This was one of the most bizarre nights in WCS, featuring a number of abrupt gg's. Predictions were slightly off (I had CranK on my radar, but ultimately went with Aligulac). You can watch the VODs here.
A huge upset, as Taeja was seemingly on tilt. Game one both players went mech, with Taeja going for an early banshee which accomplished nothing; MajOr went for an early third base; Taeja forced the first main engagement, but it went extremely poorly and the Korean tapped out abruptly. Game two Taeja lost an SCV, reaper, and marine (a push) due to poor micro and tapped out moments later as MajOr countered. The result here seemed largely a matter of Taeja's play rather than MajOr (as evidenced by their rematch).
In the first game aLive went for a quick three CC's as CranK went for standard zealot-stalker-mothership core harass (which did a little damage); CranK went for a proxy twilight, but aLive spotted the proxy pylon and shut down the initial push before it started; aLive moved to attack the natural and CranK flanked his army and annihilated it, killing the Terran with his counter. Game two CranK built a gateway in aLive's base which did not get scouted until zealots were active; aLive sent his workers to his natural, building a bunker and managing to get his marines into it; he took his marines up into his main to defend it when a stalker and mothership core appeared and he gg'd out. It seemed abrupt--aLive could have floated his buildings down and not chased--but rather than playing it out he tapped out.
Game one CranK went for a proxy stargate and two oracles did a ton of damage; CranK then went for DTs which did even more damage to the Terran; MajOr was able to force two cancels of CranK's third, but suffered even more economic damage from a zealot/high templar drop in his main; MajOr tried to attack the third with his army, but CranK was able to defend using storm and archons and MajOr tapped out despite having nearly equal supply after the battle. In game two both players opened very passively; MajOr made a two medevac push as CranK sent out a warp prism--the latter didn't do much while MajOr tried to set up a contain; CranK broke the contain quickly with good storms; as CranK pushed MajOr away the Terran dropped the third and killed it; CranK continued forward, killing the third and most of the Terran army with storms; MajOr could not get enough units to prevent CranK from camping in his base and was forced to tap out. The second game was very entertaining and worth checking out.
The expected result here. Game one aLive went for a couple of reapers and his pokes didn't offer an advantage to either player; Taeja went for a banshee which was very effective, eventually making a push while taking his third which simply won him the game. In game two Taeja went banshee again (as he went mech), but his initial push was blunted easily; aLive made his own push, but put his tanks in a terrible position allowing Taeja's hellions to kill them and crush the push; aLive did good damage with banshees, but another round of harassment (banshee/raven and then a drop) was not very effective and he couldn't hold off Taeja huge mech army.
The rematch looked nothing like their initial set of games, as the odds came up trumps. Game one Taeja went banshee as MajOr made a marine/hellion push; MajOr tried to fight up the ramp and lost everything while the banshee did terrific damage--when a second one showed up MajOr tapped out abruptly. In game two MajOr went for a reaper-marine-SCV push, which failed almost as badly as when Taeja did it in the previous series; MajOr went banshee while Taeja built a raven and shut it down; MajOr went mech as Taeja went bio, with the former taking an early third (like their first game in the previous series); MajOr's hellion runby got shut down; Taeja was able to take out a few tanks as MajOr had them unsieged and then killed off all the hellions with a nice flank; Taeja forced the fourth to lift with a drop and then surrounded MajOr's army and destroyed it, ending the game.
CranK and Taeja move on.
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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