So today's GSL Round of 16 group, was group B which consisted of coL_Heart, StarTale_Squirtle, Liquid_Hero and FXOLeenock.
Even though our average win rate prediction (see post below) suggested that Heart and Squirtle would advance from today's group, we have to admit that we ourselves were probably rooting more for the other three players.
First set was on Whirlwind with Squirtle spawning in the top right and Heart in the bottom left.
Heart did a greedy quick 3-base macro build and Squirtle eventually went up to 3 bases as well, but was behind in economy throughout most of the game.
Heart tried to break Squirtle's third base many times with his lead in army supply, but Squirtle won all the engagements while also doing very effective Zealot harass at Heart's third.
When Squirtle finally did a big counter push he crushed Heart's army and took the set.
Second set was on Antiga Shipyard with Heart in the top right and Squirtle in the bottom left.
This time they both went up to two bases both of them going for double upgrades.
Squirtle was a bit slower with his colossus tech than in set 1 and Heart tried hard to put on heavy aggression with his 2-base bioforce and he managed to do a very effective 4 medivac drop taking out Squirtle's main nexus.
Squirtle on the other hand won a big engagement in the center a short while later and from there they both went up to three bases.
Around the 16-minute mark Heart did a massive push that took out Squirtle's third just before Storm had finished. Squirtle though in the meanwhile harassed Heart's third and took out all his SCV's.
So in the end neither was practically mining and it came down to a final engagement where Squirtle stormed all Heart's vikings and afterwards melted Heart's remaining forces with Colossi and storms winning the Protoss the series.
Hero did a Forge-Fast expand and then tried a cannon rush at the third of Leenock.
Hero ended up investing heavily in it building 4 cannons and 2 pylons, but Leenock managed to safe his third so at this point Hero had wasted quite a lot of minerals.
Hero then went up to 7 gateways and tried a timing attack at Leenock's third where Leenock also had his macro hatch. Hero took out the macro hatch, but Leenock once again managed to save the original third.
Now Leenock was far ahead in economy and Hero quite late tried to take this third to catch up.
But Leenock produced a massive amount of roaches along with a few infestors and he just started sending waves towards the natural and third of Hero eventually outlasting him and with that Leenock took the set.
The second set was on Cloud Kingdom.
Leenock went for some 3-base mutalisk play, but hero did a warp prism zealot drop that took out Leenocks spire so his mutalisk count stayed at his initial 12.
But his mutalisk still gave him map control and he was able to take a fourth and fifth base while keeping Hero home on the defense.
Hero eventually pushed out and took out Leenock's fourth but in the meantime Leenock was going up to a infestor/broodlord composition.
When Leenock had around 12 broodlords Hero managed to do another successful warp prism harass that took out Leenock's greater spire, and at the same time he pushed and took out Leenock's fifth base.
Leenock then went for a big broodlord/infestor push at Hero's fourth, but Hero just barely managed to defend it.
Hero went up to five bases while denying Leenock's attempt to take a fifth. He also did a fantastic storm drop on the drones at Leenock's fourth and Leenock's economy was completely destroyed.
Leenock decided to go for a final big infestor/broodlord push at Hero's fourth and managed to take it out with Hero retreating.
Eventually though Hero reinforced and went back for an attack on Leenock's army and Hero managed to sandwich it and with good storms and blink-micro take out all of Leenock's army.
So at this point Leenock had no army or economy left and was forced to GG.
The third and deciding set was on Antiga Shipyard.
Hero went up to two bases and Leenock up to three bases without either getting bothered.
When Hero tried to take his third, Leenock pushed with a big bunch of roaches to deny it, but Hero controlled too well and managed to defend it.
Hero on the other hand pulled of a very successful warp prism zealot warp in at the main of Leenock and it killed a lot of drones.
Leenock tried different roach attacks, but Hero was on top of everything and Leenock just kept losing units.
Leenock tried to take his fourth in the top but Hero denied it with a warp prism. Instead Leenock took the center base instead, but hero denied this as well while Hero himself expanded in the bottom left.
Leenock then double expanded in the top right while going up to broodlords, but Hero once again took out both of Leenock's two new bases so he was still only on three bases, while Hero took his fifth.
Leenock once again tried to take a fourth base, but Hero denied it again while taking his own sixth base.
At this point Leenock had no mining, but a giant broodlord/infestor/queen army so he pushed towards Hero's base, knowing that he had to win the game with that army.
In the center he managed to neural Hero's mothership and throw down a perfect vortix on all of Hero's Colossi and then take them out when they spawned.
He then went towards Hero's main and with perfect army control he took out Hero's original main, natural and third base forcing Hero to retreat.
Hero still denied any attempts from Leenock to expand so Hero was still mining on three bases with Leenock not mining at all.
But Leenock just continued his push towards the new bases of Hero and in the end Hero never found an answer for Leenock's big army, and Hero was forced to GG in a cool game that he had dominated completely until Leenock's final push.
First set was on Ohana with Leenock in the top and Squirtle in the bottom.
Leenock went for an early 10-pool attack and with that he managed to force a cancel on Squirtle's natural, but apart from that he couldn't do any damage as Squirtle got a cannon down in his main.
So the game transitioned into normal game with Leenock going up to three bases and Squirtle once again up to two.
Leenock took his fourth and Squirtle took his third (really delayed though because of a burrowed zergling).
Eventually Leenock pushed out with a max'd zergling/infestor/roach army and for a long while he just kept pushing at the natural and third constantly sending new units and he very effeciently managed to take out all the important units of Squirtle.
When he followed up a couple of minutes later with broodlord/infestors Hero only had stalkers to defend and was therefore crushed.
The second set was on Cloud Kingdom with Squirtle spawning in the bottom left and Leenock in the top right.
Squirtle did a three base push with a good bunch of sentries that took out Leenock's fourth.
Squirtle then retreated and Leenock retook his fourth and also a fifth while going up to hive.
Squirtle took his fourth and geared up for a big timing before any of Leenock's dear broodlords could get out.
Leenock had a lot of spines at his fourth, but Squirtle's timing was perfect and his attack landed right before broodslords were done and he was able to take out the fourth and third of Leenock's. He then retreated as the broodlords came out and a short while later even managed to take out the original fifth of Leenock's exploiting the slow speed of the broodlords.
Hero took his fifth while Leenock retook his fourth and once again Leenock found himself down in bases and economy but in this game as well he still had a big infestor/broodlord army.
Leenock got a fifth base, but Squirtle denied his attempt to take a sixth, and a few minutes later also took out the fifth of Leenock with Archons.
So at this point Squirtle had 6000 minerals and 3000 gas and a really scary max'd out army.
Squirtle took his sixth, but when Leenock pushed out with his broodlord/infestor army he managed to take out the fourth base of Squirtle.
In the end it came down to a final big engagement and once again Leenock's Broodlord/Infestor/Queen couldn't be stopped. Both Squirtle and Hero (and every other protoss in the world) should be scratching their heads right now wondering how on earth that composition of Leenock's can be stopped.
The first set was on Ohana with Heart in the bottom and Hero in the top.
Hero expanded pretty quickly whereas Heart went for a somewhat fast 1-base marine/banshee/tank push (1-1-1 build).
Heart managed to catch a few of Hero's stalkers out on the map with Hero didn't have nowhere near enough to stop Heart from taking out his natural.
At this point Heart had Hero contained in the main and I think he considered leapfrogging in with the tanks, but he accidentally miss-clicked and killed one of his own tanks so instead he retreated.
He stayed on one base though and a couple of minutes later he went for a final all-in attack.
Hero had also stayed on 1 base though, and at this point he had a bunch of immortals and phoenixes out. Heart got a good siege up in reach of Hero's buildings, but Hero managed to engage perfectly with his immortals and phoenixes and he took out Heart's army and with that won the set.
The second set was on Antiga Shipyard with Hero in the top left and Heart in the bottom right.
Hero once again expanded relatively fast, whereas Heart went for a four hellion medivac drop. Hero scouted the drop though and defended perfectly in his main. At the same time Heart tried to get a bunker up by Hero's natural, but this was deflected as well.
So Heart's aggression didn't do anything at all, but he had built another CC in the meantime so the game seemed to transition into a longer game.
A few minutes later though Hero got his first Colossus out and he decided to go for a poke attack, that was in no way all-in as he was building twilight, and double forge behind it.
Heart didn't have stim and no real way of defending against the single Colossus and Hero just force fielded the ramp and he could easily take out the natural and Heart GG'd.
Hero won the one-sided game and series in very dominating fashion.
Squirtle did a 3 stalker into expand build whereas Hero went for a 1-base 3 gates and stargate play.
Hero pushed at the natural of Squirtle when he had about 4 Phoenixes and for almost 10 minutes it was just an insane macro game with the small engagements constantly going back and forth.
Hero upgraded +1 attack which must have been a mistake, especially since he only had two phoenixes left, but in the the micro of Hero was slightly better and eventually he was able to take out Squirtle's last units and with that the game.
The second set was on Entombed Valley with Hero in the top left and Squirtle in the bottom left.
Squirtle went for a phoenix build and Hero for a Blink stalker with observer build.
Hero went to pressure with the blink stalkers and with perfect micro he managed to take out quite a lot of Squirtle's units. After the while he decided to force field the ramp and trap Squirtle in his main, while Hero himself could safely expand.
Hero got his expansion up, but at the same time managed to blink into the main of Squirtle and take out important units like immortals.
Eventually Squirtle got a Colossus out, but Hero once again blinked in and took it out. So Squirtle had no real army and was on 1 base so that was GG with Hero definitely having chosen the best build in the match.
So the player's that advanced from today's group were Leenock and Hero, meaning that the average match rate statistics this time proved absolutely useless.
Congratulations to Leenock and Hero on moving into the RO 8 which as you can see below looks absolutely horrible this season. Auch... you could cut yourself to death on that RO8.
Anyway, today we saw a lot of pretty one-sided games with 4 of the 5 series ending 2-0, but also a few pretty cool games.
If we had to recommend one series it would be the one between Hero and Leenock (especially set 2 and 3).
Even though our average win rate prediction (see post below) suggested that Heart and Squirtle would advance from today's group, we have to admit that we ourselves were probably rooting more for the other three players.
Squirtle vs. Heart
First set was on Whirlwind with Squirtle spawning in the top right and Heart in the bottom left.
Heart did a greedy quick 3-base macro build and Squirtle eventually went up to 3 bases as well, but was behind in economy throughout most of the game.
Heart tried to break Squirtle's third base many times with his lead in army supply, but Squirtle won all the engagements while also doing very effective Zealot harass at Heart's third.
When Squirtle finally did a big counter push he crushed Heart's army and took the set.
Second set was on Antiga Shipyard with Heart in the top right and Squirtle in the bottom left.
This time they both went up to two bases both of them going for double upgrades.
Squirtle was a bit slower with his colossus tech than in set 1 and Heart tried hard to put on heavy aggression with his 2-base bioforce and he managed to do a very effective 4 medivac drop taking out Squirtle's main nexus.
Squirtle on the other hand won a big engagement in the center a short while later and from there they both went up to three bases.
Around the 16-minute mark Heart did a massive push that took out Squirtle's third just before Storm had finished. Squirtle though in the meanwhile harassed Heart's third and took out all his SCV's.
So in the end neither was practically mining and it came down to a final engagement where Squirtle stormed all Heart's vikings and afterwards melted Heart's remaining forces with Colossi and storms winning the Protoss the series.
Squirtle vs. Heart = 2-0
Hero vs. Leenock
First set was on daybreak.Hero did a Forge-Fast expand and then tried a cannon rush at the third of Leenock.
Hero ended up investing heavily in it building 4 cannons and 2 pylons, but Leenock managed to safe his third so at this point Hero had wasted quite a lot of minerals.
Hero then went up to 7 gateways and tried a timing attack at Leenock's third where Leenock also had his macro hatch. Hero took out the macro hatch, but Leenock once again managed to save the original third.
Now Leenock was far ahead in economy and Hero quite late tried to take this third to catch up.
But Leenock produced a massive amount of roaches along with a few infestors and he just started sending waves towards the natural and third of Hero eventually outlasting him and with that Leenock took the set.
The second set was on Cloud Kingdom.
Leenock went for some 3-base mutalisk play, but hero did a warp prism zealot drop that took out Leenocks spire so his mutalisk count stayed at his initial 12.
But his mutalisk still gave him map control and he was able to take a fourth and fifth base while keeping Hero home on the defense.
Hero eventually pushed out and took out Leenock's fourth but in the meantime Leenock was going up to a infestor/broodlord composition.
When Leenock had around 12 broodlords Hero managed to do another successful warp prism harass that took out Leenock's greater spire, and at the same time he pushed and took out Leenock's fifth base.
Leenock then went for a big broodlord/infestor push at Hero's fourth, but Hero just barely managed to defend it.
Hero went up to five bases while denying Leenock's attempt to take a fifth. He also did a fantastic storm drop on the drones at Leenock's fourth and Leenock's economy was completely destroyed.
Leenock decided to go for a final big infestor/broodlord push at Hero's fourth and managed to take it out with Hero retreating.
Eventually though Hero reinforced and went back for an attack on Leenock's army and Hero managed to sandwich it and with good storms and blink-micro take out all of Leenock's army.
So at this point Leenock had no army or economy left and was forced to GG.
The third and deciding set was on Antiga Shipyard.
Hero went up to two bases and Leenock up to three bases without either getting bothered.
When Hero tried to take his third, Leenock pushed with a big bunch of roaches to deny it, but Hero controlled too well and managed to defend it.
Hero on the other hand pulled of a very successful warp prism zealot warp in at the main of Leenock and it killed a lot of drones.
Leenock tried different roach attacks, but Hero was on top of everything and Leenock just kept losing units.
Leenock tried to take his fourth in the top but Hero denied it with a warp prism. Instead Leenock took the center base instead, but hero denied this as well while Hero himself expanded in the bottom left.
Leenock then double expanded in the top right while going up to broodlords, but Hero once again took out both of Leenock's two new bases so he was still only on three bases, while Hero took his fifth.
Leenock once again tried to take a fourth base, but Hero denied it again while taking his own sixth base.
At this point Leenock had no mining, but a giant broodlord/infestor/queen army so he pushed towards Hero's base, knowing that he had to win the game with that army.
In the center he managed to neural Hero's mothership and throw down a perfect vortix on all of Hero's Colossi and then take them out when they spawned.
He then went towards Hero's main and with perfect army control he took out Hero's original main, natural and third base forcing Hero to retreat.
Hero still denied any attempts from Leenock to expand so Hero was still mining on three bases with Leenock not mining at all.
But Leenock just continued his push towards the new bases of Hero and in the end Hero never found an answer for Leenock's big army, and Hero was forced to GG in a cool game that he had dominated completely until Leenock's final push.
Leenock vs. Hero = 2-1
Squirtle vs. Leenock
First set was on Ohana with Leenock in the top and Squirtle in the bottom.
Leenock went for an early 10-pool attack and with that he managed to force a cancel on Squirtle's natural, but apart from that he couldn't do any damage as Squirtle got a cannon down in his main.
So the game transitioned into normal game with Leenock going up to three bases and Squirtle once again up to two.
Leenock took his fourth and Squirtle took his third (really delayed though because of a burrowed zergling).
Eventually Leenock pushed out with a max'd zergling/infestor/roach army and for a long while he just kept pushing at the natural and third constantly sending new units and he very effeciently managed to take out all the important units of Squirtle.
When he followed up a couple of minutes later with broodlord/infestors Hero only had stalkers to defend and was therefore crushed.
The second set was on Cloud Kingdom with Squirtle spawning in the bottom left and Leenock in the top right.
Squirtle did a three base push with a good bunch of sentries that took out Leenock's fourth.
Squirtle then retreated and Leenock retook his fourth and also a fifth while going up to hive.
Squirtle took his fourth and geared up for a big timing before any of Leenock's dear broodlords could get out.
Leenock had a lot of spines at his fourth, but Squirtle's timing was perfect and his attack landed right before broodslords were done and he was able to take out the fourth and third of Leenock's. He then retreated as the broodlords came out and a short while later even managed to take out the original fifth of Leenock's exploiting the slow speed of the broodlords.
Hero took his fifth while Leenock retook his fourth and once again Leenock found himself down in bases and economy but in this game as well he still had a big infestor/broodlord army.
Leenock got a fifth base, but Squirtle denied his attempt to take a sixth, and a few minutes later also took out the fifth of Leenock with Archons.
So at this point Squirtle had 6000 minerals and 3000 gas and a really scary max'd out army.
Squirtle took his sixth, but when Leenock pushed out with his broodlord/infestor army he managed to take out the fourth base of Squirtle.
In the end it came down to a final big engagement and once again Leenock's Broodlord/Infestor/Queen couldn't be stopped. Both Squirtle and Hero (and every other protoss in the world) should be scratching their heads right now wondering how on earth that composition of Leenock's can be stopped.
Leenock vs. Squirtle = 2-0
Hero vs. Heart
The first set was on Ohana with Heart in the bottom and Hero in the top.
Hero expanded pretty quickly whereas Heart went for a somewhat fast 1-base marine/banshee/tank push (1-1-1 build).
Heart managed to catch a few of Hero's stalkers out on the map with Hero didn't have nowhere near enough to stop Heart from taking out his natural.
At this point Heart had Hero contained in the main and I think he considered leapfrogging in with the tanks, but he accidentally miss-clicked and killed one of his own tanks so instead he retreated.
He stayed on one base though and a couple of minutes later he went for a final all-in attack.
Hero had also stayed on 1 base though, and at this point he had a bunch of immortals and phoenixes out. Heart got a good siege up in reach of Hero's buildings, but Hero managed to engage perfectly with his immortals and phoenixes and he took out Heart's army and with that won the set.
The second set was on Antiga Shipyard with Hero in the top left and Heart in the bottom right.
Hero once again expanded relatively fast, whereas Heart went for a four hellion medivac drop. Hero scouted the drop though and defended perfectly in his main. At the same time Heart tried to get a bunker up by Hero's natural, but this was deflected as well.
So Heart's aggression didn't do anything at all, but he had built another CC in the meantime so the game seemed to transition into a longer game.
A few minutes later though Hero got his first Colossus out and he decided to go for a poke attack, that was in no way all-in as he was building twilight, and double forge behind it.
Heart didn't have stim and no real way of defending against the single Colossus and Hero just force fielded the ramp and he could easily take out the natural and Heart GG'd.
Hero won the one-sided game and series in very dominating fashion.
Hero vs. Heart = 2-0
Squirtle vs. Hero
First set was on Cloud Kingdom with Hero in the bottom and Squirtle in the top and actually turned out to be a pretty cool and weird game.Squirtle did a 3 stalker into expand build whereas Hero went for a 1-base 3 gates and stargate play.
Hero pushed at the natural of Squirtle when he had about 4 Phoenixes and for almost 10 minutes it was just an insane macro game with the small engagements constantly going back and forth.
Hero upgraded +1 attack which must have been a mistake, especially since he only had two phoenixes left, but in the the micro of Hero was slightly better and eventually he was able to take out Squirtle's last units and with that the game.
The second set was on Entombed Valley with Hero in the top left and Squirtle in the bottom left.
Squirtle went for a phoenix build and Hero for a Blink stalker with observer build.
Hero went to pressure with the blink stalkers and with perfect micro he managed to take out quite a lot of Squirtle's units. After the while he decided to force field the ramp and trap Squirtle in his main, while Hero himself could safely expand.
Hero got his expansion up, but at the same time managed to blink into the main of Squirtle and take out important units like immortals.
Eventually Squirtle got a Colossus out, but Hero once again blinked in and took it out. So Squirtle had no real army and was on 1 base so that was GG with Hero definitely having chosen the best build in the match.
Hero vs. Squirtle = 2-0
So the player's that advanced from today's group were Leenock and Hero, meaning that the average match rate statistics this time proved absolutely useless.
Congratulations to Leenock and Hero on moving into the RO 8 which as you can see below looks absolutely horrible this season. Auch... you could cut yourself to death on that RO8.
Anyway, today we saw a lot of pretty one-sided games with 4 of the 5 series ending 2-0, but also a few pretty cool games.
If we had to recommend one series it would be the one between Hero and Leenock (especially set 2 and 3).
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