GSL Season 5 Round of 32 - Zerg edition

We just finished watching Life absolutely dominate the last RO 32 group of this GSL season.

Everyone is talking about the current Zerg dominance and this RO 32 certainly felt more zerg dominated than ever before, with three Zerg players winning their groups with a 4-0 score, and 8 Zergs moving on to the RO 16.

We took a quick look at the win rates of all the Zerg featured sets of this GSL RO 32.

In all the sets played, the Zerg players had a combined result of 37 wins and only 15 losses meaning a win percentage of 71 %

That's a pretty nasty overall win percentage for a race...

What we find most interesting though is that a lot of people are focusing on Infestors and Broodlords being Imba and therefore being the problem.

But if we actually take a look at the Zergs that dominated the most, Leenock and Life (arguably the two best zergs in the world right now as well) their play wasn't really that centered around Infestors or Broodlords.
In fact their play was heavily dominated by all kinds of other stuff like Mutalisk play, Roach pushes or Baneling busts.

So what is it exactly that makes Zerg players dominate so much right now?

Hard to say.
Perhaps it's just God's (or Nestea's) way of bringing more attention to the Zerg race and thus provide a natural transition to Heart of the Swam :)

Anyway, the following players moved on to the Round of 16

Zerg: Symbol, Curious, Soulkey, Hyun, DongRaeGu, Sniper, Leenock and Life

Terran: Polt, Hack, Yoda, MarineKing, Bogus and Ryung

Protoss: Parting and Creator

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 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 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.