GSL3 RO16 Day2

Game 1: Shakuras Plateau, cross positions
      Leenock hatches first- Foxer gets a quick tech lab on his first barracks and immediately gets stimpacks, then expands to his natural. Foxer then gets three more barracks with reactors as Leenock gets his lair, baneling nest, and zergling speed followed by a spire. Foxer moves out with around ten marines. Banelings hatch just as he gets there though and manage to kill the marines, which had been surrounded by drones. Four mutalisks come out for harassment, and Leenock uses the opportunity to expand to his lateral third. Foxer techs up to medivacs and starts breaking through the rocks the separate the mains. Combat shields finish and +1 armor starts for the King's marines. Foxer gets to Leenock's base through the rocks at 13' with 35 +1/+0 marines and two medivacs. Foxer spreads his marines super thin, forcing the banelings to trade essentially one for one and minimizing the damage of the mutalisks. Leenock immediately ggs.

That was an absurd number of marines, although is was pretty strange actually seeing some die to banelings.

Foxer 1-0

Game 2: Scrap Station
      Leenock early expands. Foxer sets up to expand to the island. Just as he floats the command center over, Foxer builds two engineering bays which start double upgrading as Foxer builds more barracks and techs up to starport. Leenock scouts the hidden expansion. He responds with a lair, baneling nest, spire, and in-base third hatchery. Right as the spire finishes Leenock makes seven mutas and starts upgrading air weapons. Leenock expands to the gold. Foxer keeps massing marines, and interestingly only gets combat shields after +2/+2 is already almost finished. A nydus attack kills Foxer's island expansion. Foxer responds by taking out Leenock's gold. As he pushes up towards the main, though, he gets caught off guard by a lot a banelings that destroy his army. Foxer expands to his natural and fends off a nydus attack that tries to kill it. Leencok double expands to the gold and his third. Foxer pushes through the middle rocks, but his easily repelled by dozens of banelings, speedlings, and some mutalisks. Leenock unfortunately forgets to transfer workers for a while after his main mines out. But he is still on four bases to two, and a nydus attack on Foxer's natural takes out all the scvs. Foxer stubbornly stays low-tech, but when marine push after marine push fall to banelings, Foxer has to gg.

Foxer made some questionable choices this game. He essentially just gave Leenock a free command center when he didn't defend his island expansion. He also NEVER made an attacking unit that wasn't a marine. As good as his micro is, two bases of marines can't stop four bases of baneling/mutalisk. Foxer really should adapted and seen that he wouldn't be able to win the quantity war, so he had to get some higher-tech units.

Leenock 1-1

Game 3: Jungle Basin
      Leenock again gets an early expansion, and Foxer gets his after the first barracks. Foxers goes for only one early engineering bay this time, which upgrades attack. Leenock gets his lair, but opts for infestors instead of mutalisks, as well as an in-base third hatchery. Foxer techs up to starport again as he starts massing barracks. Another engineering bay and an armory allows double upgrades to continue. Leenock double expands to the side bases. Foxer forces a cancel on one and destroys the other with drops. But infestors catch the dropships with fungus and destroy three of them, all full of marines. Leenock gets his hive, ultralisk den, and tries to expand to the middle. Foxer forces a cancel on that expansion and expands to the middle himself. Leenock tries to double expand to the side expansions again. Foxer takes out one of the bases again, and then kills yet another base in the middle of the map. A lot of of ultralisks start to come out for Leenock, but even at +2/+2 they can't do much against fully upgraded marines. The big marine ball slowly pushes it's way into Leenock's main, and he has to concede.

I'm not sure why Leenock used the game plan that he did here. Muta/xling worked great last game, so it would make sense to use it again since Foxer was employing the same strategy. But without the mutalisks, Leenock was unable to maintain map control, and so was stuck on two bases the entire game. Foxer ended up forcing two hatcheries to cancel, and destroying another four. As fast as speedlings are, and as devastating as infestors are, if the terran is allowed to just drop all over the map, it will be hard to maintain a third. Also, ultralisks against marines off of two bases with infestors just seems awful. There just isn't enough gas to support that. All that being said, mass marine with very early upgrades worked very well, and would have been hard to stop nonetheless.

Foxer wins 2-1

Game 1: Blistering Sands
      July goes pool/speed/expand and MC gets gate/core/stargate. July gets his roach warren, but then sees a void ray at MC's ramp. He gets his lair, an extra queen, and a spire. MC expands and adds on two gateways as he switches over to phoenix from his stargate. MC wins a little micro battle, cleverly trapping ten or so zerglings on his ramp. July gets an in base third as mutalisks start to come out. Phoenix take out a few mutalisks, so July starts making hydralisks and corruptors. Off two bases MC gets a robotics facility and a forge that starts upgrading ground weapons, and another robo with a support bay. MC pushes out at around 13'30'' with a sizable sentry/stalker/immortal/phoenix army. But July's roach/hydra/corrupter/zergling army does very well against it and chases it off.
      July expands to his gold and counter pushes against MC's natural. MC misses a force field and the armies trade in the natural pretty evenly. July breaks down MC's rocks, but then backs off. Seeing so many corrupters, MC starts pumping immortals out of his two robos. MC's huge immortal/stalker/sentry army takes the middle of the map and wins two solid battles, but eventually succumbs to attrition as July's higher-econ hydra army and constant corruption from the now pacifist corruptors finally wear it down. After his army dies, MC ggs since there is just no way for him to take an expansion or hold off an attack.

Both players showed creative, adaptive play on this map. Getting so many corruptors to discourage colossus and then sticking to roach/hydra was very strong

July 1-0

Game 2: Xel'Naga Caverns
      Both players go for the same opening. July with speed/expand/lair/roach/spire and MC with gate/core/stargate/2xGateway with a void ray. This time, though, MC makes a second void ray and a forth warp gate. MC attacks with everything at eight minutes, and it's just too much for July's forces.

Very tricky by MC. The 3 gateway stargate opening is very malleable in MC's hands.

MC 1-1

Game 3: Shakuras Plateau, cross-positions.
      July again gets his pool/speed first, but MC forge expands this game, following up with a familiar stargate and a void ray. Meanwhile July techs up to spire again, followed by an in-base third hatchery. July also expands to his to his interior third as he starts building corruptors and a hyrdalisk den with an evolution chamber. MC gets a second stargate and upgrades +1 ground weapons, since he is now also up to five warp gates. MC pushes through the rocks to July's third and takes it out. July sacs it and retreats. MC has amassed a giant stalker army at this point and decided to get his twilight council for blink and a robotics facility for an observer. July expands to his lateral third and finally gets a roach den. MC expands to his own interior third and gets his robotics support bay. July pushes with a large roach/hyrda army, and a huge confrontation happens outside MC's natural. But a colossus comes into the battle just in time for MC. Also, blink stalkers against off-creep hydras mean that MC is able to get the better concave, and July's army dies. MC pushes against July's main, and July leaves the game.

Very sad that July didn't qualify for S-class, but he was up against a very solid opponent in MC. Had he been able to hold his third, or had he not lost his army in the middle of the map, July might have been able to win.

MC wins 2-1

Game 1: Jungle Basin
      Jinro proxies his second barracks on the middle mesa. Polt doesn't spot it and has a factory making when Jinro's five marines get there. A hellion comes out for Polt, so Jinro backs off and expands to his back door. Jinro uses his proxy barracks to scout Polt's entire base, which now has up to a starport in it, and a factory building siege tanks. Polt expands to his own back door. Polt sieges a tank at Jinro's main cliff and medivacs a tank and five marines into Jinro's base. Jinro very calmly fends it off with minimal damage. Jinro gets cloak and banshees and starts harassing Polt's main. Polt counterattacks with four tanks and a bunch of marauders with some marines mixed in. But Jinro's own tanks and cloaked banshees easily fend it off after killing all the marines. In the meantime, Jinro's banshees have been destroying scvs in Polt's main and natural. One banshee even gets up to almost forty kills. Once the counterattack is repelled, Jinro just moves out with all his tanks, expands, and forces Polt out of the game.

Another great performance by Jinro. The pressure expand was very effective, putting Polt on the back foot both army-wise and economy-wise.

Game 2: Lost Temple, cross positions
      Both players go for relatively early factories, Jinro's a little earlier. Jinro keeps teching up to cloak banshees while Polt gets his techlab on a factory and builds a starport with a reactor, signaling tank/viking. Jinro attacks with his first banshee, but cloak finishes a tad too late, and it gets picked off by a viking. Jinro gets a second starport so he can go tank/viking himself while still producing banshees. Polt strangely suicides four tanks into Jinro's entrenched army, and suddenly Jinro is up by twenty-five food! Both players start to take their golds, but Jinro moves out with his marines, tanks, and banshees, and catches part of Polt's army breaking down the rocks. From there Jinro kills Polt's natural and goes on to win the game.

And Jinro gets to the round of eight! Polt shouldn't have tried to attack once he had that small contain, but Jinro immediately seemed to know that he had the game won whenever he wanted it.

Jinro wins 2-0

Jinrolled

Game 1: Metalopolis, close positions.
      MVP shows a marauder to a hero scouting probe and gets quick concussive shells. Choya quickly techs up to a starport for voidrays. MVP builds a command center and an engineering bay and gets up some missile turrets. Choya attacks with the voidray and a handful of stalkers. They kill the walling supply depot and barracks. From there more stalkers and two voidrays join the assault, the voidrays spotting for the stalkers to take out missile turrets. After losing a depot and a barracks, the game it pretty much over as all three voidrays eventually get fully charged.

Game 2: Blistering Sands
      MVP gets an early reactor on his first barracks, and then adds two barracks with tech labs which start researching stim and shells. Choya expands after gate/core/gate, then adds four more gateways for a total of six. Choya almost breaks down the rocks to MVP's base, but decides to turn around when they're in the red. MVP pushes out just as a bunch of warp gates finish at 8' with six marauders and twelve marines. Choya only has about four zealots, four stalkers, and two zealots to hold it off. MVP breaks down the back rocks, but decides to wait for some reinforcements to attack. This allows the four new warp gates to kick in and start cranking out units. And when MVP finally attacks, Choya gets off some absolutely clutch forcefields that allow a ton of zealots to engage directly with the marauders. MVP's army dies and Choya tries to counterattack. It is repelled though. Choya tries to prevent an expansion, but MVP forces his way down the ramp with a big ball of marauders. The giant infantry balls dance around each other as MVP techs up to medivacs, and Choya sloooowly techs up to colossus. Eventually there is a confrontation in MVP's base that MVP seems to get the better end of. MVP moves out and starts to pressure Choya's rocks, but Choya warps in four zealots in the middle of the map which run around and kill all of MVP's zealots at the expansion. MVP's army dies again to some good forcefields, and the round of eight is now fully determined.

MVP actually hit a really, really narrow timing against that expansion build, but he didn't take advantage of it. Conversely, Choya was in such a good position but failed to take advantage of it by either expanding, teching, or containing. It worked out for him, though, and I'm pretty happy to see another protoss in the final eight.

Did we need a game 3? Chono