Recap of GSL Code A RO 48 (MaNa, NaNiWa and Flash)

Today there were some highly anticipated games in the GSL code A, round of 48.

The only two foreigners in GSL at the moment, NaNiWa and MaNa, both had to play to try and keep their place in GSL.

On top of that Broodwar legend Flash had to play his first regular GSL match, which had naturally also spawned a lot of high expectations

MaNa vs. asd

MaNa won the first set on Antiga Shipyard with a very effective 3-base push with perfect storms eventually winning him the game.

In the second set on Entombed Valley asd made some good drops early on and eventually a very deadly all-in push with Marines/Tanks/Banshees/SCVs that took out MaNa's natural and contained him in his main with asd building bunkers at the natural.
MaNa tried to break the contain but couldn't do it, so asd took the first set.

The third and deciding set was on Ohana and ended up looking a lot like the second set.
When asd pretty much did the exact same all-in push he once again managed to take out MaNa's natural and contain him in his main. MaNa tried to break it with immortals and eventually colossi but was more careful than in game 1 this time realizing that he probably wouldn't be able to break it.

MaNa scouted with his phoenixes that asd had moved his mainorbital to his natural, and since MaNa himself was completely mined out he knew he had to do something quickly.
So MaNa decided to sneak all of his army out of his main with a single warp prism and go for a basetrade.
This might have worked better if asd hadn't scouted it as quickly as he did, but asd saw it and went into MaNa's main with all his army quickly taking it out.
At the same time MaNa had no difficulty either with taking out asd's main

So at this point Mana's only structure was an assimilator that he had placed down in asd's original main.  The only structures remaining for asd were a couple of buildings that were flying in different directions on the map. MaNa found the orbital and took it out eventually giving him vision of asd's remaining flying structures.

In the end asd's army was simply a lot bigger though and asd played carefully as he slowly moved towards MaNa's single remaining building.
MaNa tried to take out asd's remaining structures with his phoenixes but asd could simply land the buildings and as MaNa lost his last Colossi he could do nothing but GG and realise that his days in GSL were over for now.

asd vs. MaNa = 2-1

NaNiWa vs. Mini

First set was on Ohana with Naniwa spawning in the top and Mini in the bottom.

Naniwa went: Gateway - assimilator - assimilator - cybernetics
Mini went: Gateway - assimilator - cybernetics - assimilator

This naturally meant that Mini's cybernetics was quicker but that Naniwa had more gas.
From there they went something like:

Naniwa:  Gateway - Robotics - Expansion - Gateway - immortal - blink
Mini: Gateway - Twilight - Blink - Expansion - Gateway - Robotics

Mini then tried to do some blink harassment in NaNiWa's main, but he was ready for it and Mini lost a few of the stalkers putting NaNiWa a bit ahead in army supply.

From there Mini went into Colossi tech but instead of adding his own robotics support bay NaNiWa decided to throw down 3 additional gateways and go for a big push to try and kill Mini before he got too many Colossi out.
Initially the push from NaNiWa did well as he managed to catch one of Mini's immortals with good forcefields at the ramp to the natural.

At this point though Mini had already gotten a few Colossi out and NaNiWa tried different approach-angles to see how he could best try and break Mini's forces. Eventually it led to a rather close engagement which Mini managed to win with good Colossi control.

NaNiWa tried to retreat with his remaining attack forces but Mini chased after him and took out two of NaNiWa's immortals. This gave Mini quite a big lead in army supply and NaNiWa frantically threw down another robotics facility to try and catch up in Colossi.
But Mini knew he was ahead and he didn't wait long before he pushed and when he did his higher Colossi number won him the final engagement at NaNiWa's natural thus winning Mini the set.

The second set was on Daybreak with NaNiWa spawning in the top right and Mini in the bottom left.

Both players pretty much went for the exact same "two gateways and two stalkers into robotics " build.

They both got a few more stalkers out and NaNiWa then managed to catch and take out one of MiNi's stalker out on the map.
This caused NaNiWa to go for some pressure at the ramp to Mini's main. Unfortunately for NaNiWa though, he overextended a bit and Mini caught some of NaNiWa's stalkers on the ramp.
This gave Mini a supply lead as they both took their natural expansions.

Mini then went for some warp prism with double immortal drops and throughout the entire game he actually used his warp prism beautifully. First he dropped a few times in the main.

Then he dropped at NaNiWa's third forcing a cancel on it, while he himself already had his own third finishing up.

Mini also managed to use the warp prism to get map control by dropping the immortals by the watch tower every time NaNiWa tried to claim it with a zealot.
Mini then dropped in the main again and then at the natural and then in main again every time only doing a of damage and escaping just in time, which must have been pretty damn annoying for NaNiWa

Both player's had gone up to double robotics but by constantly harassing NaNiWa, Mini had gained a good lead in his Colossi number and overall army supply.
This allowed Mini to take his own fourth and at the same time go for a deadly push at NaNiWa's third. With Mini also having Archons to tank damage it never really got close and Mini took the set and the series knocking NaNiWa out of code A.

You can say what you want about NaNiWa and the somewhat strange behavior he has shown at some times, but you have to respect the fact that he risked everything and went to Korea this year to try and battle the best SC 2 players in the world at the center of the Starcraft scene.

With this in mind it's quite understandable that NaNiWa was absolutely devastated after his loss.
This guy has truly sacrificed a lot of foreign tournaments this year to try and prove himself it Korea and now he is out of the GSL and after losing this series he must be wondering what in the world he is supposed to do now.

Mini vs. NaNiWa = 2-0

Flash vs. Killer

The first set was on whirlwind with Killer spawning in the top left and Flash in the bottom left.

Killer went for a big 2 base Colossi push and as he moved towards the natural base of Flash it did not look like Flash would be ready for it at all.
However, in a matter of seconds Flash starting building additional bunkers while repairing the ones in the front beautifully with his SCVs.
Eventually he was able to do an impressive hold until he got vikings out and with them he was able to deny Killer's push.

Killer had invested A LOT in the attack and when Flash went for a big counter push Killer was behind in army supply.
When they engaged the vikings of Flash took care of Killer's Colossi while the stimmed bio army massacred Killer's ground forces and with that set 1 went to Flash.

Second set was on Cloud Kingdom and the game quickly developed into a pretty weird game as Killer went for a proxy robotics facility and Flash went for a proxy starport.
Flash scouted Killer's proxy robotics with the hellions he wanted to drop in Killer's main, but he lost one of the hellions in the process.

Flash still dropped in Killer's main though and actually managed to kill quite a lot of probes with his two hellions mainly because Killer was supply blocked for a while and unable to warp in units to defend.

At the same time Flash had been able to set up a good defense at home. So when Killer tried to get something out of his proxy play, and push up the ramp to the main he had to way of doing damage as Flash already had sieged tanks on the high ground.

From here the game stabilized a bit with both player's taking their natural, but with Flash being quite a bit ahead after their opening agression.
Killer though had sneakily placed down a dark shrine and with this managed to catch Flash completely off guard by sending two DTs to the main and two DTs to the natural.
Flash had to bring his army all the way back from the middle of the map and while doing so took a devastating amount of damage.
From this point on Killer was in too big of a lead and when they finally engaged Killer took the set easily with Flash probably thinking "DTs are for noobs!".

The third and deciding set was on Entombed Valley with Flash spawning in the bottom right and Killer in the top right.

They both went up to three bases relatively fast and without getting bothered.
From here the game turned into a game of big engagements.
There was never really anything sneaky going on and the game was just decided by who positioned and controlled their units the best in the engagements.
And Flash did so in their first engagement, mainly by doing great damage to the Colossi with his perfect number of very well positioned Vikings

From this point on Flash was in a bit of a lead and as the game continued with a lot of big engagements  they both seemed to control their armies really well and quite carefully.
But after every engagement Flash simply managed to come out a bit on top and stay ahead in army supply. At the same time Flash took his own fourth safely while taking out Killer's fourth numerous times, and eventually Flash just got further and further ahead and Killer was rolled over in the final engagements.

Flash vs. Killer = 2-1

There were also some other series today that we unfortunately did not get to watch, but according to Wolf and Khaldor the Maru vs. EffOrt games were really nice as well.

Anyway, all in all not a great day for foreigners in Korea, but a good day for all those people arguing that it's only a matter of time before Flash will be able to dominate the SC2 scene as he has done in Broodwar.

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.