One cannot stand motionless when players like Bomber and Mvp clash. The rising star of StarTale had to defeat arguably the best Terran in the world, who stood almost undefeated in mirrors. So, did he manage to do it?
Game 1 @ Crossfire
Bomber opened with a proxy second rax and applied pressure to Mvp right from the beginning while expanding to the gold at the same time. Although under heavy fire, Mvp managed to get a Hellion in time to fend off the marines and from there on transitioned into blue flame.
As it would become apparent after a few minutes, the decision of Mvp to upgrade his Hellions is what won him the game. After a quartet of blue flames obliterated the economy at his natural, Bomber decided to equalize the scales by going for a strong push which actually turned out quite nice, killing all of Mvp's tanks. Bomber, however, would've been in a much better position had Mvp not sneaked Hellions in his base and thrashed whatever economy remained for the ST terran. Knowing that there is no way to win a macro game, Bomber attempted an SCV all-in but after failing miserably he GG-ed out of the first set.
Game 2 @ Crevasse
The ultimate mirror continued with ultimate mirror builds. Both players went for hidden factories at their inside natural and transitioned to cloak banshees. To complete the picture (or the mirror image, whatever), both banshees were denied almost at the exact same time by a viking and the game entered the rails of standard.
It was by that time that Bomber deviated from imitating his opponent's play and took an earlier third. This put him in the army lead, which he used later to push forward and stall Mvp's third base from mining, while taking his fourth at the same time.
Although Mvp managed to eventually get his third back on the mining tracks, he had the strong need to deny the additional base of Bomber but by moving out a piece of his army, he ended up in a trap between two fronts of enemy tanks. But surprisingly, that was not the biggest blunder that Mvp did this set. The latter came when he lost three full medivacs in attempt to get back to equal positions. Being more than 40 supply and one base behind, Mvp had no chance of outmacroing Bomber and winning the game.
Game 3 @ Terminus
In this short third set, Mvp again experienced huge blunder in his play. Having his Marines mispositioned, the Seoul champion completely missed Bomber's Marine/Tank/SCV all-in and by the time he managed to reach his base it was already too late - Bomber had sieged at his production facilities, denying any chance for Mvp to increase his army count.
Game 4 @ Metalopolis
Having the lead in this Bo7, Bomber might have felt a bit too confident and opened the set on Metalopolis with a cloak Banshee - a build way too predictable in close air positions. Knowing that he has what it needs to deny any eventual harass, Mvp went for the usual quick siege tech, followed by Stim and pushed towards Bomber's base, sieging at the lowground in range of the production facilities. After his Banshee had been cleaned up by vikings and with his siege tech only half-way done, Bomber lost his starport, factory and later on - the game.
Game 5 @ Tal'Darim Altar
Similarly to the set on Metalopolis, tech decisions was what determined the outcome of this game. Bomber opened with quick stim as opposed to Mvp's blue flame hellions with the latter being completely denied by Bomber's micro and building placement. The ST terran now had a window of opportunity and brought some SCVs along his stim timing attack. Hitting Mvp before his siege tech was done, Bomber was suddenly a game ahead of the "game genie terran".
Game 6 @ Xel'Naga Fortress
The set started with equal trades - Mvp's bust attempt at Bomber's natural got denied by a bunker but the ex-Code S-er managed to stop Bomber's banshee before it did any severe damage. From that point on both players transitioned into the standard Marine/Tank composition but despite the equal army counts almost throughout the entire game, Bomber had one crucial card up his sleeve - he was running a double E-bay.
Thus, when the time for head-on battles came, Bomber had little trouble coming out victorious, slowly pulling more and more ahead in terms of supply. Being so far behind in upgrades and not being able to outproduce Bomber due to equal number of bases, Mvp lost the final battle just in front of his natural choke. The two-times champion was dethroned and Bomber sat down on the terran throne.
This is undoubtedly the greatest feat in Bomber's career so far but his quest for glory would not end with conquering the terran king. Both players, along 6 others, will join the fray called "up-and-down matches" on Monday. The groups have been drawn, the opponents - determined. We are yet to see who will climb up to Code S!
