GSL Season 4 - RO 16 Group B - RECAP

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.

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).

GSL code S RO 16 group C - RECAP

Today's GSL code S round of 16 group, consisted of a bunch of experienced GSL nerds in the form of LG-IM_Mvp, EG_JYP, StarTale_Curious and MarineKing_Prime.

Before deciding who the favorites were for the group we had a look at each player's win rate throughout their entire GSL career.

Mvp: 69,2 % vs. P - 68,8 % vs. Z - 68,2 % vs. T - average win rate of 68,6 %
(omg! his win rates are almost exactly the same in every matchup)

JYP: 61,5 % vs. P - 73,9 % vs. Z - 27,3 % vs. T - average win rate of 53,4 %

Curious: 55 % vs. P - 75 % vs Z - 64 % vs. T - average win rate of 63,2 %

MarineKing: 69,7 % vs. P - 68,4 % vs. Z - 45 % vs. T - average win rate of 60,7 %

First match of the day was Mvp vs. JYP and based solely on their respective win rates it should be no difficulty for Mvp to take the series with his 69,2 % vs. P, opposed to JYP's mere 27,3 % vs. T.

Second match of the day was Curious vs. MarineKing and based on their win rates, this should be a closer series, with MarineKing though taking the series with his 68,4 % vs. Z, and Curious barely trailing with his 64 % vs. T.

Following the same strict win rate logic, Mvp would then beat MarineKing in the winner's match, and JYP would defeat Curious in the loser's match.
In the last series MarineKing would then take out JYP, meaning the Mvp and MarineKing would advance.

BUT statistics is one thing, and reality another and whereas Mvp and MarineKing certainly are the two players in the group with the best GSL history, JYP and especially Curious has looked really strong recently.
For instance: Curious beat MarineKing in the RO 32, so we doubt he cares about win rates.

Anyway, now for the Recap!

Mvp vs. JYP

First set was on Abyssal City with Mvp spawning in the left and JYP in the right.

JYP went for a somewhat fast, but also safe sentry into expansion build while Mvp quickly built two extra command centers in his main.
Mvp then flew his command centers out to his natural and shortly afterwards third location.
JYP went for a 2 base push with 6 gates and a single Colossus, but he just poked a bit and then went home and took his third instead.

JYP tried some minor Zealot harass at Mvp's third, but it didn't too massive damage and from there
JYP tried to set up to take his own third.
But at that point Mvp had had a good 3-base economy for while and he was ready to go for a big three base push.
JYP saw it coming and did all he could to try and finish storm, but he did not get it done in time and when MVP arrived at his base he simply had too many vikings that just tore JYP's collossi apart and Mvp took the set.

Second set was on Daybreak.

Mvp took early gas which JYP scouted, but after JYP left the base Mvp cancelled it and went for an early command center instead.
At the same time he built a ebay in JYP's natural to block and delay JYP's expansion.
This caused JYP to throw down two gateways first while taking the ebay out before he could eventually expand.
Perhaps because of the quick three gates, JYP then went for a push around the 7-minute mark with 3 sentries, 5 stalkers and a few zealots, and with this force he managed to catch a bunch of MVP's marines that were out on the map scouting.

He then headed towards the natural of Mvp, but Mvp quickly got a couple of bunkers up and a lot of SCVs ready to repair and JYP therefore retreated.
But then JYP rather sneakily went back to poke again and this time the SCVs weren't there so JYP managed to take out a bunker and good bunch of units by throwing down nice forcefields.
JYP went up to around 7 gates while getting zealots speed and gearing up for templar tech and at this point he was way in the lead with 52 probes to 38 SCVs.

At the 13-minute JYP already had his third so Mvp went for a big 4 medivac drop in JYPs main to try and get back in the game.
MVP did some damage, but when JYP returned to the main he threw down killer storms and took out all of MVPs forces.

Mvp then went for a push at the third, while doing a new small drop in the main. JYP took out both of MVP's attacking forces, but not without losing a lot of probes.
At this point they were even in supply but Mvp was down a base and behind in economy so Mvp decided to go for a big push at JYP's third again while dropping in the natural of JYP.
JYP managed to sneak some high templars up on Mvp's army from behind, but the storms he ended up throwing down were pretty bad and the engagement really favored MVP who could finally take his third.

Mvp went to push again at the third and once again JYP sneaked up high templars from behind and this time they threw down some really effective storms.
At the same time JYP did some Zealot harass at Mvp's natural and at this point they had both killed almost 30 workers in the game.
JYP then went for a big push at the third of Mvp which was in the left center, and Mvp's army had gone up to his natural to clean up the Zealots.
This meant that JYP easily could take out Mvp's third and when Mvp's army arrived to defend, JYP threw down perfect storms to really win him the engagement, and apart from a few cloaked ghosts Mvp had nothing left and shortly afterwards he GG'd.

Third set was on Entombed valley.

JYP went for a gate and cybernetics in his main, and then a proxy gate outside Mvp's natural.
Mvp had taking his natural rather quickly, but also built a bunker in front of his natural.
Mvp scouted the proxy gate so he got all his marines back in his bunker which meant he was safe.
So JYP was behind economically and therefore decided to double expand to try and catch up.
Mvp then took out JYP's proxy gate, without JYP even trying to defend it and JYP threw down 5 gates at home instead.

Mvp went for a big push and JYP didnt have a lot of units, but a bit of stuff and 4 sentries and he managed to trap some of Mvp's units on the ramp and this meant Mvp had to retreat.
Instead JYP went for a big counterattack at Mvp's natural, but Mvp had a bunch of bunkers and defended perfectly making it a very bad engagement for JYP.
So now Mvp was far ahead in supply and when he went for the counterpush JYP didnt have enough forcefields to defend and the bio army of Mvp tore him apart.

Mvp vs. JYP = 2-1

Curious vs. MarineKing

First set was on Ohana with Curious spawning in the top and MarineKing in the bottom.

MarineKing went double rax at 11 supply. He placed them both in the top of his main wanting to fly them down and go for some heavy agression. Curious couldn't find any barracks so guessed that some sort of agression was coming.

MarineKing pulled 6 SCVs and along with the first bunch of marines he went to push at the natural of Curious and started building a bunker there.
Curious pulled all drones except for two to try and deny MarineKing's agression and he forced a cancel on the first bunker. Marineking started building another but now Curious had around 6 zerglings out.
He trapped MarineKing in the corner preventing the marines from entering the bunker, but at the same time MarineKing's marines had a perfect spot in the corner to take out so many of curious units.
Eventually he got the bunker up and as some more marines arrived he took the game.

The second set was on Whirlwind with Curious spawning in the top left and MarineK in the top right.

Curious went for a expand into quick gas and pool aiming for fast zergling speed and eventually a baneling bust.
Unfortunately for him MarineKing had gone quick gas into reactor'd hellions and banshees while staying on one base.

This was practically a buildorder loss for Curious and it didn't help that MarineKing scouted the incoming attack and took out the 6 first zerglings of Curious.
Curious tried the baneling bust, but the hellions in MarineKings main dealt with the attack rather easily and at this point the supply was 44 to 28 in MarineKing's favor.
Eventually MarineKing attacked with 8 hellions and Curious could do nothing against them so MarineKing took the game and the series.

MarineKing vs. Curious = 2-0

Mvp vs. MarineKing

First set was on Whirlwind with Mvp spawning in the top left and MarineKing the bottom right.
MarineKing went for 2 gas quickly into banshees, but Mvp scouted the two gasses.
Mvp went for reactor'd hellions while MarineKing also went for cloak for his banshees while they both threw down another command center in their main.
As MarineKing's banshee arrived at Mvp's base there was already a viking out.

Mvp scanned and took out the banshee without it doing any damage at all. MarineKing then sent another banshee and even a third and both of them were killed instantly which meant he had wasted so much money on nothing.
Mvp then counter-attacked with his hellions at the natural of MarineKing, who lost a ton of SCVs and at this point Mvp doubled the supply of MarineKing who stayed in the game as he always does, but eventually was rolled over when Mvp pushed out again.

The second set was on Daybreak and a pretty epic game.

Mvp went for quick banshee this time (no cloak) and then expand whereas MarineKing just went for a quick expand.
Mvp killed 6 SCVs with his single no-cloack banshee, which ironically was a lot more damage than MarineKing did with his three cloaked banshees in the previous set.
Mvp built another command center while going for a marine/tank composition and MarineKing on the other hand geared up for a big two base marine/medivac push at the 10 minute mark.

In the meantime though, MVP had sneaked his old banshee back into the main of MarineKing and it took out a lot of SCVs.
MarineKing went for a two medivac drop in MVP's main, but Mvp denied the drop with vikings.
So Mvp was ahead, but MarineKing then did quick marine push at Mvp's third which he managed to take out.

Meanwhile MarineKing took his own third so Mvp decided it was time for some payback and so he went for drops both at the the main and third of MarineKing.
MarineKing was ready for it though and he denied both drops and suddenly he was ahead in supply. Mvp retook his third this time in the center while placing a big defensive siege tank line around it and from here the game was very back in forth.
They attacked each other's third and both managed to kill a lot of SCV's

MarineKing tried to break Mvp in the center a couple of times some times winning engagements, and other times losing them.
They both took their fourth while constantly trying different attacks and drops.
Mvp did some very big and effective drops in the main of MarineKing while also attacking the third. MarineKing couldn't do anything about it so he decided to go for a MASSIVE DOOM drop at Mvp's third and in a matter of seconds he took out the third and the natural and moved into the main of Mvp.

At the same time though, Mvp was also taking out all of MarineKing's bases and it was suddenly a basetrade with both of them only having their original fourth base left.
Mvp managed to take out MarineKing's fourth while having a lot of siege tanks at his own fourth making it pretty safe.
So Mvp was the only one mining and MarineKing knew he had to try and attack, but all Mvp had to do was keep all his tanks sieged, and there was no was for MarineKing of breaking it and Mvp won the epic game and the series comfortably.

Mvp vs. MarineKing = 2-0

JYP vs. Curious

First set was on Whirlwind with Curious in the top left and JYP in the bottom right.

Curious went double expand before anything else, and JYP had gone for a forge fast expand and since he scouted the early third of Curious he went for a cannon rush forcing a cancel on the third of Curious.

JYP also went for some zealot harass at the natural and it actually killed some drones.
Curious took a new third in the top center and from here they both focused a bit on economy with JYP going for phoenixes and a heavy 2 base attack.
JYP also managed to sneak a pylon into Curious main and warp in a lot of units that did a good amount of damage.
But Curious had taken his fourth and focused on drones so he was actually ahead in supply but behind in tech as JYP had pumped out Colossi while taking his third.

At this point Curious had a lot of corrupters out but JYP still did a lot of good phoenix harass where he really used their speed advantage over the corrupters.
Curious then took his fifth and JYP took his fourth which he could safely because Curious lair was really late.
They had a big engagement in the middle of the map, but Curious had too many curropters and while he took out JYP's colossi easily, the ground forces of JYP tore his own ground army apart.
JYP then pushed at the fourth of Curious who managed to defend with spines and infestors.

From here they tried different kinds of harassment and small aggressions without doing too much damage to each other. In the meantime JYP had taking his fifth base in a sneaky place in the top right corner.

When they were both at max supply they had a big engagement where JYP landed a massive vortex on all the infestors, giving him the chance to take them out when they popped back out again.
At this point JYP was far ahead in economy and he also did some effective warp prism harassment in the main of Curious.
Curious decided to do a final big push with his big broodlord/infestor force, but he didn't know about the sneaky 5th and also 6th base of JYP in the top right corner.

The game turned into an exciting basetrade with both player's easily taking all the other player's main bases out.
Eventually Curious realized that JYP had two bases in the top corner so he knew he had to engage and so they engaged for won final time.
JYP threw down killer storms, but lost all high templars.
Once again though he landed a big vortex on all the infestors and eventually he crushed Curious' forces winning him a pretty thrilling set.

The second set was on Daybreak with JYP in the top right and Curious in the bottom left.

JYP went for another FFE while also placing a pylon to block the natural of Curious.
Once again he also went for a cannon rush at the third of Curious and once again he forced a cancel and at this point we felt pretty sorry for poor Curious.

Curious, who was pretty far behind decided to go for some 2-base infestor play while JYP geared up for a big 6-7 gateway push (with blink) and he started warping in at the pylon from his cannon rush.
Curious threw down a bunch of spines at his natural, and with his infestors he just barely managed to deny the first couple of attacks from JYP.
But JYP just keep warping in units eventually also morphing archons and when they arrived at the natural of Curious they did massive damage. Curious switched into roaches and managed to hold on for a bit more, but JYP switched to mass stalker and with good blink micro rolled over Curious

JYP vs. Curious = 2-0

MarineKing vs. JYP

First set was on Entombed Valley with JYP in the top left and MarineKing in the bottom right.

MarineKing went for quick command center in his main and JYP for cybernetics into expand.
MarineKing went for a big 2-base Marine/Medivac with stim and plus 1 attack.
JYP on the other hand went for quick Colossus and actually managed to catch some of MarineKings army that had moved out on the map, and although he lost his first and only Colossus he also took out most of MarineKings army and denied the attack.

Instead they both took their third and MarineKing tried to push again, but JYP had as many Colossi as he had vikings so he could not attack.
So MarineKing then went up to two starports and eventually 12 vikings.
MarineKing then pushed out once again and when they finally engaged just before the 17 minute mark, MarineKing positioned all his vikings perfectly and managed to crush JYP in the engagement and take the set.

The 2nd set was on Daybreak.

MarineKing went for hellions and a quick starport, and JYP for a quick 3 gate with blink build.
MarineKing then went for a four hellion drop in JYP's main, and he wasn't ready for it at all and he lost 13-14 probes.
After this JYP had to try and do some damage with his blink stalker push, but MarineKIng knew the agression would be coming so he placed down a bunker and also got a tank out.
JYP blinked into the main and took out the tank and some SCVs, but MarineKing got a surround on him and took out all his stalkers.

From here MarineKing expanded safely with JYP also expanded but way later and he was also far behind in supply. This caused JYP to desperately go for DTs to try and catch up.
JYP only warped in one DT and of course it didn't do any damage as MarineKing had turrets ready.

On seeing this Tasteless started a hilarious joke about him having been sure that the single DT would be able to crush MarineKing's entire army and eventually take out the entire base of MarineKing.

That didn't happen though and from here MarineKing took his third while doubling JYP's supply.

Eventually MarineKing just attacked with everything and he had so much more than JYP that it was depressing to watch. JYP tried to throw down forcefields, but MarineKing picked up all his army and dropped on top of JYP's forces and that ended the series and knocked JYP out of code S for now.

MarineKing vs. JYP = 2-0

So all in all it was a day where most series were rather one-sided, but a few of the games were really epic.
In the end it was Mvp and MarineKing who moved on to the Round of 8 just as our initial average win rate logic had predicted.

That just goes to show you that stats never lie...

Best game of the day: Game 2 of Mvp vs. MarineKing

GSL Season 4 - Round of 16 - Group D

Well maybe yesterday's group was the RO16 group of death, but today's group was pretty damn sick as well.

IM_Seed (reigning GSL champion), StarTale_Life (best playing zerg in this season's GSL so far), IM_Happy (very deadly Terran who won his group easily in the RO32) and TSL_Symbol (one of the absolute most scary zergs throughout the last 6 months).

Seed and Symbol were probably the favorites but that didn't mean it would be an easy task for them.


The first series of the day was between Seed and Symbol.

First set was on Cloud Kingdom and Seed tried to do a big 2 base push with a voidray/sentry based army.
Symbol however was able to snipe Seed's single forward pylon and Seed decided to take his third instead. So it ended up going very late game, with Symbol eventually taking the victory after using neutral parasite on Seed's mothership. This enabled him to use a vortex on half of Seed's army and thus pick the two halves apart one at a time winning Symbol the set.

Second set was on entombed valley and Seed did a big push with a lot of blink stalkers and sentries and was able to take the game with superb blink micro and force fields.

Third and deciding set was on daybreak. Seed used good phoenix play to harras and eventually when they had a big engagement around the 20-minute mark Seed threw down perfect force fields and took care of Symbol's infestors with his phoenixes and from there on his army was much bigger and he took the game and the series.

Seed vs. Symbol = 2-1


Second series was between Happy and Life.

First set was on Abyssal city. On of the great things about Life's play is his movement on the map with zerglings and once again he constantly moved around with them always posing a threat with potential run-bys and so forth.
Around the 20 minute mark Life sneaked a big bunch of banelings into the mineral-line of Happy's third and took out almost all of the SCVs.

This on top of some other good harassment gave Life the lead he needed to get the perfect Broodlord/Infestor composition that he adores so much. When he finally attacked, Happy's army was crushed and Life thus took the first set.

Second set was on Entombed valley. In many ways it was a lot like the first set and Life once again controlled the map and was able to get up to his infestors and broodlords.
Once again he crushed Happy in the big engagements and was finally able to push up Happy's ramp with broodlords and banelings/zerglings streaming in, and Life thus took the series in dominating fashion.

Life vs. Happy = 2-0


The third series was between the winners Seed and Life.

First set was on Antiga Shipyard. They both got up to three bases and then Life decided to push at Seed's third, after having lured out a lot of forcefields first. This attack dealt some damage but was in no way devastating

Seed then went for a big counterpush not really having lost that many units. Having already taking his fourth in the center, Life felt he had to engage and defend at the center.
For this engagement Life had a lot of Infestors, but not enough support for them, and Seed's Colossi melted the infested Terrans and Seed took the game.

Second set was Abyssal City.
Life went up to three bases and Seed went for a stargate and some 2 base aggression. He placed a pylon below Life's main and then flew in with a voidray, which enabled him to spawn zealots and sentries on the high ground in Life's main.

It was a really cool move that could have almost killed Life if Seed had been effective with his forcefields on the ramp. It was certainly his plan to forcefield the ramp and prevent Life's reinforcements from helping out, but he missed them and Life's was able to bring queens and roaches from the natural and deny Seed's agression.
Life then went for a big counterpush, which Seed could not defend against having invested too much in the attack. Life thus took the set.

Third and deciding set was on Entombed valley. Seed went for some early two stalker agression  at Life's natural while expanding, and we've seen Seed take out a queen or drones with this before but it didn't really do any damage in this game and he was forced to return home

Generally Life just has a cool way of always putting lots of different kinds of pressure on and in this game he did a ton of overlord drops. Seed was ready with stalkers most of the time though.

Life really loves building spines while getting his perfect infestor/broodlord force. Around the 19-minute mark Seed pushed at the spines, but Life's finished enough broods in time to defend and Seed was forced to retreat. On top of that all the roach drops had bought Life time to recharge energy on his infestors which is a pretty cool style of delaying the opponents push.

Instead Seed invested a lot in some warp prism-drops but Life was on top of things with his infestors and the drops didn't do much damage.

Life however was able do some very cool infestor drops which was a lot more succesful, with the infested terrans taking out tons of probes.

Eventually the game went into a basetrade scenario in which they both did massive damage at each other's bases. But Life had tons of spines everywhere and Seed used quite a lot of army supply dealing with them.
Having cleaned up most of Seed's buildings, Life then returned home to his base with his superior army and took care of Seed's army.
So Life ended up taking first place in the group and OMG that kid is nasty good.
And he is born in 1997! Crazy shit...

Life vs. Seed = 2-1


Fourth series was between the losers of the first two games, Symbol and Happy, fighting to avoid elimination. We weren't able to watch this series but Symbol took the series as most people had probably expected he would.

Symbol vs. Happy = 2-1


Last series of the day was between two of the most promising new players this year, Seed and Symbol and it was a fucking epic series with both of them battling their hearts out to stay in code S.

First set was on entombed valley and wasn't actually that great a set, and at this point we actually felt pretty sure that Seed knew exactly what he needed to do in order to take out Symbol.
Especially after having taken the first series of the day against him.
Anyway Seed looked quite dominating in this first set and was able to control it throughout. He eventually pushed at the exact moment before Symbol got his Broodlords out and Seed thus won the game.

Second set was fucking insane and it was definitely the best game of the day in our opinion.
The game was on Daybreak and most players seemed keen on playing a long game from the start and they both got up to a good 4-base economy.
They both did try different kinds of harass though including a fantastic immortal drop by Seed that took out Symbol's greater spire (which was in the midst of an upgrade)

From here the game went into a classic split map situation. Seed tried engaging at different areas but was never really able to truly push on Symbol's infestor heavy army and was constantly forced to retreat again.

After having pushed Seed's army back a bit Symbol went for some big harassment with broodslords from the space attacking into Seed's main doing quite a lot of damage.

Seed then tried to counter harass by doing a really nice double warprism harass in Symbol's main which also did a lot of damage. (the double warp prisms were needed to get past Symbol's massive amounts of spores)

None of their harassment was game ending though and at this point Symbol had about 50 spines on the map. Seed decided to push at Symbol's base in the top left corner since Symbol only had around 9 spines there and Seed was able to snipe it. Symbol did retake it immediately afterwards though.

At some point Seed decided it was time for some real action and he pushed at Symbol's center base.

Symbol didn't like this at all so he decided to do a big counter attack with his brood lords once again into Seed's main.

Once again though their big attacks weren't gameending and both armies retreated after doing some damage. Around the 35- minute mark there was a constant threat of a big engagement between Symbol's infestor/broodlord army and Seed's carrier/mothership army, but none of them dared engaging entirely.

Instead Symbol went for another big push with broodslord into Seed's main, this time deciding to continue the attack and not retreat and he took out Seed's entire main easily.

Around the same time Seed decided to counter push with a big bunch of stalkers into Symbols' main which they were also able to take out rather easily.

Symbol had taken out Seed's main and headed for Seed's natural where Seed had been forced to return with his main army to try and defend.
This resulted in a really cool and big engagement that included a vortex that Symbol managed to avoid really well.

Symbol however, had placed a nydus in Seeds main and was therefore able to bring all of his infestors which allowed him to land superb chain fungals on Seeds army.

This meant Symbol came out on top of the engagement that left Seed with only two carriers while he himself still had around 15 broodlords.
This resulted in a small and cool broodlord chase by the two carriers.

They both had great economies though and Seed decided to to remax with voidrays/stalkers/zealots.
whereas Symbol remax'd with broodlord/corrupters and a TON of infestors.
When the final engagement finally arrived Symbol threw out an infinity of infested terrans that took out Seeds army completely and Symbol claimed an epic set that had been nearing the 50-minute mark.

The third and deciding set was on Cloud kingdom and a bit anticlimactic as it wasn't as exciting as the second, and included a few mistakes on both sides.
But at this point both players were probably somewhat exhausted.

Symbol did a big 3-base roach push at Seed's third while it was building. Seed had a lot of sentries and Symbol was able to take all of them and get Seed to cancel his third giving Symbol a big lead.

This allowed Symbol to take his fourth and get a lot of infestors out.
Seed retook his third and later as he tried securing a fourth he also went into a heavy carrier production.

He definitely must have wanted to show Blizzard that their choice to keep carriers in Heart of the Swarm after all isn't a bad idea.
At this point Symbol was at five bases and although Seed tried to deny symbols fifth with warp prisms he couldn't do it. Symbol controlled the map too well and when Seed instead tried to take his fifth Symbol denied it.
Symbol then went for a big broodlord push at Seeds natural, but Seed was able to chase away the broods with his carriers

From here they both got the exact composition they wanted, Symbol with a corrupter/broodlord/infestor army and Seed with a carrier/mothership/archon/templar army.
When they eventually engaged in one final battle Symbol just crushed Seed's army. Mainly because of a neural parasite on the mothership and chain fungals on all the carriers.
And with that Symbol had pulled off a massive comeback and knocked out the reigning GSL champion.

Symbol vs. Seed = 2-1

All in all an epic day with two zergs advancing, neither of whom will be stopped easily.
In fact we feel pretty sure that most players in the world would rather date Cthulhu for a year than face one of these two players right now.