GSL Season 1 Ends

The Final Overview

Nearly 2 months ago, thousands of people began registering for the first season of the GSL, perhaps the biggest eSports event in history. StarCraft 2 was going to start with a bang with the Global StarCraft Leagues being open to anyone.

After an intense two days of qualifying 64 players remained, 60 Koreans and 4 players who had travelled the seas for their chance at the 100,000,000 KRW first place prize.

The race distribution was heavily in favour of Protoss with 42% of players having chosen them. Terran followed with 33% and Zerg being chosen by a mere 25% of the qualifying players was the underdog.

The opening show took off with a bang and the most famous non Korean StarCraft player, IdrA showed what he was made of easily winning his first round games. As the round of 64 went on some incredible games were played and 2 of the 4 non Koreans made it through.

It became clear that Zerg was going to have a hard time with only 6 of the original 16 players making it through to the round of 32. Sadly for many of us the round of 32 saw the end of TheLittleOne, perhaps the player with the biggest crowd cheering him on - At least outside of Korea.

The final 16 consisted of just Koreans and some great names including Fruitdealer, sSkS and Clide, showing us their new team TSL was not to be messed with. More matches were played and eventually we got down to the final four, 3 Terrans and 1 Zerg.

It was always expected that the last rounds would consist of many Terrans but Fruitdealer suprised us all by pushing his way through whilst playing Zerg. The semis were going to be great games given that of the 35 games the four players had played their standings were 32 wins and 3 losses. They hadn't even averaged 1 loss each by the time they reached the round of 4, an impressive statistic.

The semi finals consisted of pure dominance from Fruitdealer as he crushed his opponent LiveForever 3 - 0. HopeTorture who had beaten many peoples favourite sSkS(Tester) in the previous round also dominated his opponent oGsEnsnare 3-1.

Fruitdealer the Zerg met with HopeTorture the Terran in the finals, a best of 7 to determine who would be crowned the winner of the first season of the GSL. Fruitdealer continued his crushing play winning on maps most Zergs fear taking an early 3-0 lead over HopeTorture. The fourth game took place on Desert Oasis and HopeTorture showed us why he was in the finals with some great play taking one back from Fruitdealer.

Unfortunately HopeTorture then put all his apples in the wrong basket and his unsuccessful Reaper rush in the fifth game left Fruitdealer victorious winning 4 games to 1.

Suddenly the news hit, Fruitdealer, a Zerg had won the first GSL! No one expected the last Zerg in the round of 8 to get so far. Not only did he win, but he showed the true power of the least played race in the game.

The first season of the GSL will go down in the history books as not only an epic tournament, but as proof that if you are good enough you can win regardless of what race you play.