GSL 2011 S1 Code A RO8

Metalopolis, cross positions
      Both players fast expand. Top brings his barracks count up to four. BanBans gets three gates, a robo, and a robotics bay. Top pushes out with stim as he techs to starport and gets add-ons for his barracks(TTRR). He quickly retreats. Both players take their third. A marauder drop kills BanBans' robotics bays, but doesn't see a delayed two stargates. Both stargates hurry out a few phoenix to match the already high viking numbers. BanBans gets a double forge for +1/+1 AND gets +1 air. Top drops again and kills a lot of probes in BanBans' main. Top expands to his gold for his forth.
      BanBans starts to attack the gold with his gateway/colossus army, but his whole army gets emp'd. He attacks anyway, trading his whole army for most of Byun's but ending up around thirty supply behind. Top expands to the last two bases on his side of the map. Banbans takes a forth. A big phoenix flock kills a marauder ball, but eventually Top's huge macro allows him to overrun his opponent with bio.

This was certainly the best macro game of Code A so far. I think it was the first time I saw a Code A player get past three bases mining at once. BanBans mass-phoenix transition was pretty fresh, but phoenix don't kill marauders fast enough to really be effective, which allowed the two marauder drops to do terrible, terrible damage. Against bio, it seems like it is best to make just enough phoenix to protect your colossus, especially if you aren't using them to harass.

Top wins 1-0

Shakuras Plateau, close positions

Game 2: Shakuras Plateau, close positions
      Both players fast-expand again. Top gets four barracks. BanBans gets three gates and a robo. It follows the first game all the way up to Top gently pushing with stim, teching to starport, and expanding- and BanBans getting colossus, expanding, then getting two stargates. The marauder drop only kills two pylons this time, though. The second drop does less damage this time as well. But finally breaking out of this groundhog-day-like game, there is a third drop with marines that kills a lot of probes, all of them in fact, at BanBans' third.
      Top sticks to bio as he adds ghosts into the mix. BanBans makes a ill-advised attack right into Top's army, and gets slaughtered as his phoenix attack first, then the stalkers and colossi, then the charge-less zealots. Being fifty supply ahead, Top's army run over, kills BanBans' third, and destroys BanBans' second wave as well. BanBans gg's right as a nuke finishes for Top.

It seemed like BanBans had a very specific build and game plan that he was going to follow no matter what, even including attack timings, and it turned out that the game plan didn't work well against what Top was doing. He adapted particularly poorly to Top's drops, allowing them to kill way more than they should have, which probably threw a wrench into BanBans' game plan. One of the best parts about getting phoenix against terran is spotting and killing drops, but BanBans kept his phoenix with his main army almost the entire time. All this, along with his poor attack timing and unit control, makes me think that BanBans won't be Code S material until he either perfects his builds, or loosens up under the spotlight enough to be flexible during a game. However, Top looked very good; he showed lovely multitasking as he harassed and expanded and macro'd well the entire game. He could easily get to Code S, especially if he gets to pick his group.

Top wins 2-0, advances

Top wins 2-0
BanBans on bottom.

Xel'Naga Caverns

      Cezanne drone-scouts fairly early, sees two barracks, then hatch-before-pools anyway. Essy bunker pushes and kills the hatchery fairly easily despite banelings coming out in time. Essy even manages to sell an on fire bunker after being repelled. Essy gets a command center for his natural, then two more barracks. Cezanne re-expands to his natural and gets +1 melee. Essy gets combat shields before stim. Cezanne gets a third base at his lateral expansion. Essy gets (TTRR) for his add-ons.
      Essy takes out Cezanne's third with his bio. Cezanne gets a lair, baneling speed, and +2 melee. Essy attacks with marines and marauders through the secret hallway, but lets banelings through, gets flanked, and loses everything! If he had controlled just a tiny bit better, it would have gone completely the other way. But as it stands, Cezanne is back in the game. Cezanne expands to his lateral third, but it dies to marauders again. He expands to his interior third instead this time. Zerg tries a counter-attack, but ends up trading armies pretty equally. Cezanne gets infestors. Cezanne again loses his third, this time to a clever cliff drop with tanks. He re-expands to both of his thirds together this time. Essy gets a planetary fortress at his gold. Cezanne get a spire and a hive.
      Cezanne takes his gold as his performs a very clever attack in which zerglings run into Essy's base, and infestors fungal reinforcements as they try to get up the ramp, blocking everything out. Essy transitions to more and more tanks. Cezanne loses hatcheries four and five at his gold and interior third. He immediately re-expands to both. Cezanne gets a greater spire, +3 melee, +3 carapace, adrenal glands, burrow, an ultralisk cavern, and chitinous plating. As Essy starts pushing at Cezanne's gold with tanks, Cezanne uses pretty good brood lord/infestor/corruptor micro to hold off the terran forces. But tanks eventually take the gold hatchery down. Essy stims forward, drives the brood lords out, which allows him to siege up outside Cezanne's natural. With his opponent contained, Essy is able to nullify the rest of Cezanne's bases, effectively ending the game.

Cezanne has a strange sense of timing, especially when it comes to expanding. He seemed to be desperately grasping at straws the entire game after getting behind early. He lost so many hatcheries that game, it was hard to see how he possibly could have won despite all his clever tactical maneuvering. If he tightened up his expansion pattern, he could be a very solid player. I especially liked how on top of his upgrades he was. I would love to see the money distribution chart for that game. Maybe if Cezanne had dedicated more to making actual units, he would have had a better time of it.

sC wins 1-0

Lost Temple, close-by-air positions

      Deja vu as Essy bunker-pushes and kills Cezanne's early hatchery again. Essy expands behind it and techs to siege tanks. Cezanne techs to banelings, finally kills the bunker, and re-expands to his natural, and then to the close natural. Essy tank drops Cezanne's natural- kills it, and then the third. Cezanne gets a lair, a spire, and upgrades +2 melee. Cezanne expands to the Main and natural close to Essy. Essy has had enough tomfoolery and finally tank-pushes Cezanne's main.

Cezanne looked totally different from his other Code A matches so far. Either he was completely flustered from the early pressure, or he was just rolling dice in his head to decide what to do next. sC stood out for his patience and methodicalness in dealing with Cezanne's unorthodoxy. I really thin Cezanne just needs to make more units and he would be pretty good.

sC wins 2-0, advances

Shakuras Plateau, cross positions

      July gets a hatch first. Byun rushes for his first reaper, and follows it with a command center and a factory. The reaper kills a few drones and escapes. July morphs a lair and then a spire and baneling nest. Byun techs to tanks, then gets an armory. July takes his third. Byun gets +1 attack for both infantry and vehicles as he builds some thors. He builds four barracks with reactors as he get +2 attacks at both his e-bay and his armory. July gets roaches and an infestation pit. Byun takes his third at the 12 o'clock; July takes his forth at his 6 o'clock and gets his hive. Byun pushes against July's third with tank/thor/marine. July evacuates, takes his interior third, and gets brood lords.
      Byun gets +3/+0 +3/+0 as his starts pushing through the middle of the map with a lot of thors and tanks. July takes both vertical expansions as Byun sieges up at his third. Byun get up by enough supply to split his forces into three prongs and takes out four hatcheries at once, forcing July to gg.

July looked kind of lost this game. His composition was not working well, but he didn't change it. He was dropping banelings on thors and tanks, losing overlords and brood lords to vikings, running whole packs of zerglings into stimmed marines, and overall didn't seem to be comfortable dealing with a mech army of that size. He also lacked his usual aggression as he didn't attack Byun's bases once the entire game. Byun looked very solid with his pushing and engagement timing, always seeming to come out on top. The commentators also correctly pointed out that July didn't use any creep tumors at all.

Byun wins 1-0

Jungle Basin

      July hatches first. Byun gets two barracks and tries to bunker July's main ramp. Zerglings get out in plenty of time to force a cancel. Byun expands. July gets his lair, a spire, and a baneling nest. Byun follows up with two factories for a lot a blue-flame hellions. Five make it into July's main, but he blocks them, traps them, and kills them with some fancy micro. July expands to his lateral third. Byun gets a third factory and an armory for two thors, then three-factory tanks. Byun again gets +1 weapons for both vehicles and infantry before making six barracks. Byun uses six barracks to wall off from his main to the mesa!
      July breaks into Byun's back door through the rocks and takes out some scvs. Byun takes his side of the mesa. July makes a move against it with zergling/mutalisk, but it is repelled. July gets to 25+ mutalisks and destroys a lot in Byun's main before being pushed out by thors and turrets. Both players do a lot harassment against each other's expansions, Byun with marine contingents and July with mutalisks and zerglings. July loses his lateral third. July kills most of the scvs at Byun's natural. Byun kills July's forth. On one barely mining base, July makes a last-ditch effort to kill Byun's thors, but loses all of his mutalisks in the process. July has thirty supply left, and concedes.

Byun is obviously happy with his big victory over such a big name. He played very well, and his TvZ seems very solid, while July really struggled with beating mech play. One bizarre thing was July's continual insistence on baneling-dropping thors and tanks, doing almost no damage to them, and rarely reducing their numbers at all.* July is going to have to work on his game plans if he want to make Code S, whereas Byun is looking as solid as many of the players who didn't make it past the group stage.

Byun wins 2-0, advances

*Just for the record, it takes nine banelings to kill a tank, and twenty-one to kill thor. That's a net loss of 300/100 and 750/325 resources respectively, and that's only if you even manage to kill them, which July rarely managed to do.

I really want to make a Byun joke here. But I'm bigger than that.

Byun wins 2-0

Gnoll Wo.. errrr Jungle Basin

      Both players get expansions before anything. Lyn techs up to starport for tanks and a banshee. Moon goes for a baneling bust. He gets in, but doesn't do enough damage to make it worth it. Moon tries again, but the second bust goes even worse as a siege tanks kill a lot of the banelings. Lyn builds up to two starports, two factories, and four barracks. Moon gets a lair and a spire. Lyn smartly gets a raven to watch out for burrowed banelings. Lyn moves out with a strangely small tank/marine force that easily gets squashed by Moon's zergling/baneling army. Moon tries to expand to Lyn's lateral expansion. Lyn takes it out. Lyn also destroys Moon's natural with an interestingly-executed push over the rocks. From there Moon's economy can't keep up. So even after winning a good battle in the middle of the map, he eventually has to gg to Lyn's slow push into his main.

Fox alternates between using very good micro to win battles, and picking unwinnable fights. He also has the absolute worst burrowed baneling timing of all time. Lyn has some very strange micro ideas of his own, especially when it comes to spell casting. I think what it might come down to is that he hates losing units, and thus even his pushes are extremely defensive. If he refines this style, it could be very useful and efficient, but as it stands it just seems slow a ill-suited to such a fast-paced game. I do, however, like how comfortable Lyn is with having a split army pressure from multiple angles. On large maps, it could prove very useful.

Lyn wins 1-0

Twisted Mea...errrr Lost Temple, close positions
Wait, that didn't work so well. Damn you Blizzard!

Lyn gets a barracks and quickly adds on a reactor. Moon goes for one-hatch muta. Lyn sticks the reactor on the factory and builds a command center. Lyn's first two hellions see the lair, prompting him to build an engineering bay and an armory. Moon expands when his spire finishes. Lyn has plenty of turrets and marines by the time mutalisks get there. Lyn safely takes his natural with his orbital command and a thor. Moon gets a baneling nest and a lot of zerglings, some of which hulk off and turn green. The xlings kill a many of unit in Lyn's base, but Lyn's micro and a thor end up saving his expansion and production facilities.
Lyn tank drops Moon's cliff. Lyn shows very good micro, killing five mutalisks with four marines and a medivac. Moon starts building up a mutalisk/xling army, while Lyn stockpiles tank/marine/medivac off two factories and four reactored barracks. Moon misses again with burrowed banelings. Lyn sets up a contain outside Moon's natural. Moon uses mutalisks to effectively cut off reinforcements for Lyn. Lyn keeps baiting banelings into his siege tanks with stimmed marines, eventually killing most of them. Moon tries to nydus out of his base and counter-attack, but after losing his natural to Lyn's siege push, he has no minerals, and finally leaves the game when Lyn makes it into his main.

Lyn didn't play great, but he played much better than Moon. If some code A games are like two guys hitting each other with two-by-fours, this match was like two guys hitting each other with whiffle-bats. Neither player seemed to have a good idea of how to kill his opponent, so in the end Lyn's defensive, efficient slow pushes beat Moon's over-aggressive gimmicks. Lyn could get Code S if he faces a cheesy player, and Moon could also if he cheeses successfully, but I don't think either player could beat a solid Code S-er, even many of the ones that dropped out of the first round.

Lyn wins 2-0, advances.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081031081534AA3D6nU
No, but siege tanks are.

Lyn wins 2-0.

oGsTOP 2-0 BanBansZenith
sCfOu 2-0 oGsCezanne
ZeNEXByun 2-0 ST_July
FOXLyn 2-0 FOXMoon

This marks six straight sweeps in a row in GSL play. A couple of the games today of the games were pretty exciting, but most were awkward and one-sided, characterized by strange decisions and ineffectual engagements. Also, terrans 8-0'd today, putting four of them into the semifinals.

So because today was so boring, and my student canceled because the roads are icy, I decided I would spice this post up with some juicy predictions. Listed in order of (generally) most likely to advance to least likely:

Almost certain:
oGsTOP

More likely than not:
ZeNEXByun
sCfOu
ST_July
BanBansZeNEX

More not than likely:
FOXLyn
FOXMoon
oGsCezanne

oGsTOP :
Top's play really impressed me this round. He far outplayed a fairly solid opponent, showing great unit control and economy management. He had drops and ghosts and nukes and a very solid game plan against protoss. He's also one win away from being able to choose his group, and he is certainly better than at least two of the bottom 16 from code S.

ZeNEXByun :
Beating July speaks for itself, but he did it in impressive fashion. The six-barracks wall-off on Jungle Basin was pretty awesome, and in the interview Byun said it was unplanned, so he can obviously think on his feet. Byun also defeated a solid opponent in Killer, a protoss, last round, winning a longish two-base game and competantly fending off a solid fourgate. I think he'll fall to Top, but can probably advance through most possible up/down groups. Also, I really enjoy the name censoring and Artosis's vendetta against him, so I'm really pulling for Byun to advance.

sCfOu :
Essy had a couple of very strange games against Cezanne, but showed that he was a solid, robust player. He's done all-ins, defended all-in, played long macro games, and killed more hatcheries in one match than most people have in their entire GSL career so far. I don't get a get feel of Essy's character through his play, but I think he can defend most things thrown at him

ST_July :
This seems pretty silly, considering he lost. But July proved himself in Brood War, and is obviously very skilled. The one thing that makes me put him so high is that he said in his interview that he thought the rest of the code A matches were useless, since qualifying for Code S is most important. I think maybe he didn't take this match seriously, but will definitely try his hardest to break into Code S.

BanBansZeNEX :
I don't know what else to say about BanBans' play this round except that it seemed very stiff. Like an athlete who can't relax and underperforms, it seems like he kind of locked up and went on autopilot. He destroyed Junwi last round, so maybe it's a match-up thing. Either way, I think he could easily make it out of 65% of the relegation groups.

FOXLyn :
I feel bad putting Lyn so low, but his play style is very hard to analyze. He's just so cautious and sheepish. I think he could actually turn it into a successful style if he became more comfortable with the game, but as it is I don't feel like he knows the game's ins-and-outs well enough to make it through.

FOXMoon :
This is more a reflection of how he played today than what I think of his skill level. Maybe he was just playing mind games with his teammate, but he just seemed to be thrashing around today. If he has better game plans, his tactics and control will pull him through against a lesser player. If he plays like he did today, I don't think he'll get there.

oGsCezanne :
What a bizarre day for Cezanne. He really seemed to be on tilt today after demolishing Loner last round. Maybe he didn't have enough respect for his opponent, but he was so greedy and so unconventional this match that I couldn't put him through the relegation matches at this level of play.