A New Race in Starcraft 2!

Breaking News!

We just heard from very secret sources that Blizzard has suddenly decided to include an entire new race in the upcoming expansion, Heart of the Swarm.

Apparently they have been working on this new race called The Nesteas for quite some time!

The race will be quite different from the other three races in the sense that the player will only have one unit to control.
This hero unit will be called The Nestea and some of it's abilities include "total evaporation" and "ragnarok".

Here is a picture of the new hero unit THE NESTEA. (it's a lot bigger in real life)














Apart from this unit the race will include a lot of small AI-controlled Mini-Nesteas that will spawn every 15 seconds and automatically move towards the enemy base attacking everything in their way.

The idea is that this fourth race will appeal to all the DOTA and LoL fans out there, in that they only have to control this one unit.
With this in mind Blizzard is no doubt trying to lure some of the DOTA and LoL players over to Starcraft 2.

Our source has told us that early testing of this new race resulted in complaints that The Nestea unit was far too powerful and desperately had to be nerfed before the game could be launched.

Apparently Blizzard then tried meeting their demands, but to their horror realized that the unit could not be nerfed.

Blizzard put all their best programmers on the task, but the more they tried nerfing the unit, the more powerful it just became.

Eventually it was the programmers that got nerfed by The Nestea, and many of them have now retired early claiming to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress.

So in the end Blizzard has decided that the race will not be altered any further and that the game will be released with the new race staying exactly as it is.

We can't wait to see how this new race will affect the meta game of SC2.



- The content of this post is entirely fictional. We apologies for all the silliness.

BabyKnight vs. Ret (WCS Europe Finals - round 3)

BEWARE OF SPOILERS!

We just witnessed an epic 3rd round series between FXOBabyKnight and LiquidRet!
Apart from being a series between two of our absolute favorite foreigners we also had the pleasure of watching a BabyKnight series being casted by our favorite casting duo Tastosis, which was something we do not believe has happened earlier. At least we haven't witnessed it before.

1st set on Taldarim Alter.

BabyK went for a economic pylon-nexus-pylon opener and Ret of course also did a very macro-orientated build as he always does.
Ret quickly got up to three bases and around 75 drones.
BabyK did a small push on Ret's third but it was only a small push that he didn't invest a lot in.
While he did this he took his own third and also got a dark shrine and some other tech.
Babyknight also had a neat couple of gateways on top of his ramp outside his natural so that Ret would be able to do a run-by into his natural.
Babyknight send two DTs in the natural and main of Ret.

He killed some drones but didn't really do much damage, and BabyK didn't warp in more.
Instead he focused on getting some archons and a lot of gateway units in general.
Ret took his fourth but Babyk scouted the exact timing of it with an observer.
From there Ret went up to 95 drones (which was maybe a bit too many) and also started building some spinecrawlers at his fourth.
BabyKnight pushed at Ret's fourth when he was around 160 supply.
Ret did have infestors but not any broodlords yet.

BabyK used perfect forcefields and good blink micro and was able to win the big engagement at Ret's fourth.
From here BabyK could take out Ret's fourth and move on into his third and Ret could do nothing to stop him.


2nd set on cloud kingdom.

Ret did his usual macro opener quickly going up to three hatcheries.
At first it looked like BabyKnight would do a somewhat similar build as in game 1 with a quick +1 attack upgrade.
He cancelled this upgrade however and went for a stargate instead.
The stargate however was pretty late, and from this point on he actually looked a bit flustered.
Like he had originally intended one build and then changed his mind without really being sure if this was the right call or not.
He never did any real damage with his void rays or phoenixes either.
He tried to take his third but Ret denied it and Ret actually kept denying it for a long time.

BabyK then started producing Colossi but they were very late as well and Ret was already taking his fifth base.
BabyKnight was finally able to take his third, but he then cancelled it and went for 2-base all-in instead.
At this point though Ret's supply was way bigger than BabyK's.
And as it turned out Ret had far too much and no micro could save BabyK's army whose big push was never able to truly threaten Ret.

And since it was a BIG all-in BabyK was forced to GG.
So the series was tied and at this point we were almost shitting our pants on BabyK's behalf.
Going on to the third and deciding match must have been pretty damn nerve-wrecking.
For both of them of course, but since Ret is a lot more experienced he will certainly have tried more situations like this the past.


3rd match was on Ohana

Once again it was a very quick +1 attack for BabyKnight again.
At the same time he was setting up for a very economic build preparing to take his third quite early.
Ret once again did his usual macro style, and you gotta hand it to that guy. He never cheeses!
They both macro'd up for a while with BabyKnight getting his third and Ret getting his fourth both relatively unharassed.
Eventually when Ret was at max supply and Babyknight was around 150, BabyK tried to move out on the map to try and pressure at Ret's fourth.
But Ret at hidden a big bunch of zerglings that he sneaked into BabyK's third and natural just after BabyK had left the base.

BabyK managed to return and clean them up pretty fast, but not without taking quite a lot of damage.
He then moved out again and at this point Ret was nearing completion on his greater spire so he desperately wanted to delay BabyK's push until he could get broodlords out.
Therefore he tried to do another run-by with zerglings but this time BabyK had expected it and he took them out immediately.
He was then finally able to move out for his long awaited push.
Because Ret was at max supply and because he needed his corrupters against BaByK's colossi, Ret didn't morph any broodlords.
At the first big engagement it was actually pretty hard to see who would come out on top for a long time, but BabyK used perfect forcefields and micro with his Colossi to deal massive damage.

Ret then did a new run-by with zerglings that killed a lot of probes at BabyKs third.
BabyK cleaned it up eventually and at this point in the game Ret had a lot more workers than BabyK but having won the engagements BabyK's army was way scarier.
BabyK then pushed at Ret's fourth and Ret's weaker army could not stop this push so he lost his fourth.
BabyK had also re-saturated his third again so their economy was similar, both of them being on three bases with their mains being pretty much dry.
BabyK then went for a big push outside Rets third and at this point Ret actually build a bit too many corrupters.

He was able to take out BabyKs colossi easily but BabyK had quite a big ground army that Ret didn't have an answer to.
So when BabyK kept bringing new gateway units, all of Ret's corrupters were rendered useless.
In the end Ret tried to pull out all his drones but that was in no way enough to stop BabyK's army who thus took the game and the series.
And what a freaking amazing series!!!

FXOBabyKnight vs. LiquidRet = 2 - 1

Congratulations to BabyK who has now secured his spot in the WCS world finals in Shanghai!

The feeling of relief that must have gone through BabyK's body when he was finally able to take off his headphones and fathom that he had actually made it to the WCS world Finals must have been undescribable.

In the interview after the game BabyK once again proved that he is no entertainer nor salesman. 

But the questions that were thrown at him were fucking retarded so his taciturnity was understandable and in our opinion actually made him seem even cooler.

I mean what kind of retarded question is, "If you were a car what color would you be?".

Can't believe he was actually asked that.

Anyway. Now BabyKnight can play the rest of his games at the WCS Europe finals without pressure as he has surely reached the goal he must have been aiming for. 

We wouldn't mind him taking a top3 though, so we'll keep cheering for him.

SaSe's cool and almost aggressive way of playing SC2

When we watched SaSe play some games it struck us how physically active he is when playing.
Not only is he a cool player with his own style in-game. He has got his own style of actually playing the game physically as well.
Check it out here:

It was pretty insane to watch actually. Compared to everyone else he has got a much more hectic and almost aggressive way of moving his fingers, arms and body when playing.
You can even see how the keyboard is moving around on the table, and that he has placed some paper under the corners of the keyboard to make it slide better. Or that's what we figured anyway. Notice how the glass of water is shaking as well. Crazy!

It looks pretty cool actually.

Movie and music by The Starcraft Stalker
www.starcraftstalker.blogspot.com

GSL season 4 RO 32 group H

Recap incoming - BEWARE OF SPOILERS

 So today was the final group of this season's round of 32.

It consisted of Bomber, DongRaiGu, GuMiho and Polt who had to battle for the final two spots in the RO 16.
So one of the absolute best Zergs in the world and three really consistent and killer Terrans.


First series was between Startale_Bomber and MVPDongRaiGu and it was supposedly a really cool series.
We only had a chance to watch the third and final set after both players had won a set. And if we had to compare this set to an icecream flavor it would be chocolate. Mostly just because we like that flavor and we liked this game as well.
DongRaiGu used some really cool Mutalisk harassment to keep Bomber in his base. It was a cool style where he never actually went for SCVs with the Mutas, but instead just kept snatching add-ons and supply depots. And then when Bomber finally moved out he finally went for the drones with his mutas and at the same time attacked with Zerglings at the third. And then after doing loads of damage he went back with the Mutas and along with a big number of Banelings they were able to crush Bomber's army and thus DRG took the first series.

DongRaiGu vs. Bomber = 2-1


Second series was between FXOGuMiho and TSL_Polt and was an ok series. If we had to compare it to an icecream flavor it would be the strawberry. Just because it's red and tasty.

First set was on Daybreak and we expected a pretty long game that could end up in a classic TvT split map situation. GuMiho however dominated Polt completely. Maybe because of the lucky piece of cloth that he places over the mouse, or maybe just because he is a bad ass kid.
Anyway, they went for pretty much the same Tank/marine/medivac composition but GuMiho just rolled over Polt when they finally engaged.

Second set was on Antiga shipyard and whereas game 1 looked one-sided in favor of GuMiho this game was a lot closer in general. In the early game Polt went bio and GuMiho went mech, and in this phase Polt generally seemed to be able to use his composition better.
Polt used his mobility and did some nasty drops that killed around 30-35 SCVs. GuMiho didn't have his defense positioned all too well during these drops, and all the damage Polt did allowed him to take control of the center with a big number of siege tanks. GuMiho tried to attack into the center but couldn't break Polt so Polt felt safe enough to start transitioning into skyterran. GuMiho had been smart as well though and built a lot of vikings and ravens along with his mech army. With this composition he was able to put on some pretty good pressure on Polt's army in the center. But then Polt moved out with a Battlecruiser fleet and they killed GuMiho.

Third set was on Cloud Kingdom and was actually a really cool and close game. Once again Polt seemed to favor bio (as he always does) whereas GuMiho seemed to favor Mech. GuMiho used a cool Helion/viking composition to control the map and this allowed him to take his third faster than Polt.
Polt invested heavily in marauders and tried to break GuMiho's third, but he was too well defended. From this point on it was a very back and forth game where both players kept moving forth in different locations. They both played really well in all of the engagements in this phase but at some point Polt caught GuMiho's army unsieged and this gave him too big a lead and GuMiho resigned.
A very good comeback from Polt that looked like he was in big trouble in the first set, but really showed some good bio skill in the next two sets.

Polt vs. GuMiho = 2 - 1


Third series was the winners DongRaiGu and Polt going at it for a spot in the RO 16.

First set was on whirlwind. DongRaiGu went for his classic style three base opening with some heavy drone production.
At some point Polt did a big push but DRG held it beautifully by building the exact right amount of units in the very last second and then sandwiching Polt's army.
From here on DRG's three base economy gave him what he needed to do a giant and insane baneling bust on Polts base and with constant zerglings and Mutas streaming in, Polt had to GG

Second set was on Antiga shipyard.
DRG played some of his usual three base zergling/baneling/mutalisk style again. This time he also had an absolute fantastic creepspread that went all the way to Polts base. Polt was also on 3 bases and when DRG took his fourth and fifth at the same time Polt decided to move out. But moving around on DRG's creep is not a very safe thing to do, unless you're chuck norris or a T-Rex with a light saber.
Polt had neither in his army though and at some point Polt's tanks were unsieged for a second too long and drg rolled in and crushed his army.
After that DRG had 5 bases against the three bases of Polt, and of top of that he had a massive supply lead, so that was game over for Polt

DongRaiGu vs. Polt = 2 - 0


Fourth series was between the loser's of the two first games GuMiho and Bomber.

First set on whirlwind
They both got up to three bases relatively unharmed. At this point GumiHo did a 4 medivac drop with siege tanks and marines in Bombers main that Bomber had not anticipated at all as he had his entire army out on the map. The drop did massive damage and took out a lot of supply depots and production fascilities. This provoked Bomber into attacking into GumiHo's natural but he had siege tanks set up and was able to defend pretty well. Bomber did manage to take out Gumiho's third though, by parking the tanks outside his natural. From here on the game stabilized a bit as they cleared each other's armies up.
Gumiho then took a sneaky fourth on the opposite side of the map. Bomber scouted it and tried to drop it, but Bomber defended it. Then Bomber tried to do a massive drop in GuMiho's main, but Gumiho scouted it with vikings. Bomber was never able to catch up after this and GuMiho took the game.

Second set was on Ohana
Bomber placed a proxy barracks with a tech lab just outside GuMiho's main. GuMiho scouted Bomber's proxy marauder plan and started a bunker immediately.
This caused Bomber to give up his initial plan and follow up with a proxy factory and starport.
He then tried to drop in GuMiho's main with a few marauders, marines and a couple of helions. He did this a couple of times but never did any real damage.
From here he went for cloaked banshees from his proxy starport, but GuMiho knew it was coming and he built a viking. Bomber never did any real damage with the banshees and eventually all his initial aggression ended.
From there GuMiho was able to move out on the map while building a third orbital. This gave him an economic lead over Bomber who only had two orbitals. GuMiho dropped some marines in Bombers main while assisting with tanks from the low ground, and he was able to take out Bomber's tech lab that was upgrading stim. GuMiho also pushed a bit at the natural and there he took out Bomber's third that was under production.
At this point GuMiho was in a pretty big lead so Bomber decided to try to do a doomdrop to find some way back in the game, but GuMiho scouted it almost by chance and took out all of the medivacs with all the units in them. This was a gameending move at this point and GuMihos lead was too big and he took the series and with that bombed Bomber out of the Code S.

GuMiho vs. Bomber = 2 - 0


The last series of the day was a rematch between GuMiho and Polt and this series was easily our favorite series of the day.

First set was on Abyssal City and it was an insane TvT. It was a really unique game and we have a hard time describing everything that happened, but we'll try do give an overview.
GuMiho did a helion drop in the beginning in Polts main, but Polt was ready and it did practically no damage.
From here on GuMiho transitioned into a mech composition whereas Polt once again focused on building up his bio force.
GuMiho went for a ton of blue flames helions.
When they were both on three bases Polt pushed at GuMihos third base and was able to take it out because Gumiho had a hard time defending with his helions against the sieged up tanks that supported Polt's bio troops.
Instead Gumiho went for a counterpush with an insane helion/viking/raven composition. It was a weird but successful push because a lot of Polts army was still parked outside Polt's third.
From here the game just went wild and very back and forth for a while with both players doing massive damage to the other at different locations.
Around the 25 minute mark they had both killed more 50 SCVs but GuMiho had more mining bases, because had done some amazing helionbased attacks on Polt's different bases that also showed that helions actually can take out command centers, tanks and all this other stuff that they arent supposed to take out. In the end GuMihos economy was just a lot better and eventually he pushed out with a big thor/tank army that Polt could not stop and GuMiho took first game.

Second set was on Entombed valley.
Polt went for cloaked banshees and Gumiho once again went for a heavy helion style. Polt didn't do much damage with the banshees and when Gumiho got a raven out Polts banshee agression was completely over. Polt followed this up with a tank/marine push and was able to siege up at the ramp at GuMiho's natural. GuMiho was just barely able to defend with a strange helion/raven/banshee composition, but he took quite a lot of damage and Polt got a supply lead.
They were both on two bases and Polt decided to do another big push and exploit the fact that GuMiho still did not have siege mode. Once again Polt sieged up at the ramp of Gumiho's natural and once again he did a lot of damage. But Gumiho pulled off another miraculous hold with some good raven usage with some point defence drones.
The problem for Gumiho was that Polt kept having a supply lead and that Polt was able to build up a decent force quicker. This allowed Polt to control the map and take a fourth base behind this.
Gumiho tried to move out a bit on the map with his mech force, but Polt was able to engage from a multiple sides and win the engagement.
From here on Polt could push into GuMiho's third and Gumiho could do nothing but GG.

Third and last set of the day was on Daybreak.
This time GuMiho went for bio as well.
Polt went for a nice two base marine/marauder push on Gumiho's natural. Polt's army was bigger, but GuMiho was able to hold by bringing his SCVs and by having two medivacs which Polt did not have.
This attack gave Polt a lead in SCV's but while this was going on GuMiho had begun building his third which Polt had not so the economy was pretty even in fact.
In stead of building his third a well, Polt did a two pronged attack by dropping in Gumiho's main and attacking the third at the same time. With this he killed a lot of SCVs and from here Polt took his third. This gave him an economic lead as he had lost no SCVs and had too fully saturated bases already.
At this point Gumiho decided to try and do a big drop in Polt's main but Polt was ready for it and the drop did no damage. At the same time Polt caught a lot of GuMiho's army out on the map and Polt gained a massive supply lead after this.
From here Polt pushed at Gumihos third and this attack could not be stopped. Polt continued into GuMiho's natural and that was it.
So Polt took the last spot in the RO 16, and GuMiho was thrown into code A even though he showed a really original and cool style today.
Congratulations to Polt though for making two amazing comebacks on one day against the same player.

Polt vs. GuMiho = 2 - 1


If we have to recommend one game it would be the first set of the second series between Polt and GuMiho. Everyone who has every been bored watching TvT, should watch this game cause it was pretty damn cool.
We look forward to the RO 16 and this season it's actually pretty damn impossible to guess who can make it into the RO 8 as there are so many good players fighting for the spots.

GSL season 4 code S group E (round of 32)

BEWARE OF SPOILERS!

Today's group was the group that most people called the absolute group of death, even though there were a lot of groups fighting for that title this season.
Anyway, it was three of the absolute best Terrans in the world, MvP, MMA and TaeJa, and one of two foreigners in the GSL this season, MaNa.

First series was TaeJa vs. MaNa.
Not much to say about the series honestly. Even though MaNa probably has one of the best PvT's of all the foreigners, he was never any match for TaeJa.
MaNa did take one game of TaeJa, but that was in a weird game in which TaeJa did a 2 rax build that did no damage at all, and then decided he had to catch up by building two command centers, but MaNa had already build 4 gates so he just rolled over TaeJa.
In the Macro games however, Taeja looked very dominat.

TaeJa vs. MaNa = 2 - 1


Next series was a somewhat classic rivalry between Mvp and MMA.

First game was a game that we can definitely recommend. A 45 minute TvT, that was constantly back and forth. It was never possible to figure out who was going to take it, as both players kept sniping the other player's expansions with drops. On top of that they had almost the exact same Tank/marine type of army and army supply for most of the game.
MMA did have a secret base for most of the game though, that Mvp didn't scout until really late, and that gave MMA's economy a constant edge that eventually helped him outlast Mvp and take the game.

Second game was on Daybreak and actually even more fun to watch. Mvp invested heavily in a lot of helions, as he wanted to go mech (probably just to please Artosis). From there he went into a tank/viking/raven combination along with his helions. When MMA pushed out with marine/marauder/medivacs, Mvp had a very hard time defending. Mainly because he had built quite a lot of vikings that didn't really help him a lot. So he lost a lot of SCVs but managed to hold on. From that point on he was a bit behind but with his mech he could safely focus on his economy for a while. As MMA could not do another big push into Mvp's siege Tanks, he decided to do some drops while investing heavily in ghosts and nukes. So when Mvp was at max supply he moved out but MMA kept throwing defensive nukes which slowed Mvp's push massively, and while Mvp's mech army was in the middle of the map, MMA managed to do some quite damaging drops in Mvp's main.
MMA never managed to pull of a killer nuke, as Mvp was too careful. He did however nuke two of his own medivacs that were both full.
In the end he didn't really have any match for Mvp's army and MMA lost the game, even though he had a somewhat big lead in the beginning of the game. But we are grateful for his 20 nukes or whatever.

Third game was on Antiga Shipyard and not quite as exciting as the first two sets, but still good.
They both went for banshees, MMA's with cloak as well. Mvp on the other hand had a number of helions as well, whereas MMA only had marines. Mvp attacked with his banshee/helion combo and killed all MMA's marines and around 10-12 of MMA's workers. At the same time though MMA had his cloaked banshee in Mvp's base, and he ended up killing around the same number of SCV's as Mvp, so they ended up being pretty even.
From there on MMA continued to attack with various banshees and he did a bit damage here and there. At some point though, Mvp managed to get some helions to MMA's third expansion and kill a ton of SCVs. A bit later he even got up the ramp at MMA's main and killed a lot of SCVs again. Eventually MMA pulled all his remaining SCVs and vent for a push, but MVP had tanks in siege mode and was able to defend easily and take the series.

Mvp vs. MMA = 2-1


Next series was the winners of the first two series TaeJa and Mvp battling to claim 1st place in the group.

First game was on Abyssal city. Mvp placed a proxy barracks outside TaeJa's main but his rush failed, but he transitioned into an expansion. Around the 8.30 mark TaeJa did a 2 base push with some vikings, a banshee and some marines and he took out a lot of SCVs with the push. After Mvp held that attack TaeJa took out even more SCV's with another banshee. Mvp however, had quite greedily taken three orbitals so he wasn't exactly dead, even though he had lost so many SCVs.
Mvp did some damage with some helions, but when TaeJa moved out he simply overwhelmed Mvp because TaeJa had better upgrades and siege mode already and so forth. So it ended up feeling like the quick three bases of Mvp was simply too greedy an idea. At least against TaeJa, who doesn't really make any mistakes at the moment, so TaeJa took the game.

Second game was on daybreak. Both players went for mech. Mvp took both his natural and third a bit faster than TaeJa so he got a small economic advantage early on. TaeJa however managed to sneak in some helions at Mvp's natural and they killed around 15 SCVs.
From this point the game went into a real macro TvT. TaeJa seemed to be a bit in front of Mvp with regards to upgrades and production facilities, but at the same time they had some minor engagements that favored Mvp because TaeJa seemed a bit too eager to try and get ahead. Around the 25 minute mark the map was split in half as we have seen it on Daybreak so many times before. They both had 6 bases and both tried to transition into skyterran.
At the same time TaeJa managed to take out a billion of MVP's SCVs with helions, and when their armies met the next time TaeJa's skyforce was much bigger and he took the game and the series and moved on. In the end TaeJa never really looked threatened today and as Artosis put it: They need to put out a patch that buffs TaeJa :)

TaeJa vs. Mvp = 2-0


Third series was between MMA and MaNa but in our opinion it wasn't really a series that was that exciting, cause while we we're really cheering for MaNa, MMA actually ended outclassing him almost as bad as TaeJa did in the first series. MaNa is a great player, but GSL is a special format and he had to battle some of the most experienced GSL players.

First set was on Abyssal city. MaNa did a blink stalker build that was sort of all in. He didn't kill MMA and tried to transition. Eventually MMA crushed him looking much better in the engagements.

Second set was on Entombed valley and it was a weird and painful game to watch. MMA did a two base bio push while expanding, that did massive damage. For most of the game MMA was just in a big lead in general and it almost looked like he could have won it with one hand tied to his back.
Compared to the Up & down matches MaNa really didn't look that good overall today, and in almost all engagements he came out as the loser. Especially in this last set.
We hope that MaNa keeps believing that he has what it takes to show good results in code S, and hopefully he can return next season.

MMA vs. MaNa = 2-0


So the last series of the day was a rematch between MVP and MMA.
First set was on emtombed valley. MMA did an early push with a quick medivac, a few helions and some marines. MVP had scouted it though, and he flew his expansion into his main and build a bunker. MMA still did a bit of damage and killed some SCVs at the ramp but the game transitioned into a longer game.
MVP did a counter drop with helions in medivacs and did reasonable damage.
The game stabilized a bit after this. Around the 15 minute mark Mvp had more than twice as  many siege tanks as MMA and Mvp used this to his advantage and pulled of some beautiful engagements and brake MMA's siegelines.
MMA tried to take hidden bases and do different drops at the same time to try and get back in the game. But Mvp was on top of everything and MMA couldn't stop his army and had to GG out.

Second set was on whirlwind and a really cool game.
They tried to do some damage to each other in the early game, Mvp with helions and MMA with banshees. Neither did massive damage though.
Mvp went mech and MMA went bio as we have seen a lot of times before.
Around the 15 minute mark MMA did a beautiful 3 medivac drop at Mvp's main. He led the drop with a viking to absorb all the turret damage, which was why he could drop all the units.
Mvp did a counter drop that was also quite successful but he was still 15 SCVs behind.
From this point on the game gets really heated going back and forth all the time. A lot of position wars, most of which MVPs seems to come out of on top of.
While this goes on they continue to drop each other quite successfully. Mvp however does most damage with the drops and takes out a lot of important production facilities of MMA. Eventually Mvp does a beautiful and very nasty drop in MMA's main with a huge amount of tanks.
This is too much for MMA and Mvp takes the game and the series and moved on to the round of 16.
Must feel pretty good for Mvp to defeat MMA twice on one day, when he has had such a hard time dealing with him in the past.

MVP vs. MMA = 2 - 0

TaeJa and Mvp moves on, and this can hardly come as a surprise to anyone, as they are probably the too scariest Terrans out there at the moment.

GSL season 4 code S group C (round of 32)

SPOILERS BELOW

OMG! Today's group was MC, Jaedong, Curious and MarineKing. Another Group of horrific death.

First series of the day was MC vs. Jaedong. The most accomplished Protoss in SC2 against the most accomplished zerg in Broodwar.

First game was epic. Jaedong showed beautiful strategic skills. He build a rather big number of mutalisks, like 13, early on with the purpose of taking out MC's sentries. This worked out perfectly and Jaedong was thus able to deny MC's third for a long time simply with Zerglings.
Jaedong took the entire map and build around 35 spinecrawlers everywhere.
Unfortunately a MC on three bases is still scary as hell, even if you have the entire map. Jaedong had a billion of fully upgraded Broodlords and Infestors, but in the end MC just kept winning all the big engagements and MC was able to take the game

Second game was on whirlwind. MC did a one base push with some sentries and zealots, while expanding. It did some damage at Jaedongs natural but he actually defended pretty well.
From there on Jaedong tried to be more aggressive than he had been in game 1 by overlord dropping a lot of places with roaches. MC however kept stabilizing while secured his third as well.
When MC was at max supply he pushed out and once again he crushed Jaedong in the engagements and he won the game.

MC vs. Jaedong 2-0


The second series was between Marineking and Curious.

First game was on Emtombed Valley. Marineking went mech while actually expanded at the same rate as Curious or almost faster. He just seemed to keep building planetarys and orbitals all over the map.
Anyway. Curious never actually looked like any real kind of threat to Marineking in that game and in the end Marinekings massive amount of thors and vikings rolled over the infestors and Broodlords of Curious.

Second game was on Daybreak. Curious went for a nydus that he placed just outside of Marineking's natural. And as Marineking had his helions out on the map, Curious attacked with a number of roaches and two queens from the Nydus and he just did a ton of damage to Marineking. The rest of the game was just Marineking holding on because of his insane micro skills. But eventually Curious overwhelmed him and claimed the second game.

Third game was on Antiga Shipyard. It was a very back and forth macro game. We definitely had Marineking as the favorite to take this set, especially on that particular map. But Curious seemed to be all over the place, and not in a bad way, but in the way that zerg is supposed to be. Curious managed to do a lot of damage to Marinekings main and third with a bunch of mutas that Marineking had not expected at all or prepared for. Then later on Curious killed a billion SCVs at Marinekings third with a bunch of banelings. Marineking never caught up in supply but he stayed in the game for a long time, once again holding on with very good micro that won him most of the engagements. But Curious had taken so many bases that his brilliant economy allowed him to remax again and again.
So Curious took the series, and he showed that he certainly belongs in code S.

Curious vs. Marineking = 2-1


Third series was between the two winners, MC and Curious, for the first position in the group and a spot in the round of 16.

First game was on Antiga Shipyard and it was absolutely amazing. In fact everyone in the world should watch it right now.
We don't even know how to describe it but we will try.
It was a game in which both player looked fantastic at so many different times. For most of the game Curious was the aggressive one, and MC looked like he was far behind. But around the 25 minute mark MC attacked the fourth and the main of Curious at the same time and managed to take out the fourth and do a lot of damage in the main. Curious had all his Broodlords in the center of the map so MC really took advantage of his advantage in mobility.
However the game continued with Curious doing some great pushes. Anyway, in the end it turned into an epic basetrade where Curious finally only had a few spore crawlers left that he was moving around with his army while taking out all MC's remaining structures. MC tried to snipe the spores but he couldn't, and Curious took the game when he killed MC's last pylon.

Second game was on Cloud Kingdom. MC did a very cool greedy opening (Nexus, Gateway, forge) upon scouting that Curious was once again doing a greedy 3 quick hatcheries build again. At some point MC did a classic MC 2 base push with sentries/stalkers/zealots on the third base of Curious. Curious decided to do a counter push with zerglings and mutas because he felt like he could hold his third with a number of spines. He suddenly realized that he couldn't though so he turned around to defend. MC however took out the third with no problem and went for the natural. He couldn't break this however and he lost most of his army.
This also meant he didn't have any defense against the Mutas of Curious, and thus they managed to take out MC's main and a lot of his gateways and pylons. From this point on MC was far behind and even though there was a long period where he showed some superb Phoenix micro against Mutas, he eventually lost because Curious was far ahead in economy and supply. So Curious took the series and a surprising first place in the group.

Curious vs. MC = 2-0


Fourth series was between the losers of the first two games, Marineking and Jaedong who had to battle for the chance to take on MC for the second spot in the round of 16.

The first game was Antiga Shipyard once again. Jaedong invested heavily in mutas which turned out to be a good idea if you are Jaedong and known as the best muta user ever. Marineking went Mech and Jaedong just used the mobility of his mutas and managed to kill a billion SCVs. Eventually his economy was just so much better than Marinekings that he could overrun him.

Second set was on entombed Valley. Marineking build 2 proxy barracks but Jaedong scouted them. This caused Marineking to bring all his SCVs in an attack. He placed a bunker by Jaedongs natural and Marineking simply handled the situation much better than Jaedong and MKP defended the aggressive bunker perfectly. Eventually Jaedong had lost too many drones and zerglings, and was going to lose his natural so Marineking took the set.

Third set was on Daybreak. It was a really close game with a lot of good engagements on both parts. Marineking managed to get his third up and running relatively fast without getting bothered. But then Jaedong did quite a lot of damage with his mutas in Marinekings main again.
Eventually Marineking did a big push with tanks/marines/medivacs and Jadong decided to counterpush. It turned into a basetrade where they both lost practically all structures. In the end though Jaedong only had a few buildings left so he tried to attack Marinekings army with a lot of banelings that was all he had left. But Marinekings marine splitting was perfect and he took the game and the series, and with that knocked Jaedong into the up and down matches.
Jaedong however has proved that he is certainly close to matching the best players in SC2 in skill.

Marineking vs. Jaedong = 2-1


So last series of the day was Marineking against MC. On paper a match that could have easily been a final in any GSL.
First set was on Ohana and Marineking did a 1 base all in push with tanks and marines. MC however held it and this gave him a big lead as he was on two bases. Marineking did manage to transition a bit out of it and expand. MC however was constantly 20 supply ahead of him and when they finally engaged again MC had a number of colossi that just tore Marinekings army apart. So MC took the first set.

Second set was on Antiga Shipyard. It was a weird game. MC did a very defensive build that never really seemed to make any sense. He didn't really do a serious push, but at the same time allowed Marineking to take his third way before himself so MC just got far behind.
And MC never really recovered from this. So Marineking got a win that in reality seemed to spring out of MC never really knowing what he wanted to do in that set.

Third set was even weirder. Marineking went for helions plus cloaked banshees. MC however scouted the factory and went for early starport, and then a robotics bay which was of course the perfect counter. He build around 4 phoenixes and went to marinekings base to do some damage. The problem was that he for some odd reason cancelled his robo, and then restarted it too late. So when Marineking's cloacked banshee arrived there was no defense and it killed around 15 probes.
After that MC wanted to transition into Colossus tech, but instead of a robotics support bay, he accidentally build another robotics bay, which was of course absolutely useless when marineking eventually pushed with tanks and bio units. Especially since MC didn't have the economy to support immortal production on both bays. So he lost the game and the series due to a number of strange mistakes that didn't look like something one usually sees from MC. Maybe he was tired at this point or maybe he was out spending some of all his money on drugs and strippers the night before, who knows?
Anyway, Marineking moved on, even though his play today didn't look like some of the best play he has shown. All in all it actually felt like MC was a better player today, but he just fell apart in the last two games, which was of course pretty unfortunate for him.

Marineking vs. MC = 2-1


So it was Curious & Marineking that moved on from today's group, but we feel that both MC and Jaedong will be definitely be back in code S next season.