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 H
ero 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).
