After winning a pair of quick games with adept/phoenix and a proxy stargate into stalker attack, Classic dropped game three to Ryung on Whirlwind. Ryung found himself ahead with both players on three bases. While Classic fought back for a while, well upgraded Bio brought the score to 2-1. Ryung lost most of his liberators late in game four while dropping Classic's main. The mistake paved the way for Classic's tempest, storm, colossi army. Ryung managed to wipe most of it out once, but lost a key engagement outside of his third shortly after to cede the match. The loss means Ryung will finish the second stage of SSL Challenge without a win.
ByuN's ineffective proxy reaper was just the first part of an impotent performance that saw Dear crush him with an adept/phoenix timing. Game two was more contested, with ByuN setting Dear back onto two bases with a bio/liberator push. Dear gathered his army and countered, killing ByuN's third and never looked back. Game three was as one sided as the first. ByuN would fight at a disadvantage for quite some time, but the writing was on the wall. Down on bases and with half the workers of Dear, ByuN finally conceded the match. The win vaults Dear ahead of ByuN in the standings, putting him in prime position to make it to Fast Lane.
herO was able to weather a mine drop from TY in game one before killing TY's third along with 30 SCVs. From there it was academic for the ROOT Protoss. Game three looked to be within reach when TY killed herO's third, but he simply could not match herO's army of templar and colossi. A pylon rush got herO off to a good start in game three. TY's response was to move into mech, but herO adapted well with dark templar and zealot harass. He accompanied this with an immortal heavy composition that gave him the 3-0 victory. The win seeds herO directly into SSL Premier, while at the same time bouncing TY from Challenge.