Group B, C and D of GSL Season 5 RO 32

Unfortunately we didn't have time to do a recap of this week's group B, C and D of the RO 32 of this GSL season.

We did however watch a lot of the games from the groups so here's our quick summary of how we experienced them

Group B (Symbol, Hack, RorO and Happy)

From what we saw of this group's games it seemed pretty one-sided in the sense that Symbol dominated   the group heavily.

Symbol defeated both RorO and Hack 2-0 and thus took first place in the group.

We got to see one set of each of these matches and in both of these sets Symbol looked clearly like the better player. It just felt like Symbol was better at dictating where the games ended up going, and that is generally something you see in a lot of Symbol's games, in our modest opinion.

We also got to see the entire last elimination series between Hack and RorO and that was actually a pretty close and cool series. Hack ended up taking it 2-1, but they were evenly matched and of this group's games, the sets between Hack and RorO definitely seemed the most enjoyable.

Symbol and Hack advanced to the RO 16

Group C (Curious, Soulkey, HerO and Maru)

Once again we experienced the group as being somewhat one-sided, with Curious this time being the one that was somewhat dominating. He defeated Maru 2-0 making it almost look easy and then took down HerO 2-1, in a much closer series though.

Generally what this group made us think the most about was that we felt sorry for HerO once again.

Maybe it's just because we've always liked his style, but it just feels like he's always so damn unlucky.

This time he started out by defeating Soulkey 2-0 in a series in which he clearly looked better. He then lost to Curious as mentioned, but the experienced zerg was on fire and Hero made a few strange mistakes so we were still optimistic about Hero's chances.

In the final elimination series Hero was then once again up again Soulkey.

The first set was on Daybreak and here he once again crushed Soulkey giving HerO the 1-0 lead and at this point we felt absolutely certain that he had it in the bag.

Then Broodlord/Infestor happened in set 2 and Soulkey ended up taking it after a long basetrade. But Hero had played fantastically all through the game until the basetrade. His harassment had been perfect and he had kept Soulkey on a few bases while expanding him self so all in all it reminded us a lot about his tragic loss to Leenock in the last season.

In the 3rd set Soulkey did a 6 pool that HerO didn't handle perfectly and this gave Soulkey a lead that eventually won him the game.

Curious and Soulkey advanced to the RO 16

Group D (YoDa, HyuN, GuMiho and Rain)

Before the group was played Rain naturally looked like the clear favorite coming directly from his OSL victory. Unfortunately for everyone Rain cancelled in the last minute due to him going to Dallas for the MLG championship instead.

So we suddenly had a group of three very lucky players.

We only watched a few of the sets and from what we saw we made the following conclusions.

Yoda is better than we thought, and HyuN is worse than we thought and GuMiho is just as unstable as we thought.

We watched one of the sets between Yoda and HyuN and in that set Yoda had HyuN's game totally figured out and was able to defeat him easily even though HyuN got up to Broodlord tech.

We also watched a few of the sets from the final series between HyuN and GuMiho and in those games neither player looked particularly good.

GuMiho made some strange decisions and HyuN made some very poor engagements and threw away units in weird ways a couple of times.

But Hyun was able to take the series in the final set and thus move on, but we fell pretty certain that he would have had a harder time if Rain had been present.

YoDa and HyuN advanced to the RO 16

GSL Semifinals - RECAP

Mvp vs. Rain

Set 1 - Whirlwind - Mvp in top left and Rain in bottom left

Rain went for relatively quick expand. Mvp went for reactor'd hellions and medivac. Rain defended pretty well against the hellions, but still lost 9 probes.
Mvp expanded from here while sending a banshee to harass. The banshee did pretty well, but when
Rain counter-pushed with a big 2-base sentry/immortal based army, Mvp was forced to lift up his orbital at the natural and retreat to his main.

This gave Rain a big lead in economy, but their army supply was somewhat similar.
Rain also got pretty ahead in tech and when they finally engaged Rain also caught Mvp's tanks slightly unsieged and his colossi tore Mvp's army apart winning him the first set.

Mvp vs. Rain = 0 - 1

After killing Mvp's tanks Rain could easily feast on Mvp's poor troops

Set 2 - Abyssal City - Mvp to the left and Rain to the right

Both players played pretty safe and they each got up to three bases without taking any damage.
Mvp focused on ghosts anticipating that Rain would go for high templars which he did.
Rain tried some warp prism/templar harass in Mvp's main, but Mvp had placed two vikings in probable drop locations and he managed to take the warp prism out while Rain was spawning units from it. Rain did however manage to storm and take out almost all of Mvp's workers in the main.

At the same time though, Mvp pushed with his massive bio/medivac + ghost army and he landed some very good EMP's and even though Rain threw down a few good storms and forcefields, they weren't enough to save him and Mvp rolled him over and took the set.

Mvp vs. Rain = 1 - 1

Mvp used his ghosts effectively and no forcefields could save Rain

Set 3 - Entombed Valley - Rain in the top left and Mvp in bottom right

They both got up to 2 bases unharassed.
From there Mvp went for a pretty quick 2-base medivac/marine push, but Rain deflected it with an immortal/sentry based army and Mvp retreated.
A short while later Rain took his third and this caused Mvp to pull most of his SCVs and go for a big 2-base push that was aimed to hit just before the first colossus was out.

Rain reacted perfectly though and cancelled his third and walled of with force fields and was able to delay the attack until his colossus got out and Mvp was forced to retreat again.
Rain took his third again while getting some colussi out and also getting high templars. Mvp stayed on 2 bases and finally went for an all-in push with all his SCVs and a bunch of vikings. Rain however had too much and was able to defend with good storms and Mvp was forced to GG.

Mvp vs. Rain = 1 - 2

In the final engagement Rain knew Mvp was all-in so he threw
down some cannons and defended the all-in beautifully

Set 4 - Antiga Shipyard - Mvp in the top left and Rain in the bottom right

Mvp took his natural and built a third CC in his main quickly whereas Rain stayed a bit longer on 2 bases while going up to colossus tech.
He tricked Mvp into thinking he was focusing heavily on collosi and Mvp overproduced vikings a bit before realising Rain has switched to templar tech.

Rain took his third and Mvp went for a big push. Rain had an upgrade advantage, but Mvp had a more army supply and he was able to do lots of damage with the push, with Rain being forced to use probes to defend.
So from here Mvp was ahead in economy and he built to extra bases and started dropping different places to keep Rain in his base. The drops weren't that damaging, but they did keep Rain in his base and when they finally engaged Mvp was ahead in army supply once again and he also managed to catch half of Rain's army that had been split up and Mvp simply crushed him and took the set.

Mvp vs. Rain = 2 - 2

For a brief moment it looked like Rain could come back,
but Mvp simply had the economy to outproduce Rain

Set 5 - Cloud Kingdom - Rain in the top right and Mvp in the bottom left

Mvp went rax>CC (natural)>CC (main) while also delaying Rain's natural with an ebay block.
Rain on the other hand did his already infamous quick DT into expand built that went something like this:
gateway>gas>Cybernetics>gas>twilight>Nexus>dark shrine.

Rain built two DTs, but Mvp had a bunker in front of his natural and was building a turret so Rain pulled them back and for a long while he instead used the DTs with drops in the main and to delay Mvp's third and so forth. All in all Rain did built quite a lot of DTs all of which he of course lost so he spent quite a lot of money on them.

They both got a decent 3-base economy, but it felt like Mvp was a step ahead of Rain, perhaps because Rain had invested too much in DTs.
Rain had begun focusing on colossi, but Mvp had gone up the two starports relatively early so he had a lot of vikings.
Eventually Mvp pulled a lot of SCVs and went for a big push that was practically all-in. Rain had started templar achieves, but it wasn't done so he tried building defensive cannons once again.
But when Mvp arrived his vikings quickly took care of Rain's colossi and from there Rain had no way of defending so Mvp took the set and the series, and with that moved on to another GSL final

Mvp vs. Rain = 3 - 2

Vikings are pretty good against Colossi it seems

Life vs. TaeJa

Set 1 - Abyssal City - TaeJa to the left and Life to the right

TaeJa went for his classic heavy bio composition with double ebay.
Life went for some pretty quick 2-base muta aggression. He only built 6 mutas though and from there took his third. He harassed a bit in TaeJa's main with his mutas and then went for a big baneling bust up the ramp to TaeJa's main.

He killed a ton of SCVs and did a lot of damage with zergings and banelings in general. At the same time TaeJa counterattacked and managed to take out Life's natural.
Life was ahead in supply though and unfortunately TaeJa accidentally sent a lot of SCVs towards Life's main and lost them all to banelings in the middle of map.

From here Life had the economy to restart muta production and built a lot of banelings and eventually he just overran TaeJa and claimed the first set.

Life vs. TaeJa = 1 - 0

Life does what he does best and baneling busts TaeJa's main

Set 2 - Whirlwind - TaeJa in bottom right and Life in top right

TaeJa went command center first which he built in his main, and Life went 10-pool and a bunch of very quick zerglings.
TaeJa however used his CC to wall of and therefore it looked like Life's early aggression wouldn't do anything, but suddenly TaeJa accidentally lowered his depot and ended up losing 3-4 SCVs and a lot of mining time.
From here the game transitioned with both players taking three bases and TaeJa focusing a bit on reactor'd hellions.

But omg Life is fucking crazy and in this game Life really got to show his very own style of zerg to perfection. For the rest of the game there was just constant aggression from him.
He stayed so long on lair tech and with his baneling/zerglings/mutalisk force he just kept forcing TaeJa to stay at home and defend.

Although Life again and again threw away a lot of army supply, with every attack he also managed to take out so many SCVs.
At some point he was also able to take out TaeJas third base and had at this point killed more than 60 SCVs in the game.
Eventually Life safely got up to infestors as well with his economy at this point being far superior to TaeJa's.
TaeJa tried a final push, but was crushed by fungals and banelings.

Life vs. TaeJa = 2 - 0

TaeJa tries to get up a good defense outside his natural and third,
but Life does not mind attacking into sieged tanks

Set 3 - Entombed Valley - TaeJa in the bottom left and Life in the top right

A long and close macro game in which Life went up to three bases a bit quicker and TaeJa went for his double ebay bio style again.

In this game TaeJa was generally able to put on a bit more aggression, but once again Life showed that he just uses zerglings better than anyone in the world.
He constantly does run-bys and tries to take out workers or small parts of army.
Around the 11-minute mark Life did a very successful baneling attack at TaeJa's third killing almost 20 SCVs and at the same time he focused heavily on infestor production at home.

The game went back and forth for a while with a lot of fighting in the middle of the map while Life got some broodlords out and TaeJa got a bunch of vikings out.
There were some engagements that went either way, and in one of them TaeJa took out Life's broodlords, but lost his army while doing so and from there Life transitioned to Ultralisks again.

In the end though Life's constant agression was just too much for TaeJa. Especially when Life started sending burrowed infestors to all the bases of TaeJa and the infested terrans just tore TaeJa's economy apart.
With that Life took the series in impressive fashion and moved on the final in his first GSL ever.

Life vs. TaeJa = 3 - 0

One of TaeJa's almost desperate attempts to break Life

Recommended games of the day:
Set 4 of Mvp vs. Rain and Set 3 of TaeJa vs. Life

Predictions for GSL semifinals

Tomorrow it's time for the GSL semifinals and here are who their GSL statistics say will move on to the finals!

The first match is between LG-IM_Mvp (!) and SKtelecom_Rain (also (!) and (omg, it will be INSANE)).
Mvp has a win rate of 70,4 % against protoss so this is, on paper, his best matchup. Rain has a crazy win rate of 80 % against terran. It has has to be said though, that Rain has only played 6 official matches in the GSL.

The second semi-final will be between Liquid_TaeJa and StarTale_Life.
TaeJa has a 72,2 % win rate against zerg while Life has a win rate of 62,5 % against terran with it being his least favorite matchup statistically. But Life hasn't played that many GSL matches against Terran yet, and generally he actually owns this matchup as well.

So according to the GSL statistics we will see Rain and TaeJa move on to the finals, but will that actually be the case? We say: "no idea whatsoever" and look forward to tomorrow. They all play insanely well at the moment and we are sure that the matches will all be "the best series we've seen in the GSL. EVER." According to Tastosis anyway.

If someone threatened us with a big gun and forced us to pick who we were rooting for we would have to say Rain and Life. They have impressed us the most this season and deep down we think that they will be this season's finalists.

GSL RO 8 - Rain vs. Hero and Mvp vs. Symbol - RECAP

Rain vs. Hero (Best of 5)

Set 1 - Entombed Valley (Rain in bottom right and Hero in top right)

Hero went for early DTs and was able to take out Rain's natural expansion while getting his own up. The game transitioned into a longer game where both players got up to three bases and went for Colossi tech with 2 robos each. Hero tried some more DT harass, but not with great success.

In general Rain's robos were faster though and his production slightly ahead of Hero's and when they finally engaged, Rain had 1 more Colossus and 3-4 more Immortals than Hero. 
In the engagement Rain simply positioned and controlled his army much better and by attacking from two angles he was able to comfortably win the engagement and take the set. 1 - 0

Set 2 - Abyssal City (Rain to the right and Hero to the left)

Both focused on blink Stalkers in the early game on and then transitioned into robo tech. Rain was able to blink into Hero's main and take out his robo once again gaining a lead in the robo production.
Eventually they both went up to double robo and three bases as well.
At some point Hero managed to take a small revenge and blink into Rain's main and take out one of his robos.

This game also went late game (two PvP macrogames in a row!!!) and they both got their fourth base up with Rain though being ahead on his, as well as on upgrades. After the game went a bit back and forth for a while the game in the end came down to a big final engagement around the 32-minute mark. This time Rain had 3 more Colossi and 1-2 more Immortals than Hero and once again Rain looked a lot better in the engagement, controlling his Immortals and Colossi fantastically and he took the set. 2 - 0

Set 3 - Daybreak (Rain in the top right and Hero in bottom left)

Hero went for some early 3-gate stalker pressure into robo whereas Rain went directly for early Robo meaning that his robo was once again ahead of Hero's.
Hero's 3-gate pressure was pretty much a failure as Rain trapped his stalkers with forcefields and took them out with his immortal supported army.

They both expanded and went for robotics support bay, but once again Rain was ahead on both things.
Around the 12-minute mark when Rain's first Colossus was finished he pushed out and Hero tried to defend by using immortal/warp prism micro, but it backfired as he lost the warp prism with an Immortal in it, and eventually Rain rolled him over and claimed the set as well as the series in dominating fashion. 3 - 0

General thoughts on Rain vs. Hero

All in all a really cool and unique PvP series that showed us that the best Protoss players in the world are finally figuring the matchup out. Especially the two first sets that gave us some heavy late-game PvP action.

The series was however pretty one-sided with Rain clearly looking better in all the engagements and with regards to the build orders as well.

Hero made some small mistakes here and there, which might have been due to his infamous nerve-issues, but in the end there was no doubt about who the better player was today.

Rain lived up the hype and he definitely has a good shot at becoming the next GSL champion!

Rain vs. Hero = 3 - 0

Mvp vs. Symbol (Best of 5)

Set 1 - Abyssal City (Mvp to the right and Symbol to the left)

Their opening builds were something like this:

Symbol: Hatch first > Pool > Gas > Zerglingspeed > 3rd Hatch > Roach Warren > Roach-production
Mvp: CC first> Rax > Factory > Starport > Techlab > Bunker > 3rd CC > Cloak > Banshee-production

Mvp tried different kinds of Banshee+Hellion harass some of which worked pretty well with him for instance killing Symbol's roach warren and around 10 drones.
The game transitioned into mid and late game with both of them taking additional bases and Mvp going heavy mech and Symbol aiming for a broodlord/infestor composition.
Meanwhile they both did different kinds of harass like Mvp killing overlords with vikings and Symbol doing effective zergling run-by into Mvp's third.

Eventually Mvp grabbed a fourth base and then pushed and took out Symbol's fifth. Symbol retook the fifth while Mvp took his sixth.
Symbol used burrowed Infestors to take out Mvp's sixth with infested terrans, but at the same time Mvp pushed and took out the fifth and fourth of Symbol.

Symbol tried to retake some bases, but Mvp denied all his attempts and eventually starved Symbol out forcing him to a final engagement just before the 30-minute mark. Symbol though had no way of breaking the scary fully upgraded mech army with his inferior remaining forces which consisted of mainly Infestors, so Mvp took the set. 1 - 0

Set 2 - Daybreak  (Mvp in top right and Symbol in bottom left)

Symbol went hatch first again and this time Mvp tried some bunker aggression at his natural. Symbol scouted it and pulled lots of drones though and denied the aggression, and from there both focused a bit on their economy. Symbol went up to three hatcheries and Mvp took his natural while getting a third CC in his main.

This game Mvp went for bio+hellions with double e-bay and Symbol geared up for a heavy early/mid-game all-in with Roaches/Banelings/Zerglings.
Around the 9-minute mark Mvp evacuated his natural after scouting Symbol's incoming attack. Mvp tried getting bunkers up in his main, but Symbol broke open the wall with banelings and eventually overran Mvp's main with zerglings and roaches winning Symbol the second set. 1 - 1

Set 3 - Antiga Shipyard (Mvp in bottom left and Symbol in top right)

Symbol went hatch first, zergling-speed, 3rd hatch and then a roach warren whereas Mvp went CC first and from there went for reactor'd hellions + banshees and eventually a 3rd CC as well.

They both tried harassing each other in different ways as the game transitioned into mid-game with Mvp trying a number drops, most of which were deflected immediately by Symbol, who on the other tried a few run-bys with zerglings which Mvp deflected as well.

Eventually Mvp pushed across the map with a Marine/Tank force, but Symbol defended well in the center with nice fungals followed by banelings. About a minute later though he threw away 4 Infestors for nothing when he tried to do a counter-attack.

Mvp then pulled of a quick and effective push that took out Symbol's third, while wisely adding 2 extra starports anticipating that Symbol was going for quick Broodlords.
Symbol took a fourth the top left corner and a fifth in the bottom right corner, but when Mvp finally pushed towards Symbol's main the poor Zerg player was far behind in supply and didn't really stand a chance.
He had a few broodlords and landed some good fungals, but that was nowhere near enough and Mvp took the set. 2 - 1

Set 4 - Ohana (Mvp in top left and Symbol in bottom right)

Symbol went for some semi early 2-base 9 roach aggression that could have potentially dealt a lot of damage as Mvp quickly had taken his natural as well as built a 3rd CC in his main. Mvp however scouted it just in time to lift up his natural and get a bunker down on top of the ramp to his main.
Symbol's roaches fried some of the repairing SCVs, but eventually got cleaned up.
A short while later Mvp went for a counterattack with around 7 hellions and he killed some drones, but neither of their initial attacks had done that much damage.

From there they both took their third bases with Mvp though clearly being in control of the game.
Mvp simply showed great macro skills and while they were both on three bases he quickly got ahead of Symbol in supply. Mvp also did some annoying drops while eventually pushing with Tanks/Marines and taking out Symbol's third. Symbol retook it, but in the meantime Mvp already had his fourth up and running.

In this game Symbol had once again gone for a pretty quick hive this time though going for a Infestor/Ulralisk composition. Once again Mvp denied Symbol's attempts to get a fourth or fifth base while Mvp himself got an insane amount of production facilities.
Symbol was eventually forced to do a big engagement in the center and he did clean up Mvp's forces, but Mvp already had a new army in production whereas Symbol himself could in no way keep up with the production.

In the end Mvp practically just kept sending units towards Symbol's base and Symbol could not withstand and was forced to GG. 3 - 1

General thoughts on Mvp vs. Symbol

In general this series was rather one-sided as well. And even though there were a lot of times were Mvp wasn't exactly dominating, you still never got the chance that Mvp was truly threatened. Especially since Symbol's only win came with his baneling bust.

Watching the series it was very apparent just how much more experienced Mvp is. At least in the sense that he just always looked so damn well-prepared when he plays the GSL, and that is pretty important in a tournament where players always have time to prepare.

In conclusion Mvp doesn't seem to be tired of winning and the semifinal between him and Rain will probably be the toughest series that has ever been played in SC2.

Mvp vs. Symbol = 3 - 1

Recommended games of the day:

Set 2 between Rain and Hero 

Set 1 between Mvp and Symbol



Finally for some light humor in the end.

Between the two series Artosis made the joke that he thought Matrix 2 was better than Matrix 1! Tasteless didn't get that it was a joke instantly and we'll leave you with the bewildered look on Tasteless' face as he for a second or two thought that his best friend was actually a complete retard...

GSL code S round of 8 predictions

Today the first two quarterfinals of season 4, GSL code S, will be played and they are potentially both some pretty epic matches.

The first one is SKtelecom_Rain vs. Liquid_Hero and the second one is LG-IM_Mvp vs. TSL_Symbol.

With regards to predictions, most people we've talked to (and teamliquid.net as well) expect Rain to win the first match and Mvp to win the second.

This is quite understandable since Rain without a doubt reigns as the most hyped korean right now with him so rapidly improving that it's actually insane.
And when it comes to Mvp, well he is just Mvp. And you never really feel like betting against him do you?

However, we at the The Starcraft Stalker are going to go with our hearts today and say that we think/hope that Hero and Symbol advances.

It will be hard for sure, but we dreamt that Hero were to become the champion of the next 7 GSLs so of course he will make it.
And Symbol?
Well he is just a symbol, and a symbol cannot be defeated. Go watch Batman if you don't believe us...

GSL Season 4 - Round of 16 - group A

SPOILERS BELOW - Recap incoming

So today was group A, and what most people understandably called the RO 16 group of death.

It consisted of the following super deadly nerds:

LiquidTaeJa: Probably the best Terran player over the last couple of months. Certainly the one with the best tournament results over the summer.

MVPDongRaeGu: One of the most respected and successful zerg players on the planet. And without a doubt the best Zerg in the world throughout the first couple of months of 2012.

TSLPolt: Has managed to stay one of the absolute most feared players, ever since his 1st place in the GSL Super tournament in June, 2011.

By.Rain: Of all the KeSpa players that has recently switched over to SC2, Rain is the one that has transitioned the fastest and he just seems to be improving with scary speed.

Even though all of them are very good, most people (including us) probably expected TaeJa and DRG to take the two first spots in the group, simply because of all their accomplishments in SC2.

However we were all in for a big surprise.

The first series was between Polt and DRG and even though DRG has always been a ZvT expert, Polt managed to take it in a very close series.
Polt took first set, a 25 minute game that ended when DRG lost his entire army after attacking up a ramp.
DRG won the second set which lasted 35 minutes, but he actually had to take out EVERY single unit of Polt putting him to zero supply before Polt GG'd.
In the third set Polt did a well planned 3-rax marauder all-in on Antiga Shipyard that DRG could not defend against.

Polt vs. DRG = 2-1


Second series was between TaeJa and Rain, and to everyone's surprise Rain managed to take a dominating win.
First set was on cloud kingdom and it was an epic 25 minute game that Rain won, partly due to good DT harass and great storms.
Second set was on Antiga Shipyard and Rain played a brilliant game that included fantastic warp prism play (deadly archon/zealot drops), and once again devastating storms.

Rain vs. TaeJa = 2-0


Third series was between the winners of the first two games, Polt and Rain. 1st set was on Whirlwind and Rain did the old classic 4 gate, and managed to get a pylon in Polt's main so Polt was doomed. The 2nd set was a really exciting 30 minute game that Polt won in great fashion, especially because of good drops, and great EMP's from his cloaked ghosts.
Third and deciding set was on daybreak and Rain played beautifully and won the game showing great general harassment including a nasty storm drop.
So Rain took the 1st place in a very hard group, almost making it look easy and showing that KeSpa players definitely can bring something new and exciting to Starcraft 2.

Rain vs. Polt = 2-1


Fourth series was between the two GSL beasts DRG and TaeJa who surprisingly was forced to battle to avoid elimination.
First set was on whirlwind. TaeJa went for Reactor'd Helions + banshees and was able to take out DRG's third with this combo just before DRG's mutas finished. Later TaeJa dropped DRG and pushed at the same time to win the set.
Second set was on Cloud kingdom and DRG managed to overwhelm TaeJa in a couple of engagements during the game in classic DRG style with a baneling/zergling/muta composition eventually giving him too big a lead for TaeJa to stop.

3rd and deciding set was on Antiga Shipyard and a pretty tense game for us since we love both players. It was of course even more tense for them since they obviously both feel, that they belong in the Round of 8.

TaeJa spawned in the bottom left and went for 1-rax expand.
DRG spawned in the top right and went for a pool first into expand and then 4 queens.
TaeJa went for Reactor'd hellions + cloaked banshees, but DRG scouted it and went up to 6 queens.
TaeJa took his third almost at the same time as DRG and then went to harass with his banshees in DRG's main.

DRG had prepared perfectly however, with one spore and two queens at each hatchery so the banshees didn't do much damage.

They both got their economies rolling with TaeJa going for a tank/marine/medivac composition and DRG for a big zergling/baneling/mutalisk force.

DRG took his fourth and fifth around the same time and TaeJa tried to deny DRG's fifth with a banshee but DRG's mutas took care of it.

TaeJa sieged up defensively outside his own natural and third while DRG started building up a big force of zergling/baneling in the middle of the map. DRG must have felt he was in the lead or at least in a very good spot cause he decided to try and break TaeJa with his entire ground force + mutas. 

This wasn't entirely successful but he did manage to take out most of TaeJa's tanks. But it wasn't exactly a cheap trade for DRG who was a bit behind in supply from this point on. 

He did have a decent 4-base economy though (TaeJa had managed to drop and take out his fifth), and so DRG went for broodlords. TaeJa realized this a bit late but when he did he instantly placed down three additional starports.

At the same time TaeJa went for a big push towards the top left where DRG had his fourth and a fifth building. TaeJa managed to siege up below the fifth and trap all of DRG's ground army in the top left corner. DRG then came in with some broodlords from the right to try and break the siege line. 

DRG did manage to get most of TaeJa's tanks to unsiege but he did not have enough Broodlords to do lots of damage. DRG still felt he had to use this chance to try and take out TaeJa's army so he engaged with his entire army. He was nowhere close to breaking TaeJa though, and he was forced to GG.

Taeja vs. DRG = 2-1

So this meant Taeja got a chance to play a series against Polt for a place in the Round of 16. Unfortunately it also meant that DongRaeGu did not advance as he ended up surprisingly finishing in fourth place.

The fifth and final series of the day between TaeJa and Polt was actually pretty one-sided and in our opinion the least exciting of the day.
It certainly showed that TaeJa's TvT is much better than Polt's.
Although TaeJa's play in no way looked as flawless as it has done over the summer, he still took the series 2-0 and therefore advanced to the round of 16 knocking Polt out.

TaeJa vs. Polt = 2-0

Congratulations to Rain and TaeJa who advances to the Round of 16.


So a day with a lot of fantastic games and some rather surprising results.
We recommend all the four first series, but if we have to choose one it would be Rain against TaeJa, since Rain's play practically blew our minds in that series.