A large helping of one-sided best of threes leading into Sunday left us hoping for nothing less than pure entertainment for the quarterfinals. We weren’t disappointed.

ForGG vs. Rain: Double drop and natural death

Though Rain took this series, knocking DreamHack Winter champion ForGG out of the tournament, the Terran player’s route to the end was paved with skill - this time in the form of killer drops. With a risky double drop in the mid game, ForGG took out Rain’s natural nexus. Rain attempted to retaliate as he destroyed 13 workers in ForGG’s base, but his efforts just weren’t enough, and the destruction of the nexus proved to be the Protoss’s map three demise.

Rain vs. herO: Templar drops - what?

Just as we can appreciate ForGG’s efforts in a series he didn’t win, we’ll give Rain his due. His choice to roll into herO's base with an unorthodox storm drop strategy on Foxtrot annihilated workers, later pushing us into map four, which he also won.

Jaedong vs. GuMiho: Pulling down the mech

Both the EG Zerg and the Invasion Terran played incredible tournaments. However, Jaedong truly showed his skill on map one of their quarterfinal set, where his beautiful map control and unusually aggressive anti-mech play took out GuMiho’s mech army at 33 minutes. Vipers pulled in tanks and mutas dominated battlecruisers, taking the last step to turn the game favor in the Zerg’s direction.

herO vs. Snute: Comeback kid catches his wave

herO is not known for his vs. Snute play at Intel Extreme Masters tournaments. In fact, all the chatter surrounding this set involved the Liquid player’s two big wins against the CJ Protoss in Toronto earlier this year. When Snute went two games up at San Jose, things were looking great for the Zerg.

However, herO switched the play on map three, and when he threw storm after storm after storm - like, so many storms, guys - on Nimbus in game four, we saw the light. herO had brought it back and wasn’t letting it go.

herO vs. Rain: Turning of the tides on Overgrowth

After brilliant play from Rain in the previous three matches, herO couldn’t have felt hyper confident headed into map five of the finals. However, as both players stacked upgrades in the mid game and the armies clashed, we saw the CJ Entus player deal with an insane surround with the prettiest, most delicate micro possible. A perfectly timed warp in sealed the deal, and herO held the series from then on out.

Check out the VODs here!

What moment did we miss that made your list? Let us know in the comments!

Also be sure to tune in next time at Taipei - #HYPE!