesn't control them properly and they are split into two groups which easily fall to mutalisks. Silver has now sunkened up the rest of his expansions in fear of more drops, but Bifrost drops the same place again as the zerg tries to retake the natural. He moves the force towards the main and also has 2 dropships with reinforcements heading towards the zerg main. However it's not the best of timing and control and it doesn't go as well as it should have. Terran has at least managed to establish 5 while keeping Silver on the defensive.

Terran now drops the island at 9 and obliterates it in seconds despite the four or five sunkens. He then picks up the remainder of his drop and drops them straight above at the natural mineral only. Silver finally has some lurkers and tried to prevent the assault on his natural but there are too many marines. Then Bifrost drops the zerg main and it's over. GG. Bifrost quickly gets up to shake Silver's hand, but the Pantech EX zerg is not interested.

Much vs aQua on Reverse Temple



Much warps in at 9 and builds his first pylon at his natural. aQua did a normal 12 hatchery at his natural build. Instead of going for a forge and a quick nexus Much halted his probe production for a while to get up 2 quick gateways. There's really not much else to say about the game, the zealots poured out and aQua could not defend it. GG. It was a nicely timed and executed strategy by Much and aQua looked like he thought Much was a noob for cheesing like that.

GomTV MBC StarLeague, Week 1
Savior vs Hwasin Longinus II
Jaedong vs Pusan Blitz X
Silver vs Bifrost Desert Fox
Much vs aQua Reverse Temple


Todays MSL didn't have the most even games, they were mostly dominated by one player. The highlight game must be Hwasin's demolition of Savior. The red sniper, as he is apparently nicknamed, made beating Savior look like a walk in the park. At the same time as the MSL, OGN continued with their qualifiers for OSL, ODT Group H. No battle reports from this sadly, I chose to focus on the MBC StarLeague. Here are the results:

OGN Dual Tournament, Group H
Upmagic vs TT Tau Cross
iloveoov vs JiHyun Tau Cross
iloveoov vs Upmagic Arcadia II
JiHyun vs TT Arcadia II
iloveoov vs JiHyun New Peaks


Upmagic, aka Sea.Up, is Sea.Jangs brother and did very well today. Beating TT and then oov gives him a spot in the OSL. Oov recovered however and beat JiHyun for the second time to grab the second spot in the OSL. I didn't see the first 3 games, but caught the ending for the forth. TT had a massive lead with corsairs and reaver but squandered it and failed miserably. I know most of us was hoping for more protoss players in the OSL, but this is one we can do without. The last game oov took JiHyun apart quite quickly. Upmagic seems to being doing very well these days, he was also impressive in one of the games in the last ProLeague match for eSTRO verus Hanbit. Then Free[gm] destroyed him completely, but he seems to be over that now.

Links
FighterForum - Source for pics etc