Been travelling around quite a bit over the last couple of days but wanted to put down some thoughts about the final day of the round of 32 in code A.
Of course bare in mind that if you ead on there are SPOILERS
I think that Im going to do a quick write up of the days play in the GSL as often as I can, let me know any tips/suggestions/criticism etc (please try to be constructive not flaming please )
VanVanth vs Brown
Fairly normal (though admittedly not 4 gate vs 4 gate) first game resulted in Brown falling behind after not pressuring quickly enough with his one base colo vs a 2 base more gateway heavy play from VanVanth. The game ended after VanVanth got a sick concave with his blink stalker force just outside his natural and crushed through Brown's forces. Game 2 was MUCH more interesting, with Brown mass cannoning his front (!?!) into mass phoenix... Playing in the dark, as to what Brown was up to, Van went robo into expansion but then decided to not defend his expansion at all while the phoenix killed about 20 odd probes. Seriously behind in the probe count, he attacked, but Brown had bought enough time for his superior economy to kick in and killed off Van's army at his front door. A really interesting opening from Brown, and Im glad the starcraft gods smiled upon such a wacky build . Would be good to see how it does against blink stalker openings as I would assume they would be very strong against it (aside from blinking past cannons, it would also help against the phoenix harass). Game 3 was anti-climatic with Van successfully 4 gating against an attempted 2gate robo (not perfect FF's led to warp ins in Browns base). Huge let down after game 2!
VanVanth - 2 ADVANCES
Brown - 1
Choya vs Keen (wow watching Choya talk to himself in game is hilarious!)
Game one Keen really seemed to out macro Choya...Choya was spending a lot of gas on DTs that didnt really do a whole lot of damage and even after it seemed he had won engagements, the supplies suggested Keen was ahead. Game ended with Keen nuking all the probes at Choya's third base whilst the Ghost was in plain sight ! Always fun to see! Game 2 was a 1 gate fast expand vs a 3 rax all in from Keen with scv's also joining the party...Fun to see only for the post game reactions from both players.
Choya - 0
Keen - 2
CoCa vs Squirtle
Game one basically came down to some bad pathing from the AI sending a significant proportion of Squirtles army down a different path and CoCa pounced, killing off a large number of gateway units (inc the all important forcefiel....I mean sentries) and putting Squirtle waaaay behind. Amazingly the game actually continued for a long time considering CoCa was basically up 100 supply on his opponant; blink stalkers ftw! Game two was nexus first again from Squirtle followed up by a proxy stargate, this included quite a funny moment where a ling was hiding almost within sight of the stargate, but he left, just avoiding scouting the proxy structure. CoCa took a quick third and took a lot of damage from the void rays entering his base, but kept his drone count up at his expansions while teching to hydras and the large gateway pressure that squirtle put on off two bases was held off. From here CoCa flanked squirtles army with lings as they over-extended slightly killing off the sentries and forcing a gg as he pushed the protoss natural. Very dissapointing performances from squirtle who hasnt shown too much since his all kill in the first team league.
CoCa - 2
Squirtle - 0
Noblesse vs Tassadar
Game one saw a maka rax into bunker pressure/contain from Noble as he got his expansion up. Since he couldnt expand, Tassadar smartly teched to robo for observers and twlight council for blink. As soon as Noblesse retreated to his base Tassadar moved out and blinked into the back of the terran base. With just bio and the stalkers sniping the tech lab researching stim, it was all over for the terran in a quick match. Game two was a quick banshee vs a 2 base dt play from Tassadar. With cloak it would have probably been a free win, but Noble just went one banshee with no cloak who only managed 2 probe kills. However it did vitally scout the dark shrine so the 2 dts warped in to the terran front did absolutely nothing but damage a supply depot... After getting a raven out Noble pushed with tanks (with siege mode) and a lot of scvs to accompany his marines and despite zealot legs seaming to finish in the nick of time it wasnt enough to hold off the terran. Game three displayed fairly bad control from both players with Noble losing a banshee for almost nothing as well as some pretty bad viking control against void rays. Meanwhile Tassadar thought it was a good idea to park 3 void rays over about 15 marines and a viking.. Instead of expanding Noble went for a 1 base tank marine banshee timing and rolled the protoss front. All in all a dissapointing series front a macro perspective and I cant see Noble getting too much further in code A.
Noblesse - 2
Tassadar - 1