GSL 2011 S1 Code A RO4

Steppes of War

      Both players tech to starport right off the bat. Top goes for cloak banshees and an expansion, but Essy gets a viking and a rave, which easily fend the cloaked fliers off. Both players transition into marine/tank/viking. Having expanded later, Essy has a big enough army to safely siege up on the low ground beneath Top’s expansion, taking out the gas and a few scvs. But Essy’s vikings wander off for some reason, allowing Top to siege up on the cliff and get a first volley off. Top kills three of Essy’s tanks at the expense of only one of his own, and Essy is forced to retreat.
      Upgrade wise, Top is getting +1 infantry weapons and combat shields, while Essy is getting stim. Top brings his factory count up to two and starts a command center. Both players begin jockeying for position in the center of the map. Essy is ahead in vikings and has a couple ravens, so he is able to whittle down Top’s tank numbers from behind the tall weeds. Top seems to panic a little bit; he unsieges his tanks, lands his vikings, and tries to bum rush his opponent’s position. It fails pretty miserably, and Essy is left with five tanks while Top loses everything. When Essy continues to push into Top’s expansion, he pulls all his scvs, which actually do a pretty good job of finishing off the damaged tanks. A lot of them die, but Top’s been keeping up his scv production so well that he ends up even a few workers ahead of his opponent.
      Essy tries for another contain, but Top’s double factories let him push out of it pretty easily. Top floats his third command center over to Essy’s gold. Essy eventually takes his third. After a few rounds of mules at the gold, though, Top climbs to a significant food advantage, and is able to bully his way across the center of the map. Essy gg’s.

Top’s macro seemed a lot better than Essy’s. He was ahead in bases for a pretty good chunk of the game, and made sure to always have more tanks, which is eventually what won him the game.

Top wins 1-0

Xel’Naga Caverns, cross positions

      Both players go for pre-ignited hellion drops. Essy’s kills several marines but only a couple scvs. Top delays his after flying over an opposing scv. While the medivacs are in transit, Top follows through with banshee cloaking and a command center; Essy gets vanilla banshees and starts his own CC right around when Top’s finishes. Top goes for a drop/banshee combo plate, but it comes out cold and undercooked as Essy has plenty of marines to defend it. Meanwhile, things have been heating up in Top’s base- one uncloaked banshee has killed thirteen scvs, putting Essy up by double the food of Top.
      Both players end up floating their command centers to their naturals at around the same time. But Top almost evens up the scvs count with a hellion drop and then more banshee harass. Essy starts to push through the bottom rocks. Top barely sieges up in time and responses by expanding to the vertical main. Essy stims up into Top’s main, and as ugly as it looks, it doesn’t actually do that much damage as he is already almost mined out there and the armies trade for about equal food. Essy retreats and expands to his third. And it seems like Essy has not been making scvs as Top is almost twenty ahead. But Essy’s army is a lot bigger, and before Top’s macro can get him back in the game, Essy attacks through the rocks again, catches Top’s army out of position, and wins the game.

Not a terrible game by either player, but not great either. It’s hard to say which is worse, having to queue five scvs at a time at two command centers, or forgetting to make scvs all together.

sC wins 1-1

Xel’Naga Caverns

      Essy goes for a blue flame hellion drop opening again. Top goes for a quick raven, siege tanks, and a command center. Both players transition into marine/tank/viking. Essy’s drop kills a few scvs, but due to his only-intermittent scv construction, they end up even on workers. Top ends up almost strictly ahead as they are pretty even in most other things also, except Top has an expansion.
      Top gets another late cloak, along with stim. Essy keeps making hellions, and goes for another drop that does minimal damage this time. Essy wins a big battle in the middle of the map, but stays behind in supply due to his macro. Top is able to push forward quickly after and take his gold. Due to all of the hellions he has been making, Essy doesn’t have enough marines or vikings, so a single cloaked banshee takes out three or four tanks, allowing Top to set up a contain at Essy’s natural. Essy tries to break it with hellions and a thor, but Top’s tanks and banshees hold it pretty easily. Top is up by ~50 food now, and the game ends after he forces Essy’s orbital command to lift.

One of the hard things to judge in games like this is whether Top has {great, good, ok} macro and Essy has {ok, bad, terrible} macro. I think might be more to the left, as the only times I noticed Essy wasn’t making scvs was during intense micro situations like battles or drops. I think Top in fact has pretty good macro, and his worker/food advantages were due more to Top’s proactive expanding, muling, and production than to Essy’s lack thereof. Also, Essy’s tactical sense seems to be very good, so if he can can his macro up to snuff, I think he is easily code S material.

Top wins 2-1, advances.

Xel’Naga Caverns

      Both players one-barracks expand, then take both gasses. After a bunch of terran building legos, both players are essentially going for marine/tank/medivac. After a bit of maneuvering, Byun sieges beneath Lyn’s cliff and blows up a barracks before his forces are wiped out for roughly equal food. Byun is a little too aggressive with his marines and loses them to Lyn’s tanks. This allows Lyn to take the center of the map, denying Byun his gold while Lyn is able to secure his own. Byun again overreaches a little with his marines, and again loses a lot of his army, putting him down by twenty food. Lyn expands to his third as his forth base. But Lyn gets too aggressive with his own marines, losing them and allowing Byun to take back the middle of the map. Byun takes his gold. Byun destroys Lyn’s gold base, but gets flanked and loses his own gold base. Lyn keeps expanding, though, and eventually his army big enough to overwhelm Byun’s.

This was a somewhat odd game where I feel like both players lost many more units than they should have. Considering sieged tanks 2-shot marines with or without combat shields (and even 1-shot stimmed/shieldless marines), it seems very uneconomical to stim in and try to break the line. If either player had made marauders, though, that strategy would work very well with them. Also, considering how defensive Lyn was in his game against Moon, his aggression seemed uncharacteristically high this game. That’s not necessarily bad, but it doesn’t seem to suit him.

Lyns wins, 1-0

Metalopolis, cross positions

      Both players one-barracks-expand, Byun after a gas and reactor. Byun gets two more barracks (TTR) and starts shields/stim. Lyn techs to starport for cloaked banshees. Byun gets two engineering bays for +1/+1 and gets a starport for medivacs. Lyn is going for two-factory tanks. Byun takes third and gets +2/+2. Lyn forces a lift on Byun’s third, but Byun gets off a nice flank and destroys Lyn’s army. Byun re-lands his command center at around the same time Lyn lands ne at his own third. Byun stays ahead in upgrades as his +3/+3 finish just as +2/+2 finish for Lyn. Lyn also gets +1 vehicle attack. Byun expands to his forth, builds three factories of his own and starts +1 vehicle weapons. After distracting Lyn with a drop, Byun catches Lyn’s tanks with the infantry behind them, which allows him to crush Lyn’s army. Byun runs through and kills Lyn’s orbital at his natural. After another favorable battle and a bit of macro, Byun is up by 100 supply. When he eventually maxes, Byun attacks Lyn’s third for the win.

Byun sends it to a third game after some nice bio play. These two players seem fairly equally matched.

Byun wins, 1-1

Delta Quadrant, Lyn clockwise

      Lyn gets one barracks and one makarax. Byun one-barracks expands. Byun cancels his command center when Lyn pulls a bunch of scvs and attacks. Byun gets a bunker up in time and fends it off. Lyn all-ins again a few minutes later and, despite Byun having made another command center and a factory, has to gg after being easily repelled by a bunker/depot wall-off with plenty of repairing scvs.

Lyn seems much better as a defensive player. As was pointed out, his marines were actually attacking a random supply depot during that all in. I said last time that I thought he could adapt his funky style to suit his race, but in this match he seemed to completely abandon his tight, defensive style, and he paid for it with his ticket to the finals.

Byun wins 2-1, advances.

oGsTOP 2-1 sCfOu
NeNEXByun 2-1 FOXLyn

Are you tired of TvT yet? Too bad, because there is more to come in both divisions.

I think I essentially stand by my predictions from before.

oGsTOP: I still think he is pretty strong, and now that he has locked in top 2 and can chose his group, I think he will have to play pretty poorly to get stuck in Code A again.

ZeNEXByun: I might move Byun up to "almost certain to make Code S" now that he gets to chose his group. He is sometimes a little bit too aggressive, but aside from that he is very solid, and capable of some very intelligent, effective play.

sCFfOu: Essy definitely needs to work on his marco, but I would day that his tactics and strategy is actually above par, and, considering how many bottom 16 Code S players seem to prefer short, intense matches, I think Essy would have to get a fairly unlucky group not to advance.

FOXLyn: Lyn continues to perplex me. He has it in him to make it to Code S, but only if he embraces a defensive, cautious style. I bet he could defend almost any cheese, but when he tries to get aggressive himself, he doesn't always make the right decisions. I would put him at maybe 35-50% chance to advance to Code S, and that could go way up or down depending on his group.

And since we now know who the finalists of Code A are, I think it makes sense to list out the Code S players facing relegation, and their seeds:

Two-chance Players (3-seeds):
+ Show Spoiler +

One-Chance Players (4-seeds):
+ Show Spoiler +

None of the 3-seeds is a push-over, and there are some pretty scary names in the 4-seed group as well. Another interesting twist to choosing group is that of teammate. Maybe it won't play out like this, but I would think it to be taboo for teammate to choose a possible team kill, making it bad for Top to pick JookTo or Byun to pick LiveForever or San, all of which would otherwise be pretty easy picks for the weakest opponents to take advantage of. I think that leave Anypro as the top pick, assuming the players will just want an easy opponent to win over.

For the three seeds, though, there really is no obvious pick, as there are a lot of solid players. I think maybe LegalMind and Polt will get picked, since neither shares a team with either of the pickers.

This leaves the possibility of some nasty, nasty groups. You could get Rain/Fruitdealer for the finalist/winner combination. You could get Check/Leenock for two nasty zerg, or Maka/Rain for some scary terran.

Looking at all these possible groups makes me very scared for our brave Code-A heroes. But remember, they only have to win once.