[MSL] Move Along

Once again, only one zerg qualified this week! ...And it was HoGiL. Luckily though, this means that two Protoss and a Terran were added to the Ro16 roster. And sorely needed were they. Though we possibly could have had two Terrans and two Protoss advance, fOrGG retired, cutting out some potential hilarity from Group F. Though we don't have any Battle Reports from Group F since the games of Group H were far better, here's a consolation prize:


And I guess we should take a look at the results. If you haven't kept up, the full R&S thread is here.

+ Show Spoiler +

Park Ji Soo, Never_V_, the Pretender. fOrGG's first exploit to be recorded on Teamliquid was his qualification for the WCG Korea Finals as an amateur in 2005. To put this in some perspective, among the other qualifying amateurs were Miracle, Kwanro, and (for those Wings of Liberty fans out there) the now-famous ZergBong. For newbies like me, that was a long time ago. He first registered as a progamer, joining Lecaf OZ sometime during early 2006; though he failed to pass the preliminaries of either individual league for two seasons, his won his first televised Proleague game against Hwasin on 9/11/2006.

fOrGG qualified for his very first OSL, the 3rd Shinhan 2006 OSL, the very next season. In impressive fashion, he took out DarkElf and Bisu in the ODT (OnGameNet Dual Tournament) after ripping through the likes of Nal_rA and old veteran Yooi en route to an 8-1 record in the preliminaries. He was eliminated 1-2 in group stages, losing to GGPlay in the sudden death tiebreaker after bunker rushing him in the first match. But fOrGG got his revenge on GGPlay while notching a 2-kill against Hanbit Stars in the Winners-League-style, Bo5 KeSPA Cup.

Incidentally, after losing 1-2 to Bisu in his second OSL preliminary, fOrGG proceeded to win his next five games against the Protoss over a span of two years, prompting Bisu to call him his archenemy by the time he finally beat fOrGG in 2010.

fOrGG was initially a solid, if mediocre, producer in Proleague, maintaining close to a 50% winrate. But he was an integral part of Lecaf's proleague championship in 2007, winning his matches in both the Round 2 Final and the Grand Final against Kwanro and JangBi, respectively, to help take the trophy home for Oz.


Despite his consistent Proleague play, fOrGG's success in individual leagues was originally limited to the OSL. His first MSL was the GOMTV MSL S3, where he was infamously disqualified in the Round of 16 against Nal_rA when he spammed "return cargo" to bug his SCV past rA's probe block.

Despite his unfortunate mistake, the fall of 2007 signalled a change: fOrGG's individual league was the MSL, not the OSL. He continually lost in the OSL Round of 36 (previously the OSC), or even in the preliminaries. Only once more, in the 1st Korean Air OSL 2010, would he make the Ro16 group stages of the OSL, in which he lost 1-2 to Kal in the quarterfinals.

But the MSL was, for some reason, a different story. Since his first MSL, fOrGG failed to qualify for group stages only once (though admittedly, the MSL has 32 players in group stage to the OSL's 16); of the 9 seasons since the 3rd GOMTV MSL, he advanced to the Ro16 6 times and the Ro8 3 times. It was his 3rd MSL, however, that put Park Ji Soo in the history books.

The Arena MSL was the first MSL I followed personally. Having just experienced July's momentous Golden Mouse run, I expected a storyline just as epic. fOrGG cleanly 2-0'd his group by beating Kal and HerO_V_, and pummeled Sea 2-0 in the Ro16. But Flash and Jaedong were the topic of the day (surprise, it was that way three years ago too!), trading the top spot in Starcraft. Jaedong's revenge against Hwasin and Flash's hard-fought series against Lomo dominated the news--but just as interesting is fOrGG's epic series vs Kal, involving godly macro, precise timing, and... scouts. (Really, watch the games or at least read the Battle Reports if you haven't!)

What was to come could only be described as jaw-dropping. fOrGG was thought by most to have little chance against Flash.


But by abusing Flash's greedy fast expansion with proxy factories and aggressive builds, fOrGG unseated the Terran king and advanced to the finals to face his far more famous teammate, Lee Jae Dong. Though Teamliquid staff and most everyone else favored Jaedong, it was still a teamkill match--up in the air.


What followed was a 3-0 drubbing of Jaedong, an upset that FakeSteve summarized in his crowning of fOrGG as Power Rank #1:


Though fOrGG stayed humble in his winner's interview, all eyes were on him to be the next big thing. Having just completed one of the toughest individual league runs in history--beating three top players, one of each race, akin to Mind's road to his MSL title through iloveoov, sAviOr, and Bisu--fOrGG had instantly reached the pinnacle of Starcraft. Korean fans began the meme 정ㅋ벅ㅋ, roughly "con-lol-queror-lol," so shocked and amused were they by his victory.


Even when fOrGG lost to Much in the OSL Ro36, the fans attributed this to fatigue--an excuse only reserved for top players. He was even favored by some against the PvT god Stork in WCG, though he lost.


Then, tragedy struck--he fell down the stairs. Though he recovered from this incident to 2-0 his MSL group en route to losing again to Stork, his beautiful play--the macro, the planning, the timing, the execution--from the Arena MSL would never be seen again. Though he posted a strong 10-4 record in the first two rounds of the Proleague, fOrGG was off the Power Rank by December. But compounding the problems, a dismal 0-4 Winner's League record and another 3-0 smashing at the hands of Stork led to him being called "the Pretender," and worse, a strained relationship with Coach Cho of Oz. These factored into a huge event in fOrGG's career: his transfer to KTF.


fOrGG's first days at KTF were at best mediocre. In his very first match with his new team, he lost to former teammate Jaedong in Jaedong's all-kill of KTF in the Winner's League playoffs. He lost 0-2 to Calm in the Ro16 of the MSL and went just 4-6 in Proleague. Though KTF boasted three individual league champions in Flash, fOrGG, and Luxury, Flash was the only one to perform consistently, and all too often only one of fOrGG or Luxury would win.

As Flash entered "God mode," fOrGG was completely overshadowed on KT, showing decent but uninspiring play as the 2nd-string Terran. He continued to post respectable results, qualifying for MSLs and the odd OSL while maintaining a 60% TvZ winrate. fOrGG's Ro16 appearances featured losses to two of the very players he beat to obtain his title--a 1-2 loss to Kal in the Korean Air OSL S1 and a 0-3 loss to his dominating teammate Flash in the Bigfile MSL.

fOrGG finished as he began--as the "time attacker." He managed to beat his last Arena MSL opponent, friend, and former teammate Jaedong in the one game they played after Jaedong's all-kill, showing off his timing attack style. His wins were no longer through godly macro or mind-blowing play, but through razor-sharp pushes when his opponent was weakest.

When his retirement was announced, the inevitable jokes about the "timing" of it all came. Though we still don't know his motives for retiring, fOrGG will surely be missed--the Pretender, the Time Attacker, the Conqueror.

Ah... out of so many potential amazing TvZ matchups we could have had, we get Ssak and Calm. Don't get me wrong, I respect the two for what they've done, but this doesn't really sound so entertaining to me. Clam's been having some problems recently with ZvT, and a recent eleven-game loss streak to Terrans is not something to write home to your mother about. Granted, the majority of those losses came at the hands of Flash, Fantasy, and Light... But still, while his ZvZ and ZvP are pretty good, Calm's ZvT is subpar. Luckily, his opponent is new and also not very statistically good at TvZ... but Ssak does have iloveoov behind him.

I might have been too harsh on this pairing. While recent play (sans Ssak vs Flash) from both players hasn't led me to expect much, perhaps we'll see some trademark Brainzerg against neo-Gorilla action. One can only hope. I do expect Calm to win this set, both because of the maps and his experience, but it's way too difficult making predictions this season.


This TvZ should be more exciting than the last. You know, I remember a point last season where I was like "this Classic guy's pretty good", and then he kind of just disappeared. Still though, players with epic chins are pretty awesome to watch, and I do enjoy Classic's TvZ. On the other hand, Hydra's pretty monstrous right now. As this season's Ace match master, he's undefeated in Proleague so far and is looking pretty scary. Though I think Calm vs Ssak is more likely to produce matches with ingenious builds and sharp cheeses, Classic vs Hydra should have more solid, mechanically-dependent games. Hoping for a long macro series involving cow bombs. Hi swanized.

If I say I think Hydra will take it 2-0, is some ethereal force going to smack me upside the head and make the opposite true? While we can say "that's most likely going to happen", this has been the season to prove us wrong.


Yay yay yay Baby Bear! And Jaedong! Oh man remember what happened last time? Midas played pretty well in their Hana Daetoo meeting, but Jaedong slapped his mech around and trounced him 3-0. Currently Jaedong's not playing at his best, but can Midas take advantage of that? Amazingly, over the course of six and a half years Midas has maintained a 65% winrate against Zerg (consistency of an engine right there), and if there's any time to take advantage of Jaedong's ZvT it's now. Still though, the maps don't seem that favorable to Terran this season, and Jaedong is still Jaedong. Though he's going through a bit of a rough spell, I think Jaedong will advance from this match 2-1, probably losing to a bunker rush or some timing attack by Midas.


Teamkills make me sad. There's not much to say about this match--HoGiL's ZvP is excellent, while Snow's PvZ is... not. Though anything can happen in a battle between teammates (as in the above mentioned fOrGG vs Jaedong), upsets are still the exception, not the norm. Though I want Snow to advance, HoGiL 2-0 is probably the most likely outcome of this match.


TvT is T.T, and ZvZ is zzz to a lot of people. Still, in a Round of 16 with nine zergs, I think it's pretty decent that there are only two ZvZs. I want to say that this will be the least-watched match in the Ro16, though anytime great is involved in ZvZ, potential awesomeness is there. With neither player being really stellar at ZvZ (Action at a flat 17-17 and great hovering around 55%), this match may actually be like a coin flip. Whoever has the better muta micro / build advantage / better play in the series wins. Since I'm not sure how else to call it, I'm going to say great 2-0 because of recent play and statistical history.


Seriously, can we stop with the teamkills? I can't really think of a worse one than ZerO vs Soulkey to happen. Why couldn't we have had ZerO vs Bisu and Soulkey vs Stork instead or something like that? Now one of them is going to be eliminated.

I'm going to say what's on everybody's mind: we want another lategame ZvZ. I hope that ZerO and Soulkey decide to intentionally make it so that their games go to hive tech, since that'll make it much more enjoyable to watch. Barring that, I think Soulkey will win. Despite not having too much statistical evidence on Soulkey's ZvZ, I still think it's better than ZerO's. Neo.G_Bonjwa 2-1, though no matter who wins, we win.

And lose. Darn teamkills.


In my mind, this is probably the match that is hardest to predict. While Kal is pretty good, RorO is solid. This is neither player's strongest matchup, but they're still able to produce results. While RorO is solid and boring, Kal's PvZ isn't anything revolutionary. However, Kal is still definitely the favorite here, given that he's a much better performer in individual leagues than RorO. Still, the slayer of anti-teams may slay our hopes at having a balanced Round of 8, but I'm not expecting it. I would say to expect safe, solid games, but then I remembered the last time Kal and RorO played each other. Kal 2-1, with hopefully some well-executed proxy scout build or something like that.


Not happy about this. Not. One. Bit. Even though the teamkills suck, Stork vs Bisu in the Round of 16 is the worst thing that could have happened this MSL. And it happened. With this, there's no chance of a TaekBangLee (NO FLASH) semifinals, which is what could have and should have happened. Instead, now one of the two goes home, and I think it's going to be Stork. His PvP was really shaky for all of 2010, and Biu's is looking pretty solid right now. Though we all wish this match didn't happen, fans can take solace in the fact that whoever wins this will probably be in the finals against Jaedong. Or HoGiL.