The Nate MSL moves into the semifinals this week and continues the promise of the Jaedong/Flash finals that everyone is on the lookout for. In today's article, I'll be looking back at last week's final Round of 8 games along with a look at what's ahead.

Jaedong vs. Stats

This series turned out to be a huge -sigh- for Stats as he let his nerves get the best of him. In Game 2, failure to get up cannons at his natural resulted in Stats losing a ton of probes and forcing his economy to shift to full goon production. Jaedong teched switched to lurkers and caused even more trouble for Stats, whose robo was delayed due to the harass. With Stats on full goon production, all it took was four control groups of lings and a handful of lurkers to finish the job.

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Game 3 turned out to be even more abusive as Jaedong took advantage of Stat's nerves, running several lings into the Protoss main before things even got heated up. A dull mid-game macro situation ended with Jaedong dropping hydra/lurker/ling into Stat's main.

Dump.

With the Protoss army all the way past half-court, Stats had no choice but to sacrifice his army and counterattack. Jaedong snipes Stat's one-and-only observer, however, and foils any chance of a miracle. The Protoss main goes down, along with Stats.

Jaedong 3:0 Stats

Kwanro vs. Light

Game 2 was more or less textbook ZvT. Kwanro went three-hatch muta and managed to snipe down a full one-and-a-half control group of medic and marines, allowing him to easily transition into hive tech. While there, Kwanro was able to use swarm to overwhelm and overpower Light into submission. Once ultras were out, Light automatically GG'ed.

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In Game 3, Kwanro gets super-aggressive with lings, and runs six in which ends up destroying a rax! The ling assault causes all sorts of trouble, ending with Light being crushed by mutalisk which he was completely unprepared for. The curse of MBC continues.

This is not how you move on to the Round of 8 Light.

Kwanro 3:0 Light

Hwasin vs. Kal

Kal decided to once again go for a macro battle in Game 2, which Hwasin accepted. Once the game hit four-base Protoss and three-base Terran, Kal went to work. Utilizing everything Protoss had to offer, Kal went for several excellent arbiter/templar/zealot bomb attacks on the Terran in an effort to take out Hwasin, but Hwasin somehow held each and every time!

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Kal got sloppy on occasion, and gave the Terran a huge advantage by letting a couple of his expansions fall to nothing but a couple of tanks. Hwasin continued to play the waiting game, denying Kal a fifth base while holding off attack after attack with brilliant defense, eventually draining Kal of resources and outs. GG.

In Game 3, Hwasin decided to stray from his usually game and bbs. Kal, unexplainably, misses Hwasin's base despite his scouting probe walking in! It was only by a stroke of luck that his scouting probe managed to catch a stray marine running towards his main. With that piece of info, Kal immediately threw up a shield battery and proceeded to defend the all-in. A worthy attempt by Hwasin, but not good enough.

Game 4 was a pure demonstration of the importance of turret placement. Hwasin failed to get one up in front of his main, allowing Kal to wander his shuttle in and zealot/reaver drop on tanks. Goons streamed in afterwards and ended up causing a lot of damage to the natural.

No turret in front = GGPO.

Hwasin held and soon after responded with a timing attack, but the bulldog earlier had crushed his timing window. Kal countered the attack with a beautiful combination of goon/zealots along with reaver/zealot bombs and finally dark templar. After crushing the attack, Kal finished the series off with a full court press into the natural and main.

Kal 3:1 Hwasin

Flash vs. BeSt

Game 2 - my pick for the best game of the Round of 8 - started with BeSt gas-stealing our Terran hero. Flash wasn't fazed though, going rax-expo along with a bunker to hold BeSt off. Later in the game, Flash pushed off with an incredibly off-beat timing attack, pushing out after taking his third expansion.

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The off-beat attack did wonders on BeSt, causing him to lose his natural expansion and devote heavily to pushing Flash back. The fact that BeSt was able to survive this push altogether is a tribute to his macro and skills. The game then proceeded into a fast-and-furious macro battle for positioning, with both players splitting the map after long and hard-fought battles.

Midway through, as BeSt got his fifth expo up, Flash decided to pull a bit of a cheeky play, using his main's cliff to position a ghost for a nuke! BeSt tried to respond with arbiter ready to stasis the ghost, but an EMP stops the arbiter seconds before casting it! The expo went down, giving Flash a brief advantage.

BeSt attempts to stop the nuke, but gets denied!



SUCCESS!

The battle went into the final stages, with both players mined out. Flash, however, had the economic lead since his fifth base was later, which allowed him to simply camp and wait for BeSt - who was tapped out - to make a move. BeSt all-in'ed, but Flash held beautifully and took the game.

After a terrific Game 2, what was in store for Game 3? Six-fact pwnage. The end. Yeah.

Flash 3:0 BeSt

Flash vs. Kwanro

Game 1: Odd-Eye
Game 2: Fighting Spirit
Game 3: Ultimatum
Game 4: Match Point
Final Game: Odd-Eye

What's Next?

Jaedong vs. Kal

Game 1: Match Point
Game 2: Fighting Spirit
Game 3: Ultimatum
Game 4: Odd-Eye
Final Game: Match Point

It's semifinal time in the MSL, with Flash taking on his '09 nemesis Kwanro and Jaedong taking on Kal. Flash took a major sting in '09 from Kwanro when the Woongjin Zerg knocked him out of the Avalon MSL during the Round of 16. Since then, Flash has been on the hunt for pikachu. Kwanro is deceiving, however; while he rarely gets mentioned when it comes to top players, he's quietly been destroying everyone in his path on his way to a nine-game winstreak, and has looked good doing it. Flash fans should be biting their nails for this one. I'm still calling a Flash 3-0, 3-1 victory considering Flash's pure domination of Zerg over the past several months, but I expect this to be one of his hardest challenges yet.

Charged and ready for battle. Hopefully Flash isn't a ground type.

Jaedong first met Kal during his very first MSL title run - in the finals in fact, where he won 3-1. Since then, both players have clashed several times, with back-and-forth results. While the advantage goes to Jaedong, especially after watching his dominating Round of 8 performance, Kal's tenacity and unpredictability has been at an all time high as of late. This is arguably the best I've ever seen Kal play since his series with fOrGG all the way back in 2008. His PvZ has been diverse and destructive, and his ability to maximize the Protoss army's strengths like he did versus Hwasin makes him one of the most dangerous players around right now.

Kal is playing so well that I'm even giving him a bit of an edge here, calling this series 3-2 in his favor. Jaedong looks as threatening as always, but Kal's sheer creativity and determination is just through the roof right now and exactly what he needs to take down the Tyrant. Also, it is a rarity in the SC community to get the finals that everyone wants, and I feel Kal is going to be the one who causes that to happen this season. Let the haters talk; this is my prediction for this MSL.