The StarCraft II tournament for BlizzCon saw undefeated Terran player Yi 'Loner' Dai face off against Min-Soo 'Genius' Jung. Loner had knocked Protoss player Genius to the lower bracket after a 2-1 victory where he battled back against Oleksii 'White-Ra' Krupnyk in the consolation final. Both Loner and Genius are competing in the GSL in Korea with Loner being the undisputed best player in China and Genius being known as one of the best Korean Protoss players.

Loner only had to win one best of 3 coming from the upper bracket with Genius needing to win two BO3.

Game 1, first BO3 (Scrap Station):

The first map was on scrap station and they spawned basically right beside each other. Loner built a quick command center and went for the early expand, playing a relatively safe early game. Loner actually took quite awhile to scout Genius's expansion while he was pumping out colossus units, which are great against the large clumps of Terran marines. Loner quickly brought out the vikings to counter the colossus, while scouting out Genius's base with a airborne factory.

The first big mistake made by Genius was having one of his colossus sniped by Loner's vikings. About 2 minutes later a huge battle occurred in the center of the map where Genius came out a little ahead. Both players dropped their second expansions at the same time and were able to keep them alive, while impressive play continued from both players. The center of the map between the two expansions turned into the hot-zone throughout the entire mid-game while Genius took the bottom gold expansion without Loner knowing for quite awhile.

Loner's second expansion went down while he was unable to take down Genius's gold base and a GG by Loner was quickly to follow, putting Genius up 1-0.

Game 2, first BO3 (Xel'Naga Caverns):

Spawning on the opposite sides of the relatively large map, each player quickly grabbed a watch tower and Genius dropped his first expansion slightly before Loner. He also laid down a geyser to throw Loner off, playing some mind games with the Chinese player in regards to his tech plans. Genius dropped 4 gateways and was clearly ready to pump out a bunch of units.

Loner got a quick harass out to Genius's expansion but he lost his scouting banshee almost immediately. Loner moved right up to Genius's base and dropped two bunkers right on his door step. He continued dropping bunkers to trap Genius into his main/expansion, but it didn't last long as Genius steamrolled through Loner's bunkers/troops. There was an 82 vs. 60 supply difference for Genius and he immediately started moving his entire force to Loner's expansion but a swift kill of a warp prism saw Loner hold off the attack.

Genius kept pumping out immortals to counter Loner's siege tanks while trying to get out some colossus. Still at one expansion a piece, Loner's banshee harass/scouting has been relatively unsuccessful the entire game. Second expansions to both gold bases were dropped at basically the exact same time for both players and Genius decided to try and move in on Loner's gold right away. Loner was able to hold it off relatively easily, forcing a retreat out of the Protoss player. Loner went for the counterattack and got absolutely crushed by the colossus units, putting the match at about even yet again.

For some reason Loner kept walking right into the choke point on the map, but he was able to use his vikings in a very smart fashion dropping almost all of the colossus units. Of course, to even things back up - Genius was able to kill basically all Loner's vikings as he pushed in. Both players put their 3rd base up at again the same time, with another battle happening at the choke in the middle.

A nuke almost took out a huge chunk of Genius's troops but he was able to drop the ghost with half a second left before it dropped. Loner did something funny by dropping an engineering bay in Genius's potential expansion spot, delaying the expand by a minute or so.

Loner decided to go for Genius's final 4th expansion but got totally destroyed when he Genius brought in his entire army behind him and with nice storm play, dropping Loner's entire force in seconds, with Genius winning the first best of three 2-0.

Game 1, second BO3 (Lost Temple):

The players spawned at the top (Loner) and the left side (Genius) of the map on lost temple. This is a big game for Loner to win because it favors Terran because of it's size and layout. Loner went with a marauder/hellion push to start off the game, being delayed a bit by a slick force field at Genius's base entrance. The unit composition being used by both players was rather similar to those being used on xel'naga.

A huge battle occurred between the two bases which made Loner backpedal away from the huge protoss army (128 vs. 101 supply for Genius at this point). Genius moved in clearing out Loner's entire army at his expansion with Genius winning his 3rd map in a row.

Game 2, second BO3 (Metalopolis):

Due to the initial spawning of the players they again shared expansion areas meaning they would need to expand very far away from their main. Loner ended up getting a marauder into Genius's base and ran around being an annoyance for a little bit. During that time though he let his money build up a little too high and Genius dropped his natural expansion before Loner, but Loner almost killed the Nexus which would have been a game-ending move.

Loner tried for a medivac drop harass behind the mineral patch in Genius's main but it did pretty much nothing and he lost the medivac in the process. The protoss army headed by two colossus got dangerously close to Loner's expansion with Loner pumping out mass marauders from 5 barracks in his main. Following a huge battle between the players Loner took out all the colossus but with great force field play he had to pull all his SCV's off the minerals to push Genius away from his expansion. Genius was definitely in control at this point, playing very methodically building up his forces. Neither players had a third base at this point. The last and final push by Genius took out all of Loner's army and SCVs followed by a quick GG with Genius taking his fourth game and winning two best of 3's in a row, making him the BlizzCon 2010 SC2 champion and $25,000 richer.

Final Standings:

1st. Min-Soo 'Genius' Jung
2nd. Yi 'Loner' Dai
3rd. Oleksii 'White-Ra' Krupnyk

Additional links:

- Full Event Brackets
- SC2 Tournament Replays
- BlizzCon Day 1 Recap