by Destructicon
Day 2 contained few surprises but plenty of one-sided series, as many tournament lives were cut short. So far, the main theme of the tournament is the violent resurgence of Terran representation. After suffering throughout the early months of 2014 terrans unleashed their accumulated wrath at Dreamhack Winter, slaying all foes in their path. Their victories came at the expense of protoss and zerg alike: only 1 representative per race remains in the top 6.
Humanity dominated the first round of the lower bracket, winning all their scheduled matches. After some early game shenanigans resulted in an initial loss, Acer.MMA rebounded and won the next 3 games against DPix.Patience with excellent defense and good macro. Unfortunately for fans of Liquid'HerO, his series vs teammate TaeJa was a complete rout. HerO tried to play aggressive by proxying his tech, but TaeJa swatted him aside at every turn. From there TaeJa pressed his advantage with his typically solid macro. The closest PvT of the day turned out to be MC vs mYi.jjakji. Their series showcased a combination of early game schemes and late game clashes, and two went blow for blow until game 5. However, the rogue from mYi came out ahead in the end after a perplexing draw in the final game of the series. The Swarm didn't fare any better by comparison. The last series of the lower bracket proved to be a total cakewalk for yoeFW.San, who killed Jaedong with his characteristic gateway timings and mid-game followups.
After culling the other races out of the tournament the terran dominion inevitably turned on their own. jjakji faced off vs MMA. The series included some strange play from MMA, who tried to use mech during the entire series instead of sticking with his bread and butter. The risk failed as jjakji repeatedly found holes in MMA's build with some excellently planned builds, and the BlizzCon runnerup's run was ended with a shocking 0-3 loss. Meanwhile, TaeJa destroyed San as easily as he did HerO. The yoe Flash Wolves protoss was no better prepared against Taeja's timings and flopped like a fish pulled onto a trawling boat.
With the loser's bracket concluded for the day, all eyes turned to the first (and potentially last) PvZ of the tournament. TCM.First put up a better fight than most people expected, taking a map off ST.Life in a tense game on Overgrowth. Yet he displayed no ability to sniff out Life's timing attacks or construct proper responses, losing in shameful fashion to huge swells of zerglings. In the end the Swarm prevailed 3-1. The second series of the winners' bracket was another TvT match, this time between Polt and ForGG. Perhaps sensing the crowd's fatigue after a long day, ForGG decided to be merciful. He quickly dispatched Captain America with crippling hellion and banshee timings, capitalizing on several serious blunders to end games before the 10 minute mark. His 3-0 victory sets up for an exciting TvZ winners' bracket final for tomorrow.
Overall it was a good day to be a terran, and the brackets are set up so they have 2 representatives in the top 4 at minimum. But with Polt, ForGG, jjakji and TaeJa still alive, the terran contingent will surely be aiming for the grand prize.