Photo by: Zemotion
After three days of intense StarCraft 2 in New York, Jung Hoon "MarineKing" Lee emerged as the best player of the MLG Winter Arena. In an epic grand final series, the Prime terran rightfully earned his first place check after defeating fellow Korean zerg DongRaeGu.
Coming from the winners bracket final, MarineKing had to win just one Bo3 series against DongRaeGu and after successfully executing a bunker rush on Dual Sight (not without the aid of DRG's poor ling micro), the young terran was in close reach of his first major international gold. It was not meant to be that easy, however, as DongRaeGu responded with an early game aggression on game two, tying the series with an overflowing amount of speedlings that ate MKP's marines alive.
Game three saw DRG successfully defending the 2-rax bunker rush but then losing his third once MarineKing started utilizing his medivac tech. DongRaeGu was seemingly in a very bad position but he received an unexpected present in the form of MKP's absolutely illogical 2-base push. The latter got crushed hard, allowing DRG to restore his economy and sweep his opponent with banelings and mutalisks.
That forced the series into a Bo7 and by that time DongRaeGu looked like he was indeed invincible. However, his arguable decision to go mass roaches against MKP's 5-rax build on Entombed Valley proved otherwise and the terran once again had a fighting chance. Coming out in game five, MarineKing made yet another 2-rax bunker rush work, extorting a very early GG out of the zerg.
The sixth and final game was played out on Antiga Shipyard with MKP taking a quick third after a reactor hellion opening. It took DRG some time to find out MarineKing's plan as well as the large marine/tank offensive that was being prepared but as he did, a greater spire and ultra cavern were immediately thrown down. When fighting time came, DRG chose to go for the ground army instead of brood lords and that would prove most inefficient. The chunky beasts were most ineffective against the plethora of marines and even with fungals the game was absolutely unwinnable for DRG.
As a winner of the MLG Winter Arena, MarineKing will cash a hefty check of $10,000 - a valuable enough award for breaking his "silver medal curse".
MLG Winter Arena Standings
1.
Jung Hoon MarineKing Lee, $10.0002.
Soo Ho DongRaeGu Park, $6.0003.
Chris HuK Loranger, $3.6004.
Hak Soo Oz Kim, $2.2005-6.
Lee Sak Parting Won, $1.4005-6.
Dong Hwan Violet Kim, $1.4007-8.
Johan Naniwa Lucchesi, $9007-8.
Dong Ju Ganzi Kim, $900