Yesterday the MSL finals were played in Korea the Zerg player Jaedong faced his Protoss opponent Kal for the title!
As you know the StarCraft scene in Korea is very competitive with several leagues and dozens of tournaments going on around the country it is the #1 e-sports nation in the world! Last night one of the two top leagues for SC had their finals. Some great games were played and hard won for the victor, here is a short synopsis of each game although we really recommend checking out the VODs as well!
Game 1
The first game between the two finalists was played on the map Blue Storm, a current favorite among foreign and Korean leagues alike. Kal warped in at the three o clock position while Jaedong spawned in the lower left 7 position. Kal chose to go with a fast expansion build while Jaedong went with a basic zergling to hydralisk build.
Kal got some corsairs up to scout Jaedongs tech and saw that he was going with a mass hydra build for the mid-game fight. The two top rated Koreans danced around the map for about five minutes before Kal was able to take out Jaedongs third expo at his mineral only. Jaedong soon typed out the score was now 1-0 for Kal.
Game 2
Game two had Kal one game up with quite a bit of condfidence from it shown by his enormous smile after game one. The next map was Loki II a very interesting map with some odd chokes and good expansion placement. Kal started in the top right corner with Jaedong in the lower left hand spot. Once again opening with a fast expansion build Jaedong opted to take his hidden expo first blocking his ramp with a drone to stop Kal from seeing it early. Jaedong quickly grabbed his natural expansion and began his hydralisk den as well as his spire.
Once the spire was up he began some mutalisk harrasment and was slightly successful but not enough to slow down the Protoss macro. It soon looked as though Kal was about to take the series to a 2-0 lead with a rather impressive army consisting of goons, zealots, archons and alot of storm with some reavers to back him up later. But Jaedong was able to secure more expansions allowing him to move up to ultra tech with defilers. After losing several of his expos and seeing the size of the Zergs army Kal gave up, GG! 1-1 a win for each player now.
Game 3
Game three played on the map Katrina which is believed to be a heavily protoss favored map in the PvT match up proved different in PvZ. The players both started in opposite horizontal positions at nine and three which made it a tough position for anyone with a rush strategy. Both players went with their natural expansions located behind the main base and began their builds.
Kal threw up some cannons and a gateway near his neutral building so he could creat a choke for any zerglings that could get to his base early on. Jaedong was rather sneaky putting up his third expansion just out of the sight of Kals scouting probe giving him a slight advantage here. The Zerg once again chose a mass hydra-ling build while Kal went with a corsair-reaver build trying to punish Jaedong for his quick third. He successfully dropped some templars and reavers to do a good amount of damage holding off Jaedongs fourth expo and for just a little bit.
Once again Kal appeared to be on top this game for just a moment, but after he stormed his own observers several times when attempting to kill Jaedongs expo he was forced to retreat to gather more units. He went for the same expo again and successfully destroyed it for the second time unfortuantely in this case Jaedong wisely chose to hit the Protoss main base taking out 3 gateways before his expansion even went down. Kal carried on into the main base of the Zerg hoping to destroy it but it was too late Jaedong reinforced his defenses and knocked down the Protoss' last expo, GG. 2-1 for the young Zerg.
Game 4
Now two games down Kal looked very determined to win this game against his Zerg opponent for his last chance at the title. The map was Zodiac an expansion rich map which is especially good for the Zerg race. Kal chose to once again go with a fast expansion build but no corsairs this time around. He built 1 cannon to defend his choke against the speed lings he scouted being created in Jaedongs larva. Four lings managed to sneak by and it was rather disastrous for the Protoss losing 7 probes at his natural expansion, his economy was now struggling.
Jaedong teched to mutas and it did not look good for Kal who was just barely getting his templar archives up. He quickly warped an archon and tried to put up some cannons but he was forced to cancel them due to bad timing on his part. Jaedong destroyed his probe line while picking off the templars that were now just coming out of Kals gateways. Kal quickly typed out realizing he had no way to recover, GG! Jaedong is the newest MSL winner joining the likes of Boxer, Nada, Savior, and Iloveoov!
Jaedong Wins!
Jaedong is the newest champion to emerge from the 32 player tournament he played 16 sets and was able to come out on top of the pile. The VODs should be up soon and there are some really interesting commentated games up on YouTube check them out! Next up in the major Korean leagues is two top 5 KeSPA players: Stork vs Flash in the OSL finals! Place your GosuBets, get your drinks, get your popcorn and get ready for the first big rematch this year!
Links
YouTube.com - A list of the games.
TeamLiquid.net - MSL Results for the season
