The Luxury we saw yesterday was clearly not in the house today to save his team from Hwaseung Oz’s Jaedong - who for the first time was selected to open for his team. There was also a lot of pre-match hype and rivalry after Oz’s star Terran player - Never_V (fOrGG) signed up with KTF MagicNs only a week earlier after reported mis-treatment from the coach at Oz. Jaedong in a pre-interview said he was looking forward to "killing at least 2 players" from the KTF roster. With a lineup that contains Luxury, FlaSh, fOrGG & the ACE sniper - HoeJJa, one would think that’s a bit ambitious… Or so we all thought, except JaeDong himself.
Oz’s coach seeded Jaedong as the starting player for the first time ever. KTF’s coach went with the tried and tested HoeJJa, a little known Zerg player who sniped SKT T1′ s prized Protoss - Bisu and proceeded to beat a hopeless Canata. A rare feat indeed, but could he repeat it against probably one of the most dominating players around - Lee Jaedong. HoeJJa seemed confident of springing a surprise on the pro and even inflicting severe damage on the rest of Oz. Oz’s coach didn’t have too many options to be starting with he could have picked HiyA, the only other player to have had success in team leagues in Oz but instead he choses to go with his best. Both line ups are dried of star Protoss players. None of the 6 Dragons (A title given to 6 of the dominating players of recent times, they all happened to be Protoss’ the players are: Stork, JangBi, BeSt, Bisu, Kal & Free) reside in either of these teams, so the player of choice needed to be able to handle either a Terran or a Zerg - A Simple task for the lineup that KTF could have put out.
Game 1 - Jaedong (Zerg - Oz) vs HoeJJa (Zerg - KTF) on Andromeda
HoeJJa goes into this game with a 0-3 statistic in Zerg mirrors, can he change his luck and and his team’s destiny?
Jaedong spawns as the Yellow zerg, HoeJJa takes the red zerg spot. Both start off with identical builds in a Zerg mirror which means they put up a late pool and proceed to expand for mineral/gas in addition they will look to harass the opponents’ economy with either their first set of scout zerglings or look to mass a bit more zerglings before pushing with a few mutalisks. The same holds true in this game as well. Jaedong dances his zerglings while HoeJJa adds a sunken at his expansion and prepares a larger force of Zerglings. Jaedong cannot find the break into his opponents base and HoeJJa has a bigger army of Zerglings, after an inital encounter Jaedong retreats as he sees the bigger force of lings, Around the 7:48 mark it seems like JD is in a bit of a spot of trouble as he loses more lings and the pressure starts to mound on him. HoeJJa meanwhile applies more pressure but for some reason doesn’t seem to apply it at JD’s natural. With preciou seconds going away it seems like this could come to bite HoeJJa in the butt. By the 8:27 mark, it does. JD’s 3 muta advantage squashes every little force in HoeJJa, the sunken at the expansion is down, while the scourges are getting trained for him it’s almost impossible to quell the advantage JD has. The Muta/Scourge micro displayed by JD is remarkable as you will notice, barely losing any mutas and sniping all his scourges before they actually create any extensive damage. Soon the pressure builds on HoeJJa who goes a little suicidal and ends up losing everything, in sheer domination and display of skill - JD leaves 2 scourges at HoeJJa’s base for any future mutalisks. HoeJJa’s inexperience costed him, JD would have probably not lost to him as his timing for mutalisks was almost spot on. HoeJJa taps out, GG. Oz 1 - 0 KTF
Game 2 - Jaedong (Zerg - Oz) vs fOrGG (Terran - KTF) on Medusa
In an interview before the match, someone asked Jaedong what had he thought about fOrGG facing him and he said “I know he’s a former team-mate but even when I practiced before him I won more and I am confident this time as well”. Jaedong starts of as the Green Zerg taking on fOrGG’s Purple Terran, the openings are similar with JD getting a slightly faster expansion, scouts are sent from each end with JD’s scout refusing to die and causing some fun in-game in fOrGG’s base. fOrGG however scouts JD’s base and sees the late pool, in coming Spire! JD adds another expansion and looks to apply some pressure early game with a few Hydras. fOrGG on the other hand opts for a complete mech build (4 factories pumping Vultures, Goliaths, Tanks). Both players invest heavily in upgrading their units, JD soon starts his mutalisk harass with a good degree of success. Still at 1 expansion for the Terran while JD moves on to add a 3rd expansion not including his main. What JD is essentially doing is preparing a vast army to bear the brunt of the seige tanks, he mixes his units with zerglings, hydralisks, lurkers & defilers. The latter purely for Dark Swarm. The pressure is continously applied on a fOrGG who seems very contained in his base, he tries to break it and achieves some reasonable amount of success while breaking a chunk of JD’s armies. JD steps it up a notch at this point by adding 2 more hatcheries, some reckoned he’d go a ‘Sauron Zerg’ (one where there’s a continous horde of hydras/mutas used to overwhelm your opponent). JD however has other plans. fOrGG plays smart and adds late vultures for spider mines and starts pushing back JD’s armies with more success. JD tempts him to attack and fOrGG bites the bait, unfortunately for him no Zerg player can use Dark Swarm the way JD does at the moment. Within minutes his siege tanks are knocking on nothing, mutas move in and he overwhelms the goliaths (ironic) with his mutas! fOrGG taps out, GG! Oz 2 - 0 KTF
Game 3 - Jaedong (Zerg - Oz) vs Luxury (Zerg - KTF) on Sin Chupung Ryeong
Just a day before Luxury thumped JangBi to be crowned the MSL winner, but the player who turned up today to compete against Jaedong looked tired, sleepy and downright disoriented even in game.Luxury fans might want to skip this game as it was probably better not to seed him at all against a monster JD. JD starts off as the White Zerg while Luxury is the Red Zerg in this quick game on SCR, Luxury appears to be visually exhausted at the start of the match itself. Both start off with standard builds, naturals are meant for expansion and so they do in this game as well. Luxury decides to harass JD earlier on with little to no success. JD fends off that frail harass and decides to walk to his opponents’ base. Dances his zerglings around long enough and then actually manages to fool Luxury by sneaking in a few lings. At this point I asked myself - Was Luxury actually sleeping? the rest of the game isn’t even worth describing as it’s nothing short of pure domination and this set ends very fast. Oz 3 - o KTF!
Game 4- Jaedong (Zerg - Oz) vs FlaSh (Terran- KTF) on Rush Hour 3
Here we go - After some really dismal plays by KTF Zergs’ here comes the real ACE player from the KTF camp, save the best for last? Truly - Both players seem to keep that in mind throughout this match. A lot of fans will remember the rivalry these players have and this match even though not in a StarLeague promised nothing short of magic. Before the match JD said he was hoping to play against FlaSh and was confident of beating the wiz kd. In what appears to be a statistically Terran dominated map vs Zerg, will JD show his dominance or will the brilliant FlaSh keep his teams hopes alive and reverse kill Oz?
Map starts with JD as the Teal Zerg & FlaSh as the White Terran. JD opts for a fast expansion again (loves to do doesn’t he?) a move which speaks volumes about his form, unlike his fellow Terran - FlaSh goes for a M&M (Medic and Marines) build while preparing his expansion a little later. JD starts off with some quick pressure as usual but his lings cannot find their way into the mineral line of FlaSh’s SCVs. JD adds a spire and puts up a few defense structures (sunkens) as well. As expected, Mutalisks arrive for harassment! They are not very successful with the Marines keeping them at bay. FlaSh puts down a factory and ports for Science Vessels. This will not be easy for JD. FlaSh puts down 6 barracks to now put the pressure on JD, it seems like JD will switch to Hydras but he persists with lings/lurkers. FlaSh goes for a push mid-game and it looks like he achieves a big amount of success. JD expands for a 2nd time in response to that. Watching a Queens Nest in his base I thought we’d get to see a mix of Defiler/Queen play but JD sticks to his guns by going for Defilers again. While JD now has 3 expansions up, his contain on FlaSh cannot hold any longer, he gets pushed back considerably losing a lot of units. He loses 2 of his expansions and FlaSh adds another expansion as JD now seems to be in trouble. JD at this point starts to spread FlaSh’s armies thin and picks up bunches of M&M’s along with scourges picking off some vessels. Vultures are added to the Terrans army and we see a sea (hehe) of spider mines going up. FlaSh gets a little greedy and pushes a little too much into the Zerg’s realm and finds himself a few soldiers short. JD changes the pace and starts using his Defilers with Plague instead of Swarm, despite the irradiate hitting hard on his Lurkers he manages to keep the pressure up. A late attempt at salvaging his armies sees Firebats being added to FlaSh’s army but JD quickly switches over to hordes of Hydralisks… The pressure suddenly becomes too much for the wiz kid to handle and he’s soon seen typing GG! FlaSh’s face at the end is also noteworthy. Oz 4 - 0 KTF!
Before the match the KTF coach said, “If we can snipe Jaedong we will move into the finals”. My how right he was, too bad none of his players could! Next up is reigning champion CJ_Entus, who will probably be a very tough task for Oz to beat, but given JD’s current form it will be a tough game and it will be hard for anyone to call that one!
