“You should see the two benches,“ GSL commentator  Thomas "Khaldor" Kilian screamed last  Saturday at the GSTL as MYM.MVP's  KeeN and StarTale's  Curious faced off to break a 4-4 tie for advancement. “I’m so sorry that we don’t have shots of the StarTale and MVP bench!” Both teams leaned forward, biting their nails and saying nothing as they watched their teammates face off in the ninth game in a best-of-nine match.

But the grand finale wasn’t the first close game of the night.

After the cameras started rolling and each team bowed to the audience, the match opened with a Terran mirror with MVP’s  Kim "sC" Seung Chul versus StarTale's  Choi “Bomber” Ji Sung, where Bomber hit sC hard with early pressure. sC fought tooth and nail to catch up but eventually lost eight minutes later. But MVP bit back hard when they brought in  Kwon “Sniper” Tae Hoon, one of MVP’s several Zerg beasts. Bomber used early harassment on Sniper as he did with sC, but MVP’s player retaliated by covering nearly the entire map with creep and using the resulting mobility to take out Bomber’s Marines and Siege Tanks with Zerglings, Banelings and Mutalisks.

But StarTale’s roster has no shortage of heavy hitters, so after Sniper’s victory the team sent out their Code S Protoss  Won “PartinG” Lee Sak. Sniper’s macro gave him a constant small supply lead over the StarTale player for the entire game, but PartinG eventually took him out with a strong mid-game push, using well-placed force fields and Warp Prism support to manipulate Sniper’s roaches into inaction. The next game against Zerg player  Park “DongRaeGu” Soo Ho.  saw a similar ending when PartinG’s timing attack knocked out the MVP player’s second expansion and a handful of Roaches without speed upgrades, leading to a severe supply deficit and a resulting GG.

By now, the score was 3-1 in favor of StarTale, and PartinG had eliminated both of MVP’s Code S players in a row. To deal with this threat, the team brought out Protoss player player  Kim “TAiLS” Won Hyung. The yellow-haired Code A player is a reputed starkiller, having once taken out legendary players  Jung “MVP” Jong Hyun and  Lim “TAiLS” Jae Duk in a row.

In dealing with PartinG, TAiLS took a big risk: rushing cannons into his opponent’s main base. But PartinG failed to scout it until it was too late, and the cannons were in position to render half of his mineral line useless.

However, the all-in tactic didn’t shut down PartinG completely, as he was able to long-distance mine from his natural expansion area and TAiLS’ commitment to the rush left him with only one gateway to defend against PartinG’s three. The StarTale player counter-attacked with only a small contingent of zealots and stalkers, but it was enough to pop several probes and force TAiLS to micro his heart out to hold it off.

But he did hold it off after successfully building more gateways during the assault, and used them to warp in Stalkers to the pylon powering the cannons in PartinG’s main base. He used these units to finish off his opponent’s main and pressure his natural expansion to death.

StarTale’s  Hwang “Sparta” Wi Jin stepped onto the plate next to stop TAiLS from gaining momentum. MVP players remembered Sparta well, as back in March he took out not just TAiLS, but Sniper and MVP’s  Tak “Monster” Hyun Seung back when he played against MVP for team ZeNEX at the KSL. But the sad memory didn’t stop TAiLS from using a modified early four-Gateway push to blow through Sparta’s bunkers and stop him before he even got started.

TAiLS’ second victory tied the two teams at 3-3, forcing StarTale to bring out the next set of big guns in their roster: the young hotshot Lee “Life” Seung Hyun. This 15-year-old Code S player is known for his stylized mass Speedling play, which has taken him to the GSL Code S finals to take place later this month. In addition to his inspanidual success, Life shook the world during the last season of the GSTL when he got an “all-kill” against Team Liquid, eliminating all five of the opposing players in a row.

To defend against Life’s trademark Speedling onslaught, he completely walled off his bases, including an unorthodox expansion at an unused starting point. But Life penetrated the walls with Nydus Canals, allowing his units to pass under the building barricades and gain enough of a supply lead to warrant a GG.

Life would be a formidable match for any player, and now he stood between MVP and advancing in the GSTL. To deal with this threat, MVP sent Hwang “KeeN” Kyu Seok into the ring. The Terran player has been doing well in Code A, and taking out an opponent such as Life needed the most solid play that KeeN could provide.

But Life was a monster, so the crowd wasn’t surprised when he used his characteristic early Speedling harass to weaken KeeN from the start, putting him in a losing position in terms of both economy and supply. But without losing an ounce of spirit, KeeN kept his head in the game. Focusing on strong macro and opportunistic attacks, KeeN utilized every blunder the young Life made in order to swallow unit group after unit group and bring himself back into the game. Combined with sufficient micro to save his Marines from Life’s Banelings, KeeN kept up the solid play until he was able to crush Life and tie up the two teams at 4-4.

Not only was Life out of the picture, but whoever StarTale decided to send out had to withstand KeeN’s impressive game if they were to win the match for StarTale. To finish off the day, Zerg player  Lee “Curious” Won Pyo stood up to contend KeeN for the match point.

The map was Cloud Kingdom, a 1v1 map consisting of a winding elevated platform that connects the two bases. KeeN built strong momentum from the early game, killing off nine Drones with Hellion harassment and followed up with more Hellions supported by a cloaked Banshee and Mespanacs acting as elevators over the cliffs. Though the second attack was not as successful, it provided valuable scouting information for KeeN. Seeing his opponent’s Spire, he was able to build Thors in time for Curious’ Mutalisk counter-attack. MVP’s players, having recovered from a 2 point loss earlier that evening, felt confident that KeeN had the game in the bag.

But unfortunately for MVP, Curious was not to be discounted just yet. With a strong roach army and selective tactics, the StarTale player brought himself back in the game much the way KeeN had in the game just prior. He recovered the supply deficit and began the process of transitioning into Brood Lords.

KeeN knew that it would take Brood Lords to stop his (by now) massive Thor army, so he aggressively assaulted Curious’ many expansions. He didn’t shut him down completely, but slowed him down so that it took far longer than planned to finish upgrading the Hive he needed for Brood Lord tech. After many tight, micro-intensive battles, Curious finally began the production of 11 Brood Lords, right as KeeN walked a powerful mech army into his second expansion. With the Brood Lords almost done and ready to take down the army’s many Thors,  KeeN burned as much of Curious’ units and structures as he could before retreating.

“Guys, this is a nailbiter,” Khaldor shouted as the fresh Brood Lords advanced alongside the rest of his army and KeeN gathered his forces along the high ground to meet them head-on. The audience gasped, the players’ eyes widened, and the Korean commentators were shouting so loud they could be heard from the English casting panel. “You should see the two benches,” he said, as the backs leaned forward and the nails were bitten under both teams’ banners.

As the two armies came together, MVP_KeeN and StarTale_Curious were tied at 167 supply, KeeN with Siege Tanks, Hellions, 11 Thors and a Raven and his opponent with Roaches, Corruptors, three Infestors and 10 Brood Lords.

Three seconds into the fight, and KeeN’s Tanks and Hellions suffer Fungal Growth before the Roaches  Brood Lords clean them up. Seven seconds into the fight, KeeN launches a Seeker Missile into Curious’ Brood Lords, reducing them from 10 to five versus KeeN’s eight Thors. Fourteen seconds into the fight, KeeN is still at seven Thors, but the rest of his mech army is gone. They focus fire the Brood Lords reducing them to three.

Twenty seconds into the fight and Curious begins single-targeting the Thors, and they quickly lose momentum. Three seconds later, Curious’ army picks off the last Thor, leaving KeeN with a massive 68 supply deficit. After a minute and a half of futile defence, the MVP player finally conceded the match.

Prior to the match, a GOMTV viewer poll predicted StarTale’s victory with 73.5% for of the votes versus 26.5% for MVP. StarTale is a crowd favorite, with a roster of big names competing around the globe. But on Saturday, it was only by a hair that they managed to take the GSTL advancement from MYM.MVP.

As the crowd cheered and Curious left the booth to give high-fives to his teammates, KeeN sat with his face in his hands. But behind him came his coach who wore a smile on his face because, as commentator Wolf Schröder put it, “StarTale takes the win, but it was not easy,” and “He knows that KeeN played extremely well today.”