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 32 - group F

BEWARE OF SPOILERS

Today's group featured the only remaining foreigner in the GSL, the infamous NaNiWa (infamous as in that no one has ever provided as much perfect Reddit material as he has), going up against the three koreans Heart, Sniper and Squirtle. Well not going up against all of them, but being in the same group as them.

NaNiWa made it to the round of 8 in the last two GSLs (as everyone except my mum knows), but he hasn't really played well in any of the tournaments outside Korea over the summer, so we were pretty excited to see if he could prove that he is still one of the best foreigners by being able to move on from today's group.

First series of the day was between NaNiWa and Heart.
It was a pretty cheesy series, but Heart is known for his early aggression so it was not that different from what we had expected.

First set was on Entombed valley. NaNiWa took his natural after building a gateway and a gas. Heart went for an early factory, but NaNiWa scouted that Heart wasn't expanding so he built two extra gateways and a robo. Heart built a starport and pushed when the first medivac was done along with a few helions and a bunch of marines. He brought some SCVs as well even though we all know they are civilians and not supposed to be fighting.
NaNiWa scouted the exact timing of the all in attack though and he looked prepared at his ramp. Then Heart decided to do a fake drop, and this caused NaNiWa's units to get a bit out of position, and Heart wanted to punish him for it and went up the ramp with his helions. NaNiWa missed the forcefields, and the helions took out all his sentries. .
Heart placed a bunker next to NaNiWa's natural and took it out easily.
From here on NaNiWa was contained in his main. He went for an immortal composition and was able to push out and take out Heart's army. NaNiWa decided to do a counter push but Heart had siege mode and defended it somewhat easily. The game however seemed to be a bit even at this point and NaNiWa took his natural again and built a robotics support bay.
Around the 15 minute mark Heart went for a big all in push in which he brought all his SCVs.
All NaNiWa needed was a colossus or two to defend, so he had to buy time. Unfortunately he once again missed some forcefields, and Heart used good tank placement on the ramps of NaNiWa's natural to force NaNiWa to retreat into his main once again. NaNiWa got two colossi out and tried to break Heart that had already moved into the main with some tanks. But he could not break Heart's army and Heart took the first game. All in all a somewhat weird game that NaNiWa lost partly because of some grim mistakes he made.

Second set was on Antiga Shipyard. Heart went for a helions and a medivac and as he send them across the map to drop in NaNiWa's main, he also took his natural. NaNiWa however is a Swedish viking and they don't like to be cheesed in the way that he had been in game one. So he had decided to do a counter cheese and had already built 4 gates and even been able to sneak a pylon in Heart's natural. NaNiWa's 4 gate took out all of Heart's poor SCV's (they were slaughtered like animals), and although Heart's drop did some damage in NaNiWa's main as well, the game was essentially over and when NaNiWa's stalkers took out Heart's medivac he GG'd and NaNiWa thus tied up the series.

Third set was on Ohana.
Heart went for a 2 rax and a early marauder/marine push. NaNiWa had taken his natural but he scouted the incoming attack so he built two extra gates (making it 3 gates), and a twilight. He was able to defend by bringing the exact right amount of probes.
From there NaNiWa went for DTs. Heart went for another big push when stim and siege mode finished.
When the dark shrine finished NaNiWa had gas enough for two DTs and he warped in both of them outside Heart's main. This was probably a tiny mistake, as Heart's army did a lot of damage at NaNiWa's natural before NaNiWa had enough gas for a defensive DT. He did however kill a ton of SCVs in Hearts main with his two DTs. Heart went for cloaked banshees but NaNiWa scouted them and got out an observer reasonable quick.
At this point NaNiWa had around 4 times as many workers as Heart. Heart however did have a bigger army, that included a raven and a couple of banshees. He then pulled all his SCVs and went for a final push Heart style.
So if NaNiWa could have defended against this the game would have been his, and he did get out an immortal, morphed a few archons and while also researching zealotspeed. Unfortunately for him his three gates didn't give him enough units and he could not stop Heart's army and Heart took the game and the series with an all in.
A deserved win for Heart, but also a heartbreaking loss for NaNiWa. He did some stupid mistakes but overall he kinda looked just as good as Heart, or even better in some situations.
But in the end Heart was the smarter player today.

Heart vs. NaNiWa = 2-1


Second series of the day was between Sniper and Squirtle, and in our opinion Squirtle is top 5 protoss in the world so we had him as a clear favorite going into the game.

First set was on Whirlwind. Sniper went for pool first, and then two expansions. Squirtle did a Gateway nexus built. From there he went for a 5 gate push with around 5 sentries and a bunch of stalkers. Sniper didn't get enough units or spinecrawlers out and Squirtle took out his third without much hassle.
Squirtle even managed to keep three of his sentries alive and was able to push on and by chrono boosting his gateways he ended up simply overwhelming Sniper with units who thus had to GG.

Second set was on Daybreak. Squirtle went for a warp prism sentry drop in Sniper's main. He did the classic force field of the ramp, to prevent the units from Sniper's second and third hatcheries to provive assistance. He did damage but at some point missed a forcefield and zerglings got in and surrounded his army. He did manage to continue the attack for a while though.
After a while Sniper got enough roaches to kill of the drop and from there went for a counter push with roaches. They overwhelmed Squirtle and took out his natural. As response Squirte tried to harass with warp prism again but didn't do all that much damage. Eventually Squirtle got out an immortal that took out Sniper's roaches, but Sniper had another big wave of zergstuff and that was too much for Squirtle. 1-1.

Third set was entombed valley. Sniper pretended to go for three hatcheries, but went for an early roach warren instead and then cancelled his third hatch. He pushed out with 6 roaches and a bunch of zerglings. Squirtle had to defend with probes to gain time for defensive cannons to warp in at the ramp, so Sniper killed quite a few probes, but eventually Squirtle secured his ramp. Squirtle went for DTs and was able to send a DT to each of Sniper's hatcheries. He killed a ton of drones with his DTs and even took out Sniper's third. Squirtle kept harassing quite successfully with the DTs after this, while he himself got a super economy. Sniper went for infestors, but he never got a good economy and when Squirtle pushed out Sniper could not stop his huge amount of Stalkers.

Squirtle vs. Sniper = 2-1


So the third series of the day was the winner's match between Squirtle and Heart.

First set was on Antiga Shipyard. Heart went for a trademark early push with reactored helions and some bio stuff. He even brought some SCV's as Heart seems to believe that he needs to punish some of his poor workers in every game so they all remember who their God is. Anyway, he got a bunker up at Squirtle's natural, but with an immortal and some stalkers from the high ground, Squirtle was able to defend. Heart decided to expand thinking that he had done a reasonable amount of damage, but when Squirtle finally moved out with stalkers and sentries he was able to push all the way into Heart's main with some really good forcefields, and he took the first game.

Second set was on Entombed valley. Having shown nothing else than cheeses today, Heart decided that it was time to be extra sneaky so he built a bunker at his ramp and then two Command Centers inside his main. The idea was that Squirtle would expect another cheese and therefore not be greedy giving Heart an economic advantage. This was a good idea in theory, as Squirtle did go for 3 gates and a robo pretty early. The stupid thing about the plan though was that went Heart floated his orbital out and took his natural he didn't really built a lot of defense at the ramp, which had probably been a good idea considering his economic position. So the production facilities that he had forced Squirtle to built, ended up providing enough units for a push that overwhelmed Heart's natural and took out all his SCVs. As the attack ended Squirtle had three times as many workers as Heart and from here on Squirly played extremely safe. Eventually he overwhelmed Heart with a ton of Colossi and won the game and the series relatively easy.

Squirtle vs. Heart = 2-0


Fourth series was between the losers of the two first games, NaNiWa and Sniper. A very hard elimination match for NaNiWa as his PvZ isn't exactly his strongest matchup.

First set was on Antiga Shipyard and it was actually a pretty painful game to watch.
NaNiWa went for a 2 base push with zealots from 6 gates. The plan was to take out Sniper's third but Sniper scouted both of NaNiWa's pylons and knew exactly what was coming so he just built some roaches and all of NaNiWa's zealots were practically a waste of money. From there NaNiWa decided to go for a blink stalker push that was pretty much all in. Unfortunately for him Sniper had a changelot by his army all the time (that he never saw strangely enough) and once again Sniper was perfectly prepared. He even managed to burrow zerglings in the middle of the map and do a perfect sandwich on NaNiWa's army and NaNiWa was so far behind at this point that he had to GG.

Second set was on cloud kingdom and actually a pretty cool game. NaNiWa once again did a 2 base push on Sniper's third. This time his army of mainly Zealots were supported by a few stalkers which allowed him to micro better against Sniper's units. He did this quite well and was able to take out Sniper's third, however he also lost all of his army in the process. Sniper retook his third and at around the same time NaNiWa began his third. He cancelled however and went for another big push with blink stalkers. This could probably have killed Sniper or at least done a ton of damage, but Sniper had researched burrow and NaNiWa had no detection at all. He tried to push on anyway but lost most of his army without doing much damage. This caused NaNiWa to try to take his third after all, but for what felt like a million years Sniper had a cool sneaky zergling burrowed there. And since NaNiWa had no detection this delayed his third for a while.
After this Sniper went for a heavy infestor composition. He then did a double pronged attack at both NaNiWa's natural and third and although NaNiWa defended pretty well Sniper managed to SNIPE his third (omg that's funny...).
Not having the army or map presence to move out NaNiWa started his third again. When it finished Sniper attacked it again. This time with around 25 infestors or something crazy like that.
NaNiWa had a few colossi to defend, and he controlled them really well, but Sniper had spawned the exact right amount of infested terrans and the last one of them barely managed to take out NaNiWa's third once again. This was too devastating a blow for NaNiWa and he resigned, and he will now have to battle in code A to regain his code S spot.

Sniper vs. NaNiWa = 2-0


So the last series of the day was between Heart and Sniper battling for a spot in the round of 16.
Heart took game 1 and Sniper took game 2, but unfortunately we didn't have a chance to watch those two games. Someone told us that it was actually the two closest games of the day so far, and supposedly they both went past the 20 minute mark (which was long for today's games), so we might have to check them out at some point later.

Anyway, the third and deciding set was on Entombed Valley. Heart decided that he didn't want to play another semi long game because it ain't his style man, so instead he did a proxy 2 rax and went for a bunker attack at Sniper's natural. Sniper managed to survive although he took some damage.
Knowing Hearts aggressive style, Sniper should probably have spend all his money on spines at this point. He only built one though, and Heart, being who he is, took all his SCVs and went for a final push along with a small flock of marines he had built. This was far too much for Sniper to handle and Heart took the game and the series with a smart all in.
He goes on to the round of 16 where he will get another chance to annoy a lot of good players and fans around the world with his sneaky cheeses.

Heart vs. Sniper = 2-1


So at the end of the day Squirtle and Heart moved on into what will certainly be the hardest round of 16 ever. Good luck to both of them. They will need it.
Tomorrow we get a chance to enjoy the grand old man in action. It's NESTEA, and what makes seeing him in action even nicer, is that Tastosis always lights up a bit more on days where Nestea is present.