GSL 2011 Mar. CodeS RO32 Groups G,H

Metalopolis close-by-air positions

      Kisu four-gates. Anypro goes 2xgate/robo/gate. Kisu wins with some slick micro.

Anypro must have thought that there was a 0% chance that Kisu would 4-gate, as that build had nothing to defend against it. Trickster lives up to his name.

Trickster wins

Trickster 1-0
Genius 0-0
Fruit 0-0
Anypro 0-1

Shakuras Plateau, close positions

      Fruit gets early zergling speed, then expands. Genius forge-expands. Fruit gets his lair before any other tech, then a nydus network and a bunch of zerglings! Fruit gets the nydus up in Genius's base before his gateways are anywhere near finishing! The zerglings run amok, and Genius just doesn't have enough to hold back the swarm.

FruitDealer looks immensely relieved in his booth as he has avoided playing his teammate Kisu for now.

FruitDealer wins

Trickster 1-0
Fruit 1-0
Genius 0-1
Anypro 0-1

TSL_Tricker (Kisu) v MvPGenius

Shakuras Plateau, close positions

      Both players get four gates, but build robos and robotics bays when they see their opponents not attacking. Kisu builds an immortal while his robotics bay is finishing; Genius gets an observer. Genius expands and starts thermal lance while Kisu dedicates everything to pure unit production. As a result, when Kisu breaks though gully rocks into the back of Genius's base, he has a much stronger force, and is able to muscle his way into Genius's probe line. Genius gg's.

Genius will get his first taste of the up-and-down matches after a pair of disappointing losses. In that game, he just didn't have enough stuff after making an observer, a nexus, and an expensive upgrade.

Trickster wins, advances
Genius will play in the up-and-down matches

Trickster 2-0
Fruit 1-0
Anypro 0-1
Genius 0-2

TSL_FruitDealer v anyproPrime.WE

Xel'Naga Caverns

      Fruit gets speed first, then expands. Anypro gets a fast stargate and three gateways. Fruit again quickly techs to a lair, then gets morphs a roach warren. Anypro attacks with his first three phoenix, which kill two of Fruit's queens and a couple overlords. Fruit gets burrow and a bunch of roaches. Anypro expands and gets a void ray with an observer, which push back Fruit's burrowed roach force. Fruit Dealer techs to hydralisks and starts pumping out spine-spitting killers. Anypro techs to colossus. FruitDealer throws everything into one last attack, but Anypro has two ranged colossi and enough sentries to dilute Fruit's army to the point of inneffectuality. Fruit concedes after his attack falls.

Phoenix are so deadly when a zerg has not prepared. The group goes into an instance rematch to determine whom the last spot will go to.

Anypro wins

Trickster 2-0
Fruit 1-1
Anypro 1-1
Genius 0-2

TSL_FruitDealer v anyproPrime.WE

Tal'Darim altar, close positions, Fruit clockwise

      Fruit hatches first. Anypro forge expands. Fruit gets a third hatchery at his canyon expansion after zergling speed, followed by a lair and a roach warren. Anypro starts +1 ground weapons; FruitDealer starts +1 ranged weapons. Anypro builds up to five warp gates and techs to blink. FruitDealer gets roach speed and burrow. Anypro gets his robotics facility, robotics bay, and a third base at his canyon expansion. FruitDealer takes his cliff expansion, techs to infestors, and gets a spire. FruitDealer puts some weak pressure on Anypro's third base, but can't do much against Anypro's colossi and stalkers. Anypro takes a fourth at the clockwise cliff expansion. FruitDealer takes a fifth cross map as he techs to ultralisks. Anypro pushes across the map with the typical protoss death ball. FruitDealer's ultralisks hatch just in time, but engage the protoss army right at the top of his natural's ramp with a terrible concave. All the ultralisks die having done very little damage, leaving Fruit's bases open to complete wreckage. FruitDealer gg's.

Anypro goes through to the next round, and sends FruitDealer to the up-and-down matches for the second season in a row. The switch to ultras was perfectly timed, and had they been able to engage on open ground with infestor support, they would have easily won Fruit the game. But the protoss ball 'death got to his base just a few seconds too early.

Anypro wins, advances

Final standings:
TSL_Trickster 2-0
anyproPrime.WE 2-1
TSL_FruitDealer 1-2
MvPGenius 0-2

Not needed.

Final seeding:
1 TSL_Trickster 2-0
2 anyproPrime.WE 2-1
3 TSL_FruitDealer 1-2
4 MvPGenius 0-2

TerminusRE

      MarineKing gets a command center before his barracks. Kyrix hatches first. MarineKing makes two barracks and expands again. Kyrix takes his third as well. MarineKing's first squad of eight marines does a lot of damage as it is essentially unscouted, killing most of the workers at Kyrix's natural. Kyrix gets a lair and a baneling nest. MarineKing builds three factories and researches the infernal preigniter for his hellions. Kyrix starts making roaches. MarineKing moves across the map with a large force of blue flame hellions, but Kyrix sees it and walls off his shared choke completely with evolution chambers, which is a good thing since his roaches have not yet hatched. MarineKing switches his attention to Kyrix's unfinished fourth hatchery as he starts producing thors and tanks. Kyrix gets his spire as his fourth base goes up. MarineKing is churning all possible mechanical units out of five factories while upgrading vehicle weapons. MarineKing pushes out across the map. Kyrix drops roaches on the tanks, then uses muta/ling to clean up the rest of MarineKing's forces. It works very well, as, once MarineKing's thors die, the muta flock is able to clean everything else up.
      MarineKing starts hyper-expanding, taking every base in counter-clockwise quadrant from him. Despite seeing so many mutalisks, MarineKing is refusing to make his name-sake unit, sticking to mech until the end. MarineKing slowly pushes across the map again with tank/thor as Kyrix transitions to roach/ling to spare his mutalisks from massive thor splash damage. The clock is ticking for Kyrix, though, as MarineKing's extra three bases get up and running. There isn't much Kyrix's purely land army can do about it as the middle of the map is all meched up. MarineKing methodically pushes forward as he takes literally every other base on the map, and there is nothing for Kyrix to do but gg.

After that first effective squad of marines did their damage, I don't think MarineKing made a single one of his subjects for the rest of the game. Kyrix was behind economically for so much of the game that he never seemed to have a chance. MarineKing might feel that he needs to diversify his play in order to finally become a champion.

MarineKing wins

MarineKing 1-0
Inca 0-0
sC 0-0
Kyrix 0-1

Tal'Darim Altar, close positions, sC clockwise

      Inca expands after his gateway, then makes a robotics bay. Essy gets three barracks(Txx) and attacks when stim finishes. It kills the natural's nexus and a lot of probes; Essy retreats and reinforces jis army as he expands. Inca decides his one hope to try for colossi off one base. Essy techs to starport for vikings. Inca pushes all in at his second colossus, but it doesn't work and Inca gg's.

Protoss players seem to being playing very economically greedy today.

sC wins

MarineKing 1-0
sC 1-0
Inca 0-1
Kyrix 0-1

MarineKingPrime.WE v oGsInCa

Xel'Naga Caverns

      MarineKing builds a command center after his first barracks, then goes for a marine/tank army. Inca expands after three gates, then techs to dark templar. The first dark templar into MarineKing's base prove to be a huge pain, killing a few probes and, most importantly, the tech lab that was researching stim. Inca techs to colossus, high templar, and expands. Inca also brings his warp gate count to seven and gets charge, using zealots as a mineral sink for his colossus/templar production. MarineKing stays on marine/tank/medivac. The two armies neutralize in the middle of the map. Inca takes his gold and adds on more gateways, switching over to heavy stalker production. Inca attacks MarineKing's natural, killing MarineKing's army and all of the scvs at his natural. Down two bases to four, there isn't much more that MarineKing can do. When the second attack comes, MarineKing drops his mules in defeat and gg's.

That was a really fast tech to templar/colossus. I wonder how safe it is if the first templar whiff, or if the terran gets ravens or ghosts.

Inca wins

sC 1-0
MarineKing 1-1
Inca 1-1
Kyrix 0-1

sCfOu v ZeNEXKyrix

Terminus RE, close positions, sC clockwise

      Kyrix hatches first. Essy two-barracks. Essy's first marines do a lot of damage, which he expands behind, but is eventually repelled. After his first marines die, Essy walls off his choke with three barracks and builds a third command center. Essy attacks again, but doesn't do nearly as much damage this time. Kyrix takes his third. Essy transitions to marine/tank/medivac as both players turtle for a little bit. Kyrix gets his lair, baneling nest, roach warren, and spire all in rapid succession. Kyrix takes the counter-clockwise fourth and main. Essy pushes out across the map, but twelve mutas and a bunch of banelings hatch in plenty of time to push it back. This gives Kryix's extra two bases time to kick in. As Kyrix's muta flock grows bigger and bigger, he is able to pull off more and more effective harassment, eventually draining Essy's base of scvs, prompting Essy to just attack across the map. His siege tanks get caught out of position, though, and surrounded by banelings, which lets Kyrix's banelings chew through Essy's marines. Now down by three bases, sC gg's, sending the group into a four-way tie.

Essy showed strange pacing this game. It seems like if had -either- kept the pressure on -or- turtled hard core for longer he could have won. Instead he let Kyrix get up a lot of bases, lost a lot of his econ to harass, and then was forced to move out before he was ready.

Kyrix wins

sC 1-1
MarineKing 1-1
Inca 1-1
Kyrix 1-1

MarineKingPrime.WE v sCfOu

Tal'Darim Altar, MarineKing clockwise

      MarineKing goes for a couple quick, reactored hellions into cloaked banshees. Essy techs up to a raven by the time cloak finishes for MarineKing, effectively ending the banshee threat. MarineKing stays on marine/hellion/banshee for a while. Essy starts making tanks and gets a late banshee cloak of his own. MarineKing expands after his first attack results in an even trade of supply. Essy follows suit. MarineKing starts tank production. Essy's first banshee gets to MarineKing's base before stim finishes and before any anti-air is out, allowing it to shred MarineKing's mineral line. Essy attacks a little while later with way more tanks than his opponent and manages to kill MarineKing's entire army and his natural's orbital. It's not looking good for MarineKing as he is significantly down in just about every count one can think of.
      Essy expands to his canyon base; MarineKing is forced to move his main's orbital command to his natural. Essy has a bit of trouble finishing off the game as the natural's ramp proves difficult to break, even when up by fifty supply. But eventually MarineKing is forced to try to secure a third, and his army dies in its defense. MarineKing gg's.

MarineKing looks crushed in his booth as he comes out on bottom of the battle of the runners up. This makes him the third of January's semifinalists to be forced into the up-and-down matches. As in the finals of the last Code S season, MarineKing seemed to be trying to diversify his play. It worked in the first game, but in the end it might have ended up hurting him, as he is now 1-7 in his last seven GSL games.

SC wins, advances
MarineKing goes to the up-and-down matches

sC 2-1
Inca 1-1
Kyrix 1-1
MarineKing 1-2

oGsInCa v ZeNEXKyrix

Shakuras Plateau, cross positions

      Kyrix hatches first. Inca tries to cannon it... but Kyrix fends off the pylons and the probe with drones! He also blocks Inca's expansion with a hatc... canceled into a evolution chamber. Inca gets a robo and a twilight council at the same time, follows by a robotics bay and three more gateways. Kyrix gets a roach warren and his lair. Kyrix expands to the vertical main and natural. Kyrix gets his spire and a hydralisk den. Inca starts pumping out colossi.
      Kyrix's muta ball starts to grow out of control, and all Inca has to defend is stalkers. The mutalisks make themselves very annoying, compelling Inca to tech to high templar. Kyrix unfortunately attacks with his roach/hydra/corruptor army just as psi-storm finishes, and loses a bunch of his army. It seems he had had over-produced corruptors a bit as well, since there are many left over. Inca uses his temporary advantage to kill Kyrix's fourth base with a warp prism attack and a making fifth with a stalker ball. Inca double expands. Kyrix finishes up his tech tree. Kyrix is able to take out one of his expansions with roaches, and from there streams units into Inca's third until it dies. Inca makes a valiant effort to stay in the game, but Kyrix's brood lords and ultralisks are able to muscle him out of Code S.

The elimination stage gets another zerg to round out its ranks with seven terran, five protoss, and four zerg. Congratulations to all the players who avoided elimination in this round full of upsets! Out of all the semifinalists from last season, only Jinro is still in the tournament. This season is still wide open, and it's hard to tell who will take home the championship.

Kyrix wins, advances
Inca will play in the up-and-down matches.

Final standings:
1. sCfOu 2-1
2. oGsInCa 1-1
3. ZeNEXKyrix 1-1
4. MarineKingPrime.WE 1-2