UpAndDown Matches- Day 2

      Moon gets his pool first, followed by gas for zergling speed. HongUn gets a nexus then a forge. Moon gets a third at the vertical natural and a lair. HongUn gets more gateways, +1 weapons and a twilight council for blink. Moon gets a roach warren, a hydralisk den, and +1 missile attack. Moon catches HongUn's first stalker ball with roaches and zerglings. HongUn loses many more stalkers than he should to poor blink micro. Moon gets burrow, an infestation pit, and a spire. HongUn starts to break through the rocks separating the two bases, but Moon has enough roaches and spine crawlers to push it back. HongUn techs to colossus as he expands to his close middle base. Moon takes two more bases at the vertical main and his far interior expansion.
      Moon starts adding corruptors to his army when he sees the colossi start to come out. Once HongUn maxes out with stalkers and colossi with range, he starts pushing through Moon's back door. The infestors valiantly try to hold: fungal growthing stalkers and neural parasiting colossi, but the stalked not covered in green goo are able to blink over to the infestors and squish them dead. They do the same to the corruptors that were hanging back a bit, and, since Moon is left with nothing but roach/hyrda against stalker/colossus, HongUn is able to establish himself in Moon/s main, eventually taking out the entire tech tree. Moon gg's soon thereafter.

Moon looked pretty strong this game strategy-wise, but didn't seem to have a good idea of how to hold that push. It's probably just a question of practice and experience. Once Moon has faced that situation a hundred times, I'm sure he'll be much better at defending it. Also, it is generally assumed that WarCraft3 players have great unit control, but from my limited experience with the game, it doesn't seem like players are forced to control the sheer amount and diversity of units that StarCraft2 players do, which is maybe why former War3 players sometimes mis-control in 200 v 200 situations.

HongUn wins, 1-0

      Moon pools first with gas for speed, then expands. HongUn techs to starport... and a twilight council. HongUn gets a voidray and blink with his two early tech structures. Fox gets a roach warren and a lair. Seeing the void ray, Moon gets some spore crawlers. HongUn eventually uses the void ray to give the stalkers vision to blink up to the high ground above Moon's natural. A tense micro battle ensues, during which HongUn expands to his own natural. Moon eventually outmicroes HongUn and ends up forty supply ahead.
      HongUn gets a robotics facility as he retreats. Moon gets his lair, a spire, a hydralisk den, burrow, +1 ranged attack, and his third. Moon starts building a lot of hydralisks to complement the roaches he built to defend against HongUn's push. HongUn techs to colossus, but mostly keeps making immortals after forcing a bunch of corruptors. Moon takes his fourth. HongUn, unable to take a third, attacks when he gets two hundred supply. His push is very strong, but Moon's economy is so far ahead that HongUn forces eventually dwindle down to zero. HongUn gg's.

Very solid win by Moon. He held off a unique rush, then macroed his way to victory.

Moon wins, 1-1

Blistering Sands

      Moon again pools first with speed into an expansion. HongUn rushes for dark templar. Moon gets a blind spore crawler at his natural. But the first DT just runs by it as Moon's units move out of position! From there HongUn is able to chase all the drones out of Moon's main, break down his rocks, and wreck everything not tucked into Moon's natural. HongUn expands. Moon expands to his gold and techs to lair, finally getting mobile detection up. HongUn has made a lot of DTs that all die to Moon's roving overseers, and Moon starts to pull back into the game. Moon's gold expansion goes unscouted for quite a while. But just as it looks like Moon might be able to make a come back, HongUn scouts and kills Moon's gold, and then pushes against Moon's rebuilt main with a big ball of blink stalkers. After his main's hatchery dies for the second time, Moon concedes, sending him to Anypro for his second chance at promotion.

Moon lost that second game by the smallest of margins. His ZvP looked strong, though, and probably still has a good chance of advancing through Anypro,

HongUn wins 2-1, stays in CodeS.
FOXMoon loses, will face Anypro for elimination

FOXMoon

      Anypro goes for the sentry-less four gate. Moon initially holds it very well, but unburrows his spine crawlers to reposition! Anypro sees it, attacks, and wins.

Whoops. This was a mistake by Moon that will hopefully disappear with practice and familiarity.

Anypro wins, 1-0

      Moon goes pool/speed/hatch for the fifth time in a row, but this time follows up with banelings. Anypro forge-expands. Moon's first attempt at a baneling bust fails pretty miserably to solid forcefields and cannons. His second wave meets the same fate, ultimately putting him behind by twenty workers. After puling back, Moon gets roaches, a lair, and a hydralisk den. Anypro gets two stargates for many voidrays which force a cancel on Moon's building third base. Anypro brings his air force up to seven void rays with a bunch of zealots and sentries, which absolutely eat Moon's army, and ultimately knocks him back to Code A.

Moon should never make banelings ever again. His banelings have obviously gone rogue and do not listen to their overmind. Moon becomes the first Code A player to not be promoted to Code S. I think, though, that he will be a player to watch out for in the next round of Upandown matches as he gets more and more comfortable with StarCraft2.

Anypro wins 2-0, stays in Code S
Moon loses, remains in Code A.

Not needed. Moon did not shine tonight.

Anypro wins 2-0, stays in Code S
Moon loses, remains in Code A.

      Cezanne hatches first. Ensnare gets two barracks and does a good amount of damage with his first marine/scv bunker poke. Ensnare gets two tech labs and two more barracks. Cezanne starts a pretty late zergling speed and a baneling nest. But Ensnare attacks just as stim and shields finish. It rolls through Cezanne's speedless zerglings.

It's funny to think that Cezanne might have coached Ensnare to do that exact build against what he himself was doing.

Ensnare wins, 1-0

      Cezanne hatches first. Ensnare kills a lot of zerglings with some very fancy reaper micro. Ensnare builds up to three barracks (Txx), but this time his stim attack fails. After holding off the first attack, Cezanne gets a baneling nest, a lair, a spire, and a third, in-base hatchery. Ensnare transitions to marine/tank/medivac while getting +2/+1 for his infantry.
      Cezanne takes his third, upgrading +2 melee and +1 air attack as he builds up a big mutalisk/zergling army. Cezanne starts to attack through the middle after taking his gold. Ensnare barely holds, and takes his third. Both players stick with the same army compositions, investing a lot into upgrades. Cezanne eventually techs to brood lords and infestors. Both players take their semi-islands, leaving only the true island untaken on the map. After all of his brood lords die to nice marine control by Ensnare, Cezanne drops Ensnares main and gets ultralisks. Ensnare defends the drop and a big ultralisk attack. Cezanne gets more brood lords, this time with baneling-filled overlords to defend them from marines. Ensnare doesn't have any vikings, and now that Cezanne's brood lords are safe, he is able to overrun his opponent.

Cezanne got very far ahead early, but had trouble closing it out. Ensnare had almost equalized when Cezanne's brood lord/baneling combo shut him down.

Cezanne wins, 1-1

Blistering Sands

      Cezanne hatches first. Ensnare techs to starport for banshee and gets a second command center. Cezanne morphs his lair before anything else, then gets a third in-base hatchery. Ensnare seems to be content to stick with marine medivac for a while as he gets his infantry upgrades. Cezanne builds a baneling nest and a spire. Ensnare executes a brilliant, prolonged marine/medivac drop behind Cezanne's natural's minerals. Medivac after medivac comes in and drops off marines. It cuts off Cezanne's mining for quite a while, and eventually kills his hatchery! Cezanne gg's.

Ensnare definitely earned his Code S status in this game.

oGsEnsnare wins 2-1, stays in Code S
oGsCezanne loses, faces CheckPrime.WE for a Code S gem

oGsCezanne

      Check hatches first. Cezanne gets a pool, speed, then expands. Cezanne morphs a baneling nest. Check gets a roach warren. Cezanne mismicroes his first attack, hitting Check's hatchery with four banelings instead of Check's drones. Check gets two evolution chambers and a lot of roaches. He attacks when +1/+1 finishes. He quickly retreats, not being able to enough roaches up the ramp. Both players get their lairs and a hydralisk den. Check expands to the vertical natural, as does Cezanne. Both players rush to max out their armies. When the final battle comes, it is roach/hydra against roach/hydra, but Check has +2/+2 to Cezanne's +2/+0. Check also gets a better concave, and ends up pushing through Cezanne's army right up to his natural. Check brings some spine crawlers over to plant on Cezanne's creep, but he doesn't particularly need them as his army is both bigger and better. Cezanne concedes.

It's always nice to see a longish macro ZvZ

Check wins, 1-0

      Cezanne hatches first. Check 10-pools and gets an early baneling nest. Check gets two amazing amazing baneling pops, killing six zerglings with one, and seven or so drones with the other, ending the game.

Certainly the best two banelings of the day. Check stays in Code S, hopefully delaying his military service for a while.

CheckPrime.WE wins 2-0, stays in CodeS
oGsCezanne loses, remains in CodeA

Group C:
HongUnPrime.WE 2-1 FOXMoon HongUnPrime.WE stays in Code S
anyproPrime.WE 2-0 FOXMoon anyproPrime.WE stays in Code S
FOXMoon remains in Code A

Group D:
oGsEnsnare 2-1 oGsCezanne oGsEnsnare stays in Code S
CheckPrime.WE 2-0 oGsCezanne CheckPrime.WE stays in Code S
oGsCezanne remains in Code A

A very different two groups from those of the first day of the upandown matches. All the CodeS players stayed in CodeS and all the CodeA players will remain in CodeA. The matches were much closer as well, and many of players seemed fairly equally qualified for CodeA.