GSL S4 CodeS RO8 Day 2

Xel’Naga Caverns
      Idra hatches first and gets fairly quick roaches. Jinro gets a command center after his factory, and follows it up with a starport, which takes a tech lab, and two barracks, which immediately get reactors. Idra’s first roaches fend off some early marine pressure. They chase the marines all the back to Jinro’s base and actually get his barracks into double digit health before a banshee comes out to drive them out. In the meantime, Idra has morphed a lair and started his spire as while droning up to get twelve workers ahead.
      Jinro goes into heavy marine/tank/medivac production as he gets +1 weapons, stim, and combat shields. Idra takes his interior third and get gets a baneling nest as his mutalisks harass Jinro’s bases. Jinro gets an armory for a thor and +2/+1 infantry off two e-bays. Idra takes his gold, as does Jinro. Idra keeps map control with a huge muta/ling flock, constantly forcing Jinro’s army back to its own side of the map. Idra gets an infestation pit and a hive. Idra’s amazing macro becomes apparent as he maxes out when Jinro is only at 150 food! Idra strings Jinro’s forces out over the map with mutalisk harassment, then smashes into Jinro’s gold, killing his entire army with zerglings and banelings. Instead of taking out out any of Jinro’s expansions, Idra uses his positional advantage to park his 20+ muta swarm over Jinro’s production facilities, forcing Jinro to concede.

Idra was really able to play his own game once his got that early lead with the roaches. I went back and counted: from the time Idra’s roaches got to Jinro’s front, Idra made nineteen drones in a row without making a single fighting unit. From there, Idra stayed ahead in food, economy, and map position all game, making it almost impossible for him to lose.

Idra wins, 1-0

Metalopolis, close positions
      Idra goes for early zergling speed. Jinro double bunkers the bottom of Idra’s ramp. Idra kills one scv, but when the second bunker finishes, Idra immediately leaves the game.

Idra really has no patience for come backs. Also, I would think that if Idra considers that an auto-loss he would be more vigilant about blocking it. Jinro gives a confused shrug at the quick concession, but will obviously take it.

Jinro wins 1-1.

Shakuras Plateau, close positions
      Idra hatches first. Jinro starts a command center after his first barracks, then gets two more barracks to fully wall-off his ramp. Jinro bunkers at the bottom of Idra’s ramp, but this game Idra calmly gets a spine crawler and forces a salvage. Idra gets zergling speed, then his lair and a baneling nest. Jinro builds an engineering bay for +1 weapons, a tech lab for stim, and a reactored starport for medivacs.
      Idra uses his lair to get a spire and baneling speed. Jinro beings pushing through the bottom rocks with marines and medivacs as he starts building siege tanks. Idra expands to his lateral third. Jinro retreats with his first push after killing a queen. He soon comes back with tanks, though, and, after Idra suicides a lot of his units in an attempt to quash the attack, Jinro is successful in slowly pushing into Idra’s main with tanks and turrets.

Jinro gets a crucial win on a map that many thought was a sure win for Idra. Idra seemed to react very poorly to what seemed to be a very standard push from these positions. He even seemed to expect that it was coming, since he broke down his side’s rock in preparation.

Jinro wins, 2-1

Jungle Basin
      Idra six-pools, pulling all his drones. Jinro miraculously micros his first marine through the gauntlet of drones and zerglings to a bunker behind his mineral line, getting there with only five health! Once Jinro manages to get a second bunker up, Idra gg’s.

After an absolutely dominating start, Idra falls to a cheese, loses neatly, and fails a cheese. Jinro wins the match in an unexpectedly short series. MC comes into the booth to congratulate an exuberant Jinro.
Game 1- 19:25
Game 2- 04:05
Game 3- 12:55
Game 4- 04:30
Average- 10:09, so I guess they weren’t all that short on average, but I still expected much longer games from two strongly macro-oriented players.

Jinro wins 3-1, advances

Six-pooling would be a very good skill toi have.

Jinro win 3-1.

Shakuras Plateau, Cross Positions
      Nada goes for quick cloaked banshees; MarinKing gets a barracks, a command center, and two more barracks. MarineKing gets a tech lab for stim. The banshees get to MarineKing’s before stim finishes, so the first banshee gets a few kills, but gets taken out by a single scan. The second banshee meets a similar fate. Meanwhile Nada gets two factories for tank production. MarineKing builds up a big MMM army and does some short, effective drops as he expands to his lateral third. Nada goes for a big drop of his own, killing MarineKing’s command center as he attacks through the middle. But instead of defending, MarineKing stims across the map right into Nada’s unsieged army, completely decimating it! He run into Nada’s main to try to take out some production facilities, but by this time Nada has sieged some tanks in there and holds it off. Meanwhile Nada is finally getting kicked out of MarineKing’s base, but only after doing serious damage to his economy.
      MarineKing loads up a huge drop as Nada pushes into his base. A base race ensues in which both players lift off all their buildings. After a lot of craziness, we are left at a point where MarineKing has a command center, but Nada does not, and Nada has a starport, floating, but MarineKing does not. Nada has only one supply depot; MarineKing has only an orbital command for supply. Nada has a much bigger army. To avoid a draw Nada will have to kill off all of his army except six supply on order to make a viking, but that would make his army small enough for MarineKing to kill. A standoff ensues, which must be watched to be comprehended. Both players units start killing off their allies. MarineKing builds an scv just out of range of Nada’s army! Nada decides not to kill all his own units, but only after killing his medivacs! Both commentators are whispering as MarineKing gets a supply depot… and a supply drop! MarineKing lands is producing out of his barracks again! !!!!!!!!! MarineKing bunkers up at his ‘base’! Nada moves in and loses all his marines! Nada gg’s!

Wow. What an amazing game by MarineKing. I have officially used up my life’s quotient of exclamation points. This game must have taken a lot out of both players’ mental stamina, and probably a lot out of Nada’s emotional well-being. This first game was just a few minutes short of being longer than the entire first match of the night.

MarineKing wins, 1-0

Lost Temple, close positions
      MarineKing goes for an interestingly-positioned two barracks opening, floating one down to the low ground. Nada goes for a quick reaper. MarineKing all-ins with his scvs. It works.

If you averaged the first and second games, would get the most mediocre, average game ever.

Xel’Naga Caverns
      Both players get command centers after their first barrack, but MarineKing only after getting a tech lab as well. MarineKing gets another barracks; Nada gets a factory. Both players tech to starports- Nada for cloaked banshees, and MarineKing for reactored medivacs. But stim finishes in time to fend off the banshees with minimal damage and two scans. Nada starts building tanks. MarineKing does a huge drop that kills a starport, some supply depots, and a bunch of units. MarineKing expands to his gold. Déjà vu as Nada tank pushes MarineKing as MarineKing runs into Nada’s main, and both players transition into losing their whole bases. Both players manage to re-expand.
      MarineKing goes for banshees, but doesn’t have enough gas. MarineKing tries to expand to the gold closest to him. Nada spots it, kills it, and moves against MarineKing’s ‘main’ (which is actually at Nada’s forth.) MarineKing catches him unsieging, though, and takes out the invading troops. Nada starts hunting the supply depots MarineKing hid in Nada’s secret hallway. But MarineKing continues to outmaneuver his opponent, and after a lot of craziness, kills Nada’s base (at MarineKing’s original natural), kills Nada’s army, and then gets out a viking, prompting NaDa to gg.

What a bizarre series. MarineKing proved himself to be a king of sneaking around the map and winning from unlikely situations. He also showed his fearlessness as he would just sack his main in exchange for Nada’s. MKP really is a master tactician when it comes to strange, corner situations.

MarineKing wins 3-0, advance.

The King checkmates his opponent.

MarineKing wins 3-0

How many wins did his opponent get? Nada.

MarineKing wins 3-0.

:LiquidJinro 3-1 EGIdra
MarineKingPrime.WE 3-0 oGsNaDa

It's starting to look very likely that we'll see our first repeat finalist of the GSL as both of Open Season 2's finalists advance to the semi finals. We also may see our first mirror finals, as well as our first terran champion as terrans have completely dominated the final round of both Code A and Code S. Together, seven out of the eight semifinalists are terran, with Nestea being the sole alien race who still has a chance to win. Excluding the mirror match-up, terrans went 14-1 in the two quarterfinal rounds, with zerg going down 4-9, and protoss not winning a single game at 0-5. Of course, the winners beat the losers in the RO8s by a margin of 20-1, leading to the obvious conclusion that winning must be overpowered and will probably be nerfed in the next patch.
      This whole round seemed very bizarre to me after how close so many of the group play matches ended up being, and how hyped everyone was for some great games.