GomTV GSL News: Starcraft 2 Tournament Grand Championship Final Results  | read this item

*Spoiler Warning: Results are revealed in this story*

Its been a long month getting here. We’re finally going to take a look at the GomTV GSL Starcraft 2 Tournament Finals for Season 1. The original pool of players numbered in the thousands. Among them are the best Starcraft 2 players in the world. There is, of course, a good reason for the incredible level of competition.

The prize pool for this tournament is the largest of any Starcraft 2 Tournament in the world. The total prize pool is $170,000 for the top players in the tournament. Both of these players have won $27,500 for making it this far. The winner of the tournament will recieve $85,000.

For the next couple weeks there won’t be much GSL Tournament news as we still have a couple weeks till season 2’s preliminaries start.  You can expect to see the same awesome coverage you’ve seen these past couple weeks along with coverage of all the biggest and best pro-gaming tournaments from around the world.

Kim, Won-Ki (a Fruit Dealer) vs Kim, Sung-Je (HopeTorture)

Game 1 Delta Quadrant

For the first game of the finals of the GomTV GSL Starcraft 2 Tournament we have a Fruit Dealer in the northwest base and HopeTorture in the southwestern position. Fruit’s scout starts out early as we look at a nice cheese-less build from both sides. Both immediately go gas and then we see a Spawning Pool and a Barracks.

Fruit sets up for speedlings, hoping to get the game’s harrass started the right way. In his opponent’s mineral line. He also moves into his first expansion. Hope does setup a racks/factory wall which sets up a nice defense for a speedling rush. And from the Factory we see a Hellion pop out to take care of the early Zergling poking at the wall.

Hope sends in the Hellion to go after some early harrass but is picked off by a Queen in Fruit’s main. After clearing all the scouts, Fruit starts to tech towards a Spire and some Zerg Mutalisks. A second Factory goes up showing some heavy mech play from Hope. That sets Hope up for some nice Thor counters versus Mutalisks.

Terran Thors do start to emerge even before Mutalisks start to mass. Fruit does set up a third base and forgoes producing a lot of Mutalisks. He does show play that shows some heavy teching particularly towards Infestors. At the same time, he does expand into a fourth expansion. The expansion do stay nice and spread out as a fail safe towards losing his other bases.

A scouting Terran Marine does spot Fruit’s fourth base, so it doesn’t remain hidden. Also, Fruit’s tech into Ground upgrades shows a heavy tech into Ultralisk play. He also catches a Medivac drop, negating it before it could be implemented.

Hope is playing defensively setting up a heavy siege line. Sending only a couple drops out to scout and harass. Hope does spot the Ultralisks among a few different drops.

Finally from all the defensive play Hope did, both armies are huge. And we see a push from Hope towards one of Fruit’s far expansion. The push contains Marines and Medivacs but is wiped out by banelings, zerglings, and roaches with some Infestor Fungal Growth.

While Hope attempts to push, Fruit sets his Ultralisks out against Hope’s expansions and are just allowed to go to town against Hope’s buildings. The Ultralisk force is simply huge tearing into Hope’s main. Forcing the first GG and giving Fruit the first win.

Game 2 Lost Temple

For the second game of this Starcraft 2 GSL Tournament, we see a Fruit Dealer set up in the western base and in the southern base. Very close positions for when the builds transition into air. While the ground builds endure, the positions are much farther. This makes a fast air transition very powerful.

Fruit does go for a fast expand. However, he does miss some key scout sights and misses Hope’s positioning and delaying his scouting. He does eventually find the Terran position and sends in a quick Zergling harass. A quick last second Barracks/Factory wall blocks the Zergling advance and causes them to go back to their own base.

Hope goes quick drop setups and loads up a Siege and two SCVs. He positions the Siege in the high ground over looking Fruit’s natural. Some very quick Spine Crawler and Queen movement knocks it right out. Meanwhile, Fruit does tech and pushes out a few Mutalisks. They do take out the retreating dropship and also the siege.

Fruit sets up a far third base that remains hidden from Hope. At least for the time being. He also sets up some tech for several possible uses for Banelings and Roaches. At the same time, setting up a fourth out of the way expansion.

A quick Medivac drop attempt is set up and repelled. In addition the Medivac is lost. Some very nice control and patrol with the Mutalisks. This slows down Hope as Fruit’s army sets up.

Hope shows a Thor/Siege mass and sets up to cap Fruit in. Fruit does set up some Baneling drops along with Roach/Zergling harass drops. And to top it off, keeps Hope’s main army engaged and even tears it apart. Even while that is going on, Fruit has the resources to setup a huge Baneling mass up for a Overlord drop.

A devastating carpet bombing seals the GG and gives Fruit Dealer a second win over HopeTorture.

Game 3 Kulas Ravine

After a huge 2-0 lead for Fruit Dealer, we see him set up in the southeast base with HopeTorture on the southwest base. Early scout goes out for Fruit getting a safe Overlord scout before the marines get out for Hope. In a risky move, Fruit sets up a quick expansion in the gold expansion.

Hope does figure out Fruit’s plan when the drone count in the main doesn’t figure out and goes to look for the mission base. The gold expansion is spotted and Hope pulls back and walls up. Hope sets up for a quick Medivac drop as Fruit starts setting up tech for Roaches and more.

Hope drops a tank in the smallest of high ground spots just outside Fruit’s gold expansion. Fruit does have spine crawlers setup to knock them out with a group of roaches to cover the far side of the high ground.

While Hope tries to figure out with to do with the remaining drop components, a Nydus pops up in HopeTorture’s base. His entire economy is rocked by a huge mass of Zerglings. He does try to set up shop in a new base, but there isn’t a way to reasonably comeback.

Fruit Dealer earns the GG big time. Moving ahead 3-0.

Game 4 Desert Oasis

In the bottom position of the Desert Oasis map in this fourth game of the GSL Starcraft 2 Tournament Finals is Fruit Dealer. In the top position we find HopeTorture. Hope is against the ropes on this fourth game after falling behind 3-0.

Hope walls off and pushes into a quick expansion. Fruit hasn’t shown super aggressive play so far this match which makes the quick expansion a smart move to avoid falling behind as he had in the previous games. In the meantime, he sets up Three barracks plus gas looking at some Reaper or Marauder play early on.

Fruit Dealer on the other hand continues the same builds that have won him the last three games. However, to change it up a bit, getting Banelings set up very early. Which is the perfect counter for super mass marines that opts to play instead of tech lab units.

Banelings are set up just in time for the mass marine push and cleans it up very quickly. Fruit once again has set up the perfect counter for HopeTorture. Fruit doesn’t immediately counter and instead opts to build at the gold expansion.

Meanwhile, Hope sets up shop at his own gold expansion while trasitioning to a mech heavy build. He does attempt to drop a couple of times but some pretty well-controlled fungal growth prevents a ton of damage.

Fruit then counters with his own drops. First a major zergling drop in the Terran main devasating Hope’s main, and then a Baneling bombardment against Hope’s main army taking out some siege tanks.

Hope does recover some by abandoning his main and pulls back to his expansion. He even spends the next couple minutes widdling down Fruits army even surviving a couple Baneling bombs. Continuing to push in, he can’t be stopped by Fruit Dealer. Fruit does attempt to fight back but it looks grim.

Fruit completely loses his main along with the majority of his tech structures. And despite attempting to hold the line in his expansions, Fruit Dealer is forced to GG. Huge comeback for HopeTorture to start to close the gap 3-1.

Game 5 Scrap Station

HopeTorture begins his uphill battle to try and pull an incredible upset and finds himself in the right position with Fruit Dealer in the left position. Hope immediately proxies a Barracks just outside Fruit’s natural. He pushes a Reaper and goes into Fruit’s main and goes for the quick harass.

Hope starts taking Drone after Drone until Fruit is finally about to get Zerglings to push out the rush. Fruit then takes the Zerglings and goes after the SCV that is attempting to build a second proxy. The SCV falls and the Reapers give chase as the Zerglings go for the Terran main.

Fruit does some very stategic play using the smoke around the Xel’Naga Tower to blind a quick counterstrike against the Reapers. Fruit continues the push towards the Terran main and reinforces the push with Roaches.

As Fruit is on his way, Hope walls off. Fruit just continues to push and due to some bad micro and unit blockage allows the Barracks to fall. After losing a few subsequent SCVs, the push is repelled. Then about a minute later, this same sequence is repeated as Hope simply isn’t in position to repair a barracks.

Fruit does go Mutalisks while Hope takes the island expansion. Hope does reinforce the expansion with Thors and a Turret just in time as the Mutalisks show up. Fruit does commit and moves the Mutalisks against the Terran main.

At the same time, Fruit takes two more expansions, setting up the same sort of Macro game that causes Hope to just fall too far behind. In order to maintain the macro lead, Fruit continues to harass with the Mutalisks.

Once again, Fruit sets up Banelings for an Overlord drop and goes after the island expansion. With a Baneling bomb, the Thor drops with the Zergling mix cleaning up the island. Hope does commit a drop to maintain the island with reinforcements.

Hope goes for Tanks and thors to defend his main, but Fruit denies it with a heavy baneling drop. This pulls the reinforcements from the island and allows the Mutalisks to just clear it out.

Hope does attempt one last drop push into the Zerg main. However, Fruit simply rolls a huge Baneling mass in with the support of an Infestor to lock down the drop in place with Fungal Growth. The entire drop is wiped out with Banelings to spare.

This seals the tournament victory for a Fruit Dealer. Pulling off an amazing run as the underdog race and simply couldn’t be stopped.

Congratulations a Fruit Dealer.

Final: a Fruit Dealer 4:1 HopeTorture

A Fruit Dealer walks away with the $85,000 grand prize and is crowned the best Starcraft 2 player in the world.  Expect an even bigger, more elite progaming group next season of the GomTV GSL Starcraft 2 Tournament.