I just finished watching an amazing best of 5 between EG.IdrA and EG.PuMa in the semifinals of IEM Guangzhou. It was stunning. As of late IdrA has not been putting up the sort of results most expect of him, and his teammate PuMa is one of the stronger Korean Terrans around, so most would have expected PuMa to win easily. However, these past two days at IEM, IdrA seems to have turned on beast mode, culminating in an astounding 3-0 victory over the favorite to win the tournament!
In the first game on Shattered Temple, IdrA held off PuMa's early hellion harassment, and then when PuMa tried to back off and play defensively, IdrA picked him apart bit by bit with great mutalisk harassment, drops, and nyduses of lings and ultras. It almost didn't seem like PuMa was playing, but some lesser Terran. That all changed in game 2, on Tal'Darim Altar, which turned into a 45 minute long ZvT with crazy drop play going on all the time, ling run-bys, intricate micro dances between infestors, broodlords, tanks, and vikings, and both players getting to a point where they were pretty much playing off of half a base each. The map wasn't mined out, but they denied each other's expansions so well that they both started to run out of stuff. In the end, IdrA got a great fungal and surround on PuMa's last main pack of marines and his last thor, closing out game 2. Then in game 3 on Shakuras Plateau, IdrA held off some fake bunker pressure from PuMa with perfectly timed zerglings, he caught PuMa's harassing hellions, got a ling run-by into PuMa's natural, and somehow killed all of PuMa's marines when he ran his lings and banelings into PuMa's main defensive force of tanks and marines outside his third. I honestly think he might have burrowed a few banelings to avoid the tank shells, and then detonated them on the marines. Either that or the cloud of mutas blocked PuMa's vision, and he didn't see any banelings left and moved his marines back up. anyway, it was pretty much over after that. IdrA backed off a bit, harassed safely, and once he maxed out, he fell upon PuMa's slight defense force of maybe 100 supply.
What i think i'm most excited about is that now we get to see IdrA shave Slasher live at IPL3 later this week! I just hope that if elfi somehow beats IdrA in the IEM finals, that Slasher dosen't bitch out by saying that IdrA didn't actually win the tournament, and that he needs to wait for elfi to do the shaving. I'm sure he won't, cause if he did he would pretty much be the most hated guy in ESPORTS, but hey, i worry about stupid shit. Anyway, i'd like to stay up to watch IdrA v elfi, but im tired, its after 1, i have class in the morning, and there is a 3rd / 4th place match between now and the start of the finals. I don't have time for 2 more Bo5s, so i'll just have to catch up in the morning. The important match for me is over, and i am most pleased with the results!
