GSL 2013 Season 1 Recap

This season’s GSL was undoubtedly one of the most stacked tournaments in the history of StarCraft II. The best players of KeSPA, eSF and foreigners all tried their best to win the most prestigious league for the Wings of Liberty.

Ro32 and Ro16

The group stages were interesting to say the least. Every single one of these players deserve to be here, and with a wide range of play styles from these players the group stages turned out to be very exciting.

Two foreigners took part in this GSL, namely Stephano and HuK. Stephano was seeded into the Ro32 since Polt forfeited his spot. HuK, however, qualified through the Up & Downs, which is very impressive to say the least. He defeated Flying, Fantasy and Center to secure his spot on the Ro32. Old school players that made their fame early in StarCraft II (including Nestea, MC and MKP) and new school players (such as Life, PartinG and RorO) alike were present here. None of these groups were easy, and some would argue that there were multiple ‘groups of death’, showing how difficult each of the groups are.

The highlight groups for the Ro32 and Ro16 for me were Group G and Group A respectively.

Group G contained MarineKing, RorO, Keen and Mvp. 3 old school and 1 new school. However, that is not what made this group very interesting. For you new StarCraft II fans, MKP and Mvp have a long rivalry with each other. Every time they met in a final Mvp ALWAYS had MKP’s number. This includes the 2011 GSL January and also the famous 2011 GSL World Championships where MKP fell 2-4.

Coming into this group, MKP should have felt fear. However, he was fortunate enough to not face Mvp and advanced with RorO to the Ro16, with Keen and Mvp taking 3rd and 4th respectively and fall down to Code A. It would have been a treat for long time fans to see Mvp to advance, seeing as he has been struggling with his wrist injury for quite some time now.

Group A of the Ro16 had 3 Terrans and a Zerg in it; INnoVation, TaeJa, DongRaeGu, and Bomber. INnoVation was the clear favourite in this group and coming out of the group first to advance was expected. However the second place was up for grabs for the three remaining players. TaeJa has been silent this year since his rampage dubbed ‘The Summer of TaeJa’ last year. DRG looked pretty strong in the Ro32 and the same can be mentioned to Bomber. Having another Terran in TaeJa advance was a pleasant surprise.

Playoffs

The playoffs had a Zerg heavy racial distribution with 4 Zergs advancing and 2 of each of the other races. Many, including Artosis, predicted that INnoVation would go far this GSL and he looked set to advance and win the GSL with the way he was playing. RorO, another KeSPA player, was also a favourite to win the GSL. And with them on the opposite sides of the bracket, everything looked set in stone.

However, as it turned out INnoVation fell to Symbol with a close series of 2-3, proving the Artosis curse is well and alive. All of the Protoss also fell at this stage; Curious dominated PartinG with a score of 3-0 while MC lost 3-2 to RorO even though he won the last 2 games of the series.

The Semi-finals had 3 Zergs and the hope of Terran in it (TaeJa). Things turned out for the worst for those rooting for Terran players though, with TaeJa only able to take a single game from the KeSPA Zerg that is RorO. Symbol vs. Curious however was a more even series, each trading blows in games until the last two games where Symbol ramped up his play and took two more games to win and advance to the Finals of the last WoL GSL.

The Finals

ZvZ. The matchup definitely has its disadvantages, where we see a lot of safe play with players eventually transitioning to Brood Lord / Infestor play. Having said that, there are usually a lot of small skirmishes (especially in the early game) between Banelings and Zerglings that requires intense micro which is always a treat to see. Mutalisk play can also be interesting to watch, especially if both goes for the same tech route.

The Finals was between eSF and KeSPA: Symbol vs. RorO. Symbol and RorO are not really ‘new-school’ players, especially Symbol where he first rose to fame in May 2012 where he took second places in the Iron Squid and the MLG Spring Arena 2.

RorO eventually won with a final score of 4-2 solidifying the fact that KeSPA players can play toe to toe with eSF players, and can sometimes even play more solidly due to their more rigid practice regimes. With this win, RorO gained a sweet ~$47,000 as prize money and prestige.

Conclusion

While the Finals may have not interested some StarCraft II fans with it being a ZvZ and there being a tournament going on, I think this last season really does show the highest level of skill in WoL, from start to finish and was a pleasure to watch.

That is all guys,
GL HF