by Waxangel

Match results from Live Report Thread by opterown.
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LG-IM's New Stars Sink NS HoSeo
– Seed and First combine to defeat a weakened NS HoSeo 5 – 3

It was almost a given that the powerhouse LG-IM would defeat NS Hoseo. The only question was, who would they rely on from their embarrassing wealth of talent to get the job done? In the end, it wasn't their old school, multiple championship duo of Mvp and Nestea, nor their recent Team League workhorse Losira. Instead, it was their two newest stars, Seed and First, who only came into their own in the summer of 2012, who finished off NSH.

– First takes two to start

Aptly enough, LG-IM choose First to open for them in their first match of the season. Having lost much of their roster between seasons, NSH was forced to field the virtually unknown Brave as their starter, giving him his GSTL debut. Not surprisingly, Brave wasn't able to play well in his first appearance in the booth, and quickly lost to First's 3-gate blink stalker rush after missing a vital force field on his ramp.

The next player for NSH ended up being yet another fresh face in SalvatioN. Sadly, he wasn't able to live up to his namesake, and was yet more fodder for LG-IM as his 1/1/1 failed.

– jjakji takes three games off LG-IM, including a win over Mvp

Down 0 – 2, NSH decided to deploy Jjakji as the third runner in their line-up, a common position for Jjakji in the past. Jjakji forced First to deal with another cheese rush, but unlike Salvation's 1/1/1, his hellion-marauder all-in took First off guard to give NSH a quick victory.

LG-IM decided to bring the big guns early, immediately throwing in Mvp to take on NSH's ace. Mvp made the interesting pick of the new GSL and GSTL map Abyssal City, a decision that turned out to be great for the viewers.

An exciting game ensued, as Jjakji and Mvp both went for marine-tank compositions and constantly fought for position over Abyssal City's two central ridges. The game slowly seemed to flow Mvp's way, as he had control of the ridges for the majority of the time, and used it to expand his influence across the map. When he hit Jjakji's base with a marine drop and took a thirty supply lead, it seemed that he was going to close the book on NSH's ace player.

However, Jjakji showed how marine-tank vs marine-tank can easily be turned around with smart positioning and good battle selection, and exploited the fact that Mvp's forces were split up on two separate ridges. Using divide and conquer tactics, Jjakji advanced on Mvp's positions and won two critical engagements to take a huge army lead. Mvp tried to get back in the game, but Jjakji refused to let go of his lead and slowly choked out the four-time GSL champion to even up the score.

With the score tied 2 – 2 and Jjakji building momentum, it was no surprise to see the LG-IM head coach go for one of his trademark head-scratcher roster choices (he would explain his reasoning later). IM's True came out to face Jjakji on Whirlwind, seeking to use the map advantage to defeat the NSH ace in a macro game. However, Jjakji proved to be more than up to the task of defeating the Code B player, using superior multi-tasking to wear him down in a long game.

– Seed closes out the series, taking the final three games for LG-IM

With NSH having taken the lead for the first time in the series, Seed came up next to stem the tide. Another nail-biting game ensued on Cloud Kingdom, as Seed and Jjakji warily picked away at each other, both unable to force each other into initiating a game ending 200 vs 200 engagement.

After around thirty minutes of minor skirmishes and constant tactical movements, Seed finally managed to take one of the corner expansions, forcing Jjakji to move his army deep into Protoss territory. It was the opportunity Seed was waiting for, as he happily sacrificed the base to start an advantageous base trade. Instead of responding by going for the base trade in earnest, Jjakji made the mistake of trying to walk all the way back to save his main, but only succeeded in wasting time. Having lost all of his infrastructure, it was only a matter of time before Jjakji was overwhelmed by Seed and forced to GG.

NSH chose another Terran opponent for Seed, sending out Sculp on Ohana. Sculp seemed eager to play straight up with Seed in a macro game, going for a triple orbital build, but was anti-climatically defeated by Seed's 6-gate all-in. This put the score at 4 – 3 in favor of LG-IM, and NSH were forced to choose their final player.

In a surprise move, NSH decided to put their final hopes on Tassadar. Unfortunately, it was a move that did not pan out at all. In an ironic twist, the famous king of all-ins ended up being the one that fell to cheesy tactics, as his stargate strategy was no match for Seed's gas-steal four-gate rush. Tassadar GG'd out, giving LG-IM a 5 – 3 victory and the first win of the preliminary round.

– Game of the Night: Game Five: NSH_jjakji vs LG-IM_Seed

While there was no cataclysmic battle to end it all, Seed and Jjakji played one of the most entertaining late-game TvP's we've seen in a while. The players were constantly active on the map, looking for ways to harass the opponent's economy and forcing them into taking a battle in a poor position. Jjakji even found a way to use tactical nukes to good effect, clearing away observers and controlling space by calling down nukes. However, the two were quite evenly matched, and neither would take the bait and commit to a poor battle. The ending turned out to be slightly disappointing, with Seed smartly going for the base trade, forcing the first serious error from Jjakji in the game. That ended up being the game ending error, and Jjakji never came back from giving Seed a massive head start in the base race.

– Player of the Match: NSH_jjakji

It's a bit weird to award this to a player on the losing team, but Jjakji was slightly more impressive in defeat than Seed was in victory. Seed also got three wins, but it was against lesser opposition. Jjakji started off by defeating PvT specialist First with a clever all-in, and then he played beautifully to defeat Mvp in a straight up macro game. His game against True was also impressive, winning on the Zerg favored Whirlwind with superior play. Jjakji played Seed evenly for thirty minutes of the final game, where the result really could have gone either way until Seed made the winning move.